* * *
Especially for those who had attended the school it was of course a disheartening sight. Generations of villagers had been pupils in the hundred-year-old building. When they passed by they recalled episodes from another time, both kooky and clever. They thought about their own childhood, they recalled the two teachers, Edlund and Gauffin. One gruff and the other understanding, but both respected, in any event by most and now in retrospect. Åke Edlund died long ago, that was known, but no one knew where Alexandra Gauffin might be, if she was even alive, so there was great surprise when she showed up one day.
She knocked on Gösta Friberg’s door and introduced herself, which was completely unnecessary. Gösta had a hard time holding back the tears as he observed his old schoolteacher, who with her inimitable smile and still gentle gaze was standing so unexpectedly on his stoop. He quickly calculated that she must be over ninety.
“The school burned” was the only thing he could say.
“I heard that later,” Miss Gauffin said in a voice that had preserved its timbre. “I was in Odense visiting my sister over Christmas and New Year’s, and wasn’t really keeping up with what was happening in Sweden.”
It’s strange how some people go through life unbroken, Gösta thought.
“You look so spry, miss … like before,” he said, and was immediately embarrassed by his words, which perhaps could be perceived as intrusive, because she was still his teacher.
“You do too, Gösta. The same fine cheeks and glistening eyes.”
Then Gösta sobbed. Since his wife died, no one had said anything so beautiful to him.
They had coffee, sitting in the sun against the south wall, but with their coats on. It was spring. The hedge was about to flower over and the buds of the lilac were brimming with longing, or even blossoming, but it was not long since it had snowed. For that reason the spring flowers were somewhat stressed, they did not want to be passed up by the summer flora.
“You live alone now?”
“Yes, Irma passed away a year and three months ago. It still feels strange.”
Not a day passed that he didn’t think about her.
“Was it cancer?”
Gösta nodded. “She struggled for a long time, and we tried everything. We even traveled to a special clinic in Florida, and stayed for almost two months, but nothing helped. She died late in the winter.”
“That must have cost a pretty penny.”
“Yes, it was frightfully expensive, over ninety thousand dollars. And as a carpenter you don’t exactly have any reserves. I had to borrow most of it.”
“It’s good that the bank helps out in those situations, but the interest rates must be high.”
Gösta’s face turned bright red. Miss Gauffin observed him for a moment before she changed the subject.
“And the police don’t know anything?”
“No, they have no answers. You know how it is.”
“So what are people saying? In the village, I mean?”
“Folks don’t want to talk about the misery.”
Should he tell what he knew? He’d asked himself that question hundreds of times, ever since the day when the last remnants of the school were still smoldering and the police investigators knocked at the door.
“There’s so much talk,” he said at last, thereby contradicting his own statement a moment before.
“I was thinking about sticking around the area for a while,” Miss Gauffin said, “so we’ll have more occasions to discuss.”
“Sticking around?”
“Yes, I write a little. My memoirs, you might say, and it struck me that it would not only be pleasant to meet some of my pupils, but also valuable so that my recollections would be richer. We remember things so differently.”
“So you’re going to interview people?”
“That’s going a bit far,” Miss Gauffin said.
“How will you get around?”
“A great-grandchild of my brother drives me. He’s unemployed and I’m paying him. He forgot his snus and went for a drive. It will probably take a while, because I saw that the store is gone.”
The two of them, teacher and pupil, conversed a good while; it got cold around their legs. They went over who was still living in the area, who had died, and what might otherwise be of interest.
“There’s a boy missing, isn’t there?” she suddenly interrupted the review of old pupils, bringing him back to those horrible days in January. He nodded.
“And nothing new has come out?”
“No, nothing new.”
He wondered how much she knew. Two cousins had disappeared. One was located. It was Gösta who found him. It did not seem as if she knew about the circumstances, even though it had been reported, and Gösta found no reason to tell. He did not want to tell. He did not want to even think about the terrible sight that had met him early on the morning of the third of January. It was as if he was an accessory to the boy’s death. There were those in the village who implied that too.
The young relative showed up and turned onto the driveway a bit carelessly. He nodded at Gösta but made no effort to leave the car.
“It’s a reliable car,” Miss Gauffin said, and you could hear that she also included the driver in that assessment. She placed her hand, as if consolingly, on Gösta’s knee before she stood up.
* * *
Long after the car had disappeared behind Efraimsson’s workshop, Gösta remained standing under the mighty maple that his grandfather planted perhaps a hundred years ago. The visit had had a double effect; he had been enlivened, but he also felt melancholy and a trifle anxious. Unconsciously he reached out one hand and stroked the smooth trunk as if it were a woman’s skin. He ought to go in, but he knew that fresh air made it easier, as if the anxiety could be aired out.
“Go up to Bertil’s,” he said out loud and challengingly, and obediently trotted off. It was a walk he had made thousands of times. Bertil Efraimsson was born-again, while Gösta was a dogged atheist, but they were good friends anyway and had been since they were kids. They were a week apart in age, sixty-six years old in July, and had been playmates and classmates as well as neighbors. Bertil had taken over the workshop from his father and uncle, and continued repairing everything from clocks to combines, but when the mechanics were increasingly replaced by computerization he closed down the operation. The decision was made on a Friday. He completed the few tasks he had, and on Tuesday he nailed up a sign that said CLOSED and then drove to the state liquor store in Öregrund, where he didn’t think he would be recognized. There he bought a bottle of cognac of the sort his father and uncle used to drink, the only alcohol he could identify with certainty. It was the first and so far the only time in his life he got intoxicated and boisterous. A strange and in retrospect inexplicable act, which should have led to remorse, but Bertil shrugged off the criticism and surprise of his surroundings, and in Gösta’s eyes the Pentecostalist became more human. He saw it as an act of reverence for the generation that preceded him. Bertil’s father, who was the son of a blacksmith from Lövstabruk, had slowly built up the workshop from scanty resources and it had supported two families.