Joel nodded. He really did need to go out. Not least in order to get something to eat.
When he came out into the street he could feel the heat. People were dressed for summer. Many of them looked cheerful.
They haven’t got a father who’s ill, Joel thought glumly. And they don’t have a mother who ran away either.
He went to the café where they’d eaten the previous day. Joel was pleased to see that one of the waitresses recognised him and gave him a smile. He sat down at the same table as last time. First in Samuel’s seat. Then he moved to the other side.
‘Where’s your friend?’ asked the waitress as she placed a menu on the table. It occurred to Joel that she looked like the woman in the picture. The one with a lump of chewing gum stuck to her bottom.
‘He’s my dad,’ he said. ‘He’s eaten already.’
‘Mashed turnips with pork,’ said the waitress. ‘Or herring.’
‘Herring, please. And a glass of milk.’
The waitress wiped down the table and left. Joel watched her go, to make sure there was no chewing gum stuck to her black skirt.
Then he wondered why he could never bring himself to tell the truth. That Samuel had stomach pains and was at the hospital. Why had he claimed that his dad had already eaten?
He couldn’t think of a suitable answer.
His head was completely empty.
When he’d finished eating and left the café, he didn’t know what to do. He ought to go back to the hotel and ask if Samuel had phoned. But something told him it was too soon yet.
He started walking down the street. The night in the old people’s home, the woman in the green coat, the man who had discovered him, it all felt as if it had never happened.
We should never have come to Stockholm, he thought. If that confounded Elinor hadn’t written that letter, Jenny would still have been missing. Which would have been just as well.
We should never have come here. Samuel would never have had stomach pains if we’d stayed at home. Maybe all that shaking on the train ruined his stomach?
A shop window attracted his attention. There was a large map of the world hanging in it. He pressed his nose against the glass and tried to find Pitcairn Island. He found it eventually. A tiny little dot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
He stood for ages gazing at the map. Thinking about the MS Karmas being unloaded. Perhaps it had already left the dock and was heading out to sea again? Once again he could picture himself and Samuel walking up the gangway.
He dragged himself away from the shop window. It was half past one now. He’d go back to the hotel in an hour’s time. Samuel might have returned by then? Or telephoned, at least?
He came to a square with stalls selling fruit and vegetables. He hesitated for a moment, then bought an apple. He sat down on a bench to eat it. There were people everywhere. And all of them were in a hurry. He wondered where they were going to. To help pass the time he tried to count the number of passers-by wearing sandals, but he soon got tired of that. Two girls sat down on the bench. They were about his own age. They were talking loudly about somebody called Knut who had done something silly. One of them looked at Joel, who felt embarrassed.
‘Have you got a fag?’ the girl asked.
Her voice was shrill and she spoke fast. As if it wasn’t just people’s legs that were in a hurry, but their voices as well.
‘I’ve run out,’ said Joel.
‘Why don’t you buy some more, then?’
‘I shall,’ said Joel, standing up.
‘Hurry up, then,’ screeched the girl. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Rickard,’ said Joel.
Then he walked away. And didn’t go back.
He tried to walk as fast as everybody else was doing, and to barge his way forward.
But he didn’t know how to do it. No matter what he did, somebody always got in front of him. Beat him to the next paving stone, the next street corner, the next shop window. He was always last.
I’ve had enough of this, he thought. When Samuel gets back from the hospital we’re either going to go back home, or to the Seamen’s Employment Exchange.
The hour was up at last. Joel went to the hotel reception and looked expectantly at the bald man, who shook his head ruefully. Samuel hadn’t rung.
‘It always takes time at hospital,’ he said. ‘You have to be patient.’
Joel decided to walk up the stairs, and did so slowly. It was like climbing up an incredibly high mountain. Every step needed all his strength. When he came to the room, the door was locked. The chambermaid had obviously left the key at reception. But why hadn’t the bald man said anything?
Joel hurtled down the stairs. Just as he reached the desk, the man behind it remembered.
‘You forgot the key,’ he said.
Who forgot it? Joel wondered. You or me?
He trudged up the stairs again. To make it easier he imagined that he was really clambering up some steep cliffs.
He unlocked the door. Remembered what had happened during the night. Pictured Samuel sitting on the bed, clutching his stomach.
He lay down on his bed and stared up at the ceiling.
Then he checked to see if the chambermaid had removed the chewing gum.
She hadn’t.
Then he pulled down the blind.
Stood in front of the mirror and thought he looked like the very devil.
Back to his bed again. Now the girl with the shrill voice was sitting on the edge of the bed. Wondering if he had any fags.
He tried to imitate her voice.
Then she lay down next to him. For the first time since he’d woken up, several minutes passed without him thinking about Samuel.
There was a knock on the door.
Joel leapt out of bed.
Samuel, he thought.
But when he opened the door, it was the chambermaid.
‘You’re wanted on the telephone,’ she said.
Joel flew downstairs. But he had no control over the propellers or the wings, and just as he was about to land in reception he tripped over the edge of a carpet and flew headlong over the floor. He knocked over a pile of suitcases belonging to a newly arrived traveller. The bald man burst out laughing and pointed to a little booth with a telephone. Joel closed the door behind him, took a deep breath and picked up the receiver.
‘Joel here,’ he said. ‘Where are you? How are you? When are you coming? I’m here at the hotel, waiting for you.’
There was no answer. All he heard was a little click. The line went dead. He shouted in vain at the receiver. But Samuel wasn’t there. Nobody was there. He replaced the receiver and went back to the desk.
‘There was nobody there,’ he said.
‘Really?’
‘What did he say?’
‘Who?’
‘Samuel. My father.’
‘It was a woman asking for you. Presumably a nurse.’
‘But why was I cut off?’
‘It happens. No doubt they’ll ring again.’
Joel sat down to wait. After half an hour he gave up and went back up the stairs.
They weren’t a mountain any longer.
They were an abyss.
He lay down on the bed to wait. Then he got up, took Samuel’s penknife and scraped the chewing gum off the back of the picture.
‘Don’t say anything,’ he said to the woman in the painting.
Then he hung it up again.
He went down the corridor to the toilet.
When he came back he couldn’t be bothered to lie down again.
He tried to improve the repair to the broken handle on Samuel’s suitcase.
In the end it came off altogether.
Just then there was another knock on the door.
Joel leapt to his feet.
Opened the door.
There was a woman standing outside. Wearing a blue jacket.
But Joel recognised her immediately.
Despite the fact that the night before, she had been wearing a green coat when she emerged from the front door of Östgötagatan 32.