“Shouldn’t we call pest control?” said Arvid.
“Can’t get through,” said Konrad, eyes on the beetle. “I heard something on the radio about a bug invasion in Old Town.”
“Maybe it’s the season for it,” said Arvid.
“This dung beetle,” said Konrad, “this beetle shouldn’t be here at all. It’s African. A very pretty specimen, actually.” He gave it a piece of cookie to wrestle with.
Cornelia entered the office with a new chair. At the same time, the light by Miss Sycorax’s number started blinking. Arvid considered not picking up. But Cornelia sat down and put her headset on, and Konrad tore himself away from the dung beetle, and there was no longer an excuse not to work. He pushed the button.
“Operator.”
“Hello,” said the flat voice.
“Yes, hello.”
“I want to be put through to Arvid Pekon,” said Miss Sycorax.
“Arvid Pekon,” Arvid repeated. His finger flicked the mute switch up and down.
“Arvid,” said his voice.
A slap woke him up. Cornelia’s round eyes were staring worriedly into his. She turned her head to look over at Konrad’s looming silhouette. They grabbed Arvid’s arms and dragged him up into his chair.
“You had us worried there,” said Cornelia.
“You fainted,” Konrad explained.
“What happened?” asked Arvid. The buzzing in his head made it difficult to hear the other two. His face tingled.
“Oops. Head between your knees,” said Konrad.
“What happened?” asked Arvid of the linoleum.
“You talked to 3426 for almost an hour and then you fell off your chair,” said Cornelia.
“But I took the call just now.”
“No, you’ve been going on for an hour.”
“What did I talk about?”
Cornelia was silent for a moment. She was probably glaring at him. “You know we don’t listen to each others’ calls.”
“Yes,” mumbled Arvid to the floor.
A hand landed on his shoulder. “You should probably go home,” said Konrad.
“I think I have to talk to the manager,” said Arvid.
The door to the manager’s office had an unmarked window of opaque glass. Arvid knocked on the glass. When there was no reply, he carefully pressed down the door handle and stepped inside. The room was smaller than he remembered it, but then again it was only his second time in here. There were no shelves or cabinets, just the enormous mahogany desk that covered most of the room. The desk was bare save for a telephone and a crossword puzzle magazine. Behind the desk, doing a crossword puzzle with a fountain pen, sat the manager in her powder blue suit and immaculate gray curls. She looked up as Arvid opened the door and smiled, her cheeks drawing back in deep folds.
“Egyptian dung beetle, six letters?” said the manager.
Arvid opened his mouth.
“S-C-A-R-A-B,” said the manager. “Thank you.” She closed and folded the magazine, put it aside and leaned back into her chair. She smiled again, with both rows of teeth.
Arvid waited.
“You have neglected to log three calls this month, Arvid,” the manager said. “Subject 3426 at 2.35 PM on March 15; subject 3426 at 1.10 PM on March 21; subject 3426 at 4.56 PM on March 30. Why is this, Arvid?”
“I’m having a bit of trouble,” said Arvid and shifted his weight from side to side.
“Trouble.” The manager was still smiling, cheeks folded back like accordions.
“I think I may be having a nervous breakdown.”
“And that’s why you haven’t logged your calls.”
“This is going to sound insane,” said Arvid.
“Go on,” said the Manager.
Arvid took a deep breath. “Subject number 3426… ”
“Miss Sycorax,” supplied the Manager.
“Miss Sycorax,” Arvid continued, “has been making some very strange calls.”
“Many of our subjects do.”
“Yes, but not like her. Something’s off.”
“I see.”
“Eh, I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I need some time off.”
“If you think you’re having a nervous breakdown Arvid” said the Manager, “I’ll book an appointment with the company doctor and let him decide. We need to know if it’s a workplace injury, you know. Oh, and do talk to Cornelia. She’s the union representative.”
“I will.”
“All right, Arvid. Go on home. I’ll have the doctor’s office call you this afternoon.” The Manager smiled at him with both rows of teeth.
At the switchboard, Konrad and Cornelia were back at work. Cornelia was doing her best to ignore a little army of ants who were marching in a circle around her desk. Konrad and the dung beetle, on the other hand, seemed to have become fast friends. The dung beetle was rolling a sticky ball of masticated cookie crumbs.
Arvid sat down in his chair and stared at the terminal. After some hesitation, he put his headset on. Then he put a call through to Miss Sycorax.
“Hello,” said Miss Sycorax after the third ring.
“Hello,” echoed Arvid.
“Hello.”
“This is the operator,” Arvid managed.
“Oh.”
Arvid took a deep breath. “Who is this Arvid Pekon you wanted to be put through to?”
At the other end of the line, Miss Sycorax burst into laughter. The sound made Arvid cower in his chair.
“It’s a funny name,” she said. “Pekon, it sounds like a fruit. Like plums or pears. Or like someone from China. Or like a dog breed.”
“Who is Arvid Pekon?” Arvid repeated.
“There is no Arvid Pekon,” Miss Sycorax replied.
“Yes there is!”
“No there isn’t. I thought there was, but then I realized I was mistaken.”
Arvid disconnected and tore his headset off.
“I’m right here!” he yelled at the cockroach on the in-box. “Look!” He banged his fist on the desk so hard that it tingled. “Would I be able to do that if I wasn’t here?”
Something crackled. He looked down at his hand, which was lying in shards on the desk. The tingling sensation spread up his arm, which shuddered and then exploded in a cloud of dust.
“Where did Arvid go?” Cornelia asked Konrad a little while later.
“Who?” Konrad was looking at a ball of cookie crumbs on his desk, having no clear idea of how it got there. He popped it in his mouth.
Cornelia shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m on about. Never mind.”
“Coffee break?” said Konrad. “I’ve brought Finnish shortbread.”
Brita’s Holiday Village
29/5
The cab ride from Åre station to Aunt Brita’s holiday village took about half an hour. I’m renting the cottage on the edge of the village that’s reserved for relatives. The rest are closed for summer. Mum helped me make the reservation—Brita’s her aunt, really, not mine, and they’re pretty close. Yes, I’m thirty-two years old. Yes, I’m terrible at calling people I don’t know.
I didn’t bring a lot of stuff. Clothes and writing things, mostly. The cottage is a comforting old-fashioned red thing with white window frames, the interior more or less unchanged since the 1970s: lacquered pine, green felt wallpaper, woven tapestries decorated with little blobs of green glass. It smells stale in a cosy way. There’s a desk by one of the windows in the living room, overlooking Kall Lake. No phone reception, no Internet. Brita wondered if I wanted a landline, but I said no. I said yes to the bicycle. The first thing I did was bike down to the ICA store I saw on the way here. I stocked up on pasta and tomatoes and beans. I found old-fashioned soft whey-cheese, the kind that tastes like toffee. I’m eating it out of the box with a spoon.