Frozen Tracks by Åke Edwardson

nurseries.
    Being there and joining in the fun.
    He dropped the ball and it bounced up as high as
the top drawer in the bureau, then down again, and he
leaned to one side and caught it in one hand. A onehanded
catch!
    When it was so dark outside that he didn't need to draw
the curtains in order to watch the video recording, he
switched on the television.
    Maja said something funny. He could hear himself
laughing on the film. He smiled. He could see the rain
on the car window behind her. The bare trees. The sky,
empty. It looked so miserable out there, on the other
side of the car windows. Grey. Black. Damp. Rotten. A
sky that was grey or black or red like . . . like blood.
No. Nasty. The sky is a nasty hole that's bigger than
anything else, he thought, and he squeezed the ball hard
in his hand. Things fall from the heavens that we are
afraid of, run away from, hide from. The heavens are
empty, but rain comes down from there and we can't
get away from that and so heaven is here on earth, he
thought again. He used to think about that when he
was a child. Uncle had come to him when he'd been
crying. The light had been out, and Uncle had asked
him various things and then gone away. But later, he'd
come back again.
    It had hurt so much. Who had it been? Uncle had
comforted him afterwards.
    Comforted him so often.
    He turned to the television again. It had been warm
and cosy in the car. He'd felt warm as he shot the film.
He could hear the radio as well. Then came the voice,
and a swear word. The child had heard it. Maja. Maja
said that the man on the radio has used a rude word.
    Yes indeed. It was a very rude word.
    What a nice ball you have, Maja. Show it to me.
    Winter was sitting on the floor by the door in the long,
narrow hall with his legs spread out, and he was rolling
the ball to Elsa, who was sitting at the other end of the
corridor. He managed to roll it all the way to her, but
she couldn't roll it all the way back again. He stood up
and settled down again a bit nearer.
    'Ball stupid,' Elsa said.
    'It's easier now,' he said, and rolled it to her again.
    'The ball, the ball!' she shouted as she succeeded in
rolling it all the way to him. 'The ball, Daddy!'
    'Here it comes,' he said, rolling it back to her.
    Elsa was asleep when Angela got home after her evening
shift. A long day on the ward. Morning shift. A short
rest. Evening shift. He heard the lift clattering up to the
landing outside, and opened the door before she had
even reached it.
    'I heard the lift.'
    'So did everybody else for miles.' She took off her
raincoat and put it on a hanger ready for transportation
to the bathroom. 'That lift ought to have been
pensioned off thirty years ago.' She took off her boots.
'It's scandalous that the poor thing has to keep on
working.'
    'But Elsa likes Lofty being here and working for us,'
said Winter.
    Lofty Lift was Elsa's name. Just think, all these years
I've lived here and travelled up and down in this lift
without knowing its name, Winter had thought when
Elsa christened the old contraption. Lofty Lift. Old but
cool: dressed in leather and chains.
    'How did it go today?' asked Angela, heading for the
kitchen.
    'Another incident at the day nursery,' he said,
following her.
    'What this time?'
    'I think it was the same little boy as before who ran
off through the bushes, but this time he got out.'
    'Got out? Where? Who?'
    'August, I think his name is. Do you know who that
is?'
    'Yes, I think so.'
    'There was a hole in the wire fence, and he got out
into the street.'
    'Oh my God.'
    'I managed to catch up with him before anything
happened.'
    'How the hell could there be a hole in the fence?'
    'Rusted away.'
    'Oh my God,' she said again. 'What are we going to
do?'
    'What do you mean?'
    'Where are we going to place Elsa? You don't think
I'm going to leave her there when there's a hole in the
fence leading out on to one of northern Europe's busiest
roads?' She looked at him and raised a hand. 'It sounds
like a hole leading from