She pushes a fallen lock of hair from her eyes, but it falls back again. She’s waiting for an answer. I open my mouth to speak, but the adrenaline paralyses me and little more than a hiss comes out of it.
“I’m Melissa,” the girl continues, tilting her head to the opposite side.
“Anna,” I’m finally able to say. “My name is Anna.”
Melissa’s mouth opens in a smile.
“Are you the one coming from that distant place?” She moves closer and sits down in front of me.
I guess I haven’t recovered from the surprise yet. It’s absurd. What I’m afraid of? It’s a child.
Melissa starts lulling her toy. Now that she’s under the light of the lamp, I see it’s a doll, carved in wood. But she continues to watch me.
“Distant?” I’m not sure I’ve understood her question.
“That place up there.” She points an imprecise spot over her.
I raise my eyes. Obviously, I just can see the greenhouse roofing. I grasp she isn’t referring to it.
“Earth,” she specifies. “Is that its name?”
I nod and I give in to the facts. That girl knows about me more than I know about her. This thing is making me feel a little ill at ease. Or perhaps it’s her inquisitive gaze.
“There are nine billion people up there, aren’t there?”
I haven’t expected a question like this. The concept of a billion is difficult to comprehend for a child, even more so when living in a small community. Actually, I have no idea how small it may be. I look around by instinct, as if I’m expecting to see other people coming out from the orchard. But there’s nobody there; it’s just a weird sensation, the one of being watched from afar. Studied.
Perhaps I’m just paranoid.
“They are thirteen billions, now.”
Melissa’s gaze lights up. “Oh …” She seems happy with the information, but at the same time it’s like she is considering it. Maybe all she did earlier was nothing more than repeating what she’d heard from others, but this reaction of hers seems genuine, as if she really cares.
“Melissa, where are your parents?” I cannot let a child grill me. Now it’s my turn to investigate.
“Are they all beautiful like you?” she asks me, ignoring my words. She smiles again.
I can’t help but feel flattered, but at the same time, for a moment, I have the unpleasant sensation that Melissa doesn’t want to lose control of our conversation.
“There are people of all kinds.”
She watches me with a quizzical expression on her face, as if she wants me to keep on talking. The truth is that I don’t know what to say. I crack a smile.
“Can I see your doll?”
Melissa looks at the doll and then at me. I guess she is deciding whether she can trust me. Finally, she offers it to me.
I take it into my hands. It’s a little work of art, finely carved. Surprised, I realise its face looks just like Melissa.
I raise my gaze.
“Oh, shit,” escapes my mouths, as I drop the toy on the ground.
Three more children stand behind her. I didn’t heard them come in. They are fixing me with the same curiosity in the eyes. One is a boy, more or less her age. The other two, a boy and a girl, are younger; they are holding hands. They are all wearing identical white nightdresses, their faces sleepy, but their looks alert.
I feel as though I’m being analysed. Sure, it’s natural they would be studying me. They’ve never seen me before. Yet I perceive something morbid in their curiosity. Whatever I’ve been given for the pain is throwing my emotions into a turmoil. I’ve gone from euphoria to anxiety.
“She is Anna,” Melissa explains, pointing to me. Then she lowers her gaze to my top. “Persson,” she adds hesitantly, stressing the double S in a hiss. “What the heck kind of a name is that anyway?”
I’m speechless for a moment, and then I remember I have my identification tag on all my clothes, while my country’s flag is on my sleeve. That’s why Jack knew about my name.
“It’s … wrong.”
It makes me laugh. Euphoria must be back. My reaction invokes disappointment on Melissa’s face. As if caught in the act of doing something wrong, I let my own face grow serious again.
“It isn’t in English, but in Swedish.”
“Ah.” It seems she’s understood, though I doubt it. But then she smiles again. I’m surprised to be relieved about it. Her face is as friendly when smiling as it is unsettling when serious.
I’d like to laugh again, but I hold it back, though with difficulty. I turn to the other children. “And what are your names?”
They smile as one, but don’t open their mouth.
“Alexandre, Marisol, and Sven,” Melissa replies. It seems she is the spokesperson of the group. She is surely the smarter one.
She snaps forward, reaching out towards me. Her sudden movement catches me by surprise and I draw back by instinct, but she just takes her doll. She strokes it with care, removing the dirt.
In that moment, I perceive a vibration of the ground. The children ignore it. Then a loud puff.
“Someone should be in their bed.”
That voice!
As I hear it, Melissa’s jaw tightens. She’s irritated.
From behind the steam cloud, on the opposite side of that surprising garden, where it seems getting lost in the dark, a human silhouette takes shape almost from nothing.
The girl casts a furious, nasty look in its direction, then she stands up and run away.
Following her movement, I realise that the other three children have gone, vanished in silence, the same way they’d arrived.