'I'm trying to revise for an exam but I can't stop thinking about you,' she said. 'So I'm giving up and calling you, since you never seem to call me. I've decided I'm too old to play hard to get, when I'm not hard to get at all.'
The message broke off, leaving a painful emptiness where her voice had been. Tell deleted it.
* * *
Chapter 40
1995
Until the moment he saw her standing there on the stairs, without a scrap of make-up, her hair on end and looking as ugly as a troll, the thought of Solveig had made him want to stick pins in his brain.
He imagined staying away for years: they would meet by chance on the street one day in twenty years' time. That was the only way she could be allowed to exist in his consciousness. In the daydream he was twenty-five, dressed in a beige summer suit which made him radiate the confidence he imagined came automatically with age. For some reason the scene always took place in Villastaden outside one of the gates to Annelund Park. He took her grey hands, distorted with pain, and she would whisper, Because of my stupidity I lost you, Sebastian. I never want to lose you again.
He would forgive her, of course. In one version she said, I have searched for you all over the world, but that was just too far from reality. In the first place, Solveig would never manage to travel the world looking for him, and secondly, the only hiding place he could come up with when he ran away was Brasses flat. Brasse was the only person he knew who had his own flat.
If he'd gone to Krister's, his mum would have phoned Solveig the very first day. Krister's mum would never allow him to turn up with his rucksack and announce that he was staying - nor would any mum he could imagine. But given that Brasse's flat wasn't exactly a secret, that would be the first place Solveig would look. If she did decide to look for him, that is, which in the daydream she did.
Which she had done. She had found him. However heavy the burden of his guilt, she had still found him. A strange warm energy flooded his body and he realised that he had been frozen until now. For how long he didn't know, but when the tired troll looked at him it felt like stepping into a hot bath after being out skiing in a snowstorm.
'What are you doing here?' he said, just to make sure she hadn't come to accuse him of murder or to throw a bomb into Brasse's crappy little one-room flat.
'They wanted me to think before I made a decision,' she said in a thin voice. She looked like a child, so skinny in those grubby wrinkled tights and the long pale yellow cable-knit sweater. On her feet she had nothing but her trainers, which had once been white; the rubber soles were so worn they were virtually splitting. Her toes were pointing inwards. Not even the lines on her face beneath the hair peppered with grey could make her look like a middle-aged woman.
'You must be half-frozen to death,' he said, pointing at her windcheater and the shoes.
'They wanted me to think,' she said again, 'about whether to switch Maya off or not.'
Her voice gained a little strength, echoed through the stairwell. He heard the outside door below open, and someone began to walk up the stairs.
'Are you coming in or what?' he said, relieved that Brasse was out. Solveig took a surprisingly decisive stride into the little hallway. She was standing so close that he could smell her breath: the throat sweets she always sucked, and something else, something chemical. She was gripping his arm so tightly that a bruise would later appear in the shape of her thumbprint.
'They think I would kill my own daughter. They don't know anything. Not about me. Not about Maya. I said I didn't need to think about it. But they wanted me to go home and think it over. I'm the only one who can decide, they said.'
'But Mum, she's already dead. Her brain is dead,' said Sebastian.
He didn't have time to react before the grip on his arm relaxed and a slap across the face left his cheek burning. Solveig burst into tears and threw her arms around his neck. She was sobbing.
He closed his eyes and tears squeezed on to his eyelashes.
'We're the ones who have to fight now, Sebastian,' she said.
Her hair was in his mouth. Suddenly he remembered what the comic book was called: The Living Dead.
He moved back home.
During the night Solveig came into his room. She'd never done that before.
Although he had been deep in a dreamless sleep, he woke in a panic with the feeling that a hand was on his throat, compressing his windpipe. It couldn't be Solveig's hand, because she was standing in the doorway on the other side of the room. The light was on in the hallway, and from the bed Solveig was no more than a silhouette, long hair lying over her narrow shoulders.
He tried to slow his breathing and promised himself that he would sleep with the light on from now on. He still didn't know where he was with Solveig, whether she blamed him. If she was on medication. If she had fully understood the situation.
'What are you doing?' he asked her.
She didn't reply; she simply stood there. She looked as if she were swaying, as if a wind were blowing through the room and she lacked the strength to fight it. For a moment he thought she was drunk.
'Mum,' he said, and he could hear the pleading note in his voice. He hated that voice. He wanted to get up, stand beside her and feel that he was no longer a defenceless child. Remind himself that he was a good ten centimetres taller than her now, that he wanted to be less vulnerable.
'Mum.'
'You should know how afraid you look when I look at you,' she said in a voice like cracked porcelain. 'You're so scared of me, Sebastian. Because you think it was your fault that Maya went out that night. Because you know that I know you refused to come home with her, and that was why she died alone in the forest. You think that you might as well have raped and killed her yourself. It doesn't matter who struck the final blow. What matters is who set the ball in motion. That's what you think. That's why you're afraid.'
He stared at the silhouette. It appeared to have stopped swaying. The words seemed to bolster the feeble figure.
'She wasn't raped,' he said quietly. 'She fell and hit her head on a stone.'
'You don't need to be afraid, but I'll say what I used to say when you were little, Sebastian,' the silhouette continued, turning slowly towards the hallway so that, for a moment, he could see his mother's profile, her weak chin. 'You have to confess, not deny everything. It's when you deny everything that I get angry. You don't want me to be angry, do you? Remember, you're all I have now. We have to stick together, you and me.'
The voice died away as she closed the door of her bedroom. Sebastian switched on the bedside lamp and concentrated hard on the fish-shaped rug, trying to breathe evenly. An indefinite amount of time passed before he became aware of the ticking of the alarm clock.
A realisation of what the choking hand around his throat had wanted from him began to take shape. He welcomed the feeling of strength as the idea came closer and grew in power.
The fish rug had slipped to one side to reveal the stain on the lino, just the same size as the one by the bed in Rydboholm. It struck him that this was very strange, and it was probably the sign he had been waiting for.
What came first, the rug or the stain?he chanted to himself until his heart stopped pounding in his chest. What came first, the chicken or the egg, the rug or the stain?
When he could see clearly once again he had decided to open himself up to other signs. In order to do this he must get to the hospital.
He dressed as quickly as possible, crept out into the hallway and pulled on his shoes and jacket. The door to Solveig's room was closed, but a strip of light was showing underneath. He listened intently, but couldn't decide whether his mother was fast asleep or whether the ragged breathing was his own; he had no control over his body in this apartment.
As soon as he got outside his heart slowed to its regular beat. When he was surrounded by the neon lights of the empty city streets, he stopped running and spat the taste of blood out of his mouth.
Nobody keeps watch over a pe
rson who is brain dead; it was as he had thought.
Nothing anyone could do would make any difference, he chanted, so why keep watch?
Maya was lying alone in her room, surrounded by all the apparatus keeping her alive. A yellowing nightlight was burning for the benefit of relatives, or perhaps for the nurse on night duty, who would presumably do her rounds sooner or later, measuring the rhythm of the respirator and checking the monitors that provided information on how things were going for the living dead. The Living Dead,
There was very little chance that the night nurse would turn up during the next half-hour. And in half an hour he would be out of there.
Sebastian lifted the limp hand from the blanket and was surprised at how warm it was, at the fact that medical science was so successful at keeping the body alive by artificial means. No doubt they were proud of themselves, the doctors who had run all these tubes through his sister's body.
They knew nothing.
Nothing of the borderland between life and death, nothing of restless fear and rootlessness. Nothing of never coming in to land, of having lost your right to this world without being able to enter the next, because others had arbitrarily bound your hands and feet to prevent you from letting go, from being set free.
According to the comic, there was one particularly agonising aspect of being in this borderland, which was to do with the fact that the land of transition was integrated with the normal world.
He thought Maya was whispering the words to him.
The people in the borderland, the unfortunates, are invisible but they surround us all the time - they can see us, but we do not see them. Since there is no way to see the difference between a normal mortal and the living dead, not even for the living dead themselves, they live in constant fear of each other. Rootlessness brings fear. Fear brings angst. Angst brings powerlessness. Powerlessness brings anger, and the living dead seethe with rage but have nowhere to direct this rage. They have no one to take out their anger on except each other, and no fear can be worse than not knowing if, or when, something terrible is going to happen.
What came first, the rug or the stain? Nothing could be worse than this restless deprivation of a world.
He would never be more sure that he was doing the right thing. He wouldn't be able to live with himself if he allowed his pathetic fear to stand in his way.
And his limited preparations turned out to be more than adequate: the whole thing went much more smoothly than he could have imagined. When the respirator fell silent and its final sigh sounded like a farewell, he replied, 'Goodbye, Maya.' Suddenly he found it easier to breathe.
Maya had left the land of transition and entered into the kingdom of the dead.
* * *
Chapter 41
2007
The cordless phone lay next to her on the bench by the stable wall. She didn't know how long she'd been listening to the constant beeping that told her the line was open. She switched it off.
By this stage she knew the messages on Christian Tell's answerphone by heart, both at work and at home. She could, if she wished, by imitating his dark melodic Gothenburg dialect, produce a pretty good impression. You have reached Christian Tell's answerphone. Unfortunately I am not able to take your call… But it would be just too pathetic to develop that particular talent.
The hands holding the telephone - this instrument of torture that had filled her days of late, emanating malice - had become red and dry from the cold. She pulled on her gloves, trying to sum up the energy to get up and make a start on the stable. The box needed mucking out. Lukas needed grooming. The harness needed oiling.
Here I am again, she thought. Tears of anger forced their way through her. She had promised herself that she would never again end up humiliating and belittling herself like this. When Martin left her she had refused to let the cottage become a symbol of the fact that they had tried to achieve something together and failed. Instead she had clung to the idea that this place symbolised her new life as a strong independent individual.
The cottage, the horse, the cat and all the projects that were part of life in the country placed demands on her, were sufficiently taxing to distract her from being paralysed by the fear of finding herself alone and unloved, were sufficiently manageable to enable her to maintain her new-found calm and save her from going under due to stress and a sense of inadequacy. Even if she had her low points at regular intervals - often triggered by anxiety over the increasingly rapid deterioration of the cottage - she was generally happy with her life.
And that was why she cursed Christian Tell. Not only had he brought her old demons to the surface, he had also rejected her as a woman. Because she had to accept that that was how it was. He hadn't answered his phone for two days, nor had he called her back, even though she had left several messages.
The desire to key in his number came back, although it was only five minutes since her last attempt. She sighed. This really wouldn't do. She was an adult now: she knew perfectly well that nobody dies because of an unhappy love affair, not really. It was time she started behaving accordingly.
The case on which the unreliable rat was working was constantly in the back of her mind, the reason why she had got involved with him in the first place.
In the locked drawer of the desk she had inherited from old man Gren lay the folder containing the photographs from Björsared. During those first days, when she had still been in a state of shock, she had asked herself over and over again what she should do with the memories that had suddenly started clamouring for her attention.
Then the love affair with the inspector had got in the way. In his presence she had felt safe enough to put her thoughts to one side. Only then was she able to start writing. It was a contradiction she accepted: she needed a certain amount of distance from the experience. A reasonable space between herself and the dead man.
The empty space Christian Tell had left behind after such a short time made her realise how much she needed love, a man in her life, to feel completely contented. This terrified her, and once again made her prey to unwelcome thoughts.
She was hurled back helplessly to that period in the mid-90s when she had bleached blonde hair and a ring through her lower lip, and had clung to one boy after another out of a thirst for love which, despite the change in strategy, was not so different from her behaviour to this day. The thought was painful and she pushed it away; there were no other similarities. It was only ten years ago, but it was a different life. None of the friends she knew then were still around.
Unless Hanna… perhaps Hanna was still around? She had been the last 'best friend' before the phrase became alien and embarrassing. A few years ago they had tried to re-establish contact, meeting for coffee a couple of times, a few beers, chatting about the old days. There had been something forced about Hanna at the time, a false familiarity that Seja didn't recognise from their teenage years.
But she herself had chosen to present selected highlights of her life, embroidering and enhancing both past and present. Yet she had felt disappointed afterwards. So much was left unsaid and still remained between them, because neither of them was ready to talk. The last time Seja had tried to ring her, Hanna had moved - with no forwarding address.
Now that Hanna Aronsson's face, plastered with too much makeup, had appeared in her mind's eye once again, Seja was unable to shake off the image. She felt ready to talk to Hanna now.
She would be lying to herself if she pretended she could free herself of the sense of unease. On New Year's Eve Christian had mentioned the other murder, and it had hit her like a body blow.
She would never be free unless she took action. Starting right now.
Directory Enquiries was able to offer the numbers of six Hanna Aronssons in the Gothenburg area. The first was in Engelbrektsgatan in Vasastan, and the woman put the phone down on Seja as soon as she realised it was a wrong number. There was a Hanna Aronsson in Gåsmossen in Askim and one on Danska vagen, but neither of them was home.<
br />
At the fourth attempt, on Paradisgatan in Masthugget, she struck lucky. She recognised Hanna's voice straight away. Dark and slightly tense, she had had an adult's voice even when she was a teenager with green and pink striped hair dyed at home in the bath and Doc Martens scuffed to precisely the right degree.
Hanna had been Seja's best friend from year 9 onwards, crossing all boundaries and with a certain semi-erotic charge. As teenage friendships so often were. They had found each other in the self-evident way people do when they need each other. For a few tempestuous years they had shared clothes and confidences, top to toe in Hanna's bed. They had even shared a boyfriend for a few days: it turned out the boy they had both been referring to as The One was in fact the same boy - a discovery that temporarily made them bitter enemies, before they came to their senses and ganged up on him instead.
Seja was overcome with nostalgia: Hanna's narrow bed on Landsvagsgatan with a pot of tea on a tray at the foot and a fantastic mixture of music on the stereo: Cindy Lauper, Doom, Asta Kask, Kate Bush. Barricaded in Hanna's room, safe from her mother, who would be drinking wine in the living room and listening to Ulf Lundell through her headphones, in a bad mood as usual. A few years later she would tragically take her own life. Seja had read about it in the paper, a small item stating that one of Gothenburg's cultural figures had been found dead in her apartment, no suspicion of foul play.
They were in the same class, and even if Hanna's mother and Seja's parents were not particularly keen on the fact that Seja stayed over on week nights, they obviously weren't sufficiently annoyed to put a stop to it. On Landsvagsgatan, sitting in a fog created by the cigarettes they rolled themselves, Hanna and Seja knew nothing of the future. Seja in her semi-transparent and, as she thought at the time, wonderfully kitsch nightdress from the 60s; it was so big over her almost imperceptible bust that the decolletage was practically down to her waist. Towards midnight they would turn down the music and start whispering; they didn't want to risk Hanna's half-cut mother banging on the door and yelling at them to be quiet. Luckily the location of Hanna's room meant that they could sneak into the kitchen - to make another pot of herbal tea with honey - and go to the toilet, a trip they made countless times during the night as a direct consequence of all that tea, without passing her mother's bedroom.
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