Stolen by Ann-Helen Laestadius

Author:Ann-Helen Laestadius [Laestadius, Ann-Helén]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Njealljelogivihtta

The reindeer’s sightless eyes were wide open and partially covered in the blood that had flowed down from its head and onto its muzzle. The notch in its head was deep, and if you weren’t squeamish you could look closely and see how its skull was split in two. The front part of its body, its head and legs, dangled over the sign, hiding JOK and also JÅH. The rest of Swedish “Jokkmokk” and Lule Sámi “Jåhkåmåhkke” was hardly visible underneath the smeared blood. It was as if someone had taken the reindeer’s blood and used a paintbrush to insult the Sámi place name of a market that had brought the Sámi people together for over four hundred years.

The rest of the reindeer’s body hung down the back side. It was as though it had simply been tossed over the road sign like an article of clothing cast hastily aside on the back of a chair.

It was just past six in the morning when Elsa arrived at the sign. She had been woken by Anna-Stina, who’d been up to use the bathroom, looked at her phone, and saw the picture that had been shared faster than a parade of lemmings in the mountains. Anna-Stina had collapsed back into bed in the guest room they were sharing with two others, who were asleep on mattresses on the floor. The day-after smell was noticeable, and Elsa had battled both nausea and dizziness as she pulled on her jeans and down jacket and headed out.

She wasn’t the first one on the scene; a number of older early risers from the village had gathered; a police car was parked closest to the sign, and an agitated older woman with a dog was talking to the officers, a woman and a man in their thirties.

“And well, that made me so scared, thinking that the fool who did this might still be around somewhere with an axe. And so I called you right away,” the woman said, her voice shrill.

Elsa looked for tracks in the snow and tentatively approached the group of villagers, heard them discussing when it might have happened. They talked about what time the snow had fallen and how late at night lots of folks had been heading home from the dance, but only now had the reindeer been discovered.

Elsa had stuck around the People’s House until closing time, and she had seen the event organizers herding out the last boisterous guest, who expressed thanks for the night by way of a spontaneous joik in the parking lot outside.

“So what do you think of all this, Elsa?”

She turned around, and there stood Minna. The dark circles under her eyes were as prominent as Elsa’s. Her cheeks were just as pale. That sweaty weakness that came after a very long and drunken night. They’d had an insanely good time. She hadn’t seen Minna since their Sámi confirmation camp days, and when they ran into each other in the crowd they had thrown their arms around each other and hung out all evening.

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