Travelling Light Read Online Free PDF Page A

do. But for some reason it was different with Elis; totally impossible to get any sense into him even though he was the same age as Tom. You just got angry with him. It didn’t even feel good when he admired you. And it was all so unfair. Like that business with the grebe. It wasn’t Tom’s fault the bird got stuck in the net. These things happen. He threw it in the water and Elis made a big deal out of it. “Tom. That grebe took a long time to die. They can dive tens of metres deep. Did you know that? Think how she must have felt, how long she must have tried to hold her breath…”
    “You’re crazy,” Tom said, but it made him feel bad.
    Or he might say, “I know what you do with kittens, you drown them. Do you have any idea…?” And on and on – it was unbearable.
    Elis buried the grebe up near the road to the town where there had been a forest fire and there was nothing left among the tree stumps but willowherb; trust him to find a spot like that. He put up a cross with a number on it. Number one. Other graves followed – rat-trap victims, birds that had flown into windows, poisoned field mice, all solemnly buried and numbered. Sometimes Elis would remark in passing about all the lonely graves that had no one to care for them. “And where is your own family graveyard? I’m interested. Do you have a lot of relatives buried there?”
    When it came to giving people a bad conscience, he was an expert. Sometimes all he had to do was just look at you with those gloomy, grown-up eyes and you would instantly be reminded of all your failings.
    One day, when Elis’s forebodings were even gloomier than usual, Hanna cut him off. “You’re very well-informed about everything that’s dying and miserable, aren’t you, Elis?”
    “I have to be,” he answered seriously. “No one else cares.”
    For a moment Hanna was overcome by goodness knows what and wanted to take the child in her arms and hug him, but his stern gaze stopped her. “I shouldn’t be so hard on him,” she told herself later. “I must be kinder.” But before she had the chance, something terrible and unforgivable happened. Elis promised to give little Mia three Finnish marks to show him her bottom. “He wanted to watch me pee,” said Mia. And, almost as bad, Elis asked his landlord, “How much are you getting for me?”
    “What did you say?”
    “How much a month are you being paid for me? Is it over the counter? I mean, are you paying tax on it?”
    Axel exchanged a look with his wife and left the kitchen.
    On top of all this, Elis had a real talent for finding things that were broken. He was constantly dragging in damaged items and showing them to Tom. “Can you fix this? You can fix anything. Look, it’s been out in the rain and it’s gone all mouldy. It was nice, once.”
    “Chuck it out,” said Tom. “I only make new things. I can’t be bothered with rubbish.”
    Elis collected the junk in a pile beside his cemetery. The pile got bigger and bigger and he seemed almost proud of his sad collection. No one else ever noticed all the worn-out, useless junk scattered on the hill. They simply didn’t see it. But Elis did, with his sharp, critical eye. Sometimes when he fixed the family with that look of his, they would suddenly become conscious that their work clothes were filthy, and their hands.
    One time Hanna spoke to him with a bit of authority, “Elis, please, just eat your dinner and stop agonising about everything. Put a little flesh on your bones so your father won’t be ashamed of you when he collects you in the autumn.”
    Elis said, “You mean you’ll be able to put up with me until the autumn?” When no one said anything, he went on. “You waste an awful lot of food. Do you never think about all the people in the world who have no food at all? I’m sorry to have to say it, but I know what you throw away and how it all ends up in the sea.”
    “That’s enough!” Axel burst out and got up from the table. “I’m