The Shadow Girls (32 page)

‘Who is there?’

The voice called out from a room at the end of the hall. Some light from the streetlamp fell in through a crack in the curtains.

‘See, she’s waiting for you,’ Tanya hissed.

Humlin resisted.

‘I don’t know who she is. I don’t want to see her: I don’t even know what we’re doing here.’

‘She has a veil over her head. You’re the one she’s waiting for.’

‘She can’t be waiting for me; she doesn’t even know who I am.’

‘She knows you. We’ll be waiting downstairs.’

Before Humlin had time to react, Tea-Bag and Tanya had left the apartment. He was about to go after them when he saw a figure in the doorway at the end of the hall.

‘Who is it?’

She had a strong accent, but she still reminded him of Leyla.

‘My name is Jesper Humlin. I’m so sorry to disturb you.’

‘There is no need to apologise.’

‘But it’s two o’clock in the morning.’

‘I sleep during the day. I’ve been expecting to hear from you.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘I said, I’ve been expecting you.’

Fatti turned on a lamp in a corner of the room. A white cloth had been thrown over the lampshade, and the light that came on was very soft. She gestured for him to approach her. Had he misunderstood? Had she really been expecting him? There was a thick rug in the living room. There was nothing on the walls, a few simple chairs, a table without a tablecloth, some gaping shelves with only a few books and newspapers; no trinkets or ornaments of any kind. Fatti sat down across from him. She was wearing a long black dress and a light-blue silk scarf over her
head. Humlin thought he could see the outline of her nose and chin through the thin cloth. The thought of her deformed features made him feel sick.

‘Don’t be afraid. I won’t show you what he did to me.’

‘I’m not afraid. Why do you say you’ve been expecting me?’

‘I knew Leyla would tell you about me sooner or later. And I imagine an author likes to see for himself what he cannot quite believe, or what he has never come across before.’

Humlin was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable. He tried to think of something other than the disfigured face beneath the veil.

‘I’m right, aren’t I? Isn’t that what you are trying to teach Leyla: to be curious? If you think she has what it takes to become a writer, that is. Do you think she does?’

‘I’m not sure I can answer that question.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’s too early to tell.’

Fatti leaned forward. Humlin flinched.

‘Who is going to speak for me? Who is going to tell my story?’

Don’t ask me to do it, he thought. I can’t bear it.

‘Why don’t you do it?’ he suggested carefully.

‘I am no writer. You are.’

It was as if she could see perfectly in spite of the veil.

‘Are you afraid I might ask you to do it?’ she asked.

He didn’t give her an answer, and she didn’t press him for one. She leaned back in her chair without saying anything. Humlin had the feeling she was crying behind the scarf. He held his breath and thought that this moment was something unique, something he would never get to experience again.

Suddenly she stretched out her hand and pressed the play
button on a cassette player next to her. The sound that came from the cassette player was not music, just static. Then he realised it was the sound of the ocean, of waves breaking on the shore, or rather, on a distant reef.

‘This is my only solace,’ Fatti said. ‘The sound of the sea.’

‘I once wrote a poem about a drift net,’ Humlin said hesitantly.

‘What is that?’

‘It’s a particular kind of net used in fishing. I wrote about how I saw one once down in the clear depths. It was a fishing net that had torn away from its anchors and was floating away. The body of a wild duck and a few fish were entangled in it.’

‘What was the theme of the poem?’

‘I think the image of the drifting net seemed like an image of freedom to me.’

‘Freedom is always adrift?’

‘Perhaps. I don’t know.’

They were quiet. The roar of the ocean washed over them.

‘You are afraid,’ she said after a while. ‘You are afraid that I might ask you to write my story. And you are especially afraid because you couldn’t write it without looking at my face.’

‘I am not afraid.’

‘I won’t ask you to, don’t worry.’

She paused and he waited but she didn’t say anything else. After half an hour of silence he said, very carefully,

‘I think I’d best be going now.’

Fatti didn’t answer. Humlin got up and left the apartment. As he shut the door behind him it came to him that the sweet smell in the apartment was cinnamon.

*

Tea-Bag and Tanya were waiting for him down on the street. They looked at him attentively. Tea-Bag leaned forward with frank curiosity.

‘Did you see her face?’

‘No.’

‘I’ve seen it. It looks like someone carved a map into it: islands, crags and waterways.’

‘I don’t want to hear any more. Please call a taxi. Our priority right now is figuring out what to do with you. Where are you going to hide?’

‘I have to hide too,’ Tanya said. ‘And Leyla. We all need hiding.’

They returned to the Chief of Police’s house where Torsten and Leyla were waiting for them.

‘How long can we stay here?’ Humlin asked.

‘Someone may be coming tomorrow morning. We should be gone by then.’

‘That gives us a few more hours, until dawn. Who might be coming?’

‘A cleaning lady.’

‘When does she get here?’

‘Not before nine o’clock.’

‘Then we’ll leave at eight.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘I don’t know.’

Humlin returned to the armchair where he had fallen asleep a few hours before. Tea-Bag and Tanya went upstairs. I have to take care of this, he thought. I don’t know exactly what I have got myself into, nor what my responsibilities are. But I’m caught all the same, like having a foot stuck in the railway tracks when the train is thundering down the line.

He tried to sleep but the image of the woman with the light-blue headscarf wouldn’t leave him. Tea-Bag and Tanya were also in his dreams, rowing a boat over an ocean the same colour as the silk scarf.

*

He woke up at dawn.

He still didn’t have the faintest idea what they were going to do next.

A RUBBISH TRUCK
clattered past outside.

Humlin got up out of the armchair where he had been trying – in vain – to get some sleep. He had forced himself to arrive at a decision. He didn’t know if it was the right thing to do, but at least there seemed to be no better alternative. He went up to the first floor and looked into the room where Tanya and Tea-Bag were sleeping. Tea-Bag had finally removed her coat, Tanya lay curled up with a pillow over her face. Tea-Bag woke with a start when Humlin entered the room. He saw the flash of fear in her eyes.

‘It’s me. It’s time for us to leave.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘I’ll tell you when we’ve assembled downstairs.’

He left the room and knocked on the other bedroom door. Torsten called out something unintelligible in a weak stammer.

‘Come in,’ Leyla’s voice shouted.

They lay with the blanket pulled up to their necks. Torsten looked tiny next to Leyla.

‘Get up and get dressed,’ Humlin said. ‘The girls and I have to go.’

‘I’m coming along too,’ Torsten said.

‘Don’t you have work to go to?’

Torsten started to stutter his reply.

‘He only temps right now,’ Leyla answered. ‘My grandmother already has someone else helping her.’

It was seven o’clock. Humlin walked down the stairs. He already dreaded the phone call he was about to make; there was nothing his mother hated as much as being woken up early in the morning.

He sat down at a desk with a phone. He heard Tea-Bag and Tanya’s voices rising and falling from the upper floor. My family, he thought. All these children Andrea is always pestering me about. He lifted the receiver and dialled the number. His mother picked up after fourteen rings. She sounded as if she were about to die. This is her real voice, Humlin thought bitterly. Not a voice ready to moan for money or a voice ready to commandeer the rest of the world. It is the voice of an old woman who feels the earth calling out to her, trying to claim her.

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s me.’

‘What time is it?’

‘Seven.’

‘Are you trying to kill me?’

‘I have to talk to you.’

‘I’m always asleep at this time, as you know. I had only just managed to get to sleep, in fact. You’ll have to call back tonight.’

‘I can’t. I only need you to stay awake for a few more minutes so you can hear what I have to say.’

‘You never have anything to say.’

‘Today I do. I’m calling from Gothenburg.’

‘Are you still carrying on with those Indian girls?’

‘They’re not Indian. There’s one from Iran, Russia, Nigeria and also a boy named Torsten who stutters and is from Gothenburg.’

‘That sounds like quite a mixed bag. What about the boy – why does he stutter?’

‘I don’t know. When I was younger I used to stutter whenever I was nervous. Or when I talked with someone else who had a stutter.’

‘One can always overcome a stutter. It’s only a matter of willpower.’

‘Tell that to the people who have suffered from it their whole lives. Anyway, I didn’t call you at seven to discuss the issue of stammering.’

‘I’m going back to bed.’

‘Not before you’ve heard me out.’

‘Good night.’

‘If you put that phone down I’m going to cut off all contact with you – I mean it.’

‘Well then, what is it that’s so important, Jesper?’

‘Later on today I’ll be coming by your place with them.’

‘Why would you do that?’

‘They’re going to stay with you, I don’t know for how long exactly. But it’s extremely important that you don’t mention this to anyone. Understood?’

‘Can I go back to bed now?’

‘Sleep well.’

Humlin noticed that his hand was shaking when he put down the phone. But he was convinced his mother had understood the main thing: that she was not to say anything about Humlin making his way to Stockholm with an unorthodox assortment of companions.

*

They arrived in the early afternoon. During the trip he had made them spread out to various parts of the train. When they were
just pulling out of the Södertälje station he asked to borrow one of Tanya’s phones.

‘Whose phone is this?’

‘It works fine.’

‘That’s not what I was asking. Am I still using phones that belong to police officers and prosecutors?’

‘This one belongs to one of the train conductors.’

Humlin was taken aback. Then he locked himself in the toilet and called his mother, who picked up immediately.

‘I’m waiting for you. When will you get here?’

‘We’ve just passed Södertälje.’

‘I thought for a while that I had been dreaming. I take it you are bringing them here because they need a place to hide out?’

‘Yes.’

‘How many are they? Ten, twelve?’

‘Just four.’

‘Are you also staying here?’

‘No.’

‘I’m looking forward to meeting these Indian girls. I’m wearing an Indian shawl your father gave me while we were engaged.’

‘They’re not Indian, Mother. I told you this morning. Take off that shawl and don’t make any strange food. I would also be grateful if you could refrain from moaning on the phone this evening.’

‘I’ve already called the others about it.’

Humlin was horrified.

‘What did you say?’

‘Naturally I said nothing about you coming over with the girls. I just said I didn’t have the energy to work tonight.’

Humlin finished the conversation and then tried to flush the
phone down the toilet. It got stuck. He left the toilets and went back to his seat.

Once they got to the Central station he looked for a taxi big enough to hold them all. A police car drove by and Tanya and Tea-Bag waved to it. One of the officers waved back. They think I can guarantee their safety, Humlin thought. They don’t understand that I’m unable to give guarantees of any sort.

*

The initial meeting between his mother and the girls did nothing to assuage Humlin’s fears. The girls embraced his mother with an outpouring of affection and warmth from the first. He was forced to admit to himself that she could be charming when she wanted. She mixed up their names, insisted that Leyla was Indian, called Tea-Bag ‘the beautiful girl from Sumatra’ and kept referring to Tanya as ‘Elsa’. But it didn’t seem to matter. The girls even appeared to change their attitudes to him now that it turned out that he had such a wonderful mother.

There seemed to be a limitless sense of security in her large apartment, as if it were sealed off from the rest of the world by diplomatic immunity. She had made up all available beds and after only a few minutes they had all been shown to their spot. Tea-Bag and Tanya were still sharing a room, Leyla had her own and Torsten was camped out on a folding camp bed in the hallway.

‘I simply can’t let an unmarried couple share a room.’

‘That’s very old-fashioned of you, Mother.’

‘I am old-fashioned.’

‘What about the Mature Women’s Hotline?’

His mother didn’t reply. She had already turned her back to him.

*

A little later Humlin left to go shopping. He took Tanya along to help him carry the groceries. He had asked Torsten first but Leyla had looked so unhappy about this that he changed his mind. On the way to the shop Tanya suddenly stopped outside a bar.

‘I’m thirsty.’

She opened the door and walked in. Humlin followed her, just in time to see her order a beer.

‘I’ll get you one too, if you like,’ she said. ‘But you’re paying. I have phones, not cash.’

‘Isn’t it a little early in the day for a beer?’

Tanya muttered something under her breath, then sat down at a table. Humlin joined her with a cup of coffee. He saw how tense she was – her eyes travelled nervously around the room.

‘Do you want to be left alone for a while?’ he asked.