“I’m sorry.”
I look up at Christer, try to catch his eyes.
“It was unforgivable of me to say that. Of course it wasn’t your fault that Jenny died.”
Christer raises his head to look at me. His eyes are red rimmed, and snot and tears are mixed on his unshaven cheeks. He looks doubtful. Skeptical, but at the same time desperate enough to choose to take what little consolation I can offer.
Absolution.
“When Stefan, my husband, died, I became empty. I couldn’t believe that he was gone. I still can’t believe it. I can’t accept it. I often think he’s still here. That he is right behind me. I console myself with the illusion that he’s just out shopping, or at work, or taking his car to the garage. I simply can’t understand that I will never get to be with him again. I see him sometimes, at a distance. Glimpse him on the bus, or in the crowds on Götgatan. Sometimes when I wake up I can feel his warmth in the bed, and for a brief moment I feel his body next to mine. Then I remember the truth and he disappears, the warmth disappears.”
Christer nods. He knows what I mean. Suddenly we are united, two grieving, solitary people, left behind.
“Jenny, she was my child, do you understand? My child. She changed so much in my life. Before Jenny, life was meaningless. She gave me meaning and warmth and a faith that some of the little that was good in me would endure. After her, after Jenny, life was less than meaningless. Nothing was left. Nothing is left. Until I started following you, Siri. You actually gave me meaning again. The idea that you would have to pay for Jenny gave me purpose. Peace.”
We are both silent. United in a sudden, involuntary intimacy, his hands around my arms, like a lover. From the kitchen, I can hear the ticking of the clock, and the odor of burnt ham encircles us.
“Tell me about Jenny. What was she like?”
My question comes spontaneously. I had seen Jenny only as a patient, sitting in the visitor’s chair, drumming her long slender fingers. I wonder who she was as a child, the two-year-old, the schoolgirl, the teenager.
“Jenny was—”
Christer hesitates, thinks for a moment and seems to wonder what words he should use.
“Jenny was different. She wasn’t like the other kids in school. She was raw, vulnerable. She cared about everyone—I guess you would call her empathetic. I remember she cried when she watched cartoons when she was little. It was that show, what’s it called, with the cat and mouse. First she felt sorry for the mouse that was chased, then she felt sorry for the cat that got a beating. When her guinea pig died, she cried for weeks and wouldn’t get out of bed.”
Again he seems to think, as he conjures up the image of his dead daughter.
“She was worried about me and Katarina, that something would happen to us, that we would be in a car accident or get sick. She wanted to keep us from driving. In school, the other kids quickly discovered that she was easily frightened and anxious.”
He shakes his head and closes his eyes. For a moment he seems to be overwhelmed by painful memories.
“They tormented her, you know. Those stupid brats scared her, teased her. She was different and she wasn’t allowed to be. But I showed them what was what. I invited the kids over for Jenny’s birthday, and their parents made sure that they came. Those ass kissers wanted to stay on our good side. Katarina played games with them. Jenny was happy, suddenly all these children were nice to her. Her antagonists became friends, for a little while.”
I am listening, fascinated; it’s as if Christer is filling in the gaps I have in my image of Jenny. I see satisfaction in his face and wonder what will come next.
“Then Jenny fell down and hurt herself. Katarina went off with her, to put on a bandage and console her. I was alone with the kids. At that time I hunted, everything imaginable: small game, moose… whatever. I took out one of my hunting rifles and showed them. I loaded it, opened the window, and shot at one of our apple trees. A whole branch came loose. The kids just gaped; they thought it was great, of course. Then I told them that the same thing would happen to their little brains if they ever bothered Jenny again. They would be shot to pieces. And I let them understand that it was best if they kept quiet about this, so their parents wouldn’t know what their little angels were up to. Then Katarina came back—she had heard the shot and wondered what the hell I was up to. I told her I was only showing the kids my rifle and she said I was out of my mind before taking it and putting it back in the gun cabinet. We never talked about it again. But after that, Jenny was left alone. She was lonely, but they stopped tormenting her. Some of the girls even tried to be nice.”
He shakes his head, as if the knowledge of how wicked small children can be to each other is too much for him.
“She was talented, too. Musical. She played piano and violin even when she was really little. And she was so loving, but vulnerable. I tried to protect her, you know.”
He looks intensely into my eyes again. “I really tried to protect her, you understand?”
I nod slowly. I think I understand.
“Christer, I think Jenny really wanted to die.”
He looks at me without an expression.
“Jenny was one of the most unhappy people I’ve ever met. It was as if all her emotions were heightened, amplified. As if she was living inside them, instead of the other way around. She felt so much pain. She would sit in my chair and shake with anxiety. And I felt so hopeless. I truly wanted to help her. I wanted her to make it, to step outside and be like everyone else, enjoy life and laugh. Perhaps get a boyfriend. Simply be a young girl. You know…”
Christer nods. He still says nothing, but his breathing is becoming more and more labored. That faint whistling sound with each exhalation.
“She had tried everything, all the medications on the market, all the therapists, hospitals, treatment homes. Nothing could ease the anxiety and the pain. Nothing helped. She didn’t want to live any longer. At the beginning, I blamed myself, but I slowly came to realize that none of us can stop a person who has already decided.”
Words fall out of me like stones. And the cramp in my abdomen suddenly relaxes a little, as if it actually is a physical burden I am ridding myself of.
Christer still says nothing, only observes me, his face close to mine. The warm light from my bed lamp with the yellow shade makes his already reddish skin glow.
“When… does it… go away?” he whispers, noticeably struggling with his asthma.
“I don’t know,” is all I get out.
The weight of Christer’s body has made my legs fall asleep and my arms ache.
“I don’t know when it goes away, but I do know one thing: You blame yourself, you feel guilt. Unnecessarily. When Stefan died, I also thought that it was my fault, that I should have been able to prevent it. But you can’t stop someone who has decided.”
Suddenly, I notice that Christer’s facial expression has changed and I realize that I’ve forgotten that the man I am talking to is a murderer. Someone who doesn’t think and function like me. Someone who actually has decided—to kill me.
For a brief moment I thought we could connect, but now I understand that I’ve made a mistake. He looks at me with his blank, dead eyes.
“I. Feel. No. Guilt.” He pronounces each word with difficulty.
“I feel. No guilt. Because the guilt. Is not mine. You. Killed her.”
And suddenly I know that it is meaningless to try to make Christer see reason. It’s like walking round and round on very thin, brittle spring ice, knowing the whole time that it is going to break. Sooner or later I will say something that provokes him and he will decide that the game, our little conversation, is over. That it is time for me to die.
I must get away from here now. It is my last chance.
And just then he moves his weight away from me for an instant, and I tear myself loose from his gangly but strong body and run out of the bedroom on my numb legs. I have only one alternative—I look toward the dark window and the dens
e darkness beyond the pane—I must go outside, into the darkness.
I can hear his yelling behind me as I fumble with the lock to open the front door. It slides up with a click, and the black, cold, dense night air immediately envelops me. Even though I am literally being hunted by a crazed murderer, I hesitate instinctively for a fraction of a second before I rush out into the darkness; my life is being threatened and still I am considering staying in the lit corridor of the cottage—my fear of the dark is that strong.
I run toward the pier in stockinged feet. I search in vain for footing on the ground. The cold bites into my skin and I slip again and again before I reach the shed.
He has caught up with me.
His hand grabs my arm, and with a yell he throws me back toward the cottage, heaves my whole body against the red wall. I can feel myself break, something in my jaw gives way and my mouth is filled with gravel and blood. He presses one knee down between my shoulder blades, takes hold of my hair, and starts banging my hand against the wall, over and over again. Blood is running from my mouth. It trickles down into the snow and forms a red pool that grows alarmingly fast. I see that what I thought was gravel in my mouth is actually teeth.
My teeth.
And the whole time, Christer is emitting a howling sound, uttering a bestial roar that sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before. Then suddenly he stops and I can hear it again, that whistling, hissing. He falls to his knees and supports himself with his hands in the snow, all while his cramped air passages give off rattling sounds. He falls to his side, against the pile of wood that should have been chopped before the snow came.
And then I feel it there in my hand, the ax that Aina left by the woodpile in the fall, the one she never got around to putting back in the shed. It is frozen solid in the ground and covered with snow. With strength I did not know I had, I manage to tear it loose. And although everything passes in a few seconds, I have time to think as I stand there with the ax in my hand: Have I become an evil person? Or only someone who commits evil deeds? I could cut him on the leg and injure him enough to only neutralize him. But I don’t want to.
I want to kill the bastard.
A feeling of intoxication fills me despite my injuries, or perhaps because of them. I raise the ax, and with a cry I drive it into the back of his head so that it is buried in his red hair.
After a short time, the whistling and hissing of his breathing has stopped.
So I am back at the house. My beautiful white house.
A gentle light filters through the stained lead glass in the bedroom window. It falls and falls down toward me where I lie on our wide bed.
Next to me she is asleep, my child: Jenny. She is lying on her stomach with her chubby legs drawn up under her body and her little diapered bottom raised in the air like an exclamation point. The thin red hair rests sweaty against the pillow and her pacifier moves now and then, rhythmically.
Carefully, carefully I creep as close to her as I can without waking her.
Now. I breathe in her aroma, the aroma of my baby. It is warm and round and smells a little sour from old milk.
I am so happy.
Silence.
I can no longer feel the biting cold. The man who once was someone’s father, the man who murdered Sara and fried meatballs in my kitchen, now lies quietly in the snow, his head resting in a pool of steaming blood. I vomit blood—or is it red wine?—onto the wall of the shed and sink to my knees. Slowly, I crawl through the snow toward the pier. Every movement is laborious, and I notice that I am leaving sticky traces of blood behind me in the snow.
So weak, I’m not able to make my way into the cottage. Crawling on all fours, I slide a few yards out onto the ice. I dig my fingers into the snow and try in vain to pull myself forward. My body feels numb and my jaw no longer hurts. For the first time that night, my head suddenly feels clear—it is only my body that is no longer able to function.
I lie on my back and look up at the sky. It is the most beautiful sky I have ever seen. Millions of stars glisten in all the colors of the rainbow against the saturated black background, and the snow does not feel cold and hard anymore but soft and welcoming. I think about a poem Stefan wrote to me on a wrinkled piece of paper what feels like a hundred years ago, about how darkness is necessary for the stars to be visible, and suddenly I realize that darkness does not frighten me anymore, it embraces me gently, soundlessly, and infinitely.
It could be so idyllic.
• • •
From my soft bed on the ice I can see my cottage surrounded by snow-covered wilderness. All the windows shine invitingly, and despite the dense darkness, I can make out a thin thread of smoke rising from the chimney up toward the clear Christmas night. Not a trace of the violent struggle that just played out outside the house is visible, there’s not a sound—only a faint clicking noise from the ice under this aching body that no longer feels like it’s mine.
Much later, it starts snowing. Large flakes float soundlessly, covering my face. I glide in and out of a drowsy sleep, and it is then, when the snow comes, that I sense him lying down beside me. Stefan rests his chin against my neck and wraps his arm around my waist. We say nothing, only look silently at the stars and at the falling snow.
It smells like honey.
I feel a warm body next to me and, although I haven’t yet opened my eyes, I know who it is. I take a deep breath, fill my lungs with the aroma of honey, and look. The room is white, I see the metal bed and the egg-yellow latticed blanket of the county hospital on top of me. Aina’s hair tickles my nose. She must have noticed that I’ve woken up, because she turns toward me and strokes my cheek. I try to speak, but some kind of bracket—or cast—around my jaw makes it impossible.
“Shh. Don’t talk. I found you frozen solid on the ice, princess. You were supposed to call at ten o’clock and thank me for the present, weren’t you? When you didn’t call I got worried. Finally I drove to the apartment, and when you weren’t there I knew right away where you had gone.”
Aina looks sad.
“I should have known what you intended to do. That you can never be trusted, you hopeless person. It’s over now anyway. He’s dead as a doornail. Markus and your parents are on their way here. I’ve chased away the other police officers for the moment.”
Then she sees my eyes resting on the red roses stuffed into a small vase on the crooked nightstand and nods silently, stroking my hair.
“They’re from Markus. He made me buy them.”
Now she lies down again, close beside me on the roomy hospital bed, and I feel her damp breath against my throat as she rests her head against mine. I don’t want to talk at all, just lie quietly with my nose in Aina’s yellow honey hair.
EPILOGUE
“I know we haven’t always been that close,” I start, then hesitate a moment and rub my hand against my jaw, which still aches and locks sometimes.
I am searching for the right words, and when I think I have found them I continue.
“Maybe we’re too different to be really close friends—you know, different goals in life, different experiences and ways of approaching people. I know I haven’t always shown you the appreciation you deserved, that sometimes I’ve been irritated for no reason and even barked at you on some occasions. Good Lord, that was really stupid and unprofessional of me. But you should know that if there is anything I have always felt for you, it’s respect. Respect for the work you’ve done, always meticulously, on time and without errors. Respect for your consideration and sympathy. Respect for the life you’ve lived, with everything that child rearing, separations, and striving for independence must involve.”
I think a moment and study the white room before me with a sink and a steel chair as the only furnishings.
“Well, I have to admit that sometimes I thought you favored Sven. You know, his patient notes were always transcribed first, his calls were the most important to make, and his office was cleaned every day, even though that wasn’t even part of y
our job description. But all that is so long ago now. When these kinds of things happen you reevaluate your life a little, don’t you? Focus on what’s important, let go of all the old stuff and… how shall I put it… see the good in your fellow human beings. You want to thank them because they’ve been there for you. It’s that way for me, anyway. And I guess that’s why I came here. To thank you for all the help and… maybe to say I’m sorry you didn’t always get the appreciation you deserved.”
I get up and look at Marianne, still unconscious on the hospital bed with her mouth half open, her chin resting slackly against her chest. If I didn’t know it was Marianne I wouldn’t recognize her, she is that changed. The curly, blond hair has grown out long and dark, her skin looks thin and paperlike now, a tube has been inserted in one nostril, and there’s some kind of monitor on her index finger that looks like a clothespin and spreads a reddish glow on her hand.
I get up slowly and leave the room, without turning back.
A few months after Stefan’s funeral I was alone in our house, without Aina by my side, no longer under my family’s watchful eyes. It was a gray day. The hazy, dirty light that flooded the room gave it a worn, pale appearance that made it look like the summer cottage it really was. A temporary residence. At any rate, a completely hopeless project, from a practical point of view.
I had the vague notion of cleaning up his things—throwing away what was no longer needed, sorting through what would be given away, and saving what might be useful sometime in the future—but that proved to be harder than I thought. His newly ironed shirts and jeans were hanging in a row in our common closet. Why throw away perfectly usable clothes? Who could I give them to? I decided to leave the clothes untouched for the time being.
Some Kind of Peace: A Novel Page 28
