Seeing Susso’s car parked…

Seeing Susso’s car parked outside her house was so unexpected that for a split second, Diana thought she’d returned. Having corrected her misperception, she felt a pang of sadness. She sat in the car looking at the house, the sun-drenched front with the mullioned old windows. The plastic table where they’d had their dinner. The little jetty and the dark band of the river. She had wondered if seeing the place would make her remember what had happened, but it didn’t. And she was grateful for it. During her drive out to Vittangi, she had felt a mounting sense of unease, and now she was afraid in a way she hadn’t been before. The engine was still running. She turned the car around, just like Susso had done when the sight of her own car had spooked her. But she didn’t drive off. She let go of the wheel and chided herself through gritted teeth. Pulled out her phone and stared at the screen, trying to remember the music from that crestfallen, cold summer. 1998. When everything was over and there was nowhere to go. They had sat on the floor of the cabin in Kurravaara, singing at the top of their lungs. Drunk as skunks. Surrounded by melancholic music she hadn’t listened to since.

When the forgotten, but oh so familiar notes of the acoustic guitar poured out of the speakers, transforming the car into a time machine, she put her thumb on the plus button on the wheel. She let it rest there. The music swelled and swelled.

The tin of snus she’d bought at the Esso petrol station in Varangerbotn was still in the cupholder. A white medallion that proved she really had been to Norway. Proof it had all really happened. This tobacco product may seriously harm you and is addictive. She twisted the lid off, fished out a bag, put it in her mouth, pushed it into place with her tongue, turned off the music and opened the door.

She wandered around the garden, keeping a close eye on the pine trees in particular. The wind set the branches swaying with slow, sweeping movements; she wondered if the squirrel was up there, watching. A little critter with black beads for eyes. It could be inside the house too. Gudrun had said it most likely had its own ways in and out so it could come and go as it pleased. It could be outside, it could be inside; you might as well predict where a swooping swallow would be at any given moment.

She really didn’t want to have to enter the house. The thought of encountering the pint-sized creature in some unexpected place indoors scared her a lot more than the thought of spotting it in one of the pine trees.