My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry(30)

It occurs to Elsa that she’s more panicked by the police on the other side of the door than the by two creatures in the hall with her. Maybe it doesn’t seem so very rational, but she’s decided to trust more in Granny’s friends than Britt-Marie’s. She rotates carefully by the door until she’s facing the wurse, then whispers in the secret language: “You mustn’t bark now, please be good. Or they’ll kill you!”

The wurse doesn’t look entirely convinced that it would come off worse if she opened the door and let it out among the police, and turns away dismissively. It stays silent, though seemingly more for Elsa’s sake than its own.

Outside on the landing, the police have almost forced the door open. Elsa hears them yelling command words at each other, about being “ready.”

She looks around the hall and into the living room. It’s a very small flat but the tidiest one of any description she has ever set foot in. There is hardly any furniture, and the few items that there are have been arranged face-to-face, looking as if they’ll commit furniture hara-kiri if a single speck of dust lands on them. (Elsa knows that because she had a samurai phase about a year ago.) The Monster disappears into the bathroom. The tap runs in there for a long time before he comes out again. He dries his hands elaborately on a small white towel, which he then folds neatly and goes to put in a laundry basket. He has to stoop to fit through the doorway. Elsa feels as Odysseus must have felt when he was with that giant, Polyphemus, because Elsa recently read about Odysseus. Apart from the fact that Polyphemus probably didn’t wash his hands as carefully as The Monster. And apart from Elsa thinking she’s not as high-and-mighty and self-righteous as Odysseus seems to be in the book. Obviously. But apart from that, sort of like Odysseus.

The Monster looks at her. He doesn’t look angry. More confused, actually. Almost startled. Maybe that’s what gives Elsa the courage to blurt right out: “Why did my granny send you a letter?”

She says it in normal language. Because, for reasons not yet entirely clear to her, she doesn’t want to talk to him in the secret language. The Monster’s eyebrows sink under his black hair so that it’s difficult to make out any facial expressions at all behind it, and the beard and the scar. He’s barefoot, but wears those blue plastic shoe covers you get at a hospital. His boots are neatly placed just inside the door, very precisely in line with the edge of the doormat. He hands Elsa another two blue plastic bags, but jerks back his hand once she touches them, as if worried that Elsa might also touch him. Elsa bends down and puts the plastic bags over her muddy shoes. She notices that she has slightly stepped off the mat and left two halves of her footprints in melted snow on the parquet floor.

The Monster bends down with impressive fluidity and starts wiping the floor with a fresh white towel. When he has finished, he sprays the area with a small bottle of a cleaning agent that makes Elsa’s eyes smart, and wipes it with another small white towel. Then he stands up and neatly puts the towels in the laundry basket, and places the spray bottle very exactly on a shelf.

Then he stands for a very long time and stares uncomfortably at the wurse. It lies splayed across the hall, covering the floor almost in its entirety. The Monster looks like he’s about to hyperventilate. He disappears into the bathroom and comes back and starts carefully arranging towels in a tight ring around the wurse while taking extreme care not to touch any part of it. Then he goes back to the bathroom and scrubs his hands so hard under the tap that the basin vibrates.

When he comes back he’s got a little bottle of antibacterial alcogel. Elsa recognizes it, because she had to rub that sort of stuff into her hands every time she was visiting Granny at the hospital. She peers into the bathroom through the gap under The Monster’s armpit when he reaches out. There are more bottles of alcogel in there than she could imagine there would be in Mum’s entire hospital.

The Monster looks infinitely vexed. He puts down the bottle and smears his fingers with alcogel, as if they were covered in a layer of extra skin that he had to try to rub off. Then he demonstratively holds up his two palms, each the size of a flatbed dolly, and nods firmly at Elsa.

Elsa holds up her own palms, which are more tennis ball–size. He pours alcogel on them and does his best not to look too disgusted. She quickly rubs the alcogel into her skin and wipes off the excess on her trouser legs. The Monster looks a little as if he’s about to roll himself up in a blanket and start yelling and crying. To compensate, he pours more alcogel on his own hands and rubs, rubs, rubs. Then he notices that Elsa has knocked one of his boots out of position in relation to the other. He bends down and adjusts the boot. Then more alcogel.

Elsa tilts her head and looks at him.

“Do you have compulsive thoughts?” says Elsa.

The Monster doesn’t answer. Only rubs his hands together, as if trying to get a fire started.

“I’ve read about it on Wikipedia.”

The Monster’s chest heaves up and down, taking frustrated breaths. He disappears into the bathroom and she hears the sound of gushing water again.

“My dad is sort of slightly compulsive as well!” Elsa calls out behind him, adding quickly, “But, God, not like you. You’re properly barmy!”

Only afterwards does she realize it sounded like an insult. That was not at all how she meant it. She just didn’t mean to compare Dad’s amateurish compulsive behavior with The Monster’s obviously professional obsessions.