bed.’
Her dad looks at her. Nods, before asking: ‘How’s your mum?’ and his voice has a dutiful tone that instinctively annoys Tove.
‘Fine,’ she says curtly.
‘And Grandad?’
‘He’s fine as well.’
The letter in one hand.
She feels her hands shaking as she tries to open the envelope without damaging the contents.
The school’s logo on the outside.
The dream.
Something better that the damn Folkunga School. Far away from all her problems.
From Mum.
God, she feels ashamed of thinking like that.
She drops the envelope. Picks it up again and manages to open it neatly.
A single sheet of paper.
Extra thick. That can only mean one thing, can’t it? She takes the letter over to the bed, turns the lamp on, and unfolds it. Then she reads, and smiles, and feels like jumping up and leaping in the air and shouting, but then she feels her stomach clench, Mum, Mum, how am I going to tell Mum about this?
Malin has undressed and got into bed, under the cheap duvet cover.
She feels the soft, familiar, lonely mattress under her body.
Tries to summon an image of her mum from inside, but it doesn’t work, her mum’s face won’t assume real features, only an outline.
Why can’t I see you, Mum? Why don’t I feel any grief? Have I suppressed it?
I don’t think I have. You abandoned me once, didn’t you, and the sorrow I ought to be feeling now hit me then, is that it? Maybe that’s the sorrow I’ve felt throughout my life?
Is there ever a valid reason for letting your child down? Abandoning it? Abusing the only unquestionable loving relationship? Turning against it with cruelty? Exploiting it?
No.
If you do that, you deserve to die. That makes you guilty of betrayal.
The secret is Dad’s now, but I know that something’s going to snap.
Malin rolls onto her side.
Tries to get to sleep, worries that sleep might be a long time coming, but it comes to her at once.
In her dreams she sees Maria Murvall.
She sees a little boy lying in a bed in another hospital room, and the boy has no face, but he has a gaping black mouth, and out of the mouth come words in a language Malin can’t understand, and she doesn’t even know if it’s a human language.
Then the girls from the square are with her in the dream.
They’re drifting, white and beautiful, above their mother’s sickbed.
A life-support machine bleeping in the dream.
Bleeping that there’s still life, there’s still hope. The girls drift onwards, upwards, out across the forest, and on towards a quiet, dark stretch of coast.
Then the girls scream. They turn their faces to Malin and scream straight out in terror. Other children’s voices join in, and soon Malin’s sleep is one single scream.
‘Let us out,’ the scream goes.
‘Let us out. Let us out!’
11
Sven Sjöman couldn’t sleep, the bedroom was too warm, so he got up and made his way down through the dark house, over the creaking stained floorboards, down to the kitchen, where he made himself a cheese sandwich with his wife’s homemade bread.
Then he did what he’s done thousands of times before.
He went down to the cellar of the villa, to his carpentry room, whose walls had been insulated with old eggboxes. He ate the sandwich standing at the lathe, unable to bring himself to start the machine, let alone pick up any of the pieces of wood he was currently working on.
Now he’s sitting down on the stool looking at his lathe, his tools, and feeling the loneliness of this room, and thinking about all the bowls he’s made, sold to new owners in the handicrafts shop in Trädgårdsgatan.
A bomb has exploded in his city.
Who would ever have dreamed that something like that could happen, but now it has. Two girls are dead, and while everyone else is rushing about, while the general public is suffering from collective panic, he stands there like an ancient pine tree, unbreakable by any storm.
Malin.
He’s not sure what’s going on with her yet. She seems to be able to keep
Her dad looks at her. Nods, before asking: ‘How’s your mum?’ and his voice has a dutiful tone that instinctively annoys Tove.
‘Fine,’ she says curtly.
‘And Grandad?’
‘He’s fine as well.’
The letter in one hand.
She feels her hands shaking as she tries to open the envelope without damaging the contents.
The school’s logo on the outside.
The dream.
Something better that the damn Folkunga School. Far away from all her problems.
From Mum.
God, she feels ashamed of thinking like that.
She drops the envelope. Picks it up again and manages to open it neatly.
A single sheet of paper.
Extra thick. That can only mean one thing, can’t it? She takes the letter over to the bed, turns the lamp on, and unfolds it. Then she reads, and smiles, and feels like jumping up and leaping in the air and shouting, but then she feels her stomach clench, Mum, Mum, how am I going to tell Mum about this?
Malin has undressed and got into bed, under the cheap duvet cover.
She feels the soft, familiar, lonely mattress under her body.
Tries to summon an image of her mum from inside, but it doesn’t work, her mum’s face won’t assume real features, only an outline.
Why can’t I see you, Mum? Why don’t I feel any grief? Have I suppressed it?
I don’t think I have. You abandoned me once, didn’t you, and the sorrow I ought to be feeling now hit me then, is that it? Maybe that’s the sorrow I’ve felt throughout my life?
Is there ever a valid reason for letting your child down? Abandoning it? Abusing the only unquestionable loving relationship? Turning against it with cruelty? Exploiting it?
No.
If you do that, you deserve to die. That makes you guilty of betrayal.
The secret is Dad’s now, but I know that something’s going to snap.
Malin rolls onto her side.
Tries to get to sleep, worries that sleep might be a long time coming, but it comes to her at once.
In her dreams she sees Maria Murvall.
She sees a little boy lying in a bed in another hospital room, and the boy has no face, but he has a gaping black mouth, and out of the mouth come words in a language Malin can’t understand, and she doesn’t even know if it’s a human language.
Then the girls from the square are with her in the dream.
They’re drifting, white and beautiful, above their mother’s sickbed.
A life-support machine bleeping in the dream.
Bleeping that there’s still life, there’s still hope. The girls drift onwards, upwards, out across the forest, and on towards a quiet, dark stretch of coast.
Then the girls scream. They turn their faces to Malin and scream straight out in terror. Other children’s voices join in, and soon Malin’s sleep is one single scream.
‘Let us out,’ the scream goes.
‘Let us out. Let us out!’
11
Sven Sjöman couldn’t sleep, the bedroom was too warm, so he got up and made his way down through the dark house, over the creaking stained floorboards, down to the kitchen, where he made himself a cheese sandwich with his wife’s homemade bread.
Then he did what he’s done thousands of times before.
He went down to the cellar of the villa, to his carpentry room, whose walls had been insulated with old eggboxes. He ate the sandwich standing at the lathe, unable to bring himself to start the machine, let alone pick up any of the pieces of wood he was currently working on.
Now he’s sitting down on the stool looking at his lathe, his tools, and feeling the loneliness of this room, and thinking about all the bowls he’s made, sold to new owners in the handicrafts shop in Trädgårdsgatan.
A bomb has exploded in his city.
Who would ever have dreamed that something like that could happen, but now it has. Two girls are dead, and while everyone else is rushing about, while the general public is suffering from collective panic, he stands there like an ancient pine tree, unbreakable by any storm.
Malin.
He’s not sure what’s going on with her yet. She seems to be able to keep
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