Stallo by Stefan Spjut Read Free Book Online Page A

come from that direction.’
Edit walked off and disappeared behind the Opel, and the second she came into the camera’s field of vision the movement indicator began to flicker.
‘Good!’ shouted Susso. ‘You’ve been detected!’
*
Out of his pockets he pulled a pair of work gloves that had dried into stiff knots. Snow met his face as he walked down the veranda steps. There was a yap from the dog enclosure and a low growling from one of the dogs, but no barking. He hit the chicken wire and the snow fell away, revealing the dogs. Two Swedish Elkhounds, a Finnish Lapphund cross, and the little Laika with her bushy arc of a tail. They all stood up and watched him.
‘Were you up on the roof last night?’ he said, and the dog put her head on one side.
The Volvo lay with its bonnet and windscreen on the ground, and the rear wheels were some way above Seved’s head. He rested a hand on one tyre and rocked the car gently.
One of the wing mirrors was hanging loose, but luckily all the windows were undamaged. If any invisible damage had been done, they wouldn’t know about it, of course. He had asked Ejvor whether the old-timers had picked up the car and thrown it or whether they had only overturned it, but she was unsure. Probably they had only tipped it over. It was doubtful the windows would have stayed intact otherwise.
He crouched down in front of the bonnet. There were no traces of oil as far as he could see, but water had leaked out, smelling strongly of antifreeze.
The front door of the house slammed shut and Ejvor came walking towards him with the hood of her down coat covering her head. The fur circled her small face like a fluffy crown.
‘How the hell did you do it last time?’ he asked.
‘We just tipped it back,’ she answered, making a pushing gesture with her hands. ‘But then it was lying on its right side. And Lennart was with me.’
‘I’ll have to use the tractor.’
‘Shouldn’t you wait until Börje comes home?’
‘It can’t be left like this. What if I fasten a strap between the front and back wheels and hook the chain in the middle? Then I ought to be able to turn it upright with the tractor, don’t you think?’
Ejvor stood silently and tried to work out what he meant.
‘As long as the car doesn’t drag along behind you like a plough.’
‘I’ll have to pull slowly.’
‘I honestly think you should wait. It won’t hurt the car.’
‘What if something happens and we need to get away?’
He threw the question over his shoulder as he strode off to the barn. He knocked the bar across with his fist and opened up both doors. One door always swung shut, so he propped it in place with a pointed stake.
The chain and hook hung on a wall and rattled heavily when he laid them in the tractor’s snow bucket, where patches of snow still lingered. He climbed up into the cab, took the headphones off the steering wheel and put them over his head. They were painfully cold on his ears but would soon warm them up. The engine spluttered a couple of times before it rumbled into life, spewing out exhaust fumes which rose to the roof of the barn.
After bringing out the tractor he jumped down. He pushed the strap’s tapered end in behind the front axle, lifted the chain out of the snow bucket and placed the hook at the centre of the taut strap. He wound the other end of the chain around the arm of the bucket, then climbed up into the cab and put the tractor in reverse.
*
They ate Mekong soup that Edit had cooked from a packet. The taste eluded Susso, whose nose was streaming, but it was scalding hot and she liked that. It almost burned her palate. It was no more than thirteen or fourteen degrees in the house. She ate with her face over the bowl, strands of her hair hanging loose. Her skull felt worryingly heavy.
The old woman talked slowly but almost uninterruptedly. Carrying an experience like that had been unbearable, she explained. She had tried talking to her son but he did not know what to believe.