by Håkan Nesser
‘Kristoffer, it was Jakob who killed your brother.’
Time passed. Long, short, he couldn’t tell. She did not move, he did not move. A party of diners, two women and two men, came into the restaurant and sat down at a nearby table – but it was a table in another world and the people, too, were part of that separate, entirely alien world. Beneath the glass dome it was just him and Kristina – his aunt who had shattered reality with her whispered, unsparing sledgehammer of truth. These were the strange words that went fluttering through his head, trying to make themselves understood, like unfamiliar birds of passage which had flown off course. Glass dome? Sledgehammer of truth?
Birds of passage?
And questions. Just as the words had stuck in his throat an hour before, the questions did now, like another, different throng of strange and restless birds, and all at once he found it hard to breathe and was aware of something ticking inside his chest, something that threatened to blow him up from inside if he did not break free of the paralysis that was swiftly growing under the glass dome. Finally, the most obvious of questions floated to the surface.
‘Why?’
She stared at him.
‘Because . . .’
She stopped herself. Tried to look into his eyes for some kind of reassurance, presumably. Reassurance that he was . . . old enough. Yes, that was exactly how her green eyes felt as they bored into him; she was looking for some sign that it was possible for him to understand. And he realized he had to live up to it; what else could he do? Match her unspoken question. I’m prepared, he tried to say without speaking. Tell me how it was, Kristina.
She took a deep breath, exhaled air in a slow, thin stream and, at the very end of the stream, just before the air ran out, it came.
‘Because he caught us, Kristoffer.’
‘What?’
‘Me and Henrik.’
‘You and . . . ?’
‘Yes. Jakob came back and he found me and your brother in bed.’
Once it had been said it was impossible for him to decide whether he had suspected it or not. Perhaps he had carried the solution to the riddle inside him in some sort of bubble that was just lying there – had just been lying there – waiting to burst. At any event, it was not surprise that he felt, no, more like . . . confirmation? Was that it? Had he, in actual fact, in some dark meander of his desperate heart, known all along?
No, he thought. Surely even in my wildest imagination I couldn’t have . . .
But he was back to those strange word-birds again. Kristina interrupted their uncontrolled flight by leaning even closer to him over the table. She took hold of both his hands.
‘I feel so guilty, Kristoffer. I don’t deserve to go on living. And yet I have had to live with this for almost a year. I don’t ask for forgiveness or understanding, it’s my fault that Henrik died, I have – I have all your lives on my conscience. I’m the one who is to blame for all your grief. If you want to know what depths of despair a human being can be in, then look at me, Kristoffer.’
He looked at her and could see that it was true.
‘I couldn’t tell anyone about it. It would have been too much for Ebba . . . your mother . . . to bear. I don’t know if you will be able to either, Kristoffer, but when you called and asked, well . . . My thinking was that the best solution – the only solution – would be for no one ever to find out what happened. It wasn’t cowardice, Kristoffer, think about it, it was out of consideration for – for you all. I’ve been feeling – been feeling so awful.’
She released his hands and slumped forwards over the table, but straightened up again almost instantly. ‘Forgive me, Kristoffer, I’m being pathetic.’
‘No,’ said Kristoffer quietly. ‘You’re not being pathetic.’
He didn’t know whether he meant it. All at once he could see the whole thing very clearly in front of him, a picture of ghastly intensity: Kristina and Henrik fucking like bunnies in a strange hotel bed, and then the door is wrenched open, and there stands Jakob, just like in a film where the two lovers are exposed by the jealous, deranged husband who arrives home unexpectedly.
‘How?’ he asked. ‘How did he kill Henrik?’
She turned that searching look on him again. Three seconds went by.
‘With his bare hands, Kristoffer. With his bare hands.’
Kristoffer stared at her. He felt a wave of nausea rising inside him. ‘Bloody hell,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said Kristina. ‘I would give my life for it never to have happened. I hope you realize that, Kristoffer. If I could exchange my life for Henrik’s, I would do it without hesitating for a second. But it feels as though – as though I’ve been sentenced to live. I don’t know if you can understand that?’
‘Why are you still with him? With Jakob, I mean . . .’
‘Because he’s forcing me to.’
‘Forcing you?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘He killed Henrik, but the guilt is still mine. If a husband finds his wife in bed with another man, he has some kind of right to . . . well, to kill the other man. Defending his honour, there’s something ancient in that, and in some cultures it’s not even punishable by law.’
‘Honour killing?’
She nodded. ‘Something like that. And the fact that I did it with my own nephew . . . No, if I leave my husband, he’s going to expose me. He knows his guilt is less severe than mine. For as long as he wants me, I’m trapped in his vice.’
‘But what you really want is . . . ?’ His eyes went involuntarily to her stomach. He was embarrassed, and lost his thread.
‘I hate him, Kristoffer. Jakob is a brute.’
He waited.
‘A calculating brute. I knew there was something wrong even before this happened. Our marriage was falling apart all through last year, but now – but now . . .’
She fell silent. Looked at him with those terrible, naked eyes again. A few seconds elapsed.
‘Why did you do it?’ asked Kristoffer. ‘You and Henrik?’
She shook her head. ‘It was like a game. A forbidden game . . . We went too far.’
‘Too far? I see.’
‘I’m so sorry. But a few times in life we do cross lines that we know we shouldn’t cross. Some people get away with it, others are cruelly punished. We didn’t intend it to happen, but of course there’s no point in my sitting here making excuses. It started when Henrik told me something.’
‘Yes?’
‘No, I can’t say this.’
An idea suddenly struck him. ‘He told you he was gay?’
She raised her eyebrows in surprise.
‘You knew?’
‘No. Not really. But I thought he might be.’
‘I see. Well, Henrik told me, anyway, and I didn’t believe him. You remember we had a fair bit to drink that evening?’
‘The first one?’
‘The evening before the party, yes. It doesn’t excuse anything, but I got a bit drunk, and . . . and I took it into my head to try to prove to Henrik that he was wrong. That women could turn him on, too . . . No, sorry Kristoffer, I’ve already said enough. Quite enough.’
Kristoffer nodded. She was right. That was enough, and he felt he didn’t need to know any more.
And suddenly, as they sat there in renewed silence, looking at each other, two thoughts sailed into the harbour of his sluggish mind.
I understand him, said one of them. I understand you, brother.
The second thought was blacker than mourning.
And I understand you too, Jakob Willnius. But that doesn’t help, you’ve got to die.
You’ve got to die. The words repeated themselves quietly inside his head.
Then all was emptiness and silence for a long time, and he became aware of a terrible craving for a cigarette.
But there were good reasons why smoking in front of Kristina was not an option. And anyway, there was presumably no smoking in this restaurant, as in all
the others.
‘Shall we go?’ he said. ‘I don’t fancy anything to eat.’
She looked at him in surprise.
‘Kristoffer . . .’
‘Thank you for telling me,’ he said, realizing there was suddenly a grown man talking out of his mouth. ‘I promise not to reveal what you said to anyone else. You can rely on me.’
She tried to say something, but he forestalled her. He felt he ought to make the most of this adult voice while he had it. ‘I must get back to Uppsala. Can I call you when I’ve had a bit of time to think about it?’
‘What? Well, of course, Kristoffer, you can call me whenever you like. Of course you can.’
‘Good. I – I’ve got to think about it a bit, like I said.’
‘I understand.’
So they left Il Forno and went out into the November darkness. Neither of them had touched their food. Neither of them said a word on the way back to Central station.
‘No, she isn’t in,’ said Jakob Willnius. ‘She was meeting someone in town. Expect she’ll be back in an hour or so, who shall I say called?’
‘Just a colleague. It’s nothing important. I’ll call back.’
The line went dead. He looked at the caller display. Unknown. No surprise there, thought Jakob Willnius.
Colleague?
Kristina hadn’t worked for over a year now.
And if there was one thing he could boast, it was an exceptionally good memory for voices.
He put out the light and stared at the knotted black silhouettes of the fruit trees outside the window. He felt something harden within him.
Gunnar Barbarotti sat there with the phone in his hand, looking out into the darkness.
Shouldn’t have spoken to him at all, he thought. That was stupid.
FIVE
DECEMBER
37
Ebba Hermansson Grundt is dreaming.
It is early in the morning, long before dawn, it is the first of December and the snow is falling heavily outside her window – but she knows nothing of that, for the blind has been carefully lowered and time does not interest her. She is lying in her bed in the entirely white room in the Vassrogga clinic, dreaming of her son.
He is dangling inside her body, he has been chopped into pieces and packed into two green-and-white Co-op carrier bags, he hangs from her collarbone, swinging to and fro like the heavy, rusted tongues of a forgotten set of church bells. You dream what you dream, and no one can reproach her for it, but this morning there is something that is not quite right. A distorting hint of unease runs through her sleeping body, a gust of icy wind makes her skin creep, she feels around with her hands on her breast and stomach, used as she is to bearing her son through the nights in this way. She has done it month after month. But there is something about Henrik this morning, something other and different that she does not recognize.
It isn’t Henrik. It’s Kristoffer. He, her younger son, is the one who has invaded the emptiness inside her this morning, and what can that mean?
Within a few seconds, she is wide awake. She swings her legs over the edge of the bed and sits up, her feet on the cold floor. What is going on? Why has Kristoffer taken Henrik’s place?
It must mean something, because dreams are keys. That is always the case, and it’s just a matter of finding which lock they fit.
To lock in, or to unlock. Ebba Hermansson Grundt would prefer to lock in, indeed that is what she has been persistently engaged in all summer and all autumn. Shutting everything out, keeping open only that tiny, innermost room where time does not exist, but where the most important things can be accommodated. Old summers, a sailing boat, a blue tricycle, a grazed knee being tended, sticky little child fingers combing her hair, and his beautiful eyes.
That room which her therapists expend so much effort on locking up, but which she herself opens with a firm but gentle hand every night.
But Kristoffer? How has he been able to find his way in here? What has allowed him over the threshold? Why is he now chopped up and dangling in a Co-op bag from her collarbone? Two of them, wasn’t it, two bags? Whatever can it be that he wants to tell her at this dark hour, long before dawn?
She gets to her feet, lets up the blind and looks out of the window. It is pitch black out there, but the snow is falling, thickly and heavily.
Kristoffer, she thinks. Not you, too?
Kristina Hermansson is reading. Getting away from the torments of this world, into others that she does not know. It is the first of December and the snow is falling. Has been falling all night, or so it seems, and is continuing far into the morning. The apple trees outside her window are assuming entirely new forms and characteristics, the currant bushes are huge, woolly musk oxen.
Jakob has gone to the TV centre at Värtahamnen and Kelvin is with the childminder. She is waiting for Kristoffer to contact her, waiting for the ultimate rupture of her existence, but while she does so, she is reading Robert’s book.
In the shadows beneath my hands there was a yearning, he writes. My fifteen-year-old cowardice harboured a hope. Where did it go?
She does not always understand what her brother writes, but she finds it beautiful. He speaks to her from the other side of the grave; she can hear his voice behind the words. She has only got to page 40 of 651, yet it feels as though he is here in the room with her. As if she could talk to him, ask him the questions that occur to her in the course of reading.
What do you mean, brother Robert? What sort of yearning? What sort of hope was it that you lost along the way?
He does not answer, but perhaps he has hidden the answers further on in the book.
I was born a loser and have laboriously kept this fact buried in oblivion all my life, he writes on page forty-two. But when knowledge and truth raise their ugly heads, I instantly recognize them. We are only who we are.
She is still unsure whether Robert is talking about himself. Perhaps it is actually somebody else. The book is written in the first person, at least initially; the main protagonist is called Mihail Barin, a strange, itinerant character, drifting not only in space but also in time, or so it seems. Russian, as far as one can tell, and he pops up in the present but also way back in the nineteenth century, so perhaps he is not a real person after all. Perhaps he is just an idea.
But she reads on in fascination, and Robert’s voice comes through more intensely with every page she turns.
If I go to prison, she thinks, it will be Robert’s book that keeps me occupied and alive.
But perhaps there will be no need for existence to rupture. Perhaps it is not an utter necessity. Today is Wednesday. The flight to Bangkok leaves on Sunday, and that is only four days away. Four miserable days; if only that short period could flow by without incident, then the matter would be in her own hands again. Once she is sitting on the plane with her husband, she will know how to proceed. All obstacles will have been overcome, and everything will resolve itself as planned.
But they feel so long, these few days. Kristoffer will ring, something will happen; she knows it the minute she lifts her eyes and her thoughts from Robert’s book – but for now, in this lingering moment, it is only the snow falling.
Kristoffer Grundt holds the solution in his hand.
It is Wednesday evening. The first of December, a day when the snow has been falling from morning to night; the bus out to Bergsbrunna took half an hour longer than usual and almost skidded into the ditch several times. Luthman, the manager at his Co-op store, announced at the afternoon break that the whole country was in chaos, especially down south in Skåne, where they barely had any roads left open, and in Dalsland, where five thousand households were cut off. The state things might be in towards the coast in Roslagen did not bear thinking about. There had not been such volumes of snow in living memory and it was sixteen hours since it had started.
But none of this worries Kristoffer Grundt, who is standing in the basement in his father’s cousin’s house in Bergsbrunna, holding the solution in h
is hand.
It is flat and cold and he guesses it must weigh about half a kilo. The manufacturer’s name, Pinchmann, is engraved on the butt, where you also load it by slotting in a magazine from below. Each magazine has space for twelve cartridges, he has already tried it, and he sends a grateful thought to Ingegerd, who showed him the gun and its hiding place when they visited four years before. She did it to impress Henrik and Kristoffer, no doubt, her big boy cousins from Sundsvall. The licence must be in the name of Berit’s husband Knut, whom she divorced when Ingegerd was just three; he used to go hunting for this and that, but if there are only two solitary women in a house outside town, you need a weapon to defend yourself with. Just in case, of course.
But once Kristoffer has finished, he intends throwing the Pinchmann in a lake or burying it, so no one will ever be able to trace it, and no one will suspect him. He doesn’t think Berit and Ingegerd are in the habit of getting their old gun out; it was covered in a thick layer of dust in the drawer where he found it, in the little storeroom in the basement. He’s been mulling over his plan all day, ever since the idea came to him on the bus into town this morning. There are no catches, and this afternoon he has been hearing something that sounds like Henrik’s laugh, deep inside him, and though he hasn’t really been able to pin it down, because unfortunately it wasn’t clear enough, it still feels like something warm and good and strong, and he knows that the solution he has found is exactly the right one. That he has Henrik’s full support. To be honest, nothing seems particularly less unreal than it did before his conversation with Kristina yesterday, but as he runs his fingertips over the cold steel, he feels as though the whole thing is actually a film. He is an actor who has to perform what is written in the definitive script; that’s how it is, precisely like that. He is under the director’s orders. Or the choreographer’s. When he looks at things in that light, it all seems clear and comprehensible. Sometimes life is so huge that you need that sort of help.
And he isn’t the least bit worried. He wraps the pistol and the box of cartridges in a towel and puts the bundle in a Co-op plastic bag. Takes it back up to his room and hides his solution in the wardrobe. Berit and Ingegerd are at a parents’ evening and won’t be back until after nine – assuming they can get home at all in this snowstorm, which shows no signs of abating. No, he doesn’t feel the least hint of anxiety churning up his insides; he’s going to kill his dead brother’s murderer, there’s nothing to be afraid of. For someone carrying out their duty, everything is simple and easy.
