It was just as I thought, and an hour later Wilma’s room was empty. Her books and clothes had been hastily packed in two large paper bags and only the mattress remained, stripped bare and abandoned on the bed. Kajsa’s room had been vacated too, and the only proof of a former occupant was a faint smell of something sweet.
We were supposed to have Dad’s vegetable bake for lunch, but when it was time to eat no one was hungry. Dad had escaped up to Henrietta. Wilma was nowhere to be seen, and Kajsa had already called for a cab. On my way through the corridor I heard her voice from the kitchen.
“It’s this bloody house,” Kajsa said in a whisper. “It’s as if it’s contagious. You saw what happened to Signe, didn’t you?”
It was Uncle Daniel.
“Perhaps,” Kajsa said. “But what Wilma said was completely, utterly mad!”
I held my breath and heard Uncle Daniel sigh.
“But Kajsa, dear,” he said. “You don’t pay any attention to the kids, do you? Something good is worth waiting for, don’t you think?”
“It’s hardly worth it. I don’t want to stay here!”
Kajsa’s voice sounded harsh and you could tell that she was barely keeping it all together.
“You imagine things,” Uncle Daniel said. “But just let me know if you want to give up your role. Such things can be arranged.”
“Like hell,” Kajsa hissed. “I will be back. But alone.”
A little later I heard a cab’s horn at the gate and went down the hall with Signe to say goodbye. Kajsa had only packed her own stuff and she looked the other way when Wilma came downstairs with her paper bags. But at least she was allowed to share the taxi. Only Signe and I waved.
We had the vegetable bake for dinner instead, and it felt as if the kitchen had grown, or the lamplight was brighter. No pizza, no Wilma. Just Dad, me, Signe and Uncle Daniel, silent around the table. Erland didn’t want any.
After dinner I managed to get Henrietta’s ancient TV on the first floor going so that Signe could watch children’s TV. Wilma had previously tried to watch TV a couple of times, but she had thought the picture quality was poor. It was a bit grainy and the colours were strange, but Signe didn’t seem to mind. She curled up on the sofa, leaning up against me. I don’t know if she had ever watched children’s TV before. Uncle Daniel doesn’t like TV.
It was nice being with Signe, but once I had put her to bed things felt twice as empty. I thought about going back to the TV, or even calling somebody from my old class, but I ended up sitting by the window on the landing with one of Wilma’s books for the whole evening. Dad walked past every now and again, wondering if everything was all right, and Uncle Daniel asked a couple of times if I had seen Erland.
I answered them both that I didn’t know.
The loss felt like a bubble around me and I could neither understand what I was reading nor what anyone said to me. It was not until after supper, when I was in bed trying to go to sleep, that something managed to burst through.
“Thomasine?”
The knock on the door was just like Dad’s, but it wasn’t his voice. I sat up in bed, pulling the duvet up to my chin.
“Yes?”
The handle was turned down and Uncle Daniel’s face appeared in the gap.
“Are you sure you don’t know where Erland is?” he said. “I haven’t seen him all evening.”
He didn’t sound worried, just surprised, but a ripple went through my stomach like cold water.
“Neither have I,” I said. “I really don’t know.”
Uncle Daniel nodded without looking at me.
“Goodnight, then.”
When he had closed the door I lay back again, but I was fully awake. It was true that I hadn’t seen Erland for several hours, perhaps not since lunch.
Most likely he was just hiding somewhere as usual, but what if he had hurt himself? What if he was trapped somewhere?
What if he was lying under water?
I closed my eyes and wandered through every room in Henrietta’s house in my mind. There was nothing dangerous in any of them, really. Nor in the garden.
You could maybe get stuck in the mangle in the basement, but for that you would almost need to be two people. There was an old clothes chest in one of the bedrooms where somebody Signe’s age could get stuck, perhaps suffocate after a while… But no, not Erland. It would be easy for him to lift the lid.
So where was he, then?
It was not until I had been lying silently in the dark for a quite a while that I noticed the noise. I realized that I had heard it several times without understanding what it could be.
Now I noticed that it came from somewhere far away, and it sounded like when you cry with your mouth closed. It was just a cry without a word or tone. I wasn’t even sure if it was a cry for help, but I was sure about one thing: the voice belonged to Erland.