A pair of bunks one above the other. A table and a couple of chairs. A chest of drawers. A few shelves and a stove.

I was lying in front of the stove. John was pulling bits of clothing over my head. I tried to help with numb clumsy fingers.

My trousers stuck with suction to my legs as did my shoes to my feet. The cramp and the ache in my legs brought tears to my eyes.

Moan if you must he said. These things have to come off somehow. 228

The grip of the shoes loosened in the end. My stockings twisted like wet grass snakes. John rolled my trousers down and then my panties. I smelled of the burn.

He rooted in the chest of drawers and found a pair of long woollen stockings and a military style vest. The cottage was warming up quickly. My clothes had been wrung out and hung up on backs of chairs. Now they were steaming. I wondered where we were.

Whose cottage is it I asked but he didn’t answer. Kept carving chunks of meat of a dried reindeer leg and handed me every second one.

I’ll fetch water he said. We’ll talk afterwards.

It was thanks to the coldwell that people could live here he said later when we were sitting by the fire drinking very hot coffee.

Who lived here I asked.

Tinkers like me he said. I was born here.

You I said. I was surprised. But surely you lived in eskilbrännström’s house when you were little.

They took me in when I was four. My mother died when I was three. She died in that bed there he said. Dad lifted her into a cart and pulled it down to the chapel along another route that isn’t so steep. A couple of days later dad brought me down to the village. Before that day I had never seen people except for my parents.

He walked to different houses to ask if anyone would want me.

The people in the first house didn’t. Said they had too many already.

The second house was yours. Your grandfather was having a meal in the kitchen. Your grandmother was cooking something. They would be paid my father said. He gave them what he could afford. So he sold me for a handful of coins and wandered off. 229

I had a vision of the threeyearold. A little boy confronted with other people for the first time and left alone with father’s parents who had no decency to spare for their own children. It could only end one way.

I didn’t want to hear anymore.

You have no choice he said. But let’s sleep first.

It was almost dawn.

We were going to sleep in the bunk where john’s mother had died.

Before falling asleep we spoke with each other. Nothing of what we said could ever be taken back.

230

FORTY