The Crow Girl (43 page)

Denmark is hell on earth, she thinks.

‘BLOODY AWFUL WEATHER,’
Sofia Zetterlund says as she walks into the hospital room. She has an uncertain smile on her lips, and Jeanette Kihlberg nods warily. She’s pleased to see Sofia again, but there’s something different about her face, something new that she can’t read.

The rain is beating against the windows, and every so often the room is lit up by lightning. They stand there facing each other.

Sofia looks anxiously at Johan, and Jeanette goes over and strokes her back.

‘Hello, you, good to see you,’ she whispers, and Sofia reciprocates and gives Jeanette a hug.

‘What’s the prognosis?’ she asks.

Jeanette smiles. ‘If you mean the weather, pretty lousy.’ Her lighthearted tone is unforced. ‘But as far as Johan’s concerned, things look good. He’s started to come round. You can see his eyes moving under his eyelids now.’ Johan’s face has finally got some colour back, and she strokes his arm.

The doctors have finally dared to give an unambiguously positive assessment of his condition. And it’s nice to have the company of someone she doesn’t work with. Someone she’s not expected to behave like a boss towards.

Sofia relaxes and becomes herself again.

‘There’s no way you should blame yourself for what happened,’ Jeanette says. ‘It wasn’t your fault he disappeared.’

Sofia stares at her sombrely. ‘No, maybe not. But I’m ashamed that I panicked. I want to be reliable, but I’m clearly not.’

Jeanette thinks back to how Sofia reacted. She had been distraught. In pieces, crying, with her face to the ground.

‘I hope you can forgive me for leaving you there,’ Jeanette says. ‘But Johan was still missing at the time, and –’

‘Goodness, yes,’ Sofia interrupts. ‘I can always take care of myself.’ She looks Jeanette right in the eye. ‘Remember that: I can always look after myself, you never have to take responsibility for me, no matter what.’

Jeanette is almost alarmed by how serious Sofia appears and sounds.

‘If I can handle blubbing company directors, I can handle myself as well.’

Jeanette is relieved to see Sofia smiling.

‘Well, evidently I can’t even handle a drunk,’ Jeanette says. She laughs and points to the bandage on her brow.

‘And what’s your prognosis?’ Sofia asks. Her eyes are smiling now as well.

‘A bottle to the head. Four stitches that’ll be taken out in a couple of weeks.’

The room is once again lit up by lightning. The window rattles and Jeanette is blinded by the bright flash.

White walls, white floor and ceiling. White sheets. Johan’s pale face. Her eyes are out of focus.

‘But what actually happened to you?’ Jeanette hardly dares look at Sofia as she asks the question. The red lights on the heart-lung machine flash. She rubs her eyes and the colours return. Now she can see Sofia’s face properly.

‘Well.’ She sighs, then looks up at the ceiling as though searching for words. ‘It turned out that I was considerably more scared of dying than I ever thought. Simple as that.’

‘You didn’t think you were beforehand?’ Jeanette looks at her inquisitively, and immediately feels her own fear of the inevitable clutch at her chest.

‘Yes, but not like that. Not as strongly as that. It’s like the idea of death doesn’t really become obvious until you have children, and then I had Johan with me up there, and …’ Sofia falls silent and puts her hand on Johan’s leg. ‘Life suddenly took on a different meaning, and I wasn’t prepared for the fact that it could feel like that.’ She turns to look at Jeanette with a smile. ‘I suppose it came as a shock, suddenly realising the point of life.’

Jeanette realises for the first time that Sofia isn’t just a psychologist who’s easy to talk to.

She’s also bearing something herself, a loss or a longing, possibly a sorrow.

And she too has experiences to work through, gaps to fill.

She feels ashamed at not having known sooner. That Sofia is a person who can’t just give all the time.

‘Always being strong is the same as not living,’ she says, hoping Sofia realises that her words are intended as a comfort.

Suddenly Johan makes a whimpering sound, and for a fraction of a second they look at each other in surprise before realising what they’ve just heard. The weight inside Jeanette eases, and she leans over him.

‘Darling,’ she mutters, as her hands stroke his chest. ‘Welcome back. Mum’s here. I’m waiting for you.’

She calls a doctor, who explains that this is a natural part of coming round, but that it will be many hours before he’s conscious.

‘Life is slowly returning to all of us,’ Sofia says when the doctor leaves them on their own.

‘Yes, maybe,’ Jeanette says, and makes up her mind at that moment to say what she knows. ‘By the way, do you know who’s lying in a coma in the next ward?’ she asks.

‘No idea. Anyone I know?’

‘Karl Lundström,’ Jeanette says. ‘I went past his room earlier today. It’s actually quite strange,’ she goes on. ‘Two corridors away Karl Lundström is lying between the same sort of sheets as Johan, and the staff care for them both with the same devotion. Life seems to be worth just the same, regardless of who you are.’

‘We live in the world of men,’ Sofia replies. ‘Where Johan is worth no more than a paedophile. There, no one’s worth more than a paedophile or a rapist. You can only be worth less.’

Jeanette laughs. ‘How do you mean?’

‘Well, if you’re a victim, you’re worth less than the paedophile himself. They’d rather protect presumed perpetrators than presumed victims. The world of men.’

Jeanette nods but isn’t sure she understands. She looks at Johan lying there. A victim? She hasn’t really dared think the thought. A victim of what? She thinks of Karl Lundström. No, impossible. She thinks him away.

‘What sort of experiences have you had with men?’ she hazards.

‘I suppose I hate them,’ Sofia replies. Her eyes are blank. ‘As a group, I mean,’ she adds, turning to look at Jeanette again. ‘You?’

Jeanette isn’t prepared for the question to be thrown back at her. She looks at Johan, and thinks of Åke, and her bosses and colleagues. Sure, there are pigs among them, but that doesn’t apply to them all. What Sofia is giving voice to comes from a different world to hers. That’s the sort of thing you just feel.

Sofia’s darkness, what exactly does it consist of? Her eyes are difficult to read.

Hatred or irony, madness or wisdom? Is there really any difference? Jeanette thinks.

‘I could do with a cigarette,’ Sofia says. ‘Do you want to come?’

At least she never bores her. Unlike Åke.

‘No … you go. I’ll sit here with Johan.’

Sofia Zetterlund picks up her coat and walks out.

THE ROWAN TREE
was planted the same day she was born. She once tried to set fire to it, but it wouldn’t burn
.

The compartment is warm and smells of the people who were sitting here before her. Victoria opens the window in an attempt to air it, but it’s as if the smells are ingrained in the velour seats.

The headache she’s had since she woke up with the noose around her neck in the Copenhagen hotel room is starting to ease. But her mouth still feels sore and her broken front tooth hurts badly. She runs her tongue over her teeth and can feel that a piece has broken off, and thinks that she’ll have to get it fixed as soon as she gets home.

The train pulls out from the station with a jolt, and it starts to pour with rain.

I can do what I like, she thinks. I can leave it all behind me and never go back to him. Will he allow that? She doesn’t know. He needs her, and she needs him.

At least for the moment.

A week earlier she, Hannah and Jessica took the ferry from Corfu to Brindisi, then trains to Rome and Paris. There had been grey rain through the windows the whole way. July was more like November. Two pointless days in Paris. Hannah and Jessica had started to get homesick and they were cold and wet as they sat in their seats at the Gare du Nord.

Victoria curls up in a corner and pulls her jacket over her head. After a month interrailing through Europe, only the last stretch remains.

Throughout the entire journey Hannah and Jessica had been like rag dolls. She had grown tired of them, and when the train stopped in Lille she decided to get off. A Danish lorry driver offered her a lift, and she went with him all the way to Amsterdam. When she got to Copenhagen she cashed in her last traveller’s cheques and booked into a hotel.

The voice had told her what to do. But it had been wrong.

She had survived.

As the train approaches the ferry terminal in Helsingør, she wonders if her life could have been different. Probably not. Her father stuck a knife into her childhood, and the blade is still quivering from the blow. Not that it matters now. She and the hatred belong together, like thunder and lightning. Like a clenched fist and a punch.

The journey home takes all night, and she sleeps the whole way. The conductor wakes her just before they arrive, and she feels giddy and uneasy. She has been dreaming, but can’t remember of what, and all that remains of the dream is a feeling of anxiety.

It’s early morning, and there’s a chill in the air. She puts her rucksack on, gets off the train and walks into the large, arched concourse. As she anticipated, there’s no one there to meet her, and she takes the escalator down to the metro.

The bus from Slussen out to Värmdö and Grisslinge takes half an hour, and she uses the time to make up innocent little anecdotes about the trip. She knows he’s going to want to hear everything, and won’t be happy if there are no details.

Victoria gets off the bus and walks slowly along the road where she once named so many things.

She sees the Climbing Tree and the Stepping Stone. The little mound she called the Mountain, and the stream that was once the River.

Even as she takes her seventeen-year-old teenage steps, part of her is only two years old.

The white Volvo is parked in the drive, and she sees them out in the garden.

He’s standing with his back to her fiddling with something, while Mum is crouched beside one of the flower beds, weeding. Victoria takes off her rucksack and leaves it on the terrace.

Only then does he hear her and turn round.

She smiles and waves to him, but he looks at her expressionlessly, then turns away and continues with his work.

Mum looks up from the flower bed and nods warily at Victoria. She nods back, then picks up her rucksack again and goes into the house.

She unpacks her dirty clothes in the basement and puts them in the laundry basket. She undresses and gets in the shower.

A sudden gust of air makes the shower curtain move, and she realises he’s standing outside the shower.

‘Did you have a nice time?’ he says. His shadow falls on the shower curtain and she feels her stomach tighten. She doesn’t want to answer, but in spite of the humiliations he has subjected her to, she can’t give him the sort of silent treatment that might make him reveal himself.

‘Oh yes. It was good.’ She tries to sound happy and relaxed, and not think about the fact that he’s standing so close to her naked body.

‘And you had enough money to last the whole trip?’

‘Yes. I’ve even got a bit left. After all, I had my grant, so …’

‘That’s good, Victoria. You’re …’ His voice trails off and she hears him sniff.

Is he crying?

‘I’ve missed you. It’s been empty here without you. Well, obviously we’ve both missed you.’

‘But I’m home now.’ She tries to sound cheerful, but feels the lump in her stomach grow because she knows what he wants.

‘That’s good, Victoria. Finish your shower and get dressed, then your mum and I want to talk to you. Mum’s making some tea.’ He blows his nose in his handkerchief, then snorts.

Yes, he’s crying, she thinks.

‘I’m almost finished.’

She waits for him to go before turning the water off and drying herself. She knows he might be back any moment and gets dressed as quickly as she can. She doesn’t even bother finding clean underwear, and puts the pair she’s been wearing all the way from Denmark back on.

They’re sitting quietly at the kitchen table waiting for her. The only noise is from the radio by the window. On the table is the teapot and a plate of almond biscuits. Mum pours a cup, which smells strongly of mint and honey.

‘Welcome home, Victoria,’ Mum says, holding out the plate of biscuits without looking her in the eye.

Victoria tries to catch her eye. Tries again and again.

She doesn’t recognise me, Victoria thinks.

The plate of biscuits is the only thing that’s really present.

‘You’ve probably been looking forward to having some proper …’ Mum loses her train of thought, puts the plate down and brushes some invisible crumbs from the table. ‘After all the strange things …’

‘It’ll be nice.’ Victoria lets her eyes roam around the kitchen, then looks at him.

‘You had something you wanted to tell me.’ She dunks the sugar-coated biscuit in the tea, and a big piece breaks off and falls into the cup. Fascinated, she watches it dissolve as the small pieces sink to the bottom, as though it had never been whole.

‘Mum and I have done some thinking while you’ve been gone, and we’ve decided to move away from here for a while.’

He leans over the table and Mum nods in agreement, as if to reinforce his words.

‘Move? Where to?’

‘I’ve been asked to lead a project in Sierra Leone. To start with we’ll be there for six months, then we can stay another six months if we want to.’

He slowly rubs his slender hands, and she notices how old and wrinkled they look.

So hard and eager. Burning.

She shudders at the thought of him touching her.

‘But I’ve applied to Uppsala University and …’ She can feel tears welling up, but doesn’t want to show any weakness. That might give him an opportunity to try to comfort her. She looks down into her cup, stirs it with her spoon, making porridge with the biscuit crumbs.