Johan Theorin - The Darkest Room

When only a couple of feet of the old wallpaper remained, he realized that the echoing children’s voices could no longer be heard from the drawing room.

The house was completely silent again.

Joakim climbed down from his ladder and listened.

“Livia?” he called. “Gabriel? Would you like some juice? And cookies?”

No reply.

He listened for a while longer, then went out of the room and along the corridor. But halfway to the drawing room he looked out of the window into the courtyard and stopped.

The door to the big barn was standing ajar.

It had been shut before, hadn’t it?

Then he saw that Andreas Carlsson’s outdoor clothes had gone from the floor.

Joakim pulled on a jacket and a pair of boots and went out into the courtyard.

The children must have pulled the heavy door open together. Maybe they had gone inside too, into the darkness.

Joakim went across and stopped in the doorway of the barn.

“Hello?”

No reply.

Were they playing hide-and-seek? He walked across the stone floor, breathing in the smell of old hay.

They had talked about turning the barn into a gallery, he and Katrine, sometime in the future when they had cleared out all the hay, the dung, and all the other traces of the animals who had lived there.

He was thinking about Katrine again, although he shouldn’t. But on the morning of the day she drowned, he had seen her coming out of the barn. She had looked embarrassed, as if he had caught her out.

Nothing was moving inside the barn, but Joakim thought he could hear a tapping or creaking noise from the hayloft up above, like footsteps.

A narrow, steep wooden staircase led up to the loft, and he grabbed hold of the sides and began to climb.

Coming into the loft from the dark passageways and stalls down below was almost like walking into a church, he

thought. Up here there was just a big open space for the hay to dry-an open-plan solution, as the agents liked to call it-and the roof arched high above him in the darkness. Thick beams ran the length of the loft several feet above Joakim’s head.

Unlike the upper floor of the main house, it was impossible to get lost up here, even if it was difficult to pick your way through all the garbage that had been piled up on the floor.

Heaps of newspapers, flowerpots, broken chairs, old sewing machines-the hayloft had become a dumping ground. A couple of tractor tires, almost as tall as a man, were leaning up against a wall. How had they got those up here?

When he saw the untidy loft, Joakim suddenly remembered dreaming that Katrine was standing up here. But the floor had been clean, and she had been standing over by the far wall with her back to him. He had been afraid to go over to her.

The winter wind was like a faint whisper above the roof of the barn. He didn’t really like being alone up here in the cold.

“Livia?” he shouted.

The wooden floor creaked in front of him, but he got no other answer. Perhaps the children had hidden in the darkness; they were probably spying on him from the shadows.

They were hiding from him. He looked around and listened.

“Katrine?” he said quietly.

No reply. He waited in the darkness for several minutes, but when the silence in the hayloft remained unbroken, he turned and went back down the steps.

When he got back into the house, he found his children where he should have looked in the first place-in Livia’s bedroom.

Livia was sitting on the floor drawing, as if nothing had happened. Gabriel had obviously been given permission by

his big sister to be in there, because he had fetched some toy cars from his room and was sitting beside her.

“Where have you been?” Joakim asked, more sharply than he had intended.

Livia looked up from her drawing. Katrine had never painted for pleasure even though she was an art teacher, but Livia enjoyed drawing.

“Here,” she said, as if it were perfectly obvious.

“But before…Did you go outside? You and Andreas and Gabriel?”

“For a little while.”

“You mustn’t go in the barn,” said Joakim. “Did you hide in there?”

“No. There’s nothing to do in the barn.”

“Where’s Andreas?”

“He went home. They were going to eat.”

“Okay. We’ll be eating soon too. But don’t go outside again without telling me, Livia.”

“No.”

The night after Joakim had been out in the barn, Livia started talking in her sleep again.

She had gone to bed with no trouble that night. Gabriel had fallen asleep at around seven, and while Joakim was helping Livia to brush her teeth in the bathroom she had studied his head at close quarters with considerable curiosity.

“You’ve got funny ears, Daddy,” she said eventually.

Joakim put his daughter’s mug and toothbrush back on the shelf and asked: “What do you mean?”

“Your ears look so… old.”

“I see. But they’re no older than I am. Have they got hair in them?”

“Not much.”

“Good,” said Joakim. “Hair in your nose and ears isn’t exactly cool… or in your mouth.”

Livia wanted to stay in front of the mirror for a while pulling faces, but Joakim gently led her out of the bathroom. He put her to bed, and read the story twice about Emil getting his head stuck in the soup bowl, then turned off the light. As he was leaving the room he could hear her wriggling further down the bed and snuggling her head into the pillow.

Katrine’s woolen sweater still lay beside her in the bed.

He went into the kitchen, made himself a couple of sandwiches, and switched on the dishwasher. Then he turned out all the lights. In the darkness he groped his way back to his own bedroom and switched on the main light.

There it stood, the cold, empty double bed. And on the walls above it hung clothes. Katrine’s clothes, which by now had lost all trace of her scent. Joakim ought to take them down, but not tonight.

He turned off the light, got into bed, and lay there motionless in the darkness.

“Mommy?”

Livia’s voice made Joakim raise his head, wide awake.

He listened. The dishwasher in the kitchen had finished, and the clock radio was showing 11:52. He had slept for over an hour.

“Mom-my?”

The cry came again; Joakim got out of bed and went back to Livia’s room. He stood in the doorway until he heard her again:

“Mommy?”

He went over to the bed. Livia was lying under the covers with her eyes closed, but by the glow of the light out in the corridor Joakim could see her head moving restlessly on the pillow. Her hand was clutching Katrine’s sweater, and he carefully released it.

“Mommy isn’t here,” he said quietly, folding up the sweater.

“Yes, she is.”

“Go to sleep now, Livia.”

She opened her eyes and recognized him.

“I can’t sleep, Daddy.”

“Yes, you can.”

“No,” said Livia. “You have to sleep here.”

Joakim sighed, but Livia was wide awake now, and there was nothing else for it. This had always been Katrine’s job.

Cautiously he lay down on the edge of the bed. It was too short, he’d never be able to get to sleep.

He fell asleep after two minutes.

There was someone outside the house.

Joakim opened his eyes in the darkness. He couldn’t hear anything, but he could feel that they had a visitor.

He was fully awake again.

What time was it? He had no idea. He might have slept for several hours.

He raised his head and listened. The house was silent and still. The only sound was the faint ticking of a clock-and the barely audible breathing in the darkness beside him.

He sat up silently and carefully got off the bed. But after only three steps he heard the voice behind him: