For arson it was, everyone was convinced of that, even if the investigation could not prove it unambiguously. There was talk of lit candles that were left in the kitchen, covered heating elements or overload in the electrical system in the antiquated school, which had not been maintained for several years but could now serve as a residence for seventeen men, thirteen women, and nineteen children. All victims of persecution and war. All in flight.
That night the temperature was eight degrees Celsius. The sky glistened with starlight, but who could appreciate that when the rays were hidden by grayish-white smoke in the freezing wind?
* * *
Gösta Friberg stood as if petrified, supported by the kitchen table, on trembling legs, with his feet stuffed in sheepskin slippers and with a damp spot that was growing on his flannel pajamas, a kind of afterbirth to his visit to the toilet. The glow from the burning school created a ghostly fluttering in his kitchen. The rain of sparks came like swarms of countless fireflies.
He had seen everything, or had he? It had happened so quickly, when as was his habit after a trip to the toilet he looked out from his upstairs window. The shadowy figures that were outlined against the snow had moved quickly, there were two or three of them, at first he couldn’t decide. They came from the storage shed and were heading for the south end of the school building, the one that faced toward his house. The view was partly hidden by the lilac thicket that had always served as the boundary between the school property and his own. They moved ahead clumsily in the snow, one of them fell down, but was quickly helped up. But there had definitely been three of them.
It was not just the darkness and their hurried movements that confused him, the whole scene was like a hallucination. Sometimes he hallucinated, especially during the nocturnal trips to the toilet when in the borderland between sleep and waking he thought he saw and heard things. Irma had laughed at him many times when in the morning he told about his nocturnal experiences. “You should write a horror novel,” she’d said on one occasion, and Gösta had felt offended, even though he knew she didn’t mean anything bad. For him it was almost reality, and he didn’t like that she belittled his revelations. It was as if things really did happen, or could conceivably happen in the future.
That was the kind of feeling he got as the shadows were moving in the night. On the days that followed he would recall the sight in his memory, and the outlines gradually sharpened. At last he knew what he had seen and that what he’d seen was reality. He was still a little uncertain about who it was, but fairly sure. The one who ran first, leaning forward like a soldier in battle, Gösta had seen so many times that despite the darkness and the pulled-down cap, he was rather easy to identify. Even so he doubted himself and his impressions.
* * *
Flames started greedily licking the facade, at several places at the same time. The blaze quickly took hold in the century-old timber. Soon the whole school was on fire, burning along the full length of the facade. The top floor, which housed a schoolroom and the old teacher’s apartment, was already in flames. A broom of fire sprayed in the brisk wind like a blowtorch from the roof, which had partially collapsed. Everything happened so fast. He understood that nothing could be saved. Through the thicket of bushes he could see groups of people. They stood strangely quietly, as if they were attending a bonfire.
Gösta sank down on a chair. Naturally he should have called for the fire department and then gone out to see if he could help out, but the paralysis would not let go. “There is nothing to do, the school is lost,” he repeated again and again to himself, mumbling, “fire always wins.” Then, during those ghastly hours in the kitchen, it did not occur to him that people could be injured. That was of course an incomprehensible error, a self-betrayal that was grounded in his own panicky terror of open fire.
Three
For a moment he stood completely still, staring down at the snow. He closed his eyes and tried to disconnect what was happening: the screams from the camp, the flames that created a restless fluttering across the sky, the smoke, the cold, and not least the terror.
It didn’t work, of course. He would never forget. There was only one thing for Omid, flight, once again flight, his whole life this feeling of shame of not belonging anywhere, forced to take to the roads, to flee. He extended his arm and with his bare hand stroked a tree trunk striped with snow. For a moment he wanted to turn around, but realized that it could be dangerous. Perhaps the crowd of people would kill him. They didn’t wish him well in any event. He knew what people in groups were capable of.
He looked around and returned to the road, hoping that no more cars would drive past. His feet were frozen stiff. His hands likewise. His head was bare. The only warmth was the jacket that he had grabbed in passing. He stamped his feet, waving his arms like his grandfather had done, and then set off at a rapid pace, away, away. The fire behind him was raging, the fire inside him was raging, driving his legs to keep moving.
After a few minutes he saw the glow of headlights, and realized it was a car. A short distance ahead was a narrow side road in between the trees. Not far away lights were shining in the windows of a house. He ran onto the road; clomping around in the deep snow was not an alternative, if he didn’t want his feet to freeze.
The car passed on the main road and clearly more were coming, headlights played between the trees. He headed for the solitary house. A dog barked. He picked up the pace and passed the house. The barking continued but grew quieter. The forest was dense, denser than any he had experienced. The darkness meant nothing. It was the fire that frightened him. The memories of consuming fire.
What had happened to Hamid? He had seen how his cousin had helped the woman from Syria with one of her children, how he carried the child in his arms wrapped in one of the red tablecloths that were on the tables in the meeting hall. He himself had helped Reza, who had a bad leg. The pain made him quietly moan a little, but Omid hurried him, almost shoved him ahead, out the door and stumbling down the steps.
Outside the Swedes had gathered. Silent. No one made an effort to help out. They just stood there, close together, without a word, staring.
It’s not my fault, he wanted to scream, but knew that silence was better, to not be seen and heard.
He started crying against the wind. Burning fire or paralyzing cold, always like that, never in between, then the body could relax. The dog unexpectedly resumed barking. A door opened, an oblong rectangle of light burst out on the farmyard. A shadow figure was outlined in the entry. The dog barked. “Shut up!” a man shouted, and those were words that Omid recognized.
For a moment he thought about making himself known. The light that radiated from the open door promised warmth, but he kept running. The snow muffled his steps. Soon he was swallowed up by the darkness. The dog kept barking. The door slammed shut.
Four
Almost five months had now passed since the fire. The police investigation was officially still open but in reality shut down. The remains of the old village school were removed. All that was left was a shed that once housed an outhouse and storehouse, and then the blackened ground, a rectangle twenty-three meters long and eight meters wide, with a sooty chimney that rose like a macabre monument to an arson that took three lives, perhaps four. The rough-hewn granite plinths were carted away by Mattsson’s sons.