The Fire Witness

176

Flora peers at her brother, who is sitting in front of the window, his face in shadow. She can’t tell if he is looking at her or not.

“Time for you to leave,” her father says, and he picks up his knife and fork.

“Not without Daniel,” she says. She points at him with the rifle.

“It wasn’t his fault,” her mother says weakly. “I was the one who-”

“Daniel is a good son,” her father interrupts.

“I’m not saying he isn’t,” her mother says. “But he… You don’t remember. We were watching television-theater-the night before it happened. We were watching Strindberg’s Miss Julie and she’s pining after the servant so badly, and I said… I said it would be better for her-”

“What kind of stupidity is this?”

“I keep thinking about it. Every day,” the old woman continues. “It was my fault. I said that it would be better for the girl to die than to be with child.”

“Stop this nonsense!”

“And just when I said this, I saw that little Daniel had come up behind me. He was staring at me…” She is trying to explain with tears in her eyes. “I was only talking about Strindberg’s play.”

She brings her napkin up. Her hands are shaking.

“After what happened to Ylva… a whole week after the accident. It was evening. I was praying with Daniel when he told me that Ylva was with child. He was just six years old. He didn’t understand a thing.”

Flora is looking at her brother. He pushes his glasses up his nose and stares at his mother. It is impossible to tell what he is thinking.

“You are coming with me and telling the truth to the police,” Flora says to Daniel. She aims right at his chest.

“What would be the good of that?” asks her mother. “It was an accident.”

“We were playing,” Flora says without looking at her. “But it was not an accident.”

“He was just a child!” roars her father.

“Yes, but now he’s killed other people. Two people at Birgittagården. One was a girl who was just fourteen and she had her hands over her face just like-”

“Stop your lying!” her father shouts. He hits the table with his fist.

“You are the ones who are lying,” Flora whispers.

Daniel gets up. His expression starts to shift. Perhaps it is cruelty, perhaps it is disgust or fear. Flora can’t tell. Perhaps his feelings are mixed.

A knife has two sides but only one edge.

His mother is pleading with him and holding on to his arm. He takes her hands and says something Flora can’t hear. But it sounds as if he’s swearing.

“We’re going now,” Flora says to Daniel.

Her father and mother stare at her. They have nothing to say.

She leaves the dining room with her brother.