Part 5 (1/2)

I'm as good as certain. He's got a child in there. Or some kind of animal that sounds like a child.

When he'd left I risked checking the cottage again, even though the car was still there. Like me, he goes for long walks.

Nothing.

But this time I did it. I opened the lid of that metal box. I don't know what I expected to find, but there were definitely insects inside. Or they might all have been flies, I don't know. Ma.s.ses of larvae, hundreds, maybe thousands. And a few little ones that had already hatched, crawling around on top of the piles of white larvae. Perhaps I should have found them disgusting, but I didn't. I thought they were beautiful, somehow.

Felt excited when I left the cottage. I don't understand myself.

SEPTEMBER 27.

Met Vore in the forest yesterday. I think he knows I've been in the cottage. He's started locking the door. (As if I didn't have a key, ha ha.) But I suppose he's making a point. It frightened the life out of me when I saw him locking the door as he left. Then I followed him.

Something strange is going on in my head. I hardly pay any attention to what Roland says anymore. Not that he ever says anything important, but we do live together after all. I think he's going to some show or other this weekend, I don't know.

I'm going to try writing it down: I've fallen in love with Vore. I'm in love with Vore. (I said it out loud as well, but quietly.) No. It isn't true. I can tell when I write it down, when I say it. That's not the way it is. It's something different. Something...better?

I don't understand it. It's making me feel slightly unwell.

We b.u.mped into one another down by the rocks I call the Dance Floor. Sort of. I mean, I'd followed him, and he was standing there...waiting?

We talked about the forest. How the autumn changes things. He said he never really felt comfortable indoors (!!!).

I told him I felt the same. And then...I showed him the Dance Floor. He said such a strange thing. When I told him I called this place the Dance Floor because you could imagine the elves dancing there, he said, 'They used to. Once upon a time.'

And he said it perfectly seriously, without the slightest hint of a joke. (And I believe it's true, actually. How can I think that? Elves?) I told him about the tree, the lightning.

And I laughed, I just couldn't help it, because it's so ridiculous how everything...I laughed when he told me he'd been struck by lightning too! His beard hides the scars. He let me feel. The skin was k.n.o.bbly underneath his beard on one side.

We stood there looking at one another, until I started laughing again. What else could I do? How many people have been struck by lightning? One in ten thousand? If that. There was nothing more to say, somehow.

It goes against the grain to write this, it's not my style (I'm a rational person, I wear a uniform at work), but is there actually such a thing as twin souls? If such a thing really does exist, it would explain a great deal.

Of course that leads to a question. Does he feel the same way? I think he does. To use a childish phrase: he started it. When he kissed me on the cheek last summer. He knew back then.

Or did he?

Yes, I know. All I have to do is ask, right? Of course. Just ask him. I'd rather die. No, I wouldn't. But it's difficult. If he says...I don't know. If he gives the wrong answer. Something will break inside me.

I didn't pull up a single person at work today. Robert stopped one just out of routine. Five bottles of Kosken over the limit. As I knew perfectly well. Robert gave me a funny look.

I don't want to do it anymore. I've had enough. I just want... what do I want?

SEPTEMBER 29.

He's leaving the day after tomorrow.

We met in the forest yesterday, picked lots of mushrooms. He has the same radar as me when it comes to finding mushrooms (of course). I asked about his childhood. He said he was adopted. I could tell he didn't want to talk about it, so I dropped the subject.

I spent all evening blanching mushrooms. Roland's suspicious. So what. Tomorrow he's going to Gothenburg for a dog show that lasts all weekend, doing his own thing. Getting laid.

Vore is going away. I'll never see him again.

So my behaviour can be excused.

When I got home today, his car wasn't there. I fetched the key and went into the cottage. I felt like a thief. I lay in his sheets for a long time, feeling pleasure and fear at the same time. Panic. Even now while I'm writing this I feel as if I want to die.

I'm not going to kill myself, of course I'm not. But I want to die. That's the way it is. As I lay there in his bed, I knew it was the last time. (Yes, I've done it several times.) I just want to be erased, to disappear.

But I expect it will pa.s.s. (It will never pa.s.s.) Help me! What am I going to do?

As I was about to leave, I saw something strange. There was a plate and a bowl on the draining board. Very strange, don't you think? Well no, but it was what was on the plate. At first I thought it was some kind of pudding. When I took a closer look I could see that it was larvae. Mashed up larvae.

Yes, I did have a taste. It was pretty good. A bit like snails, but a bit more grainy.

Sometimes it feels as if I'm living outside my body. My body does things, and I stand next to it thinking, 'What are you doing? You're getting in the bed, you're eating larvae, what are you doing?'

What am I doing? What am I going to do?

I think I'm coming down with something. He's going away. I'm not in love, but I...I have to be near him. Perhaps I do love him. Her. Maybe that's what it is.

Love.

Yes.

I'm falling apart.

On Thursday afternoon Roland packed a suitcase and put it in the car along with Tara and some dog food. The attack of mange had turned out to be a mild one, and he decided to risk going to the show even though he shouldn't have done. There was virtually a price on the head of anyone who brought mange into kennels.

Tina stood at the bedroom window and watched him go. She had taken the day off work because she wasn't feeling well. Something to do with her stomach, her chest, her heart. It was the first time in her entire working life that she had been off sick. When she rang work to say she wouldn't be coming in, they asked if she'd called the local health insurance office. She didn't know what to do, so she didn't bother.

When the Volvo had disappeared down the drive she went and sat on the patio for a while and read Comet in Moominland. It was an unusually warm autumn day, and there was the same feeling in the air as there was in the book: a damp, highly charged warmth as if everything was holding its breath, waiting for a change.

The air pressure made her head ache, and she found it difficult to concentrate. She went inside and stood by the kitchen window for a while, looking down towards the cottage.

What's he doing in there?

As usual when Roland went away she had been shopping for a private party. The snails were on ice in the fridge. This time she had bought extra, but hadn't yet dared ask the question. She was afraid. Everything had conspired to create a situation where this evening could be crucial. Roland was away, Vore was leaving the next day.

And what is it that's going to be resolved tonight?

If she had been in her right mind she wouldn't have been standing here dithering about, putting off asking Vore if he'd like to come over for dinner. She would have called the police. Because she was convinced he had a child in there. Her hearing was better than most people's, and she'd heard it.

She ought to ring Ragnar at the police station in Norrtalje and explain the situation. They'd come straight away. They knew her.

n.o.body knows me.

A long time ago she had read an article about how people choose their partner by smell. At least women did, she thought. Five women had been allowed to smell five T-s.h.i.+rts that had been worn by five different men. Or it might have been more women. The whole thing had seemed slightly shady and perverted-the combination of a laboratory environment and sweaty clothes.

She had felt some sympathy with the result, and snorted at it. As if you could choose.