Free Strindberg's Star by Jan Wallentin Page B

the fence.
    The curtain trembled as Erik slid back in toward the wall.
    Titelman?
    Soon, from the window, a white rectangle began to appear against the kitchen floor of the cottage, and Erik slowly pushed himself away from the wall. His fingers left marks: two fans, ten damp prints.
    When he ventured up to the gap in the curtains again, the thunderheads had broken up outside the window. Through the haze, he could make out the sun, and the pouring rain had been wrung out into a light mist. And there, in the drizzle at the gate, stood …
a woman?
    She was dressed in a transparent plastic poncho, and under the hood he glimpsed a face that was half turned away. Erik could follow her slender silhouette all the way down to her tall boots through the slats of the fence.
    In the time it took for his eyes to wander back up toward the woman’s face, she must have had time to turn her head. Because now she was looking straight at him, there in the gap of the curtains, and although he should have been impossible to see, their eyes met. She was very young, and it was as though she had waited for him to finish looking.
    “S
ignor Hall?”
    The words were spoken at the same instant that Erik opened the outer door of the sunporch.
    He took a few steps out onto the stairs and looked over toward the woman through the last flickers of rain. She waved at him.
    “
Mi scusi, uscire un attimo?
”
    Her voice was so delicate. Yet the words carried straight across the yard, as though she were standing right next to him, whispering into his ear.
    “Signor Hall?”
    He touched the tender spot on his neck and had a strong sense that the best thing to do would be to turn around, shut the door, and lock it. But then he noticed that his body had already begun to move forward between the puddles in the gravel path.
    She continued to wave, smiling at him. Erik noticed with surprise that he was actually smiling back and that his own hand was raised to wave. This was just a girl, after all … a young girl, couldn’t even have turned twenty. A teenager standing at his gate. Now there were only a few steps to go.
    “Scusi per l’intrusione, Signor Hall …”
    The woman stretched out a hand; it was so small, and as they shook hands, Erik noticed that the edge of her light pink blouse was sticking out from under the arm of her cardigan. Now he really must try to say something:
    “Speak English?”
    She took off the hood of her poncho and looked at him with smoky green eyes.
    “Oh yes, of course,” answered the woman, smiling sweetly.
    Her hair was cut short; it was almost stubble. He let his eyes slide down to the woman’s neck, following the fine veins, and he could almost make out her slow pulse. Then her voice made him look up again:
    “I am terribly sorry for the intrusion, Signor Hall. Well … my name is Elena Duomi …”
    “Elena … ?”
    “Elena Duomi. I work for the Italian magazine
La Rivista Italiana dei Misteri e dell’Occulto
.”
    Erik’s hand stiffened as he was about to unhook the hasp that held the gates closed. After that photographer, he really couldn’t handle any more journalists.
    “Yes, well, I really …” he began before the woman interrupted him with her lightly accented English:
    “It’s been a very long journey here, and I wonder … would it be possible to come in for a little while for an interview? And maybe you would allow me to hang this up to dry somewhere?”
    She shook the soaked poncho and smiled again. She had a wide mouth, soft lips, no lipstick.
    “Well, Signor Hall … certainly that would be possible, right?”
    He looked down at his hand, which was still holding the hasp.
    “How did you know where I live?” he said.
    “Oh, it was the police, they helped me. We had already written about
l’uomo sotto sale
in the last issue, but our readers’ interest has been so great …”
    She took a step closer.
    “That’s what we call him,
l’uomo sotto sale
, the salted man, that magically