Everything didn’t work out fine at all, she thought now.
“So are you off back to Stockholm now?” she asked.
“No, I’ve taken a bit of time off.”
“Your grandmother had a house in Kurravaara, is that where you’re staying?”
“No, I… no. Here in the village. The pub’s got a couple of chalets.”
“So you haven’t been to Kurravaara?”
“No.”
Anna-Maria looked searchingly at Rebecka.
“If you want some company we could go up there together,” she said.
Rebecka thanked her, but said no. It was just that she hadn’t had time yet, she explained. They said good-bye. Before they parted Anna-Maria said:
“You saved those children.”
Rebecka nodded.
That’s no consolation, she thought.
“What happened to them?” she asked. “I reported suspected abuse to social services.”
“I don’t think anything came of that investigation,” said Anna-Maria. “Then the whole family moved away.”
Rebecka thought about the girls. Sara and Lova. She cleared her throat and tried to think about something else.
“That sort of thing’s so expensive for the community, you see,” said Anna-Maria. “The investigations cost money. Having the children looked after costs a whole heap of money. Putting the case through the county court costs money. From the child’s point of view it would be better if the whole apparatus was run by the state. But at the moment the best solution for the community is if the problem just goes away. Bloody hell, I’ve taken kids out of a fifty-two-square-meter war zone. Then you hear that the community’s bought the family a tenancy in Örkelljunga.”
She stopped. Noticed that she’d started babbling just because Rebecka Martinsson seemed to be so close to the edge.
As Rebecka walked on down toward the village bar, Anna-Maria gazed after her. She was seized by a sudden longing for her children. Robert was at home with Gustav. She wanted to press her nose against Gustav’s soft skin, feel his strong little arms around her neck.
Then she took a deep breath and straightened her back. The sun on the yellow-white autumn grass. The squirrel, still busy up in the trees on the other side of the track. The smile poured back into her. It was never very far away. Time to talk to Erik Nilsson, the priest’s husband. Then she’d go home to her family.
Rebecka Martinsson was walking down toward the bar. Behind her, the forest was talking. Come over here, it said. Come and walk deep inside. I am endless.
She could imagine that walk.
Slender pines of beaten copper. The wind high up in the crown of the trees sounds like rushing water. Firs that look charred and blackened, covered in beard lichen. The sound of her steps: the rustle of dry reindeer lichen and organ-pipe lichen, the crunch of the pinecones eaten by the woodpecker. Sometimes you walk on a soft carpet of needles along an animal track. All you hear then is the sound of thin twigs cracking beneath your feet.
You walk and walk. At first the thoughts in your head are like a tangled skein of wool. The branches scrape against your face or catch in your hair. One by one the threads are drawn from the skein. Get caught in the trees. Fly away with the wind. In the end your head is empty. And you are transported. Through the forest. Over steaming bogs, heavy with scent, where your feet sink between the still frozen tussocks and your body feels sticky. Up a hill. Fresh breeze. The dwarf birch creeping, glowing on the ground. You lie down. And then the snow begins to fall.
She suddenly remembered what it was like when she was a child. That longing to be transported into the endlessness of it all, like a Red Indian. The mountain buzzards soaring above her head. In her dreams she had a rucksack on her back and slept under the open sky. Her grandmother’s dog Jussi was always there. Sometimes she traveled by canoe.
She remembered standing in the forest, pointing. Asking her father: “If I go that way, where will I end up?” And her father’s reply. New poetry, depending on which direction the finger was pointing in, and where they were. “Tjålme.” “Latteluokta.” “Across the river Rauta.” “Through Vistasvagge and over the Dragon’s Back.”
She had to stop. Almost thought she could see them. Hard to remember what her father’s face had actually looked like. It’s because she has seen too many photographs of him. They’ve pushed out her own memories. But she recognizes the shirt. Cotton, but soft as silk from all the washing. White background, black and red lines making a checked pattern. The knife in his belt. The leather dark and shiny. The beautifully patterned bone handle. Herself, no more than seven, she knows that for certain. Blue machine-knitted hat with a pattern of white snowflakes. Sturdy boots. She has a knife in her belt too, a small one. It’s mostly for appearance’s sake. Although she has tried to use it. Wanted to carve something with it. Figures. Like Astrid Lindgren’s Emil in Lönneberga. But it’s too feeble. If she’s going to use the knife she has to borrow Daddy’s. It’s better when she wants to split wood or sharpen kebab sticks, sometimes for carving, although it never quite turns out to be anything.
Rebecka looked down at her high-heeled boots from Lagerson’s. Sorry, she said to the forest. I’m not dressed appropriately these days.
Micke Kiviniemi wiped over the bar counter with a cloth. It was just after four on Tuesday afternoon. Their overnight guest, Rebecka Martinsson, was sitting alone at one of the window tables gazing out toward the river. She was the only female customer, had eaten elk steak with mashed potato and Mimmi’s wild mushrooms, drinking from her glass of red wine from time to time, oblivious to the glances of the village lads.
They were usually the first in. On a Saturday they came in as early as three o’clock to have an early dinner, sink a few beers and kill the empty hours until there was something good on TV. Malte Alajärvi was chatting to Mimmi as usual. He enjoyed that. Later the evening gang would turn up to have a few beers and watch the sport. It was mostly single men who came to Micke’s to eat. But a few couples would turn up as well. And one or two from the women’s group. And the staff from Jukkasjärvi tourist village often took the boat across the river and came in to eat.
“What the hell is this supposed to be?” Malte complained, pointing at the menu. “Gno…”
“Gnocchi,” said Mimmi. “It’s like little pieces of pasta. Gnocchi with tomato and mozzarella. And you can have a piece of grilled meat or chicken with it.”
She positioned herself next to Malte and demonstratively took her notepad out of her apron pocket.
As if she needed it, thought Micke. She could take an order from a party of twelve and keep it in her head. Unbelievable.
He looked at Mimmi. If he had to choose between her and Rebecka Martinsson, Mimmi would win by a mile. Mimmi’s mother Lisa had been a looker when she was young too, the old men in the village had plenty to say about her. And Lisa was still attractive. It was hard to hide, despite the fact that she always went around with no makeup, wore terrible clothes and cut her own hair. In the middle of the night with the sheep shears, as Mimmi said. But while Lisa shut off her beauty as much as she could, Mimmi showed hers off. Apron tight around her hips. The tendrils of stripy hair curling out from underneath the little handkerchief she’d knotted around her head. Low-cut, tight black sweaters. And when she leaned forward to wipe the table, anyone who wanted could get a very pleasant eyeful of her cleavage, her breasts swinging gently, held in place by a lacy bra. Always red, black or lilac. From behind you could get a glimpse of the tattoo of a lizard high up on her right buttock when her low-cut jeans slipped down as she bent forward.