The Silver Road, page 4
He raised his hands in the air and stood perfectly still as the room pulsated around him. He could hear his own heart and the breathing of the man behind him.
‘Who are you?’ the man said, and his voice was no more than a whisper.
‘My name is Lennart Gustafsson. Please, don’t shoot.’
The muzzle pressed into his neck and Lelle’s mouth filled with bile. The pistol fell from his hand to the ground. He heard the man reach out his foot and kick it away. The muzzle dug harder into his neck, so hard he was close to falling over. Lelle shut his eyes and saw Lina, her beautiful blue eyes blinking at him. The reproach in her voice. What did I tell you?
They gutted the fish and stretched the flesh over sticks across the fire. The dark scales gleamed in the light. The entrails had been thrown behind a rock to the delight of the dog. Bloody hands were washed clean in the lake. Meja had never eaten barbecued perch before and was amazed at the way the fish crumbled like bread in her hands and melted like butter on her tongue. The three guys didn’t say much, but watched her all the more. Their staring made her embarrassed. She became aware of every movement, of her own hands pushing her hair back, not knowing what to do with them.
Every time she met Carl-Johan’s eyes he smiled. He had lovely teeth and a dimple in his chin. It was hard to eat while he was watching. Hard to do anything at all.
It was clear he was the leader. He spoke on their behalf, while they offered backup in the form of nods, laughter or swaggering as required. He was taller than the other two, but not as muscular. His facial features were as smooth and inoffensive as a boy’s. He insisted she ate another perch and said she sounded like she came from Stockholm.
‘I’ve lived all over the place,’ said Meja, feeling worldly. ‘I haven’t got a dialect in particular.’
‘How did you end up here, in Glimmersträsk of all places?’
‘Mum wanted to move here.’
‘Why?’
‘She met a guy online. He’s got a house up here. And Mum’s always dreamed about it. You know, a simple life in the woods.’
Meja felt the blood rush to her cheeks. She hated talking about Silje. But out of the corner of her eye she saw the way Carl-Johan was beaming at her, all eyes and teeth.
‘Sounds like you’ve got a wise mother.’
‘You think so?’
‘Sure. Everyone should be looking for a simpler life, the way the world is today.’
He sat close, so close their shoulders and knees were brushing. She felt intensely small beside him. But his voice was gentle, almost melodious. It filled her with a kind of intoxication. And he saw her. He really saw her.
‘Are you always out and about in the middle of the night?’
‘This is when the fish bites.’
Carl-Johan nodded towards the swamp, where the light sky was mirrored in the surface of the water.
‘How about you? What are you doing out this late?’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘You can sleep when you’re dead. Let’s swim!’
Carl-Johan pulled off his T-shirt, revealing hard, suntanned skin.
As if on command the others pulled off their clothes and followed him. Only Meja was left by the fire. But Carl-Johan stood in the water, coaxing in that sing-song voice of his, until she relented. She kept her T-shirt on and waded into the ice-cold water. She dipped her shoulders under the surface even though it was so cold she thought her heart would stop. Afterwards they dried themselves on a couple of rocks overhanging the lake, and the dog stayed close to Carl-Johan as if it also felt he was the one in charge. She thought of something Silje had said when they lived with a farmer in Laholm: A man who has a way with animals is a man you can trust.
‘Do you live in the village?’ she asked, as they lay, drying.
‘No, not in Glimmersträsk. We’re from Svartliden.’
‘Where’s that?’
‘About ten kilometres away.’
Göran, the oldest brother, had a face covered in acne which his fingers couldn’t leave alone. Meja tried not to look.
‘The whole country’s falling apart,’ he said. ‘Svartliden is our haven.’
‘Haven from what?’
‘From everything.’
The words sounded profound in the silence. The middle brother, Pär, had put a cap over his eyes and said nothing.
Meja looked sideways at Carl-Johan and saw that he was smiling.
‘You’ll have to come and visit and see for yourself. Bring your mum as well. If it’s the simple life you’re after, you’ll love Svartliden.’
Meja fingered the last of the cigarettes Silje had given her. She longed to light it, but didn’t.
‘You’re weird,’ she said. ‘Totally weird.’
They laughed at that.
Carl-Johan insisted on going back with her through the forest and she was grateful not to be alone with the trees. The path was narrow and they had to walk in single file, and she could feel his eyes burning on her neck as he moved behind her. The dog went first, whipping the undergrowth with its tail. Meja walked in the middle and searched for words. Guys didn’t usually like her, not really. She was too quiet and unsure. They wanted girls who jeered at them and laughed loudly at their jokes. She wasn’t good at either the banter or the screeching laughter. It only sounded false when she tried. She could see it in their eyes. It didn’t work.
But Carl-Johan didn’t joke. He merely walked behind her, talking about the animals they had on the farm. Cows, goats, dogs. We’ve got everything at Svartliden, he said, several times, in a voice vibrating with pride. When she turned around and looked at him there was a seriousness in his eyes that made him look older than he was. She felt a tingling down her spine and she was grateful for the light that made her squint. He was happy in his own skin, that was clear. So unlike her.
She thought of Silje, how she walked around half-naked and everything that poured out of her mouth when she had been drinking. Meja felt her cheeks growing hot with shame, and she stopped at the edge of the trees, where they could see only the roof and the window of the little triangular room. As much as she wanted to, she couldn’t invite him in, not with Silje there.
‘My mum’s ill. I don’t think you should come in with me.’
He stood close and she could smell the lake water and the fish blood that had dried in black patches on his T-shirt. He had eyelashes, she could see that now. It’s just that they were so pale they hardly showed. She felt a fluttering in her stomach when he looked down at her, and she could see the thin skin over his collarbone pulsating with every heartbeat.
‘See you later,’ he said.
She had to hold the dog’s collar to stop it following him. It whined plaintively as he disappeared between the trees, and it made her want to cry too.
‘Turn around so I can see you.’
Lelle held his breath. Slowly, very slowly, he rotated his body until the muzzle of the rifle was pointing at his midriff. The man behind the weapon took shape among the shadows. His hair hung in matted strands over his shoulders and was tangled up in a beard that reached halfway down his chest. He had a dirty face and piercing eyes. His clothes hung from his body and were fraying at the seams, and a long rip in his T-shirt revealed the pale skin underneath. He gave off an acrid smell of forest and sweat and woodsmoke. Without taking his eyes off Lelle, he lowered the rifle.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Lelle. ‘I didn’t know anyone lived here. I’m looking for my daughter.’
‘Your daughter?’ said the man, as if the word was unrecognizable to him.
‘Yes.’
Lelle dropped his left hand and dug out Lina’s photo from the inside pocket of his jacket. He held it up to the man’s face.
‘She’s called Lina and she’s nearly twenty. She’s been missing for three years.’
The dishevelled man leaned closer and took his time studying the picture. Lelle’s outstretched arm shook nervously between them. He was keeping his eyes on the man’s rifle, which was still hanging under his arm.
‘I haven’t seen her,’ the man said, eventually. ‘Did she disappear out here?’
‘She disappeared from a bus stop in Glimmersträsk.’
‘We’re a long way from Glimmersträsk.’
‘I know, but my search has brought me here.’
The whites of the man’s eyes gleamed in the dim light.
‘Well, she’s not here, I can tell you that much.’
Lelle slipped the photograph of Lina back into his pocket.
It might have been the tension, but he immediately felt his eyes well up and he cleared his throat to hold back the tears.
‘I’m sorry for intruding. I didn’t think this place was inhabited.’
He made for the door and the watery light, but was barely through the doorway when he heard the gruff voice call out: ‘You’ll stay for coffee?’
Lelle sat down on a shaky wooden chair, while the bearded man put down the rifle and started measuring out the coffee with dirt-ingrained hands. The windows were covered with dark canvas, but a solitary oil lamp on the table cast a faint light over the pine-panelled walls. From the way he moved and the muscles under his torn T-shirt, Lelle could see that the man was younger than he looked.
‘You’ll have to forgive me for pointing that thing at you,’ the man said. ‘But you scared me.’
Lelle had retrieved his gun from the floor and was keeping it within reach.
‘I thought the house was empty,’ he said. ‘Can I ask what your name is?’
‘Patrik,’ said the man, after some hesitation. ‘But I’m called Pat.’
‘Do you live out here?’
‘Sometimes. When I’m passing.’
‘Not many people pass by here.’
Pat smiled and his teeth shone in the darkness.
He poured coffee into two tin mugs and handed one of them to Lelle. The liquid was as thick as tar, but smelled wonderful in the musty air.
‘How did you find your way here?’
‘Pure chance. I’ve been driving up and down the Silver Road for three years, searching for every damn trail and forest track.’
‘Looking for your daughter?’
Lelle nodded.
‘Aren’t the cops helping you?’
Lelle pulled out a packet of cigarettes, put one in his mouth and offered one to Pat.
‘The cops are crap.’
Pat nodded as if he understood. They lit their cigarettes and allowed the coffee and tobacco to fill the silence. Lelle looked at the young man and watched him draw the smoke deep into his lungs, holding it there like hash. The skin around his nostrils was red raw and twitched from time to time, but apart from that he appeared to have calmed down.
‘So what are you doing out here?’
Pat looked up and stared at him through the coils of smoke.
‘I guess I’m also looking for someone.’
‘Who are you looking for?’
Pat stood up and walked into an adjacent room. Lelle kept his eyes on the rifle propped up against the wall. Pat returned with a battered photograph and handed it to Lelle. It pictured a young man with a crew cut and a serious expression, dressed in desert camouflage and with an automatic weapon strung across his chest. He was sitting in front of a drab, grey building with gaping window frames and walls covered in bullet holes.
‘This was me. Before the war screwed me up.’
Lelle took a closer look, comparing the bearded man in front of him with the scrubbed, clean-shaven youth in the photograph. There was no likeness as far as he could see, apart from the eyes, perhaps.
‘The war? What war?’
‘Afghanistan.’ Pat grimaced slightly when he said it.
‘So you were with the UN peacekeeping force?’
Pat nodded.
‘No shit.’ Lelle leaned back in the chair and drank his coffee, trying not to swallow the grounds. A golden strip of sunlight leaked in around the black canvas and he could hear the birds singing outside as a reminder that there was still joyfulness in the world. Pat had taken out his hunting knife and was cleaning his nails with it. He peered at Lelle over the handle.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me if I killed anyone over there?’
‘Swedish UN troops don’t normally get involved in the fighting, do they?’
Pat gave a hollow laugh that quickly turned into a cough.
‘That’s what you think. The truth is more sordid than that.’
He held up seven fingers. The palms of his hands were chafed and flaking.
‘Seven people, that’s how many I’ve killed. And I’ve seen many more die.’ Pat tapped the knife against the side of his forehead. ‘Their screams never leave you. I hear it all the time.’
Lelle loosened the neck of his shirt. It was stuffy in the confined room.
‘It sounds hideous.’
‘It’s worst when they don’t die straight away. If their legs are blown off, but they’re still alive. So you go over and put an end to them at close range. Eye to eye. That’s when it seems real. When you see the light go out, the life run out of them.’
He pointed the knife blade at Lelle.
‘There’s something about death that gets under your skin and destroys you from the inside. Nobody warns you about it before you go. Nobody explains what happens to you once you’ve seen death first-hand, when you’ve stared it in the face. The way it kind of gets its claws into you. Becomes part of you.’
‘Would you have stayed at home if you’d known?’
Pat looked down. The skin on his face had a life of its own, jerking and grimacing.
‘I’m a nosy bastard,’ he said at last. ‘And we all have to learn about death sooner or later. There’s no escaping it.’
Lelle pushed his mug away. The lack of air in the room was making him feel tired. He simply couldn’t talk about war and death, not when he was caught up in his own stuff. His legs hurt as he stood up.
‘Thanks for the coffee. I’d better be going.’
‘There are others like me out here in the forests. Other people who’ve lost themselves and can’t cope with the world any more. Maybe your daughter is one of us. Maybe she’s just off-grid for a while.’
‘Lina likes the world.’
‘Do you think someone’s hurt her?’
‘She wouldn’t leave us of her own free will, I know that.’
Pat went with Lelle to the front door, as if he wasn’t quite ready to let him go.
‘I’ll keep an eye out for your daughter.’
‘Thanks, I appreciate that.’
‘In my experience it’s always the smiling people you’ve got to watch.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘People who smile for no reason, fooling people with their grins. They’re the ones who are evil.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’
Lelle pushed open the door and Pat lifted a hand to shield his face from the sun.
‘I’d help you look,’ he said. ‘But I can’t deal with the light.’
‘I understand. It saps your energy.’
They shook hands and stood in silence, looking at each other with some kind of understanding until the door swung shut again. Outside the tarn lay like a pool of black oil between the houses and Lelle moved as fast as he could over the boggy ground.
At the weekend they drank, both of them. Torbjörn grew loud and red-faced, and started talking about the mine that had closed down and robbed him of his career. Silje fried pork chops and made a potato gratin, which she served on Torbjörn’s mother’s best china.
Torbjörn ate, getting the food stuck in his moustache, while Silje sat at the opposite end of the table, chain-smoking. She had black rings under her eyes and complained that she always lost her appetite when it was this hot. There were always new excuses. Her thin shoulders made Meja think of baby birds. Her bra straps kept slipping down.
‘You ought to eat. You look like a skeleton.’
‘Not everyone is as greedy as you, Meja.’
Silje struggled with the truth. The loss of appetite was relatively recent and at first she had blamed the medication, saying it made her feel as if the food was choking her. But she wasn’t taking the drugs any longer. Now she just got angry when Meja pointed out that you couldn’t live on red wine.
Meja took herself up to her room. She lay on the narrow bed, staring up at the pointed roof where the beams met. A fragile spider’s web balanced across the middle beam and she could see the shrivelled mosquitoes and flies that had met their fate there. Although they were only disgusting little bugs it brought tears to her eyes.
Soon the sound of Silje’s moaning made its way up from the ground floor, low at first, then getting shriller. Torbjörn roared and the furniture scraped against the wooden floor. It sounded like he was trying to murder her. Meja pressed her hands to her ears and looked at the treetops swaying outside. In her loneliness the other voices forced their way into her head. The mocking ones.
Is it true your mum gets paid for it?
You know what that’s all about, don’t you?
Her mobile was dark and silent on the bedside table. No one had called since she stepped on the train to Norrland. There was no one in the city she had just left who missed her, no one who wondered where she had gone. Even though she was the one to keep them in cigs and tablets at the weekend. She thought they would miss the drugs at least, even if they didn’t miss her.
She was asleep when the first thud came. She flew out of bed and looked at the door, at the chair back wedged under the handle, so no one could come creeping in while she was asleep. Even though Torbjörn hadn’t tried anything, it was a precaution she always took. With the second thud she realized the sound wasn’t coming from the door but from the window. She crouched by the sill and peered out into the light night, catching sight of a shadow moving by the veranda. The dog’s chain rattled as it shook itself and she watched as the dark shape bent down and patted and stroked. When it turned its face up to hers she could see it was Carl-Johan.
