The entire smalångerhomeservice crowded into the doorway to sympathise.

Angelika took charge. She lifted bror up with strong arms and told him to sit on a chair. He obeyed. Allowed himself to be washed and a plaster put on by the trained hands of his samaritan.

The rest of us went back into the bestroom and I pulled the corks on a few more bottles of wine. The party had been a success. Everybody was talking across each other and seemed to get on swimmingly.

Then someone had an idea. Let’s play truth or dare. Not like at school evasvensson said. But with alcohol.

Evasvensson was a slender woman in her forties who had started a few months after me. She had moved up north from ystad in the far south and no one knew why. Or more precisely no one could work out why on earth anyone would move onethousandthreehundred kilometres to a dump like smalånger without having any links to the village like friends or even relatives.

She had brought a bottle of mümmelmann herbal schnapps. The bottle was placed at the centre of the table and bror produced a set of tall schnapps glasses.

There was hard stuff on offer. His eyes gleamed with excitement.

You give the bottle a twirl evasvensson explained. When it stops spinning the cork will point at someone. Whoever it is must be prepared to play. Truth means that you’ve got to answer somebody else’s question. Dare means you’ve got to drink a full glass of mümmelmann.

What does mümmelmann taste like märitljungqvist asked. 291

Like medicine evasvensson replied in her husky southern dialect. It was as incomprehensible as any other foreign tongue but despite that evasvensson had quickly become popular. Her frank and cheerful ways somehow deflated the muckspreaders before they got round to join forces against the invasion threat from the south.

She got the bottle going. After spinning for a while it stopped at erikahansson.

Erikahansson was a quiet girl who had started in the homecare service straight after school. As far as I could see she was a typical smalånger female who after school had joined the orderly queue for public sector jobs. Husband and child by the time she was twenty. I had no idea how old she really was. Probably twentyfive or so but if someone had said forty I would have believed it.

But in the glow of the candlelight the thrill of the game had made her cheeks go as red as a bullfinch’s belly. I felt I hadn’t truly seen her before. She was pretty with her beautiful eyes and kind smile. Mother would have thought her someone you could rely on.

Truth or dare everyone shouted in unison. Truth she said.

I couldn’t think of anything to ask her. Didn’t think of erikahansson as someone with secrets.