When the Snow Fell by Henning Mankell Page B

the worst and the most difficult thing. Samuel drifting ashore like a shipwrecked sailor was one thing. But when he started crying, it was like having to deal with a drowning man.
    What Joel wanted to do more than anything else was to start crying himself. But he didn’t, of course. He stood up and walked round the table. Patted Samuel on the head.
    When Samuel cried, it sounded as if he was squeaking. He was trying to say something, but the words jumped out of his mouth in a chaotic jumble. Joel gathered he was trying to explain why Sara wanted to break off the relationship, but he couldn’t understand what his father was saying.
    Afterwards everything was very silent.
    Samuel sat staring at his coffee cup. It occurred to Joel that Sara had now done the same as Mummy Jenny. She’d deserted Samuel.
    “Has she gone away?” Joel asked. “Did she also pack a bag and vanish?”
    “She’s still here,” Samuel said. “Why should she want to leave here? It’s only me she doesn’t want to see anymore.”
    Joel helped Samuel to go to bed. Took off his shoes and pulled a blanket over him. Then he sat in the kitchen and waited until he was sure that Samuel really had fallen asleep. By this time Joel was so tired that he didn’t bother to get undressed either, but just lay down on top of the bed. Pulled the quilt over his head. Listened to Samuel’s snores rumbling in through the wall.
    When Joel woke up next morning he jumped out of bed and went to check if Samuel was still there. To make sure his father hadn’t woken up and sneaked out to find something else to drink. But to Joel’s surprise Samuel was sitting at the kitchen table. He was eating breakfast and had already made up his lunch box.
    He looked guiltily at Joel.
    “That wasn’t good, what happened yesterday,” he said. “But it won’t happen again.”
    Joel knew that might be true, but there again, it might not. Samuel had said the same thing so many times before.
    “What’s happened?” Joel asked.
    “It’s all over between Sara and me,” said Samuel. “It came as a complete surprise.”
    Joel didn’t ask any more. He could see that Samuel would start crying again if he did.
    “You’d better get a move on or you’ll be late for school,” Samuel said, getting to his feet.
    Joel watched him trudging off towards the forest, shoulders hunched.
    Joel had no intention of going to school. He didn’t have the strength.
    It was all this business with Sara. What had really happened? One day everything seemed to be fine. The next day Samuel came rolling home with his eyes red from all the firewater.
    Joel made up his mind on the spot. He must find out the truth. He got dressed and left the house. There was always a risk that somebody would catch him. Realize that he was playing truant. But he would have to do what he’d made up his mind to do. It was too early for Sara to be at work in Ludde’s bar. She would still be at home.
    When he knocked on the door of Sara’s flat, she answered the door almost immediately. She was in her dressing gown and had rollers in her hair.
    She smiled in surprise when she saw Joel.
    That made him angry. Samuel had sat at the kitchen table, crying. Sara stood there smiling. That wasn’t fair.
    “Joel!” she said. “This is a surprise. Aren’t you at school?”
    She let him in. Joel purposely didn’t wipe his feet andhoped he would bring in lots of dirt to make a mess of the floor.
    He realized now just how much he disliked Sara. He could remember what it had been like right at the beginning, when Sara and Samuel first started seeing each other. That feeling came back now. What he wanted to do more than anything else was to hit her.
    They went to her kitchen.
    “I assume you’ve come to ask what happened,” she said.
    At last she was looking serious.
    Joel nodded, but he didn’t say anything.
    “I like your dad very much,” she said. “But we don’t really suit each other.”
    “It’s you who don’t suit