Elsa lets her hair fall over her face. The woman scratches her neck.
“It’s . . . I understand it’s hard. To know that your granny left home to help strangers somewhere else. . . . Me, for instance.”
Elsa looks slightly suspicious. It’s as if the woman read her thoughts.
“It’s known as ‘the trolley problem.’ In ethics. I mean, for students. At university. It’s . . . it’s the discussion of whether it’s morally right to sacrifice one person in order to save many others. You can probably read about it on Wikipedia.”
Elsa doesn’t respond. The woman seems to become ill at ease.
“You look angry.”
Elsa shrugs and tries to decide what she’s most angry about. There’s a fairly long list.
“I’m not angry at you. I’m just angry at stupid Britt-Marie,” she decides to say in the end.
The woman looks slightly confused and glances down at what she’s holding in her hands. Her fingers drum against it.
“Don’t fight with monsters, for you can become one. If you look into the abyss for long enough, the abyss looks into you.”
“What are you talking about?” Elsa bursts out, secretly pleased that the woman speaks to her as if Elsa is not a child.
“Sorry, that’s . . . that was Nietzsche. He was a German philosopher. It’s . . . ah, I’m probably misquoting him. But I think it could mean that if you hate the one who hates, you could risk becoming like the one you hate.”
Elsa’s shoulders shoot up to her ears.
“Granny always said: ‘Don’t kick the shit, it’ll go all over the place!’?”
And that’s the first time Elsa hears the woman in the black skirt, who now wears jeans, really burst out laughing.
“Yes, yes, that’s probably a better way of putting it.”
She’s beautiful when she laughs. It suits her. And then she takes two steps towards Elsa and reaches out as far as she can to give her the envelope that she’s holding, without having to move too close.
“This was on my boys’ . . . on their . . . it was on their headstone. I don’t . . . don’t know who put it there. But your granny—maybe she figured out that I’d come. . . .”
Elsa takes the envelope. The woman in jeans has disappeared down the stairs before she has time to look up from the envelope. On it, it says, “To Elsa! Give this to Lennart and Maud!”
And that is how Elsa finds Granny’s third letter.
Lennart is holding a coffee cup in his hand when he opens the door. Maud and Samantha are behind him, both looking very sweet. They smell of cookies.
“I have a letter for you,” Elsa declares.
Lennart takes it and is just about to say something, but Elsa goes on:
“It’s from my granny! She’s probably sending her regards and saying sorry, because that’s what she’s doing in all the letters.”
Lennart nods meekly. Maud nods even more meekly.
“We’re so terribly sad about this whole thing with your grandmother, dear Elsa. But it was such a wonderfully beautiful funeral, we thought. We’re so glad that we were invited. Come in and have a dream—and Alf brought over some of that chocolate drink as well.” Maud beams.
Samantha barks. Even her bark sounds friendly. Elsa takes a dream from the proffered tin, filled to the top. She smiles cooperatively at Maud.
“I have a friend who likes dreams very much. And he’s been on his own all day. Do you think it would be all right to bring him up?”
Maud and Lennart nod as if it goes without saying.
24
DREAMS
Maud doesn’t look quite as convinced once the wurse is sitting on her kitchen rug a few moments later. Especially as it’s literally sitting on the entire kitchen rug.
“I told you it likes dreams, didn’t I?” says Elsa cheerfully.
Maud nods mutely. Lennart sits on the other side of the table, with an immeasurably terrified-looking Samantha on his lap. The wurse eats dreams, a dozen at a time.
“What breed is that?” says Lennart very quietly to Elsa, as if he’s afraid the wurse may take offense.