The Stone Cutter

by Camilla Lackberg

  Lilian had not only taken Sara from them, but also her father, and she would never forgive her for that. How could she? The pastor had talked about forgiveness as a way to lessen the pain, but how does one forgive a monster? She didn't even understand why her mother had committed these horrendous crimes. The meaningless- ness of the deeds only stoked the fury and pain she felt. Was Lilian completely insane, or had she acted according to some sort of demented logic? The fact that they might never find out made the loss even harder to bear; she wanted to rip the words of explanation out of her mother's mouth.

  Besides all the flowers from people in town who wanted to show their sympathy, two small wreaths had also arrived at the church. One was from Sara's paternal grandmother Asta. It was placed next to the casket and had now been carried down to the churchyard to be placed beside the small gravestone. Asta had also contacted them to ask if she could attend, but they had politely refused. They wanted the time to themselves. Instead they asked whether she might consider taking care of Albin while they went to the church. And she had agreed with pleasure.

  The second wreath was from Charlotte's maternal grandmother Agnes. Without knowing why, Charlotte had refused to have it anywhere near the casket and had ordered it thrown out. She had always thought that Lilian took after her mother, and in some way she knew instinctively that the evil came from her.

  They stood in silence by the grave for a long while, with their arms around each other. Then they walked slowly away. For a second Charlotte stopped at her father's grave. She gave a brief nod of farewell. For the second time in her life.

  In the little cell Lilian felt safe for the first time in many years, oddly enough. She lay on her side on the narrow bunk, taking calm, deep breaths. She didn't understand the frustration of the people asking her all those questions. What difference did it make why she had done it? The result was all that mattered. That's how it always was. But now they were suddenly interested in the reasoning behind the deeds, in some logic they thought they might find, in explanations and truths.

  She could have talked to them about the cellar. About the heavy, sweet scent of Mother's perfume. About the voice that was so seductive when it called her 'darling'. And she could have told them about the rough, dry taste in her mouth, about the monster that lived inside her, still vigilant, still ready to act. Above all she could have told them how her hands, trembling with hatred, not with fear, carefully put the poison in Father's cup and then scrupulously stirred it, watching it dissolve and vanish into the hot tea. It was lucky that he always took his tea with so much sugar.

  That had been her first lesson. Not to believe in promises. Mother had promised her that everything was going to be different. Once Father was gone, they would live a completely different life. Together, close. No more cellar, no more fear. Mother would touch her, caress her, call her 'darling', and never let anything come between them again. But promises were broken as easily as they were made. She had learned that back then and would never let herself forget it. Sometimes she had allowed her mind to consider the thought that what Mother had said about Father might not have been true. But she immediately dismissed that idea to the very depths of her soul. She couldn't even think about that possibility.

  She had learned another important lesson as well. To never let herself be abandoned again. Father had abandoned her. Mother had abandoned her. Then she was shuttled from one foster family to another like a soulless piece of baggage, and they all had abandoned her too, if only through their lack of interest.

  When she visited her mother at the prison in Hinseberg, she had already made up her mind. She would create a new life, a life in which she had the control. The first step had been to change her name. She never again wanted to hear that name that trickled like venom over Mother's lips. 'Mary. Maaaryyy.' When she had sat in the dark of the cellar, that name had echoed between the walls, making her cower and curl up into a ball.

  She chose the name Lilian because it sounded so different from Mary. And because it made her think of a flower, frail and ethereal, but at the same time strong and supple.

  She had also worked hard to change her appearance. With military discipline she had denied herself everything that she previously gorged on, and with astonishing rapidity the pounds vanished from her body until her obesity was only a memory. And she never again permitted herself to get fat. She had watched scrupulously that her weight did not increase by a single ounce, and she showed contempt for those who didn't display the same fortitude, like her daughter. Charlotte's weight disgusted her, bringing back memories of a time she didn't want to think about. Anything flabby, loose, and slack aroused a feeling of rage in her, and sometimes she'd had to fight a desire to tear the flesh from Charlotte's body with her bare hands.

  They had scornfully asked her if she felt disappointed that Stig had survived. She hadn't responded. To be honest, she didn't know the answer herself. It wasn't as if she had planned what she did. It had merely happened naturally somehow. And it all started with Lennart. With his talk about how it might be best for both of them if they separated. He'd said something about the fact that after Charlotte moved out, he'd discovered that they no longer had much in common. Lilian wasn't sure whether it was then, with those first words, she'd decided that her husband had to die. She felt that it was something she was destined to do. She had found the can of rat poison back when they'd bought the house. She couldn't explain why she never threw it away. Maybe because she knew it might come in handy one day.

  Lennart had never done anything in haste in his whole life, so she knew that it would take time before he got around to moving out. She had started with small doses, small enough that he wouldn't die immediately, but big enough to make him seriously ill. Gradually his health had been broken. She had enjoyed taking care of him. There was no more talk of separating. Instead he had gazed at her with gratitude when she fed him, changed his clothes, and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  Sometimes she had felt the monster stirring restlessly again. Losing patience.

  It had never occurred to her that she might be found out, oddly enough. Everything happened so naturally, and one course of events succeeded another. When Lennart was given the diagnosis of

  Guillain-Barré syndrome, she took it as a sign that everything was as it should be. She was just doing what she was intended to do.

  In the long run he left her anyway. But it was on her terms - through death. The promise she had made to herself, that no one would ever be allowed to abandon her, still held.

  And then she met Stig. He was so loyal, so confident by nature that she was sure he would never entertain the thought of leaving her. He did everything she said, even accepting staying in the house where she had lived with Lennart. It was important to her, she explained. It was her house. Bought with money from the sale of the house she'd had Mother sign over to her, the house she had lived in until she married Lennart. Then, to her great sorrow, she'd been forced to sell it. There wasn't enough room in the little house. Yet she had always regretted it, and the house in Sälvik had felt like a poor substitute. But at least it was hers. And Stig had understood that.

  Eventually, as the years passed, she began to notice signs of discontent in him. It was as if she could never be enough for anyone. They were always chasing after something else, something better. Even Stig. When he began talking about how they were growing apart, about feeling a need to start over on his own, she hadn't made any conscious decision. Her actions had simply followed his words as naturally as Tuesday followed Monday. And just as naturally he, precisely like Lennart, had turned to her in gratitude because she was the one who took care of him, who nursed him, who loved him. This time too she knew that parting would be inevitable, but what did that matter when she controlled the pace and determined the moment.

  Lilian turned over on her other side and rested her head on her hands. She stared at the wall, seeing only the past. Not the present. Not the future. The only thing that counted was the time that
had passed.

  She did notice the loathing in their faces when they asked about the girl. But they would never understand. The child had been so hopeless, so intractable, so disrespectful. Not until Charlotte and Niclas had moved in with her and Stig did she realize how bad the situation was. How evil the girl was. It had shocked her at first. But then she had seen the hand of fate in it. The girl was so much like Agnes. Maybe not in appearance, but Lilian had seen the same evil in her eyes. Because that was what she'd come to realize over the years. That Mother was an evil person. She enjoyed watching as the years gradually broke her down. She had moved her to a place nearby. Not so she could visit her, but for the feeling of control it gave her to deny her mother the visits she desperately yearned for. Nothing made her happier than knowing that Mother was sitting there, so close yet so far away, rotting from the inside.

  Mother was evil and the girl was too. Lilian had seen how the girl was slowly splitting the family apart and destroying the fragile mortar that held Niclas and Charlotte's marriage together. Her constant outbursts and demands for attention were wearing them down, and soon they would see no other way out than to go their separate ways. She couldn't let that happen. Without Niclas, Charlotte would be nothing. An uneducated, overweight, single mother of small children, without the respect that came with a successful husband. Some people in Charlotte's generation would probably say that such a view was obsolete, that it was no longer fashionable to win social status through marriage. But Lilian knew better. In the town where she lived, status was still important, and she liked having it that way. She knew that people, when they talked about her, often added, 'Lilian Florin? Oh yes, her son-in- law is a doctor, you know.' That gave her a certain respect. But the girl was going to destroy all that.

  So she had done what was demanded of her. She noticed when Sara turned back on her way to Frida's because she'd forgot her cap. Actually Lilian didn't know why she had done it right then. But suddenly the opportunity presented itself. Stig was sleeping soundly from his sleeping pills and wouldn't wake up even if a bomb exploded in the house; Charlotte lay exhausted in the cellar flat, and Lilian knew that not many sounds penetrated down there; Albin was asleep, and Niclas was at work.

  It had been easier than she expected. The girl had thought it was a fun game, to be able to take a bath with her clothes on. Naturally she had struggled when Lilian fed her with Humility, but she wasn't strong enough. And holding the girl's head under water had been no trouble at all. The only tricky part had been to get down to the shore without being seen. But Lilian knew that she had destiny on her side and that she couldn't fail. She had covered Sara with a blanket, carried her in her arms, and then tipped her into the water and watched her sink. It took only a few minutes, and just as she'd thought, luck had been on her side. No one had seen a thing.

  The second incident had been merely a spur-of-the-moment impulse. When the police began sniffing around Niclas she knew that she was the only one who could save him. She had to create an alibi for him, and she happened to see the sleeping child outside Järnboden hardware store. Terribly irresponsible to leave a child like that. His mother really deserved to be taught a lesson. And Niclas was at work, she'd checked on that, so the police would be forced to eliminate him from the investigation.

  Her attack on Erica's daughter had also been meant to serve as a lesson. When Niclas mentioned that Erica told him it was time that he and Charlotte got themselves their own home, the fury Lilian felt had been so strong that she saw red. What right did Erica have to be giving out advice? What right did she have to interfere in their lives? It had been easy to carry the sleeping infant to the other side of the house. The ashes were intended as a warning. She hadn't dared stay to see Erica's face when she opened the front door and discovered the baby was gone. But she'd pictured it in her mind, and the sight made her happy.

  Sleep crept up on Lilian as she lay on the bunk, and she willingly shut her eyes. Behind her closed eyelids the faces whirled past in a surreal dance. Father, Lennart, and Sara dancing round in a circle. Close behind them she saw Stig's face, wasted and thin. But in the centre of the circle was Mother. She was dancing with the monster in an intimate embrace, closer, tighter, cheek to cheek. And Mother was whispering: Mary, Mary, Maaaryyy…

  Then the darkness of sleep rolled in.

  Agnes was feeling sincerely sorry for herself as she sat by the window in the old folks' home. Outside the rain was pelting the window, and she almost thought she could feel it whipping against her face.

  She didn't understand why Mary didn't come to visit. Where did she get all that hatred, all that rancour? Hadn't she always done everything she could for her daughter? Hadn't she been the best mother she could be? Not everything that went wrong along the way was her fault, after all. Other people were to blame. If only she'd had luck on her side, then things would have been different. But Mary didn't understand that. She believed that Agnes was to blame for the unfortunate events, and no matter how hard she'd tried to explain, the girl refused to listen. She had written many long letters from prison, explaining in detail why she wasn't at fault, but somehow the girl was unreceptive, as if she'd hardened herself to all other views.

  The injustice made Agnes's old eyes well up with tears. She had never received anything from her daughter, even though she herself had given and given and given. Everything that Mary had perceived as nasty and horrid had been done for her own good. It wasn't true that Agnes had taken any joy in punishing her daughter or telling her that she was fat and ugly. On the contrary. No, it had actually pained her to be so harsh, but that was her duty as a mother. And it had produced results. Hadn't Mary finally pulled herself together and got rid of all that flab? Yes, she had. And it was all thanks to her mother, though she'd never received any credit.

  A strong gust of wind outside made a branch strike the window- pane. Agnes jumped in her wheelchair, but then laughed at herself. Was she turning into a scaredy-cat at her age? She who had never been afraid of anything. Except of being poor. The years as a stonecutter's wife had taught her that. The cold, the hunger, the filth, the degradation. All that had made her scared to death of ever being poor again. She had believed that the men in the States would be her ticket out of misery, then Äke, then Per-Erik. But they had all betrayed her. They had all broken their promises to her, just as her father had. And they had all been punished.

  In the end she was the one who had the last word. The blue wooden box and its contents had served as a reminder that she alone controlled her own destiny. And that any means were permitted.

  She had fetched the ashes in the wooden box the night before the ship left for America. Under cover of darkness she had sneaked to the site of the fire and gathered up ashes from the spot where she knew Anders and the boys had been sleeping. At the time she didn't know why she did it, but as the years passed she began to understand her impulsive action. The wooden box with the ashes reminded her how easy it was to do something in order to achieve her own goals.

  The plan had gradually taken shape in her mind as the day of their departure for America approached. She knew that her fate would be sealed if she let herself be shipped off like a milk-cow with her family as a dead weight round her legs. But alone she would have a chance to create a different future for herself. One in which poverty would be only a distant and distasteful memory.

  Anders never knew what hit him. The knife sank into his back all the way to the hilt, deep into his heart, and he fell like a dead piece of meat over the kitchen table.

  The boys were taking a nap. She stole quietly into their room, eased the pillow out from under Karl's head and put it over his face. Then she pressed it down with her whole weight. It was so easy. He kicked and struggled briefly, but no sound escaped from under the pillow, so Johan kept sleeping peacefully while his twin brother died. Then it was his turn. She repeated the procedure, and this time it was a little harder. Johan had always been stronger and more powerful than Karl, but even he couldn't fight for
long. He was soon as lifeless as his brother. With unseeing eyes they lay there staring at the ceiling, and Agnes felt strangely empty of feelings. It was as though she were putting things back in their proper order. They never should have been born, and now they were no more.

  But before she could go on with her own life there was one more thing she had to do. In the middle of the floor she gathered a big pile of the boys' clothes and then went out to the kitchen. She pulled the knife out of Anders's back and dragged him to the boys' room. He was so big and heavy that she was totally soaked with sweat when he finally lay in a heap on the floor. She fetched some of the aquavit they had in the house, poured it over the pile of clothes, and then lit a cigarette. With pleasure she took a few drags before she cautiously placed the lit cigarette next to the clothing drenched in alcohol. Hopefully she could get a good distance away before it caught fire properly.

  Voices out in the corridor of the nursing home roused Agnes from her reverie. She waited tensely until they passed, hoping they weren't coming for her, and didn't relax until she heard them go by and continue down the hall.

  She hadn't needed to pretend she was shocked when she came back from her errands and saw the fire. She never dreamed it would burn so hot or spread so fast. The whole house had burnt to the ground, but at least all had gone according to plan. No one had even for a moment suspected that Anders and the boys might have died in some other way, and not in the fire.

  During the days that followed Agnes felt so wonderfully free that she sometimes had to look at her feet to make sure they were touching the ground. Outwardly she had kept up the pretence, played the grieving widow and mother, but inside she had laughed at how easily those stupid, simple people could be fooled. And the biggest idiot of them all was her father. She was itching with the desire to tell him what she'd done, to hold up the crime to him like a bloody scalp and say, 'See what you did? See what you drove me to do when you banished me like a Babylonian harlot that day?' But she thought better of the idea. No matter how much she wanted to share the blame with him, she would be better served by accepting his sympathy.