Карин Тидбек - Amatka

Nina had fallen asleep in Ivar’s bed with her face buried in his pillow. She was wearing one of his sweaters. Vanja went into her own room. She hadn’t been in there for days except to sleep and fetch new clothes. She took a turn around the room, touching furniture and objects. Then she curled up on the bed with her clothes on.

When the thunder of breaking ice died down, it was as though it left a buzz in the air. Not quite audible, it was more a sensation than a sound. Nina was still in Ivar’s bed. When Vanja sat down on the edge of the bed, Nina turned her face to the wall and pulled the blanket over her head. Vanja went down to the kitchen. It was chilly, somehow bigger and emptier than before. She made coffee and porridge, too much porridge—since Ivar wasn’t going to have any. She filled two bowls and left the rest on the counter to cool.

Nina didn’t react when Vanja put a bowl and a cup of coffee down on her desk. Vanja ate her own porridge in the kitchen, washed the dishes, and sat back down at the table. The silence was compact, except for that low drone she couldn’t quite hear. Eventually it was time to put the leftovers in the fridge and go to work.

A janitor arrived midmorning, carrying a bucket and a stack of good paper. She greeted Vanja curtly and came in behind the counter uninvited. Then she picked a paintbrush out of the bucket and slathered some of its contents on the wall. She dropped the brush back into the bucket, leafed through the papers, and slapped one of them in the middle of the sticky mess on the wall. She walked around the counter to the front of the reception, repeated the procedure, and left without another word.

The reception occupies a total area of 366 square feet. The space is furnished with one (1) reception counter with drawers, two (2) writing desks, six (6) storage shelves, and three (3) office chairs. The storage shelves contain assorted office supplies (see separate list of contents), two (2) typewriters, one (1) duplicating machine, and manuals, log books etc. (see separate list of contents). The staircase to the reception archive is furnished with doors at both ends and has eighteen (18) steps of standard height. The archive contains twenty (20) filing cabinets with drawers containing archive material (see separate list of contents). From the archive, one (1) security door leads to the Secure Archive (see separate list of contents).

The paper had been hastily de-inked and reprinted. Here and there, Vanja could make out the faint remains of words that had previously filled the page: “beloved,” “waiting,” “mine.” A love poem. Vanja walked around the counter to inspect the other note. Part of a verse from a nursery rhyme was vaguely visible between the new letters. These were pages from the confiscated library books. This was apparently one of the things the committee needed all the good paper for: description.

Brisk steps approached from the stairs that led to the offices. A courier in gray overalls and tightly braided hair shot around the corner and snapped to attention in front of Vanja.

“Good morning!” she blurted. “I am here to announce that the committee has instituted an additional leisure night! Every Thirday night at eighteen o’clock all citizens will attend their respective leisure center to partake in delightful games, quizzes, and group conversations! Hooray for Amatka’s commune!”

“Hooray!” Vanja replied.

The courier turned on her heel and marched into the colony streets. In her wake, a swarm of vigorous boys and girls in identical overalls trooped down the hallway toward the exit.

Vanja fingered the note on the wall. Those kids probably had no idea why there were suddenly two leisure nights a week. But the committee must have known for some time.

Nina was sitting up in bed when Vanja went to check on her. The porridge bowl was still full, but the coffee cup was empty. When she spoke, she sounded lucid but monotonous, her eyes fixed on something in the far distance. Someone from the clinic had been there to check why Nina hadn’t shown up for work. She had been given a week’s leave for personal reasons.

“I have to go see Ivar,” she said.“They only keep bodies for forty-eight hours before recycling.” Her eyes focused on Vanja for the first time. “Could you come with me? Right now?”

“Of course.” Vanja picked up the sweater and trousers Nina had dropped on the floor sometime during the night or day. “Shirt, trousers. You need to eat something first.”

Nina got dressed, followed Vanja into the kitchen, and mechanically ate the reheated porridge Vanja put in front of her. When she’d managed half of it, she got to her feet. “Let’s go.” She put her jacket on without buttoning it and walked outside with long strides.

Ivar lay on a gurney. They’d wrapped him in a white shroud, leaving only his head uncovered. Nina sat down on a stool next to the gurney and just looked at him. Vanja stayed in the doorway. Britta had once told her there was nothing scary about dead people; they just looked like they were sleeping. When Vanja had pulled Ivar out of the water, she could still tell it was Ivar, but he hadn’t looked like he was sleeping. He had looked like he was dead. Ivar without Ivar inside. The thing on the gurney wasn’t even Ivar, just an object that resembled him a little.

Nina let out a shaky sigh and caressed the corpse’s cheek. “What am I going to tell the girls, Ivar? What am I supposed to say?”

When the names of the recently deceased were recited next Sevenday, Ivar’s name wouldn’t be among them. No one would observe a minute’s silence for him. Taking a life, one’s own or someone else’s, was the most disloyal action of all; every lost life put the colony’s survival in peril. Murderers were no longer citizens. Ivar would be sent to recycling, and then he’d be gone, erased.

“Tell them what happened,” Vanja said from the doorway. “They deserve to know.”

“Do you think they want to carry that around? That their father was a suicide?”

Vanja took a few steps closer. “No,” she said quietly. “It wasn’t Ivar, not really. You know whose fault it was.”

Nina rested her head on the edge of the gurney. “You win. I’ll tell you everything.”

It was Distillate x 2 this time, a little stronger. They sat in Ivar’s room with the door closed, curled up on his bed. Nina still hadn’t let Vanja touch her. She downed a whole cup before speaking.

“I’m telling you all this so you’ll understand,” Nina said. “We will never speak of this again.”

Vanja nodded.

“And after I’m done,” Nina continued, “there will be no questions, no discussions, nothing. Understood?”

“Understood.”

Nina poured herself more liquor. “I was nineteen. I’d just received my nursing diploma. A hundred people disappeared overnight. Poof, gone. Someone had left a manifesto at the commune office, signed by Berols’ Anna. I remember she’d just finished her Plant House series. She won an award for it. So, somehow she managed to organize all these people without anyone knowing. I had no idea what was going on. No one I knew had any idea. But everyone knew someone who had disappeared.”

“What did the manifesto say?”

“Don’t know the details. It was never made public. Those of us who went on the expedition were told a little, just enough to make sure we’d be prepared. It said something along the lines of they were going to found a new colony, and that it would be more real somehow. That they’d do it right. But people in Amatka didn’t know about the manifesto. At first, all we knew was that people had disappeared, but not why. People panicked. There were all sorts of rumors, like about a suicide pact or some kind of abduction. Then, after a few days, I was called up to join the expedition. That’s when I found out. The committee had decided we couldn’t afford to lose that many citizens, so even if they were disloyal, they had to be brought back home.”