Johan Theorin - The Darkest Room

When Joakim bent down to look through the hole, just a couple of inches wide, a definite smell struck him. It rushed toward his face, making him close his eyes and lean against the wall.

It was Katrine’s smell.

He got down on his knees and pushed his left hand into the opening. First his fingers, then his wrist, and finally the whole of his forearm. He groped about, but could feel nothing.

But when he lowered his fingers, they touched something in there, something soft.

It felt like coarse fabric-like someone’s pants or jacket.

Joakim quickly withdrew his hand.

The next moment he heard a dull rumbling on the track outside, and a beam of light illuminated the windows of the barn, white with frost. A car was driving into the courtyard.

Joakim cast a final glance at the opening in the wall, then went over to the steps leading down from the loft.

In the courtyard he was dazzled by the headlights of a car. A door slammed.

“Hi there, Joakim.”

It was a brisk voice that he recognized. Marianne, the head of the preschool.

“Has something happened?” she asked.

He stared at her in confusion, then pulled up his sleeve and looked at his watch. In the beam of the headlights he could see that it was already half past five.

The school closed at five. He had forgotten to pick up Gabriel and Livia.

“I missed… I forgot what time it was.”

“It’s okay,” said Marianne. “I was just so worried that something might have happened. I tried to call, but there was no reply.”

“No, I’ve been… out in the barn doing a bit of carpentry.”

“It’s easy to forget the time,” said Marianne with a smile.

“Thanks,” said Joakim. “Thanks for bringing them home.”

“No problem, I live in Rörby anyway.” Marianne waved and went back to her car. “See you Monday.”

When she had reversed out of the courtyard, Joakim went inside, feeling ashamed of himself. He could hear voices from the kitchen.

Livia and Gabriel had already taken off their boots and outdoor clothes and thrown them down in two separate heaps. They were sitting at the kitchen table sharing a clementine.

“Daddy, you forgot to come and get us,” said Livia as he walked in.

“I know,” he said quietly.

“Marianne had to drive us home.”

She didn’t sound cross, more surprised at the deviation from the normal routine.

“I know,” he said. “I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

Gabriel was eating his clementine segments, apparently unconcerned, but Livia gave her father a long look.

“I’ll make us something to eat,” said Joakim, and went quickly over to the larder.

Pasta with tuna sauce was a favorite, and he boiled some water for the pasta and warmed the sauce. Several times he glanced out of the window.

The barn loomed up on the far side of the courtyard like a black castle.

It had secrets. A hidden room without a door.

A room that, for a moment, had been filled with the scent of Katrine. Joakim was sure he had felt her presence; the smell of her had poured out through the hole in the wall, and he had been unable to defend himself.

He wanted to get into that room, but the only way seemed to be to attack the thick planks of wood with a saw or crowbar. But then the carved names would be destroyed, and Joakim could never do that. He had too much respect for the dead.

When the temperature dropped below freezing, the cold began to creep into the house as well. Joakim relied on radiators and tiled stoves on the ground floor, but there were strips of coldness along the floor and around some of the windows. On windy days he searched for drafts along the floor and walls, then blocked the gaps by loosening sections of the outer paneling and pushing flax fiber in between the timbers.

The first weekend in December the thermometer hovered around minus five when the sun was shining, but dropped down to minus ten in the evening.

On Sunday morning Joakim looked out of the kitchen window and discovered that there was a layer of black ice out at sea. The open water was now several hundred yards away. The ice must have formed by the shore during the night, then slowly crept around the headland and out toward the horizon.

“We’ll soon be able to walk across the water to Gotland,” he said to the children as they sat at the breakfast table.

“What’s Gotland?” said Gabriel.

“It’s a big island further out in the Baltic.”

“Can we walk there?” asked Livia.

“No, I was just joking,” said Joakim quickly. “It’s too far away.”

“But I want to.”

It was impossible to joke with a six-year-old-she took everything literally. Joakim looked out of the kitchen window and an image came into his mind of Livia and Gabriel walking out onto the black ice, going further and further out. Then suddenly it cracked, a black hole opened up, and they were pulled down…

He turned to Livia.

“You and Gabriel must never go out onto the ice. Not under any circumstances. You can never be sure it will hold.”

That night Joakim called his former neighbors in Stockholm, Lisa and Michael Hesslin. He hadn’t heard a word from them since the night they left Eel Point.

“Hi, Joakim,” said Michael. “Are you in Stockholm?”

“No, we’re still on Öland. How are things?”

“Fine. Good to hear from you.”

And yet Joakim thought Michael sounded wary. Perhaps he was embarrassed over what had happened the last time they met.

“You’re feeling okay?” said Joakim. “And what about work?”

“Everything’s going really well,” said Michael. “Lots of exciting projects. Things are a bit hectic right now, coming up to Christmas.”

“Good… I just wanted to check up, make sure everything was okay. I mean, it was a bit of a hasty departure last time you came down here.”

“Yes,” said Michael, and hesitated before going on: “Sorry about that. I don’t know what it was…I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep…”

He fell silent.

“Lisa thought you’d had a nightmare,” said Joakim. “That you dreamed someone was standing by the bed.”

“Did she say that? I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember who you saw?”

“No.”

“I’ve never seen anything strange around here,” said Joakim, “but I’ve felt things sometimes. And out in the barn I’ve found a wall in the hayloft where people-”

“So what about the renovation?” Michael interrupted him. “How’s all that going?”

“What?”

“Have you finished the wallpapering?”

“No… not quite.”

Joakim was confused, until he realized that Michael had no desire whatsoever to discuss unusual experiences or bad dreams. Whatever had happened to him that night, he had closed and locked the door on the memory.

“What are you doing at Christmas?” Joakim asked instead. “Will you be celebrating at home?”

“We’ll probably go to the cottage,” said Michael. “But we’re intending to be at home for New Year.”

“Maybe we can get together, then.”

The conversation didn’t last much longer. When Joakim had hung up, he looked out of the kitchen window, toward the film of ice on the sea and the empty shore. The frozen desolation almost made him miss the crowded streets of Stockholm.

“There’s a hidden room here,” said Joakim to Mirja Rambe. “A room without a door.”

“Really? Where?”

“Up in the hayloft. It’s big… I’ve paced out the barn, and the floor of the loft stops almost four yards before the outside wall.” He looked at Mirja. “You didn’t know?”

She shook her head.

“The wall with all those names on it is enough for me. That’s all the excitement I need.”