Read Online Savage Spring by Mons Kallentoft - Free Book Online Page A

offered debriefing and counselling, after what happened today,’ Karim says. ‘There’ll be good people at your disposal. You just have to say the word.’
    Subtext: Don’t say the word. Ideally, never say the word. Don’t be pathetic. Stay strong, do what’s expected of you, carry on without blinking, don’t give in to any weakness or vulnerability inside you. Now’s a time for action, not soppy bloody therapy.
    ‘Start with the imam,’ Sven says. ‘But be careful. We don’t want the papers screaming that we’re Islamophobic racists. Anyway, it’s highly unlikely that we’ll be able to make any connection as things stand.’
    ‘Maybe we should hold back for a bit?’ Malin suggests. ‘Wait and see, as far as that’s concerned?’
    ‘Go and talk to the imam,’ Karim says. ‘That’s an order. OK, we’re going to get the bastards who did this. Those children had their whole lives ahead of them. Just like those children out there. If that means we have to tread on a few toes, then so be it. Understood?’
    ‘Of course we have to talk to the imam,’ Waldemar says, but she can see doubt in Zeke, Johan, and Börje’s eyes: what’s the point, so early in the investigation, when absolutely nothing points in that direction apart from a sort of general feeling among the public.
    But that’s the way prejudice works.
    And it influences us. Particularly when there’s an external threat that’s hard to pin down.
    Malin looks out through the window. In the nursery playground two children are crawling into a dark playhouse, and she thinks that it looks as if the children are disappearing, swallowed up by a different dimension.

7
    We’re messing about in a playhouse without walls, in a space that’s so dark and cramped that we might never find a way out.
    But are we the sad ones crying?
    Or is that some other children?
    Who are still alive? Whom evil is getting closer to?
    We can see them now, Malin. It’s a little girl, and an even younger boy, and they’re locked in, and it’s so dark and they’re scared and they’re screaming.
    They’re connected to us. How, Malin? How? We have to know.
    Bad people outside, or one bad person. They’re crying, they want to sleep. They’re really sad.
    But we’re happy now.
    Chasing each other through the white world that is ours, where endless cherry blossoms flower, showing off their beauty, their lust for life.
    I chase her, she chases me, we chase each other.
    We’re the cuddly toys on our beds at home.
    We leave the nursery playground, the playhouse, the games we can’t join in with.
    The lamps are shining in the ceiling, blinding us, but Mummy’s eyes are closed, and we don’t know if she’s ever going to look at us again, stroke our backs with her warm hands as we lie in bed in our room, trying to go to sleep.
    Mummy.
    The doctor’s cutting you now, but we don’t want to watch. A green sheet covers you as he lowers the scalpel and we close our eyes, and that’s nice.
    Cover our eyes for us, Mummy.
    Daddy. He should be here, shouldn’t he, Mummy?
    But he isn’t here, at least not with us.
    Mummy.
    What about you?
    Aren’t you coming? Coming here to be with us?
    The drips falling from the operating-theatre lamp onto your cheek are our tears.
    I want to be with you, children.
    I can see you and hear you, but I can’t be with you yet. First these nice men and women are going to try to make me better again. But I don’t want to be better, I don’t want whatever love and happiness there might yet be in the beauty of this month of May.
    I want to be with you, with Daddy, I want us to be a family again, and that means I can’t be here.
    Don’t cry. Don’t be scared. I can feel your tears. I’m asleep, and it doesn’t hurt when the nice man cuts me, he’s only trying to help.
    Maybe I’ll be coming soon.
    But I can’t promise anything.
    You don’t always get to choose. But you know that already, don’t you?
    Life isn’t a lamp that you get to