There is a crunching noise from the gravel path again. The footsteps are coming from the side facing the river. They are getting closer.
Then they fall silent. There is no coughing from the other end of the woodshed either. Joel hardly dares to breathe. Who is it, hiding behind the other end of the woodshed?
Now the footsteps are approaching again. It’s Gertrud. She’s moving very cautiously, as if she’d rather not be there at all. Joel wants to shout out and run to greet her. He wants to tell her that there’s somebody behind the other end of the woodshed. Then the pair of them will run away, along the river bank, over the railway bridge, and they won’t stop until they are in Gertrud’s kitchen. It’ll be warm and light there. Maybe Gertrud will fetch her trombone and play a tune for him?
Joel can see Gertrud standing at the very edge of the area illuminated by the lamp. He can see that she’s put on her very best clothes. The hole she has instead of a nose is plugged with a silk handkerchief. Joel knows she never uses that normally.
The church clock chimes once again. A quarter past eight. Gertrud looks round.
The Caviar Man isn’t going to turn up, Joel thinks.
Then the penny drops.
It’s the Caviar Man hiding behind the woodshed, of course. Spying on Gertrud.
Joel is furious. Even though he’s the one who has set it all up, he feels sorry for Gertrud. She’s not somebody people are allowed to spy on.
Now the rustling sound starts again. It’s getting nearer. And nearer. Joel crouches down next to the broken sledge. He hardly dares to breathe.
A shadow passes in front of him.
How can you see a shadow when everything is black?
Then he hears a whisper.
‘That bloody noseless bitch.’
That was all. The shadow vanishes silently in among the currant bushes.
Gertrud is standing there motionless, waiting.
The clock chimes again. Twice. Half past eight.
Then she leaves. Joel can see that her head is bowed. She’s disappointed. Her footsteps sound sad. They fade away, and she’s gone.
Joel runs through the garden like a madman. He has to get away from there. He runs all the way home. When he fumbles for the door key under Samuel’s old shoes in the porch, he’s so out of breath that he can hardly stand up. His legs are shaking.
He switches on every light in the flat. He wants to get rid of the darkness.
I’ve hurt Gertrud, he thinks.
How could it turn out like that?
He goes to the pantry and eats some more jam. He shovels it into himself, spoonful after spoonful.
Then he goes to the kitchen and examines himself in the cracked shaving mirror.
The Miracle Man, Joel Gustafson.
‘What should I do now?’ he asks his reflection.
What should I do now?
Then he thinks he can see Gertrud’s face in the mirror.
She looks very sad.
All alone in her kitchen. On the other side of the river...
9
Some days could be worse than others.
But Joel couldn’t remember ever experiencing one like this.
Absolutely everything went wrong.
It started in the morning as he was getting ready to leave for school. He couldn’t find one of his wellingtons. He looked everywhere, but there was no sign of it. How on earth can a wellington boot disappear? And why only one? He conducted another search, and even looked in the pantry. But no luck. He could see from the kitchen clock that if he didn’t find it within the next minute, he would be late for school.
But no wellington. It had vanished without trace.
So he put on his shoes instead and started to tie the laces. No problem with the left one, but the lace in the right shoe snapped. No doubt a mouse had been nibbling at it. He swore and tugged at the lace, cut it with a pair of scissors and tried to thread it through the eyelets, but of course they were too small. The kitchen clock seemed to be going faster than before — the hands were racing round.
And needless to say, he was late for school. Otto sat at his desk, smirking at him. Miss Nederström told him to come out to the front and explain why he was late.
‘My shoelace broke,’ he said.
The class started laughing, and he had to admit that it sounded silly. So silly that he started giggling himself. Everybody was laughing apart from Miss Nederström. Nothing made her more angry than laughter. Joel had noted that down in his diary, on the page where he listed all the strange things that grown-ups do. Getting angry with people who laugh...
Joel tried to save the situation by explaining that one of his wellingtons had vanished. But that only made Miss Nederström even more annoyed.
‘Go and sit down, Joel Gustafson,’ she said. ‘If you carry on arriving late like this, I’ll have to have a word with your father.’
She’s forgotten about the Miracle, Joel thought. If I’d said I was late because of the Miracle, she wouldn’t have been angry, I’m sure.
The day had begun badly, but things were going to get worse. Joel had forgotten all about the geography homework they’d been set. That was his best subject, and the one he found most fun. He was top of the class in geography. Nobody knew as much about foreign countries and oceans as he did. But today’s lesson wasn’t about foreign countries: it was about Sweden. Joel didn’t know all that much about Sweden. He ought to have read up on what was set, and consulted his atlas. But he’d forgotten. He tried to look confident, as if he knew the answer to all Miss Nederström’s questions. He nodded when one of his classmates answered a question correctly. He hoped she would think that he knew all the answers, as usual. But then she surprised him with a question directed at him. Just as if she had been a hawk, and he had been a dove.
‘I didn’t hear the question,’ said Joel. He had heard, in fact. What is the town of Örebro famous for? He didn’t know. He needed to think about it.
Miss Nederström repeated the question.
His classmates eyed him in anticipation. Joel could feel Otto smirking behind his back.
He thought as hard as he could. Örebro? He couldn’t even remember where the place was. Örebro, Örebro...
He suddenly remembered one of the pictures in one of the eight packs of pastilles he’d bought. Wasn’t one of the wrestlers from Örebro?
‘Well,’ said Miss Nederström. ‘Are you going to answer or not?’
‘Örebro has one of Sweden’s foremost wrestling clubs,’ said Joel.
The class exploded with laughter. Miss Nederström turned white in the face with anger.
‘You are insubordinate, Joel Gustafson,’ she said. ‘Of course you know that Örebro is famous for its shoe-making industry. You ought to have thought about that this morning when your shoelace snapped. But you don’t want to answer the question. You just want to annoy me, Joel Gustafson.’
‘I didn’t mean that at all,’ said Joel.
Miss Nederström had marched up to his desk, She grabbed hold of his ear and twisted it. Her fingers were like talons. She twisted so hard that he had tears in his eyes.
‘Let that be a lesson to you,’ she said, going back to her desk.
Joel was staring hard at his desk lid. There was nothing so unpleasant as having your ear twisted. It was worse than dreaming that you’d been burnt alive. Joel was furious. But he was ashamed as well. And it hurt.
And Otto sat there behind him, smirking. Joel would never be able to lift his gaze from the lid of his desk. He would sit staring at the lid of his desk until he grew old and fell onto the floor and died.
That’s how it felt. Deep down Joel knew that it would pass, and he would forget about it. Everything passed eventually. But just now, that’s not how it felt. Just now he felt petrified. Like the petrified prince in a fairy story, who would have to sit there staring at his desk lid for a thousand years...