Before the Frost (51 page)

But this was about Maria. She had threatened alternately to jump, to shoot herself, and to shoot anyone who tried to approach
her. The mother was too high to be of any use, and there was also the chance that she would start to shout at her daughter and incite her to carry out her threats.

Several officers had tried to speak to the girl through a trapdoor located twenty meters from the place by the drainpipe where she was sitting. Right now an old minister was trying to talk to her, but she aimed the weapon at his head and he quickly ducked down. They were feverishly working on locating a close friend of Maria's who would perhaps be able to get through to her. No one doubted that she was desperate enough to do what she had threatened.

Linda borrowed a pair of binoculars and looked at the girl. When the call came through, she had thought of the time she had stood on the bridge railing. When she saw Maria shaking on the roof, her cramped hold on the shotgun, and the tears that had frozen on her face, it was like looking at herself. Behind her she could hear Sundin, Ekman, and the minister talking. No one knew what to do. Linda lowered the binoculars and turned to them.

“Let me talk to her,” she said.

Sundin shook his head doubtfully.

“I was once in the same situation,” she said. “And she might listen to me since I'm not even that much older than she is.”

“I can't let you take that risk. You're not experienced enough to judge what you should and shouldn't say. And her weapon is loaded. She's showing signs of an increasing desperation. Sooner or later she'll use her gun.”

“Let her talk to her.”

It was the old minister. He sounded very firm.

“I agree,” Ekman said.

Sundin wavered.

“Shouldn't you at least call your dad first and talk to him?”

Linda almost lost her composure.

“For goodness' sake, this has nothing to do with him. This is just between me and Maria Larsson. Nothing to do with him.”

Sundin agreed. But he made her put on a bulletproof vest and helmet before he let her go up. She kept the vest on, but removed the helmet before sticking up her head through the trapdoor. The girl on the roof heard the creaking of the metal. When Linda
peeked out Maria had the gun aimed at her head. She almost ducked her head under again.

“Don't come near me!” the girl shrieked. “I'll shoot and then I'll jump!”

“Take it easy,” Linda said. “I'm not going to move an inch. But will you let me talk to you?”

“What do you have to say to me?”

“Why are you doing this?”

“I want to die.”

“I wanted to die too, once. That's what I have to say to you.”

The girl didn't answer and Linda waited. Then she started to tell her about how she had stood on the bridge railing, what had led up to it, and about the person who had finally been able to talk her down.

Maria listened, but her initial reaction was anger.

“What do you think that has to do with me? My story is going to end down on the street. Go away! Leave me alone!”

Linda wondered what she should do next. She had thought her story would be enough. Now she realized what a naïve assessment that was.
I've watched Anna die,
she thought.
But I've also witnessed Zeba's joy at still being alive.

She decided to keep talking.

“I want to give you something to live for,” she said.

“There is nothing.”

“Give me the gun and come here. For my sake.”

“You don't know me.”

“No, but I've teetered on a bridge railing. Sometimes I have nightmares where I throw myself off.”

“When you're dead you don't dream anything. I don't want to live.”

The conversation went back and forth. After a while—how long it was Linda couldn't say because time seemed to have been suspended when she first poked her head up out of the roof and faced the barrels of the shotgun—she could tell that the girl was fully engaged in what they were saying. Her voice was calmer, less shrill. This was the first step. Now she held an invisible lifeline of sorts around Maria's body. But nothing was resolved until the moment
when Linda had used up all her words and started to cry. And that was when Maria finally gave in.

“All right,” she said. “I just want them to turn off all the fucking lights. I don't want to see my mother. I only want to talk to you. And I won't come down right away.”

Linda hesitated. What if it was a trap? What if she had decided to jump when the lights were turned off?

“Why won't you come down with me now?”

“I want ten minutes.”

“What for?”

“Ten minutes to see what it feels like to have decided to live.”

Linda climbed down and all the lights were turned off. Sundin kept an eye on the time. Suddenly it was as if all of the events from the dramatic days at the beginning of September came out of the darkness at her with full force. She had been so grateful for her work, and the new apartment had taken so much of her attention, that she had not yet had the opportunity to slow down enough to take on the full impact of what she had been through. Even more important was the time she had been spending with Stefan Lindman. They had started seeing each other, and sometime in the middle of October Linda had realized that she wasn't alone in having fallen in love. Now, when she stood there trying to pick out the outline of the girl on the roof who had decided to live, it was as if the moment had arrived for a kind of resolution to all that had happened.

Linda stamped her feet to stay warm and looked up again at the roof. Had Maria changed her mind? Sundin mumbled that there was only a minute left. Then the time ran out. The ladder truck drove up to the edge of the building. Two firemen helped the girl down, a third went up and collected the weapon. Linda had told Sundin and the others what she had promised, and she insisted that her side of the bargain be upheld. Therefore she was the only one there when Maria reached the bottom of the ladder. Linda hugged her and suddenly both of them started to sob. Linda had the strange feeling that she was hugging herself.

An ambulance was on the scene. Linda helped Maria over to it and waited until it drove away, the gravel crunching under its
wheels. The frost had arrived; the air was already below freezing. Officers, the old minister, the firemen: everyone came up and shook her hand.

 

Linda and Ekman stayed until the fire trucks and patrol cars had left, the yellow tape had been taken down, and the crowd had dispersed. Then there was a broadcast about a suspected drunk driver on Österleden. Ekman started the engine. They left, and Linda swore under her breath. Most of all she would have liked to go back to the station for a cup of coffee.

But that would have to wait, like so many other things. She leaned against Ekman to read the thermometer for the outside temperature.

Minus three degrees Celsius. Winter had arrived in Skåne.

© 2002 by Henning Mankell English translation © 2005 by The New Press

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, in any form, without written permission from the publisher.

 

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Originally published as
Innan frosten
by Leopard Förlag, Stockholm, 2002
Published in the United States by The New Press, New York, 2005
Distributed by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., New York

 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

 

Mankell, Henning, 1948-
[Innan frosten. English]
Before the frost / Henning Mankell ; translated by Ebba Segerberg.
p. cm.

eISBN : 978-1-595-58557-8

I. Segerberg, Ebba. II. Title.
PT9876.23.A49I5613 2005
839.73'74—dc22 2004055197

 

The New Press was established in 1990 as a not-for-profit alternative to the large, commercial publishing houses currently dominating the book publishing industry. The New Press operates in the public interest rather than for private gain, and is committed to publishing, in innovative ways, works of educational, cultural, and community value that are often deemed insufficiently profitable.