My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry(46)

The Monster shakes his head.

“You don’t have a computer?”

The hood moves from side to side. Elsa peers at him as if he’s having her on, is clinically insane, or both.

“How can you not have a COMPUTER?”

The Monster produces a small sealed plastic bag from one of his jacket pockets, and inside it is a small bottle of alcogel. Carefully he squeezes out some of its contents and starts rubbing it into his palms and skin.

“Don’t need computer,” he growls.

Elsa takes a deep, irritated breath and takes a look around the stairs. George may still be at home so she can’t go inside, because then he’ll ask why she’s not at school. And she can’t go to Maud and Lennart, because they’re too kind to lie, so if Mum asks if they’ve seen Elsa they’ll tell her the truth. The boy with a syndrome and his mum aren’t here in the daytime. And forget Britt-Marie.

Which doesn’t exactly leave a wealth of possibilities. Elsa collects herself and tries to think about how a knight of Miamas is never afraid of a treasure hunt, even if it’s difficult. And then she goes up the stairs.

Alf opens the door after the seventh ring. His flat smells of wood shavings. He’s wearing a sorry excuse for a dressing gown, and the remaining hairs on his head look like the last tottering bits of buildings after a hurricane. He’s holding a large white cup on which it says “Juventus” and there’s a smell of coffee, strong like Granny always drank it. “After Alf has made coffee, you have to drive standing up all morning,” she used to say, and Elsa didn’t quite know what she meant, although she understood what she was saying.

“Yes?” he grunts.

“You know where this is?” says Elsa, and holds out the envelope with Granny’s handwriting on it.

“Are you waking me up to ask about a bloody address?” answers Alf in every way inhospitably before taking a big gulp of coffee.

“Were you still sleeping?”

Alf takes another mouthful and nods at his wristwatch.

“I drive the late shift. This is nighttime for me. Do I come to your flat in the middle of the night to ask you random questions?”

Elsa looks at the cup. Looks at Alf.

“If you’re asleep, why are you drinking coffee?”

Alf looks at the cup. Looks at Elsa. Looks totally puzzled. Elsa shrugs.

“Do you know where this is or not?” she asks and points at the envelope.

Alf looks a little as if he’s repeating her question to himself inside his head, in a very exaggerated and contemptuous tone. Has another sip of coffee.

“I’ve been a taxi driver for more than thirty years.”

“And?” wonders Elsa.

“And so of course I bloody know where that is. It’s by the old waterworks,” he says, then drains his cup.

“What?”

Alf looks resigned.

“Young people and their lack of history, I tell you. Where the rubber factory was until they moved it again. And the brickyard.”

Elsa’s expression gives away the possibility that she doesn’t have a clue what he’s talking about.

Alf claws at the remains of his hair and disappears into the flat. Comes back with a topped-up cup of coffee and a map. Puts down the coffee cup with a slam on a shelf in the hall and marks the map with a thick ring using a ballpoint pen.

“Oh, theeere! That’s where the shopping center is. Why didn’t you just say?”

Alf says something that Elsa can’t quite make out and closes the door in her face.

“I’ll keep the map!” Elsa hollers cheerfully into his mail slot.

He doesn’t answer.

“It’s the Christmas holidays, if you’re wondering! That’s why I’m not at school!” she calls out.

He doesn’t answer that either.



The wurse is lying on its side with two legs comfortably stretched up into the air when Elsa walks into the storage unit, as if it has very gravely misunderstood a Pilates exercise. The Monster is standing in the passage outside, rubbing his hands. He looks very uncomfortable.

Elsa holds up the envelope to him.

“Are you coming?”

The Monster nods. The hood glides away a few inches from his face, and the big scar gleams momentarily in the fluorescent light. He doesn’t even ask where they’re going. It’s difficult not to feel a pang of affection for him.

Elsa looks first at him and then at the wurse. She knows that Mum is going to be angry with her for playing hooky and going off without permission, but when Elsa asks her why she’s always so worried about her, Mum always says, “Because I’m so bloody afraid something may happen to you.” But Elsa is having a pretty hard time thinking that anything can happen to you when you have a monster and a wurse tagging along. So she feels it should be okay, given the circumstances.

The wurse tries to lick The Monster when it walks out of the storage unit. The Monster jumps in terror and snatches back his hand and grabs a broom leaning up against another storage unit. The wurse, as if it’s teasing and having a bit of a laugh, sweeps its tongue back and forth in long, provocative movements.

“Stop it!” Elsa tells it.

The Monster holds out the broom like a lance and tries to force the wurse back by pushing the bristles into its nose.