Johan Theorin - The Darkest Room

He had to do something. Anything.

With a tired sigh he stood up and threw the brochure in the trash can under the sink.

The house was completely silent around him. He went along the corridor into the empty drawing room and looked for a long time at the tins, bottles, and rags that were lined up on the floor. Katrine had obviously started cleaning the window frames the week before.

She had had much clearer views on the décor than Joakim, and had chosen all the colors, wallpaper, and wooden detailing throughout. And the material had already been bought; it was lying on the floor by the walls waiting to be used.

Joakim sighed again.

Then he opened a bottle of cleanser and picked up a rag. He started working on the window frames, stubborn and focused.

The sound of the rag rubbing against the wood sounded desolate in the silence.

Don’t press too hard, Kim , he heard Katrine saying in the back of his head.

The weekend came. The children were at home, playing in Livia’s room.

Joakim had finished the windows in the big room, and this Saturday he was going to start wallpapering the room in the southwest corner. He had set up a table and mixed a bucket of wallpaper paste after breakfast.

This was a smaller bedroom, that, like many of the others, had a 120-year-old tiled stove in one corner. The flower-patterned wallpaper in most of the rooms looked as if it dated

from the beginning of the twentieth century, but unfortunately it was too badly damaged to be preserved. There were a huge number of damp stains, and in some places the paper had been hanging off in long strips. Katrine had pulled them away earlier in the fall and then smoothed down the walls, filled in the holes, and prepared everything ready for wallpapering.

Katrine had particularly liked this little corner room.

But Joakim wasn’t going to call up any more memories of her right now. He wasn’t going to think, he was just going to wallpaper.

He picked up the rolls of zinc-white paper, a heavy English handmade wallpaper of the same type they had used in the Apple House. Then he picked up the knife and the long ruler and started cutting lengths.

He and Katrine had always done the wallpapering together.

Joakim sighed, but started working. It wasn’t possible to get stressed out when you were wallpapering, and so the work turned into something close to meditation. He was a monk; the house was his monastery.

When he had put up the first four lengths and smoothed them down with a brush, Joakim suddenly heard a faint thudding noise. He got down from the ladder and listened. The thuds were regular, with a few seconds in between, and they were coming from outside.

He went over to the window facing out from the back of the house and opened it. Bitterly cold air swept in.

A boy was standing on the grass down below, perhaps a year or two older than Livia. At his feet he had a yellow plastic soccer ball. The boy had curly brown hair, poking out from underneath a woolen winter hat; his padded jacket was inaccurately buttoned, and he was looking up at Joakim with some curiosity.

“Hi,” said Joakim.

“Hi,” said the boy.

“It’s not a good idea to kick your ball around here,” said Joakim. “You could break a window if your aim isn’t great.”

“I’m aiming at the wall,” said the boy. “I always hit what I’m aiming at.”

“Good. What’s your name?”

“Andreas.”

The boy rubbed his nose, red with the cold, with the palm of his hand.

“Where do you live?”

“Over there.”

He pointed toward the farm. So Andreas was one of the Carlsson family’s children, out and about on his own this Saturday morning.

“Would you like to come in?” said Joakim.

“Why?”

“You can say hello to Livia and Gabriel,” said Joakim. “They’re my children…Livia’s the same age as you.”

“I’m seven,” said Andreas. “Is she seven?”

“No. But she’s almost the same age as you.”

Andreas nodded. He rubbed his nose again, then made a decision.

“For a little while. We’ll be eating soon.”

He picked up his ball and disappeared around the side of the house.

Joakim closed the window and went out of the room.

“Livia, Gabriel!” he shouted. “We’ve got a visitor.”

After a few seconds his daughter appeared, clutching Foreman in her hand.

“What?”

“There’s someone here who wants to meet you.”

“Who?”

“A boy.”

“A boy?” Livia opened her eyes wide. “I don’t want to meet him. What’s his name?”

“Andreas. He lives on the farm next door.”

“But Daddy, I don’t know him.”

There was panic in her voice, but before Joakim had the chance to say something sensible about the fact that meeting new people isn’t going to make you ill, the outside door opened and Andreas walked into the porch. He stopped on the doormat.

“Come on in, Andreas,” said Joakim. “Take off your cap and your jacket.”

“Okay.”

The boy took off his outdoor clothes and dropped them on the floor.

“Have you been in this house before?”

“No. It’s always locked.”

“Not now, it’s open now. We live here now.”

Andreas looked at Livia and she looked back, but neither of them said hello.

Gabriel was peeping out shyly from his room, but he didn’t say anything either.

“I helped bring our cows in,” said Andreas after a while, looking around the room. “From the enclosure out there.”

“Today?” said Joakim.

“No, last week. They have to stay in now. Otherwise they’d freeze to death.”

“That’s true, everybody needs heat in the wintertime,” said Joakim. “Cows and birds and people.”

Livia was still staring curiously at Andreas without joining in the conversation. Joakim had also been shy when he was little; it was a shame if she had inherited that particular characteristic.

“You could kick the soccer ball around for a while,” he said. “I know a great room you could use.”

He led the way into the house, with the children following along behind. They trooped into the large drawing room, which was still almost completely unfurnished; there were just a couple of dining chairs and few cardboard boxes on the floor.

“You can play in here,” said Joakim, stacking three of the boxes in front of the window to protect it.

Andreas dropped the ball, dribbled it tentatively, then kicked it across the wooden floor to Livia. Dust swirled up like a fine gray mist.

Livia kicked at the ball as it came speeding toward her. She missed. Gabriel scampered after it, but couldn’t catch up.

“Stop it with your foot first,” said Joakim to the children, “then you’ll be able to control it.”

Livia gave him a sour look, as if she could do without the good advice, thank you. Then she quickly turned and captured the ball between her feet in one corner of the room and kicked it back hard.

“Good shot,” said Andreas.

Little flirt, thought Joakim, but Livia was smiling contentedly.

“Go and stand over there,” said Andreas, pointing to the other doorway. “You can be in goal and we’ll shoot.”

Livia quickly ran over to the double doors, and Joakim left the room and went back along the corridor to his wallpapering. He could hear the ball bouncing across the floor behind him.

“Goal!” he heard Andreas shout, and Livia and Gabriel shrieked before all three of them started laughing.

Joakim loved the happy noises spreading through the house. Very good, he had sorted out a friend for his children.

He stuck his brush in the bucket of paste, stirred it around, and made a start on the long wall. Length after length of paper went up; the room changed color and gradually became lighter. Joakim smoothed out the bubbles and wiped away the excess paste with a damp sponge.