My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry(48)

It’s almost lunchtime by the time they find the right address. Elsa’s feet hurt and she’s hungry and in a bad mood. She knows that a knight of Miamas would never whine or be afraid of a grand adventure when sent out on a treasure hunt, but whoever said a knight can’t be hungry or ill-tempered?

There’s a high-rise at the address, but also a hamburger restaurant across the street. Elsa tells the wurse and The Monster to wait, and she goes across even though she has firm moral objections to hamburger chains, as every almost-eight-year-old should. But even almost-eight-year-olds can’t eat their principles, so she grudgingly buys ice cream for the wurse, a hamburger for The Monster, and a veggie burger for herself. And as she leaves she sneaks out her red felt-tip pen and crosses out the dash between “Lunch” and “menu” on the sign outside.

Despite the below-freezing temperature clawing at their faces, they sit on a bench opposite the high-rise building. Or rather, Elsa and the wurse sit, because The Monster looks at the bench as if it’s also about to lick him. He refuses to even touch the greaseproof paper around his hamburger, so the wurse eats that as well. At one point the wurse drops a bit of ice cream on the bench and licks it up without concern, and The Monster looks close to asphyxiation. After the wurse takes a bite of Elsa’s burger and she carries on eating it regardless, she has to help him breathe from a paper bag.

When they’re finally done, Elsa leans her head back and looks up the fa?ade of the building. It must be fifteen floors high. She takes the envelope from her pocket, slides off the bench, and marches inside. The Monster and the wurse follow her in silence, surrounded by a strong smell of alcogel. Elsa quickly scans the board of residents on the wall and finds the name as written on the envelope, though preceded by the words “Reg. Psychotherapist.” Elsa doesn’t know what that means, but she’s heard a good deal about terropists setting off bombs and causing all sorts of trouble, so a psychoterropist must be even worse.

She heads over to the lift at the other end of the corridor. The wurse stops when they get there, and refuses to take another step. Elsa shrugs and goes in. The Monster follows her, after a certain amount of hesitation, though he is careful not to touch any of the walls.

Elsa evaluates The Monster as they’re going up. His beard sticks out of the hood like a large, curious squirrel, which makes him seem less and less dangerous the longer she knows him. The Monster clearly takes note of her examination of him, and he twists his hands uncomfortably. To her own surprise, Elsa realizes that his attitude hurts her feelings.

“If it bothers you so much you could just stay on guard downstairs with the wurse, you know. It’s not like something’s going to happen to me while I’m handing over a letter to the terropist.”

She talks in normal language, because she refuses to speak in the secret language with him. Her jealousy about Granny’s language not even being Granny’s from the very beginning hasn’t gone away.

“Anyway, you don’t have to be right beside me the whole time to be able to guard me,” she says, sounding more resentful than she means to. She’d started thinking of The Monster as a friend, but remembers now that he’s only here because Granny told him. The Monster just stands there in silence.

When the elevator doors glide open Elsa marches out ahead of him. They pass rows of doors until they find the terropist’s door. Elsa knocks so hard she actually hurts her knuckles. The Monster backs off towards the wall on the other side of the narrow corridor, as if he realizes that the person on the other side of the door may peer through the spyhole. He seems to be trying to make himself as small and unfrightening as possible. It’s hard not to find this endearing, thinks Elsa—even if “unfrightening” is not a proper word.

Elsa knocks on the door again. Puts her ear against the lock. Another knock. Another silence.

“Empty,” says The Monster slowly.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

She really doesn’t mean to be angry with him, because it’s Granny she’s angry with. She’s just tired. So very, very tired. She looks around and catches sight of two wooden chairs.

“They must be out for lunch, we’ll have to wait,” she says glumly, and drops despondently into one of the chairs.

As far as Elsa is concerned, the silence goes from pleasant to hard work to unbearable in about one and a half eternities. And when she has occupied herself with everything she has been able to come up with—drumming her fingers against the tabletop, poking out all the stuffing from the chair cushion through a little hole in the fabric, and carving her name into the soft wood of the armrest with the nail of her index finger—she shatters the silence with one of those questions that sound much more accusing than she means it to be.

“Why do you wear soldier’s trousers if you’re not a soldier?”

The Monster breathes slowly under his hood.

“Old trousers.”

“Have you been a soldier?”

The hood moves up and down.

“War is wrong and soldiers are wrong. Soldiers kill people!”

“Not that sort of soldier,” The Monster intones.

“There’s only one sort of soldier!”

The Monster doesn’t answer. Elsa carves a swearword into the wood of the armrest, using her nail. In actual fact she doesn’t want to ask the question that’s burning inside of her, because she doesn’t want The Monster to know how wounded she is. But she can’t stop herself. It’s one of Elsa’s big problems, they say at school. That she can never control herself.