You’re talking about opening the door, that much I can understand. Opening and letting in.
‘You open, and I’ll let it go.’ This from Elias.
So it’s true. I’ve succeeded. I’ve done it, something is finally being put right.
But what are you waiting for?
‘First,’ he says, ‘you chuck one in, then the others, and last of all the box.’
Malin is racing, hearing voices now, but more like whispers whose meaning is impossible to determine from the sound waves moving through the trees.
Muttering.
Millennia of history and injustice summoned down into this moment.
Is the forest really opening up? Zeke isn’t keeping up with her pace. He’s hanging back, he’s panting, she thinks he’s about to fall. Then she pushes a bit harder, running between the trees, and the snow seems to disappear beneath her feet, proximity to the truth making her drift along.
Elias Murvall takes the first grenade out of the box. He sees Jakob standing by the door of the earth cellar, the smoke from the chimney like a veil behind him, the forest standing to attention, all the trunks goading him on: Do it, do it, do it.
Kill your own brother.
He destroyed your sister.
He isn’t a human being.
But Elias hesitates.
‘For fuck’s sake, Elias,’ Jakob yells. ‘Let’s do it. Chuck them in. Chuck them in! What the fuck are we waiting for?’
Elias, whispering, ‘Yes, what the hell are we waiting for?’
‘Chuck them in. Chuck them in.’ Adam’s voice.
And as Elias pulls the pin from the first grenade Jakob opens the metre-high wooden door to the hole.
You’re opening up, I can see the light. I’m one of you now.
At last.
You’re so kind.
First an apple, because you know I like them. It rolls towards me, green in the soft grey light.
I pick up the apple, it’s cold and green, then two more apples roll across my earthen floor, together with a square box.
So kind.
I pick up another apple, it’s cool and hard with the cold.
You’re here now.
Then the door closes again and the light vanishes. Why?
You said you were going to let me in.
I wonder when the light will return? Where does all the crashing light come from?
Zeke has fallen somewhere behind her.
What can she see up ahead? Her field of vision is like a shaky hand-held camera, the image lurches back and forth and what is it she sees?
Three brothers?
What are they doing?
They’re throwing themselves down in the snow.
And then a bang, and another and another, and a flash of fire shooting out from a bulge in the snow, and she throws herself to the ground, feels the cold force its way into each of her bones.
Weapons from a weapons store.
Hand grenades.
Fuck.
He’s gone now, Elias Murvall thinks. He no longer exists. I didn’t show any weakness.
Elias gets up on all fours, the noise from the explosion ringing in his ears, his whole head full of noise, and he sees Adam and Jakob getting up, and how the door of the hideaway has been blown off, and how the snow that covered its roof has become an impossibly white dust in the air.
Whatever must it look like inside?
Let a firecracker go off in a clenched fist . . .
Stick one up the arse of some fucking cat . . .
Bloodstained snow.
