“You never know,” she’d said, looking everywhere but at Mimmi. “If anything was to happen… I mean, the dogs are in there.”
“Of course,” Mimmi had replied, taking the key. The dogs.
Always those bloody dogs, she’d thought.
Lisa had seen that Mimmi was annoyed and sullen, but it wasn’t her style to pretend she’d noticed something and to try and talk. No, it was time to leave. If it wasn’t a meeting of the women’s group, then it was the animals at home, maybe the rabbit hutches needed cleaning out or one of the dogs had to go to the vet.
Mimmi clambered up onto the oiled wooden worktop next to the refrigerator. If she drew up her legs she could squeeze in next to the fresh herbs growing in tin cans that had been washed out. It was a good place. You could see Jukkasjärvi on the other side of the river. A boat, sometimes. That window hadn’t been there when the place was a workshop. Micke gave it to her as a gift. “I’d like a window just here,” she’d said. And he’d sorted it.
It wasn’t that she was angry with the dogs. Or jealous. Most of the time she called them her brothers. But when she was living in Stockholm, Lisa never once came to visit. Didn’t even ring. “Of course she loves you,” Micke always said. “She’s your mother after all.” He didn’t understand anything.
There must be something genetically wrong with us, she thought. I mean, I’m incapable of loving as well.
If she met a guy who was a total shit, she could fall in love, of course-no, that was far too tame a word, the cheap supermarket version of the feeling she had; she became psychotic, dependent, an abuser. It had happened. There was one time in particular, when she lived in Stockholm. When you tore yourself free of a relationship like that, you left great chunks of flesh behind.
With Micke it was something quite different. She could have a child with him, if she’d actually believed she was capable of loving a child. But he was good, Micke was good.
Outside the window some of the hens were scratching about in the autumn grass. Just as she sank her teeth into her freshly baked bread, she heard the sound of a moped out on the track. It pulled into the yard and stopped.
Nalle, she thought.
He was always turning up at the bar in the mornings. If he woke up before his father and managed to sneak away without being heard. Otherwise the rule was that he was supposed to have breakfast at home.
After a little while he materialized outside the window where she was sitting and knocked on the glass. He was wearing a pair of bright yellow dungarees that had belonged to a telecom engineer once upon a time. The reflector strip down by his feet was almost completely worn away through frequent wearing and washing. On his head he had a blue cap of imitation beaver with big earflaps. His green fleecy jacket was much too short. Stopped at the waist.
He gave her one of his priceless crafty smiles. It split his powerful face, the big jaw shifting to the right, eyes narrowing, eyebrows shooting upward. It was impossible not to smile back, it didn’t matter that she wasn’t going to be able to have her sandwich in peace.
She opened the window. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and fished out three eggs. Looked at her as if he’d performed an amazing trick. He usually went into the henhouse and collected the eggs for her. She took them off him.
“Brilliant! Thanks! So, is it Hungry Harry who’s come to visit us?”
A rumbling laugh emerged from his throat. Like a starter motor that isn’t keen, in slow motion, hmmm-hmmm.
“Or maybe it’s Dennis the Dishwasher?”
He answered with a delighted no, knew she was joking with him, but still shook his head vigorously to be on the safe side. He hadn’t come here to wash up.
“Hungry?” she asked, and Nalle turned on his heel and vanished around the corner.
She jumped down from the worktop, closed the window, took a gulp of coffee and a big bite of her sandwich. By the time she got into the dining room, he was sitting opposite Rebecka Martinsson. He’d hung his jacket over the back of the chair next to him, but kept his cap on. It was a habit of his. Mimmi took off the cap and ruffled his thick, short hair.
“Wouldn’t you rather sit over there instead? Then you can see if any cool cars go past.”
Rebecka Martinsson smiled at Nalle.
“He’s welcome to sit with me,” she said.
Mimmi’s hand reached out and touched Nalle again. Rubbed his back gently.
“Do you want pancakes or yogurt or a sandwich?”
She knew the answer, but it was good for him to talk. And to make his own decisions. She could see the word being shaped in his mouth for a few seconds before it came out. His lower jaw moved first in one direction, then the other. Then, decisively:
“Pancakes.”
Mimmi disappeared into the kitchen. She took fifteen little pancakes out of the freezer and chucked them in the microwave.
Nalle’s father Lars-Gunnar and her mother Lisa were cousins. Nalle’s father was a retired policeman, and had been the leader of the local hunt for almost thirty years. That made him a powerful man. He was physically big too, just like Nalle. A policeman who commanded respect, in his day. And nice too, according to what people said. He still went to funerals when some old petty criminal died. On those occasions it was often only Lars-Gunnar and the priest who were there.
When Lars-Gunnar met Nalle’s mother, he was already over fifty. Mimmi remembered when he brought Eva to see them for the first time.
I can’t have been more than six, she thought.
Lars-Gunnar and Eva sat on the leather sofa in the living room. Lisa dashed in and out of the kitchen with cake and milk and more coffee and heaven knows what. That was the time when she was trying to fit in. Later on she got divorced and gave up baking and cooking altogether. Mimmi can almost imagine how Lisa eats her dinner in the cottage. Standing up, her bottom leaning against the worktop, shoveling down something out of a tin, maybe cold meat soup.
But that time. Lars-Gunnar on the sofa with his arm around Eva’s shoulders, an unusually tender expression for a man in this village, and particularly for him. He was so proud. She was, maybe not pretty, but much younger than him, like Mimmi now, somewhere between twenty and thirty. Mimmi can’t imagine where this social worker, a tourist on holiday, met Lars-Gunnar. But Eva gave up her job in… Norrköping, if Mimmi remembers rightly, got a job with the council and moved into the family home, where he still lived. After a year, Nalle was born. Although at the time he was called Björn. A suitable name for a big bear of a baby, but now everybody called him Nalle-“teddy bear.”
It can’t have been easy, thought Mimmi. Coming from a big town to live in a little village. Hauling the pram back and forth during her maternity leave, only the old dears to chat to. It’s a wonder she didn’t go crazy. Although that’s exactly what she did, of course.
The microwave pinged and Mimmi cut two slices of ice cream and spooned strawberry jam over the pancakes. She poured a big glass of milk and spread butter on three thick slices of coarse bread. Took three hard-boiled eggs out of a pan on the gas stove, put the whole lot on a tray with an apple, and took it out to Nalle.
“And no more pancakes until you’ve eaten the rest,” she said firmly.
When Nalle was three, he got inflammation of the brain. Eva rang the emergency helpline. She was told to wait awhile. And so things turned out the way they did.
And when he was five, Eva left. She left Nalle and Lars-Gunnar, and went back to Norrköping.
Or ran away, thought Mimmi.
There was a lot of talk in the village about how she’d abandoned her child. Some people just can’t cope with taking responsibility, they said. And they asked how she could do it. How could she? Abandon her child.