Rebecka pulled on her gloves with jerky movements.
“This wasn’t exactly a pleasure trip,” she said.
“I’ll hang the key up in the usual place,” she went on, turning to Sivving.
“Come back in the spring,” said Sivving. “Drive out to the old cottage at Jiekajärvi. Do you remember in the old days, when we used to go up there? Your grandfather and I took the snowmobile. And you and your grandmother and Maj-Lis and the kids skied all the way.”
"I’d like to do that," said Rebecka, and discovered that she was telling the truth.
The cottage, she thought. It was the only place grandmother allowed herself to sit still. Once the berries picked that day had been cleaned. Or the birds that had been shot had been plucked and drawn.
She could see her grandmother now, absorbed in reading a story while Rebecka played cards or a board game with her grandfather. Because the cottage got so damp when nobody was there, the pack of cards had swollen to double its size. The board game was warped and uneven, and it was difficult to balance the pieces on it. But it didn’t matter.
And the feeling of security, falling asleep as the adults sat chatting around the table beside you. Or slipping into dreams to the sound of Grandmother washing up in the red plastic bowl, with the heat radiating from the stove.
“It was good to see you,” said Sivving. “Really good. Wasn’t it, Bella?”
Rebecka gave Sanna and the children a lift home and parked outside the apartment block where Sanna lived. She would have preferred to say a quick good-bye in the car and drive off. Quick good-byes in cars were good. If you were sitting in the car it was difficult to hug. Particularly if you were wearing a seat belt. So you escaped the hugs. And in a car there were other things to talk about, apart from “We must meet up again soon” and “We mustn’t leave it so long next time.” A few words about not forgetting the bag on the backseat and not forgetting the bag in the boot and “Are you sure you’ve got everything now?” Then, once the car door had chopped off the rest of the unspoken sentences, you could wave and put your foot down without an unpleasant taste in your mouth. You didn’t have to stand there like an idiot stamping your feet up and down while your thoughts went round and round like a swarm of midges, trying to find the right words. No, she’d stay in the car. And not undo her seat belt.
But when she stopped the car Sanna jumped out without a word. A second later, Virku followed her. Rebecka felt she had to get out as well. She turned her collar up above her ears, but it gave no protection against the cold, which immediately worked its way under the fabric and fastened itself to her earlobes like two clothes pegs. She looked up at Sanna’s apartment. A little block made of panels of forest green wood, with a red tin roof. The snowplow hadn’t been around for a long time. The few parked cars had left deep tracks in the snow. An old Dodge was hibernating under a snowdrift. She hoped she wouldn’t get stuck on the way out. The building was owned by LKAB, the mining company. But only ordinary people lived here, so LKAB saved money by not using the snowplow as often as they should. If you wanted to get the car out in the mornings, you had to clear the snow yourself.
Sara and Lova were still sitting in the backseat. Their hands and elbows kept meeting in some nonsense rhyme that Sara had mastered to perfection; Lova was making a huge effort to learn it. Every so often she got it wrong, and they both exploded into giggles before starting all over again.
Virku was running around like a mad thing, taking in all the new smells with her little black nose. Circled around two unfamiliar parked cars. Read with interest a haiku that next door’s dog had drawn on the white snowdrift in golden yellow sign language; she seemed flattered. Followed the irritating trail of a mouse that had disappeared under the front steps where she couldn’t follow.
Sanna tipped her head back and sniffed the air.
“It smells like snow,” she said. “It’s going to snow. A lot.”
She turned toward Rebecka.
She’s just so like Viktor, thought Rebecka, catching her breath.
The transparent blue skin, stretched over the high cheekbones. Although Sanna’s cheeks were slightly rounder, like a child’s.
And the way she stands, thought Rebecka. Just like Viktor. Head always slightly crooked, leaning to one side or the other, as if it were a little bit loose.
“Right, well, I’d better get going, then,” said Rebecka, trying to start her good-byes, but Sanna was squatting down and calling to Virku.
“Here, girl! Come here, there’s a good girl!”
Virku came hurtling through the snow like a black glove.
It’s just like a picture from a fairy tale, thought Rebecka. The sweet little black dog, her coat tipped with tiny snow crystals. Sanna, a wood nymph in her knee-length gray sheepskin coat, her sheepskin hat on top of her thick, wavy blond hair.
There was something about Sanna that gave her the ability to relate to animals. They were somehow alike, Sanna and the dog. The little bitch who’d been mistreated and neglected for years. Where had all her troubles gone? They’d simply been washed away and replaced by sheer joy at being able to push her nose into freshly fallen snow, or to bark at a frightened squirrel in a pine tree. And Sanna. She’d only just found her brother hacked to death in the church. And now she was standing in the snow playing with the dog.
I haven’t seen her shed a single tear, thought Rebecka. Nothing touches her. Not sorrow, not people. Presumably not even her own children. But it isn’t actually my problem any longer. I have no debt to pay. I’m leaving now, and I’m never going to think about her or her children or her brother or this pit of a town ever again.
She went over to the car and opened the back door.
“Out you come, girls,” she said to Sara and Lova. “I’ve got a plane to catch.
“Bye, then,” she called after them as they disappeared up the steps to the door of the building.
Lova turned and waved. Sara pretended not to hear.
She pushed aside the forlorn feeling as Sara’s red jacket vanished through the door. A picture from the time when she lived with Sanna and Sara lit up a dark space in her memory. She was sitting with Sara on her lap, reading a story. Her cheek resting against the little girl’s soft hair. Sara pointing at the pictures.
That’s just the way it is, thought Rebecka. I’ll always remember. She’s forgotten.
Suddenly Sanna was standing beside her. The game with Virku had brought warm, pale pink roses to her blue cheeks.
“But you must come up and have something to eat before you go.”
“My plane leaves in half an hour, so…”
Rebecka finished the sentence by shaking her head.
“There’ll be other planes,” pleaded Sanna. “I haven’t even had a chance to thank you for coming up. I don’t know what I’d have done if-”
“That’s okay.” Rebecka smiled. “I really do have to go.”
Her mouth continued to smile and she stretched out her hand to say good-bye.
It was a way of marking the moment, and she knew it as she slid her hand out of her glove. Sanna looked down and refused to take her hand.
Shit, thought Rebecka.
“You and I,” said Sanna without raising her eyes. “We were like sisters. And now I’ve lost both my brother and my sister.”
She gave a short, mirthless laugh. It sounded more like a sob.
“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the Lord.”
Rebecka steeled herself against a sudden impulse to throw her arms around Sanna and comfort her.
Don’t try this with me, she thought angrily, letting her hand drop. There are certain things you can’t fix. And you definitely can’t do it in three minutes while you’re standing out in the cold saying good-bye.
Her feet were starting to feel cold. Her Stockholm boots were far too flimsy. Her toes had been aching. Now it felt as though they were starting to disappear. She tried to wiggle them a bit.