Blackwater by Kerstin Ekman Page A

happened to Dan. He was all alone up there. But the man whose name was Ola dismissed that.
    ‘What the hell would happen to him there?’
    ‘He might have broken his leg?’
    She noticed they thought she was peculiar.
    ‘Living in the Nirsbuan,’ the woman said, snorting through flabby lips like a horse.
    In the end, Annie managed to persuade him to drive them there. They were allowed to leave their belongings in his garage, where they changed into boots. Ola said they had to wear boots as they would be walking over marshy ground.
    ‘Won’t you stay?’ was the last thing his wife said, though not saying where. Hands in the sleeves of her cardigan, she watched them leave from the steps. It was growing chilly out, but was still just as light.
    Ola had told them to walk on ahead. They wouldn’t take the main road that went on into Norway, but a turning off in the middle of the village. He would follow later and pick them up.
    Annie felt great relief as they left the village. They walked uphill almost immediately, but they didn’t have to go far. Ola came in the car when they were just beyond the last houses.
    ‘Why did we have to walk the first bit?’ she asked him.
    He grinned. But she persisted. It wasn’t exactly frightening that he wouldn’t pick them up until no one could see them. His wife knew he was going to take them. But she was ill at ease.
    ‘Well, no need to tell everyone you’re giving Red Guards a lift,’ he said.
    She was so astÖnished by his words that she couldn’t bring herself to ask anything more. It sounded so idiotic. Or old hat. She remembered Elmer Diktonius’ poem about Red Emil, the mother with her hand round the throat of the bastard child. What did he know about the Reds in Finland’s civil war? She didn’t ask any more questions, but she said:
    ‘I think my boyfriend will come and meet us. He’s probably just got delayed.’
    ‘Is he your boyfriend then?’ he said mockingly.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Oh, I thought you didn’t have special ones. I thought it was just anyone.’
    I’ll say nothing more, she thought. Whatever happens.
    All the way was forest, no buildings at all. They came to a clearing where he told her to turn and look down towards the lake. You could see the high mountains in Norway from there, and they were black and blue-shaded, the peaks streaked with snow. There was a turquoise patch in the great lake which seemed to have no connection with the colour of the sky, the water all round a deeper blue.
    The forest took over again and the road rose steeply. Crooked birches with veils of black lichen mixed with the spruces. When the forest opened out she could see a small lake glinting far down below the road, almost black with the reflection of the spruce forest. Only in the middle was there a lighter oval, which again did not reflect the pale-blue colour of the sky. Instead, it was golden like old red gold. Ola stopped on the roadside, saying this was Strömgren’s, an old homestead really. She didn’t know what this meant. Dogs were barking wildly and hurling themselves at a wire-netting fence. She caught a glimpse of someone in a window, but no one came out when they stopped.
    A number of grey timbered buildings lay scattered far apart on the hillside. He showed her the path leading from a woodshed up to a small grey house.
    ‘It goes on down towards the stream, and you have to follow it up to the last barn. Then you’ll come to the path down from the village. There you must turn left. Otherwise you’ll find yourself coming down again.’
    A red car was parked on the roadside, a Renault 4L. It didn’t seem to belong to the holding, because there was an old Opel parked there by the barn wall. So there must be people out there somewhere. That made her feel good. People who had a little red car.
    She had a rucksack with her for their sweaters and the sandwiches Ola’s wife had wrapped up for her. She had already taken out the map in the car. Ola helped her find