The jovial atmosphere they had enjoyed together earlier that day had cooled a bit. He was poking at a sensitive spot that Sofia couldn’t quite understand. He’d touched on something that troubled her, something she didn’t want to admit to.
‘Yeah, but almost everyone says I should put this behind me.’
‘Of course they do. “Just move on.” I’ve heard it a thousand times. But this world is full of way too much crap. Some of us can’t just sit by and watch as the big guys attack those who are weak. That’s just the way it is. I think you’re that sort of person, too. All you can do is accept it.’
They didn’t say anything for a moment. She thought back to the first time she’d met Magnus Strid. Oswald had thought he was coming to ViaTerra to write some positive coverage of them. The place had been almost paralysed when the article came out. Oswald had gone all paranoid and had taken it out on the staff.
‘But it always seemed to me that you were sailing in under a false flag when you came to ViaTerra and pretended to be interested,’ she said.
‘I was interested, Sofia. I walked through that gate with a completely open mind. And what I saw made me sick. Know what I thought was worst?’
‘No?’
‘It was the girls. The guys who worked there were idiots. Robots. They thought Oswald was so cool and tried to ape him. But it was like the girls didn’t have a chance. They were drawn to him like flies to honey. I was absolutely shocked at the way he treated them.’
Sofia felt herself turning red; it spread from her cheeks and up to her forehead. Magnus noticed.
‘Oh, you saw through him in the end, right? Think of the ones who are still there, worshipping him like a god.’
‘So what do you think I should do?’
‘Don’t take down the blog. Keep writing. Write about all the shit they give you. You might even consider penning a book, since you enjoy writing.’
‘I’ve thought about it. I wanted to write a thriller about the manor on the island. They were so prone to misfortune, the family that lived there. Oswald was the son of the last count, you know. I suspect something happened there when he was little. There’s a family history that supposedly contains all the answers, but it’s in Oswald’s hands.’
‘There you go! There’s something to sink your teeth into. Start by doing some research. It’s incredible, all the stuff you can find out online. But do get out of town for a while if it gets to be too much. One day it will all be over, I’m sure, but my article will have consequences. Be prepared. Call me if you need someone to talk to.’
As she watched Magnus’s train vanish down the tracks the next morning, she felt different, as if she were part of an undefeated team.
She went straight from the station to her job. It was Friday, and the library was relatively quiet, which gave her time to think about everything Magnus had said. She was beginning to understand the inner struggle she’d been grappling with since leaving the cult. Everyone dealt with traumatic experiences in different ways, and she wasn’t one of the fortunate ones who could simply shrug and it put it all behind them.
On her way home from work she sank into thoughts of how to spend the weekend. Benjamin wasn’t coming, and she had borrowed a few good books from the library.
She imagined a weekend of taking warm baths and reading on the sofa with a cup of coffee. She thought of everyone she’d neglected over the past week, whom she could turn to now – her parents, Wilma, Simon. And maybe even Benjamin, if he’d calmed down.
A car was parked outside the building’s front door. Benjamin was leaning against the car door and his face lit up when he saw her.
‘You’re here! What about your sister’s party?’
‘It’s not as important as seeing you.’
She was just about to throw her arms around his neck, but he held up one hand to stop her.
‘Hold on, I brought you a present.’
‘What?’
‘Stand perfectly still, right there.’
He slowly opened the car door.
A dog came flying out of the car and bounced around like a ball before it threw its body at Sofia out of pure enthusiasm. It was brown and white, and small, with short legs. One ear stood straight up, while the other flopped down. It was ugly in a funny sort of way.
‘Tell me this is a joke, Benjamin. I’m pretty sure I can’t have a dog.’
He looked hurt.
‘No, you have to take him. He can guard the apartment.’
‘What? Are you kidding?’
She looked at the dog; it was staring at her, its tail wagging frantically.
‘No, it’s a terrier-farmdog mix. It can keep watch; it’s in its genes.’
‘You mean it will bark nonstop every time someone comes up the stairs or walks by the house?’
‘No, the lady I bought it from said it will learn to recognize sounds. Eventually it will only warn you when it hears something unusual.’
‘And how long will that take?’
‘Sofia, look at him. He likes you already. I don’t want you to be alone.’
The dog hadn’t taken its eyes off her, and now it was whining softly. She squatted down to pet it. Its coat was soft and smooth. The nose that nudged her cheek was cool and wet.
‘I can’t, Benjamin. I can’t have a dog. I work full-time.’
‘I already talked to your neighbour, Alma. She goes on two walks every day and is happy to bring him along.’
‘You can’t just talk to my neighbours like that.’
‘She thought it was fun. She invited me in for coffee. And then she made me tell her about when I escaped from ViaTerra. I had to tell her the whole story twice.’
‘Benjamin, this is a terrible idea.’
‘Actually, it’s a great idea.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Dilbert.’
The dog looked up and pricked its floppy ear. Then it attacked her in a fit of genuine love.
21
It was cold and draughty at Central Station. Anna-Maria decided to go into the café and sit far away from the small group.
Originally she had only planned to peek in and see who Oswald was meeting there. But now her curiosity was getting the better of her. If he spotted her, she could pretend she was just having coffee on her way to Stockholm. She had a client there, after all. As if Oswald wouldn’t see right through that lie. The persistent thought popped up in her mind again. This was bananas, what she was doing. Sunglasses on such a cloudy day, the collar turned up on her jacket. Like some sort of spy. But it was impossible to stay away. She had paced back and forth in the apartment. Biting her nails to the quick. She hated herself for what she had become – a fucking twit who couldn’t keep her own emotions under control. But the moment she was longing for was so close. She had seen it in his eyes. She could tell the question was on the tip of his tongue. She couldn’t let anything threaten what they had now.
Things had been better between them since she’d given him the videos. Little clips from Bauman’s super-boring nights. Most of the time, she just sat around reading. Once in a while the camera caught her and her boyfriend getting busy on the sofa. They went at it like bunnies. Once she had danced around naked in the living room, all skinny, tiny tits bobbing. If that didn’t disgust Franz, Anna-Maria didn’t know what would.
When she first brought in the videos and told him about the camera, he was furious.
‘What the hell have you done? Are you out of your mind?’
But soon the corners of his mouth were twitching and a sly gleam appeared in his eyes. He eagerly snatched the DVD from her hands. That day, before she left, he hugged her and nipped playfully at her earlobe.
‘You’re naughty, Anna-Maria. I like naughty girls.’
When she turned around to leave, he slapped her ass and she shuddered with delight.
It had seemed obvious that she should join him on his first furlough. When she realized he was planning to go alone, she was absolutely beside
herself. But he made it sound so reasonable.
‘There are people I have to meet. You and I already see each other almost every day. We belong together – when will you get that through your head? You’re not going to act all jealous, are you, when I get out? Because I can’t deal with that.’
‘Of course not,’ she assured him as image after image of women flashed through her mind. Beautiful women, hanging out with Oswald on his furlough.
‘Okay then. Read Thesis Two again. The one about how you are your past. And chill out. It’s distasteful when you chew on your lips like that. Jesus Christ, relax.’
So she gave in, as usual, and looked on the bright side: he had said they belonged together. You and me against the whole world. He had told her that more than once.
She slowly turned around and looked at the small group. Everything was dark through the sunglasses, but she recognized the people at the table. Bosse, the bag of bones from ViaTerra who always smelled like sweat. Madeleine, the dumb girl with white eyebrows. And the intermediary loser, although this time he wasn’t wearing flip-flops and jeans but a shirt and tie, of course. The guard was leaning against a wall, a respectable distance from the group. Franz’s voice was thundering through the whole restaurant. He kept the group engaged with his authority and passion, telling them something that made them howl with laughter. Nearby patrons had turned around; they couldn’t help but listen. Some of them must have recognized him, because she saw a pair of girls staring at him and whispering to each other.
She became aware of how tense she had been, but now she could feel herself relax. This was work talk, not a date with another woman. All she had to do was get out of the café without being seen.
After sneaking out the door, she lingered outside. She went stiff as she heard Franz’s voice behind her, and she turned around to see him walking out with the others in tow. She only just had time to turn her face away. He was making a joke about something and the others laughed, a little too shrilly. So it had gone well. She couldn’t resist the temptation to trail behind them at a distance and set her sights on Oswald’s broad back. After giving them a head start, she followed them until they were out of the station. She stood just inside the glass doors and observed them. Oswald stepped into a car with the guard. He was going to do some shopping, he had said. Bosse and Madeleine stood around for a moment, staring after him, unsure of what to do, and then they vanished in the throng of people. The loser raised a hand towards Oswald’s car and then jumped into another, particularly shiny, car. She waited until they were gone.
For some strange reason, her thoughts were drawn to Oswald’s analogy about the spider’s web, and then she understood. Those pathetic individuals were all stuck in his net. Just like Sofia Bauman. He pulled the strings, and they obeyed his every whim. But he and she sat in the centre, together, directing everything. That was why he didn’t need her during his furlough. To think she hadn’t understood this earlier! What was she even doing here, in this ridiculous disguise?
As soon as she got back to her apartment she felt restless. She wanted to see him again, but it would be several days. And there was something else hanging over her, chafing at her. She decided to take her motorcycle for a spin; that always helped clear her thoughts.
She’d purchased the Harley in London. It had cost a fortune, but it was worth it. She’d taken a year off after finishing school to live in London. When she arrived at girls’ nights on her hog, in full leather gear, her girlfriends had called her ‘the bitch lawyer from hell.’ She liked that nickname. There was only one person she knew who had a nicer Harley, and that was Franz. He’d asked her to keep an eye on it at ViaTerra. She’d almost had a heart attack when she saw it gleaming in the garage. A specially-built custom machine, scaled back, with a personal finish: ViaTerra’s logo on either side of the gas tank. She knew he only used it on special occasions. For long trips he had a Honda Shadow 1100, which wasn’t too bad itself. But the Harley was a masterpiece.
He had been delighted when she told him she had one too.
‘Look at that,’ he’d said. ‘I told you we were meant for each other.’
She changed clothes, feeling sexy as soon as she put on her leather jacket and boots. It was a cool, sunny spring day and it hadn’t rained in a while, so the ground was dry and the gravel crunched pleasantly under her hard heels. It took some time to get out of the city, but there was one road where she could get up to almost 130. A tendril of hair had slipped out of her helmet and was whipping at her face, but she didn’t mind. Her mind cleared almost immediately, and all at once she realized what she had missed. She had seen that car before, the one the loser had driven off in. It was Oswald’s Mercedes. The one he’d had since he was twenty – he’d taken such good care of it that it looked brand new. Why on earth would he let someone else drive it? Or was it just being taken in to be serviced?
The clarity in her head was replaced by a dull buzz. She slowed down, and suddenly her ride was no longer quite so much fun. She had a sneaking suspicion that she was missing part of the Franz Oswald puzzle. There was a piece she didn’t have access to.
22
Simon went out to buy Dagens Nyheter on the morning when the article about Sofia was published. Once he got home, he sank into his easy chair and read the piece through twice. AFTERSHOCKS: Life after the Cult, read the headline.
In the first picture, Sofia was leaning against the railing of her balcony. Her profile was etched against a hazy sky. In the second picture, she was standing on a ladder that was leaning against a bookshelf in the library. She was about to place a book on the shelf. The photographer had gotten her to turn towards the camera. Her mouth was half open and she looked surprised.
There was also a picture of a slur someone had spray-painted on a door. He knew what that was all about, of course; Sofia had told him. Simon thought it was a good article, especially the end, where Magnus Strid seriously cracked down on Oswald. Strid claimed Oswald was running a criminal organization from prison, under the very nose of the justice system. At the end of the article was a link to Sofia’s blog.
When Simon was done reading, he placed the paper on the coffee table, closed his eyes, and sat silently for a moment. It was so quiet in his little cabin. The only sound was that of a fly battling against the windowpane. The feeling of being part of something huge, incomprehensible, grew inside him and he wasn’t sure he disliked it. For some reason, his thoughts turned to Jacob, the animal caretaker at the manor. He liked Jacob – besides Sofia, the man had been his only friend at ViaTerra. He had never understood why Jacob elected to go back to the cult after the raid. Maybe it was for the animals’ sake. Maybe he suffered the same feelings of guilt as Simon did when he abandoned his plants.
But now his mind was stuck on Jacob, who must have to stand there listening to Madeleine’s nagging every day, struggling on just for the sake of the livestock. The thought made him restless. He wanted to reach Jacob, get him a message. Tell him there was life outside the walls for anyone who wasn’t scared off by the prospect of a little hard work. Simon went to the kitchen and dug around under the sink until he found what he was looking for: a box from online superstore AdLibris. Simon read a lot – one, sometimes two, books per week. Since there was no library on the island, and he didn’t travel to the mainland often, he ordered books online. It was a convenience he’d learned from Sofia, and it had been a great help to him. And he didn’t know what else he would spend his salary on. He ate meals for free at the pension, his rent was included in his salary, and the only clothes he wore were work clothes. He always felt the same joy when a book arrived in the mail. When he opened a box to see a book, it was like a friend had come to keep him company for a while.
He went to his desk and set the box down. Looking through the bookshelf, he found the volume that this box had brought him. It was about permaculture, and he’d already finished it. He grabbed Dagens Nyheter from the coffee table and sat down at the desk to cut out the article about Sofi
a. Back at the coffee table, he found the newspaper with the article about himself and clipped that out too. He folded both articles and popped them into the book, which was large and full of colour pictures. The articles weren’t visible from the outside, but they did make the pages a little fatter. He went back to the kitchen counter and found the bubble wrap the original book had come in. He wound it around the book and taped up the ends. It looked a little sloppy, but it would have to do. He stuck it in the box and sealed it up, then set to the difficult task of scraping off the address label with his name. Pulling up a new document on his computer, he typed Jacob Runesson and the address of the manor. He printed it out, cut it to size, and stuck it to the box where his own name had stood. The AdLibris return address was still there, so it really looked believable. Simon wondered if the guards at ViaTerra would think it was fishy that their animal caretaker was ordering books about permaculture. He laughed – no, they were way too stupid. But Jacob would certainly realize who’d sent the package once he caught sight of the articles.
The girl at the register at the grocery store in the village said they didn’t accept packages on Saturdays. Simon looked around the empty store and asked if she could make an exception. Then the cashier smiled and said ‘Sure.’ Anything for Simon. He thought he could see a blush on her cheeks – she was really cute.
‘Don’t you want a return address on here?’ she asked.
‘No, it’s fine as is. It’s a book I’m forwarding on to a friend.’
When he left the store, he felt exhilarated. It was exciting, spying on the cult. Trying to make contact so boldly – personal contact, so strictly forbidden – was truly monumental.
He spoke to Sofia that night and congratulated her on the article.
‘I have so many readers and comments on my blog that I’m scared to look at it anymore,’ she said.
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