The Lost Village(60)

Still.

I look up and down the street, to make extra sure. Yes, every other house is yellow. But none of them has a green door.

It made me feel special.

“Alice, what are you doing?”

Robert sounds unexpectedly nervy, so I turn around to look at him. He’s let go of the talk button and is staring at me.

“It’s my grandma’s house,” I explain.

Robert blinks. He looks at me, then the house.

“Oh,” he says. “Oh shit.”

He studies the house with the green door for a few seconds, but then he shakes his head.

“You know what we said. Water, food, back. We’re safer as a group.”

“There could be food in there,” I persevere. “We can just step inside. Quickly.”

Robert shakes his head.

“No,” he says.

I look back at the house.

“Robert, she could be in there,” I say, quietly. “Tone knows which house it is. She might still recognize it—it might even feel safe to her. There are two of us, and she … she isn’t dangerous, I promise. Can’t we just go take a look?” I start rambling: “Plus we were going to check one more house, anyway. This is one more house. There might be food!”

Robert looks at the house, and I can see the doubt storming over his freckles. I say nothing more. I just look him in the eye, trying to seem stable and sincere. I can’t let my desperation show.

Then he gives a short, sharp sigh and brings his walkie-talkie to his lips.

“Robert here. We’re OK. We may be a little longer than expected.”

He waits for Emmy’s quick, tinny: “OK,” and then gives me a faint smile.

I could kiss him, but I make do with a simple “Thanks.”

Robert reattaches his walkie-talkie to his waistband.

“But if we don’t find her there, how about we don’t mention this to Emmy?”

I nod.

“Of course.”

The house is in a worse state up close. Something that must be some sort of lichen has grown over most of the front steps. The door handle on the faded green door glistens in the dying light.

I put my hand on it and push down. The door opens without a creak.

It’s dark inside. We come straight into a small, low hallway with wallpapered walls. On the right there’s a staircase to the second floor, and straight ahead there’s a small, anonymous door that must lead to a bathroom. The kitchen is to the left.

The same layout as in the other houses. Nothing remarkable.

Still, it feels like it unlocks something inside me.

I walk hungrily into the kitchen, my eyes like target-seeking missiles. Tone, to my shame, is temporarily forgotten: I’m soaking up all I can. This was their home; where they lived. Here, on these eccentric turquoise Windsor chairs, is where they would sit, talk, and eat; around this rustic table, with a round burn mark at one of the ends. Elsa. Staffan. Aina. Grandma.

I squat down and run my fingers over the rag rug, which has so many colors that they all run into each other, making a meaningless slush.

“Alice?” Robert says quietly behind me, and I turn around and stand up again.

“So this is where they lived?” he says.

I nod.

Robert steps over to the sink and opens one of the cupboards. His rectangular body blocks the contents, so I see nothing.

“Well, would you look at this,” he says softly, reaching up to the cupboard.

He pulls out a jar of honey. It’s almost full. He reaches up to the top shelf and finds a tin labelled “tea,” which is empty, then feels around the obligatory paper packaging on the middle shelf before finding three metal tins of what must be sardines in tomato sauce.

“You think they’re OK to eat?” I ask him.

“Honey doesn’t go off if it hasn’t been contaminated,” he says, his chestnut eyes glinting in the last of the evening light. “It doesn’t look like this has. And I don’t know about the sardines, but we can take them with us anyway. That’ll have to do for dinner.”

I smile at him.

“See?” I say. “I told you it would pay off.”

Thanks, Grandma, I think.

She’s still looking out for me.

I step out of the kitchen and back into the hall, let my eyes wander along the floral wallpaper running up the stairs. The damp has run in thin, sporadic rivulets down the turgid, painted leaves.

I know what must be up there. I’ve seen the other houses.

The bedrooms. Staffan and Elsa’s. And Aina’s.

I walk toward the staircase. It looks stable, not rotten like some of the others. The handrail is essentially held up by one narrow spindle on one side, but when I test it out with a little weight it doesn’t give way.

“Are you sure going up there is a good idea?” Robert asks. “Maybe we should call first. See if she replies. You don’t know if the steps are stable.”

“I don’t want to scare her,” I say quietly.

Robert has put the food in his rucksack, which he places on the wooden floor beside him. The patterned parquet is scratched, worn, and dry, but it’s clear that at some point it must have been beautiful. That someone scrubbed it and polished it to keep it shining. That someone took pride in their home.

Not someone. Her. Elsa. My great-grandmother.