The House That Jack Built by Jakob Melander Read Free Book Online

again.
    The stairs creak, the rafters give. Somewhere outside, something is burning.
    Downstairs, there’s movement again. Someone is getting out of bed, getting dressed, walking down the stairs. Mother is shouting and whispering in the same breath.
    â€œBe careful.”
    A little later, she doesn’t know how long, the door opens with a crash. He shouts at her to bring water and cloths. She stumbles out of bed, puts her thin coat over her nightgown, and tiptoes down the stairs in bare feet. Her mother is standing in the hallway of the second floor, her nightgown clinging to her thin frame. Further down, on the ground floor, a kerosene lamp is lit. The flickering light casts dancing shadows over the walls and doors. There are bloodstains on the floor, just inside the front entrance. She hears clattering feet, men huffing. She hurries into the kitchen, fills the large pot with water, and lights the stove. Then she runs into the consulting room, finds the drawer with the folded cloths, and pulls out a large stack. Mother is on the landing, looking down at the ground floor. Then she turns on her heel and goes back to bed.
    The blood trail leads to the cellar door. She follows carefully, so as not to fall down the steep staircase. She walks through the first cellar and over to the secret door.
    Now she hears them. The flickering gleam from the kerosene lamp lights the spaces between the boxes. Her father is hunched over a man in uniform. It’s difficult to see in the dark, but she can see the blood covering his face, and his neck is badly burnt. One arm hangs, strangely limp.
    â€œAn English pilot,” Father says. “He’s got several broken ribs. His arm might be broken too. Talk to him, Laura.”
    She walks over to her father, folds her hands, and swallows. Then she produces her schoolgirl English.
    â€œSir?”
    With her translating, Father is able to make a diagnosis. She runs upstairs to get the water that’s almost boiling. As she tries to balance the large pot down the steep stairs, water splashes onto her hands. Between them, she and Father manage to pull off the man’s uniform jacket and shirt. She cleans his wounds. He’s beautiful, she thinks. Black hair. Grey eyes, full lips. He’s in a lot of pain. But he’ll pull through, Father says. They must be sure not to say anything to Mother. She shakes her head. She is good at separating things. That which Mother can know and that which Mother cannot.
    She grabs some gauze and morphine and some drinking water. She makes a splint for the pilot’s arm from the barrel of a gun, binds it. He groans every time the barrel bangs against his broken ribs. Then she hurries upstairs and washes the blood from the carpet and stairs. She goes outside and walks along the garden path, searching in the darkness for any traces of him. She manages to wipe away the few stains. It’s starting to rain. That should get rid of whatever’s left. In the thicket by the swamp, out by the lake, the airplane is smouldering. A car horn cuts through the night. The Germans are coming.
    â€œYou have to stay down here and watch over him,” Father says when she returns. He washes his hands in the spare water. All that blood on Father’s hands. “I’m going up to the bedroom with your mother. I’ll worry about the Germans when they get here.”
    She nods, darts up to the attic to find her Family Journal . So she’ll get to read after all. She smiles when she returns to the cellar and sees Father walking up the stairs. He closes the secret door behind him.
    Later, she hears knocking upstairs. Heavy blows that make the house groan. She’s absorbed in her magazine; she doesn’t react. Not even to the angry voices that follow shortly after.
    Next to her, the pilot’s wheezing measures the hours until morning.

Monday
June 16

Chapter 9
    T he entire team gathered in Lars’s office for the daily briefing. By