Good Night, My Darling

smoking!”

He didn’t know that she had already been smoking for a while, and the sight of his emaciated body on the sheets could not bring her to stop.

Her mother had skin cancer, the same kind that took Tage Danielsson’s life in the early eighties.

They were already old when they had her, just as old as she was now. They could have died of simple old age. Her mother had told her that she thought she was barren, but when she began to throw up her breakfast every morning for a whole week, she realized that she wasn’t.

Berit left the grave with the votive flames barely visible in the January sun. She followed Hasselby Strandvag and walked past the house she had lived in when she was growing up. It hadn’t changed. She wondered who lived there now, but she saw no sign of life and the walk was white from snow that hadn’t been shoveled.

She had gone this way from her house to the school every day when she was little. There were more houses, but nevertheless, time seemed to have stood still here. She didn’t have any contact with her classmates now, and she barely remembered their names.

Lake Malar was smooth, a bit of mist rose slightly above the surface. She longed for ice, longed to put on her skates and skate right out to the horizon, away from everything that surrounded her, everyday life, people, away from her own self. She suddenly noticed that her hands were freezing and she had left her mittens at the grave.

She found herself standing in front of a narrow stone house. An inner picture of the house remained in her head from her childhood.

Justinn forsvinn, Justinn forsvinn.

Get lost, Justine. Get lost and stay lost!

A chorus of high voices, and she was a member of that chorus and her own voice was one of them.

Justine went in, Justine went out, when she went in, she pissed again.

The sound became louder to the point she got dizzy.

A woman was standing by the door. She had short, curly hair, and was wearing pants with a flower motif. Something about her was familiar. Berit waved.

“Justine?” she said doubtfully. “Justine, is that you?”

The woman came down to her. Her eyes were green and her look was straightforward.

“Berit Blomgren! How strange! I was just thinking of you.”

The words echoed inside her.

“You were?”

The woman laughed.

“As a matter of fact, I really was.”

“My last name is Assarson nowadays…”

“Oh of course, you’ve gotten married.”

“Yes.”

“I was just going to get my old kick-sled. These days you can’t use a kick-sled that often, but at least today it looks like winter.”

“We had kick-sleds, too, when we were little. I got a red one, which my pappa painted for me.”

“Mine was just varnished. It’s out in the shed. But why don’t you come in for a minute? You look like you’re freezing.”

“Hmm, maybe I am. I just came from the cemetery. I must have left my mittens there.”

“Would you like some glogg? I have some left over from Christmas.”

“Glogg? Sure, that would be great. Glogg warms you from the inside out.”

The sun flowed over the floor. Berit sipped her glogg and felt warmth return.

“How many years has it been?” said Berit softly,. “since we last saw each other?”

“1969, when we finished grade school.”

“Must have been.”

She thought a minute.

“Jesus, that was over thirty years ago!”

“Yep.”

“You’ve lived here… still here in your parents’ house?”

“Yes, indeed.”

“You’ve been here the whole time?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Are they deceased? I remember seeing something about your father in the paper. There was quite a write-up, I believe.”

“Oh yes, my pappa is dead. Flora is in a nursing home.”

“Flora, yes, that was your mother’s name. I always thought that it was such a pretty name. She was really beautiful, your mother, and she always smelled so good.”

“She wasn’t my real mother.”

“I know.”

She took another sip of the glogg. It was strong and wellspiced.

“My parents are buried over in the graveyard there. They were very old, you probably remember. I didn’t stay here in Hasselby very long. I had to get away from here. I met my husband soon after that. He’s called Tor, by the way; he’s an accountant. Sounds dull, doesn’t it?”

Justine smiled. “Have some more glogg. We might as well finish it up, Christmas is over.”

“Skal.”

“Skal yourself. To our meeting up again.”

“But really… why were you thinking of me today exactly? That sounds so odd. The exact day when I am here in Hasselby, you think of me and then we meet up again, like fate.”

“It really wasn’t fate. You walked here yourself.” “Yes, but… I was just wandering around thinking about the past.”

“Auld lange syne.”

“Maybe so.”

“Do you have any children, Berit?”

“Two. Boys, twenty-one and twenty-two. They’ve moved out now. We’re just by ourselves now, Tor and me. Now we can really be there just for each other. What about you?” Justine shook her head.

Then she stuck her fingers in her mouth and whistled a sharp short whistle. There was swishing behind them, the room shrunk, it squawked and something sharp scraped her skull, caught in her hair.

“My God! What the hell!”

She screamed and leapt to her feet, spilling her mug of glogg all over her pants.

Chapter SEVEN

An animal was lying in the forest. An animal that looked like a dog.

First she saw just his head; around him were leaves and moss. She just saw his head, but she wasn’t afraid, and she went home without being seen.

She found the washtub in the basement, where Flora was keeping clothespins. She dumped them into a corner, filled the washtub with water, and returned.

The animal drank. Some water ran out onto the moss, but the throat moved and it swallowed. She saw that the animal had been without water for quite some time.

Was it a dog? She touched the tangled fur. It wrinkled its nose and showed its yellow teeth.

The animal didn’t have a collar. The body was in the moss and the twigs of the lingonberry bushes were bent and red.