Before the Frost (21 page)

“I'm looking for Anna Westin,” Linda said.

“She's not in.”

“But she lives here?”

The man stepped aside so Linda could enter. She felt his eyes on the back of her head when she walked past him.

“She has the room behind the kitchen,” he said.

They walked into the kitchen, which was a mess of dirty dishes and leftover food.
How can she live in this shit?
Linda thought.

She reluctantly stretched out her hand to shake his, shuddering at his limp and clammy handshake.

“Zacharias,” he said. “I don't think her door's locked, but she doesn't like anyone to go in there.”

“I'm one of her closest friends. If she hadn't wanted me to go in, she would have locked the door.”

“How am I supposed to know you're her friend?”

Linda felt like pushing him out of the kitchen, but pulled herself together.

“When did you see her last?”

He stepped back.

“What is this—a cross-examination?”

“Not at all. I've been trying to get in touch with her and she hasn't gotten back to me.”

Zacharias kept staring at her.

“Let's go into the living room,” he said.

She followed him into a room full of shabby, mismatched furniture. A torn poster of Che Guevara's face hung on one wall, a tapestry embroidered with some words about the joys of home on the other. Zacharias sat down at a table with a chess set. Linda sat across from him, which was as far away as she could get.

“What do you study?” she asked.

“I don't. I play chess.”

“And you make a living from that?”

“I don't know. I just know I can't live any other way.”

“I don't even know how all the pieces move.”

“I can show you, if you like.”

Not a chance,
Linda thought.
I'm getting out of here as soon as I can.

“How many of you live here?”

“It depends. Right now there's four of us: Margareta Olsson, who studies economics, me, Peter Engbom, who is supposed to be majoring in physics but is currently mired in the history of religion, and then Anna.”

“Who is studying medicine,” Linda filled in.

The facial movement was almost imperceptible, but she caught it. His face had registered surprise. At the same time she caught hold of the thought she had had the night before.

“When did you see her last?”

“I don't have a good memory for these things. It may have been yesterday or a week ago. I'm in the middle of a study of Capablanca's most accomplished endgames. Sometimes I think it should be possible to transcribe chess moves like music. In which case Capablanca's games would be fugues or enormous masses.”

Another nut interested in unplayable music,
she thought.

“That sounds interesting,” she said and got up. “Is anyone else home right now?”

“No, just me.”

Linda walked back to the kitchen, with Zacharias at her heels.

“I'm going in now, whatever you say.”

“Anna won't like it.”

“You can always try to stop me.”

He watched her as she opened the door and walked in. Anna's room must at one time have been a kitchen maid's room. It was small and narrow. Linda sat down on the bed and looked around. Zacharias appeared in the doorway. Linda suddenly had the feeling he was going to throw himself on top of her. She got up and he took a step back but kept watching her. It was no use. She wanted to pull out the desk drawers but as long as he was watching she couldn't bring herself to do it.

“When do the others get home?”

“I don't know.”

Linda walked out into the kitchen again. He smiled at her, revealing a row of yellow teeth. She was starting to feel sick and decided to leave.

“I can show you all the chess moves,” he said.

She opened the front door and paused on the steps.

“If I were you I'd spend some much-needed time in the shower,” she said and turned on her heel.

She heard the door slam shut behind her.
What a waste of time,
she thought angrily. The only thing she had managed to do was to demonstrate her weaknesses. She kicked open the gate. It hit the mailbox sitting on a fence post. She stopped and turned around. The front door was closed, and she couldn't see anyone looking out of a window. She opened the mailbox. There were two letters. She picked them up. One was addressed to Margareta Olsson from a travel agency in Gothenburg. The other was addressed by hand, to Anna. Linda hesitated for a moment, then took it with her to the car.
First I read her journal, then I open her mail,
she thought.
But I'm doing it because I'm worried about her
. Inside the envelope was a folded piece of paper. She flinched when she opened it; a dried, pressed spider fell out onto her lap.

The message was short, apparently incomplete, and without a signature.

We're in the new house, in Lestarp, behind the church, first road on the left, a red mark on an old oak tree, back there. Let us never underestimate the power of Satan. And yet we await a mighty angel descending from the heavens in a cloud of glory. . . .

 

Linda laid the letter on the passenger seat. She thought back to the insight she had had back in the house. It was the one thing she could thank that smelly chess-player for. He had mentioned what everyone who lived in the house studied, as well as their names. But Anna was just Anna. She was studying medicine ostensibly to become a physician. But what had Anna said when she told Linda about seeing her father in Malmö? She had seen a woman who had collapsed in the street, someone who needed help. And she had said that she couldn't stand the sight of blood. Linda was now
struck by the incongruity of this statement coming from someone who professed to want to be a doctor.

She looked at the letter beside her. What did it mean?
We await a mighty angel descending from the heavens in a cloud of glory.

The sun was strong. It was the beginning of September, but it was one of the warmest days of the summer. She took a map of Skåne out of the glove compartment. Lestarp was between Lund and Sjöbo. Linda pushed down the sun visor.
It's so childish,
she thought.
This business with the dried spider, the kind that falls out of lamp shades. But Anna is missing. This childishness exists alongside the reality, the reality of a little gingerbread house in the forest. Hands at prayer and a severed head.

It was as if she only now fully understood what she had seen in the hut that day. And Anna was no longer the person she thought she knew.
Maybe she isn't even studying medicine. Maybe this is the day I realize I know nothing about Anna Westin. She's dissolving in an unfathomable fog.

 

Linda was not aware of formulating a conscious plan as such; she just started driving toward Lestarp. It was almost thirty degrees Celsius in the shade.

23

Linda parked outside the church in Lestarp. She could see that it had been recently renovated. The newly painted doors gleamed. A small black-and-gold plaque above them was inscribed 1851. Linda remembered her grandfather saying something about his own grandfather drowning in a storm at sea that very year. She thought about him as she looked for a bathroom in the vestibule. It was located in the crypt. The cool air felt good to her after the heat outside.
I only remember important years,
her grandfather had said.
A year when someone drowns in a terrible accident, or when someone, like you, is born.

When she had finished, she washed her hands thoroughly as if she were washing off the remains of the chess-playing Zacharias's limp handshake. She looked at her face in the mirror. It passed muster, she decided. Her mouth was stern as always, her nose a little big, but her eyes were arresting and her teeth were good. She shuddered at the thought of the chess-player trying to kiss her, and hurried back up the stairs. An old man was walking in carrying a box of candles. She held the doors open. He put the box down and then placed his hands on his back.

“You would think God could spare his devoted servant from the trials of back pain,” he said in a low voice. Linda realized he was keeping his voice down because someone was sitting in the pews. She thought at first it was a man, then saw she was mistaken.

“Gudrun lost two children,” the old man whispered. “She comes here every single day.”

“What happened?”

“They were run over by a train, a terrible tragedy. One of the
ambulance drivers who took care of their remains lost his mind.”

He picked up the box again and continued up the aisle. Linda walked back out into the sun.
Death is all around me
, she thought,
calling out to me and trying to deceive me. I don't like churches, or the sight of women crying. How does that mesh with wanting to become a police officer? Does it make any more sense than Anna not being able to stand the sight of blood or of people collapsing in the street? Maybe you can want to become a doctor or a police officer for the same reason: to see if you have what it takes.

Linda wandered into the little cemetery attached to the church. Walking along the row of headstones was like perusing the shelves of a library. Every headstone was like a folder or the cover of a book. Here, for example, lay the householder Johan Ludde and his wife Linnea. They had been buried for ninety-six years, but he was seventy-six when he died, and she was only forty-one. There was a story here, in this poorly tended grave. She kept browsing the headstones, wondering what her own would look like. A headstone that was overgrown caught her eye. She crouched down and cleared moss and earth from its face. SOFIA 1854-1869. Fifteen years old. Had she too teetered on a bridge railing, but with no one to help her?

 

She left the car parked where it was and followed the narrow road that led to the back of the church on foot. She came upon the tree with the red mark almost immediately and turned onto a road that led down a small hill. The house was old and worn, the main part whitewashed stone with a slate roof, an addition built of rustic red-painted wood. Linda stopped and looked around. It was absolutely quiet. A rusty, overgrown tractor stood to one side, by some apple trees. Then the front door opened and a woman in white clothes started walking out to greet Linda, who didn't understand how she had been spotted. She hadn't seen anyone and she was still partly hidden by the trees. But the woman was making her way briskly straight for her, smiling. She was about Linda's age.

“I saw that you needed help,” she said when she was close enough. She spoke a mixture of Danish and English.

“I'm looking for a friend of mine,” Linda said. “Anna Westin.”

The woman smiled.

“We have no use for names here. Come with me. You may find this friend you are looking for.”

The mildness of her voice made Linda suspicious. Was she walking into a trap? She followed the woman into the cool interior of the main house. It took some time for Linda to see clearly. The slowness of her eyes to adjust from bright outdoor light to dim interiors was one of her few physical weaknesses, one she had discovered during her time at the academy.

All of the walls on the inside were also whitewashed, with no rugs on the bare, broad planks of the floor. There was no furniture, but a large black wooden cross hung between two arched windows. People sat along the walls, directly on the floor. Many with their arms wrapped around their knees, all silent. They were of all ages and in different styles of dress. One man with short hair was wearing a dark suit and tie; by his side was an older woman in very simple clothes. Linda looked all around but could not pick out Anna among them. The woman who had come out to greet her looked inquiringly at her, but Linda shook her head.

“There's one more room,” the woman said.

Linda followed. The wooden walls of the next room were also painted white. These windows were far less elaborate. Here too people sat along the walls, but Linda did not see anyone who looked like Anna. What was going on in this house? What had the letter said?
A mighty angel in a cloud of glory
?

“Let us go out again,” said the woman.

She led Linda across the lawn, around the side of the house to a group of stone furniture in the shadow of a beech tree. Linda's curiosity was now fully engaged. Somehow these people had something to do with Anna. She decided to come clean.

“The friend I'm looking for is missing. I found a letter in her mailbox that described this place.”

“Can you tell me what she looks like?”

I don't like this
, Linda thought.
Her smile, her calm. It's completely disingenuous and makes my skin crawl. Like when I shook that chess-player's hand.

Linda gave her Anna's description. The woman's smile never wavered.

“I don't think I've seen her,” she said. “Do you have the letter with you?”

“I left it in the car.”

“And where is the car?”

“I parked it over by the church. It's a red VW Golf. The letter is lying on the front seat. I left the car unlocked, actually, which I know is careless of me.”

The woman was silent. Linda felt uncomfortable.

“What do you do here?”

“Your friend must have told you. Everyone who is here has the mission of bringing others to our temple.”

“This is a temple?”

“What else would it be?”

Of course
, Linda thought sarcastically.
What was I thinking? This is clearly a temple and not simply the somewhat dilapidated remains of a humble Swedish farmstead where the owners once struggled to put food on the table.