The Boy in the Suitcase - By Lene Kaaberbol Page 0,20

as far as Mrs. Mažekienė was able to see. But you see, the woman has been spying on us for some time, at least two or three days, and she gave Mikas chocolate. That’s not normal!”

He clicked his ballpoint pen a couple of times, watching her all the while.

“And where were you when this happened?”

Now she could not keep the uncertainty from coming out in her voice.

“I … I don’t remember clearly,” she said. “I’ve suffered a concussion. Perhaps … perhaps they attacked me.”

The words felt odd in her mouth because she didn’t herself believe that Darius was capable of something like that. But the woman. She didn’t know the woman, did she?

“And at which hospital were you treated?”

Her heart dropped like a stone. “Vilkpėdės,” she said, hoping that would be the end of it. But of course it wasn’t. He reached for the phone.

“Which ward?”

“M1.”

She sat there on the uncomfortabe plastic chair, frustrated and powerless, as he was put through to the ward and had a brief conversation with someone at the other end. The fly kept buzzing and bumping into the glass. Gužas listened more than he talked, but she could guess what he was being told. Alcohol content in the blood, fall on the stairs.

“Mrs. Ramoškienė,” he said, replacing the receiver. “Don’t you think you should simply go home and wait for your husband to call?”

“I don’t drink!” She blurted out the words even though she knew they would only confirm his suspicion.

“Please go home now, Mrs. Ramoškienė.”

MECHANICALLY, SHE GOT on the number 17 trolley bus at T. Ševčenkos gatvė. Several stops too late, she realized that she had failed to get off at Aguonų gatvė to change lines. It was as if the city in which she had lived for more than eight years had suddenly become strange to her. The sunlight pierced her eyes like needles. Only once before in her life had she felt this helpless.

Please go home now, Mrs. Ramoškienė. But to what? Without Mikas, the whole thing made no sense—the flat, the furniture, all the clean and new things she had fought so hard for.

God’s punishment, a voice whispered inside her.

“Shut up,” she said under her breath, but it did no good.

She hadn’t attended mass since leaving Tauragė. Not once in eight years. She didn’t want to believe in God, but it was as if it wouldn’t let her go—the hot, waxy scent of the candles, the old women who could barely kneel but insisted on doing so all the same, the flowers on the altar, the sense of solemnity that had made her sit quietly even when she had been so young her legs dangled from the pews in white stockings and shiny black shoes—that one day of the week one should make the effort, her mother said, and dress in one’s best. Her first communion … she had felt so grownup, so important. She was old enough to sin. The word unfolded inside her, releasing a scent of darkness and sulphur, of guilt and lost souls. But above all, sin was interesting. Interesting like Mama’s sister, Aunt Jolita, who lived in Vilnius and had done things that no one would explain to Sigita. Sinners were far more interesting than ordinary people—it even said so in the Bible. Now this world of sin and confession had opened to her, too. It was peculiarly intoxicating to be a part of the chorus of response when the congregation murmured its “Esu kaltas, esu kaltas, esu labai kaltas.” I am guilty, I am very guilty. She went at it with a will.

“Shhhh,” said her mother, twitching her scarf into place. “Not so loud!”

By and by she learned the correct volume—not self-promotingly loud and shrill, nor so low that it sounded reluctant; a sincere murmur reaching the nearest without echoing through the dome. Esu kaltas. There was a beauty, a sweetness to it.

Until the day when she actually had something relevant to confess and couldn’t bring herself to say it. At first she had tried for teenage rebellion by stating flatly that she wasn’t going. Had it been only her mother, she might have carried it off. But when Granny Julija looked at her and asked her if anything was wrong, her weak attempt at mutiny collapsed. No, there was nothing wrong. Nothing at all. Granny Julija had patted her arm and told her that she was a good girl. It was all right to doubt a little sometimes, she said. God could take it.