‘What is that?’
‘It’s a particular kind of net used in fishing. I wrote about how I saw one once down in the clear depths. It was a fishing net that had torn away from its anchors and was floating away. The body of a wild duck and a few fish were entangled in it.’
‘What was the theme of the poem?’
‘I think the image of the drifting net seemed like an image of freedom to me.’
‘Freedom is always adrift?’
‘Perhaps. I don’t know.’
They were quiet. The roar of the ocean washed over them.
‘You are afraid,’ she said after a while. ‘You are afraid that I might ask you to write my story. And you are especially afraid because you couldn’t write it without looking at my face.’
‘I am not afraid.’
‘I won’t ask you to, don’t worry.’
She paused and he waited but she didn’t say anything else. After half an hour of silence he said, very carefully,
‘I think I’d best be going now.’
Fatti didn’t answer. Humlin got up and left the apartment. As he shut the door behind him it came to him that the sweet smell in the apartment was cinnamon.
Tea-Bag and Tanya were waiting for him down on the street. They looked at him attentively. Tea-Bag leaned forward with frank curiosity.
‘Did you see her face?’
‘No.’
‘I’ve seen it. It looks like someone carved a map into it: islands, crags and waterways.’
‘I don’t want to hear any more. Please call a taxi. Our priority right now is figuring out what to do with you. Where are you going to hide?’
‘I have to hide too,’ Tanya said. ‘And Leyla. We all need hiding.’
They returned to the Chief of Police’s house where Torsten and Leyla were waiting for them.
‘How long can we stay here?’ Humlin asked.
‘Someone may be coming tomorrow morning. We should be gone by then.’
‘That gives us a few more hours, until dawn. Who might be coming?’
‘A cleaning lady.’
‘When does she get here?’
‘Not before nine o’clock.’
‘Then we’ll leave at eight.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘I don’t know.’
Humlin returned to the armchair where he had fallen asleep a few hours before. Tea-Bag and Tanya went upstairs. I have to take care of this, he thought. I don’t know exactly what I have got myself into, nor what my responsibilities are. But I’m caught all the same, like having a foot stuck in the railway tracks when the train is thundering down the line.
He tried to sleep but the image of the woman with the light-blue headscarf wouldn’t leave him. Tea-Bag and Tanya were also in his dreams, rowing a boat over an ocean the same colour as the silk scarf.
He woke up at dawn.
He still didn’t have the faintest idea what they were going to do next.
A rubbish truck clattered past outside.
Humlin got up out of the armchair where he had been trying — in vain — to get some sleep. He had forced himself to arrive at a decision. He didn’t know if it was the right thing to do, but at least there seemed to be no better alternative. He went up to the first floor and looked into the room where Tanya and Tea-Bag were sleeping. Tea-Bag had finally removed her coat, Tanya lay curled up with a pillow over her face. Tea-Bag woke with a start when Humlin entered the room. He saw the flash of fear in her eyes.
‘It’s me. It’s time for us to leave.’
‘Where are we going?’
‘I’ll tell you when we’ve assembled downstairs.’
He left the room and knocked on the other bedroom door. Torsten called out something unintelligible in a weak stammer.
‘Come in,’ Leyla’s voice shouted.
They lay with the blanket pulled up to their necks. Torsten looked tiny next to Leyla.
‘Get up and get dressed,’ Humlin said. ‘The girls and I have to go.’
‘I’m coming along too,’ Torsten said.
‘Don’t you have work to go to?’
Torsten started to stutter his reply.
‘He only temps right now,’ Leyla answered. ‘My grandmother already has someone else helping her.’
It was seven o’clock. Humlin walked down the stairs. He already dreaded the phone call he was about to make; there was nothing his mother hated as much as being woken up early in the morning.
He sat down at a desk with a phone. He heard Tea-Bag and Tanya’s voices rising and falling from the upper floor. My family, he thought. All these children Andrea is always pestering me about. He lifted the receiver and dialled the number. His mother picked up after fourteen rings. She sounded as if she were about to die. This is her real voice, Humlin thought bitterly. Not a voice ready to moan for money or a voice ready to commandeer the rest of the world. It is the voice of an old woman who feels the earth calling out to her, trying to claim her.
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me.’
‘What time is it?’
‘Seven.’
‘Are you trying to kill me?’
‘I have to talk to you.’
‘I’m always asleep at this time, as you know. I had only just managed to get to sleep, in fact. You’ll have to call back tonight.’
‘I can’t. I only need you to stay awake for a few more minutes so you can hear what I have to say.’
‘You never have anything to say.’
‘Today I do. I’m calling from Gothenburg.’
‘Are you still carrying on with those Indian girls?’
