For the Missing

by Lina Bengtsdotter

  ‘And what do you see?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘I see a thirty-three-year-old woman who is afraid of commitment.’

  Charlie started laughing. Clichés always made her laugh.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Anders wanted to know.

  ‘Nothing. Go on. What else do you see?’

  ‘I see a thirty-three-year-old woman who likes to party, hates small talk but has a phenomenal ability to see the details in the general and the general in the details.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Charlie said.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ Anders said and turned back to the road.

  That day

  Annabelle woke up at four. She picked up her phone and read the message again.

  This isn’t working any more. You have to understand that it’s not working.

  She had received it last night and her first thought had been to go over to his house and make a scene. But then she had calmed down and stayed in bed, feeling her heart pound in her chest.

  You have to understand that it’s not working.

  It was exactly what he had told her the day before as well, but reading the words made it feel even more final somehow. She had to understand, but how was she supposed to do that, when only two days ago, he had caressed her clothes off and done it with her in a way that …

  She had just drifted off again when her alarm went off. Her first thought was to stay in bed. But then she remembered about the party that evening. She wouldn’t be allowed to go anywhere if she was ill, and the last thing she wanted was to spend the weekend at home. She was depressed enough as it was.

  She slowly climbed out of bed and put on a pair of shorts. She went over to her closet and stared at her tops for a while. Then she looked down at the T-shirt she had slept in and decided it would do. It was as though every decision, big or small, required superhuman effort. She managed two strokes with the hairbrush before her mother started yelling at her from downstairs about breakfast. She brushed the rest of her hair extra slowly to make the point that she was seventeen, not seven. If there was one thing she was fed up with, it was being treated like a child.

  7

  ‘Anders,’ Charlie said. ‘Pull over.’

  ‘This is a motorway. You’ll have to wait until there’s an exit.’

  ‘Just pull over anywhere, don’t you get that I have to …’

  Anders took the next exit. It had a rest area with plastic tables and little red houses with toilets. Every last one was occupied so Charlie ran around the back, put her hand against the wall and let it all out. I’m going to end up like Betty, she thought. Unless things get easier soon, I’m going to end up just like her.

  When she returned to the car, Anders was on the phone. She could hear from his voice that it was his wife. Maria called at least five times a day and Anders always answered.

  ‘I’m not sure how long it’ll take,’ he said. ‘You know there’s no way of knowing for sure. A young woman is missing.’

  When Charlie climbed in, Anders got out.

  ‘Problem?’ she said when he came back.

  ‘She doesn’t like it when I’m away. It’s not easy being alone with a little one.’

  ‘As far as I recall, she didn’t like you going away before either.’

  Anders made no reply. He, who fancied himself so open, didn’t like discussing his wife’s jealousy problem.

  ‘Feeling better?’ he said.

  Charlie nodded. ‘Are we going, or what?’

  ‘I’m just wondering how you’re really doing. Weren’t you the one who said you were going to … slow down?’

  Charlie opened her mouth to tell him it was none of his business. But suddenly she felt on the verge of tears, so she turned away and stared out of the window. Yellow fields rushed past. Oilseed or turnip rape? Once upon a time she had known things like that.

  ‘You know I’m here if you want to talk,’ Anders said.

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s pretty obvious you’re not doing too well.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Charlie said. She sat quietly for a while, thinking about that bloody office party. That was what had made everyone concerned about her drinking, that was what had triggered the unhealthy phase she was now living through.

  When Hugo had brought his wife (a tiny woman who was so radiantly beautiful, happy and mild), she had been unprepared for the avalanche of emotion it had set off in her. And she had done what she always did when things got tough: drunk too much too quickly. At eleven, Challe had had enough and put her in a taxi. She didn’t remember much from the night of the party, but she would never forget her meeting with Challe the next day. How was it, he had wanted to know, that she felt she should get utterly badgered at a work function?

  Charlie had defended herself by saying she hadn’t been the only one, and either way it was hardly the first time in history someone had had a bit too much at an office party.

  But Challe didn’t give a toss about history; he had wanted to know what lay behind this particular case.

  Charlie had said she didn’t know, that she hadn’t had enough to eat, had drunk too quickly. That she was simply a bit … rusty.

  That thing about being rusty hadn’t been a complete lie. During her months with Hugo, she had been too busy to go out at night. They had taken long walks around the island where his summer house was, made love, talked and laughed. She had thought that it might be serious, but had belatedly come to understand that there would never be anything more, that all she had been to Hugo was … She didn’t know what she had been, only that he had no intention of divorcing his wife. In fact, he had told her as much a few months in, as though it were a given.

  I’m never going to leave her.

  After that, she had avoided him as best she could. She had looked through him at work and not answered her phone when he called. What she had really wanted to do was tell him what a nasty little person he was, but she knew things like that had a tendency to go off the rails. When she was hurting, she was liable to say just about anything. Anders liked to joke about it, that there were reasons why Charlie had slightly too much sympathy for people who committed terrible crimes of passion. If Hugo had only been smart enough to stay away, the whole thing would probably have petered out, but he was not that bright. A few weeks after the Christmas party, he had come into her office, demanding a chance to explain. There had been yelling and shoving and, inevitably, Challe had appeared, asking what the hell was going on. It was of utmost importance, he had said once everyone had calmed down a fraction, that private problems were solved outside work hours.

  ‘This is it,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s this exit.’

  ‘I didn’t see a sign.’

  ‘Well, this is it, sign or no sign.’

  ‘What happened there?’ Anders pointed to a semi-burnt-out building.

  ‘No idea, but it used to be a pizzeria.’

  ‘Well, there seems to be another one,’ Anders said and pointed across the road. ‘Happy Salmon Pizzeria.’

  Charlie gazed attentively out of the window as they approached the town centre. On the left, she could make out the black river that marked the county boundary.

  ‘Swim across and you’re in Värmland,’ she said and nodded at the river. ‘Bad luck for me I lived on the wrong side.’

  ‘So there’s a wrong side?’

  ‘There’s always a wrong side.’

  ‘So the slightly more well off live in Värmland?’ Anders studied the river.

  ‘No, it wasn’t about money,’ Charlie said, but then she realised that was exactly what it had been about. She told him about how the school children from Värmland had been given money from a fund each year. There had been an old couple who had donated their fortune to the children of Värmland because … She didn’t really know why. Maybe because the school was in Västergötland. Charlie told him how angry it had made her every year when the Värmland children were given their envelopes in school.

  Why
had it made her angry? Anders wanted to know.

  ‘Why? Because it was unfair, obviously. Children can’t help where they live.’

  ‘Was it a lot of money?’

  ‘Like ten kronor or something,’ Charlie replied. ‘What?’ she added when Anders burst out laughing. ‘What’s so bloody funny about that?’

  ‘Nothing, but ten kronor, I mean, maybe that’s not enough to get upset about.’

  ‘It’s not the amount. It’s the … principle.’

  ‘I’m sorry I laughed, but I thought we were talking much more significant sums.’ Anders looked out at the water again. ‘Did you really go swimming there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Charlie thought about how she had spent every summer swimming in that river, to Värmland, Västergötland and back to Värmland again, and then even further where the river widened into Lake Skagern, near her house.

  When I die, Betty liked to say, scatter me over Skagern. I’ve always wanted my ashes to be scattered at sea. Imagine, just drifting on the currents, who knows how far.

  At those times, Charlie would remind Betty that Skagern was just a lake, that everything came to a halt at the inlet gates or the water treatment plant, that it wouldn’t take her anywhere.

  But eventually, Betty said, everyone returned to the sea. Sooner or later, we all do.

  ‘I would never swim there,’ Anders said.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘There’s something about black water – well, lakes in general – that I find incredibly unsettling.’

  ‘It’s not the water that’s black,’ Charlie said, ‘it’s the depth that makes it look that way.’

  ‘Then that’s one hell of a deep river.’

  ‘People used to say it was bottomless.’

  Anders laughed and said that was typical of a backwater like this, that people still believed all kinds of rubbish. That it was like entering a time warp.

  And Charlie said it was remarkable, that he, who never ventured further from Stockholm than the archipelago, knew so much about Sweden’s backwater towns.

  ‘But you said so yourself, that people thought it was bottomless.’

  ‘Whatever,’ Charlie said. She had never believed it was bottomless, and neither had Susanne.

  Everything ends somewhere.

  The two of them would even go swimming in the spot locals called the abyss, where it was said the undertow was so strong it could pull people under even when the inlet gates were closed. It was only after the accident that the lake scared her. She had never gone swimming in Skagern after that.

  ‘Is there a power plant?’ Anders said. ‘Strong currents and such?’

  ‘Yes, there’s a power plant.’

  Charlie thought about their death-defying sunbathing by the falls. It was a forbidden place, because at any time the gates could open and the water would snatch up anything not tied down and hurl it out onto the sharp rocks. Sometimes, as she lay there, she had almost wished it would happen.

  8

  Gullspång town centre looked like a ghost town. Boarded-up shops, broken windows, flapping newspaper placards with Annabelle’s face on every lamp post. If it had not been for all the people in yellow vests outside the supermarket, the whole place would have seemed abandoned. The bench outside the supermarket was still there and on it were three tattered men clutching cans of lager. Maybe it was the same group that had used to sit there back then, the ones who would shout after Betty every time they walked by.

  Come here and give us a kiss, beautiful Betty!

  Shut up, Betty would retort, stop yelling at me when I’m with my little girl.

  Your daughter, one of them said once, your daughter looks more like her mother with each passing day.

  That time, Betty had let go of Charlie’s hand and walked over to the bench. She had stepped in close to the man who had claimed to see a likeness and hissed that he was going to stay away from her daughter. Stay the fuck away from my daughter.

  What do you mean, Betty? All I said was …

  Just stay away.

  Charlie wished she was alone in the car. In all the dreams she had dreamt about returning, she had always come alone. It felt so surreal seeing it all again, seeing the dilapidated facades, the supermarket, the kiosk, the shuttered building that had once housed the café. To an outsider, it might be a sad little town centre, but to her … Her nose started stinging. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She thought to herself that she was going to have to pretend this was just like any other small town, that the buildings, the water and the roads were unknown to her, that it was a place she was visiting for the first time. Was that even feasible? A stubborn, well-worn adage started running on a loop through her mind. You can take the girl out of the village, but not the village out of the girl.

  ‘They’re fast,’ Anders said, nodding at the yellow vests.

  ‘Good thing,’ Charlie said. ‘We need all the help we can get. But a beautiful seventeen-year-old Swedish girl – there’s not going to be a shortage of eager volunteers.’

  She looked up towards the little town square where journalists with notepads were talking to sobbing ‘friends’. She knew the kind of description such interviews inevitably elicited. Missing persons were always amazing, well behaved and wonderful. And no, they had no enemies and were loved by one and all.

  ‘What on earth is that?’ Anders said when they passed the hulking old smelter sprawling at the heart of the town centre.

  ‘GEA,’ Charlie said.

  ‘GEA?’

  ‘A smelter.’

  ‘Is it active?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’ Charlie studied the rusty metal facade and the tall smokestacks.

  ‘It looks bloody awful. How can it be allowed to just sit there, and in the middle of town as well? I mean, if it’s not even open?’

  Charlie looked up at the building and only now realised it really was hideous. Growing up, she had never given it any thought. It had always been there.

  ‘It seems it’s being put to different use,’ she said. A sign on it read ‘Shooting Club,’ and a bigger one ‘Library’.

  The smelter. It had been Betty’s workplace for a while. She had detested it.

  Why?

  Because it was as hot as hell, because the work was so monotonous it could drive the most stable person insane. There was no place in this world she had hated more than the smelter.

  And when Charlie had asked why she went back there if it was so awful, Betty had laughed and said she didn’t have much of a choice. Later, when GEA closed, Betty had found a job at the plywood factory. She had been happy about it, about trying something new, getting away from the heat, growing her eyelashes back. She really had a good feeling about it. But after her very first day, she came home and complained. It was the heat, she said, the bloody plywood factory was every bit as warm as the smelter had been, and she had scratched her arms too. The smelter had robbed her of her reason and now this bloody factory was going to claim her body. Was it never going to end?

  ‘Since you’re from here,’ Anders said, ‘maybe you know how to get to the hotel?’

  ‘There is no hotel,’ Charlie said. ‘At least there wasn’t when I lived here.’

  ‘But Challe said …’

  ‘There’s a motel,’ Charlie said and pointed to a yellow building further down the street.

  ‘What’s the difference between a hotel and a motel?’

  ‘I suppose you’re about to find out. Turn here.’

  Anders looked at the big yellow building. A wooden staircase spiralled its way down from a window on the top floor to the ground.

  ‘Nice fire escape,’ he said. ‘Assuming it is a fire escape. Really blends in.’

  ‘It serves its purpose,’ Charlie said. ‘In this case, function might trump aesthetics.’

  ‘Sure, but why can’t you have both?’

  ‘Money, possibly. Fuck if I know.’

  ‘You’re always your most charming self when
you’re hungover.’

  Anders parked outside the motel and killed the engine.

  ‘What’s that smell?’ he said as they climbed out of the car.

  Charlie took a deep breath, sucking in the smell of …

  ‘Shit?’ Anders said. ‘Is it from the fields?’

  ‘No, the paper mill.’

  ‘There’s a paper mill as well?’

  ‘No,’ Charlie replied. ‘It’s miles and miles away, but when the wind is right, the smell carries all the way here.’

  She had almost forgotten that unique smell, but now she recalled how they hadn’t been able to hang laundry outside if there was a strong north wind blowing, and how Betty had always forgotten and how they had had to sleep in sheets that smelled faintly of sewer.

  ‘That’s awful,’ Anders said, ‘stepping outside and being greeted by this.’

  ‘I like it,’ Charlie said. ‘It smells like … childhood.’

  ‘What a delightful childhood you must have had.’

  ‘By the way, I’d appreciate if you could keep it to yourself that I’m from here.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Because it’s irrelevant. And unfortunately, I think it would only make things harder.’

  ‘But won’t people recognise you?’

  Charlie shook her head. She didn’t think so. It was a long time ago. She had changed.

  There and then

  There’s a tap on the window. Alice opens the curtains. Rosa is standing outside in her nightgown.

  ‘Go on, then, open up,’ Rosa says through the glass. ‘Open up, quick.’

  Alice unlatches the window. Without a word, Rosa climbs in, tiptoes across the floor and crawls into Alice’s bed.

  ‘You’re ice cold,’ Alice whispers when Rosa’s feet touch her shins. ‘You’re like an ice cube.’

  Rosa doesn’t reply. Without saying why she has come, she turns to the wall and falls asleep.

  Alice lies awake for a long time, listening to her regular breathing. It’s as though she still can’t quite believe they’re friends, that she, Alice Lo, is friends with Rosa Manner. They live just a few houses from each other, but before that day in the field, they had never spoken a word. Everything had started out in that field. Alice had run into it to get away from the scooter gang. It had been raining for days; the ground had turned to mud and suddenly, she was stuck. She had stood there, knee-deep in mud, and that was when Rosa had spotted her from the road. At first I thought you were a scarecrow, Rosa had laughed as she helped free her, I thought the Larssons had found themselves a living, breathing scarecrow.