Page 8 of The Living and the Dead

II

The Boy on the Bridge

5

Those who knew Sander Eriksson and Killian Persson back then always said they were inseparable.

Each was so clearly an only child—and maybe it was that simple. Here came Sander, walking through Skavböke, with Killian at his side. Killian was practically his best friend’s opposite, tall and burly and blond as he was, with clumsy hands and a kind but mildly perplexed gaze. They made an odd pair, but at the same time they made sense together. It wasn’t hard to understand what they saw in one another.

Killian. TheKpronounced like “shh”: Sheel-yan. The name has deep roots in Halland, yet it started out as Irish, or maybe Scottish. Long ago it came to Sweden, was passed down from father to son, and given to a husky boy from Skavböke. In the winter of 1999, he was eighteen years old.

His father, Sten, had moved out, so these days Killian lived with his mother, Linda, on the outskirts of the community. They, like Sander’s family, had never been farmers.

“Some folks aren’t even poor farmers,” as the saying went. “They’re just poor.”

Killian only ever spent time in the house to eat or sleep. There was an old workshop on the property, and six months ago Killian haddecided to tear it down and build a new one. He would live in it, he said, and he called the concept “the cabin.”

Sander helped. All they kept of the old shop was its stone foundation; they began to demolish the rest with sledgehammers under a blazing July sun. Splinters and sawdust sailed. It was cathartic to destroy something that had started out whole.

But it did take a hell of a long time, and both of them grew exhausted. That evening, they regarded the half-razed shop with beers in hand.

“There must be an easier way to do this,” Sander said.

They grabbed a few beers and set off through the village. Soon they were standing behind a barn over on Kjell Östholm’s farm, gazing longingly at his old tractor.

“Do you know how to drive it?” Killian asked.

“No, do you?”

“Almost. I think. It’s just that there’s so many levers.” Killian drained his beer and looked around. “So, is he here?”

“His car is gone.”

“Shit, let’s try it, right? What’s the worst that can happen?”

They climbed into the driver’s seat. Sander was getting drunk by this point and spilled beer on the engine. When Killian turned the key, the tractor did nothing but give a weary sigh. He tried again. The tractor sputtered and briefly woke up, only to doze off again.

Killian looked at the beer can in Sander’s hand.

“Maybe it’s thirsty. Try giving it a little more.”

Sander leaned out of the cab and dumped the beer onto the engine. Killian tried to start it again and the engine coughed, faltered, and creaked grumpily, but then roared to life, awake and ready.

Sander and Killian reached for the sky, a silent gesture of triumph.

At first there were a lot of fits and leaps, but soon they were driving smoothly through the village, through the warm summer evening. The sound of a chugging tractor was as natural, in Skavböke, as the birds and the cows. As they turned into Killian’s driveway, theylowered the bucket. Killian closed one eye and aimed for the remains of the shop with its half a roof and leaning walls.

“I’m thinking we just scoop it up. Can you grab me another beer?”

“But…” Sander said as he hopped back into the cab with two fresh cans. “I don’t think it’s exactly like scooping up sand with a shovel.”

“Not exactly,” Killian said, taking a big gulp of his beer. “But almost.”

He worked the levers and the tractor leapt forward again.

They rumbled across the yard and the massive tires left deep brown tracks in the grass. They ran straight into the shop, their determination in the lead and the bucket right behind.

In the sudden collision Killian dropped his beer, and frothy Carlsberg streamed over the floor of the cab. With a disappointed groan, he let go of the wheel and reached to right the can.