英语小说网

It's hard to reason about death. Hard to let go of someone you love.

Once Elsa asked why so many not-shits had to die everywhere, and why so many shits didn't. And why anyone at all had to die, whether a shit or not. Granny tried to distract Elsa with ice cream and change the subject, because Granny preferred ice cream to death. But Elsa was capable of being a bewilderingly obstinate kid, so Granny gave up in the end and admitted that she supposed something always had to give up its own space so that something else could take its place.

Granny and Elsa used to watch the evening news together. Now and then Elsa would ask Granny why grown-ups were always doing such idiotic things to each other. Granny usually answered that it was because grown-ups are generally people, and people are generally shits. Elsa countered that grown-ups were also responsible for a lot of good things in between all the idiocy -- space exploration, the UN, vaccines, and cheese slicers, for instance. Granny then said the real trick of life was that almost no one is entirely a shit and almost no one is entirely not a shit. The hard part of life is keeping as much on the not-a-shit side as one can.

Elsa thinks about that while sitting in the waiting room at the veterinary clinic. It smells of birdseed. Britt-Marie sits next to her with her hands clasped together in her lap, watching a cockatoo sitting in its cage on the other side of the room. Britt-Marie doesn't seem so very keen on cockatoos. Elsa isn't wholly conversant with the exact emotional utterances of cockatoos, but she reckons the feeling is mutual.

"Like when we're on the bus and some old people get on?" asked Elsa. And then Granny asked Elsa if she'd agree to more ice cream and another topic of conversation if Granny answered "Yes." Elsa said she could go for that.

In the oldest fairy tales from Miamas they say a wurse can die only of a broken heart. Otherwise, they're immortal. This is why it became possible to kill them after they were sent into exile from the Land-of-Almost-Awake for biting the princess: because they were sent away by the very people they had protected and loved. "And that was why they could be killed in the last battle of the War-Without-End," Granny explained -- for hundreds of wurses died in that last battle --"because the hearts of all living creatures are broken in war."

Elsa understands that she doesn't mean it unpleasantly. The police are interviewing Dad and Alf about everything that has happened, and Britt-Marie was the first to be questioned, so she offered to sit with Elsa and wait for the veterinary surgeon to come out and say something about the wurse. So Elsa does understand that there's nothing unpleasant about it. It's just difficult for Britt-Marie to say anything at all without it sounding that way.

Britt-Marie brushes some invisible seeds from her jacket and answers, without taking her eyes off the cockatoo, "It's no trouble, dear Elsa. You shouldn't feel like that. No trouble at all."

"You don't have to wait here with me," says Elsa, her voice clogged with sorrow and anger.

Elsa wraps her hands in her Gryffindor scarf. Inhales deeply.

"It was very brave of you to step between Wolfheart and Sam," she offers in a low voice.

Britt-Marie brushes some invisible seeds and possibly some invisible crumbs from the table in front of her into the palm of her hand. Sits there with her hand closed around them, as if looking for an invisible wastepaper bin to throw them in.

"Why not?"

"Why were you and Granny always fighting?" Elsa asks, although she already knows the answer.

"I didn't hate your grandmother," she says without looking at Elsa.

"She didn't hate you either," says Elsa, without looking back.

It's hard not to like her for that.

"As I said, we don't beat people to death in this leaseholders' association," she replies quickly, so Elsa can't hear how her emotion is overwhelming her.

They are silent. As you are when you make peace for the second time in two days, but don't quite want to spell it out to the other person. Britt-Marie fluffs up a cushion at the edge of the waiting-room sofa.

"Why are you like that, then?" asks Elsa, thinking about the princess and the witch and the treasure.

"It's my home."

"And actually, I've never wanted the flats to be converted to leaseholds. Kent wants it, and I want Kent to be happy, but he wants to sell the flat and make money and move. I don't want to move."

"She thought I was a… a nagging busybody," says Britt-Marie, not revealing the actual reason.

"Wikipedia," Elsa corrects.

"Is that a site?"

"There's this poem about an old man who says he can't be loved, so he doesn't mind, sort of, being disliked instead. As long as someone sees him," says Elsa.

"In fact, Doctor Glas is a novel, as I understand. I haven't read it. But they put it on in the theater," she says hesitantly.

"You're quite deep, you know, Britt-Marie."

"No, it's a quote from Doctor Glas," insists Britt-Marie.

"Thanks." She clearly has to resist the impulse to start brushing something invisible from Elsa's coat-arm. She satisfies herself with fluffing up the sofa cushion again, even though it's been many years since there was last any stuffing in it to fluff up. Elsa threads the scarf around each of her fingers.

"What's Wikipedia?"

"Doctor Glas," says Britt-Marie with a nod.

"Oh."

"A site."

Britt-Marie puts her hands together in her lap.

"It's a play."

"Because you need to care about something, Elsa. As soon as anyone cared about anything in this world, your granny always dismissed it as 'nagging,' but if you don't care about anything you're actually not alive at all. You're only existing…"

"I used to stand on the balcony early in the mornings. Before Kent woke up. Your grandmother knew this, that's why she made those snowmen. And that's why I got so angry. Because she knew my secret and it felt as if she and the snowmen were trying to taunt me for it."

"Me too."

"I like theater."

Elsa is not quite sure what this means, but she nods all the same. "What do you want to be, then?"

" 'We want to be loved,' " quotes Britt-Marie. " 'Failing that, admired; failing that, feared; failing that, hated and despised. At all costs we want to stir up some sort of feeling in others. The soul abhors a vacuum. At all costs it longs for contact.' "

She thinks it would actually have been a better name for a superhero nemesis, but Britt-Marie doesn't look like she reads quality literature on a regular basis, so Elsa doesn't want to make it too complicated for her.

" 'Doctor Glas' would have been a good superhero name," Elsa says.

They both nod.

"It's not, like, easy-peasy being a kid either," Elsa replies belligerently.

The tips of Britt-Marie's fingers wander carefully over the white circle on the skin of her ring finger.

"It's complicated being a grown-up sometimes, Elsa," Britt-Marie says evasively.

"Oh," says Elsa.

"What secret?"

Elsa thinks about how Britt-Marie may, despite everything, not be a total shit after all.

"You didn't answer the question -- what do you want to be?" she says, winding her scarf through her fingers.

Britt-Marie clasps her hands together firmly.

Britt-Marie's fingertips move hesitantly over her skirt, like a person moving across a dance floor to ask someone to dance. And then, cautiously, she utters the words: "I want someone to remember I existed. I want someone to know I was here."

"I was never like your grandmother. I never traveled. I was just here. But sometimes I liked to stand on the balcony in the mornings, when it was windy. It's silly, of course, everyone obviously thinks it's silly, they do, of course." She purses her mouth. "But I like to feel the wind in my hair."

Unfortunately Elsa doesn't hear the last bit, because the veterinary surgeon comes through the door with a look on his face that creates a surging noise inside Elsa's head. She has run past him before he has even had time to open his mouth. Elsa hears them shouting after her as she charges down the corridor and starts throwing doors open, one after the other. A nurse tries to grab her, but she just keeps running, throws more doors open, doesn't stop until she hears the wurse howling. As if it knows she's on her way and is calling for her. When she finally storms into the right room, she finds it lying on a cold table, a bandage round its stomach. There's blood everywhere. She buries her face deep, deep, deep in its coat.

Britt-Marie is still there in the waiting room. Alone. If she left right now, probably no one would remember that she'd been there. She looks as if she's thinking about that for a moment, then brushes something invisible from the edge of the table, straightens a crease in her skirt, stands up, and leaves.

It looks as if it knows. Tries to dry her cheeks with the warm air from its nose. Elsa lies next to it, curled up on the treatment table, as she lay in the hospital bed that night when Granny didn't come back with her from Miamas.

The wurse closes its eyes. It almost looks as if it's smiling. Elsa doesn't know if it can hear her. Doesn't know if it can feel her heavy tears dropping into its pelt. "You can't die. You can't die, because I'm here now. And you're my friend. No real friend would just go and die like that, do you understand? Friends don't die on each other," Elsa whispers, trying to convince herself more than the wurse.

She lies there forever. With her Gryffindor scarf buried in the wurse's pelt.

"We have to take your friend to the police station, Elsa." Elsa knows she's talking about Wolfheart.

"No, Elsa, he didn't. He wasn't defending himself."

The policewoman's voice can be heard between the wurse's breaths as they grow slower and the thumping on the other side of the thick black fur gets more and more drawn out. Her green eyes watch the girl and the animal from the doorway.

And then she backs away from the door. Checks her watch as if pretending to be disoriented, as if she has just realized there is something extremely important that she has to get on with in an entirely different place, and how crazy it would be if someone she was under very clear orders to bring to the police station would not be watched for a moment so that he could talk to a child who was about to lose a wurse. It would be crazy, really.

And then she's gone. And Wolfheart is standing in the doorway. Elsa flings herself off the table and throws her arms around him and couldn't give a crap about whether or not he has to bathe in alcogel when he gets home.

"You can't put him in prison! He did it in self-defense!" Elsa roars.

"The wurse mustn't die! Tell him he mustn't die!" whispers Elsa.

Wolfheart breathes slowly. Stands with his hands held out awkwardly, as if someone has spilled something acidic on his sweater. Elsa realizes she still has his coat at home in the flat.

And then Wolfheart does something very curious. He hugs her back.

"But you're not allowed to fight again!" she orders, her face thrust into his sweater, before she lifts her head and wipes her eyes with her wrist. "I'm not saying you can never fight, because I haven't quite decided where I stand on that question. I mean morally, sort of thing. But you can't fight when you're as good at fighting as you are!" she sobs.

"The wurse. Very old. Very old wurse, Elsa," he growls in the secret language.

"You can have your coat back, Mum has washed it really carefully and hung it up in the wardrobe inside a plastic cover," she whispers apologetically and keeps hugging him.

He looks as if he'd really appreciate it if she didn't. Elsa doesn't care.

"I can't take everyone dying all the time," Elsa weeps.

"It's a map," Elsa sobs as she unfolds it, the way one sobs when the tears have run out but not the crying.

"Very old wurse. Very tired now, Elsa."

Wolfheart holds her by both her hands. Gently squeezes her forefingers. He's trembling as if he's holding white-hot iron, but he doesn't let go, as one doesn't when one realizes there are more important things in life than being afraid of children's bacteria.

Wolfheart gently rubs his hands together in circles. Elsa brushes her fingers over the ink.

She lies down again on the table with the wurse. So close that its pelt pricks her through her sweater. Feels its warm breathing from the cold nose. It's sleeping. She hopes it's sleeping. She kisses its nose, so her tears end up in its whiskers. Wolfheart gently clears his throat.

"It's a map of the seventh kingdom," she says, more to herself than to him.

And when Elsa just shakes her head hysterically and yells at him that no one else can die on her now, he lets go of one of her hands and reaches into his trouser pocket, from which he takes a very crumpled piece of paper and puts it in her hand. It's a drawing. It's obvious that it's Granny who drew it, because she drew about as well as she spelled.

It's hard to let go of someone you love. Especially when you are almost eight.

Wolfheart rubs his hands together.

"What does Mipardonus mean?" asks Elsa, with her cheek pressed to the wurse's.

"Mipardonus." The seventh kingdom. Your grandmother and I… we were going to build it."

"This seventh kingdom is exactly where the ruins of Mibatalos lie," she whispers.

Elsa studies the map more carefully. It's actually of the whole of the Land-of-Almost-Awake, but with completely the wrong proportions, because proportions were never really Granny's thing.

"Can only build Mipardonus on Mibatalos. Your grandmother's idea."

Then he tenderly puts his fingers over the wound that Sam's knife cut through the thick pelt.

"Means 'I forgive.' "

The tears from his cheeks are the size of swallows. His enormous hand descends softly on the wurse's head. The wurse opens its eyes, but only slightly, and looks at him.

"Was in the letter. Grandmother's letter," he says in the secret language and points at the letter.

"Very old, Elsa. Very, very tired," whispers Wolfheart.

When the cloud animals land in the Land-of-Almost-Awake, Elsa hugs it as hard as she can, and whispers: "You've completed your mission, you don't have to protect the castle anymore. Protect Granny now. Protect all the fairy tales!" It licks her face one final time.

When Elsa turns to Wolfheart, he squints at the sun as you do when you haven't been to the Land-of-Almost-Awake for an eternity of many fairy tales. Elsa points down at the ruins of Mibatalos.

Elsa crawls close to the wurse and holds it hard, hard, hard. It manages to look at her one last time. She smiles and whispers, "You're the best first friend I've ever had," and it slowly licks her on the face and smells of sponge cake mix. And she laughs out loud, with her tears raining down.

"We can bring Alf here. He's good at building things. At least he's good at making wardrobes. And we'll also need wardrobes in the seventh kingdom, won't we? And Granny will be sitting on a bench in Miamas when we're ready. Just like the granddad in The Brothers Lionheart. There's a fairy tale with that name, I read it to Granny, so I know she'll wait on a bench because it's typical of her to nick something like that from other people's fairy tales. And she knows The Brothers Lionheart is one of my favorite fairy tales!"

And then it runs off.

And she thinks about how she will be very particular about pointing out to Halfie that he mustn't feel sad or have a bad conscience about it.

Because wurses hate traveling by bus.

She is still crying. Wolfheart as well. But they do what they can. They construct words of forgiveness from the ruins of fighting words.

The wurse dies on the same day that Elsa's brother is born. Elsa decides that she will tell her brother all about it when he's older. Tell him about her first best friend. Tell him that sometimes things have to clear a space so something else can take its place. Almost as if the wurse gave up its place on the bus for Halfie.