‘Keep your stern God if you like, although He scares you out of your wits. Someday I’ll tell you a secret, about what happened that time when I wanted to die and almost died in the flames. But if you can’t even believe in a lousy little dream coming true then it’s a bit too early yet.’
Vanja smiled but Maj-Britt couldn’t manage to smile back, and maybe Vanja sensed her anguish. She stroked Maj-Britt’s hand.
‘You don’t have to be afraid, because there’s nothing there to be afraid of.’
And then she smiled the smile that Maj-Britt knew so well. Only now did she realise how much she had missed it. Her Vanja who could always make her feel better, who with her fearlessness had helped her through childhood and always made her see things from another point of view. If only she could have the chance to do things over, to do everything differently. Why had she allowed Vanja to disappear from her life? How could she have abandoned her?
You don’t have to be afraid, because there’s nothing there to be afraid of.
More than anything she wanted to be able to share Vanja’s certainty. Leave all the terrors behind and once and for all dare to choose life.
‘Oh, how I wish I could believe like you do.’
And Vanja’s smile grew even wider.
‘Couldn’t you just be satisfied with a little “maybe”?’
Saba stood waiting at the door when she got home. Maj-Britt went straight to the phone and dialled Monika Lundvall’s number.
Ring after ring echoed over the line before she was forced to accept that no one was going to answer.
EPILOGUE
Snow had fallen during the night. The world lay concealed under a thin white blanket. At least that part of the world she could still see. She had scraped off a spot on a bench and sat looking at her white breath.
One night.
One night she had managed to get through, and now only one hundred and seventy-nine nights were left and just as many days. Then she would be free. Free to do what she wanted. In one hundred and seventy-nine days and just as many nights she would have served out society’s punishment for the crime she had committed and she would regain her freedom.
Freedom. The word had previously been such a natural part of her life that she had never even thought about its real significance. Perhaps it was the same with freedom as it was with everything else that was taken for granted. Only with its loss could you gain the ability to really understand its true value.
She had been so envied. A well-paid head surgeon with a fancy company car and luxury flat. A life full of coveted status symbols. The generally accepted proof that she was a successful person, someone important. But each step she had taken to raise herself above mediocrity had distanced her from freedom, because the more she had to protect, the more afraid she had become of losing what she had managed to achieve.
Now she had lost everything. In one single blow all the success she had built up with such effort was shattered, and it was as irrevocably gone as if it had never even existed. Was it really success, if it could so easily be taken from her? She no longer knew. She really didn’t know anything. All that was left inside was a vacuum, and she had no idea how she was ever going to fill it. One day when she was forced once and for all to look back on her life, to take stock in earnest with eyes wide open, what would she then find had been of real value? Pure and genuine. If she were forced at that moment to look back, there were only two things. Her overwhelming sorrow at Lasse’s death, and her breathtaking love for Thomas. But she had not permitted herself either of these life-changing experiences. She had shut them off, in favour of maintaining appearances. She had let herself be hollowed out so that in the end she had lived as a shadow. She had achieved so much. Oh, what she had accomplished, and, oh, what an effort she had made.
Yet she had lost it all.
Aggravated embezzlement from her superior.
In evaluating the extent to which it was an aggravated crime, they had taken into account whether she had caused her superior significant or pronounced injury.
They had decided that she had done so. The talented and successful Monika Lundvall.
She had deposited the money into the bank account of Save the Children and stuffed the deposit slip in an envelope with Maj-Britt’s address on it, and she thought she had posted it. A week later she had found the envelope in her coat pocket, but by that time it was all too late. When she came home from the bank she turned off all the phones, placed both the packet of Zopax and the one containing the sleeping pills within reach on her nightstand and went to bed. Three days later the head of the clinic and a colleague had entered her flat with the help of a locksmith. The bank had called up the head of the clinic. They just wanted to check that everything was in order with regard to the large sum she had withdrawn from the clinic’s donation account, and they mentioned her odd behaviour. Naturally they could have been mistaken, but she seemed to be under the influence of drugs. When she awoke in her bed with the head of the clinic and her colleague in the room, the shame she felt was so deep that she couldn’t even speak. And although he offered to refrain from filing a complaint with the police if she would only tell him what was going on and what she had done, she chose to keep silent, even when her ability to speak had returned. The daily life that had been hers was already lost. She would never again be able to look any of them in the eye if she confessed to what she had done.
She preferred to face the music.
And in some peculiar way she actually felt liberated after escaping from the absurd reality into which she had locked herself.
Because there were many types of prison. And for that matter, a person who was imprisoned never needed to have come anywhere near a court of law.
There was a letter from Maj-Britt lying in the hall. With deepest regrets she had begged forgiveness for what she had put Monika through, and wrote that she had tried to call repeatedly to take back what she had said. But Monika never answered. She read the letter over and over. First in anger, but later with more and more sorrow. In vain she had tried to find scapegoats in order to create a way to exonerate herself, but in the end she was forced to admit that there was no one else to blame.
A few days before the trial, a letter came from Pernilla. Monika hadn’t been in touch, and in her desperation she had refused to answer phone messages, and finally they had stopped coming. The letter was a sign that Pernilla had found out, and the return address frightened her like a sudden noise in the night. Fingers stiff with dread, she had opened the envelope, and the relief she felt when she read the brief letter was indescribable. She had been forgiven. Pernilla had found out everything, and she admitted that at first she had been both angry and sad. But the person who told her had in the end made her understand why Monika had acted the way she had done, and managed to turn her rage to sympathy. But Pernilla wondered about the money she had received. Had Monika been reported to the police because of the money she gave Pernilla? Or was it because of the money she was forced to send to Save the Children?
Only then did Monika understand that it was Maj-Britt who had liberated her.
* * *
The sun crept over the rooftops and spread millions of tiny sparkling diamonds in the newly fallen snow. Monika wrapped her jacket tighter around her, but it didn’t help much. She saw by the clock that she had spent only half of the hour she was permitted to be outdoors, but no amount of cold in the world could make her go in early.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw a door open and someone come out into the courtyard. She didn’t look, she didn’t dare, she had no idea what rules applied in here for survival. The annihilating feeling of being an outsider and the loneliness she experienced in the midst of all the people at yesterday’s evening meal had made her so anxious that she asked to be allowed to go back to her cell early. But it was when they locked the door that she experienced for the first time in her life how it felt not to be able to breathe in a room full of air. She had thought she would die in there.
But the only people she could ask for help were the ones who had locked her in, and the torment they were subjecting her to was no careless mistake but a deliberate act. They thought she deserved it.
The impotence she felt had almost killed her.
She sensed that the person who had come outside was approaching, and in a purely defensive reaction she turned her head to get some idea of the possible threat. It was one of the oldest women in the prison; Monika had seen her the day before at dinner. She sat by herself and looked as if nothing that happened in her vicinity actually affected her, and the others in the room seemed to respect her solitude. At first the sight of the woman had made Monika uncomfortable, because of the look in the woman’s eyes when they met. As if she were startled, as if she had caught sight of someone she knew. But Monika had never seen the woman before and didn’t want to draw attention to herself. That was the way she had planned to get through her time here. By not being noticed.
Now the woman was approaching the bench, and Monika could feel her heart pounding. She remembered the chatter during dinner, the obvious hierarchy, the sense that everyone was acting according to an invisible script in which she had been given no role. And for the life of her she didn’t know how she would find her place without getting on the wrong side of someone. She had absolutely no frame of reference as to how she was expected to behave. And yet this was a different type of fear than she had been used to. Inside there was nothing left to harm. Instead it was her body that feared physical pain. That they might assault her.
‘Won’t you get a bladder infection from sitting there?’
In her gratitude over knowing the answer to the question, Monika’s first impulse was to say that it took a bacterium in the urine to provoke a bladder infection, but she bit her tongue to stop herself. It would seem as if she was acting superior.
‘Maybe.’
She stood up.
The woman caught a silver-coloured wisp of hair that had come loose and tucked it behind her ear.
‘Shall we take a walk?’
Monika hesitated. The woman didn’t look particularly dangerous, but to stroll farther away from the buildings alone with her was not appealing. She cast a hasty glance at the door. But she didn’t want to go inside yet. Not when there was time left. And she couldn’t really say no and stay where she was.
‘Sure.’
They began walking slowly across the courtyard. There was no reason to hurry.
‘You got here yesterday, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘How much time did you get?’
‘Six months.’
Monika replied politely and quickly to all her questions. So far she was doing fine.
‘That’s not so bad. The time goes faster than you think when you’re bored.’
The woman gave a little laugh and Monika also smiled, to be on the safe side. She realised that she ought to ask a question to show that she was participating in the conversation. Maybe ask how long this woman had been in, but Monika didn’t dare. Maybe it wasn’t done.
‘Sixteen and a half years.’
Monika gave a start.
‘But I only have eight months left now.’
She only had a second to be shocked, then she unconsciously slowed her pace. Sixteen and a half years. Not many were given such a long sentence. Only those who had committed really despicable crimes, and apparently the woman she had gone off walking with was one of them. Monika cast a glance back towards the buildings and felt a stubborn desire to go back. She stifled the impulse and tried instead to think up a question of her own. She had to get along with people in here for another six months, after all. It would be crazy to make an enemy on the very first morning.
‘What are you going to do when you get out?’
She had done her best to seem easy-going and took a step back in fright when the woman suddenly stopped and turned to her.
‘My name is Vanja, by the way.’
She held out her hand.
‘It’s easy to forget common good manners in here.’
Monika took off her mitten and shook her hand briefly.
‘Monika.’
Vanja nodded and started walking again. Monika
followed her reluctantly. A little farther up there was a group of people, and that made her feel a bit better.
‘What I’m going to do when I get out? I don’t really know. To start with I’m going to move in with a friend, an old childhood friend. She’s very ill but after this last operation she seems to be on the mend, thank goodness, but they don’t know for sure yet. If all goes well maybe we’ll take a trip together somewhere, she and I. We’ll have to see how things go.’
Monika tried to grasp the time concept of seventeen years. An eternity if you considered that the sentence had to be served in a place like this. Much less serious matters could drive people insane. She knew that from her own experience.
They had turned onto a path between some trees, and when they came out on the other side the open field sloped down towards the end of the world. Soon they would reach the limit of how far they could go. The area was fenced off by a double barrier with several metres between them, and rolls of barbed wire had been attached on top. So that anyone who might consider climbing over them would be ripped to shreds. It was in here that she was confined. Not trusted by society to go outside. Not even in the vicinity, because the safety zone was fifty metres. She cast a glance over her shoulder and made sure that there were still people within sight.
Vanja stopped and shoved her hands in her jacket pockets.
‘It’s important to have someone waiting for you outside. It’s a little easier that way. I know, because I’ve tried it both ways.’
Monika looked down at the snow. She had no one waiting out there. Maybe her mother, but she wasn’t sure. Her mother had called a few times but Monika had never answered. She didn’t know if her mother knew where she was now. And to be honest, it didn’t really matter.
Vanja took a handkerchief out of her pocket and wiped her nose.
‘It’s pretty rough in here, so it’s not always easy to be the new girl. But it’s fairly calm in the section you’re in. Get hold of some cigarettes, you’ll need them.’
Vanja raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun and gazed out over the glittering fields that stretched beyond the fence. Monika stole a glance at her.
‘Check out how beautiful it is …’
Monika followed her gaze out across the landscape and they stood in silence for a while.
‘To think that we’re so stupidly negligent with everything we have. That we don’t understand things better. You and I are actually prime examples of how little we comprehend, otherwise we wouldn’t be standing on this side of the fence.’
Monika was inclined to agree, but she wasn’t ready to express it in words. Vanja made a little noise that sounded like a snort.
‘We think we’re the top of the line, that everything’s perfectly formed and done with just because we happen to exist at this moment. But the little space of time we’re alive on this earth is only a little fart in the universe in the grand scheme of things. I read that we aren’t even really completely developed enough to walk on two legs, that there are some suspension thingies inside that haven’t yet managed to adapt properly.’
She made a circular motion with her hand over her stomach. Monika wondered which of the body’s tissues she could mean, but chose not to ask. Just at this moment it didn’t seem so important.
A flock of birds flew across the sky, and Vanja leaned her head back so she could watch their path. Monika followed her example.
‘You know, in the Milky Way alone there are two hundred billion stars. That’s incredible, two hundred billion, and we’re talking just about our own galaxy. It’s quite strange to think that our sun is only one of that whole spray of stars.’
The birds disappeared over the woods. Monika closed her eyes and wondered what they were seeing way over there.
&
nbsp; ‘Imagine how afraid people must have been when they were told that the earth was not the centre of the universe. What a terrifying scenario, to walk about here in peace and quiet and know that God created the earth and all the people as the centre of everything, and then suddenly to hear that we are only a tiny flyspeck.’
Vanja took out her handkerchief and wiped her nose again.
‘It was no more than four hundred years ago we believed that, but it’s all fine to walk about now and sneer at how stupid they were. And we think we’re so fantastically enlightened, all you have to do is look around to see how well it’s all going.’
Monika stole a look at Vanja. This was undeniably a peculiar woman she had run into, and she realised in amazement that she appreciated the walk. No one she knew ever talked about things like this. If they hadn’t been confined inside a barbed-wire fence it would have felt quite refreshing.
Vanja looked at Monika and smiled.
‘I usually amuse myself by wondering how many people will have the opportunity to laugh at us in four hundred years. And what things that we’re so sure of now will later turn out to be bullshit.’
Monika smiled back and Vanja looked at her watch.
‘It’s almost time.’
Monika nodded and they turned back. Her spirits had lifted somewhat. It felt good to know that there was someone like Vanja in here.
‘Do you have anyone waiting for you outside?’
The question made Monika’s smile die out. For a brief moment the face that she missed more than anything else floated by. She lowered her eyes and shook her head.
‘Are you absolutely sure? I had someone, even though I didn’t know it.’
Monika didn’t want to be sure, so she chose not to reply. But how could she hope even in her wildest dreams that he would still be waiting? She had made her life’s second gigantic mistake when she let him go.
Sacrifice Page 27
