Карин Тидбек - Amatka

Daniel tried a range of different treatments: he was committed to the clinic for a round of warm mushroom poultices. He tried diets that excluded mushrooms, root vegetables, or beans by turns. Nothing worked. His joints and muscles began to ache. He wrote less and less often.

I wake up too early in the morning and just lie there, not knowing what to do with myself. I think about when we were little and played by the railroad tracks. Do you remember when we put forks and knives on the rails and waited for the train to come flatten them? We waited all afternoon. No train in sight. We’d got the day wrong. But you talked about taking that train one day, all the way across the tundra to Essre, and becoming someone special there. I hope you’ve become someone special. I thought about something else, too. Another memory:

The rest of the letter was missing. Vanja leafed through the pages. The letter at the bottom of the box consisted of a few short lines. It was dated several months after the previous one.

Things are tough right now. I don’t have a job anymore. They say I’m too ill to work. All I do is sit at home and look out the window. I think about you. Why haven’t you replied?

“Excuse me,” Vanja said out loud. “Do you know what happened to Daniel? Why he died? Because he didn’t die from eczema, did he?”

“I remember it well,” Evgen said from his desk. “He lay down in front of the auto train. People talked about it for months.”

Vanja opened the next box, which contained documents from a number of authors. The paper was thin, some sheets were brittle. The documents smelled dry and musty at the same time. She leafed through logs, letters, a few journals. Most were letters. She had some success: letters from an engineer discussing the development of the commune’s products with a colleague. A doctor ranting in his diary about the excessive use of soap. After a while, she noticed a cup of coffee by her elbow. The doctor’s diary ended abruptly. The last third had been ripped out.

Some letters from a “Jenny” filled the bottom third of the box. Jenny was a pioneer—not just a pioneer to Amatka from Essre, but born on the other side, before the colonization. She wrote letters to her mother in a childish, sprawling hand.

Vanja learned in the first letter that Jenny’s mother hadn’t joined the colonization. Jenny wrote to her anyway, to keep the memory of her mother alive. She gave detailed descriptions of the colonization as she lived it: long rides on uncomfortable seats in coaches that broke down one after the other; the temporary camps; the “hard mental work” of building Amatka. After that particular mention, the page had simply been cut in half. When the letter continued, Jenny was complaining about the lack of basic necessities and that they had to go months without basic hygiene and medical supplies.

I’m so tired of washing menstrual pads. I’m tired of the cloth pads and smelling people’s bad breath. It would be so wonderful to wear a disposable pad just once, or—the luxury—a tampon! And to brush my teeth.

Vanja noted the word “disposable pad” down. Several pages were missing from this letter as well. Finally, she got up to stretch her back. There was a vague discomfort in her belly. She must be hungry.

“Did you find anything?” Evgen said from his desk.

“Yes, plenty. But there are pages missing in several places.”

“That means they’ve been redacted.”

“Redacted?”

Evgen cleared his throat. Vanja pulled the corners of her mouth down. Evgen looked at her and nodded. Silence fell once more.

“Is that your job?” Vanja asked.

“Yes. At least it is when new material comes in.”

“So then you know what they said.”

He cleared his throat again.

“Sometimes I think…,” Vanja began, glancing at Evgen.

If she had misinterpreted him the last time she was here, this could end badly. She steeled herself and continued. “Sometimes I think it would be nice to know if one could choose another way of life. If it were possible to find out what really happened before. And then make up one’s own mind.”

Evgen met her gaze. He was about to reply when the door slammed in the coatroom. He instantly started putting the papers back into the boxes. Vanja slunk out the door while the new visitor quizzed Evgen about biographies.

The bed hadn’t arrived. They lay back-to-back. If Nina found it awkward, it didn’t show. If she liked sharing the bed, that didn’t show, either. Her studying Vanja that first morning had probably been a coincidence. Vanja lay awake feeling the warmth of Nina’s body where it touched hers, trying to soothe herself by thinking about what she remembered from About Plant House 7.

There was something about Berols’ Anna’s language. It was as though she understood words and objects on a deeper level than anyone else. The poems weren’t just simple marking rhymes or descriptions of the world. Vanja had a feeling that the plant houses didn’t need marking anymore, because Berols’ Anna’s words had fixed their shape so completely.

Again, Ulla opened the door immediately, as if she had been waiting on the other side. She showed Vanja into her room. “Take a seat,” Ulla said. “I’ll get you something to drink. Would be rude if I didn’t.”

Vanja waited while Ulla dug out a little bottle and two cups from her cabinet. At length, she sat down and poured the bottle’s contents into the cups. It was wine, and it had a sour bouquet Vanja didn’t recognize. “What is it?” she asked.

Ulla winked at her. “It’s the good stuff. Go on, then, interview me.”

“Right.” Vanja picked up her notepad and pen. “Sarols’ Ulla Three, retired doctor. Your speciality?”

“General practitioner,” Ulla replied. “Retired fifteen years.”

“And what do you do now?”

“Wait for death or better times.”

Vanja looked up.

Ulla raised her cup and grinned. “That, and I rattle my pill organizer with the other decrepits at the recreation hall.”

“So.” Vanja cleared her throat. “You remember when new hygiene products were introduced?”

Ulla laughed. “Yes, hygiene products. All right. Yes, I remember. We all thought it was silly. Everyone was using the commune’s own, and then these two new companies came along. And there will be more, as I understand it. From Essre?”

“That’s the idea.”

“But there is no difference, you know.” Ulla poured herself more wine. “New manufacturers, new labels. The muck they make it from is exactly the same.”

“That’s actually not true,” Vanja ventured. “Among other things, extract of agaric is used in…”

“Extract of agahhhric,” Ulla mimicked. “Oh really. And what’s the main ingredient?”

“Well… soap base. And cream base.”

Ulla raised an eyebrow. “And what’s that made of? Because it’s not all mushroom extracts and bean oils.”

“It’s…” Vanja struggled. “It comes from the factories in Odek.”

“That’s right.” Ulla patted Vanja’s hand. “And what do they manufacture in the factories in Odek? What is the substance they use to make every last thing we have?”

Vanja swallowed.

Ulla shot her a sharp smile. “Isn’t it strange how one is so frightened by, say, a cup dissolving into sludge? And in the next moment, one rubs oneself all over with something that’s made from exactly the same sludge.”

“It’s not the same,” Vanja protested. “It’s… a cream base. The other is… it’s…”

“You know what it is. Everything that comes out of the factories is made from the same stuff.”