My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry(63)

“Couldn’t you mend yourself, then?”

“You mean because I’m a psychologist?”

Elsa nods. “Doesn’t that work?”

“I don’t think surgeons can operate on themselves. It’s probably more or less the same thing.”

Elsa nods again. For an instant the woman in the jeans looks as if she’s about to reach out towards her, but she stops herself and absentmindedly scratches the palm of her hand instead.

“Your granny wrote in the letter that she wanted me to look after you,” she whispers.

Elsa nods.

“That’s what she writes in all the letters, apparently.”

“You sound angry.”

“She didn’t write any letters to me.”

The woman reaches into a bag on the floor and gets something out.

“I . . . I bought these Harry Potter books yesterday. I haven’t had time to get very far yet, but, you know.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“I . . . I understand Harry Potter is important to you.”

“Harry Potter is important for everyone!”

The skin around the woman’s mouth cracks again. She takes another long, deep breath, looks into Elsa’s eyes and says: “I like him a lot too, that’s what I wanted to say. It’s been a long time since I had such an amazing reading experience. You almost never do, once you grow up, things are at their peak when you’re a child and then it’s all downhill from there . . . well . . . because of the cynicism, I suppose. I just wanted to thank you for reminding me of how things used to be.”

Those are more words than Elsa has ever heard the woman say without stuttering. The woman offers her what’s in the bag. Elsa takes it. It’s also a book. A fairy tale. The Brothers Lionheart, by Astrid Lindgren. Elsa knows that, because it’s one of her favorite stories that doesn’t come from the Land-of-Almost-Awake. She read it aloud to Granny many times while they were driving around in Renault. It’s about Karl and Jonatan, who die and come to Nangijala, where they have to fight the tyrant Tengil and the dragon Katla.

The woman’s gaze loses its footing again.

“I used to read it to my boys when their granny died. I don’t know if you’ve read it. You probably have.”

Elsa shakes her head and holds the book tightly.

“No,” she lies. Because she’s polite enough to know that if someone gives you a book, you owe that person the pretense that you haven’t read it.

The woman in jeans looks relieved. Then she takes such a deep breath that Elsa fears her wishbone is about to snap.

“You know . . . you asked if we met at the hospital. Your granny and I. After the tsunami I . . . they . . . they had laid out all the dead bodies in a little square. So families and friends could look for their . . . after . . . I . . . I mean, she found me there. In the square. I had been sitting there for . . . I don’t know. Several weeks. I think. She flew me home and she said I could live here until I knew where I was . . . was going.”

Her lips open and close, in turn, as if they’re electric.

“I just stayed here. I just . . . stayed.”

Elsa looks down at her own shoes this time.

“Are you coming today?” she asks.

In the corner of her eye she can see the woman shaking her head. As if she wants to run away again.

“I don’t think I . . . I think your grandmother was very disappointed in me.”

“Maybe she was disappointed in you because you’re so disappointed in yourself.”

There’s a choking sound in the woman’s throat. It takes a while before Elsa understands it’s probably laughter. As if that part of her throat has been in disuse and has just found the key to itself and flicked some old electrical switch.

“You’re really a very different little child,” says the woman.

“I’m not a little child. I’m almost eight!”

“Yes, sorry. You were a newborn. When I moved in here. Newborn.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being different. Granny said that only different people change the world.”

“Yes. Sorry. I . . . I have to go. I just wanted to say . . . sorry.”

“It’s okay. Thanks for the book.”

The woman’s eyes hesitate, but she looks straight at Elsa again.

“Has your friend come back? Wolf—what was it you called him?”

Elsa shakes her head. There’s something in the woman’s eyes that actually looks like genuine concern.

“He does that sometimes. Disappears. You shouldn’t worry. He . . . gets scared of people. Disappears for a while. But he always comes back. He just needs time.”

“I think he needs help.”

“It’s hard to help those who don’t want to help themselves.”

“Someone who wants to help himself is possibly not the one who most needs help from others,” Elsa objects.

The woman nods without answering.

“I have to go,” she repeats.

Elsa wants to stop her but she’s already halfway down the stairs. She has almost disappeared on the floor below when Elsa leans over the railing, gathers her strength and calls out: “Did you find them? Did you find your boys in the square?”

The woman stops. Holds the banister very hard.