“There,” Torsten pointed.
The restaurant was right on the edge of the village. It was an old car workshop that had been converted. The building looked like a whitish rectangular cardboard box; the dirty white plaster had come off in several places. Two big garage doors on the longer side of the box looked out over the road. The doors had been fitted with oblong windows to let the light in. On one end there was a normal sized door and a window with bars. On each side of the door stood a plastic urn filled with fiery yellow marigolds. The door and window frames were painted with flaking brown plastic paint. At the other end, the back of the restaurant, some pale red snowplows stood in the tall dry autumn grass.
Three chickens flapped their wings and disappeared around the corner when Rebecka drove into the gravel yard. A dusty neon sign that said “LAST STOP DINER” was leaning against the longer side of the building facing the river. A collapsible wooden sign next to the door proclaimed “BAR open.” Three other cars were parked in the yard.
On the other side of the road stood five chalets. Rebecka presumed they were the rooms available for renting.
She switched off the engine. At that moment the moped they’d passed earlier arrived and parked by the wall of the building. A very big lad was sitting on the saddle. He stayed there for a while, looking as if he couldn’t decide whether to get off or not. He peered at Rebecka and Torsten in the strange car from under his helmet and swayed backwards and forward toward the handlebars a few times. His powerful jaw was moving from side to side. Finally he got off the moped and went over to the door. He leaned forward slightly as he walked. Eyes down, arms bent at a ninety degree angle.
“The master chef has arrived for work,” joked Torsten.
Rebecka forced out a “hm,” the sound junior associates make when they don’t want to laugh at rude jokes, but don’t want to remain totally silent and risk offending a partner or a client.
The big lad was standing at the door.
Not unlike a great big bear in a green jacket, thought Rebecka.
He turned around and went back to the moped. He unbuttoned his green jacket, placed it carefully on the moped and folded it up. Then he undid his helmet and placed it in the middle of the folded jacket, as carefully as if it were made of delicate glass. He even took a step backwards to check, went forward again and moved the helmet a millimeter. Head still bent, held slightly on one side. He glanced toward Rebecka and Torsten and rubbed his big chin. Rebecka guessed he was just under twenty. But with the mind of a boy, obviously.
“What’s he doing?” whispered Torsten.
Rebecka shook her head.
“I’ll go in and ask if they’ve started serving dinner,” she said.
She climbed out of the car. From the open window, covered with a green mosquito net, came the sound of some sports program on TV, low voices and the clatter of dishes. From the river she could hear the sound of an outboard motor. There was a smell of frying food. It had got cooler. The afternoon chill was passing like a hand over the moss and the blueberry bushes.
It’s like home, thought Rebecka, looking into the forest on the other side of the track. A pillared hall, the slender pine trees rising from the poor sandy soil, the rays of the sun reaching far into the forest between the copper colored trunks above the low growing shrubs and moss covered stones.
Suddenly she could see herself. A little girl in a knitted synthetic sweater that made her hair crackle with static when she pulled it over her head. Corduroy jeans that had been made longer by adding an edging around the bottom of the legs. She’s coming out of the forest. In her hand she has a china mug full of the blueberries she’s picked. She’s on her way to the summer barn. Her grandmother is sitting inside. A smoky little fire is burning on the cement floor to keep the mosquitoes away. It’s just right, if you put too much grass on it the cows start to cough. Grandmother is milking Mansikka, the cow’s tail clamped to Mansikka’s flank with her forehead. The milk spurts into the pail. The chains clank as the cows stoop down for more hay.
“So, Pikku-piika,” says Grandmother as her hands squeeze the udders rhythmically. “Where have you been all day?”
“In the forest,” answers little Rebecka.
She pushes a few blueberries into her grandmother’s mouth. It’s only now she realizes how hungry she is.
Torsten knocked on the car window.
I want to stay here, thought Rebecka, and was surprised by how strongly she felt.
The tussocks in the forest looked like cushions. Covered with shiny dark green lingon with its thick leaves, and the fresh green of the blueberry leaves just starting to turn red.
Come and lie down, whispered the forest. Lay down your head and watch the wind swaying the tops of the trees to and fro.
There was another knock on the car window. She nodded a greeting to the big lad. He stayed out on the steps when she went in.
The two garages that made up the old workshop had been converted into an eating area and a bar. There were six pine tables, stained with a dark color and varnished, arranged along the walls, each with room for seven people if somebody sat at the corner. The plastic flooring of coral red imitation marble was matched by the pink fabric wall covering; a painted design ran right around the room and even continued straight across the swing doors leading into the kitchen. Someone had wound plastic greenery around the water pipes, also painted pink, in an attempt to cheer the place up. Behind the dark-stained bar on the left of the room stood a man in a blue apron, drying glasses and putting them on a shelf where they jostled for space with the drinks on offer. He said hello to Rebecka as she came in. He had a dark brown, neatly clipped beard and an earring in his right ear. The sleeves of his black T-shirt were pushed up his muscular arms. Three men were sitting at one of the tables with a basket of bread in front of them, waiting for their meal. The cutlery wrapped in wine-red paper serviettes. Their eyes firmly fixed on the football on TV. Fists in the bread basket. Work caps in a pile on one of the empty chairs. They were dressed in soft, faded flannel shirts worn over T-shirts with adverts printed on them, the necks well worn. One of them was wearing blue overalls with braces and some kind of company logo. The other two had unfastened their overalls so that the upper half trailed on the floor behind them.
A middle-aged woman on her own was dunking her bread in a bowl of soup. She gave Rebecka a quick smile then stuffed the piece of bread into her mouth quickly, before it fell apart. A black Labrador with the white stripes of age on his muzzle was sleeping at her feet. Over the chair beside her was an indescribably scruffy Barbie-pink padded coat. Her hair was cut very short in a style which could most charitably be described as practical.
“Anything I can help you with?” asked the earring behind the counter.
Rebecka turned toward him and had just about managed to say yes when the swing door from the kitchen flew open and a woman in her twenties hurtled out with three plates. Her long hair was dyed in stripes-blond, an unnatural pink and black. She had an eyebrow piercing and two sparkling stones in her nose.
What a pretty girl, thought Rebecka.
“Yes?” said the girl to Rebecka, a challenge in her voice.
She didn’t wait for an answer, but put the plates down in front of the three men. Rebecka had been about to ask if they served food, but she could see that they did.
“It says ‘rooms’ on the sign,” she heard herself asking instead, “how much are they?”
The earring looked at her in confusion.