Some Kind of Peace: A Novel

by Camilla Grebe

  “I’m looking for Siri Bergman.”

  “This is she.”

  “Hi, I’m calling from the emergency room at Stockholm South Hospital…”

  “Yes?”

  “A friend of yours was admitted here this evening, Aina Davidsson…”

  I can’t seem to formulate a reasonable reaction to this. Is Aina at the hospital?

  “…and she would really like you to come. She was run over by a motorcyclist on Folkungagatan.”

  “Oh, my God, is she okay?”

  The voice hesitates for a moment.

  “Well… it’s serious but not critical. She has a head injury that we’re a little concerned about. If everything goes as planned, we will transfer her shortly up to the intensive care unit… So that we can keep an eye on her.”

  If everything goes as planned?

  “We’re taking good care of her, you don’t need to worry, but as I said, she would really like you to come. Preferably as soon as possible.”

  My stomach is knotted with fear and hunger as I lean against the kitchen counter. Images of Aina’s face flicker before my eyes. I pull a cereal box from the shelf and quickly stuff a couple fistfuls of muesli in my mouth and pour myself another glass of wine to wash it down. Two big gulps.

  It’s been so long since I last drove my car that I can barely find the car keys. I fumble with the ignition in the dark, and it takes me a while to turn on the headlights. I feel nauseous and dizzy, and a throbbing pain is growing stronger and stronger beneath my skull and between my eyes. It’s as if an angry animal were desperately trying to escape from my head through my eye sockets. I am forced to hold on to the steering wheel so I don’t fall out when I lean over to shut the car door. I know I shouldn’t be driving, but Aina is my best friend and one thing is clear to me: I could not cope with losing her, too.

  The night is dark, and the narrow, curvy road meanders treacherously through the quiet landscape. I am driving very slowly but still manage to end up twice with the front wheel on the grass at the side of the road.

  As I approach Värmdö church, I notice a dark car behind me for the first time. It follows me through the city. But I don’t give it any more thought.

  Not then.

  As I reach Grisslinge, I see blue lights. It is now obvious that the car behind me is the police and that they want something from me, so I pull over and roll down the window. A man approaches from behind, and against the background of flashing blue a young police officer is suddenly standing in front of me.

  “Good evening, your driver’s license please.”

  I fumble for my purse and realize I didn’t bring it with me. I can see for myself how erratic and uncontrolled my movements are, so I place both hands on the steering wheel, squeeze it hard, take a deep breath, and look up again toward the policeman, who now has a wrinkle between his eyebrows.

  “Uh, I’m really sorry, but I’m on my way to see a friend who’s in the emergency room and… I’m afraid that I didn’t… well, that I didn’t bring my things.”

  I can hear how lame my excuse sounds, but the policeman’s facial expression is inscrutable. If he is surprised or irritated, his face does not show what he is thinking.

  “Okay, we would like you to take a Breathalyzer test. Have you done it before?”

  “Yes… sure.”

  There’s something about the overly serious expression on the young policeman’s face. I can’t help it; suddenly the whole situation seems so absurd I have to laugh.

  I look up at the policeman and hope that my laughter will get him to see the humor in the situation, but he only looks self-consciously toward the police car. For some inexplicable reason this gesture provokes me even more, causing me to laugh even louder. I really try to subdue it, but before I can collect myself I double over in another uncontrollable laugh attack. My whole body cramps up in a convulsion of laughter and tears stream down my cheeks.

  The policeman says nothing, only hands me the Breathalyzer and clears his throat.

  I exhale red. Once. And once more.

  Curtain.

  I have to get out and follow the policeman to his car. I hope it’s not too obvious that I am swaying, but when I see the meaningful look the younger policeman gives his partner as we approach his car, my stomach knots up.

  There are two of them: a middle-aged, stocky man with reddish hair and a gap between his teeth, and the younger guy who is evidently called Amir. During the drive I desperately try to explain the seriousness of the situation: Aina’s accident, the call from the hospital, the head injury, the intensive care unit. There is something indescribably humiliating about all this, as if I were trying to cover my shameful behavior by presenting a long, drawn-out excuse that is as embarrassing for me as it is for them.

  They kindly explain that they can’t release me, or drive me to the hospital, but promise to call the hospital from the station. I give them Aina’s cell phone number, too.

  Five minutes later I am overwhelmed with dizziness and nausea. In the meantime my headache has grown into an intense pain that drums under my eyebrows like dull thunder and I can feel cold sweat gathering between my breasts and traveling down toward my belly in small rivulets.

  “Please stop…”

  My voice is a feeble whisper, but both policemen hear it and from experience stop by the side of the road.

  “Are you feeling sick? Do you have to throw up?”

  “No, no, of course not,” I say as I empty the contents of my stomach on the passenger seat.

  • • •

  When we arrive at the station, the redheaded policeman goes with me to a room that appears to be down in the basement. If he is upset or disgusted that I soiled his car, he doesn’t show it. He looks like he’s thinking about something completely different: dinner, the hockey game this weekend, or his ex-wife’s new boyfriend. I assume he encounters my type several times a week, and that this is not something he is going to think about when his shift is over. A routine case. A drunk broad who decided to drive into the city from Värmdö even though she should have known better. A traffic hazard, perhaps also a human tragedy—but who cares?

  I am instructed to blow a few more times into a larger Breathalyzer that is connected to a computer. Automatically, a form comes out with the evidence of my guilt.

  They received a tip, he told me. Someone had seen me drink and then get into the car and had called them. And no, he can’t tell me who it was. I wonder for a long time who it might be. There are no neighbors who live close enough to be able to see what I’m doing.

  Later, I am left to sit in something that I assume is a cell, a drunk tank. It is a degrading, bare little windowless room with a PVC-coated mattress and a floor drain in one corner. They explained that I have to sober up in jail in accordance with the law on the custody of intoxicated persons. A broken fluorescent ceiling light blinks constantly and contributes to my sense of degradation and humiliation.

  Without my being aware of it, tears start running down my cheeks. When did I lose control of my life? Here, at the police station? When I got into the car while intoxicated? When I chose to stay in my isolated house despite all my friends’ protests? When I started imagining things were happening at night? When Stefan died?

  How long have I been sitting here? Twenty minutes? An hour? I’ve lost all sense of time.

  Suddenly the door opens and I stand up. When I see who is standing outside I am filled with both joy and confusion. How is this possible?

  Aina looks completely healthy—there is no sign that she was just injured. She leans against the doorjamb, tilts her head to one side, and looks at me with an expression of concern.

  Stefan and I were married in December. It was a simple ceremony at City Hall, with our closest friends and relatives. Stefan’s mom and dad, my parents and sisters, Peppe and Malin, and their twins. Aina was there, of course, and Hanna, my oldest girlfriend, who lives in New York and works as a graphic designer. I remember that she was very pregna
nt at the time and constantly drying off the sweat from her red face with a flowery Marimekko scarf. Afterward we all went to the KB restaurant and had Christmas lunch. My off-white sixties-style woolen dress with oversized buttons from the thrift store fit snugly over my belly.

  But was it possible?

  Could I have been showing already?

  I was in my seventeenth week when we got married, and my slender body still concealed the pregnancy well. Only Stefan and I knew.

  Two weeks later, Stefan and I went to the maternity clinic in Gamla Stan to meet our midwife, Inger, and to undergo the mandatory ultrasound with one of the doctors.

  We expected images of the baby to put up on the refrigerator, nervous minutes until the doctor would declare that everything looked good, information about growth and expected date of delivery. But as I was lying there on the bed with cold jelly spread over my stomach, I could see the doctor’s worried expression. She didn’t say anything, only furrowed her brow a little, put her head to one side, and gave Stefan a quick glance. Did she know he was a doctor?

  I lay still and waited for her to find the missing finger, or suddenly see all the chambers of the heart clearly and declare that they looked fine. I let her move the transducer back and forth across my belly without my asking any questions or protesting; perhaps everything would be all right if I kept quiet and cooperated?

  “I see…” she began and then fell silent.

  “The fetus is normal-sized at this stage,” she continued carefully. “Here is the spine,” she indicated on the screen, and something that looked like a small string of pearls stood out white against the gray-black background. “Here is the pelvis.” She made a gesture toward something that did not resemble a body part, or anything else, for that matter, as she twisted the transducer a little and pressed it hard against the side of my belly.

  “Here is the bladder, there is fluid in it, which is normal, here are the kidneys…”

  I felt my growing impatience. Couldn’t she just say that everything was fine and spare us this uncertainty?

  “Is everything as it should be?” I interrupted her, trying to keep my voice steady and calm.

  She looked at me but did not answer immediately.

  “Here is the head,” she continued, and I could see a light-gray sphere outlined against the dark background on the screen.

  She was silent for a long time and seemed to observe the head from various angles.

  “I would like you to go to Stockholm South Hospital and do an extended ultrasound,” she said as she turned toward us, lifting the transducer from my belly and taking a piece of paper from the little steel table beside the bed. With slow movements, she started wiping the cold jelly from my belly with a rough, unbleached paper napkin.

  “What’s wrong?” Stefan suddenly sounded angry.

  “It’s not certain that there is anything wrong, but… there are parts of the brain that I can’t really see with my equipment.”

  The brain? I felt my eyes watering up. I don’t cry easily, but the tension during the ultrasound combined with my raging hormones caused the tears to flow down my cheeks in a torrential stream.

  The brain? Did our baby have a brain defect? Would it be handicapped? I thought about small children in wheelchairs, special transportation services, special schools, and apartments adapted for the disabled. I clenched my teeth so hard that I almost got a cramp and curled up into a little ball on the green plastic bed. Stefan leaned over me and whispered in my ear that everything would be fine.

  The very same day we got the results from the second ultrasound at Stockholm South Hospital. The doctor was a middle-aged Arab. He seemed tired and worn-out but was very friendly and took time to fully explain the situation to us in accented Swedish.

  “The fetus’s brain is not normally developed,” he said matter-of-factly. His gaze did not waver before our dismay and shock. We just sat there for a long time and let the words sink in.

  “It’s called anencephaly. The primary defect is actually absence of skull bone, which leads to the cerebral cortex not developing normally. With the ultrasound we can see the lack of a cranium and both hemispheres of the cerebrum.”

  Neither Stefan nor I could utter a word. We sat silently while the doctor carefully explained the significance of what he had just said.

  “With this type of defect, the fetus cannot develop normally, and even if it were to survive until birth, the child would die soon thereafter. I am truly sorry, but I recommend that you terminate the pregnancy as soon as possible. You can schedule an appointment this week.”

  I was confused. The whole situation was absurd. The terminology the doctor used felt as though it was created to serve as a buffer between us and the truth. The child I was carrying was a fetus. He did not want us to kill it, but the pregnancy should be terminated. After that, a normalization of my hormones would allow for a new conception within one to two months.

  That evening, Stefan and I quarreled for the first time in a long while.

  “But what if he’s wrong?” I cried. “What if the baby isn’t injured and we killed it?”

  “It’s not a baby, and you make it sound like a murder. We are terminating a pregnancy that can’t lead anywhere.” Stefan’s face was red with anger and something else.

  Something much more frightening.

  “But what if they are wrong? We have to… have to ask someone else to do an ultrasound. That’s the least you can ask before they kill—”

  “Shut up! No one is going to… kill anyone, okay? And… I saw it myself on the ultrasound.”

  “You’re an orthopedist, damn it. What the hell do you know about fetal diagnostics? Everything that’s not broken or twisted is… too…advanced for you.”

  “Even I could see that it didn’t have a brain. Don’t you get that, Siri? It doesn’t have a brain!” Stefan sank exhausted on the couch and buried his head in his hands. His breathing had gotten heavier and I could hear subdued, drawn-out sobs.

  I sat silently beside him, struck mute by my understanding at last of the term “anencephaly”: no brain.

  We requested another ultrasound before the abortion and got it without any questions. The previous diagnosis was confirmed by yet another understanding, amiable, but helpless doctor. “There’s nothing we can do in this kind of situation. You will be able to have a healthy baby later.” He was wrong, of course.

  Three days later the child was removed.

  Aina is in my arms, alive to the highest possible degree. Her hair tickles my cheek. Her scent in my nose is sweet like honey. Above us, the blinking broken fluorescent light continues to throb. I hold her hard, almost desperately, like a life buoy.

  “Aina…” My voice is a sob.

  “What is going on with you? Are you okay?” Aina inspects me in a way I don’t recognize; there’s something dark in her gaze, a hint of irritation. I press her to me without saying anything, while tears run down my cheeks.

  “What actually happened?” Aina asks, raising her eyebrows and squinting slightly.

  “I thought you were dying,” I squeak, taking hold of her arms, perhaps a trifle too brusquely because she backs off, pushes me away, friendly but determined.

  “Listen, the police told me. But… I didn’t have an accident. I was at yoga. I… really… don’t understand any of this.”

  “But they called…” My voice breaks.

  “Who called? Siri. Who?”

  Then I understand. Carefully, I try to formulate what I think I know.

  “Aina, someone lured me here. Someone is following me. Someone…”

  I don’t know what kind of reaction I had expected from her, but she just closes her eyes completely. As if to shut out the whole scene. She backs off a couple of steps and places her arms across her chest, indicating her distance.

  “Listen, Siri, you have to pull yourself together! I completely understand your making up a story for the police. But… don’t involve me in your drunken lies.”

&n
bsp; She pulls the door closed behind her and leaves.

  Leaves me alone with the shame.

  • • •

  As I sit abandoned in the bare cell, I begin to understand what must have happened. Someone was watching me outside my house. Someone was there a long time, sitting on the rocks, looking through my windows, watching me as I went swimming in the bay.

  He saw me looking for Ziggy in the woods, recognized my vulnerability. My drunkenness. Then this someone called, to lure me to the city. He knew I was going to take my car. Tipped off the police. And, most important of all, he must also be the one who sent me the photo and turned off the power. Maybe he also moved my flashlight that night. Now I am convinced that it’s not just a matter of isolated, innocent incidents.

  Someone out there in the darkness wishes me harm.

  It is an oppressive, dusty late-summer afternoon as I jog down the stairs from the office to make one of my mandatory visits to Systembolaget in Söderhallarna. It has become a bit of a ritual; Fridays mean wine shopping. I never buy more than one box at a time. Sometimes I supplement it with a few bottles of good wine, in case I need to treat myself during the coming week. You see, the bottles are a reward. What the box is I don’t really know. Calling it consolation would probably be a bit much; rather, it serves as a kind of cement, the very mortar that gets the days to stick together, regardless of how sharp and edgy they have been. It’s like everything is evened out, flows together. Nothing sticks out. Life itself becomes smooth, level, and easier to navigate.

  I would rather not think about the visit to the Värmdö jail. Not now. Instead, I think about the responsible use of alcohol, namely that it’s okay to have a glass of wine with dinner on a Saturday evening. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s completely adult behavior that I intend to adopt. Soon. Maybe this weekend.