Caroline Eriksson - The Missing

“The squirrel,” I gasp. “Which one belongs to the squirrel? Or did you leave it on the island?”

The girl is still leaning forward with her back to me, but over her shoulder, I see her hand shaking as she touches the cross.

“No,” she mumbles. “I didn’t leave it there.”

She gets up and stands there with her eyes fixed on the grave. Without saying a word, her whole body is telling me here . So that poor squirrel is here, in the ground, right in front of us. I swallow hard, allowing my eyes to sweep over the pitiful little row of crosses. The squirrel’s grave is the second to last. A thought is taking shape in the back of my mind, but it vanishes when the girl starts talking.

“I made the crosses myself. And sometimes I come here to… look at them. But only if no one sees me. Mostly before dawn, like now. Nobody can know. It would be…”

She falls silent and I wait, giving her the time she needs. Nobody can know. I recognize that mantra. I know that nobody usually doesn’t refer to strangers, but to the people closest to you. Family. Friends. Lovers.

“They’re just animals. That’s all. Just fur and guts. But I still can’t help… I can’t just leave them lying there afterward. I’d rather die.”

She says the last words with great emphasis. Her voice quavers with suppressed emotion, and I notice that she’s clenching her fists. Part of me wants to reach out and put my hand on her shoulder. But I don’t.

“Why do you guys do that?” I ask instead. “What makes you torture and kill an innocent animal?”

Before the girl has a chance to reply, a light goes on in my head. I picture Alex’s excited expression, see the pulsing of the blood vessel in his temple as he leans over me. I’m wearing nothing except the black silk tie. He has peeled the jacket and panties off me. That part of the role-playing is over. Now I’m lying on the double bed in the summer cabin, my wrists bound to the bedposts. Alex is caressing me, pinching my nipples. He lifts the tie from between my breasts and lets it slide through his fingers. Then he grasps the knot of the tie at my throat and slowly starts pulling. Tighter and tighter. Until my protests stop. Until my lungs are burning and I can no longer breathe. He looks into my eyes, and I know he must see the terror I’m feeling. Then he smiles. And pulls the tie a little tighter.

“Power,” I say out loud, answering my own question. “It’s all about power.”

The girl turns around and looks at me with an impassive expression.

“What do you know about it? What do you know about anything?”

At first, I’m annoyed. But my anger quickly fades, and I notice how tired I am. Exhausted. The ax slips out of my hand and falls onto the moss at my feet with a muffled thud.

The girl is walking among the graves, straightening a cross if needed, using her hand to sweep away pine needles and fallen branches. She makes her way along the row of wooden crosses until she finally comes to the grave at the end, the one next to the squirrel’s final resting place. She stands there, her back to me.

“How do you know where I live?”

She shrugs, then answers without turning around.

“It wasn’t very hard to find out. It’s easy to tell which houses are empty and which aren’t. And you told us where the cabin was.”

“What were you doing in my yard the other night? If you weren’t there for my help, that is.”

She doesn’t bother to refute my assumption. Nor does she bother to explain. Silence settles over us. Slowly, my irritation returns.

“Say something! Tell me why you were there!”

She still doesn’t answer. Angry now, I take two steps forward and grab the girl’s arm, forcing her to turn around. At first, when I see her thin face crumple, I think she’s crying. But I don’t see any tears.

“I’m sorry,” she says quietly. “Please forgive me.”

I frown and shake my head, uncomprehending.

“What am I supposed to forgive? What have you done?”

She reaches out her hand and clumsily touches the top of the wooden cross in front of her. Then she turns to me again, giving me a long look. A rushing starts up in my ears. The ground sways under my feet. My temples are pounding. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a fallen tree trunk. I stagger over to it and sink down, gripping the rough bark with both hands. The cross… The new grave…

What exactly have you buried here? I’m sure you know. Yes, I realize. I do know. And it makes me want to scream.

Smilla, sweet, lovely little Smilla. I’m so sorry.

No howl issues from my throat. No accusations, no laments. No sounds at all. Inside I’m fumbling to formulate appropriate remarks, but without success. Finally, a few words do slip from my lips.

“You asked me what I was doing here…”

The girl nods mutely. Makes no attempt to fill the silence, just waits for me to go on.

“And I told you I was looking for a cat.”

Again she nods.

“Are you trying to tell me that… that you found the cat outside my cabin and took him?”

“Yes.”

My mind seems both cloudy and clear at the same time.

“And then…”

Again, the girl refuses to complete my sentence. And this time I leave it unfinished. I see her hand reaching for the newest cross in the clearing, see her touching the top of the stick. Then my eyes shift to the ground where she’s standing, and I picture the black-and-white body buried beneath her feet. I imagine what the cat must have endured before he ended up here. I want to shut out reality. I want to close my eyes, but I don’t dare for fear of the sights that will confront me. Massacred bodies fluttering in the wind like bloody sails. No! I slap my face hard, forcing open my eyelids, which, in spite of everything, had fallen shut. I give the girl a defiant look. It can’t be true.

“I don’t believe you!”

For a moment, she doesn’t move, then she silently reaches into her pants pocket and takes out something. She stretches out her hand toward me, her fingers curled around something. She takes my hand and places a thin pink object on my palm. Tirith’s collar. My eyes blur; I feel like I’m flying forward even though I’m sitting still. As if I’m traveling through a hazy mist. Only when I’m certain that I’ll be able to keep my voice steady do I speak again.

“His name was Tirith,” I say. “He belonged to a four-year-old girl who loves him very much.”

It seems important for this skinny teenager to know. That the animal she captured and deliberately placed in malicious hands had a name and an identity, that he belonged to someone who will be brokenhearted to know he’s no longer alive. But maybe that sort of information is wasted here, I think as I look at the stony mask covering the girl’s face. There are probably very different things that upset her.

“We were bound together by blood,” I add. “My blood.”

I don’t explain about Tirith licking the wound in my hand. Let this girl think I’m crazy—if that’s what she’s thinking. I see her looking at the ground. The ax is still lying there, and it’s closer to her than to me now. Quickly, she sticks out her leg and sets her foot on top of it. Then she picks it up and stuffs the handle under her belt.

“Listen to me,” she says, crossing her arms. “Jorma was the one who said we had to get revenge somehow.”

A joyless laugh escapes from my throat. I can hear for myself that it sounds like the laugh of a lunatic, but I can’t stop it. Revenge? What she’s saying is absurd.

“Is he nuts? Are all of you nuts? What have I ever done to you? Can you tell me that?”

She rolls her eyes, as if exhorting me not to be so stupid. Then she looks away, chewing on her lip.