The Lost Village(41)

Everything seems easier in the daylight, and the night’s worries feel far away. Not that my suspicions have completely disappeared, but as I watch Emmy shivering and cursing as she rinses the lather from her hair, I find it hard to see her as the shadow lurking in my nightmares. I glance at her out of the corner of my eye as she scrubs out her shampoo. She has a tattoo on her hip I don’t recognize—a small stylized owl—and she’s more muscular than I remember her being.

A sound makes me turn away. Tone is struggling to get out of the water. I give her my hand and help her to pull herself up. She’s so heavy on my arm that I almost lose her, but I manage to regain my balance. And when I take a closer look at her foot, I can understand her difficulty: her throbbing red ankle is so swollen it’s as wide as her calf.

“How’s the foot feeling?” I ask. The question is redundant, really. I can see how it feels. I just want her to tell me something else.

Tone nods.

“Oh, it’s fine,” she says. Her lips are blueish with cold, but her hand feels like it’s burning up. “You just haven’t seen it without the strapping before.”

I hear Emmy get out of the water behind us and start getting dressed.

Tone sits down heavily on her towel and, still wearing her wet underwear, starts strapping up her ankle again.

I open my mouth to say something—what, I’m not sure—when I hear Max’s voice from the buildings.

“Are you guys done already?” he asks.

I shut my mouth.

“We’re ready,” Tone shouts back, her voice unwavering. It doesn’t sound like she’s in much pain. She sounds normal.

I hastily pull my clothes on over my wet underwear. My jeans cling to my thighs and hips as I pull them up, and my top bunches up stubbornly as I try to put it on. I’ve just got everything in place by the time Max and Robert arrive.

“How was the water?” Max asks.

“Cold,” says Emmy, pulling her loose T-shirt over her head. “Really fucking cold.”

I smirk at him.

“Your sweater’s on inside out,” I say.

Max looks down, sees the label flapping under his chin and blushes.

“Ah, who cares,” he says. “I’m about to take it off again.”

I smile.

Robert’s just a few steps behind him. His hair is a dazzling gilded red in this early morning light, and with his invisible eyebrows he has an almost androgynous look.

“It’ll have to be a quick dip, guys,” I say. “We have a lot to get through today, after losing all of yesterday.”

Max gives me a thumbs up.

“Quicker than lightning.”

Tone, Emmy, and I start making our way back to the square—slowly, so that Tone can keep up. At this time of day we could almost be in any sleepy old Swedish town; a Saturday morning, perhaps, when everybody’s still asleep and the daily bustle has yet to begin.

“Wait,” I say, slowing down.

Birgitta’s shack is just ahead, to the left of the road we’ve taken. From this angle the bare, leafless tree at one corner of the house looks almost burnished, and the broken window panes are calling out to me.

I turn to Tone.

“Shall we take a quick peek?” I ask. “I know we’re going there this afternoon, but, I mean, it can’t hurt to take a look now.”

Tone nods.

“Sure,” she says. Emmy frowns and looks at Tone.

“Are you sure you feel well enough?” she asks.

Tone nods.

“Might as well do it now,” she says. “Make the most of our time.”

I hesitate, but my curiosity overcomes my bad conscience. I support Tone as we walk over to the little hut. It’s more out of the way than I’d first thought, and I imagine how it must have felt to come out here every day with a basket on my arm, seeing the closed curtains, knowing who waited inside.

The front door isn’t locked. In fact, it’s ever so slightly ajar, but that’s only visible when we’re standing right by it. I give the door a careful nudge, and it swings open on a creaky hinge.

The hut is even smaller than it looks from the outside; the three of us will barely be able to get in without difficulty. Despite the broken windows and the bright, clear morning, the inside is also dark and dim: the windows are small, the slant of the roof blocks much of the sunlight, and the dead tree casts a large shadow from the west.

The bed is small and shabby, and has lain unmade for sixty years. One small, lone pillow lies at its head, and it’s strewn with blankets in drab, clashing colors. There is no sheet on the faded, striped mattress, which is marked in a few places by indistinct light brown stains. The bed can only be two and a half feet wide, but it takes up almost half of the room.

“You’ll need to move in a little,” Emmy says behind me.

Tone squeezes past me, hobbles over to the table with its two Windsor chairs, and sits down on one of them. I would have stopped her, but she does it before I can say anything. Despite a creaking protest from its uneven legs, however, the chair holds.

With the three of us in here there’s hardly any space to move. Emmy looks around the room.

“No tap,” she says. “Or toilet.”

I wonder if we’re all thinking the same thing. Standing here, in this tiny, dark space, the distressing reality sinks like a weight on my chest.