“Sven, do you have a moment?”
Sven swings around on his chair, and from his eyes I can tell that he is surprised; perhaps my presence frightens him.
“Of course, sit down.”
He makes a gesture toward the visitor’s chair, which is full of papers and folders. For a minute I lose patience with him and his mess. Maybe Marianne had nothing against picking up after him, but neither Aina nor I have any intention of doing it.
“And where is it exactly you suggest I sit?”
It wasn’t my purpose, but I can hear the harshness and sarcasm in my voice. Sven leaps up out of the chair.
“I’m so sorry.”
As he clears the folders and papers, I notice that his hands are shaking. Some sheets of paper fly to the floor and end up under the bookshelf. Finally he seems to give up. He places all the papers in a big pile on the floor, sinks down in his chair, and takes out cigarettes. It occurs to me that I actually prefer them to his pipe. I sit across from him and look directly at him. How can it be possible? Self-assured, shrewd Sven reduced to a chain-smoking bundle of nerves.
“We have to talk,” I say.
“I suppose we do.”
“Sven,” I begin hesitantly, “you are one of a few people who had access to Charlotte’s address, Sara’s case records—”
Sven interrupts me with a desperate tone of voice. I notice that his hands, yellow from the nicotine, are still shaking as he speaks.
“Siri, you have to trust me. I absolutely did not sneak into your garden at night, I didn’t send a letter to Charlotte Mimer or… or kill Sara Matteus. How can you even think… I can understand… I can understand how it might look from the outside, but good Lord, how long have we known each other? Do you seriously think I’m involved in… in all this?”
I sigh heavily and look up at Sven. Fear fills his eyes as he looks at me across his small desk.
“No, I can’t seriously believe you are involved. Or rather, I don’t know what to believe anymore. Can you please explain one thing to me, Sven: How come your handwriting was in Sara’s case files? Which were in Marianne’s kitchen to boot?”
Sven furrows his brow and hesitates for a moment.
“I borrowed Sara’s file a couple of months ago. I wanted to use it for that article I’m working on, you know, the one about self-injuring behavior in young women. I made copies of a few pages and, sure, I made notes on them. There’s nothing strange about that. Or is there? What I don’t understand is how my papers ended up at Marianne’s.”
“And the photo?”
Sven shakes his head and suddenly looks profoundly sad.
“I had never seen it before the police showed it to me. There was something terribly sad about that picture. Don’t you think?”
He shrugs, as if to underline that he really has nothing to do with it.
“You have to believe me, Siri. I don’t know what else to say. My life has become hell. The police have interrogated me and my wife. They’ve called my friends to ask them what kind of person I am. I can tell from their eyes that they think I’m lying. What do you do when someone has decided you’re a liar? How do you convince them you’re innocent? Where do you turn when you run out of arguments? How can I convince you?”
“By being honest.”
“I am being honest.”
“Where were you when Sara died? Birgitta said you weren’t at home.”
Sven sighs deeply and buries his head in his hands, mumbling something at the floor.
“At home. I was at home. With Birgitta.”
“But…?”
“I don’t know!”
Sven suddenly leaps up from his chair and starts pacing back and forth nervously across the room, the lit cigarette still in his hand. He looks at me with a resigned, almost desperate expression. His eyes wide, his gaze fixed on me the entire time. His whole body is quivering with nervous energy and I can see patches of sweat spreading under his armpits.
“I don’t know why. I can’t understand it. Why she won’t give me an alibi. She’s lying to the police. Why, Siri? Why? Can you give me a single reason?”
I think I can, easily, but I say nothing. Instead, I observe Sven in silence.
“Twenty-three years. My goodness, we’ve been married for twenty-three years. And then she does this. I don’t understand it.”
“You don’t suppose maybe Birgitta could be upset about your… affairs with other women,” I attempt.
Sven looks at me with something like fury in his eyes. He is almost screaming, and small drops of saliva are hitting me in the face as he leans forward.
“Damn it, Siri. That has nothing to do with you. There must be some things that can remain private in this awful story. It has nothing to do with you. It’s private.”
Sven straightens up and remains standing a few feet away from me. He seems calmer now that he’s been able to take out his anger on me. He still has a little self-esteem left.
Integrity.
And, of course, he’s right, I have nothing to do with his affairs. Without saying a word, he puts out the cigarette in an apple core, grabs his corduroy jacket, and leaves the room.
I didn’t expect it to be so heavy.
After I finally caught and killed the little runaway dog outside her house, I carefully wrapped both the man and the dog in the black plastic bags I always have on hand. The bags weren’t long enough to cover the whole body, not even when I forced it into a fetal position, so I had to overlap the bags. I slipped two over the man’s head, which reached his hips, and slipped two more bags over his feet and legs. That covered him up to the waist. The dog had to lie by his feet. There was more room down there. Then I sealed the package with many rounds of light-brown packing tape—at the seam and around the waist, throat, and ankles.
The plan was simple.
Now I only needed to drag the package a few hundred yards along the trail to the small natural harbor where a few small boats are moored by the abandoned pier. I would row out and dump the body, wrapped in an anchor chain, at a safe distance from the shore. But I had underestimated the exertion that was required to pull a grown man so far. Several times, I sank down to my knees from exhaustion, a claustrophobic feeling welling in my chest. This always happens when my air passages tighten and refuse to let air pass. I breathed in puffs from my inhaler and worried that, for the first time, everything had not gone as planned.
I had made a mistake and risked everything.
It’s a good year for mushrooms. All through the fall, the forest around my cottage has been filled with brown, stately porcini, slippery Jacks, and orange birch boletes that looked like spilled oranges in the hair-cap moss under the clothesline.
I am sitting on the wooden step outside my French windows with a basket between my knees, cleaning chanterelles. Aina is standing in front of the shed, chopping wood. She has taken off her thick sweater and through her thin cotton top I can see her sinewy, muscular body and large breasts as she cuts the damp wood with powerful, exact movements. I never would have thought that Aina could chop wood, but once again she surprised me. As if she could hear what I was thinking, she grins broadly and puts the ax down in the grass next to the woodpile, dries the sweat from her forehead, and walks over to me. I tell her she should put the ax in the shed, but Aina only smiles.
“I’ll do it later, princess.”
I tell her that I would rather she did it right away because I know that otherwise it won’t happen at all. But Aina only shrugs and smiles.
“I promise to do it, but first I want to go for a swim.”
She pulls off her top, trousers, and panties, throws them in the grass beside me and runs toward the rocks. Reluctantly, I set aside the mushrooms and follow her to the water. A swim doesn’t appeal to me today. The temperature has fallen well below fifty, the sky is solid gray, and a northerly wind rushes over the sea, adorning the waves with small, white, foaming crests. But after standing there on the rocks, looking out over the dark water,
watching the yellow-brown kelp and the fall leaves that have gathered in the water, and hearing the gulls circling curiously above us, I slowly undress and move carefully to the far end of the rock ledge.
Aina lets out a howl as she throws herself from the rocks down into the ice-cold water, making me wince. We hardly spoke to each other today. We’ve let the silence fill the morning, the forest’s sounds speak for us: the persistent knocking of the woodpecker for larvae in the bark of a tall spruce, the branches snapping under our rubber boots, and the buzzing of insects impossible to see with the naked eye.
Aina lands with a terrific splash several yards below, producing a cascade of small, painfully cold water drops that reach my frozen feet. I hesitate a few seconds and then dive in.
Frigid water surrounds my body as I quickly swim across the small bay toward the pier, grasp the rotting wood—slippery and smooth from seaweed and water plants—and catch my breath. My fingers, stiff with cold, lose their grip and I swim in toward shore, toward the warmth of the cottage and Aina, who is already waiting, wrapped up in the plaid blanket.
Afterward, we eat thick slices of rye bread with chanterelles sautéed in butter and drink hot chocolate. Once again, I remind Aina about carrying the wood into the shed and putting away the ax, but she just squirms and mumbles something about doing it later.
Outside my cottage, twilight is falling over the sea as the wind picks up.
NOVEMBER
We are sitting in my living room, Aina, Vijay, and I. It’s dark outside, and one of the first real fall storms rages over Stockholm. Branches whip against the window in my bedroom. I’ve lit the small cast-iron stove in a corner of the living room. Three moving boxes sit in front of the windows, packed with the bare essentials. I have finally given up and am trying to find a temporary place to live until Sara’s murderer is arrested.
My friends are pleased with my decision. I, on the other hand, feel a little like a child who has unwillingly capitulated to her parents’ unremitting arguments. There is a part of me that wants to rebel against all this. Against everyone who thinks that I am the one who should change my life. Against the faceless man who has finally succeeded in getting me out of here.
We are giggling, eating popcorn and mezze that I bought at Söderhallarna, and drinking red wine. Since I have guests, I bought several bottles of really good Chianti. Everything is laid out on the rug. But there is a serious undertone to the apparent cheerfulness. We are meeting to talk about what happened, because we hope that Vijay will be able to help us.
Aina lights a cigarette. I can tell she is tipsy, both by the way she is moving and the fact that she is smoking.
“So, Vijay, what do we know about this guy?” asks Aina, drawing on her cigarette.
“We have to distinguish between what we know and what we believe… What we know is that the murderer has detailed knowledge of your office and your patients, and he knows where you live, Siri. And where Charlotte Mimer lives. What we believe is that he is a middle-aged man, that he is the same person as Sara’s boyfriend, that he is mentally disturbed and for some reason wants to harm you. Further, we think he had some kind of father-daughter relationship to Sara, or wanted to, that he has a daughter of his own who in some way reminded him of Sara. He is intelligent, well-spoken, and organized. Also… Marianne was probably on his trail and maybe he was the one who made sure she couldn’t tell you what she knew.”
“A coldhearted bastard, you had said, Vijay. Do you remember?”
“Hmm, he sees all of us as pawns in his game. He sacrificed Sara to get at you, Siri.”
Vijay stops talking, and we remain sitting silently on the rug in the living room. I can hear the waves breaking against the cliffs outside and the wind rushing over the islands. The storm is here, I think. I close my eyes for a moment and then ask the question that has bothered me for a long time.
“An evil person? Is that what he is?”
I look searchingly at Vijay.
“I don’t believe such a thing exists. Evil people, that is. I think there are evil actions, carried out by broken people. And I think he’s broken, that he suffers.”
“So you think it’s forgivable, that he killed an innocent person like Sara?”
“That’s not what I said. I only said that I don’t think anyone is born evil.”
“Can’t you become evil?”
“You can become the sort of person who commits evil actions.”
“And even then, you’re still not evil?”
“Not necessarily. Uh, listen, you can ask a priest about that, or maybe a philosopher. I’m a scientist.”
Vijay takes out his tobacco, starts rolling himself a cigarette, and continues.
“Let me try to explain what I mean. Let’s say we have an individual with really lousy prospects for the future. Do you know the theories about the possible consequences of injuries to the brain’s frontal lobe?”
Aina and I both nod. The frontal lobe is a sensitive area, considered by many researchers to be the center of what in layman’s terms we call ethics and morality.
“Let’s assume that such an individual is subjected to a disadvantaged upbringing, without opportunities to create strong, lasting bonds with his parents, perhaps in combination with abuse, sexual or some other kind. The risk is that this person will develop what we usually call antisocial personality disorder. It’s often already noticeable in childhood. Bed-wetting, cruelty to animals, and pyromania are usually clear, early signs. That’s not to say that bed wetters or people who are cruel to animals are psychopaths, far from it. But some of them are. I wouldn’t want to say that those individuals are evil people. I mean, evil implies they’ve made some kind of active choice, doesn’t it? Chosen to be evil.”
“But you think this is that kind of… injured individual?”
“Yes, absolutely.”
“There’s something I’ve been wondering about. Could it be a woman?”
Vijay twirls the wineglass between his fingers and takes a sip.
“In theory, yes. But in practice it’s not very likely. Almost all these kinds of criminals are men. Why? Were you thinking of someone in particular?”
I shake my head. “No, but think about what happened last week. You know, when I saw someone outside my window and then found that puddle of blood. Do you think it was him, and in that case, what could have been his objective?”
Vijay takes a grape-leaf dolma and stuffs the whole thing in his mouth.
“Hmm, yes, I think it was him. What kind of blood was it, by the way? Did they figure it out yet?”
“A dog’s. Markus thinks it must have been a dog that got hit by a car, lost its way, and ended up on my property. But… it’s pretty damn far to the nearest road.”
“Hmm.” Vijay scratches his mustache and looks at Aina, who in the meantime has curled up on the couch and fallen asleep. “Hmm,” he repeats, “I think it was him. I really think so.”
“Why?”
“I can’t really say. It’s just… too much of a coincidence. I don’t believe in chance. Not in this case. Maybe he wanted to scare you?”
“That may be it. So what do you think I should do?”
“Exactly what you’re doing. Move. Stop thinking about him and let the police do their job.”
“I just have to find somewhere to live…”
“Siri, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Move in with your parents, or with Aina. You can’t hang around here waiting to find the perfect apartment. Hello, this is Stockholm. I don’t like the idea of your living out here all by yourself. Let’s find this sick guy first.”
Vijay’s dark gaze holds mine.
“I mean it, Siri.”
I nod, and the cold, clammy feeling I’ve come to know so well spreads inside me. My life: a constant struggle to overcome fear, to retain some kind of normalcy.
“Cheers!” I say, raising my wineglass to Vijay.
• • •
Later, I am on my knees in fron
t of the toilet, vomiting what looks like raspberries—a disgusting mixture of red wine and popcorn. I don’t know if it’s the alcohol or the fear that is making me sick.
I wipe the sweat from my forehead. My hand is shaking so violently that I can hardly guide my movements. I realize that my life is no longer mine alone.
It is morning. A raw, cold, gray-blue November morning. Dark violet clouds are gathering on the horizon, but the wind has died down. Yellow and rust-brown leaves from the rosebushes and apple trees cover the little overgrown patch of grass that separates my cottage from the cliffs. Vijay is still sleeping on the couch and Aina in my bed. I can hear her muffled snoring.
I have wrapped myself in an orange wool blanket to keep the cold out. I walk slowly over to the window. My head aches a little, but I know I have only myself to blame. The remnants of our dinner are on the floor: popcorn, hummus, avocado halves, a few half-eaten dolmas, and cigarette butts. A little red wine has spilled and left a purplish stain on the wood floor to the right of the rug. Everything is quiet. I look down at my watch: quarter past nine.
When I open the door to the patio, the cold air rushes toward me, making its way relentlessly to my skin. I wrap the blanket around me tighter and go out to sit on the steps.
On the hill above Lasse’s Ass, I see a group of large black crows. It looks like they are squabbling about something edible in the bushes, but it’s impossible to see what it might be. I get up and go toward the rock. The grass is damp and cold under my feet. I can feel, more than see, that there was a frost during the night. There is a kind of stiffness in the blades of grass, a crunching that hints at the approaching winter.
By the time I arrive up on the rock, the birds have flown away. Everything seems to be in perfect order. The sea is lead gray, heavy, and calm at my feet. The bare branches of the trees are outlined starkly against the sky. Slowly, I fold up the blanket and set it on the rock, take off my panties and T-shirt, and with small, hesitant steps walk the last bit out onto the ledge. There, on the cold rock, where the yellow-green lichen spreads out below my feet, peace finally comes over me again. On the surface, yellow leaves are floating in the foamy water. After a few seconds’ hesitation, I dive in and swim with regular movements out toward my little crooked black pier.
Some Kind of Peace: A Novel Page 20
