Stallo by Stefan Spjut

tired and slowed down. When we asked if we should turn back, he told us to go on ahead and he would follow at his own pace.
I will never know what it was, a premonition perhaps, but after we had walked a short distance I turned round to see how he was getting on. He had grabbed hold of a small birch tree and I saw the leaves shaking as he tried, but failed, to keep himself upright.
I ran to him and watched him sink to the ground.
‘Don’t be afraid, Gudrun,’ he said to me. ‘Don’t be afraid. I’m not afraid.’
And then he died. With a smile on his lips.
It was a heart attack. His second.
We travelled up to Vassitjåkka by helicopter to cast his ashes to the wind, because that was his wish. There was me and Arne, Gunilla and Susso – Cecilia couldn’t come because she was living abroad at the time. The pilot flew us there for free. He said it was an honour, and he looked as if he meant it.
It certainly is a little strange up there at the top. The mountain is steep and completely untouched, and there, right in the middle, is a small hut, or at least that’s what it looks like. Susso went into the hut and sat down. She was annoyed about something, I don’t remember what, and it is only looking back that I realise it was because she was feeling sad and for some reason had the idea she mustn’t show it. Because no one else cried, not even me. It was probably because Gunilla was there.
Afterwards I regretted taking her up there. It was as if the ash was flung back on itself in the strong wind raging up the mountainside and blew into her. As if Dad was carrying on his questthrough her eyes. I know that’s sentimental and irrational, but that is how I see it.
*
We stayed at Riksgränsen for almost ten years. Then Arne cheated on me with Susso’s boyfriend’s mother. I discovered them myself, in Dad’s old workroom, of all places. They had not undressed or anything but were standing close together, and when the door opened they sprang apart and acted as if nothing had happened.
But I knew what I had seen and when I confronted Arne he confirmed it with his silence. When I carried on asking he shouted at me to stop.
It was a real mess, I can tell you. It was one thing that our marriage came to an end – it hadn’t been particularly good for many years – but it also meant the end for Susso and her boyfriend Torbjörn. They were thrown together in a kind of sibling relationship and Torbjörn especially couldn’t handle it. He told Susso he thought the whole thing was sick, and I comforted her by saying that if that was the case, the feelings weren’t right anyway. But it was a pity they had parents who behaved like that, who didn’t think!
The worst thing was not being able to move straight away. There was so much to sort out. Arne part owned the company and I was forced to buy him out. I did that by giving up my share of the properties, and in the autumn of 2003 I moved down to Kiruna. By that time Siv had already moved up and taken my place. It was like a slap in the face. Fifteen years younger than me and fifteen centimetres taller. She is a good-looking woman – slender limbs and raven-black hair – and I can’t help seeing her in Torbjörn.
*
Susso was thirteen when Dad died and she didn’t show any particular interest in the troll initially, at least not as far as I can recall. It was a strange but natural part of her upbringing, but we seldom mentioned it, especially in the years immediately after Dad passed away. We thought it was about time to bury the troll – Gunilla even suggested that we destroy the photograph. If anyone was to blame for Dad’s death, it was the troll.
But then one day Susso told me she thought it was odd there was nothing about trolls on the internet. She thought other people would have seen something similar and written about it. She understood why reports of things like that didn’t appear in the newspapers, but wasn’t it weird that you could find no mention of it