The couples trip, p.21
The Couples Trip, page 21
And this was how it was going to be until we found our way out of Sarek, or came across other walkers. No gas meant no hot food, no hot drinks, nothing to raise our body heat even temporarily, no defense whatsoever against the cold and the wet.
All we could hope for was a change in the weather, for the sun to return. That would help us during the daytime, but at night we would still shiver like stray dogs in our damp clothes and sleeping bags.
In my head I went through the food we had. Powdered soup, macaroni, freeze-dried meals. And the drinks: instant coffee, tea, packets of hot chocolate. Every single thing needed boiling water. Apart from that we could make sandwiches, plus we had sweets and seasonings like salami, parmesan and some dried mushrooms. How long would our supplies last?
“Here comes a man who was hungry and cold, but triumphed after all.”
We would be hungry and cold, but we would triumph after all. Wouldn’t we?
There it was, raising its ugly head again: panic. My mood took a dive, like a burning plane plummeting toward the ground in a death spiral.
No, no, no. You can’t allow yourself to think like that. You will get out of this alive.
You will triumph after all. Pull yourself together.
We chomped on our rye bread and talked about the cylinders. Or rather: I talked about the cylinders and Henrik listened.
“I know we had two. I checked the one we had at home and it wasn’t full, so I bought another at Naturkompaniet when I was there with Milena. To be on the safe side.”
Henrik chewed mechanically, staring blankly into space. A shiver passed through his body, then he said: “Are you sure you packed both? Not just the new one?”
“I’m absolutely certain. I don’t get it—could Milena and Jacob have taken one?”
“Possibly.”
I realized now that that was exactly what could have happened. Jacob and I had prepared the meal together on the first evening, but who had provided the cylinder? I had, but I didn’t recall getting it back from him.
Henrik could barely keep his voice steady when he went on: “I want to know...how bad it is.”
“Well, it’s not good.”
“Okay, but how bad? Are we going to die?”
Are we going to die? How the fuck should I know? We’re in the middle of the wilderness, the temperature could easily drop below freezing overnight and we can’t cook anything or make a hot drink. Yes, we might die.
I looked him in the eye and said as resolutely as I could: “No. We are not going to die.”
His eyes darted from side to side—I could see that he didn’t trust me. “Henrik. Henrik, look at me. We are not going to die.”
“No. Absolutely.”
“We’re going to be bloody cold, and we’re going to be hungry, but we are not going to die.”
“Sorry—it was a stupid question.”
“No, it wasn’t.”
“Yes, it was—obviously you can’t know for sure.”
“I should think we’ll reach the Rapa River today—and Rovdjurstorget, which is right in the middle of Sarek. And I would be very surprised if we don’t bump into some other walkers there.”
“Right.”
“Plus that’s where the emergency telephone is. And I’m sure it’s inside some kind of hut, rather than being exposed to the elements.”
“Mm.”
“So we have a good chance of finding that little hut and the telephone. I suggest that we...make for the river, and if we see a building of any kind, we try to get there. And on the way I expect we’ll meet other walkers. Does that sound like a plan?”
“Mm.”
“As for the food...we’ve got plenty of crispbread and sweets and so on, easily enough for three or four days. And after that we can survive without food for another week. At least. So we are not going to die.”
Henrik said nothing, refused to meet my gaze. We rolled up our sleeping bags and deflated our air beds, emptied the tent and took it down. Soon everything was packed away, and the only evidence of human activity was a rectangle of flattened grass where the tent had stood. Within a day or so that too would be obliterated.
I looked around. The massive rock face, silent and brooding as before. The valley, stretching far into the distance in both directions, leading to more peaks. And beyond those, yet more peaks.
Sarek was so terrifyingly vast, and so terrifyingly silent. And now we were about to head into the wilderness. Once again I felt slightly faint, and I set off so that Henrik wouldn’t notice.
The rain was coming down harder now, just like yesterday. The terrain also gradually changed for the worse with more dense thickets of undergrowth to be negotiated. There were reindeer tracks, but they were crisscrossed by tough crooked branches that caught our feet and legs. I assumed that the undergrowth couldn’t get a grip on the reindeer’s slender ankles and hard hooves, while our bulky boots provided an easy target. Nature had developed a perfect method of making life difficult for those hiking in the mountains.
We stopped by a little stream to refill our water bottles, and to eat some nuts and raisins. The water felt like a bolt of ice as it flowed through our bodies, from our mouths and down into our throats, chilling the area behind our lungs before arriving in our bellies. We’d thought we were cold the previous day when we stopped, even though we’d been able to make a hot drink. However that had been like a gentle zephyr compared to today. After a couple of minutes our whole bodies were shaking uncontrollably. We could barely reach into the plastic bag to fish out a few more nuts and raisins.
“At least the fact that we’re shivering means we’re not suffering from hypothermia,” I said. “When things get really bad, that reflex stops working.” I spoke with extreme care; I was afraid that my chattering teeth would damage my tongue.
“Fucking hell,” Henrik muttered.
“It’s probably best if we stop as infrequently as possible, try to keep up a steady pace instead. Let’s go.”
A couple of hours passed, and I walked along, lost in my own thoughts. Suddenly I realized that Henrik had dropped a long way behind me. I waited for him, then we stopped for lunch on a low ridge. There was a flat grassy area, and I suggested putting up the tent so that we could shelter from the rain and wind for an hour or so after we’d eaten. Unfortunately Henrik couldn’t help. Getting up onto the ridge seemed to have taken the last of his strength. He lay down on the ground, too exhausted to care about the damp and cold beneath him or the rain hammering on his face. I managed to erect the tent on my own and rolled out the groundsheet, but then I ran out of energy. I needed food.
I checked our store of bread. We had four double rye rolls left—eight sandwiches, plus half a packet of Wasa Sport crispbread. A half-full tube of shrimp-flavored cheese, and the same of smoked fish roe spread.
This would be our main diet from now on. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. If we ate until we were full at every meal, we would run out of food by lunchtime tomorrow. We were going to have to start rationing our intake immediately. We’d had rye rolls for breakfast, so now we had two pieces of crispbread each with spread. I had the idea that we could sprinkle powdered soup on top for extra nutrition, and Henrik didn’t object when I tipped half a packet of minestrone over his lunch. We munched our fiber-rich meal in grim silence. The powdered soup meant that every mouthful swelled as we chewed.
Afterward we crawled into the tent and lay down. We had chased the hunger away, temporarily at least. The cold and the wet followed us inside. Henrik stared blankly at the roof of the tent; a violent shiver passed through his body at regular intervals. I moved closer to him, we held each other. I was shaking too, but not at the same time as him. Our bodies were singing the same song in a chilly rondo.
We set off again, accompanied by the cold. It never left our sides, but when we were on the move, it simply talked loudly. When we stopped, it bellowed right in our ears.
After our sparse lunch it wasn’t long before the hunger came back. I began to feel hollow and weary, but I kept on picking my way through the undergrowth. One step at a time.
Slowly the landscape ahead of us began to change. The panorama widened, more and more peaks appeared. I realized that we were approaching the end of Sarvesvagge, which should have cheered me up—it meant that we would soon reach the Rapa Valley. But I was colder than I had ever been in my entire life, and I was hungry, and I was tired.
“Here comes a man who was hungry and cold, but triumphed after all.”
Another fast-flowing stream joined Sarvesjåhkkå, and it took us just over an hour to get across. We rested on the other side, ate an energy bar and shared a packet of Tutti Frutti. I knew that we shouldn’t have eaten so much. Rationing required discipline.
We stopped talking to each other. Staggered on toward the Rapa Valley, two zombies in activewear. I stopped at regular intervals to let Henrik catch up.
I felt as if my bones and joints had turned to ice. The permafrost had found its way deep inside my body. I knew I would never be warm again.
The undergrowth was replaced by dense thickets of birch taller than us. The landscape was hidden and I lost my bearings. There were tracks here too, but they meandered this way and that, and would suddenly disappear. In some places we simply had to force our way through, the branches tugging and tearing at our clothes.
Sarek doesn’t want us to reach the Rapa Valley. Sarek wants us to die here.
But I didn’t want to die. I battled on, and at some point I discovered that Henrik was no longer with me, but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t get trapped here. Couldn’t let Sarek win.
What an inhospitable place this is.
I was lost in the birch thickets. Nothing but green and yellow leaves. No idea what the right direction might be. Weak. Alone. Afraid.
“Here comes a man who was hungry and cold, but triumphed after all.”
I pressed on, caught a glimpse of a rock face through the foliage, kept going, the branches became less dense, and suddenly I was out. I tottered onto a patch of grass at the edge of the Rapa River. Dropped to my knees, shrugged off my rucksack. Rolled over onto my back.
Completely shattered. I had reached the Rapa Valley. Sarek’s main artery.
I took some time to catch my breath, lying on my back with my eyes closed. The effort of fighting through the birch thickets had chased away the cold for a little while, and for the first time in many, many hours I wasn’t shivering. I was warm—in fact my back was a little sweaty.
I sat up, took in the surrounding scenery. Everything we had seen of Sarek so far had been magnificent and awe-inspiring, but what I was looking at now was something else. Three huge valleys came together at this point, framed by high snow-clad mountains. Sarvesjåhkkå flowed into the wild, wide Rapa River, which formed a bewildering delta of streams and sandbanks. The sound of the rushing water was deafening. Wherever I looked, I saw more mountains, more valleys joining the Rapa Valley, glaciers and waterfalls, sheer rock faces, impenetrable undergrowth and birch thickets. Like an Arctic rainforest.
This must be Rovdjurstorget. I was in the heart of Sarek. And for a short while, a very short while, I was able to forget my situation and rejoice in the fact that I had made it, that I was experiencing this unique sight.
I had been afraid to venture deeper into the wilderness, the very thought had made me feel faint and dizzy, but here I was in the middle of Sarek. Whichever way I went, I would be moving closer to the edge, closer to civilization. I felt as if I had solid ground beneath my feet again.
I looked around, my gaze systematically following the river, close by at first, then farther and farther away along the valleys in all directions, up the mountains toward high plateaus and glaciers.
No sign of anything man-made. I assumed the hut housing the emergency telephone was somewhere nearby, but I couldn’t see it from where I was. It must be hidden behind a protruding rock face or down among the vegetation by the river. Or else I was mistaken, and the telephone was nowhere near Rovdjurstorget.
Which way should we go? We. Henrik and I.
I was going to have to go back and search for him. Back into the birch thicket. A labyrinth the size of several football pitches.
There wasn’t a soul in sight. There were no walkers in Rovdjurstorget or on the surrounding mountains today.
Before me the mighty Rapa River rushed toward lower ground. I could see how many tributaries fed into it in the valley upstream. The influx must be huge after the rain and snow of the past few days.
How deep was it? Would we be able to cross it?
And which way should we go to find the shortest way out? Obviously we could follow the valley in either direction, but that probably wasn’t the shortest route. And given the vegetation lining the banks, we wouldn’t have the strength to get very far before we ran out of food. We would collapse, freezing and starving, exposed to the elements. We might not even survive one night if the temperature plummeted.
Maybe there was a shortcut out of Sarek across the mountains in front of me, but heading up there without a map would be madness. Henrik wouldn’t even make it halfway up.
What if I can’t find him?
I felt a stab of panic, not unlike the one I had felt during the snowstorm, but this time my body didn’t respond. I remained as weak and cold and hungry as before. The panic tried to kick-start a moped with wet spark plugs and an empty tank. Of course nothing happened. I had no reserves left.
Laboriously I got to my feet; it was time to search for Henrik.
Suddenly I stopped dead. I had seen something odd out of the corner of my eye, partway up the mountain on the other side of the river. It looked like a bush, swaying wildly in the wind—but there was virtually no wind.
Where exactly was it? I scanned the mountainside. There.
A bright spring-green bush that stood out against the darker tones. It started waving its arms.
Interview with Anna Samuelsson 880216-3382, September 19, 2019, Gällivare hospital, conducted by Detective Inspector Anders Suhonen.
“And it was Milena?”
“Yes. Apparently she’d been standing there waving for ages, but I hadn’t seen her.”
“And Jacob... Was he...?”
“Jacob was there too.”
“So contact was re-established.”
“Yes.”
“I imagine you must have been relieved.”
“Yes, it felt as if... I almost burst into tears. I’d worked so hard to suppress the thought that we might die, that we might not make it. So when I realized it was Milena... I think I did cry, actually.”
“Hardly surprising.”
“The fact that Milena and I had quarreled, and that Jacob had come on to me—I just didn’t care about any of that. I was just so pleased to see them.”
“I can understand that. So what happened next?”
“Jacob came over to my side. Of the river. Then we went to look for Henrik.”
“And how did it go?”
“We split the terrain between us so that we each had a patch of about a hundred meters, then we went back through the birch thicket, calling out his name. And after a while he answered.”
“And had he... What had happened to Henrik?”
“He’d simply fallen behind. He was very, very tired, but it wasn’t as if he was incapable of walking any farther. We headed back to the river together.”
“Right.”
“And of course that was the next problem—crossing the river. Apparently this ford is well known... What was it called....”
“Tielmavadet?”
“That’s it. You go via an... There’s an island in the middle of the river with some trees on it, so you go via that. You can also jump from one sandbank to the next, but it was still horrible. Really deep. Above my waist. And the current was very strong.”
“Mm.”
“I don’t think it’s something people would normally tackle—not after so much rain.
“But Henrik and I... We didn’t have any choice. In that particular situation.”
“No.”
“We had to do what Jacob said.”
“How did Henrik cope? It sounds as if he was pretty weak.”
“He was. But he got across somehow.”
“Okay.”
“I didn’t see... When I got to the other side I hugged Milena, and she hugged me, then I told her what had happened, so I didn’t actually see how Henrik got across.”
“Right.”
“But now... When I think back... In the light of subsequent events... I think maybe Jacob didn’t believe Henrik would make it. Maybe that was what he was hoping for.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Jacob must have realized how dangerous it was for us—especially for Henrik, given how weak he was. It would have been better to continue along our side of the river.”
“You mean for Milena to join the three of you?”
“Yes, but that was never in the cards. Jacob insisted that we had to cross that fast-flowing river. And of course he had a map and a compass and a stove, everything we needed to make it out of Sarek alive, so we had to do what he wanted.”
“Okay, but when you say he hoped Henrik wouldn’t make it...?”
“If Henrik got swept away and drowned, then Jacob would be shot of him.”
“And why would he want that?”
“Because he’d have the chance to gain absolute power—over me and Milena, but above all over me.”
“Go on.”
“Jacob was some kind of psychopath. I don’t know what the clinical definition of a psychopath is, but as far as I’m aware they’re often quite intelligent, they know how to play the game socially, they’re manipulative.”
“Right.”
“And incredibly narcissistic and easily offended. And of course I’d really offended Jacob when I rejected him.”
