Read Online When the Snow Fell by Henning Mankell - Free Book Online Page A

gave a start. He had almost dreamt his way into slumber. He jumped out of bed and went to the window. But there was nobody there by the streetlamp. Certainly not a naked woman.
    Joel went back to bed. Suppressed all thoughts about Gertrud.
    Tomorrow he would find out who this new shop assistant was. She must have a name. She must live somewhere.
    She must have her transparent veils hanging up on a coat hanger somewhere or other.
    Perhaps on a coat hanger made of gold.
    Needless to say, next morning Joel overslept. Samuel had to give him a good shaking and more or less lift him out of bed in order to wake him up.
    “You’ll be late for school if you don’t get a move on.”
    “I’ll manage.”
    He got washed and dressed, and sat down at the kitchen table with a glass of milk and a few sandwiches. He wasn’t really hungry. But if he didn’t eat now, he’d be hungry even before they’d finished singing the morning hymn.
    “There’s a funny smell in the kitchen,” Samuel said out of the blue.
    “Yes, it smells of herring,” said Joel.
    “No, it smells of perfume,” said Samuel. “You’d almost be tempted to think there’d been a woman here last night, paying a secret visit.”
    Then he smiled. Joel could feel himself blushing. Had Samuel noticed that Gertrud had been here after all? Despite the fact that he’d been snoring all the time?
    Joel waited anxiously for what was going to come next. Samuel could sometimes fly into a terrible temper. Often when you least expected it. But this time he just kept on smiling. And said nothing more. Just got ready for work, said goodbye and left.
    Joel remained seated at the table. Gertrud always smelled of perfume. Joel was so used to it that he didn’t even think about it.
    What had Samuel meant? Had he noticed what had gone on?
    Joel sat thinking about what would have been the right thing for him to say. He sat there so long that he was late for school, of course. Miss Nederström looked reproachfully at him when he entered the classroom. Otto was smirking, as usual. Joel hoped angrily that no woman would ever dance in transparent veils in front of
him
.
    “If you go on like this I’ll have to have a word with your dad,” said Miss Nederström. “You arrive late far too often.”
    Joel said nothing, merely walked to his desk and sat down.
    “Why are you late?”
    “I overslept.”
    “Haven’t you got an alarm clock?”
    “It’s broken.”
    “But surely your dad wakes you up?”
    “He overslept as well.”
    The class giggled. Joel felt as if he’d painted himself into a corner. If he was asked just one more question, he would explode. This time he wouldn’t merely throw a glass at the wall. This time he’d throw the whole world at Miss Nederström’s face. But she didn’t say anything more. The lesson continued.
    It was math. And Joel kept getting his sums wrong. That was because he was spending all the time planning the expedition he would launch that same evening. When Ehnströms Livs closed, Joel would be lurking in the shadows, waiting for her.
    He occasionally glanced at the Greyhound. She always got her sums right. He tried to get at least a third of the answers right by copying down what she had written.
    On Wednesday evenings Samuel generally had dinner round at Sara’s place. And then he would spend the night there. Sara was Samuel’s girlfriend, and she worked at Ludde’s bar in the center of town, just behind the Community Center. The atmosphere inside there was heavy with clouds of smoke, the smell of wet wool and old rubber boots. Early on, soon after Samuel had first met Sara, Joel had had problems with her. He’d been afraid she would take Samuel away from him. First of all Mummy Jenny had taken herself away from Joel. And now it looked like Sara was taking Samuel away as well.
    But things were better now. Not least because Samuel seldom drank so much that he got drunk and started scrubbing the kitchen floor in the middle of the night.