Карин Тидбек - Amatka

Vanja woke on her back with Nina’s breath on her cheek. As she opened her eyes, she caught Nina quickly closing hers. Nina lay on her side, hands cradled against her chest. One of her elbows touched Vanja’s upper arm; a knee brushed against Vanja’s thigh. The two points of contact burned her skin through the layers of clothes. Vanja closed her eyes again and lay very still. At length, Nina sighed and sat up. She slid down to the foot of the bed and onto the floor, where she hunted around for her socks.

“Sock, sock, shoe, shoe. Trousers, shirt,” she mumbled at the garments as she picked them up. “Brr. Cold. Good morning!”

“Good morning.” Vanja stretched. Her body ached, as if she’d been tensed up in her sleep.

Nina opened her wardrobe and took out a pair of boots. “Here, my spares.” She placed them next to the bed.

“Thank you very much,” Vanja mumbled.

“Keep them. It’s better that someone’s using them.”

Vanja stayed in bed until Nina had finished dressing and gone down to the kitchen. She crawled out from under the blanket and picked up her neatly folded clothes from the desk chair. The boots were a size too big, but she could walk in them. Her arm and leg tingled where Nina’s body had touched hers. If the new bed wasn’t delivered today, they would have to share again tonight. At first she didn’t recognize the sensation that flared in the pit of her stomach. It had been so long.

Ulla was in the kitchen, pouring a cup of dark and acrid-looking coffee. “Good morning.” She gave Vanja a small smile.

“Good morning,” Vanja replied.

“Had another accident, did you?” Ulla’s smile became a strange grin.

“I’m sorry,” Vanja said. “I really am.”

Ulla tutted. “You’re not in Essre anymore, dear.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. It’s done.” Ulla paused. “What did it look like?”

“What did what look like?”

“When the suitcase had dissolved. What did it look like?”

Vanja shrugged. “It didn’t look like much at all. Just… sludge.”

“I thought you were a researcher.”

“What do you mean?”

“I would expect some curiosity,” Ulla said. “A good researcher is curious about everything. Even that which one would find terrifying.”

“I’m curious,” Vanja said. “But I wasn’t going to stay there and watch.”

“Well,” Ulla said, “that’s where you and I differ. I would have taken the chance to observe.”

“Observe what?”

“How it behaves,” Ulla said slowly.

Something in Ulla’s eyes made Vanja shiver.

“Now, then,” Ulla said in a very different voice, “did you want to interview me, too? Nina said you might want to talk to an old doctor.”

“I’ll let you know,” Vanja said. “I have to go write a report.”

“You do that,” Ulla replied. “You know where to find me.”

Finishing her next short report took some time because the memory of Nina’s heat against her back kept distracting her, but finally it was done. Vanja put it in an envelope along with the first report. The box she’d brought from the pharmacy was just big enough to fit all the product samples and the envelope. It was also just about light enough that she could carry it on her own, so she did, to the post office next to the train station. The clerk informed her that the train from Essre was on its way in to load and unload and placed Vanja’s parcel on one of the pallets headed for the platform.

Vanja stepped out onto the platform. The tracks ran in a straight line to the south until they climbed a low hill and disappeared. The train was on its way down that hill, and the rails gave off a whirring sound that made the hairs on Vanja’s neck stand up. The noise rose in volume as the train approached; when the train finally arrived at the platform, it was so loud Vanja had to cover her ears. The train was made of good metal that had been in use ever since the pioneers arrived, scratched and eroded, painted over many times. A section of the paint on the passenger car had bubbled and come loose, as if exposed to extreme heat. It hadn’t looked like that when Vanja had last seen it. Something must have happened out there. Everyone knew the world outside of the colonies was dangerous, but the committee had never spoken of the details. Vanja thought about herself in the little car, unaware of the world outside the train’s protective shell, of whatever it was that could do something like this to a train made of good metal.

Amatka Children’s House Three had one hundred and seventeen residents between the ages of six months and fifteen years. The principal, Larsbris’ Olof, had no objections to Vanja’s surprise visit; he was happy to show her through the building and tell her about their hygiene habits. The air in the residential area of the building was thick with the smell of vinyl mattresses and soap. It was bathing day. In the long sunken tubs in the basement, the children sat in rows, each scrubbing the back in front of them. Those at the end of a row had their backs scrubbed by an older sibling. It was always a race to not end up at the back of a row. Elders always scrubbed too hard, seeking revenge for all those times elders had bruised their backs when they were little.

“Atopic eczema, acne, dandruff,” the principal said as he led Vanja back upstairs. “And fungal infections. That’s what we deal with here. We could use something more effective against dandruff. The hair soap we have, it doesn’t work—it just makes your scalp dry and itchy. It’s probably made in Essre. You can tell they’ve never been here and have no idea what the climate is like. No offense.”

Vanja laughed in the way that meant the place I come from is terrible, isn’t it.

They continued on to the classrooms. In three halls, one for each age group, students sat on long benches facing the teacher’s desk. From the doors of two of the halls, only the muted sound of a teacher droning out a lecture could be heard. But from the third came the sound of a choir. Children’s House Three must have gifted students or a skilled teacher, because the harmonies drifting out through the chink in the door made Vanja’s eyes prickle. They were singing a version of “The Pioneer Song” with a beat that had been slowed down to an almost leisurely pace. Leaning on a solid fourth voice, the third and second voices entwined in a dissonance that wasn’t quite a dissonance, out of which the first voice rose up into bright notes that somehow entered through the ear and into the throat, constricting it. The pain didn’t dissipate until Olof had led her around a corner and out of earshot.

She only half listened to Olof’s account of the house kitchen and the hygiene routines observed there. When he was done, she thanked him for the tour and left. She chose a route that brought her by the classrooms. The singing had ceased. Even so, she stopped for a moment, in case they might start again. Instead, the door swung open, and thirty children in the oldest age bracket drifted out. They squabbled, let out adolescent howls, elbowed each other, and stared at Vanja. There was no sign that any of them had just been part of creating a sound so beautiful it hurt. Vanja set her course for home with a feeling of having somehow been made fun of.

That night, the bed still hadn’t arrived. The four members of the household had dinner together; the conversation consisted mainly of Nina’s small talk and Ulla’s acerbic comments. Vanja replied mechanically to questions aimed at her. She caught herself avoiding Nina’s eyes. Bedtime was very slow in coming. They undressed in silence. This time, Vanja carefully scooted back until one of her shoulder blades brushed against Nina’s back. Nina didn’t pull away, but nor did she come closer.