Irene could see him make a throwing motion with his arm before he too took off. He had tossed something in through the broken window and instinctively she wanted to take cover. But several years of experience as a goalie on the police women’s handball team now served her well. The little ball was surprisingly heavy. A Hell’s Angel had thrown it, so it must be a hand grenade. The deep grooves in it confirmed what her intuition had told her. Without a conscious thought she flung it back out the window.
The hot pressure wave of the explosion seared her face. A magnesium-white light set fire to the darkness and arced out in all directions. The blinding light sucked away all sensory impressions and left her for a second in a cold, dark vacuum. The blast deafened her. Soon the total silence was replaced by a powerful pain and a shrill whistling sound that tore at her ears. Spots danced before her eyes in all the colors of the rainbow. Her field of vision was constricted from the sides, and a new wave of nausea rose up from her diaphragm. Her sight vanished; she was blind. The uncontrolled shaking returned, but it wasn’t because of the cold. She sank down with her back to the wall. Whimpering, she slowly began to move toward where she thought the door was. Finally she felt the dry planks of the old stable door under her lacerated fingertips. She got it open by flinging herself desperately against the wood with her full weight, breaking off the rotten hasp. She staggered out into the rain and sank down on her knees, sat back on her heels, let her hands rest lightly on the tops of her thighs, and closed her eyes. She went into Mokuso while the rain rinsed away the piss.
That was the position they found her in.
Chapter Thirteen
SHE HADN’T BEEN IN the hospital since she had the twins. At first she protested at being kept overnight, but a determined and motherly nurse explained to her calmly and objectively, “You’ve had a blow to the back of your neck, which could cause bleeding and breathing paralysis. You could die before you got back to the hospital! And we don’t want that. Here we can check you during the night and see right away if any complications arise. Agreed?”
A little upset, Irene agreed. She had a sharp pain in her neck all of a sudden. She carefully lifted the ice pack and touched the swollen area. As big as a small hen’s egg. Sore. She was feeling dizzy and a bit nauseated. Most of all, she was tired and wanted to sleep. But it would have to wait. After a hot shower she had to put on a clean hospital gown, which was about as sexy as a garbage bag. Doctors and nurses ran in and out of the room. They talked to her to check that she wasn’t about to slip into unconsciousness, took her blood pressure, and shone flash-lights into her eyes to check the size of her pupils. When she ventured to ask a pimply youth why, he replied glibly, “If one pupil gets bigger than the other, it’s all over!”
Fortified with this information, she decided to surrender. If only she could be left in peace! But it took several hours before she was allowed, exhausted, to sink into a light and restless slumber. She was constantly awakened by people who came in to check something or other.
Before this, Sven Andersson and Tommy Persson had been in to talk to her. Neither of them could hide his concern or relief. Tommy gave her a big hug. She shrieked, but excused herself, “Sorry, Tommy, but I’m black and blue all over. Look!”
Like a little kid she exhibited a bruised shoulder and hip, abraded hands and knees. She ended by saying, “The doctor thought that my rib down here is crushed but not broken. I have to take it easy for a while. How’s Jimmy doing?”
Tommy replied somberly, “He’s awake, but he took much harder blows to the skull than you did. How did that happen? Did they see that you were a girl, or what?”
“No, hardly! My baseball cap cushioned the blow. I had turned it backward so that the bill lay over my turned-up jacket collar. They probably didn’t see it in the dark. He also took a few kicks to the head when we were inside the barn,” Irene said glumly.
A