I Am Behind You (41 page)

The firecreature lashes out at Cat, striking her on the back, but she refuses to let go of its hand. At the same time her claws come out and she scratches the firecreature's eyes.

The noise it is making grows louder and it lets go of Benny, who takes the opportunity to bite its other hand. More noise. Then it
withdraws to the other end of the caravan and lies there on its belly. It is still looking hungrily at Benny and Cat, but it daren't come any nearer. Benny and Cat move back to their own side. There is blood in the fur on Cat's back. Benny nudges her in the stomach and she lies down, then Benny begins to lick her wounds.

*

The rain is hammering down on the roof of Lennart and Olof's caravan when they hear barking from under the floor. Barking, hissing, and screaming that seems to come from a person in agony. Majvor covers her ears with her hands; Donald is on the sofa, still struggling to free himself from Lennart's grip. The paraffin lamp they have lit and placed on the table wobbles and almost falls over.

‘Will you stop it?' Lennart roars. ‘Aren't things bad enough already?'

Olof looks at the floor and says: ‘Maud. Maud is down there.'

‘Yes,' Lennart agrees. ‘I guess she is.'

The barking turns to howling and then a terrified whimpering, Maud's hissing intensifies and Olof pulls a face. ‘I can't listen to this.' He gets up and moves towards the door. ‘I'm going to…'

‘Olof, didn't you hear what Stefan said?'

Olof fiddles with the strap of his dungarees and looks out of the window at the thick drops of rain sliding down the glass against a backdrop of darkness. ‘Yes, but it doesn't make sense.'

‘And what exactly has made sense in this place so far? At least test it out first.'

The sound of fighting under the caravan stops, and Olof picks up a puzzle magazine with a caricature of the pop singer Måns Zelmerlöw on the cover. He opens the window a fraction, pushes the magazine outside for a few seconds, then pulls it back in.

The cover is smoking as Zelmerlöw's face disintegrates, revealing completed crosswords which also dissolve, until the magazine is perforated by a number of holes. Donald hurls himself from side to
side, yelling something from behind the tape. Lennart shoves him away.

‘Okay,' he says. ‘Enough. You think all this is a dream you're having, right?'

Donald looks at Lennart through narrowed eyes, then he nods.

‘Right. And neither I nor anyone else can do or say anything to convince you that this is not the case, because then you just assume it's part of the dream?'

Donald says something, but when he realises that no one can understand him, he nods again.

‘Okay. Listen to me. There was some philosopher who said:
I think, therefore I am
.'

‘Descartes,' Olof says. ‘Came up yesterday. In a crossword.'

‘That's it, Descartes. And you
think
—don't you, Donald? Sitting there glaring at me right now, you can
think
, can't you?' Lennart goes on without waiting for a response from Donald. ‘Now I'm no philosopher, and I might not be very good at putting things into words, but neither are you, so…'

Majvor has uncovered her ears and is leaning forward with her eyes fixed on Lennart's lips as if she doesn't want to miss a word.

‘We're all here,' Lennart says. ‘In this place, this…bizarre place. And you're walking around here, Donald. And you're
thinking
. So this is where your head is. Regardless of your opinion, it means that
you're
here too. Just like we are. Thinking. Do you understand what I'm saying?'

Donald's eyes flicker from side to side and it seems as if he is making use of the faculty Lennart has just ascribed to him: he is thinking. Then he nods once more.

‘Good. In that case I'm going to remove this tape, Donald, because to be honest this is just ridiculous.'

Gently Lennart pulls off the tape; Donald moans as it tugs at his stubble. He smacks his sticky lips and says: ‘The hands too.'

‘First of all I need to hear that you understand,' Lennart says.

‘I understand. I understand that you're talking a load of crap.'

Lennart closes his eyes and his shoulders slump. He gets to his feet, and Donald, unable to use his hands, clumsily follows suit. Lennart opens a drawer, takes out a serrated knife and cuts through the tape binding Donald's wrists. Then he sits back down and waves towards the door.

‘Be my guest, Donald. You saw what happened to the magazine, but if all this is a dream then you're in no danger, because it's impossible to die in dreams, from what I've heard. Go for it.'

There are several rusty patches on the old caravan, places where corrosion has begun to eat away at the metal. So far there are no holes, but one of the worst spots is just above the door. As Donald puts his hand on the latch, the rain comes through and a few drops land on his bald patch. He runs his hand over his head, then his face crumples and he lets out a yell as he scrubs at the affected area with both hands.

‘Ow ow ow, fuck, it's burning…ow!'

He runs to the sink and turns on the tap to sluice his head with cold water; meanwhile, Lennart, Olof and Majvor lean closer together.

‘What are we going to do?' Majvor asks, glancing up at a patch of rust above the table, where a single drop of rain is just about to fall. It slowly lengthens, frees itself and lands on the laminate tabletop, where it leaves a small, hissing crater. Majvor cannot take her eyes off it.

Fire and brimstone from the sky.

They are not going to get out of this alive; there is no point in pretending any more. As Lennart and Olof get to their feet, Majvor puts her hands together, closes her eyes and begins to pray.

She knows a lot of prayers, both those sanctioned by the church and those she has made up herself. Most are addressed to God the Father, the creator of heaven and earth. But in really difficult times, such as the time when she was pregnant with Albert and thought she might be losing the baby, it is not God who is closest to her.

No, when darkness falls and she feels that there is no hope left, then God is—forgive the blasphemous thought—merely an omnipotent judge, a man among other men, and the only one who can understand her is another woman, another mother: the Virgin Mary.

There is a cracking sound as something in the kitchen is torn free. Majvor concentrates on the boundless inner space where Mary will open her arms to receive her.

‘Holy Mary, Mother of God,' Majvor murmurs. ‘Help us in our hour of need and forgive us our sins which are as innumerable as the grains of sand on the seashore. Show us the way out of this…hell.'

Majvor listens, but all she hears are the external sounds of wrenching and breaking wood.

‘Where are you?' she whispers. ‘Mother Mary, where are you?'

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

Until now everything has somehow been bearable. Majvor has known all along that if her need becomes too great, if she prays from the bottom of her heart, then the answer will come. It always does. But not this time. She has nowhere to turn, and the depth of her isolation does something to her. Something critical.

*

‘I need the outdoor cushions too! And the rugs!'

Stefan is standing on the loft ladder, throwing soft furnishings into the alcove between the roof and the ceiling as Carina passes them up from below. Their only hope is that the corrosive rain is a temporary phenomenon, and the alcove gives them the chance to create a layer of insulation above the kitchen table, which should at least buy them a few extra minutes.

Even though Stefan has not really recovered from the incident with Donald, he has already been thrown into a new cycle where lives, their lives, are at risk. He feels like a character from Emil's Nintendo, a Raving Rabbid. His hands seem as if they are not attached to his body, but are living a life of their own where they carry out the necessary actions when someone else operates the controls. Up the ladder, down the ladder, jump forward, duck to avoid being shot, try to survive until the next level.

‘The sleeping bags!'

Now the idea has taken hold, he can't get it out of his head. It seems odd that he is talking, issuing orders and appearing to be quite sensible, when all he really has to say is what Raving Rabbid says. Those crazy, wide-open eyes, that gaping mouth, and ‘BWAAHHH!'

‘Daddy!'

For a moment Stefan isn't sure. Did he really just yell like those lunatic rabbits? If so it's hardly surprising that Emil sounds so frightened.

‘Daddy!'

‘What?'

‘My cuddly toys! You have to save them!'

‘Okay, pass me the torch.'

Emil grabs the flashlight and passes it up to his father.

Bwaahhh!

The rain has come through the roof in at least a dozen places and has begun to destroy Emil's bedclothes, mattress, and everything they have thrown in the alcove. An acrid mist hovers in the air in the cramped space, thickening as the drops continue to fall.

‘Sweetheart, I just can't do it, it's…'

If Emil had said
Please Daddy
, or
Daddy you have to
, Stefan wouldn't have done it, even though he knows how much Bunte, Hipphopp, Bengtson and the others mean to his son. Wherever the family goes, the five soft toys have to come too, and in a way they are his closest friends. But acid is dripping from everywhere now, and there is no possibility of Stefan reaching the toys around Emil's pillow without it landing on him.

Emil says nothing, probably because he realises that retrieving his toys is out of the question. Instead he takes a deep breath and swallows a sob. He won't even allow himself to cry, and Stefan's heart, which is already at breaking point, cracks a little more.

He shines the beam of the torch into the mist. At the very end of the milk-white cone he can just see the outline of Sabre Cat. Down below he hears Carina's voice: ‘Sweetheart, we have to wait until this has stopped. It's…No, Stefan!'

Stefan grabs a bath towel, throws it over his head and back and crawls into the alcove.

What if it doesn't stop…

That was the straw that broke the camel's back. In spite of their efforts to create a barrier between themselves and the rain, every indication suggests that this is a futile exercise. They will end up cowering on the sofa until the rain starts dripping onto them, and Emil won't even have his soft toys to cuddle for consolation when his mummy and daddy's arms have

Bwaahhh!

disintegrated and can no longer protect him; the thought is unbearable. So Stefan begins to crawl as Carina begs him to stop.

The first metre is no problem. A few drops land softly on the towel, but Stefan is unaware of the smell of acid and burnt fabric because he is holding his breath to avoid inhaling any of the mist. But his eyes are stinging, and he sees Sabre Cat through a veil of tears as he reaches out and grabs the animal's shaggy coat.

A drop hits his hand at the same time as the dampness penetrates the towel and the legs of his trousers. It feels as if red-hot nails are being driven through the roof and down into his back, his thighs and the back of his head, and he has to summon every ounce of willpower to stop himself from screaming. He bites his lower lip so hard that it starts bleeding as he grabs the remaining soft toys, and for one insane moment

Bwaahhh! BWAAAAAHHHH!

he can't decide whether to shuffle backwards or turn around, but instead he thinks,
I'll just stay here
, because now he comes to think of it, his body is also insulating material that could give his wife and son another minute or two before the rain finds its way through to them down below, but as is so often the case when the battle is between good intentions and physical pain, it is the pain that

I am on fire

takes the victory because it is no longer red-hot nails but a huge, white-hot iron that is pressing down on Stefan's back, and now it is
not possible to suppress the scream.

Stefan lurches sideways in a quarter turn, the cuddly toys clutched in his arms, then pushes off from the wall of the alcove with one foot as if he were in a swimming pool, and manages to thrust his body half a metre closer to the ladder. He mistakenly takes a breath, and a network of sticky, stinging threads spreads through his lungs, making him cough as he wriggles forward using his elbows. Not only can he feel the skin on his back being eaten away, he can also
hear
it sizzling, just like when a pork chop is dropped into the hot fat in a frying pan.

His body is burning, he is coughing so violently that he is almost throwing up, and tears are pouring down his cheeks when he reaches the edge of the alcove without even realising, and tumbles over.

Some sane corner of his mind or the sheer instinct for self-preservation makes him twist his body in mid-air so that he lands on his chest, with the bundle of soft toys partly cushioning his fall.

He still lands quite badly. One shoulder hits the floor hard, and his forehead slams into the linoleum-covered metal, releasing a chaotic starburst inside his skull.

‘Darling, you crazy…'

He feels Carina's hands under his arms, dragging him towards the kitchen table. His sole focus during the overwhelming starburst is to hang on to the cuddly toys.

‘I'm so sorry, Daddy, I never meant…'

Stefan lets out a yell as Carina heaves him up onto the sofa and his thighs make contact with the coarse fabric. He leans forward so that his back won't touch anything, and the stars begin to fade as he opens his arms and drops the toys on the table. Emil gathers them up, remorse written all over his face.

‘Sorry, sorry, sorry…'

Stefan waves a hand to indicate that it's okay. He daren't open his mouth for fear that the only thing that will come out is

Bwaahhh!

something that might frighten Emil even more. Carina strokes Stefan's arm, gazing at him with the kind of love that is usually
reserved for lovers on a sinking ship or a plane that is about to crash, a love that might not even be love, but something more fundamental:
I'm here. You're there. I see you.