Stallo by Stefan Spjut Page A

walked into the kitchen and opened the larder door, scanning the shelves, where everything stood tightly packed. ‘It might do you good to sit up there for a while.’
‘Then you’ll have to make your own food.’
‘I thought I’d heat up some beef soup. Do you want beef soup?’
‘Beef soup?’ she said, taking the tin out of his hands and turning it round and round. ‘The use-by date was last century.’
She slipped it into her pocket and said:
‘But the trolls won’t know that.’
*
It was time to set off for home. If Susso did not get the car home in time, there would be hell to pay from Cecilia, although that would probably happen anyway. She had not told her she would be taking the car all the way to Jokkmokk. She stood the cups and saucers in the sink, put in the plug and turned on the hot-water tap.
‘Leave that,’ Edit said, with a wave of her hand.
‘As I already explained,’ Susso said, as she put on her boots and hat, ‘if it gets cold the batteries won’t last very long, so you’ll have to check that. Otherwise the memory card will be full in about three weeks. It all depends. Do you get many animals running about the place?’
Edit shook her head.
Susso walked outside and down the steps, looking for her car key. She turned round.
‘I’ll be in touch,’ she said, and nodded at Edit, who was standing in the darkened hall with her hand on the door handle.
‘Will you write that it was me who saw it? Will you put “Edit Mickelsson”?’
Susso took a deep intake of breath while she considered what Edit meant.
‘Not if you don’t want me to. Absolutely not.’
‘No, I don’t think I do.’
‘I don’t have to write anything at all. Not yet.’
‘Perhaps that’s best. For the time being.’
‘Okay,’ Susso replied, walking towards the car.
‘Are you sure you have to go?’ Edit exclaimed. ‘In the dark, with the spray from the snow and everything? I’ve got an extra bed, if you want to stay the night.’
Susso smiled.
‘Thanks, but I really have to get back. My sister,’ she said, ‘it’s her car. She’ll kill me if she doesn’t get it back. And I’ve probably got to work tomorrow.’
Edit nodded.
And then before she closed the door, she said:
‘Drive carefully.’
*
The light on a nearby mobile-phone mast glittered like a ruby-red star in the night, and way ahead another red dot blinked in and out of the haze. A car with its rear fog light on. Susso adjusted her speed to match, to have something to fix her eyes on. She held both hands on the cold plastic steering wheel. The fan heater roared at full pelt. The tarmac was scraped in dark, uneven streaks, so the snow plough could not be too far ahead of them.
In Porjus she had to stop for a pee. She had drunk far too much coffee at Edit’s. Now her bladder was so full it was making her left leg vibrate. She reduced speed, threw a glance over her shoulder, swung off the road and parked by a viewing point overlooking the power station.
The facility lay far down below in the river valley, a burning fortress that filled the night sky with a dusky blue sheen. The pylons rose up like many-armed giants with straddled legs and handfuls of cables in their fists. The power cables rose in loops up the slope, from giant to giant, running over the tops of the birch trees and hanging over the road. Susso could hear they were making a noise.
They were speaking.
She wondered if it was caused by the snow or if in reality it was the sound of high voltage, of fast-travelling electrons. Did electricity make a sound? She had no idea. She pulled her hands up inside her jacket sleeves and walked closer to listen. They were emitting a humming noise, a secret song. She could not decide if the hissing came from snowflakes landing on the cables. All she heard was the song. Dark and strange.

It got to be four o’clock, then five and then five thirty, and still Ejvor had not returned. Seved thought it was odd. His hunger always meant a lot to her. She ran