We Know You Remember (35)

But everything was quiet then. The rumble in his dreams was clearly just that, a memory of the thunder within him. Where the hell was the dog?

He got up at last, his body protesting. This constant wandering back and forth that made up earthly life. He didn’t know where these words were coming from, creeping up on him. Earthly life, lightning headaches, counting in pilsners; no one spoke like that anymore.

Olof went out onto the porch and peed between the spindles in the railing. The clouds were still heavy, the haze of smoke making the night dark, as though late summer was already on its way. Tomorrow, he thought, once the bottles of beer he had found in the basement—and knocked back with three jars of canned hot dogs as the lightning tore across the heavens—had left his system, he would drive away. Towards the sunset, he thought, like a goddamn cowboy, though of course the sun barely went down, and he had nowhere to go.

This week at the latest, his landlord had said in the message she’d left on his voicemail. That was when his things had to be gone. I don’t want any trouble with the police.

They had been over there, asking questions about him, waving a sheet of paper that gave them the right to snoop through his things.

The boss had called again too, screaming down the line. Claiming Olof had stolen the car, saying he’d report him if he didn’t bring it down now, the day before yesterday, a few days ago. Though in his next message he said he never wanted to see him again. The police must have been there, too.

Olof called for the dog again. He couldn’t hear any barking, no paws in the grass, no growling to let him know it was up to no good. Just a lorry in the distance. Was that a faint crunch? It sounded like footsteps on gravel, around the other side of the house. Could be the foxes, or it could also be the dog, which hadn’t worked out who its master was yet.

He went back inside. The curtains were drawn at the front of the house, so he couldn’t see whether there was anyone outside. Right then, the window exploded. Shattered glass flew through the air, the curtains rose and fell, almost in slow motion, as something dropped to the floor by his feet—a rock? There was another loud crash, in the kitchen this time, and he saw a flash of light. Flames surged through the doorway. In his confusion, Olof searched for something to douse the fire. A blanket, his father’s old jacket. It was everywhere, in the hallway mirror, in the windowpanes, he no longer knew where the flames were. All around him, surrounding him, licking at his legs.

He stumbled out through the porch door, down the narrow staircase, fell headlong into the grass. Another window shattered. The fire was chasing him. He slid down the steep slope and got back onto his feet, wearing only socks, a pair of thick old socks he’d found in the house and which smelled like his father. He stumbled over fallen trees and got mud on his face, in his mouth, spitting and hitting his cheeks to get rid of it, the awful taste of earth.

It was like he could feel her shadow as she stood over him, blocking the light; she was the trees and the clouds and the sky that was falling in.

You disgusting bastard, what did you think? That I’d kiss someone like you? Your mouth stinks; do you even brush your teeth?

He isn’t ready, just standing there, trying to caress her, hand up underneath, her breasts, her soft breasts, he can still feel one of them between his fingers, its softness. She shoves him so hard that he ends up on the ground, in the mud beneath the tangle of nettles, and he tries to get up again, he grabs her, but it’s just her cardigan, which comes off, and she kicks him again and again, shouting things, making him scramble to get away, cowering with his hands over his head, and then she is on top of him with a fistful of soil, she holds back one of his arms and forces the earth into his mouth, using the fabric of her dress to pull some of the nettles down, rubbing them in his face. Kiss this, you fucking freak.

Olof heard the roar of the flames behind him, engines revving and screeching, and knew he had to keep going, to get away. The forest creaked and hissed that someone was after him. It grew increasingly dense among the trunks, trails he could no longer see.

He never had learned how to find his way in the forest. Whether the anthills were on the north side of trees or the south, what everything was called; he couldn’t understand why the trees needed so many names, the lichens and mosses, the ferns that were a thousand years old, who the hell cared? He could no longer see the ground for everything growing and tearing at his socks, the twigs whipping his face and the remnants of dead trees using their branches like spears against him. The forest meant red ants all over his legs whenever they went bilberry picking, mushrooms that all looked like they were poisonous, a sinkhole that could open up and suck you down into the ground; you would vanish and the moss would grow over you.

He had once seen a film about a man who had been completely overgrown, not a single part of him visible, though his voice was still audible through the thick, fibrous layers of moss.

Olof thought he could make out a trail between two trees, but when he reached it, it vanished and he stepped in the shit of some kind of animal, a huge pile of it, it couldn’t be a bear, could it? He reeled around and became aware of something hiding.

Lina’s mean laugh has faded, she is gone now. Her cardigan is all that is left, lying in the dirt. Olof’s wounds are stinging and burning; he’ll have to clean them if he wants to avoid getting blood poisoning. He sits down on a rock to wait for as long as he can, but as the light starts to fade the mosquitoes arrive. Mosquito season has been bad that year, and the forest is full of saplings, it’s close to the water, the little bastards like that; he can’t take any more bites, any more itching. He assumes the other guys have probably headed off by now. He won’t have to face them. The forest isn’t quite as wild or thick over in Marieberg, but it still confuses and tricks him, it looks identical yet different every way he turns, leading him in circles, every time he thinks he has found a new trail, he is back on the same one.