My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She's Sorry (13 page)

By the time the shadows heard the thunder and felt the ground shaking, it was already too late for them. The princess rode at the front on the greatest of all wurse warriors. And that was the moment of Wolfheart’s return from the forests. Maybe because Miamas was teetering on the edge of extinction and needed him more than ever. “But maybe . . .” Granny used to whisper into Elsa’s ear when they sat on the cloud animals at night, “maybe most of all because the princess, by realizing how unjust she had been to the wurses, proved that all the kingdoms deserved to be saved.”

The War-Without-End ended that day. The shadows were driven across the sea. And Wolfheart disappeared back into the forests. But the wurses remained, and to this day they are still serving as the princess’s personal guard in Miploris. On guard outside her castle gate.

Elsa hears Our Friend barking quite madly down there now. She remembers what Granny said about how “making a racket amuses it.” Elsa feels a bit unsure about Our Friend’s sense of humor, but then remembers what Granny said about Our Friend not needing to live with anyone. Granny didn’t live with anyone herself, of course, and when Elsa pointed out that perhaps she shouldn’t compare herself to a dog, Granny rolled her eyes. Now Elsa understands why.

She should have got all this from the start. She really should have.

Because this is no dog.

One of the police fumbles with a big bunch of keys. Elsa hears the main door opening downstairs and between Our Friend’s barks she hears the boy with a syndrome dancing up the stairs.

The police gently shove him and his mother into their flat. Britt-Marie minces back and forth with tiny steps on her floor. Elsa hates her through the banisters.

Our Friend is completely quiet for a moment, as if it has made a strategic retreat for a moment to gather its strength for the real battle. The police jingle the bunch of keys and talk about being “ready in case it attacks.” They all sound fuller of themselves now, because Our Friend is no longer barking.

Elsa hears another door opening, and then she hears Lennart’s voice. He asks timidly what’s happening. The police explain that they have come to “take charge of a dangerous dog.” Lennart sounds a bit worried. Then he sounds a little like he doesn’t know what to say. Then he says what he always says: “Does anyone want a cup of coffee? Maud just made some fresh.”

Britt-Marie interrupts, hissing at him that surely Lennart can understand that the police have more important things to get on with than drinking coffee. The police sound a little disappointed about this. Elsa sees Lennart going back up the stairs. At first he seems to consider staying on the landing, but then seems to realize this might lead to a situation of his own coffee getting cold and conclude that whatever is going on here, it could not possibly be worth a risk like that. He disappears into the flat.

The first bark after that is short and defined. As if Our Friend is merely testing its vocal cords. The second is so loud that all Elsa can hear for several eternities is a ringing sound in her ears. When it finally ebbs away, she hears a terrific thud. Then another. And one more. Only then does she understand what the noise means. Our Friend is launching itself with all its strength at the inside of the door.

Elsa hears one of the police talking on the telephone again. She can’t hear most of what’s being said, but she hears the words “extremely large and aggressive.” She peers down through the railings and sees the police standing a few yards from the door of Our Friend’s flat, their self-confidence dwindling as Our Friend throws itself at the door with increasing force. Two more police have turned up, Elsa notices. One of them has brought a German Shepherd on a leash. The German Shepherd doesn’t seem to think it’s a terrific idea to go wherever that thing, whatever it is, is trying to get out. It watches its handler a little like Elsa looked at Granny that time she tried to rewire Mum’s microwave.

“Call in Animal Control, then,” Elsa hears the policewoman with green eyes saying, at last, with a disconsolate sigh.

“That’s what I said! Exactly what I said!” Britt-Marie calls out eagerly.

The green eyes throw a glance at Britt-Marie that causes her to shut up abruptly.

Our Friend barks one last time, horrifyingly loud. Then grows silent again. There’s a lot of noise on the stairs for a moment, and then Elsa hears the main entrance door closing. The police have clearly decided to wait farther away from whatever is living in that flat, until Animal Control gets there. Elsa watches through the window as they make off, something in their body language suggesting coffee. Whereas the German Shepherd has something in its body language that suggests it is considering early retirement.

Everything is suddenly so quiet on the stairs that Britt-Marie’s lone tripping steps farther down are giving off an echo.

Elsa stands there of two minds. (She knows that “of two minds” is a phrase for the word jar.) She can see the police through the window, and in retrospect Elsa will not be able to explain exactly why she does it. But no true knight of Miamas could stand and watch a friend of Granny’s being killed without trying to do something about it. So she quickly sneaks down the stairs, taking extra care as she passes Britt-Marie and Kent’s flat, and taking the precaution of stopping on every half-landing to listen and make sure the police are not coming back in.

Finally she stops outside Our Friend’s flat and carefully opens the mail slot. Everything is black in there, but she hears Our Friend’s rumbling breath.

“It’s . . . me,” Elsa stammers.

She doesn’t know exactly how to start this type of conversation. And Our Friend doesn’t answer. On the other hand, it doesn’t throw itself against the door either. Elsa sees this as a clear sign of progress in their communication.

“It’s me. The one with the Daim bars.”

Our Friend doesn’t answer. But she can hear its breathing slowing down. Elsa’s words tumble out of her as if someone had toppled them over.

“Hey . . . I mean this might sound mega-weird . . . but I sort of think my granny would have wanted you to get out of here somehow. You know? If you have a back door or something. Because otherwise they’ll shoot you! Maybe that sounds mega-weird, but it’s pretty weird that you’ve got your own flat as well . . . if you get what I mean. . . .”

Only once all the words have fallen out of her does she realize that she’s spoken them in the secret language. Like a test. Because if there’s just a dog on the other side of the door, it won’t understand. But if it does understand, she thinks, then it’s something quite different. She hears a sound made by a paw the size of a car tire, quickly scraping the inside of the door.

“Hope you understand,” Elsa whispers in the secret language.

She never hears the door opening behind her. The only thing she has time to register is Our Friend backing away from the door. As if preparing itself.

Elsa grows aware of someone standing behind her, as if a ghost has appeared behind her. Or a . . .

“Look out!” growls the voice.

Elsa throws herself against the wall as The Monster silently sweeps past with a key in his hand. In the next moment, she is caught halfway between The Monster and Our Friend. And these really are the biggest damned wurse and the biggest damned monster Elsa has ever seen. It feels as if someone is standing on her lungs. She wants to scream, but nothing comes out.

Everything goes terribly fast after that. They hear the door opening at the bottom of the stairs. The voices of the police. And someone else who, Elsa realizes, must be Animal Control. Looking back, Elsa is not completely convinced that she’s in control of her own movements. If she’s been placed under a spell or something it wouldn’t be so unlikely, considering that even if it was unlikely, it would be far less unlikely than running into a flipping wurse. But when the door closes behind her, she’s standing in the front hall in The Monster’s flat.

It smells of soap.

10

ALCOHOL

T
he sound of splintering wood fills the stairwell as the police drive the crowbar into the doorframe.

Elsa stands in the hall in The Monster’s flat and watches them through the spyhole. Technically, her feet aren’t touching the floor, though, because the wurse has sat down on the hall mat so that she’s wedged between the rear end of the enormous animal and the inside of the door. The wurse looks extremely irritated. Not threatening, just irritated. As if there’s a wasp in its bottle of lemonade.

It occurs to Elsa that she’s more panicked by the police on the other side of the door than the by two creatures in the hall with her. Maybe it doesn’t seem so very rational, but she’s decided to trust more in Granny’s friends than Britt-Marie’s. She rotates carefully by the door until she’s facing the wurse, then whispers in the secret language:

“You mustn’t bark now, please be good. Or they’ll kill you!”

The wurse doesn’t look entirely convinced that it would come off worse if she opened the door and let it out among the police, and turns away dismissively. It stays silent, though seemingly more for Elsa’s sake than its own.

Outside on the landing, the police have almost forced the door open. Elsa hears them yelling command words at each other, about being “ready.”

She looks around the hall and into the living room. It’s a very small flat but the tidiest one of any description she has ever set foot in. There is hardly any furniture, and the few items that there are have been arranged face-to-face, looking as if they’ll commit furniture hara-kiri if a single speck of dust lands on them. (Elsa knows that because she had a samurai phase about a year ago.)

The Monster disappears into the bathroom. The tap runs in there for a long time before he comes out again. He dries his hands elaborately on a small white towel, which he then folds neatly and goes to put in a laundry basket. He has to stoop to fit through the doorway. Elsa feels as Odysseus must have felt when he was with that giant, Polyphemus, because Elsa recently read about Odysseus. Apart from the fact that Polyphemus probably didn’t wash his hands as carefully as The Monster. And apart from Elsa thinking she’s not as high-and-mighty and self-righteous as Odysseus seems to be in the book. Obviously. But apart from that, sort of like Odysseus.

The Monster looks at her. He doesn’t look angry. More confused, actually. Almost startled. Maybe that’s what gives Elsa the courage to blurt right out:

“Why did my granny send you a letter?”

She says it in normal language. Because, for reasons not yet entirely clear to her, she doesn’t want to talk to him in the secret language. The Monster’s eyebrows sink under his black hair so that it’s difficult to make out any facial expressions at all behind it, and the beard and the scar. He’s barefoot, but wears those blue plastic shoe covers you get at a hospital. His boots are neatly placed just inside the door, very precisely in line with the edge of the doormat. He hands Elsa another two blue plastic bags, but jerks back his hand once she touches them, as if worried that Elsa might also touch him. Elsa bends down and puts the plastic bags over her muddy shoes. She notices that she has slightly stepped off the mat and left two halves of her footprints in melted snow on the parquet floor.

The Monster bends down with impressive fluidity and starts wiping the floor with a fresh white towel. When he has finished, he sprays the area with a small bottle of a cleaning agent that makes Elsa’s eyes smart, and wipes it with another small white towel. Then he stands up and neatly puts the towels in the laundry basket, and places the spray bottle very exactly on a shelf.

Then he stands for a very long time and stares uncomfortably at the wurse. It lies splayed across the hall, covering the floor almost in its entirety. The Monster looks like he’s about to hyperventilate. He disappears into the bathroom and comes back and starts carefully arranging towels in a tight ring around the wurse while taking extreme care not to touch any part of it. Then he goes back to the bathroom and scrubs his hands so hard under the tap that the basin vibrates.

When he comes back he’s got a little bottle of antibacterial alcogel. Elsa recognizes it, because she had to rub that sort of stuff into her hands every time she was visiting Granny at the hospital. She peers into the bathroom through the gap under The Monster’s armpit when he reaches out. There are more bottles of alcogel in there than she could imagine there would be in Mum’s entire hospital.

The Monster looks infinitely vexed. He puts down the bottle and smears his fingers with alcogel, as if they were covered in a layer of extra skin that he had to try to rub off. Then he demonstratively holds up his two palms, each the size of a flatbed dolly, and nods firmly at Elsa.

Elsa holds up her own palms, which are more tennis ball–size. He pours alcogel on them and does his best not to look too disgusted. She quickly rubs the alcogel into her skin and wipes off the excess on her trouser legs. The Monster looks a little as if he’s about to roll himself up in a blanket and start yelling and crying. To compensate, he pours more alcogel on his own hands and rubs, rubs, rubs. Then he notices that Elsa has knocked one of his boots out of position in relation to the other. He bends down and adjusts the boot. Then more alcogel.