Open Grave: A Mystery

by Kjell Eriksson

  To the right were the stairs up to Edvard’s room, worn by his feet, not repainted since last time.

  Edvard walked straight ahead. He was limping a little. The hair on the back of his head was perhaps a little thinner, otherwise he looked like he always was.

  He stopped and waited for her before he pushed open the door to Viola’s room.

  “You have a visitor,” he said, taking a step to the left and making room for Ann.

  The room was lit only by a table lamp in the corner. Viola was laying like a dowager, submerged in a sea of blankets in the gigantic bed. Ann remembered that she was always cold and in the winter often had double blankets. It smelled of cleanser and coffee.

  Her cheeks were skinnier than ever. The thin, white hair was even thinner and whiter. Immediately when Ann came into the room she opened her eyes and fixed her with her gaze like the way she did the first time they met.

  “Ann, my own policewoman,” the old woman croaked, making an effort to pull her arms out of the covers.

  Ann went up to the bed and placed her hand on Viola’s cold cheek. They looked at each other.

  “I knew it,” the old woman said.

  Ann fought back the tears. This was such a valuable moment that instinctively she did not want to throw away a single second by sobbing and weeping. She wanted to have a clear gaze, be just as strong as Viola had always been.

  “I got your greeting,” said Viola.

  A discreet cough was heard from the unlit part of the room. Ann turned her head and there sat an elderly woman on a chair. Ann realized immediately that this must be the sister of the Nobel Prize winner’s housekeeper. Despite the darkness it was not hard to make out the resemblance, not least the slightly protruding eyes that now observed her with a mournful expression.

  Ann got up to quickly introduce herself so that the woman could then leave her and Viola in peace. She did not want to have a funeral singer sitting in the room.

  Perhaps Ann still harbored a wish that it would be only Viola, Edvard, and her in the house. Like before.

  The woman got on her feet surprisingly quickly and greeted Ann with a nod.

  “I’ll be in the kitchen,” she said. “Perhaps you’d like a cup later?”

  She did not wait for an answer but instead left quickly and quietly. All that lingered behind her was a faint odor of sweat. Edvard followed her out of the room and closed the door very carefully behind him.

  Ann sat down on the chair that was placed on the other side of the bed.

  “You didn’t bring the boy with you?”

  Ann shook her head and realized her mistake when she saw the cross frown on the old woman’s furrowed face. Sometimes she had considered Viola a kind of paternal grandmother, a replacement for the one Erik would never have, but out of pure selfishness she had not brought him with her. She had been afraid of Edvard’s reaction, ashamed to display the physical evidence of their capsized love story. Because it really had been a story, full of desire and tenderness. But Erik would have been his child and no one else’s.

  She ought to have put herself above this, overlooked Edvard’s possible animosity and her own embarrassment, and introduced her son to his “grandmother.” She would have liked that, Ann realized now. Perhaps she considered Ann the daughter she never had.

  Ann, who had been the unfaithful one, the one who betrayed her Edvard, was now forgiven. She understood that and a sense of longing shot through her, making her feel that all the bad things could be made undone. An impossible wish, a dead end. She was taken back for a moment or two to another life, to a different sort of love than what she experienced with Anders Brant.

  “Next time,” said Ann. “Do you want to see a photo of Erik?”

  The old woman shook her head, and this did not surprise Ann. She had never seen a single photograph in the house.

  “It takes a rickety old woman to get you to drag yourself here,” said Viola, regaining in her voice a little of the ironic astringency that was her trademark.

  “If you knew how I’ve longed to be here,” said Ann quietly.

  “Edvard is in the woodshed,” said Viola. “He goes there when he gets nervous. So he won’t hear us.”

  “How are you?”

  “I want to die at home,” said Viola, and Ann knew that there was no point in protesting, but instead nodded and squeezed the old woman’s clawlike hand.

  “I’ve done my part, always taken care of myself, haven’t been a burden to anyone. I was born when the bells were ringing in the war and I’m leaving in evil times. You should know how afraid they were of the Russians here on the island. We didn’t know any better. Can you understand how badly they steered us? But here on the island we didn’t care that much. The old men sat in Stockholm and gave orders, but we took care of ourselves,” she ended the harangue with a grin.

  It was Viola’s showpiece, the incompetence and lack of common sense of anyone from Stockholm, whether it was the government or summer visitors. It was an understanding she shared with generations of refractory islanders.

  “Does it hurt?”

  The old woman shook her head.

  “It aches a little in my hip, but it’s done that a long time.”

  Ann could not really understand why Viola was preparing to die, she seemed the same. She had been thin as a rake as long as Ann had known her, and Ann had heard the complaints about her hip before. The explanation came immediately.

  “Viktor passed away,” said Viola.

  “No,” Ann exclaimed, squeezing the old woman’s hand.

  “Three weeks on Monday,” said Viola. “He was buried a week ago. There were a hundred and twenty people at the funeral.”

  Viktor had been Viola’s life partner. They never had a regular relationship. It hadn’t turned out that way, Viola said one time when Ann asked, but they had been schoolmates in the 1920s, neighbors their whole life, and saw each other basically every day. It was Viktor who came over, helped her with small chores. They had sat in her kitchen for eighty years.

  “We never got engaged,” said Viola, “but he was a fine man. We were born the same year. He just dropped dead. He was going down to the lake to make sure that Edvard brought his boat up.”

  “So Viktor had his boat in the water?”

  Viola chuckled.

  “He and Edvard were out all the time. That was the life for Viktor. He was so fond of Edvard, that they could go out.”

  How I’ve missed this! Ann thought desperately.

  “That he was,” said Ann, “a fine man.”

  “He used to talk about you,” said Viola. “Most of all when he’d had a drop.”

  “I have longed to be here,” Ann let slip again.

  “You should have been here,” said Viola. “But it’s not too late yet.”

  Don’t say that! Ann wanted to cry out. Don’t entice me with a life that no longer exists! But she didn’t say anything. If Viola wanted to believe that Ann could come back, that’s the way it was.

  “He’s not seeing anyone?”

  Viola snorted.

  “He’ll be like Viktor, the old bachelor here in the village,” and Viola made it sound like it was Ann’s business to change that.

  “But didn’t he…?” Ann persisted.

  She wanted to know. She wanted to hear the old woman say that of course there had been women, and hint that perhaps there was someone he was seeing now.

  The response was another snort.

  “I’ve seen you in a picture in the newspaper,” said Viola. “Edvard usually reads out loud when there’s a story.”

  Ann could see them in the twilight at the kitchen table. Edvard with his reading glasses and Viola with her eyes toward the farmyard.

  “And then a woman adds a little charm,” said Viola, who never stopped being amazed that women could be police officers. “It’s like an extra … but listen…”

  She fell silent and closed her eyes, lying so still that Ann got scared. The covers did not move, her hand wa
s cold.

  “Bye-bye, Ann,” Viola said suddenly, opening her eyes. “Now I’m going to sleep a little, I’m so happy we had some time to talk. Take care of yourself and Erik. Do well.”

  Ann felt Viola grasp her hand. She squeezed back. Their eyes met. Viola smiled her usual old smile before she closed her eyes again. Ann sat awhile before she carefully released her hand and got up.

  She closed the door behind her, but regretted it immediately and opened it again. Perhaps Viola would call for something. She took a last look at the old woman and then let her eyes slowly register what was in the room. She got the impulse to take something with her.

  In the kitchen it was quiet. The woman, Ann recalled that her name was Greta, was sitting at the kitchen table with a coffee cup in front of her. Edvard was nowhere in sight.

  “I set out a cup for you too,” said Greta.

  Ann looked at the clock, there was still time to exchange a few words. She declined the coffee but sat down.

  “I didn’t know that Viktor had passed away,” she said. “I really would have liked to be at the funeral.”

  “Edvard was pallbearer. There’ll be another one soon,” said Greta. “Viola wants to follow Viktor, but I’m sure you understood that.”

  Ann nodded. She could not be upset by the woman’s frank manner. That’s just the way it was, so why pretend?

  “I’ve met you before,” said Ann.

  “I’ve known Viola my whole life. She took care of us sometimes, Agnes and me, when we were little. Yes, I ran into you when you were going with Edvard, but then you only had eyes for him.”

  “And then your sister,” Ann said. “The world really is small.”

  “So what is happening at Ohler’s?”

  Ann was happy to be able to talk about something besides her time on Gräsö and told what had happened with the Nobel Prize winner. She suspected that Greta wanted to have a different version than her sister’s. Greta listened without interrupting her and then sat silent for some time. Ann recognized the atmosphere from many interrogations, there was something bothering the woman.

  “It’s no wonder that people wish him harm,” Greta said at last.

  “What do you mean?”

  “May God forgive me, but he is a bad person.”

  She pushed aside the coffee cup and looked out the window. Ann followed her eyes, she was afraid that Edvard was approaching.

  “Perhaps I should check on Viola,” said Greta.

  “She’s sleeping,” said Ann. “I can tell that something is bothering you. Are you worried about your sister?”

  “No, not anymore,” said Greta with bitterness twisting her mouth. “They have always treated people like whores, everyone who worked there.”

  “You too?”

  Greta nodded. With her fingers she twined a thread that was hanging loose from a small lace tablecloth. Ann guessed that she was the one who put it on top of the oilcloth.

  “I got away,” she said. “But Anna didn’t. Do you know that she lived with Viola for a while?”

  “Who is Anna?”

  Greta looked up in surprise.

  “My oldest sister. She had to live here. Our parents were very strict. They couldn’t bear that Anna gave notice at Ohler’s, so when she came back to the island she was not welcome. Papa was convinced that she had behaved badly and had to quit for that reason. So he sent me as a replacement to Ohler’s. I was only fourteen. It was during the war. I lasted for nine long years. Then it was Agnes’s turn.”

  “What had Anna done?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Anna was the most peaceful creature you could imagine.”

  “So she had to stay here?”

  “Viola took pity on her. She never forgave Papa. Or Mama either. Viola said that a mother who did not defend her children was not a true Christian. Anna lived here almost a year. She did not visit Mama and Papa a single time. It’s only a kilometer or so through the pasture and Lövgren’s hill.”

  Greta told about God’s Army and how her father had preached in his own house, condemned his daughter as faithless.

  “The congregation revived during the war, people were worried, and then they got Anna to think about. It’s always good to have some sinner who you know about, who you can condemn and lament over. Agnes said that it never smelled of brimstone as much as then. She was always afraid, she was just a little girl. And Anna had always been so kind to her, but then suddenly she became the devil incarnate. I avoided hearing that myself. I cried myself to sleep in the maid’s chamber at Ohler’s.”

  “What happened to Anna then?”

  “She moved from the island. Went south.”

  Ann guessed that Anna was dead. The thread from the cloth had now definitely come loose and Greta wrapped it slowly around her left index finger. It was a gesture of absentminded playfulness that contradicted the seriousness that marked her face.

  “Did Anna forgive her parents?”

  Greta slowly shook her head.

  “Not that I know of,” she said.

  “You had no contact?”

  “I know that she wrote to Viola,” said Greta. “Anna was eternally grateful to her for the support she got when she came back from the Ohlers.”

  She unwound the thread from her finger and looked hastily up.

  “Do you think there are people who wish Ohler harm?”

  Ann felt a sting of bad conscience that she had apparently so quickly seemed to leave Anna to her fate, but Greta appeared almost relieved.

  “I firmly believe that,” she said. “Those kinds of bigwigs always make enemies.”

  “Has Agnes mentioned anything? I understand that you don’t want to gossip, but we have a difficult situation,” said Ann deliberately vaguely.

  “I think you also have a difficult situation,” said Greta, pursing her lips.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s written all over you. You came here to see Viola, but you’re shaky as an aspen leaf because of Edvard. And now you’re playing cops and robbers awhile to stop thinking about Edvard.”

  Ann’s cheeks turned bright red.

  “Yes, it’s true,” she said. “You’ll have to excuse me.”

  Of course she’s right, thought Ann, and cursed her own insensitivity. She was playing policewoman in a dying woman’s kitchen, while the great love of her life was chopping wood simply to avoid being confronted with her.

  “I am like an aspen leaf,” she said. “But now I’ll drive home and leave you in peace.”

  It sounded more self-pitying than she intended.

  “Agnes hasn’t said anything,” said Greta. “I know everything and I despise that house and, may God forgive me, the whole family. I don’t understand how Agnes endures. I go there to help her. She has gotten so tired.”

  Ann got up. The tension made her tremble.

  “Thanks, Greta,” she said. “I’m glad that I came here. I got to talk with Viola awhile. Perhaps you think I’m insensitive for coming here, but Viola was like a mother to me too.”

  Greta gave her a quick glance and Ann saw the surprise in her eyes.

  “And then I got to see Edvard, that he seems to be doing well. And got to talk with you awhile too.”

  Ann extended her hand across the table and in that way also forced Greta to get up. They shook hands and Ann left the kitchen, closing the veranda door behind her. It had cleared up and the stars were sparkling.

  Like before, she thought, but took care not to stay on the farmyard staring at the sky. Edvard was nowhere in sight. She hesitated a few moments before she got in the car.

  * * *

  She drove down the hill toward the ferry, passed the church, and checked whether the old man was still sitting on the wall, which he was. Everything was as it should be on the island. As the fifth and final car she rolled on board. Immediately the gate closed behind her and the ferry departed.

  Thoughtfully she remained sitting a few seconds before she put on the hand brake, got
out of the car, and went up to the railing. She let out a sob in sorrow, but also felt pride that she managed the encounter with Edvard so well. The mainland came ever closer, she wished she could have stood at the railing longer.

  She got an impulse to call home but refrained. For one thing she knew that Anders and Erik got along well together, and for another she was unwilling to break the enchantment at finding herself on the Road Administration’s ungainly, clumsy ferry.

  It struck her that this series of events and emotions that were layered over each other in a single house, Viola’s, expressed everything there was to say about life. A single house. One of thousands, millions.

  Viola had experienced almost a hundred years of sorrows and joy by turn. People came and went in her house. Viktor her whole life. Edvard who by chance happened to rent a room and stayed. Anna who in the 1940s got a sanctuary, and then herself fifty or sixty years later.

  “Anna,” she mumbled. “Anna and Ann.”

  The thud of the ferry against the abutment made her wipe away the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. If she could only blow her nose, the way Edvard used to do! Just keep on blowing, then everything was cleared out.

  I managed it! she thought, and drove off the ferry. Viola was her next thought. Now you will pass away. Edvard will carry you, just as he carried Viktor. She suddenly pictured Edvard, felt his hands.

  She was exploding with loss and absence, and could only barely steer to the side and stop the car.

  I didn’t manage it!

  The rest of the drive to Uppsala was a reprise of a previous trip many years earlier. That time when everything was over. Convulsively she held on to the steering wheel and guided the car in a headwind toward the southwest.

  Nineteen

  The uneasiness gave way as he dug. At nine he took a break, put the spade into the ground and sat down on a rickety garden chair that he leaned up against the wall. He had coffee, ate a sandwich, and enjoyed the October sun that had just found its way onto Lundquist’s lot.

  In front of him was his work, the hole he had excavated. A new grave. To avoid removing the excavated clay soil, he had used it to form a little bow-shaped ridge at the one edge. He had previously carted in lighter, more humus-filled soil, which he tipped into a neat pile on the lawn alongside the excavation.