Johan Theorin - The Quarry

Nilla too, of course.

He turned away from the quarry and walked around the house, stopping outside Ernst’s workshop. It was a square wooden box, two metres high, with traces of Falun red paint still visible on the weathered planks. There were small dusty windows on the shorter sides, and a black, creosoted door.

A heavy chain ran from the door to a ring on the wall, but the only thing holding it in place was a large, rusty nail. Per pulled it out and opened the door.

The air inside was dry because of all the limestone dust covering the floor. He had been in here three years ago, when Ernst’s family had come to collect the things they wanted to keep from the workshop. The finished sculptures standing by the door had disappeared that day: sundials, bird baths and lampstands. All that remained were the unfinished sculptures, or pieces that were such an odd shape nobody could quite work out what they were meant to be.

They were clustered together at the back of the workshop. Blocks of stone formed into swollen, headless bodies or heads with deep eye sockets and gaping mouths. Some of them didn’t even remotely resemble people.

Per didn’t go inside to take a closer look; he simply closed the door and went to fetch the paper.

‘So your father is the famous Jerry Morner?’ said Max. ‘I didn’t know him, but I do remember the name.’

Per hadn’t spoken to Max Larsson since the party, but they had bumped into one another by the mailboxes.

‘Really?’

He took a couple of steps away from the mailboxes with the newspaper in his hand, but Max didn’t take the hint. He just smiled, one neighbour to another. ‘Oh yes. Jerry Morner, he was a bit of a celebrity in the seventies. He sometimes gave interviews and appeared on those noisy debates about porn on TV... and of course when I was doing my military service we all read those magazines of his.’ He winked at Per. ‘Well, I say read, but of course they were mostly pictures.’

‘Yes,’ said Per.

‘One of them was called Babylon ,’ said Max. ‘Now, what was the other one called? Sodom ?’

‘ Gomorrah .’

‘That’s it, Babylon and Gomorrah . They were pretty upmarket... But you had to ask for them in the newsagent’s, they never had them out on display.’ He coughed and added, ‘Of course, I don’t read them these days. Are they still going?’

‘No, they’re not around any more.’

‘I suppose videos took over, and now there’s the internet too,’ said Max. ‘Things move on.’

Per didn’t respond.

‘So how did he find the models?’ Max went on.

Per shook his head. ‘I was never involved.’

‘You have to wonder what kind of girls would be willing to do that sort of thing,’ said Max.

‘Haven’t a clue,’ said Per, but a picture of Regina’s smile came into his mind.

‘I mean, you could see their faces quite clearly, and some of them were really pretty.’

Per shrugged his shoulders and set off towards the quarry. He had been nice for long enough now.

‘I suppose they were well paid,’ Max persisted behind him. ‘And it must have been an experience.’

Per stopped and turned around. He decided to go for the Children Test. He’d done it several times before.

‘Have you got children?’ he asked.

‘Children?’ Max looked bewildered, then replied, ‘Yes, I’ve got three from my first marriage.’

‘Daughters?’

Max nodded. ‘One. Her name is Annika.’

‘Max,’ said Per, lowering his voice, ‘what would you say if you found out Annika had worked with my father?’

‘She hasn’t,’ Max said quickly.

‘How do you know? Do you think she’d tell you?’

Max didn’t speak. Per allowed the silence to continue, and set off again. He had gone several metres by the time Max hissed behind him, ‘You bastard!’

Per just kept on walking. He was used to that reaction when he tried to make people see Jerry’s models as people.

But of course, that meant that good relations between the neighbours by the quarry had been destroyed once more.

You bastard .

The comment was in Per’s mind as he prepared the Easter lunch.

Jerry, Per, Nilla and Jesper — three generations celebrating Easter together. It was too cold to sit out on the patio, so he laid the table in the living room, in front of Ernst’s wooden chest. As he set out the plates he stared at the drawings on the chest; he wondered why the troll running into its cave was smiling, and why the princess was sitting weeping. Had the knight not arrived in time to defend her virtue?

‘Pelle?’ said a voice behind him. His father had come into the room.

‘We’ll be eating soon, Jerry. You can sit down... You like Easter eggs, don’t you?’

Jerry nodded and sat down.

‘You can have as many as you like,’ said Per, and carried on setting the table.

Before he went to fetch the children, he turned back to Jerry and added, ‘But no magazines on the table, thank you.’

Jerry kept quiet during the meal. The twins didn’t say much either. Everybody ate their eggs and sat there in a world of their own.

‘Did you go out today?’ Per asked.

Nilla nodded slowly. She looked pale and tired, and her voice was quiet. ‘We went down to the quarry. And Jesper found a skeleton.’

But Jesper shook his head. ‘It was only a little piece of bone... I think it was part of a finger.’

‘A finger?’ said Per, looking at him. ‘A human finger?’

‘I think so.’

‘Where did you find it?’

‘At the bottom of a pile of stones. It’s in my room.’

‘I’m sure it’ll be part of some animal, we can have a look at it later,’ said Per, peeling an egg. ‘But you shouldn’t really pick up bits of bone you find on the ground, there could be germs and—’

But Jesper didn’t seem to be listening; he was staring past Per, his eyes full of fear. ‘Dad!’ he shouted. ‘Nilla!’

Per looked to his right and saw that Nilla had dropped her egg and was leaning over the table beside him; her head was drooping and she was about to topple sideways.

There were red splashes of blood on the tablecloth. When she coughed, more appeared.

Per moved fast. ‘Nilla!’ He grabbed her just before she fell.

She looked at him, but her eyelids were heavy. ‘What? What is it?’ she said, as if she were talking in her sleep. ‘Shall I...’

Then she fell silent and slumped against him.

Per held her tightly. ‘It’s OK,’ he said quietly. ‘Everything’s OK.’

But it wasn’t fine — his daughter’s face was suddenly bright red. Per could feel the blood pulsing in her arm, and suddenly there was no strength in her thin body, it was completely limp. She had fainted.

The meal had come to a complete standstill. Jerry was sitting on the opposite side of the table with an egg in his hand, staring blankly at the red drops on the table. Jesper was on his feet, gazing wide-eyed at his sister.

Per carried Nilla over to the sofa. When he had laid her down on her side, she coughed and opened her eyes.

‘I’m cold,’ she said.

Per remembered the doctor in Kalmar saying that the new medication could leave her open to infection, and he looked over at Jesper. ‘Nilla will be fine,’ he said. ‘But I need to take her back to hospital. Will you be OK here with Granddad?’

Jesper nodded.

‘And can you ring Mum?’

The hospital was silent and empty on Easter Saturday, but of course the emergency department was open. Nilla was wheeled off down the corridor on a trolley. All Per could do was go up to her old ward and wait.

He sat down on a chair in the corridor; he was used to waiting, after all. He waited and waited.