‘Maybe not,’ said Gertrud. ‘But only maybe. Perhaps we could do it even so?’
It seemed to Joel that when you thought about it, what Gertrud was doing was no more chaotic than things sometimes were back home with Samuel. The only difference was that Gertrud never bothered to tidy up. As far as she was concerned, there was no such thing as untidiness.
All these were thoughts flashing through Joel’s mind as the bells were ringing after he’d pulled the string outside Gertrud’s door.
In just a few seconds, he’d managed to think about what had taken several hours to happen in reality.
That was one of the unanswered questions he’d noted down on the last page of his logbook.
How could you remember things so quickly?
He tugged at the string again.
Perhaps Gertrud wasn’t at home?
Sometimes she went to prayer meetings at her church in the evening. She also used to work her way through the town, knocking on doors and trying to sell a religious magazine. She had told Joel that this was how she earned her living. And he’d heard other people say that Gertrud No-Nose was very poor.
But she’s not poor, Joel thought.
If she didn’t have any money, she would have no trouble in inventing ways of making some.
Eventually he heard her shuffling up to the door in her slippers.
He quickly changed his face so that he looked like somebody who had just experienced a miracle.
The door opened, and there was Gertrud.
Her face was bright blue. As blue as the bluest of summer skies.
‘Joel!’ she exclaimed.
Then she pulled him into the porch and flung her arms around him.
Joel noticed that his face turned blue as well.
That’s torn it, he thought angrily.
There aren’t any blue people who have experienced a miracle. There aren’t any blue people at all, full stop.
Gertrud looked solemnly at him.
‘I’ve heard what happened,’ she said. ‘Thank God things turned out all right.’
She ushered him into the kitchen, where it was very warm. The old wood-burning stove was crackling away.
On the kitchen table was a large dish full of blue paint.
‘What are you doing?’ Joel asked.
‘I’d intended painting that white china tea service,’ said Gertrud. ‘But it was so boring that I decided to paint myself instead.’
Joel took off his hat and unbuttoned his jacket. He could see in the little mirror on the kitchen table that his nose and one cheek were blue.
He looked at Gertrud, at her blue face. Even the handkerchief stuffed into the hole where her nose should be was blue.
He suddenly felt very annoyed by the obvious fact that she was out of her mind.
She ought to have realised that he would come to see her when he had just experienced a miracle.
In which case she could have avoided painting herself blue!
She sat down opposite him and eyed him solemnly.
‘I was so frightened when I heard what had happened,’ she said. ‘I nearly had a heart attack! Just think if you’d been killed, and I never saw you again, Joel.’
Joel felt a lump in his throat. He was forced to bite the inside of his lip to prevent himself from bursting into tears.
He tried to think of something else. Of the rucksack he’d hung from a branch in the forest. That Sunday afternoon, when he’d abandoned the big Geronimo puzzle and gone out into the forest instead, to prove that you could get lost on purpose.
That seemed so long ago! Such an incredibly long time ago!
Gertrud still looked very serious. It struck Joel that it was very odd for a person with a blue face to look so serious.
And especially Gertrud! Mad Gertrud!
‘It must have been a miracle,’ said Joel. ‘What else could it be?’
‘God performs miracles,’ said Gertrud. ‘He performed one for me.’
Joel knew what she meant. Gertrud had once tried to commit suicide. It was just after her operation had gone wrong and she’d lost her nose. She didn’t think she could live without a nose. She would be too ugly to face up to life. She had filled her pockets with old-fashioned heavy irons, and jumped into the freezing cold river. But she hadn’t drowned. She had got stuck in an uprooted tree in such a way that her head was above the water. Nor had she frozen to death. Mr Under, the horse dealer, had been walking along the river bank looking for a horse that had escaped from a paddock. He saw her face and thought it was the horse that had fallen into the water. He ran to fetch a rowing boat, pulled her out, and she survived.
She’d told all that to Joel herself. Not so very long ago. One evening they’d been building an igloo out of white sheets in the middle room, and telling each other True Stories. Joel had told her about Mummy Jenny who’d gone away and left Joel and Samuel on their own. And Gertrud had told him about the time when she threw herself into the river.
That’s good, Joel thought. She knows what a miracle is.
‘What do you do?’ he asked.
‘Do?’
‘When you’ve been on the receiving end of a miracle? Do you have to say thank you?’
Gertrud smiled.
‘You don’t have to say thank you,’ she said. ‘But you can be grateful.’
Joel wasn’t satisfied by that answer.
‘I don’t want the miracle to be reversed,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to be run over by the Ljusdal bus again.’
Gertrud eyed him thoughtfully.
‘Do you believe in God?’ she asked. ‘Like I do?’
Joel shrugged.
‘I don’t know. I suppose I’m the same as Samuel.’
‘What’s he, then?’
‘A lost soul.’
Gertrud burst out laughing. She laughed so much that the blue paint ran down her face and onto her white blouse.
‘Who said that?’ she asked. ‘Who said your dad is a lost soul?’
Joel shrugged again. He always did that when he wasn’t sure what to say.
‘Miss Nederström is always talking about lost souls,’ he mumbled.
Gertrud shook her head.
‘God’s not like that,’ she said. ‘But if you want to show that you are grateful for the miracle, you can do a good deed.’
That was it! Of course! He would do a good deed. Why hadn’t he thought of that himself? He’d read about it in books. People who had been in great danger but survived expressed their gratitude by doing a good deed.
Now he knew.
He nodded to Gertrud.
‘I’ll think of something,’ he said. ‘I shall do a good deed.’
Gertrud suddenly looked sad.
That was probably the hardest thing about Gertrud to cope with, the fact that she was always changing her mood. Joel could also become angry or sad very quickly, but something had to happen to cause his mood change. As usual, it was different with Gertrud. She could be sitting there laughing, and suddenly her laughter could change into tears. Joel simply couldn’t understand how laughter and tears could be inside a person at the same time.
He was never quite sure what to do when Gertrud’s mood changed. It wasn’t possible to talk to her, and he always wondered if he had said or done something wrong. But then it would pass just as quickly as it had happened.
He sat there, trying not to make it obvious that he was looking at her.
A sad, blue face.
Blue Gertrud.
Noseless Blue Gertrud.
He squirmed a little bit on his chair, and thought he ought to go home. Before going to sleep he could think up some good deed or other he could do the very next day.
But he didn’t want to leave until Gertrud looked happy again.
Not tonight.
He tried to think of something that would make her happy.
Should he make her a cup of tea?
No, that wouldn’t be enough.
Did he have a funny story he could tell her? Gertrud liked listening to stories about what he’d been doing. It didn’t matter if he made it up, as long as it was exciting.