After She's Gone

by Camilla Grebe

  I gently lift his foot onto the sofa and drape an old checkered blanket across him. He grunts and shifts his position, turning so that he’s facing the back of the sofa.

  I turn off the TV and go out to the hall. I sneak up the stairs, into my room, and very carefully close my door. Then I go over to my bed, lift up the mattress, and take out the brown book beneath it. Sit down on the floor with my back propped against the bed.

  I know who she is now—Hanne, the woman I met in the forest. I read it online in the local paper last night. According to the article, she was “suffering from memory loss” and was in the company of “a young woman” when she was found. The police would like to find the young woman, it said. There was even a phone number you could call. They wrote that “any information could be useful” and that the woman’s colleague, a police officer from Stockholm named Peter, was still missing. Then there was a description of him, and of what he was wearing at the time of his disappearance: a red-and-white-checked flannel shirt and a blue winter coat.

  When I read it, I actually considered calling that number. But if I did, they’d figure out I was the one standing there in a bra, a dress, and high heels. And that’s just not possible. In fact it’s completely fucking impossible. I even thought about going to the police station and dropping off the book, but the police station is in Vingåker, and it’s open only one day a week.

  Plus: How would I explain how I had it?

  I’ve thought about it a lot, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the best thing I can do is go through those spindly notes and see if I find something important in there, something that might help them find the missing police officer.

  So that’s what I’m doing now. I open the still damp book. On the first page is the word “Diary” written in an old-fashioned, forward-leaning style. And then, just below: “Read morning + night.”

  Strange.

  Why would you write a diary that you need to read morning and night, like it’s a medicine prescription? Besides, the only one who reads a diary is the person who wrote it.

  Did Hanne write that for herself?

  Read morning + night.

  It seems totally mentally disturbed.

  I flip past a couple of blank pages and come to something that looks like a long alphabetical list. It takes up four pages. Numbers appear after every word or name.

  I run my finger over the text, stop at the letter M and read:

  M

  Malin Brundin, police: 5, 6, 8, 12, 20

  Mode: 12, 23, 25

  Metal plate, in skeleton: 12, 23

  It takes me a while to realize this must be an index that references page numbers.

  I flip through more pages. In the lower right corner of each one, Hanne has written a number.

  Why?

  It’s a diary, not a freaking cookbook.

  I can’t figure out any good reason for it, so I flip past the index and start reading.

  ILULISSAT, NOVEMBER 19

  Are you allowed to be this happy?

  I’m finally where I most want to be. And I’m here with the man I love.

  When I woke up this morning, P served me breakfast in bed. He’d been down to the village and bought the bread with seeds on it that I like so very much. It’s not a big deal, going to pick up some bread. But the thoughtfulness of the gesture makes me feel warm inside.

  We lay in bed for a long time. Made love. Read the newspaper. Ordered more coffee up to our room.

  Then: a long walk and lunch under the sun until it went down around two.

  The weather is still beautiful, but much cooler than a couple of weeks ago. The days are shorter now, only three hours long.

  In ten days it will start to be dark 24 hours a day. And the sun won’t come back until January.

  P thinks that’s “creepy,” but I wish we could stay.

  Everything I want is here! For the first time in my life, everything is perfect. Even though my memory’s getting worse, it’s as if nothing can touch me in my perfect Greenland bubble.

  So yes, you are allowed to be this happy.

  But only for a short while, I suspect.

  ILULISSAT, NOVEMBER 20

  Last day in Greenland.

  The weather is beautiful for those short periods when the sun’s up. The water is like a mirror. The icebergs bob in the bay. Some are gigantic, a kilometer long. Others are small, like cotton balls. Their color ranges from the purest white to a faded turquoise.

  I’m going to miss the icebergs. Those and the old settlement, Sermermiut, which we visited again today.

  I put my hands on the rocky hills that the inland ice has carved into roundness over millions of years, tried to imagine what life was like in that valley: how generation after generation of Inuit people lived here without leaving a trace—so unlike we modern people, who wreck the earth wherever we decide to settle.

  Tomorrow we’re going back to Sweden.

  I love this place and would stay here if I had the choice. Ride out the long, dark winter in the glow of an open fire.

  But there is no choice.

  We have to go home. Our vacation is over, and two weeks earlier than planned. We’re headed to Södermanland to work on a cold case in a small town called Ormberg. Eight years ago they found the skeleton of a five-year-old girl there. Now they’ve reopened the investigation.

  Life, always headed somewhere you need to be, always someone who needs you.

  In this case: a dead girl in a cairn.

  I look up from the book’s spindly text and ponder. Hanne’s talking about the girl they found in the cairn eight years ago. I was only six at the time, so I don’t really remember what happened, but Dad told me how Malin and her friends went up to the cairn to look for the Ghost Child and ended up peeing straight onto a human skull.

  I try to imagine what that must have felt like—standing out there, in the middle of the night, under a full moon, then stumbling onto a corpse—but I can’t. It’s too crazy. Too fucked up. Things like that only happen in movies, or in some other place, like Stockholm.

  But not in Ormberg.

  I keep reading.

  I’d rather not leave Greenland earlier than we planned.

  We argued about it. Or: I argued and P sulked.

  I asked if the dead girl needed him more than me.

  He said I was being pretty childish for a sixty-year-old. He’d expected more understanding.

  My age, yes.

  P says I’m beautiful. But I don’t see anything beautiful in my wrinkles & loose flesh. At the same time: There are worse things than the decline of the body.

  For example, losing your memory.

  It’s getting worse and worse every day. Maybe I should call the doctor at the Memory Clinic, but I don’t want to. There’s nothing they can do. I’m already taking all the medication. There’s no other help available.

  I sat on my bed last night and tried to remember what we did during the day. And I couldn’t! It was as if the hours had been erased from my mind, rinsed away by some powerful solvent.

  Memory like a sieve.

  But the doctors say my cognitive abilities are “surprisingly well-preserved.”

  Cold comfort, but it’s something.

  I’m COGNITIVELY INTACT, despite the wrinkles, the gray hair, and the dementia.

  Not really something you’d write in a personal ad: “Cognitively intact 60-year-old woman seeks an outdoorsy type for cozy evenings at home & long forest walks.”

  Yesterday: P noticed something was wrong, but I didn’t say anything when he asked. He’s the last person I’d tell—for entirely selfish reasons. I don’t want to give him up—the man I love, the body I desire.

  But I know how this will end. I’m getting worse. P won’t be able to
be, won’t want to be, with me.

  And I’ll have to give him up.

  No, P can’t find out.

  KEFLAVIK ISLAND, NOVEMBER 21

  At the airport. Waiting on our flight to Stockholm. We flew from Ilulissat to Nuuk early this morning, and then from there to Iceland.

  P’s happy, full of anticipation. He always is when a new, interesting murder investigation begins. Strange that death could cause such high spirits!

  Though honestly, I suspect P felt we’d been in Greenland long enough when they asked him to join this investigation. Because it’s not the most thrilling case. It’s not just cold, it’s as ice cold as the snowy glaciers of Greenland.

  BUT, it’s a good pretext to skip the last two weeks we were planning to stay for.

  And really that’s fine by me, too. Perhaps Ormberg will offer a nice change of scenery.

  P’s reading through the preliminary investigation on his laptop. I’m eating chocolate. Watching our fellow travelers. Wondering if I’ll ever sit at a gate again, my bag checked, & my sights set on some remote location.

  Have to stop now. We’re boarding.

  Night.

  The flight from Iceland was turbulent. The flight attendant spilled coffee in P’s lap. She was very embarrassed, apologized profusely, and tried to wipe it off. P just smiled, assured her it was no problem.

  In that moment…

  I saw it on P’s face, how he looked at her. His eyes wandered over her body as if she were a foreign land. A new, exciting continent he was considering emigrating to.

  I wanted to scream at him: I’m sitting right here—look at me instead! Maybe I’m not as young and beautiful, but I am COGNITIVELY INTACT!

  Of course, I said nothing. He would have thought I was crazy, not just demented.

  We head for Ormberg tomorrow.

  P & Manfred say I can assist with the investigation. I’m not sure they really need help. I suspect they’re being kind. (Still, I’m looking forward to seeing Manfred.)

  Anyway. I think P wants me close by to keep an eye on me.

  P clearly loves me, but I’m not sure he trusts me.

  I can hardly blame him for that.

  I don’t even trust myself anymore.

  ORMBERG, NOVEMBER 22

  Ormberg is so tiny. You can hardly call it a town. Two dirt roads that cross in the middle of nowhere. A few run-down buildings. The largest—yellow-brown, two-story, stucco—was once a general store.

  Manfred has set up a temporary office there. He calls it “Chateau Ormberg.” Very funny—the last thing it looks like is a castle. Next to it: the old post office. It’s no longer a post office, of course—an e-commerce company that sells dog clothes & dog beds on the Internet rents it. Finally: an apartment building, empty for ten years. Windows and doors nailed shut, its walls covered in graffiti.

  Around the buildings: fields, overgrown with high grass and brushwood.

  A few hundred meters farther away, on the other side of the overgrown field: a church. It’s abandoned as well. In need of repair apparently. Some problem with the stucco.

  Behind the church: forest, forest, and even more forest. Here and there stand tiny, charming red cottages—most situated along the creek or near the church.

  There are about a hundred permanent residents in Ormberg and its surroundings. In other words, a very small town, even in comparison to other depopulated areas.

  Manfred introduced us to Malin Brundin: a newly commissioned police officer who’s usually stationed in Katrineholm. Malin grew up in Ormberg. She knows everyone and can find her way around the woods.

  Malin isn’t even twenty-five yet. She has long, dark brown hair. Slim, fit, and beautiful in a very ordinary way—as some young women are without any effort or even realizing it.

  Before life & time catches up with them.

  Malin briefed us on the case. Took out a map, pointed out where the body was found on October 20, 2009.

  Malin, then fifteen, was one of three teenagers who discovered it.

  Quite the coincidence, but as Malin said: Ormberg is so small unlikely coincidences happen naturally.

  We looked at photos of the skeleton. Long wisps of hair still clung to the skull.

  The probable cause of death was blunt force trauma.

  Malin showed us more pictures: magnifications of the cracked skull, fragments of bone next to a ruler. A few teeth found near the skeleton. Tiny broken ribs, which looked like the sun-bleached sticks you’d find washed up on a deserted beach.

  Death is rarely beautiful, but dead children make me feel dizzy & nauseous. I had to grab hold of the table to keep from losing my balance.

  Things like that aren’t supposed to happen to children. Children are supposed to play, hurt themselves, and cause trouble. Then grow up and have children of their own who play, hurt themselves, and cause trouble.

  And above all, they’re not supposed to die.

  P seemed affected, too, but not as shaky as me. He’s used to it—he’s seen most everything in his twenty years of investigating murders. He’s also a man. (Call me heteronormative, but I do think men are different.)

  They were never able to identify the child, despite successfully extracting DNA from her femur and the extensive news coverage of the case. The media dubbed her the Ormberg Girl.

  That’s somehow even more tragic: A child dies and no one misses her.

  Then another colleague arrived: Andreas Borg—a fairly handsome man in his thirties. He’s the representative for the local police on our team, usually works in Örebro.

  I noted Malin’s reaction. She became stiff when Andreas arrived. I couldn’t decide if she disliked him, liked him, or was just annoyed he was late for our meeting, but there was an energy there that affected the entire balance of the room.

  I don’t think P noticed it. (And yes, I think it’s because he’s a man.)

  Have to stop. Time for lunch.

  I close my eyes, envisioning the cairn, conjuring up the outlines of the stones under moonlight with black spruces standing in a circle around them. Can almost feel tall ferns tickling my legs and soft moss beneath my shoes.

  The Ormberg Girl.

  People here still talk about her, just like they talk about everything else that’s gone: the ironworks, TrikåKungen, and Brogrens Mechanical.

  I’ve never thought about it before, but most of the conversations in Ormberg are about the past.

  My phone rings and interrupts my thoughts.

  It’s Saga.

  I look down at the palm of my hand.

  Cognitively intact

  Inuit

  Heteronormative

  I’ll have to google them later.

  Malin

  It’s Monday, December 4th, and no one’s seen Peter since Friday. I think of the confusion on Hanne’s face when Manfred and I visited her yesterday, and the wounds covering her hands and feet.

  What happened to them in the woods?

  It’s started snowing. Heavy flakes wind down from a darkening sky and land silently on the blueberry bushes and the moss.

  I’m at the old ironworks that sits next to the creek, just a few hundred meters north of the cairn. It’s a good distance from where Hanne was found last Saturday, but since Peter is still missing, the search area has widened. Police officers, national guard, and volunteers are methodically combing the forests in search of him.

  It’s no easy task: The area is vast and inaccessible, and the forest is full of fallen trees and branches after the storm last Friday.

  The local police are in charge of the investigation into his disappearance, but we’re cooperating with them closely—in part because Peter is our colleague, and we were the last people to see him and Hanne before their disappearance, but als
o because we can’t rule out that his disappearance is connected to our investigation.

  Svante, a man in his fifties who comes from Örebro, is leading the task force. Apparently, he works with Andreas most of the time.

  Svante looks like Santa Claus—gray hair and big, bushy beard. He wears a thick, homemade stocking cap and an oversized puffy coat that reminds me of Dad.

  “Well,” I say. “Find anything?”

  “Nothing,” Svante says, pulling his colorful knit cap farther down over his ears. “We’ve searched the woods and every unlocked house. Even the dogs are starting to have a hard time. It’s been three days and a hell of a lot of people have tramped around out there now.”

  Soon it will have been two weeks since Peter and Hanne arrived in Ormberg. We only worked together for a little more than a week before they disappeared, but it feels like I’ve known them much longer. And even though Peter’s been gone three days, it feels like he just disappeared yesterday.

  It’s as if time itself has warped in protest of what’s happened.

  I show Svante around among what’s left of the buildings, pointing out the blast furnace, the roasting furnace, the coal house, and the smithy.

  The brick buildings are surprisingly intact, though most of their windows gape open with no glass, betraying the fact that the ironworks has been closed a long time. The coal house, on the other hand, which was built of wood, is just a pile of boards.

  We climb over some large branches and head toward the old roasting furnace, which consists of a beautiful octagonal house with a tall brick chimney.

  The creek flows, black and tranquil, beside us. The gleam of our flashlights plays across the surface of the water, and the occasional leaf floats by.

  “Why did you stop the helicopter search?” I ask, wiping a snowflake off my nose.