Chapter 2 · 2 minute read
Words not yet spoken
‘A speaking tube,’ Els said. ‘You could call the kitchen through it. No electricity.’ She topped up Liv's coffee. ‘My father thought everything was better without electricity.’
The kitchen was new. The outlets had been sealed during the renovation nine years earlier. Behind a cupboard Els showed her a circle of plaster. Liv tapped it. Solid.
‘Where does it go, then?’
Els fetched a folder of drawings. The line from room seven descended, turned a corner and divided above the kitchen. One branch ended there. The other reached room eight. Staff had once slept in that room so somebody could answer even after the kitchen closed.
Room eight contained stacked chairs, an ironing board and three boxes of Christmas decorations. The window had blown open. Els pulled it shut. Beside the door was a wooden case with a brass lever. A loose metal flap lay in the box below.
Liv photographed the parts without touching them. She had learned to document broken machinery before somebody decided a repair could not possibly make things worse.
‘We can look later,’ Els said. ‘First I want to know why that man hasn't touched his breakfast.’
The salesman had left. His key lay beside the mandarins. A note said he had needed an early start. No complaint about voices in the night. Els folded the paper and put it in her cardigan pocket.
That evening Liv placed her recorder by the grille. At 00:17 came the taps. Then she heard her own voice: ‘Don't close it. Then we won't know where it ends.’
Half a minute passed before she pressed stop. Her fingers were cold. The voice sounded the way hers always sounded on recordings: lower, with a slight hesitation before the last word.
Liv called Els, who lived downstairs. Together they listened to the recording. Els sat at the foot of the bed while Liv played it three times in succession.
‘I haven't said that.’
Els looked at the towel. ‘Then we'll seal the thing up.’
‘Don't close it. Then we won't know where it ends.’
The moment she finished, Liv bit her lip. Els's hand remained suspended above the grille. The recorder's time code read 00:17. Twelve minutes had passed since then.