Somnambuul Page #3

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much you wanted to have me.

Father thinks you've already

had your way with me,

he keeps his gun there for you...

He will shoot you

when my belly starts swelling.

I hardly dare eat because of this.

That's why I want you to leave.

Before my patience runs out

and you throw yourself at me

and bloody my mouth...

Father will shoot you because of that...

He cannot stand blood. That's

why you will kill each other.

I even had to shoot the dog

because you can't stand blood.

I want to tell you something.

Estland.

You see,

when you are going to leave...

Kvinna.

When you leave and I stay

behind alone, then... Then...

Legare.

Ventar.

Nordkappen.

I don't want to.

- Sh*t!

I can't hear, dammit...

I don't want to.

I don't want to.

One is sneaking around here already,

the mute, with scars on his neck...

He will take me...

Against my will,

and all the others after him...

I don't want this,

do you hear... I don't want...

I am not to be touched!

Eetla!

I'm not to be touched!

- Please!

Not now!

- Eetla!

I don't want to! Do you hear me!

What are you thinking of?

I'm thinking that...

I can't quite fathom it.

What can't you fathom?

Doesn't matter, really...

- What doesn't matter?

What you said...

What did I say?

That you are a virgin...

I'm not... Not any more.

It matters very much.

- What?

That I'm no longer a virgin.

You weren't before either.

- I was yesterday evening.

No-one touched me before you...

You didn't feel any pain, did you.

Then he raped me...

Who?

- That soldier. The mute one...

He called me a pretty girl.

Give me. You know what.

He wrote... First on snow, then

in the air... I read what he wrote.

He had a dog with him.

It wanted to tear me to pieces,

but he shut the dog in the car.

Or I would have killed it...

The dog.

But this was afterwards.

Before I hauled hay on to the cart,

in the same loft where you were hiding.

I got so tired and I lay down on the hay

and slept at once... Like I fainted.

The moment I closed my eyes I saw

father coming home with the fi sh

and he told me to gut them.

But they weren't any normal fi sh...

They were half animals and half snakes...

Like the ones

living in the mud in caves.

And they scattered

around the lighthouse.

Father started shouting at me that

I was letting the fi sh go up

to the tower and smear the glass

and then boats won't see their way.

But mother said they couldn't anyway.

No-one's coming here any more.

We have been abandoned...

Let the fish live in the lighthouse...

Some company at least...

And she climbed up to the tower together

with the fish like a sleepwalker.

Father told me to go after her, or

she might fall down and the fi sh too.

I could not go because the tower was

full of fi sh and I lay down

and then a big slimy one came

and crawled between my legs.

I screamed for father to come

and help me,

but the creature, that fi sh,

kept crawling, on and on,

and then I could not scream any more

because I had no voice -

the fish was already in my mouth,

had come all through my body,

through my intestines and gullet

and I thought it would tear me apart.

But then I must have woken up,

shivering with cold,

and the strange dog

was licking my bare thighs.

What are you staring at?

Haven't seen it before, or what.

Look then.

You let the soldier rape me

and now you stare at me.

Why couldn't you take me yourself?

You were afraid of my father,

afraid of your wife.

She's been sleeping

around quite a bit,

with Finns and Swedes

and who knows who else.

Nobody knows, you don't either and you

never will and that serves you right.

What do you want?

Drink and go away.

D a n c e...

Get lost.

Dance... Dance...

Let go of me! Let go!

Dance.

Let go...

Kas... Kasper! Kasper!

Hands up!

Eetla!

I don't like theatre.

I said I can't stand theatre...

Father can't either, because it is

all lies and deceit and dirty tricks.

Mother was crazy for theatre...

Imagine that... We were in Stockholm,

mother and I, in the king's theatre

watching that Nora or whatever...

The one who keeps crying about

her old gray underwear.

The hall was small and narrow

like in a cinema

and the draught blew between

your legs up to your thighs...

As if a door had been left open

or a window... I wondered

whether the king really had no

better theatre than this...

We sat in the fi rst row and the actors

shouted and spat in our faces,

their own faces all painted

and they had wigs too... Disgusting...

And then suddenly

mother was on stage...

On all fours, behind Nora's back...

I nearly had a fit...

She said she was Nora's old underwear...

That she was now an actor

in the king's theatre...

She was up there on the stage, on all

fours, breasts hanging like a cow...

Then she started yelling that

she'd forgotten her lines,

that she could not manage this part.

She sank down between

those plywood chairs and kept howling

and everybody stared.

Other women freezing in their

folding chairs started howling as well...

Whores... Stockholm whores...

You wait here,

I'll see how wide the gap is.

What's there to see.

There's no end.

When I shout, you shout back.

When you can't hear shouting,

fire the gun.

Don't waste the cartridges,

fire one at a time.

Larus ridipundus.

Haematopus astralegus.

Where are you!

Kasper!

Kasper!

You bastard! Where are you!

Kasper!

Kasper!

Did you see him off?

He got through then?

The soldiers came here snooping.

One of them asked after you.

I said you were in town.

The cow's been mated.

Maybe she can be milked now.

Spring

Gottfrid Ambrosen,

lighthouse keeper iz majaka.

Natshalnik told me to wait here.

There's nothing more.

I brought the cow.

She has a calf too

but it's not born yet.

Come now,

before they have second thoughts.

Wake up, we're home.

Do you hear me... .

Open your eyes...

Eetla, can you hear?

Listen to me.

Everything's going to be all right.

You wake up,

put on some dry clothes,

then we'll go to the beach...

Count the eggs in the nests and...

Ring the birds and...

Listen to me...

You are listening, aren't you...

Eetla, wake up...

Eetla! Open your eyes.

Where did mother go?

Come-come, here's plenty of room.

Tea is getting cold.

And the egg is...

She has taken her clothes.

There's bread. No milk.

But I fried fish yesterday.

Do you want some?

She has taken

her red striped stockings...

The laddered ones.

And her wedding dress.

What is she doing with them now

I wonder?

She gave these clothes to you

so you could leave that place.

But I'm not wearing them.

- They were left there, in pledge.

Where?

- Where we came from.

Church?

They wouldn't have

let you go otherwise.

Do you know what they did to me?

Did you hide the gun?

- I did, yes.

And the radio?

- The radio is in the tower.

I heard in the morning

that war is over.

Why didn't you say at once

that the radio was in the tower.

And I thought mother was up there fi ddling

with the radio,

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