Frozen Tracks

22

HE FRIED TWO EGGS, PUT THEM ON A PLATE, LOOKED AT THEM, and decided that he wasn’t hungry anymore. He stood up, scraped them into the trash can, and realized that he would have to throw them down the chute later.

He had collected eggs, turned his sweater into a carrier bag, and taken them to the kitchen. But that was then. They’d had a special smell, which seemed to force its way through the shell. Put them in the dish, the old man used to say. You could break them, carrying them like that.

The smell was no longer there when he put them in the dish. One of the eggs had broken even though he’d been as careful as he could possibly be.

What the hell are you doing, you little bastard!? Come here. Come here, I said!

We’d better send you back to where you came from.

He opened the cupboard door again and sniffed at the trash bag. Fried eggs didn’t smell like raw eggs in the country, certainly not. It seemed that they were still warm, and that made the smell even stronger.

He tied the trash bag and sent it sliding down the chute on the landing. The resulting thud below was muted, which meant that they would soon be coming to empty the big bin down in the cellar.

It was sunny outside.

He went back in, put on his jacket, and emerged into the sunshine, which was less bright than it had seemed through the window. The sun was hidden behind the high-rise buildings-it didn’t have the strength to rise above them at this time of year.

It was different out in the fields. There were no buildings there for the sun to hide behind. The neighboring farms were so far away that they seemed to be just a minor blot on the landscape. He could have been standing in the middle of an ocean. There was no end to it. The plain was as boundless as the ocean, and he was standing in the middle of it next to the island he lived on. It was a desert island that he longed to escape from, but no ships passed by to take him away. He could swim, but not that far. He wasn’t big enough. When he grew up.

He walked around the high-rise building and saw the sun: He could look straight at it without going blind; it was like a low-voltage bulb up there in the heavens.

A streetcar clattered past down below. He raised a hand in greeting. Perhaps the driver was somebody he knew who would recognize him.

The streetcar stopped a bit farther on, and people got off carrying bags of Christmas presents. Packages wrapped in fun, colorful paper. They had to be Christmas presents.

He shook his head.

The old man had shaken the iron in his face. Shaken, shaken. He could detect the smell of singed hair, and something more. Singed flesh.

Great stuff, these irons, the old man had said. Look out! he’d said, and the iron had only just missed him.

The cow started sizzling. Another sizzling cow.

Once the burn heals nobody will be able to claim that she’s not ours. The old man had held up the iron again. Should we brand you as well while we’re at it, my boy? To make sure you don’t wander off and can’t remember where you live. That’s the way they used to do things. Right? He’d backed off and felt a rake underneath his right foot. Come here, I said! Out there the sea swelled. He rushed out into the water.

Winter drove. Ringmar kept an eye on the road signs. The flatlands were black and enveloped by a damp breeze. A tractor in a rectangular field was doing God only knows what.

“Maybe they’re sowing,” said Ringmar, pointing. “Spring seems to have arrived before winter this highly peculiar season.”

It was a different world. That was why Winter had wanted to pay a brief visit. He could see the horizon the way you could normally only see it from a ship.

I should get out of town more often. You walk up and down the city streets and the years go by. It’s not far away, and it’s something completely out of the ordinary.

“It’s not easy to hide out here,” said Ringmar.

“There are houses,” said Winter.

“Everybody knows everything about everybody else,” said Ringmar.

“If only we did.”

“You should turn off here,” said Ringmar.

The side road wasn’t visible until they came to it. There was a signpost, but it was as insubstantial as the breeze, which was blowing from all directions. They couldn’t see a road that might lead to a house.

“Where is this farm, then?” said Ringmar.

They kept going. The landscape curved away, and they saw the house.

A dog barked as they drove into the farmyard.

A man was clambering out of some kind of vehicle.

They got out of their car.

“Good afternoon,” said Ringmar, and introduced himself and Winter. The man was over sixty and dressed in waterproof clothing and solid-looking boots. Winter could feel the rain now, like soft gravel. The man said “Smedsberg” and dried his hands on a rag that had been draped over the hood of what could have been a power mower but was presumably something else. Winter looked up at the farmhouse, which was two stories high. He didn’t see any sign of a Swedish Kenyan peering out of a window.

“We’re looking for somebody,” said Ringmar.

Among other things, Winter thought.

“Is it some’ to do with Gustav?” said the man, with a strong local accent.

“Didn’t he tell you?” asked Ringmar.

“Told me what?”

Two cats were sitting beside the iron wood-burning stove. The farmer opened a hatch and inserted two logs. A modern electric range stood next to it. There was an unmistakable smell of old-fashioned heating that Winter had no personal experience of but recognized immediately. He could see from Bertil’s expression that he remembered this kind of thing.

There were rag carpets on the floor. Winter and Ringmar had not been asked to take off their shoes. The farmer, Georg Smedsberg, had exchanged his boots for some kind of slippers that appeared to be homemade.

There were samplers on two of the walls: East West, Home’s Best. God is the truth and the light. This earth is the creation of our Lord God. Honor thy father and thy mother.

Is there a Mrs. Smedsberg? Winter wondered.

They told the old man about what had happened to his son.

“You’d a thought he’d a said something,” said Smedsberg, putting a coffeepot that seemed to be a wartime model onto the stove. “But nothin’ happened to ’im, eh? He’s alright, ain’t he?”

“He wasn’t injured,” said Winter, taking a mouthful of the asphalt-black coffee that also seemed to be from another world. It would banish every bacterium in his body, good and bad.

“Good coffee,” said Ringmar.

“It’s how I like it,” said Smedsberg.

To ask for milk would have been a mistake. Winter sipped at the hot liquid. Anybody wanting to create a surrealistic scene could have introduced an espresso machine into this kitchen.

“I don’t suppose you’ve had any visitors recently? Friends of Gustav’s?” he asked.

“When might that’ve bin?”

“In the last couple of days.”

“No.”

“Before that, then?”

“Nobody’s bin ’round here since Gustav was home last.”

Smedsberg scratched at his chin, which was shaven and shiny and didn’t fit in with his clothes and general appearance. They hadn’t announced their visit in advance. Perhaps he knew about it all the same. Out here everybody knows about everything, as Bertil had said. An unfamiliar car from Gothenburg. A Mercedes. A conversation with his son. Or smoke signals. Maybe the boy had called and told him what was going on. Even tillers of God’s good earth could tell lies.

“When was that?” Ringmar asked.

“Let’s see, it’s nearly Christmas. It would’a been potato time.”

“Potato time?” Ringmar wondered.

“When we took in the taters. Late. Beginning of October.”

More than two months ago, Winter thought. Ah well. How often did Winter see his mother? There were direct flights from Gothenburg to Malaga almost every hour for all the retirees and golfers and all those who were a combination of the two, which was most of them.

There was a framed photograph on a desk on the other side of the kitchen table. A middle-aged lady with permed hair smiled timidly in black and white. Smedsberg saw that Winter was looking at it.

“That’s my wife,” he said. “Gustav’s mom. She left us.”

“Left you?”

“I’m a widower,” said the man, standing up. He walked to the iron stove and put in some more birch wood. There was a sizzling sound as the dry wood reached the flames. Winter noticed that smell again.

“Has Gustav ever brought a friend home with him from Gothenburg?” asked Ringmar.

“When would that be?”

“Whenever. Since he started studying at Chalmers.”

“Yes,” said Smedsberg, remaining by the stove and warming his misshapen and discolored hands on the hotplates. “When ’e came around to give us a hand with t’ potatoes ’e brought a friend with ’im.” Smedsberg seemed to be smiling, or he might have been grimacing from the heat that he must be feeling in his palms. “A black one.” He removed his hands and blew into them. “As black as the soil out there.”

“So his friend was a black person, is that right?” asked Ringmar.

“Ya, a real blackie,” said Smedsberg, and now he was smiling. “First time for me.”

My first black man, Winter thought. There’s a first time for everything.

“He’d a come in useful to scare the cows in,” said Smedsberg.

“Was his name Aryan Kaite?” Winter asked.

“I don’t recall a name,” said Smedsberg. “I don’t even know if I ever heard ’is name.”

“Is this him?” Winter asked, showing him a copy of a photograph of Kaite they had taken from his student room. Smedsberg looked at the photograph and then at Winter.

“Hell’s bells! They’re all alike, aren’t they?”

“You don’t recognize him?”

“No,” he said, handing the photograph back.

“Has he been here again since then?”

“No. I ain’t seen ’im again since then, you can bet yer life I’d a remembered if I had.” He looked from Winter to Ringmar. “Why are you asking all this? Did he disappear?”

“Yes,” said Winter.

“Is ’e one of them others that was attacked?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, why else would you come ’ere?”

“Yes, he’s one of them.”

“Why would anybody want to take a shot at Gustav and this blackie, then?” asked Smedsberg.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” said Winter.

“They mebbe deserved it,” said Smedsberg.

“I beg your pardon?”

“They mebbe got what they deserved,” said Smedsberg.

“What do you mean?” asked Ringmar, looking at Winter.

“What was they up to?” said Smedsberg.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Ringmar.

“They must a been up to sumthin’. It can’t just be a coincidence that somebody took a shot at both of ’em, can it?”

“It didn’t happen at the same time,” said Winter.

“Still,” said Smedsberg.

“And Gustav hasn’t said anything to you about this?”

“ He ain’t been here since October, like I said.”

“There’s such a thing as the telephone,” said Winter. There was even one in this house. Winter had seen it in the hall. An old-fashioned rotary, of course.

“We ain’t spoken for a month or so,” Smedsberg said, and Winter noticed how his face changed, clouded over.

Ringmar leaned forward.

“Do you have any other children, Mr. Smedsberg?”

“No.”

“You live here all alone?”

“Since my Gerd left us, yes.”

“Was Gustav still living at home then?”

“Yes.” Smedsberg seemed to be looking into space. “ He was little, and then ’e grew big. Did ’is national service as well. Then… Then ’e moved to Gothenburg and started ’is studies.”

“So he doesn’t want to take over the farm?” said Ringmar.

“There’s nuthin’ to take over,” said Smedsberg. “I can barely scrape together a living ’ere, and when I go the crows can ’ave it.”

They made no comment.

“You want some more coffee?” asked Smedsberg.

“Yes, please,” said Ringmar, and Winter looked at him. Bertil must have a death wish. It will be a painful farewell. “If we have time.”

“I’ll just stir up the dregs,” said Smedsberg, and went over to the stove. Winter gave Ringmar the thumbs-up.

“Gustav told us something else,” said Winter. “The injuries those boys suffered might have been caused by an iron of some kind. That’s what Gustav thought. Some sort of marking iron used on cattle.”

“A branding iron, you mean? Are we supposed to have a branding iron here?”

“I don’t think he said that. But the boys might have been beaten with a branding iron.”

“I never heard of anythin’ like that,” said Smedsberg.

“Like what?”

“That anybody clubs folk down with a branding iron. Never heard of it.”

“That’s what Gustav suggested.”

“Where’d ’e get that idea from? We never had a branding iron here.”

“But he could have been familiar with one all the same, could he?” asked Ringmar.

“I suppose ’e could,” said Smedsberg. “I wond…” but he didn’t finish. The coffeepot was starting to rattle on the stove. He fetched the coffee and came back to the table.

“No, thank you,” said Winter. Smedsberg sat down.

“I’ve just used ear tags on the cows ’ere,” he said. “If I ever needed to mark ’em. But in the old days we had the number from the cooperative that we used to mark cattle with.”

“What exactly do you mean?” Winter asked.

“Like I said. We marked ’em with a number for this district.”

“For the district? Not the farm?” Winter asked.

“No. For the area.”

“But we were told that there are special numbers that indicate the precise location the animals come from.”

“That came later, ninety-five, with the EU.”

“And there’s one of those for every farm?”

“Yes.”

“So there’s one for your farm, then?”

“Yes. But I got no cows nowadays. No animals at all, apart from dogs and cats and a few chickens. I might buy a couple of pigs.”

“But you still have the number?”

“It’s always there. It goes with the farm.”

Winter saw Ringmar take a drink of coffee, and his face suddenly split down the middle and a black stream of coffee gushed forth from his eyes… Well, not quite, but he made a face.

“So you’ve never had one of these marking irons, branding irons, at this farm?”

“No. It’s more or less unheard-of. It’s in America where they got such enormous ranches and they brand their cattle so that they can keep track.” He smiled. “I bet they steal cattle over there as well.” He took a swig of asphalt. “I reckon they brand horses in Germany as well.”

“But not here?”

“ Horses? There ain’t no horses in these parts.”

“Do you know anybody who might have used that method of marking cattle?” Winter asked.

Smedsberg didn’t answer immediately; he seemed to be searching for the answer in the depths of his mug of coffee; then he looked up again. He looked across the room and out of the window, where the view was curtailed by the rain.

“Somewhere where Gustav might have seen it?” said Winter.

“Didn’t you asked ’im?”

“Not directly,” said Winter, although that wasn’t really true. Gustav Smedsberg had said that he couldn’t remember. “But it’s sort of become more relevant now.”

“Become hotter?” A smile twinkled in Smedsberg’s left eye. A farmer with a sense of humor, as black as his coffee and as the night outside, in another hour or two.

“So you’ve never seen an iron like that?” Winter asked.

“There is a farm in the upper parish, as we call it.” Smedsberg looked Winter in the eye. “I don’t come from around these parts, but my Gerd did. When ’er parents were still alive we sometimes used to visit.”

He scratched his right cheek again, and his forehead, as if to massage the memory.

“There was a farm-I don’t know if it’s still there-him who ran it was a bit odd. Did things ’is own way, you might say.” Smedsberg did some more massaging. “In the next village. We needed to go there once for some or other, and I think ’e… That ’e used to mark some of his animals like that. Come to think of it.” He peered out from inside his memories, turned to look at them. “I remember the smell, in fact,” he said. “Odd, ain’t it? A sound as well. Yes. When we got back home I asked Gerd and she said… she said he used to brand ’is mark into ’is animals.”

“You mean that number he was given by the cooperative?” Ringmar asked.

“No. He ’ad ’is own. I remember asking and Gerd said so.”

“You remember a lot, Mr. Smedsberg,” said Winter.

“It’s the smell,” he said. “Odd, ain’t it? You remember this smell and then you remember loads of other things. All you gotta do is think of a smell, and memories start to come back.”

Open the floodgates, Winter thought.

“What was the name of this farmer who had these unusual methods?”

“I don’t remember, I can tell you that now. Don’t have enough memory for that.” It sounded as if he gave a chuckle. “There are limits.”

“Do you remember where the farm was? Or is?”

“It’s in the next parish.”

“As far as we’re concerned that could be in another province,” said Winter.

“It is in another province, in fact,” said Smedsberg.

“Could you show us where it is?” Ringmar asked.

“Do you mean now?”

“Is it far?”

“Yes. It’s over twenty kilometers, I reckon. Depends on what route you take.”

“Do you have time to show us now? We can go right away. We’ll bring you straight back, of course,” Winter said.

Smedsberg changed the waterproof trousers he’d been wearing. He somewhat hesitantly got into Winter’s Mercedes. Winter noticed the Escort rusting away peacefully by the big barn.

The road was as straight as an arrow. Black birds circled overhead, followed them like seagulls shadowing a ship. The light sank down again, into the earth and over remote farms where lamps were starting to glimmer in the windows. They drove through a little village with a gray church and a hall next to it, with a dozen or so cars parked outside.

“Advent coffee meeting,” said Smedsberg.

“Feel like a cup?” said Winter to Ringmar, who didn’t reply.

“We don’t got time, surely,” said Smedsberg.

They passed two girls riding horses that looked as big as houses. So there are in fact horses around here. Winter gave them as wide a berth as he dared, and the girls waved in acknowledgment. The horses looked even bigger in the rearview mirror. It was a different world out here.

“We’re getting close,” said Smedsberg.

At a small crossroads he told them to turn left. The road surface was uneven and patchy asphalt that seemed to have survived both world wars. Fields were enclosed by rickety, broken-down fences, and the village seemed to have been abandoned. Which it no doubt has, Winter thought. They drove past two farmhouses that were in total darkness. A depopulated area: Everybody’s moving into the cities nowadays.

“People’ve started moving out of this place,” said Smedsberg, as if to confirm Winter’s thoughts. “There used to be lots of young kids in them two farms.”

They came to another crossroads.

“Left,” said Smedsberg. It was a dirt road now. Smedsberg pointed. “That’s where my Gerd came from.”

Winter and Ringmar looked at the house, which was wood-built, still red in the fading light: a cowshed, a smaller cottage, a fence. No electric light.

“Her nephews and nieces use it as a country place, but they aren’t there very often,” said Smedsberg. “They ain’t there now, for instance.”

The forest became more dense. They came to a clearing, then more trees, another clearing. There was a gloomy-looking log cabin at the side of the road.

“That used to be a village store once upon a time,” said Smedsberg.

“This really is a depopulated area,” said Ringmar.

The forest suddenly opened up and they found themselves driving through fields that seemed endless, compared with the concentration of trees they’d just passed through. There was a big house on the other side, set back some fifty meters from the road.

“That’s it,” said Smedsberg, pointing. “That was the house.”

There were lights on.