It’s dark by the time Gabriella pulls her shiny, black and practical company car into the parking lot in front of Båtsholm’s hostel. Even though the wind’s died down, the snow is still falling with undiminished intensity. Still large, wet flakes of snow mixed with rain.
‘Lucky we didn’t drive to Stockholm tonight,’ Klara says when Gabriella stops the car. ‘Even if we have to stay at Bates Motel for a night.’
She nods towards the run-down wooden hostel. The hostel is dark except for a weak yellow light streaming from the lobby window.
When Klara was little they ate lunch here sometimes in the summer, and she remembers the dusty, old-fashioned interior, the creamy gravy and homemade strawberry juice. It must be ten years since she was here last, but not much has changed.
Gabriella nods absentmindedly and takes her phone out of her pocket, throws a stressed glance at it, and then pushes it into her pocket again.
‘Are you waiting for something?’ Klara says. ‘Did you have somewhere you needed to be tonight?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘It’s just the usual. You know.’ But she sounds somewhat hesitant and evasive.
‘We’ll leave as soon as we wake up tomorrow,’ Klara says.
Gabriella nods and throws her a look with that stiff smile on her lips again. ‘Of course,’ she says. ‘No problem.’
Gabriella bends to open the door, but Klara stops her with a hand on her arm. ‘Gabi,’ she says. ‘What is it? Are you okay?’
They stare at each other for a moment as newly fallen, wet, thick snowflakes melt on the car’s hood. Klara sees a gleam of something in her friend’s eyes, something she’s not used to seeing: a flash of irritation.
‘Yes, Klara,’ she says. ‘Stop worrying. I came to the funeral, but I can’t turn my whole life off for you, okay?’
Klara trembles a little, as if a tiny, tiny bomb has exploded in her chest and left a jagged crater behind.
‘I’m sorry,’ Gabriella says quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to sound so…’
‘It’s fine,’ Klara says. She turns away and opens the car door. The wet air hits her as she puts her feet into the slush.
‘I really didn’t mean for it to sound like that, Klara,’ says Gabriella, rounding the other side of the car hood. ‘Things are just kind of messy right now.’
‘How did you mean it to sound, then?’ Klara says, as she walks around the car and up the stairs to the hostel. She immediately regrets her tone. She has no right to sound like that, to be so touchy. But she’s too tired to hold back any more. An incredible wave of exhaustion has flattened all of her defences. She doesn’t even have time to turn the doorknob before she hears Gabriella’s quick steps behind her, and feels her put a hand tenderly on her shoulder.
‘Well, I definitely didn’t mean it to sound like that,’ Gabriella says. ‘Please turn around, Klara.’
Reluctantly, with a sigh, Klara turns around and looks at her friend from beneath her bangs. ‘I’m sorry,’ Klara says. ‘I’m just too tired for any bullshit tonight.’
Gabriella nods and keeps her hand on her shoulder. ‘I get that,’ she says. ‘The thing is…’ She falls silent.
‘Yes?’ Klara says. ‘What?’
‘Well,’ Gabriella says. ‘This isn’t the night to talk about it. But it’s the job, Klara, not you. Come on, and let’s go inside. I’m freezing.’
Their adjoining rooms look exactly like Klara had imagined them. White walls, soft mattresses, thick blankets with starched duvets and bedside lamps with bulbs missing. The sea lies no more than fifty metres away, but the darkness and snowfall make it impossible to see anything through the windows.
*
‘It’s off-season,’ says Gertrud, the hostel’s owner, while she turns on the radiators and checks to make sure all the faucets are working. If only she’d had a little more notice, she could have made it more comfortable, she complains. But Klara assures her that a bed is all they need. They’re getting up early in the morning again. Gertrud continues to apologize while putting a couple of ready-made liver pâté sandwiches into the ancient refrigerator in the restaurant’s kitchen and shows them how the coffee maker works. Finally, she’s done prepping, and as she turns on the last of the heaters and makes sure all the windows are shut tight, she tells them that payment is out of the question.
‘Out here we take care of each other,’ she says, narrowing her eyes at Gabriella. ‘It’s not like up in Stockholm, where people only think about themselves.’
Klara notices Gabriella trying to catch her eye, sees the shadow of a smile on her lips. She smiles back but the crater in her chest makes it hard for her to give in to their usual level of mutual understanding.
‘I’m so unbelievably tired,’ she says. ‘I think I have to head to bed right away, Gabi.’
*
Klara sits on the twin bed in her room, staring at her reflection in the dark window. Her blue eyes seem pale now, rather than intense as she sometimes hopes. The black eyeliner around her eyes, her sallow, autumn complexion. It’s been a long and terrible day. At the same time, she feels like somehow things will get sorted out. Maybe they’ll even get sorted out for her after all the shit she’s been through these past few years.
She turns off the lamp, stands up and walks over to the window. Wet flakes swirl in the wind. She puts her forehead against the cold glass and tries to catch sight of the sea and the islands with no success. But just as she’s about to climb back into bed, she hears something that makes her stop cold. The muffled sound of an engine, dampened by snow and wind, almost imperceptible.
Someone is driving on the road out there, and it’s getting louder. It sounds like someone is approaching the hostel.