Some Kind of Peace: A Novel

by Camilla Grebe

  Inside the café, a damp warmth strikes me. She is already waiting for me at the table in the back, by the window. Her cheeks are glowing red and I take a deep breath in her golden-yellow hair when we embrace. It smells of honey. Aina takes hold of my frozen hands and looks at me in mock horror.

  “You’re ice-cold! Don’t you have any mittens?”

  I shake my head and smile, as if mittens were a worldly problem that does not directly concern me.

  We’ve met to exchange Christmas presents, a tradition we have kept up for years. It’s never anything expensive, just small but thoughtful presents: a book, a CD that carries a certain meaning, or maybe a concert ticket.

  Aina twirls her honey-hair and hands me a small, hard package wrapped in what looks like green tinfoil. I accept it in silence. The package cannot be opened until tomorrow—that is our agreement. At exactly ten o’clock in the evening, we call each other and politely say thank you for the gift, whatever it may be.

  I hand her my present. It, too, is a hard package wrapped in colorful gift paper and a lilac ribbon. Aina looks delighted as she takes it. Her sweater has slipped down over one shoulder, revealing a red bra strap. She laughs out loud when she sees my critical look.

  “Don’t be such a prude, Siri. Maybe you need something a little revealing, too.”

  I don’t know if it’s the heat inside the café or her comment, or perhaps just that I cannot digest the fact that Sven and Aina had an affair, but suddenly I feel my face getting hot. I get up and free myself from the wet weight of my coat before I sink down again on the chair.

  “So how’s it going with Mr. Policeman?”

  I answer truthfully that it’s just fine, thanks, but that there are certain details in our relationship I have a hard time accepting.

  “I’m not comfortable with the role I’m stuck in. He’s the strong one and I’m the weak one; he’s the hero and I’m the victim. Whenever we get together, it ends with me starting to cry for one reason or other. And he consoles me, of course. And then I get angry with him, even though it’s not his fault. It’s so”—I search for the right word—“banal, you see? That’s not me, you know that, don’t you? Besides”—I hesitate—“sometimes I think he… takes me for granted. I mean, I don’t even know if I want to be with anyone. But he, he seems to think we’re a—”

  “A what?”

  “A… couple.” I purse my lips and my voice gets small as I say the dangerous words. I almost don’t want to say it.

  Aina shrugs. “Do you know what I think?”

  She licks the sugar residue from the giant pastry she had just eaten off her fingers.

  “Sure, spread your wisdom…”

  She doesn’t look at me directly, doesn’t pick up on my sarcasm, but I decide not to make a scene. Not this time, too. I already succeeded in ruining my last date with Markus before Christmas.

  “I think that you never, I mean never, would have been interested in him if he wasn’t a policeman and you a victim. I mean, good Lord, how old is he? Does he even have an education?”

  “What a damn snob you are. Does that even matter?”

  “Siri, I don’t think you get it. I only want what’s best for you. But you’re so… fragile. People can exploit you.”

  Damn Aina. Damn Aina and her well-intentioned, condescending interpretations of reality. Of my life. I look at her sitting there with her eyes wide open and a worried expression. She senses my indignation and tries to lighten the mood.

  “Oh, if you want to have fun… I mean, I won’t prevent you. Go ahead and see inspector… baton. Inspector Orgasm.”

  Aina grins.

  I can’t help it. Suddenly I have a giggle attack that just won’t end. We double over with laughter.

  • • •

  Our good-bye hug is warm and long. Once again, I take in the sweet honey aroma of her hair. I get sugar crystals on my cheek. Her hands are strong and warm as she grasps me around the shoulders and looks me deep in the eyes.

  “So we’ll talk tomorrow at ten. Promise that you’ll come over if you’re bored. You’re welcome anytime, you know that. I don’t get why you want to celebrate Christmas Eve in a studio on Kungsholmen.”

  This last sentence she says in a mumble, almost inaudibly. I watch her as she disappears down Götgatsbacken in the twilight. She alternately jumps and jogs off into the darkness, a grown-up Pippi Longstocking in a red bra.

  The last thing I see is her bright red scarf and red mittens that are eventually also swallowed up by the darkness. It’s time to go home now. Soon it will be dark.

  Much too dark.

  Markus’s phone call comes right before midnight. I am lying in bed, reading. Every corner of the apartment is lit up and the flashlight on my nightstand is surrounded by empty wineglasses.

  “We’ve arrested him. It’s over, Siri.”

  “What?” is all I can get out.

  “They brought in Peter Carlsson today. Do you know what they found on his coffee table?”

  “What are you talking about? The police arrested Peter?”

  It’s as if my thoughts are on fast-forward. I have a hard time understanding what Markus is trying to tell me. Slowly I manage to put the words together. Formulate a sentence. The police have arrested Peter.

  “The photo, the photo of Sara Matteus. You know, the one you found with Marianne? It was at Peter’s, or more precisely, a similar one was on his coffee table.”

  “What photo?”

  “Siri, the photo of Sara on the rock. You know, when she was topless.”

  The photo of Sara. I think of her eyes in that picture. Her vulnerability. Anger boils inside me. Anger and sorrow over Sara’s death.

  “Do you know for sure that it’s him?”

  Markus sounds calm and reassuring when he answers. “Why else would he have the photo?”

  “I don’t know. What has he said?”

  “He claims he doesn’t know how it got there, that it wasn’t there in the morning. Does he really think we’ll believe him? There were more things, too. They found a book about how to stuff animals up on his bookshelf. A little hard to explain, that. And a lot of links to sick websites about serial killers and torture on his computer. Besides, he has a prior record, for possession, five years ago.”

  “Narcotics possession? But what does that have to do with this?”

  “Listen, Siri, I’ve seen this so many times before. It all begins with finding one thing that doesn’t add up. A white lie, a note on his criminal record. Then you start to unravel and it never ends. Besides, he fell apart immediately, he said that he was a bad person and a bunch of other crap.”

  “What exactly did he say?”

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t there, of course. I was… taken off the case. This is what I heard. I thought you’d want to know right away. Thought you would have a more peaceful Christmas.”

  I still don’t fully understand everything Markus is saying. Images of Sara, curled up in my chair with a cigarette in her hand, come to me. But there’s also the image of a shapeless stranger who is chasing me. Observing me. Who wishes me harm. An image that suddenly has a face: Peter Carlsson. I am not prepared for my own reaction. Don’t understand at first what is happening. I have a hard time getting air. I take a deep breath. Then comes a sound. I know that it is coming from me, but I can’t seem to do anything to stop it. It starts as a muffled moan and then turns into loud sobbing. It is as if I am watching myself from outside. I see the weeping, hear the loud sniffling. But I feel nothing at first. Then an almost unfamiliar feeling spreads inside me.

  It is relief.

  I have made a decision: I will celebrate Christmas in my own house. The logic is simple. Peter Carlsson is sitting in a cell somewhere and no one requires my presence today.

  My gloveless, frozen fingers suffer under the weight of the grocery bag I am carrying along Munkbron toward Slussen and the Värmdö buses. The low morning sun paints Stockholm in a light golden shimmer and the snow crunches
under my boots. It is cold today, really cold. This morning, the thermometer outside my kitchen showed five degrees.

  Bus 438 is full to the brim of families with children and grandparents celebrating Christmas. Bags full of gifts are crammed into every conceivable corner, bags that will be taken home in a few hours, full of crap that no one really needs. In my bag, there is only one gift; flashing green, it rests like a jewel on top of a hunk of cheese and a pack of crackers.

  I think about Peter Carlsson all the time. It’s impossible to see through a person. You can’t tell from the outside whether someone has performed evil actions or had evil thoughts. If a person has decided to conceal or withhold parts of himself, it is extremely difficult to see through the lies and discover the omitted truth. I’m a psychologist, not a mind reader. I remember Vijay’s words: “You can’t know, Siri. It is impossible for you to know for sure.” Once Peter Carlsson decided to trick me, there was nothing to prevent him from succeeding.

  I shake my head and shudder slightly, despite the oppressive heat on the bus. Maybe I can spend the evening looking through the video recordings of my conversations with him. All the tapes are still locked up in my safe out in the cottage. Maybe if I see them again I will understand. Understand evil.

  As I walk from the bus to the cottage, my thin, worn boots sink down through the snow crust, wetting my ankles. The sun is shining through the pine and spruce, and I can see that the path ahead of me is pristine. Surrounded by the sounds of the forest and with my nose filled by the cold, odorless air, I stop for a second when I catch sight of the cottage and the water in the bay, which is covered by ice and snow. This is something I had never seen before at this time of year.

  The house is resting peacefully between the snow-covered rocks. Not a movement is visible. No tracks in the snow to give away the animals’ secret trails.

  When I come up to the door, I have to try several times before the key finally slides into the old-fashioned lock. My frozen fingers are that stiff.

  Inside, the air is lukewarm and dense with dust and humidity. I set the supermarket bag down on the floor and go from room to room, turning on the radiators and checking that all the lights work.

  In the kitchen, the fridge and freezer are on, but moldy vegetables and spoiled milk betray my hasty departure. I pour out the gelatinous clump of milk in the sink and slowly start emptying the fridge of its contents. I lift up a bottle of Amarone from the bottom shelf in the kitchen. I want to indulge myself with something more than the usual red from a box. It is Christmas Eve, after all. It is Christmas Eve and I am at home in my cottage. The relief of returning is almost physical. My body feels light and warm. I realize how much I missed my home. It is paradoxical that I can feel so safe here, when everyone else perceives me as so vulnerable. Perhaps it is Stefan. He is in all the rooms in the house, tangibly present in the gently sanded moldings and carefully painted walls. I find a glass and a corkscrew and serve myself the strong red wine, raise the glass toward my reflection in the windowpane, and take a sip. A delicious, smooth warmth spreads in my body like rings on water.

  I am home.

  Wineglass in hand, I take out my cell phone and start making the calls that are expected of me. I talk with my sisters, their children, and Mom and Dad, wish them all a merry Christmas, explain again that Aina would be all alone if I didn’t spend Christmas with her. I don’t have a bad conscience about lying to my parents. They never understood my need for solitude, much less now. I think about how easy it is for me to get them to believe me, as if they desperately want what I say to be true. They say that of course Aina is welcome at their home in Huddinge, but I am quick to explain that Aina probably needs a little peace and quiet right now. Christmas can be a difficult time if you’re at odds with those close to you, a sentiment my mom agrees with. She wishes us a pleasant Christmas Eve, reminds me to watch the classic Christmas cartoons on TV, and says good-bye. I can sense that Mom is grateful that Aina is with me and suspect that she really thinks I’m the one who needs calm, peace, and human closeness of the unconditional variety. My thoughts from the bus return—about how hard it is to see through someone who doesn’t want to be exposed. I pour myself another glass of wine and cut a thick slice of cheese. It’s time to look at the videos.

  Peter’s face fills the screen before me. Nervous and unhappy, he glances across the table toward me, my back to the camera. Dark-gray suit, blue-striped tie, nothing that sticks out, only well-tailored elegance from head to toe. For a second, he looks right into the camera and the look in his eyes resembles that of a wild animal. There is something there that makes me think he wants to escape from the office, tear off his suit, throw away the blue-striped tie, and take to the woods. I press Pause and think a little about my own initial reaction to the news. Maybe it is due to the contrast between his well-groomed, civilized exterior and his words, which reflect another side of him, a side that is about impulse and compulsion, that reeks of sweat and animals.

  “I get thoughts, images inside my head. And they scare me.”

  “Can you describe these thoughts?”

  “It’s… so hard.”

  I stop the tape again and Peter’s body freezes in a peculiar position, half turned away, half leaning forward with both hands in front of his face. He is desperate and disconsolate. He feels completely alone and exposed in my green consultation room with its bland paintings and the little table where I sit, almost like a life buoy with the box of Kleenex available for meek consolation.

  You have to trust your own eyes, your intuition, and your combined experience, Stefan always said, and he was a brilliant clinician. If I were to dare trust my own senses, they would tell me that Peter Carlsson could not have killed Sara, that he could not have injured Marianne or staged a plot against me. Peter is not a murderer; he is only an ordinary half-nutty, neurotic person. He is one of the many who have to gather courage to hold their lives together, to give structure to their days and nights. One of the many helpless people who have to take life one moment at a time and, in that way, force time to move ahead and give it a direction. Someone like me.

  I close my eyes and run my hand across the videotapes that are spread out on the floor beside me. Here they are, all the compulsive thoughts, all the anxiety, all the tears. Here is Sara’s slender body dressed in black, her scarred arms, green nails, and signature cigarette. Here is Charlotte’s pearl necklace and dress suits, and her well-articulated, patient answers to my intrusive questions. Here is the man with big muscles and a beard who drives a Harley-Davidson but is afraid of ants (“and other small creatures with a lot of spindly legs”). Here is the mother who hid all the knives and scissors in the garden shed, because she had compulsive thoughts about cutting her son’s eyes. Here is the corporate executive who was compelled to count to a hundred every time he went up a staircase, who always went sideways through doors and needed to park his car in a spot whose number was evenly divisible by three. All these people—no stranger than me, not crazy or evil—just trying to hold the seams together around their inner abyss. People who cautiously maneuver around catastrophe every day.

  I prepare my Christmas dinner carefully. I turn on the oven, cut bread into thin slices to cover with chèvre and honey, take out the store-bought dolmas and the hummus. I turn on the CD player and let the music of Belle & Sebastian fill my cottage. Outside, it is starting to get dark. The bay is sleeping under its shimmering deep blanket of snow. The pines around the rocks are a black outline against the darkening sky. I am glad I came out here.

  I don’t belong in the city.

  By the time the velvety darkness of Christmas Eve completely envelops my cottage, I have long turned on every lamp, lit up every corner, and filled the table with candles. I lie on my bed and look at the black windows, which reflect the contours of the room like a mirror. The flashlight is in my hand. The wine has made me sleepy. I close my eyes and let my body release.

  I dream that I am celebrating Christmas with Stefan. The fl
oor is covered with packages of various sizes and colors. Stefan is busy in the kitchen and I arrange the packages in a long row. A colorful snake of presents winds from the living room all the way into the bedroom. I can clearly smell the aroma of the ham that Stefan is baking in the oven from the bedroom, as I bend over the row of presents. When I open my eyes, the scent of ham remains, and I can hear a faint scraping sound from the kitchen.

  At once, I know that something is wrong, but I have a hard time working up the usual fear. The whole thing is too absurd. Has someone come to cook ham for me in the middle of the night?

  I fumble for my cell phone to check the time but notice that it is out of power. Slowly, I get up on unsteady legs, still a little tipsy, and go out to the kitchen.

  I am so taken aback by the golden-brown ham baking in the oven that I don’t see him at first.

  “Hi, Siri.”

  There he stands, leaning against the window in a relaxed, laid-back pose that makes his gangly body look even taller than it is. He is the same as always: the reddish-brown hair, the regular features, the slender body. His mouth is broad and he smiles a little, stroking his goatee lightly as he inspects me.

  It’s Christer. Marianne’s Christer.

  “Take a seat! I’ve made dinner.”

  His tone is neutral and friendly, but I don’t dare say no. Slowly, I walk over to the kitchen table on legs that struggle to support me and sink down on one of the gray wood chairs. I glance at the wall clock: one thirty.

  “I thought about making some meatballs, too. They seem to fit. But I have to admit I’m not big on cooking, so I bought some at the store.”

  Christer smiles at me and goes to the stove and busies himself with the meatballs and something else I can’t recognize. My insides are in turmoil—what does he want from me? In the middle of the night.

  Christmas Eve night.

  An unpleasant feeling is growing stronger and soon becomes a certainty. Something is terribly wrong with Christer. I should—no, I must—get out of here before… well, before what?