Stallo by Stefan Spjut Read Free Book Online Page B

Normally he always trusted her.
‘But he’s too scared,’ said Edit. ‘Afraid of conflict, as they saythese days. He doesn’t dare go against Carina, and she will absolutely not hear a word about … these things.’
Edit had phoned her sister, but had detected a sneering hostility. Talking about mythical beings and supernatural happenings was all right, it could even be amusing, but only as long as they were joking. When it was serious, the mood changed.
Edit sighed.
‘So in the end I kept my mouth shut,’ she said.
‘So you haven’t told anyone else?’ she asked.
‘Oh yes,’ she replied. ‘I phoned the Kuriren , of course.’
‘You’re joking?’ said Susso, smiling.
Edit shook her head.
‘They thought it was an amazing story and said they might send a reporter.’
‘They said that?’ said Susso, wiping her nose and still smiling. ‘They said they would send someone?’
‘Yes,’ said Edit, and looked out of the window. It was completely black out there now. All that could be seen in the glass was the reflection of the candles and the white oval of Edit’s face. ‘But nobody came.’
And then she added:
‘It’s too far to come for something like this, I suppose.’
‘Haven’t they got a local reporter in Gällivare?’
Edit was not listening. She pushed her bowl aside and looked at her fingers before continuing.
‘Hockey they can write about, and basketball, day after day. But the kind of thing Mattias and I experienced, something downright unbelievable? They won’t touch it.’
They sat in silence for a moment.
‘Was it a troll?’ Edit asked.
Susso looked up and met Edit’s clear eyes. They were asking her for something.
She sank down heavily, rested her elbows on the table and started picking at the cuticle of one thumb with the tip of the other.
‘I presume you’ve asked the other neighbours?’
Edit nodded.
‘I’ve gone to Randi and Björkholmen to ask, but it …’
Edit shook her head.
‘What?’
‘Same as with the Westmans. People just laugh at me.’
‘Yes,’ said Susso. ‘That’s what usually happens.’
*
Edit’s bathroom was off the hall. The sludge-green wallpaper had begun to come loose and was bulging in places, making the large floral pattern come alive. When Susso carefully pushed the shower curtain to one side there was a soft scraping from the curtain rings. She stared at a row of plastic bottles of various colours neatly lined up on a little shelf.
The toilet was fitted with support rails. So she had not been on her own for very long. Surely no one would hang on to support rails for sentimental reasons?
Susso turned on the tap in the basin and opened the bathroom cabinet slowly so that the hinges would not creak. Inside there was dental floss, cosmetics, creams, nail clippers, toothpaste and a necklace with orange-coloured stones that could have been amber. But no pills. Not even a painkiller.
*
By the time Susso returned Edit had laid out coffee cups on the glass table in the sitting room. Susso took a cup and sat down on the beige leather sofa, which exhaled under her weight.
‘How long have you been alone?’
Edit stood beside the coffee machine. The answer came immediately. It was as if she had been waiting for the question.
‘Two years. At Christmas it will be two years.’
Susso told her she worked occasionally in homecare, so she knew how hard it was, being the one left behind. It was the worst thing.
‘Everyone says so,’ said Susso.
Edit disappeared out of sight, so she called after her:
‘And how would they know!’
Edit came back into the room almost immediately with the coffee thermos in her hand. Susso smiled at her, but Edit did not seem to realise that Susso had been trying to be funny. With a pensive expression she poured coffee into the cups, which were decorated with small frosted sprigs of flowers.
‘No,’ she said. ‘There’s a lot that can’t be proved.’
Susso agreed: there were philosophers who said that nothing at all could be