Taneli lined up behind the others. Raija pressed against his shin. She was a Lapphund with a keen little face and small bear ears. Her fur was long and fluffy, beige on the legs and ruff, the rest of her black. Her soft tail curled up over her back and Taneli would pull it through his hand. She was a good dog. Brave and willing to work hard. And she was his. By their huts, the adults were standing, watching, hands open, not speaking.
The others said Stallo, the giant, had taken Javanna. But Taneli didn’t think so. They’d found her trap on a knoll by the river; the prey that had been caught in it glittered blue with frost. Of Javanna there had been no trace: her rucksack was gone; her skis, too. Stallo was not that neat. No, something else had happened to Javanna.
Taneli’s mother had told him how excited his sister had been about his birth. Javanna had put her hands on their mother’s belly every time their mother would let her, and whispered truths into her stomach. Truths meant only for Taneli. Maybe this is why he could feel her and the others couldn’t. They were tied together by that belly button as if the umbilical cord had connected the two of them, rather than stretching between mother and child. “She is the one who chose your name,” his mother always said. “She said you had to be called Taneli.”
Nihkko, one of the elders, had spoken with Taneli. “You have to stop,” he’d said. “You have to accept.”
“She is not dead.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.”
“Hearing her doesn’t mean she is not dead,” Nihkko had responded. “The dead speak.”
Taneli shrugged. He knew what he knew.
Nihkko had fallen silent, his face thoughtful. Then he said, “I wish she were alive, too. There were prophesies laid on her life. She was supposed to replace me. But it would be better now if she were not.”
The way he said it sent shivers down Taneli’s spine. He hadn’t thought about it like that: hadn’t thought about what could be happening to her if she was somehow trapped and being held.
“You!”
The man pointed to Taneli with his pen. It was his turn. He walked close. The man positioned him beside the others. Taneli focused on the man’s beard. Reddish and neat, each hair seemed to have its place. Perhaps the man combed it with something. First, the man ran his fingertips over Taneli’s head, pressing to feel its shape. It was not an unpleasant feeling. Then he placed the set of tongs on Taneli’s head. He read out the number aloud for his friend to write in his book. He put his fingers between Taneli’s teeth and prised his jaws open to look inside. The fingers tasted bitter and left an oily feel in his mouth.
He placed his knuckles under Taneli’s chin and tipped it up. He looked at Taneli but without seeing him.
“He doesn’t look like the others,” he said, whereupon his friend approached them.
“Not a clean racial type,” he added.
The second man was also bearded, but his was sparse and straggly. His eyes were light blue, like water pouring from a cup. His eyes met Taneli’s and Taneli could feel his chest clench. There was nothing in this man’s eyes: no emotion, no spark, just a flat surface. This was what evil looked like, Taneli thought. The hair stood up on his arms.
In the second man’s book were drawings of human heads. The men studied them and Taneli. Their eyes flicked back and forth between the sketches and Taneli.
“You’re right,” the second man said. “Hybrid.”
“Yes,” the first man said and narrowed his eyes at Taneli. “And more Swedish than Sami.”
Taneli turned his gaze to him, anger rising. “But I don’t want to look like a Swede,” he said.
He could feel his mother holding her breath over by their tent and pressing her fist against her chest. He knew his father would be rubbing his knuckle against his forehead and making a face, as if his head hurt him.
The man who had measured Taneli ignored him. But the man with the light eyes held Taneli’s gaze and smiled. Taneli could feel himself going weak. There was something so utterly terrifying about this man.
Before the two men walked away, the man with the light eyes kicked Raija in the side. He wasn’t looking at the dog, though. He was looking at Taneli.
4.
Laura
Stockholm’s central train station was full of people hurrying to catch their trains. Rush hour. Laura walked in the opposite direction. People bumped into her. She felt dizzy. She kept seeing Britta’s body before her. She might be sick again. She had failed her best friend; the one person on earth she loved the most. During their time at university, Laura had grown to hope she and her friends would stay together after their studies and live in a big house like bohemians. She must have mentioned it to Britta, for she remembered Britta’s curt answer: “You’re not being realistic. Now is now. Who knows what will happen?” And Britta had been right. Matti had gone back to Finland and enlisted in the army, Karl-Henrik was in Norway, having, from what she understood, joined the resistance. Like Norway, Denmark was occupied, and so Erik had remained in Stockholm. Laura had taken the job in Stockholm and Britta . . .
In the main hall, under the curved glass roof, there was a queue for the platforms. “Excuse me,” Laura said. “Excuse me.”
She wanted to scream for people to move. Instead, she caught the eye of a policeman, black uniform, white hat.
Focus on your breath, she thought. Look at your feet. One step. One more.
The train ride back had been dreadful. Laura had felt nauseous. Dark yellow grass from last year still clung to the fields outside the window beyond the reflection of her white face, birch trees like dirty stripes against the gray spruce forest, all of it shouting of death and loss. Waves of realization that Britta was gone hit against her; each breaking her down.
She had planned to go home, but now she couldn’t face being on her own. There was her father’s house in Djursholm, but he was at work. She walked out of the train station, followed Vasagatan to the water and then continued alongside Värtan strait toward the King’s Garden and her workplace. Only now did she notice the heavy sky. A storm was on its way. How was it possible that Britta was gone, and, in the world, things would simply continue as normal? Nothing could be normal again.
She opened the heavy wooden door to her place of work and her shoes made hollow taps on the reception area’s marble floor. In her office, the brightness and the noise assaulted her. She remained standing in front of the door.
“There you are,” Jacob Wallenberg said. “We’ve had a message from the Germans. Could you please take a look?” He leaned back and narrowed his eyes. “You’re pale.”
This was his strength. He didn’t miss anything, never forgot a face, never failed to take that extra look, always had time for a conversation. That and, of course, his ability to keep everything in his head: every line in a dialogue, each number.
“A university friend of mine died,” she said. My best friend, she wanted to say. My only friend.
“I’m sorry. What happened?”
“She was murdered. Shot.”
“Really? Do they know by whom?”
She shook her head.
“She was still a student in Uppsala?”