After that, one of the men kicked up a fuss and said they weren’t being paid enough to risk their necks. The foreman said Stefan hadn’t secured his harness properly and the man who had complained was sacked. Nobody else said a word. They couldn’t afford to. The next day at break, there was a distance between Nils and Vikram and the rest of the workers. No more coral tea was passed around, only darting looks of fear. Vikram told himself Nils’s words were simply that: words, but guilt had recomposed his friend’s features and Vikram was contaminated by it. They never mentioned Stefan again.
The following evening, keen to drink and to forget, they shared a bottle of raqua and talked deep into the night. They discussed Drake’s new job on the ice-boat, the girl Nils had decided to stop seeing, possible work gigs, the unpredictable mood of the west. They mused over the things they wanted. Nils’s ambition was to own a bathroom. It was going to be lime green with bronze taps and a walk-in shower. And a spa, Nils said, relishing this prospect as he held in a lungful of cigarette smoke. And a mosaic ceiling, he added, exhaling. With a tiger in it.
“I just want somewhere with heating that works,” said Vikram. He was leaning against one wall of Nils’s room, which like his was little more than a nest of things to keep warm with. Boots kicked off, blankets at his back, his three pairs of socks were steadily thawing. “Think of walking out of the cold into a blaze of warmth. Imagine if you could have a fire.”
“You’d never leave,” said Nils. “How many rooms would you have?”
“Three would be good.”
Nils nodded. “Room for a bed, room for a bath, somewhere to eat. Nice.”
Already, Vikram could see Nils creating such an apartment, furnishing it with objects and colours. Vikram wished he had his friend’s certainty, the power to envisage the exact thing that he desired. But when he tried to imagine his own version, all he saw was the shadowy forms of unused furniture: a bed never slept in, cupboards with empty shelves. He changed the subject.
“Do you remember the time Keli went over the border with a fake pass?”
Nils roared with laughter, his blue eyes almost disappearing into their crinkles.
“Said she’d been in a shuttle line.”
A deck of playing cards littered the space between them. Vikram gathered them together. “I don’t believe her, do you?”
“Not a chance.”
“Bet she tried to talk her way through, though.”
“Well, that’s Keli for you. Never gives up beating a dead fish.”
They always talked about her like this, as if she was still alive. It was respectful. Vikram passed the pack of cards from hand to hand. Something occurred to him.
“What do they do with their dead in the City?”
“I think they have special bags. Pump them full of air so they float, and send them out to sea and then they burn.”
“I heard there’s a tower where they burn them. It’s called a crematorium.”
Nils looked dubious. “How can they join the ghosts if they burn under a roof?”
“Maybe they don’t become ghosts. Maybe it’s just people from our side.”
They both fell silent. Vikram thought of Stefan, and wondered if he had been given the burial rites, or if he had been sent to a crematorium, or if they’d found his body at all. He glanced at his friend and saw the shadow of guilt there, and felt guilty himself for leading Nils into this macabre contemplation. He tried to think of a way to change the subject. But it was too late. The larger shadow was already in the room. Eirik. Eirik’s body. What the skadi had done with it. What they hadn’t done with it.
When Nils spoke, his voice was quiet. “I saw you and Drake. We agreed we wouldn’t act.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“But when I saw you, I thought maybe you were right. We had to do something.”
“No, we didn’t. It was stupid.”
“It was too late for me then. I was too far back.”
“Good, or you’d be dead like me and Drake nearly were.”
“Then the gas got me.”
Vikram thought once more of the invitation. Perhaps if he went to the party, Adelaide Mystik would agree to help, and neither he nor Nils would have to rely on weak harnesses, and the skadi would stop using gas, and Nils could get his lime green bathroom.
The raqua must really be taking effect.
Hammering on the partition next door jerked them both awake. No one replied. More hammering. There was a brief quiet, then the sound of repeated blows as a door was kicked in. A woman screamed.
Vikram and Nils were on their feet, both tensed, each of them with a hand to their knives. Nils put his finger to his lips. Through the thin walls they heard a man shouting and the woman pleading.
“Who lives there?” Vikram’s question was soundless.
“Still Ari,” Nils mouthed back. “She’s got that kid. Her man walked out weeks ago. He was bad news.”
They heard the child crying, Ari trying to comfort it, then yelling at the intruder. The yells ceased abruptly.
They ran out into the corridor. Other people were gathered there, shapeless figures in the gloom. Eyes peered from behind doors pushed ajar. The door next to Nils’s had been kicked closed. Vikram glanced at his friend. From inside he recognised the bangs and crashes of systematic destruction. He stepped towards the door.
“Don’t-” said someone.
“What?”
“It’s one of Juraj’s men. We don’t want trouble round here.”
“I don’t care who it is,” said Nils. “That’s my fucking neighbour.”
Vikram shouldered the door. It collapsed immediately, swinging open on one hinge. Inside, the intruder had Ari by the hair. The child cringed against the boarded window-wall.
The intruder barely glanced at Vikram.
“Get out.”
“Leave her alone.”
“She owes Juraj. This isn’t your business.”
“The man who used to live here owes Juraj.” Nils spoke from behind Vikram. “He cleared out six weeks ago. She doesn’t have what you want.”
“Makes no difference to Juraj,” said the man. The knuckles were white where he gripped the woman’s hair. His face was obscured by greasy tangles. Vikram couldn’t read the man’s eyes but he saw the outline of a knife at his belt.
“I heard Juraj was dead,” he said evenly. The man stiffened.
“I guess you heard wrong.”
Vikram’s hand went to his own hip.
“Look, there’s no need for this to get ugly.”
The man did turn now, assessing Vikram, seeing Nils poised behind him. He gave the woman a last shove against the wall and walked out, kicking the broken door viciously behind him.
Vikram looked around. The room was in chaos. The child watched him with mute, swollen eyes from behind a thick dark fringe. Tear trails had made streaks in a dirty face.
Nils was helping Ari to her feet. A trickle of blood ran down her neck where her head had hit the wall.
“You’re hurt,” said Nils.
Ari pressed her fingers gingerly to the back of her head, and then her face. A bruise was coming up on her temple. “I’ve had worse,” she said.
Vikram set a table upright. “We’ll give you a hand with this.”
“I’m alright. Really.” As they lingered, unsure, she added, “I just want to sort this out. Please, leave me be.”
On the way out Nils pulled the door back into its frame. There were low mutterings from the spectators.
“Think you should stay at mine for a few days?” Vikram asked.
“What’s the point? If anyone bothers coming back, it’ll take them all of two seconds to find out where you live.”
