The Shadow Girls

Two days later he went back to the church in the Valley of the Dogs. Tea-Bag had not been seen there. On his way home in the taxi he changed his mind and asked the driver to take him to the Central station. Then he went to the spot where he had arranged to meet Tea-Bag before. But she didn’t turn up, nor did Tanya. The next day he went back to the train station, this time at the precise hour that he had been supposed to meet Tea-Bag on the day they travelled to Gothenburg together and she had jumped off in Hallsberg. But again no one came.

That evening he was to have had dinner with Viktor Leander, but he called and made the excuse that he was coming down with a cold. He could tell that Leander didn’t believe him, but he didn’t care.

The following day he was back at the Central station, at the same time, the same place. Suddenly he spotted Tanya. She was watching him through the window of the florists. He felt as if her gaze had drawn him to her, rather than that he had found her of his own accord. Tea-Bag came around the corner shortly thereafter. She went and stood next to Tanya. Humlin started walking over to them. When he was so close that he could see their faces clearly he noted that even Tea-Bag looked pale. Her thick coat was zipped up to her neck as usual.

‘I’m alone,’ he told them. ‘There’s no one with me. It was wrong of me to call those reporters. All I can say is that I thought I was doing the right thing. But I was wrong.’

They sat down on a bench together.

‘What happens now?’

Tanya shrugged. Tea-Bag pushed her chin down into her coat.

‘Where are you staying? At the church?’

Tanya shrugged again. She was looking around the whole time. She was the one keeping an eye out, not Tea-Bag. Humlin suddenly started worrying that he was losing his hold on them. Tanya and Tea-Bag were just going to disappear if he didn’t do something to make them stay, not that he knew exactly why he wanted to hold onto them.

‘When should we have the next seminar?’

Tea-Bag sat up straight.

‘That’s over now,’ she said. ‘I came to this country to tell my story and now I’ve done that. No one listened.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘Who listened?’

Her smile was gone. She looked at him as if from far away. Humlin thought about what she had told him about the river that flowed down the mountain, the river with its cool, clear water. She seemed to be looking at him as if from the very cliffs where that river had its source.

‘I listened to you.’

‘You didn’t hear my voice. You only heard your own. You didn’t see me. You saw a person who was born through your own words.’

‘That’s not true.’

Tea-Bag shrugged.

‘True or not, what does it even really matter?’

‘What’s going to happen now?’

‘We travel around. You see us disappear into the crowd and then we’re gone. Nothing else. Stockholm is as good a city for invisible people as any other. I don’t exist, just as Tanya doesn’t exist. We are shadows that have to keep to the edge of the light. From time to time we put a hand or a foot or even a bit of our face into the sun, but then we quickly pull back again. We’re trying to achieve the right to exist in this country. How we will win this right, I don’t know. But as long as we keep ourselves hidden, as long as we’re nothing but shadows and you only see a hand or a foot, we are slowly getting there. One day we can perhaps emerge fully into the light and not have to keep to the edges. But Leyla is already there. She has found the way out of this shadow-world.’

They’re slipping out of my hands, he thought again.

He tried to keep them with his questions.

‘What about the photograph of that child, Tanya? Is that your daughter?’

She looked at him with surprise.

‘I don’t have a daughter.’

‘Then it must be you, am I right? But that can’t be. The picture was taken only a few years ago.’

‘It’s not my daughter. It isn’t me either.’

‘Then who is the girl in the picture?’

‘Irina.’

‘Who is that?’

‘Natalia’s daughter. I got the picture after we had arrived in Estonia. She had four pictures of her daughter — she had left her with her grandmother back in Smolensk. She gave each of us a picture. Late one night, when the last of the arseholes had left our beds, she gave us each a picture to keep, like an icon. We had to survive for the sake of the child, and make our way back to Smolensk. We all shared the responsibility for Natalia’s daughter. One day I will return and take on responsibility for Irina. That is, if Natalia or one of the others hasn’t done so already. But I don’t think they have.’

Humlin thought about what she had said for a long time. Then he turned to Tea-Bag.

‘I’m thinking about the first time we met. That evening when there was a fight in the audience. Do you remember what you asked me then? Why I didn’t write about people like you. I’m going to do that now, you know.’

Tea-Bag shook her head.

‘You won’t. You’ll forget us as soon as we’re gone.’

‘So little faith? That hurts.’

Tea-Bag looked him deep in the eyes and said:

‘I don’t hurt anyone. Now you will hear the end of my story.’