It was quite a shock to find ourselves looking at tomatoes after that girl weeping among her dead. I tried to hear if the sound of her crying reached the studio where they were talking about soil acidity but there was nothing. Nana grabbed the remote control angrily. She pushes all the buttons — since she doesn’t know how it works — until the TV shut down. Then we drank some tea without saying anything. It was as if that little girl was in the apartment with us. I thought about her and I thought about Torsten and Nana was thinking about something so far away that she closed her eyes and forgot to touch her tea until it was cold. It was still snowing outside but not as much. Nana finally pushed her teacup away and asked me why I wasn’t in school.
‘There’s no school today.’
‘How can that be?’
‘It’s some kind of holiday — I don’t know exactly.’
‘All the children in this building left for school as normal.’
It was getting harder and harder to lie, but there was no way out of it now.
‘It’s a holiday today in Stensgården.’
Nana nodded. I don’t know why I returned to the idea of Nydalen and Stensgården being different countries, just like I had been thinking about on the bus when I was still irritated by the fact that I couldn’t sleep. But Nana accepted my answer and didn’t pressure me with any more questions. I washed the teacups and then I was at a loss as to what I should do next. I couldn’t go home because then Mum would nag at me for not being in school. I supposed I could go to school late and say I had had a stomach ache or that Nana had been ill — no one really cares if you go or not. But I didn’t want to go there today. I didn’t want to stay with Nana either. If I did she would make me play this card game that she has invented, a game I still don’t understand all the rules to and that takes several hours.
I stood up and said I was going home. Nana nodded again, got up awkwardly from her chair and stroked my cheek. When she does that her eyes are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I get completely relaxed when she touches me, I stop thinking about the cat with its paws chopped off and I feel how the world calms down around me. When I was younger I used to imagine that I would one day see the man I was going to marry at one of these times when she was touching me. But God help me — the only thing I saw this time was Torsten’s face.
