The Shadow Girls

14

Two days later they made the trip to Gothenburg for a second time. Humlin had no idea where Tea-Bag had been in the meantime. She had simply called him on a line full of static and asked him what time the train left. Like last time, she had simply appeared at the station. He had tried to convince her to continue telling her story but she had not cooperated, burrowing down into the thick jacket she wouldn’t take off. He had surreptitiously looked for claw marks on her back as they were getting on the train. There were some tears in the fabric, but it was impossible for him to verify if they were inflicted by a small monkey with brown-green fur. By the time they were passing Hallsberg, Tea-Bag was asleep. Humlin was forced to shake her when they finally pulled into the station in Gothenburg. When he touched her shoulder her arm automatically shot up and hit him in the face. The conductor, who happened to be nearby, stopped in his tracks.

‘What’s going on here? Is there a problem?’

‘Nothing. I was just trying to wake her up.’

The conductor gave him a sceptical look but continued on his way.

‘I don’t like it when people touch me,’ Tea-Bag said.

‘I was just trying to wake you up.’

‘I was already awake. I was just pretending to be asleep. I dream better that way.’

They took a cab to Stensgården. A boxing practice was still in session. Tea-Bag looked at the boys in the ring with frank fascination. Pelle Törnblom was standing by the ropes. He motioned for them to go to his office, but Tea-Bag didn’t move. Her eyes were trained on the exchange of blows. Törnblom blew on a whistle and the boys left the ring.

‘Tea-Bag,’ Törnblom said. ‘That’s a great name. Where is it you come from again? I’ve never really been sure about that.’

Humlin waited anxiously for the answer.

‘Nigeria.’

Humlin made a note of this answer.

‘I had a couple of boxers here from Nigeria. Just a couple of years ago,’ Törnblom said. ‘But then one of them disappeared. People around here claimed he had supernatural powers, that his father was some kind of magician. I don’t know about that. He sure didn’t have any powers that kept him from being knocked out in the ring. The other one met a Finnish girl and last I heard they were living in Helsinki.’

Tea-Bag pointed to a pair of gloves lying on a chair.

‘Can I try those?’

Törnblom nodded. He helped her on with the gloves then stood back as she started attacking a punchbag with surprising violence. Her thick jacket was still zipped up to her neck. Sweat started running down her face.

‘Not bad. She’s quick,’ Törnblom whispered to Humlin. ‘But I wonder who that punchbag is.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ve learned a little bit about human psychology over the years. She’s hitting someone. A lot of the guys who come down here hit their dads or uncles or whoever it is that’s pissed them off. Three times a week they come down here and beat someone up. People in the shape of punchbags, that is.’

Tea-Bag stopped abruptly. Törnblom helped her off with the gloves and turned to Humlin.

‘The TV crew will be downstairs in the lecture room in about five minutes.’

Humlin wondered briefly if he should bring Tea-Bag with him or not. It seemed like the natural thing to do, but he decided he wanted to do the interview alone. A few moments alone in front of the camera might be just what his rather battered ego needed at this point.

‘Wait here,’ he said to Tea-Bag. ‘I’ll be back soon.’

Törnblom frowned.

‘She’s not coming with you?’

‘I think I had better handle this alone.’

‘But I thought this was about the girls? Why should you have the starring role?’

‘This is not about a starring role. This is about the way I’ve decided to handle things.’

Tea-Bag sat down on a stool. Humlin turned and walked down the stairs without giving Törnblom a chance to continue the conversation.

The TV crew were already there, setting up their equipment. There were three of them: a camera operator, sound engineer and reporter. All three were women. Very young women.

‘I take it you are waiting for me?’

‘Don’t think so. Where are the girls?’

Humlin was thrown off balance. The girl who had spoken to him had a foreign accent and did not hide her impatience.

‘My name is Azar Petterson,’ she said. ‘I will be doing this interview. But I had taken it for granted that the young women in your seminar would be present.’

‘For now I would like to handle this situation with the utmost discretion,’ Humlin answered. ‘There’s a chance that we cannot continue our work in peace if there is too much publicity and unwanted attention.’

Azar looked critically at him.

‘What should I ask you?’

Humlin was starting to feel nervous.

‘I thought it was your job to come up with the questions.’

Azar shrugged then turned to her crew.

‘We’ll do a short interview,’ she said to the fat young woman holding the camera. ‘Then we’ll come back another time and shoot the girls.’

Humlin was very uncomfortable by this point. He had never been in a situation where the reporter showed such reluctance towards her task.

‘Where do you want me to stand?’

‘Right there is fine.’

The red light on the camera started glowing and the boom hung down over his head.

‘Stensgården is one of the suburbs outside Gothenburg that has unfairly earned the reputation of a slum, simply because of the high percentage of immigrants that live here. Right now I am standing in Pelle Törnblom’s Boxing Club where the author Jesper Hultin has been conducting a writing seminar for immigrant girls. Tell me, why did you decide to do this?’

‘It felt important.’

Azar turned to the camera woman.

‘We’ll cut here.’

Humlin’s mouth dropped.

‘That’s it?’

‘We can use it as an intro to the segment with the girls.’

‘My name is Humlin, not Hultin.’

‘I’ll cut that.’

Azar handed him her card.

‘Call me a few days before your next meeting. And make sure the girls are going to be there.’

‘They’ll be here soon.’

‘We don’t have time to wait around.’

The TV crew packed up and left. Humlin felt humiliated, but did not have time to ponder his hurt feelings. Haiman came in through the door. Humlin’s feelings turned to fear. Haiman was coming straight at him, holding a plastic bag in one hand.

‘I did not mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.’

‘That’s all right.’

‘If I had been really angry, the blow would have killed you.’

‘I believe you.’

Haiman took a stained and worn rugby ball from the bag and held it out to Humlin.

‘I hope we can be friends.’

‘It’s all behind us,’ Humlin said breezily. ‘I’ve already forgotten about it.’

Haiman frowned.

‘I have not forgotten. I never forget what I do.’

‘Of course we both remember what happened. But we just won’t think about it any more.’

Haiman looked at him in a confused way. The furrow in his brow grew deeper.

‘I don’t understand you.’

Humlin broke out in a light sweat.

‘I mean the same thing you do. Neither one of us has forgotten what happened but now you give me this wonderful rugby ball and we are friends.’

Haiman smiled.

‘That’s exactly what I mean. Do you like rugby?’

‘It is one of my favourite sports.’

Törnblom appeared in the doorway and said it was time to start. When Humlin walked into the room he saw that Leila’s large family was once again in attendance. Leyla, Tanya and Tea-Bag were sitting up in the front waiting for him. He pushed his way through the throng. The chatter died away. Humlin waited until there was complete silence in the room.

‘We are now at the point where we can start the course in earnest. Tonight I want you to take twenty minutes to write down the most important thing that happened to you today. You can write in any format you please: a poem, whatever you like. But you only get twenty minutes. Then we’ll read what you’ve written. Don’t talk to each other. And please, no chatter from the audience.’

‘What about what we wrote last time?’ Leyla asked. ‘Aren’t we going to talk about that?’

The tone of her voice irritated Humlin, but he tried not to show it.

‘Of course we’ll talk about it. Just not right now.’

Leyla got up and walked over to a corner of the room, asking some of her relatives to move. Tea-Bag stayed in her chair hunched up in her thick coat. Tanya moved as far away from the others as possible. There was complete silence in the room. Humlin looked at Tea-Bag and her bowed head. She seemed completely oblivious of her surroundings. He got to his feet.

‘I’ll be back when the time is up,’ he said, and left.

Törnblom had brewed some coffee in his office. Humlin looked at the old boxing posters and thought about how appropriate it was — not that it had ever been his decision — to hold these writing seminars in a place devoted to the art of fighting.

‘Things are going well,’ Törnblom said and squeezed himself into a chair behind the overflowing desk.

‘How can you say that? We’ve hardly started.’

‘Life isn’t what you think it is, Humlin.’

Humlin was immediately on guard.

‘And what do I think it is?’

‘That this is an essentially peaceful and harmonious country.’

‘Of course I don’t think that.’

‘Well, your poetry certainly doesn’t betray any knowledge of reality.’

Humlin got up at once at this insult.

‘Sit, sit,’ Törnblom said. ‘You’re overreacting again. None of these girls have had an easy time of it. It’s still not easy for them.’

Törnblom was right, Humlin thought. He sat down again with the feeling that he should try to get out of this whole thing as fast as he could. Maybe it would even be better to capitulate and write that thriller that Lundin and the oil executives wanted.

A noise at the door made him jump. Haiman was in the doorway.

‘I just want to say that the girl called Tea-Bag isn’t writing anything. If you like I can have a word with her so she’ll do as she’s told.’

Humlin could easily imagine Tea-Bag’s reaction to such a thing.

‘It’s probably best to let her be,’ he said.

‘Then I think we should tell her to leave.’

‘We can’t force anyone to write against their will.’

‘She will have a bad influence on the other two. They’re writing. I’ve walked around and checked them.’

Humlin was glad he wasn’t alone with Haiman.

‘We don’t need a writing police in this seminar.’

‘I want order in the classroom.’

‘If we leave them in peace I’m sure they’ll do just fine.’

Haiman left the room, but more because of Törnblom’s look than Humlin’s words.

‘I don’t want him here,’ Humlin hissed when Haiman had left. ‘I don’t want anyone walking around checking up on them.’

‘Haiman is a good sort. He just wants to maintain order in there.’

‘Is he one of Leila’s relatives?’

‘No, he’s just a person with a strong sense of responsibility.’

After exactly twenty minutes Humlin went back into the room. Tea-Bag was still hunched up in her coat just as she had been when he left. Tanya and Leyla got up from their respective corners and returned to the table.

‘Let’s see what you’ve written,’ Humlin said. ‘Who wants to start?’

He turned to Tanya.

‘Did you write anything?’

She looked at him angrily.

‘Why do you ask that? Why wouldn’t I have written anything?’

‘You didn’t write anything last time, that’s all.’

Tanya waved her crumpled paper in front of him.

‘Read it,’ Humlin said.

Tanya took a breath. Tea-Bag was still enveloped by her voluminous coat and her thoughts. Leyla looked worried. Humlin sensed that she was nervous that Tanya might have written something better than her.

Tanya started reading.

‘The most important thing that happened to me today was that I woke up.’

Humlin waited but there was nothing else.

‘That was it?’ he asked carefully.

Tanya turned on him furiously.

‘You didn’t say it had to be long. Did you? No, you didn’t. This is — a poem.’

Humlin backtracked to the best of his ability.

‘I was just checking,’ he said. ‘That was wonderful, Tanya. The most important thing that happened to me today was that I woke up. Wonderful. That is so true. And what would have happened if you hadn’t woken up?’

‘I would have been dead.’

Humlin realised he was not going to be able to get her to develop her insight any further. He turned to Tea-Bag.

‘I haven’t written anything.’

‘Why not?’

‘Nothing important happened today.’

‘Nothing at all?’

‘No.’

‘Even when something doesn’t feel profoundly important it can sometimes be worth writing down. Don’t you think?’

Leyla suddenly jumped in as if to defend Tea-Bag.

‘Did anything important happen to you today?’

Humlin gave up and was about to ask Leyla to read what she had written when Tea-Bag grabbed Tanya’s pad of paper and ripped out a blank page. Then she stood up and spoke, as if reading from the blank page.

She, the other one, the one who is not me but who could have been my sister, the one who sells the yellow plastic frogs in the street next to the florist, she has become the only friend I have, she has told me that her name is Laurinda, just like her mother, the old Laurinda. She has a white mark that runs down her cheek like a dried-up riverbed and continues over her shoulder. She swears it is true, not as if she were swearing an oath by God because she no longer believes in such things — how could she when she has lived for so long as a person who is not allowed to exist? She proves it in another way. She has said we live in a time when no one knows any more what another’s name really is, no one knows where anyone comes from or where they are going. It is when you get to some place where you don’t have to run any more that you can say your real name, and her name is Laurinda.

She has been on the run for nine years and everyone around her has whipped her with their invisible whips so that she won’t stay, so that she won’t exist, won’t be seen, won’t stop, but will keep going the whole time as if she were in eternal orbit, an orbit where life slowly crumbles away into death and emptiness. It has gone on for so long that she has started becoming invisible even to herself. She can no longer see her face in the mirror or her reflection in the shop windows. The only thing she sees is a shadow, moving abruptly as if it too were afraid of being caught.

And she has also become invisible on the inside; once where there were memories there is now only a shell as if from the nuts that a monkey has eaten and tossed away. No real memories, just the shell of reminiscence, not even smells are left, everything is gone. She only recalls the music as a noise in the distance, the songs that her mother, the old Laurinda, used to sing for her.

Sometimes she is overcome by a blinding rage, it rushes up in her like a volcano, a volcano that has been sleeping for a thousand years and suddenly awakens with a roar. Then she speaks to her mother: Be quiet! Don’t speak. Why can’t you let your mouth be closed? Words are not coming out any longer, your insides are coming out. Be quiet!

You don’t have to speak any longer about my father’s head that was blown off by the grenade. I have that splinter inside me, it is tearing me up inside. I don’t want to talk about what happened to my father, it is so terrible, but you force me to with your words. You speak so much I have started hating all the words. I don’t know what they mean any more, do they mean anything? If I ask you something you start speaking about something completely different. I get no answers and I don’t know what you are talking about, but the worst thing is that even you don’t understand all the words coming out of your mouth. It is making me crazy, all the words coming out of your mouth are beginning to stink and if you don’t shut up my nails will stop growing. It’s true, you talk so much my body is going to stop working.

I know you don’t like it when I talk about these things but I need you to know how it is. I can hardly piss any more, even if we’re not supposed to talk about that, it is something so natural it has become unnatural, when I was little I was made to understand that it was as shameful as lying. I never dared tell you when I wet my pants even though it was perfectly natural, all children wet their pants. Have you ever been a child? Perhaps you deny that you were once a child too, that it is something your parents lie about. Is that how it is? And that is why you torment me?

The other place we won’t even talk about, it hurts all the time and the stuff that comes out is green like sticky seaweed and it’s so disgusting it makes me vomit. Gall and shit is what it is. And my periods aren’t regular any more; blood gushes out at any time without warning — haven’t you wondered why I’m always washing myself? But I don’t care any more. Nothing you say is of any importance.

My toenails are growing, but not the nails on my fingers — well, my thumbnails are but not on the other fingers. The nails are curling over and growing crooked. They don’t look like nails any more, they look like fish scales. All of me is turning into a lizard — you are turning me into a cave lizard. That’s a species that only exists among people like me, people who are chased in and out of trucks and containers and don’t know if they’re alive or if they’re dead and lying at the bottom of the sea. I look in the mirror in the morning and I don’t believe what I see there, I try not to but I can’t help it and I look in the mirror and I think I see an old hag staring back at me.

When I was little there was a widow who lived in one of those houses that wasn’t a house any more, it had collapsed and lay along the path that went up to the mountains — do you remember her? I remember her perfectly, she was so hideously ugly. We were afraid of her but I understand now that she was nice and just old, not ugly, perhaps she had simply lived too long — that is exactly what I look like now when I look in the mirror, like that old widow. She must have been very poor. I don’t think she had children and she was probably already dead without really knowing.

The eyes that I see — I’m talking about my eyes now, not the old widow’s — are so horrible. They stare back at me with hatred. I don’t want those eyes, they’re not mine, and my tongue — do you want to see my tongue? — no, you don’t, it has a strange furry coating and it feels as if I have an animal in my mouth and that’s because you talk too much. Can’t you just be quiet, if not for my sake then for someone else’s? My father is dead; you can’t do anything more to him. I loved my father and I loved you too but I want you to be quiet. I know it’s hard for you and you are afraid — if anyone can understand that it’s me, I don’t even think my father really understood it. If you don’t stop talking I’m going to claw out your eyes. Watch out for my thumbnails, I mean it.

You’re always lying. We’ll be there soon, soon we’ll exist again, oh my God, when will that be? Tell me! No, don’t say anything, I don’t want to know, it doesn’t matter anyway since it isn’t true what you say. I am a prisoner of my invisibility, not just because I’m on the run but because you are keeping me prisoner, you keep saying we’ll be there soon but you have become a prison guard. Do you want to know what I think? Sometimes I think I’ll just disappear, that I’m going to let myself freeze to death just so I won’t hear your lies any more. I don’t mean to hurt you, I’m telling you this because I love you and because you can’t manage to formulate a single sensible thought any more. Can you understand that I’m not being mean, can you understand that? You will if you listen to me, not the words but the meaning. Are you listening to me or my words? Can you see that I’m standing here or have I become invisible for you too? And what’s the point in that case?

I don’t really know what the point is any more, but I have to make a decision now because otherwise nothing will happen. In the middle of all this talking and spitting I’ve discovered something. Do you know what it is? I’m not sure that I can explain it and even if I could I’m not sure that you would understand it, or would want to understand it since you always insist you know best. But you don’t know what’s best any more. I don’t either but at least I’m trying. It’s as if for the first time I feel something that seems like it has to do with freedom — can you understand that? A strange feeling of not being locked up any more and what I have the most trouble understanding is how one can feel the least bit free sitting in a cave and not even existing.

I’m not a child any more. I’m not an adult either, but I understand something now that I didn’t before, when I was careful never to offend you, when my whole life centred on this. That was thanks to the tradition you were always talking about, the respect that is really just another word for the noose around my neck since I was born a woman and not a man. I look at the others my age, the girls, I mean, the ones who live in this country, not the boys, don’t worry I only look at them in secret since I’m actually quite shy. I’m not going to change that about myself even with a new name. It would make you crazy to see them — the girls, I mean — they don’t go hiding behind shawls and respect and traditions and they aren’t afraid of fathers who think they can do whatever they like. I see something I haven’t seen before and maybe it’s not a good thing but I want to find that out for myself. I’m not going to let you answer for me. I’m going to judge for myself.

Up until now you were my hero, Mum. Until now. But not any more. Of course I love you, I do, don’t think any different. I’m going to love you as long as I live, I would probably give my life for you if it came to that and I know you would do the same for me but this can’t go on any longer. If we’re going to make it out of this cave we’re going to have to do what I say from now on.

That’s how she used to talk to the old Laurinda. It was the volcano that spewed out the glowing remains of feelings and thoughts she could no longer control. And the old Laurinda listened, she turned her face away but she never said anything.

Every day it is as if she falls off a cliff, as if every day she wakes up in a new place in a body she doesn’t recognise. Even her heartbeat is unfamiliar, as if someone is tapping a secret code inside her body, a prisoner in there who is sending his message out into the world. That’s what her heart sounds like.

Sometimes she senses memories of dreams she doesn’t know if she has had or if someone else passed by while she was sleeping and left them beside her, as if she were already dead and lying on the stretcher. She can sometimes remember a truck driving down the side of a cliff while grenades explode all around them. The last image she has of her father is when his head is torn away by the grenade. Only she, her mother, and siblings were left. They arrived in Sweden on a ferry that shook like an animal. They had disposed of their papers by tearing them up into small pieces and flushing them down the toilet because the unwritten rules of refugees insisted on this, that it was harder to get rid of a person without papers than if one still had a name, an identity. This is what it has come to that the ones who don’t exist are more true to themselves than those who refuse to give up their identities.

In Sweden they were provided with socks, warm coats and tea-bags in a chilly youth hostel right next to the cold grey sea that was the border to all that had happened before. It was as if they had torn up all their memories of their earlier life along with their papers. Kind people with frozen smiles had shown them to this place and then left them there. At night they had picked frozen apples and raided bird feeders. They had arrived around Christmas time. The old Laurinda understood that they had finally arrived at their destination and had lain down to die.

After that they had broken up. Her siblings were sent away to be cared for, Laurinda was also supposed to be cared for but she ran away. She walked along a road that went through the brown fields and then someone had stopped and given her a ride and each time this happened her silence was so frightening that the driver stopped and kicked her out. She continued walking. Each step was like a struggle with the earth that was trying to claim her but she didn’t stop until she found the black rubbish bag by the side of the road. It must have fallen from a truck. Perhaps someone had simply thrown it there.

The bag was full of yellow plastic frogs, the whole ditch was full of them. At first she thought they were real frogs that had frozen to death and she had tossed them back because she was afraid they might be poisonous. But when the frogs didn’t move she picked one up again and that’s when she saw the price tag on its underside. She had kept the bag and when she arrived at the next town she poured them out on the pavement and waited. She wasn’t sure if she was waiting for the frogs to come back to life or for someone to buy them but she didn’t even care.

That was where she was when I came past. When I saw Laurinda crouching over her pile of frozen plastic frogs I knew I had to stop. I asked her if she had seen my monkey but she shook her head and I stayed and then she told me her story. I remember her voice. It was like the voice of the earth, of earth and pain, a hoarse voice that comes singing from a great distance.

I can’t remember when this happened any more. It might have been yesterday or a thousand years ago. It doesn’t matter. But today when I woke up I remembered what she had told me and the fact that this memory that has been gone so long has now returned is the most important thing that happened to me today.

Tea-Bag finished talking and sat down. The blank piece of paper she had been holding she now folded and laid in front of her on the table. Everyone in the room was silent and still. Humlin wondered what they all felt, if they felt that they had been through something earth-shattering, as if Tea-Bag’s narrative had painted the room in new colours. It’s deeper than that, he thought, but it goes so deep I can’t express what it is.

In this atmosphere that was like the silence after an earthquake, Leyla got up. Humlin thought she looked like she had put on even more weight since last time. But nonetheless she seemed to shimmer. She was smiling.

It was as if Tea-Bag’s big smile was being passed around the girls like a baton. Now, in the moment that Leyla got to her feet, it was her turn to wear it.