Authors: Hakan Ostlundh
For a long time she had been happy simply because the catastrophe she had prepared herself for had not arrived. When she went up to the hospital the first time and saw Fredrik lying there motionless with an empty gaze she had been completely convinced that she would not cope with it. She had returned to Gotland, driven around blindly in the car, wept and screamed, thrown things around her. She had thought about their children, who would have a dad but still be fatherless, she had tried to imagine needing to spoon-feed a grown man with purées like baby food and listen to mentally incapacitated babbling and try to convince herself that she loved him.
Not always such lovely thoughts, but she had not escaped them. She had not tried to pretend, either, that she was better than she really was. In any respect, not to herself. When she realized that it would not be as bad as in her fantasies everything got easier. But the kind of musings that used to take up much of her time—how much did she really like her job at the Högby School, would she even keep living on Gotland when Simon, too, had graduated from high school and perhaps left the island to study on the mainland—there was no room for at all. Her thoughts circled around whether Fredrik would be completely restored or only almost. If he would be able to work as a police officer again. If they would ever have a sex life again. If he could. If she would want to.
Now all that was sufficiently far back in time so that she could not automatically feel happy that it hadn’t turned out that way. They were sleeping with each other again. He could. She wanted to. It was perhaps not the world’s best sex life, but had it always been before the accident? Hardly.
They had been well on their way to healing again after the separation when the accident happened, but she was not certain that they were completely done. The accident had come as an interruption. It was only now that she felt that they could pick up the thread again in earnest, continue where they had been.
When she read about similar incidents in a magazine, people who managed by the skin of their teeth, they always sounded as if they had been changed forever, became better people, learned to accept things and be grateful for life. Every second of it. Ninni did not recognize herself in those stories. A year ago perhaps she felt that way, she could go along with that, but no longer. Sooner or later the old normal life always caught up with you.
Malin looked at the blond woman through the window opening, then at her daughter. Ellen was standing on a stool to be able to see properly. They were at the far back of the police station’s assembly hall that happened to be dubbed F
ÅRÖ
. Sara Oskarsson had shown them past the rows of chairs and narrow tables up to the short wall and the burgundy-red drapery that she had just pulled back.
On the other side of the window six women were standing. They were of approximately the same height and figure. Two of them were blond, two reddish-blond, one medium blond, and one red-haired. One of the two blondes was Stina Hansson.
There was no doubt that this was the woman who stood and stared at Malin outside the school that morning. There was no doubt, either, that she was blond. Not the least bit reddish-blond. So she must have been mistaken.
Malin looked at the blonde again. The blonde. It was easier to think of her that way than as Stina. A hair color kept her at a proper distance.
Malin observed her and thought she was smiling in a strange way as she looked right at Ellen, almost in a kind of mutual understanding. Malin knew that this was not possible. The other side of the glass was a mirror. The blonde could not see them. Not Ellen, not her or anyone else. Sara Oskarsson had explained that very carefully before she pulled back the drapery.
And yet. Malin was certain that something was going on between them. Not mutual understanding perhaps, but more like a kind of contact. This silent communication through the glass frightened Ellen into silence, reminded her of an agreement that had been made in the car. Words that Ellen never mentioned, just because it was part of the agreement not to mention them. You may never say that you recognize me. I’ll only let you go if you promise that.
That was nonsense of course. Fantasies. And yet. It drove her to madness that she could not know for certain what had happened in that car. What had been said. What if Ellen had been threatened? Frightened into silence. Perhaps she had given them a completely false image of what had happened because she didn’t dare do otherwise.
“Think about it,” said Sara Oskarsson. “We have lots of time.”
Ellen turned around and looked with uncertain, pleading eyes at Malin. She smiled at Ellen and it hurt inside when she realized that she could not help her. Was not allowed to. Thought about what she had said earlier: Sometimes reddish-blond hair almost looks like blond, you can actually think that it’s blond.… Perhaps she had confused her with that. Perhaps she had ruined everything. Perhaps Ellen recognized her, but was uncertain because Malin was always talking about hair color. Should she say something to Sara?
She wondered what was going on in Ellen’s head right now. What did she see in the blonde’s eyes? She could see a faint reflection of Ellen’s eyes in the glass in front of them, see them moving jerkily between the six individuals.
She regretted going along with this. She had wanted it, actually pushed for it when Sara Oskarsson brought it up as a possibility. She had been careful to point out that doing the confrontation was completely voluntary.
Ellen whispered something she could not make out. Sara Oskarsson leaned down.
“What did you say?”
“I don’t know,” whispered Ellen.
Malin could hear in her voice that tears were not far away.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Sara to Ellen. “If you don’t recognize any of them that’s fine. Then just say that. You don’t need to feel the slightest bit compelled to recognize anyone. Do you understand that?”
Ellen looked at Sara, but did not answer. She stood a long time completely silently, then she quickly looked at the six women.
“Ellen,” said Sara gently. “When you say you don’t know, do you mean that you don’t know for sure, or do you mean that none of them are the woman you rode with in the car?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” she sobbed, extending her arms toward Malin.
Malin crouched down and put her arms around her. She hated herself for this. Hated herself because she hadn’t thought about it and said no. Good Lord, weren’t there other ways? Couldn’t they check whether Ellen’s DNA was on the passenger seat in Stina Hansson’s car? That must be easy as pie these days. She would call them later and ask. Now she didn’t want to say anything. Not while Ellen was there.
She raised her eyes toward the window and looked at the blonde one last time before Sara Oskarsson pulled the drape.
They timed the ferry departure wrong, would have to wait for more than twenty minutes. But the boat from Nynäshamn came when it did, there was not much to do.
Maria had brought presents with her for the children, which she gave to them as soon as they got in the car. A picture book for Axel and a diary for Ellen.
You can already write so I thought maybe you want to try to write a diary. I started doing that when I was your age
.
Oh well, Malin thought, that was probably not really true, but she didn’t say anything. Their relationship was free of annoying jabs and status markers. She had never felt that she needed to compete with her sister. It was almost strange. Many of Malin’s friends could harp on their siblings with sternly squinting eyes. There seemed to be constant elbowing for parental attention far into adult age. Not to mention tear-filled battles about some old lopsided oak table the parents tried to give away with the best of intentions.
“I’m so happy you’re here,” she said to Maria while they sat and waited in the stuffy car.
She undid her seat belt and rolled down the window. It was quiet and peaceful at the ferry landing, not a person was in sight. Malin’s Honda was the only car in front of the boom. The ferry had not even left Broa yet and in the sound barely a ripple was seen on the surface of the water.
Maria leaned over to her and whispered, “Ellen seems to be doing fine.”
Malin glanced at her daughter in the backseat. She was reading Axel’s book while he drew stick figures in Ellen’s new diary.
“Yes,” she whispered back. “I don’t think she really understood what happened. And that’s probably just as well.”
Maria nodded in agreement.
“But I don’t know,” she added.
Maria fanned herself with her hand.
“Shall we get out a minute?” Malin asked. “It’s really hot.”
They opened the doors and got out of the car, asked whether the children wanted to come with, but they just shook their heads. During the summer season the line to the ferry was a given occasion to beg for ice cream or a piece of candy, but this late in August the kiosk and souvenir shops in the old fishing sheds were closed up. They left the car doors open anyway so that Axel and Ellen got a little breeze.
“I was hoping for a dip, but that doesn’t look promising,” said Maria, pointing across the sound.
The sun was broiling over the main island, the traffic authority’s flag was hanging limply alongside the Swedish flag, but over Fårö a low, blue-gray bank of clouds had settled like a kind of gloomy whipped cream over a scanty cake bottom.
“I think it will blow over. It’s already starting to break up over there in the east,” said Malin, pointing.
Maria laughed loudly and suddenly bowed. “Two years out here and you’re already a weatherman.” She stroked Malin over her shoulders, down along her arm, and kissed her on the cheek.
“Fortune-teller,” Malin corrected her. “I have actually learned a thing or two. You have no choice when you live on a little island in the middle of nowhere. I think there may be swimming.”
“I hope you’re right.”
* * *
The ferry came pulsating across the sound, and a short while later they were on board. The children had been extremely patient where the ferry was concerned. It had not been that way at first. The children and Malin sat fidgeting in the car and thought it was almost the end of the world to have to waste all that time in front of a boom on the dreary end of a pier. Now it was part of their lives, no stranger than waiting at the subway, a time when you could browse through the newspaper or write a shopping list. Besides, she had gotten good at keeping track of the departures.
They came home to Kalbjerga. Maria threw herself around Henrik’s neck as usual. They had always liked each other. She thought Henrik was a keeper and Malin was happy that she did. Because she liked her sister so much it would have been a disaster if she hadn’t gotten along well with her husband.
Maria got the whole sitting room to herself. It mostly stood empty during the summer. As winter approached it might get a little cold down in the living room. Then they moved the TV up to the sitting room and left it there until Easter.
Just as Malin had predicted, soon the dreary cloud cover disappeared. They packed into the car again, without Henrik, who had to get ready for his trip, and bumped down to the beach.
“I love this place,” said Maria when she was standing before the glistening, deserted bay in a pair of borrowed flip-flops.
“Me, too,” said Malin.
Malin often rode her bicycle down there, alone or with the kids, sat down at the water’s edge, and looked out over the sea. After a few minutes in the stillness and with the meditative lapping of the waves in her ears, it was easy to get the feeling that you were the only person in the whole world. But it was not frightening like the feeling of being abandoned in the dark, far from civilization and the nearest neighbor. This was something completely different. Here there was no civilization. On a sunny, pleasant day like this, she was the first human. It was just her, the sun, the sea, and perhaps God. There was no time. Everything was eternal.
On a cloudy, gray, windy day, on the other hand, the stony beaches were gloomy and hard, as if burned to ash, the sea dark and threatening. A low-pressure system turned the pages from the creation story to the Book of Revelations from one day to the next. Then she was the last person on Earth, eternity was over, and she got a heavy lump in her throat from thinking about it. Soon there would only be stone, ice, and darkness left. No sun. No life. No God. But the landscape was still beautiful.
She looked at Maria. They were so ridiculously alike. It was even more noticeable when they changed to swimming suits. Their bodies were similar, they were almost the same height, less than an inch apart, to Maria’s advantage. Their eyes were frighteningly identical, Henrik liked to say. Malin’s face was a touch rounder. She did not have Maria’s defined cheekbones, which she thought gave Maria’s eyes an extra speck of sharpness. Then Henrik could say what he wanted. What set them apart the most was their hair color. Maria’s medium blond and her own dark brown, almost black.
They followed the children down to the water’s edge. Maria kicked off her flip-flops and put one foot down in the water.
“It’s really warm,” she panted.
Malin stayed with the children in the shallows while Maria waded out among the stones, threw herself headfirst into the water, and swam a couple of quick strokes. Ellen and Axel splashed water on each other, but it was warm enough that it would be fun. Malin sat down on the bottom with the water to her navel and closed her eyes. She heard the sound of the waves, saw the glistening of the sun right through her eyelids, and felt the aroma of suntan lotion that was not there. Her whole body relaxed. All that bad stuff would blow over. Whoever left the pictures and picked Ellen up outside the school must realize that it was over now. The police were involved, all of north Gotland was keeping their eyes open for the blond kidnapper in the white car.
Maria came back into the shallows with water splashing around her legs. Malin opened her eyes when Maria sank down beside her.