The Lost Village(82)

But then something happens. Kristina’s little mouth finds the nipple and latches on. The cries stop, replaced by the muffled sound of her starting to suck.

Elsa’s shoulders drop. She lets go and takes a step back.

“Ah,” she hears Ingrid say. Nothing else. When Elsa turns around to look at her, her eyes are twinkling with tears.

Elsa quickly dries her eyes and forehead with the back of her hand. She doesn’t know what she is witnessing. She doesn’t know if Birgitta understands what she is doing, or what is happening.

Perhaps this might be something resembling hope. Elsa isn’t sure. All that she is sure of is the quiet instinct that rises up inside her when she sees Birgitta nurse her daughter.

She can’t leave Aina in Silvertj?rn.





NOW



I slowly open the door to the girls’ bedroom.

Tone is sitting in the far corner of the room. She’s chosen not to lie on either of the two beds, or to sit on the padded seat at the desk, but to huddle up below the fallen wardrobe, in the small triangular space formed between the wardrobe, wall, and floor.

She doesn’t look at me when I come in, just rocks back and forth on the spot, her forehead pressed to her knees.

“Tone?” I say quietly, against my better judgment.

She doesn’t reply, but makes a quiet, drawn-out sound that is muffled by her thighs. I take this to mean she can hear me.

My body is tense and my armpits sweaty, but when I look at her like this it’s hard to be afraid of her; she looks more like someone to pity than fear. As I stand here looking at her, it dawns on me that she hadn’t seemed threatening in the alleyway, either. She had run away from us, not toward us—fearful, not aggressive. And even when kicking and trying to break free, she had seemed more like someone fighting for her own life.

“I’ve brought you some water,” I say. I take a few steps into the room and around the bed, but then she hunches up even more.

“Don’t worry,” I say. “It’s OK. I’ll put this down here, see?”

I try to keep my voice calm and neutral.

I put the water jug on the ground a few feet in front of her, then raise my hands to show I’m not dangerous. I take a few steps back and sit on the desk chair. The seat is hard, but it’s more comfortable than the floor.

She hesitates for a moment, then lets go of her knees and reaches for the water. There are still traces of her lilac nail polish on three of her nails.

She clutches the jug awkwardly—practically hugs it with both hands—and lifts it to her face. When she drinks, she does so feverishly, in big gulps.

It’s like watching a stranger.

“What has happened to you?” I ask. It’s formulated as a question, but I’m not expecting a reply.

To my surprise she puts down the jug and looks in my direction. Her eyes don’t meet mine, but it’s me she’s looking at—just my left arm rather than my face.

She shakes her head.

That’s something. It’s not much, but it’s something.

I have to ask her, I have to try.

“Was it you who blew up the vans?” I ask.

She says nothing.

It’s harder to look at her face than the rest of her. That terrible scab. It’s not just blood, I realize as I come closer, but dried-in soil and dirt, which have made a hard cake of her hair. The skin around it is red and looks slightly inflamed.

“How did you get that?” I ask. I stick to that practiced voice, stable and calming. I don’t know if it’s having any effect on her, but I’m almost managing to calm myself.

She still doesn’t respond. She has started rocking slightly again, making a sustained, quiet, guttural sound.

“Tone,” I say, pleading and slightly frustrated, because she’s right there in front of me but I can’t understand what’s going on inside her. I can’t align what I’m seeing in front of me with my friend. I can’t align her with what she’s done. It just doesn’t fit.

“Please just say something,” I say, my voice cracking slightly. “Just talk to me, for fuck’s sake. We can try to…”

Yes, what can we try to do?

Try to fix this?

It’s too late for that. Some things can’t be fixed.

I turn away and stare out of the window for a few seconds. The sun is nearing the horizon. In half an hour the whole sky will burst into flame.

One of the desk drawers is still half open. There’s nothing inside it but a few pencils. I pick one of them up. It has a classic yellow grip, and its tip is still sharp. On an impulse, I put it down on the floor and roll it over to Tone.

It stops just in front of her. She picks it up clumsily and holds it. Her grip is strange, her whole hand clenched around the pencil like a fist. The way a child would hold it.

Then she leans forward and presses the tip to the floorboards, so hard that it gouges out a trail in the wood.

“It’ll break,” I say. “Be careful, or it’ll break.”

I don’t know why I’m even trying; I know she’s not going to answer.

The pencil tip runs in sharp lines over the planks. A Y with two legs, topped by a head.

A human.

She draws hair around the head in gawky strokes, long, tangled lines that score the soft planks, then she places the tip in the middle of the oval face and starts moving it in a circle. Around and around and around. A mouth like a black, bellowing circle.