Authors: Hakan Ostlundh
“Has he … has he photographed you like that?” asked Maria.
Malin shook her head.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, what the hell do you think?” said Malin sharply.
“Sorry. I was just asking.”
Malin did not wish that Henrik had asked to photograph her naked. Truly not. Still she suddenly felt so jealous that her thoughts became completely cloudy. She wished she had avoided seeing those pictures. Damn. She knew she would regret it. She should have listened to Maria. She had been afraid of Stina Hansson’s loving smile. Now instead she was sitting here with Stina Hansson’s drop-dead gorgeous breasts on her retina.
There was singing in Fredrik’s head, he could not describe it any other way. It was neither a tone nor a voice. Yet he experienced it as a song.
It was seven thirty in the evening. He was standing among the fruit trees on the back side of the house. He ended up there sometimes, stood watching the overgrown crowns, considering how they should be pruned, branch by branch, twig by twig, but seldom took out a saw to do anything about it. It was more a kind of meditation, a puzzle for his brain.
There was singing in his head. At first it frightened him, but he had soon calmed down, thought it was “in his head,” not in his head. True, he had experienced some strange phenomena during the time he had been on medical leave. On one occasion, several months after the accident, the surroundings had suddenly started rocking and the visual impressions had been distorted like in a funhouse mirror.
He had gone to the ER, thought that now it was over. But the doctor explained that it was simply the brain resuming its original form. When the brain has been subjected to pressure for a time, sooner or later, when the pressure is gone, it will bend back. In connection with that, a kind of wave movement arises in the brain which can give rise to quite unpredictable experiences, in Fredrik’s case the strange visual impressions. He had returned home, relieved but also with some tricky thoughts buzzing in his head.
What was it really that he experienced as
me
? Were ego and personality the same thing? If he changed did he then become a different person, or just different? And everything he saw around him, was it possible to know what that really was? Or did he have to be content with his experience of the surrounding world, which apparently could change from one moment to the next? All that was needed was a little wave movement in the brain.
He had talked with Ninni about it. She said he sounded like something out of the arts pages from the 1980s. He hadn’t become any wiser because of it, but he had decided to try to stop thinking about it. Better to observe the treetops.
And the song that now slowly subsided had nothing to do with the accident, he was sure of that. He was healthy. He had papers to prove it. From a whole team of doctors.
Ninni was moving through the kitchen, on the other side of the window glass that reflected the foliage with the still not-quite-ripe fruit. She stopped and looked out toward the garden, as if she sensed him observing her. She caught sight of him, waved, and went on, disappearing into another room where he could no longer see her.
The song subsided completely and he was surprised by a strong feeling of happiness. He was happy because he could stand there in his garden. Because he had Ninni. And because he had Simon and Joakim. The happiness he felt was a lightness difficult to describe. It swept forth like a wind through the trees. He felt quietly euphoric.
Then came a whiff of hog manure from the neighbor, bringing him back down to earth.
Malin loaded the shopping cart with vegetables. At this time of year the produce case was full of organic and locally grown. It was not just that it was right, the vegetables on Gotland were also the best in the country. This was due to a large extent, of course, to the location, Sweden’s best cultivation zone, but also that there were quite a few farmers who really cared. Even if one of the biggest producers went to jail for toxic dumping some years ago, there were also many who chose to farm organically.
Maria was at home with Ellen and Axel. It was nice to be able to shop in peace and quiet, without stress, without children tugging at her. Malin realized that Ellen would have to go back to school, but she hated the thought of dragging her there again. She had had time to consider a number of more or less impossible alternatives. Should they change schools? Would that help or would everyone soon know that the girl who had been kidnapped from the Fårösund school had transferred to the school in Slite or Visby or … It wouldn’t work anyway. Not unless the whole family moved and then they might as well go back to Stockholm. Sometimes she thought that would be best, at other moments the very thought felt like a defeat.
Malin pushed the shopping cart out to the parking lot with her bags. She opened the back hatch, stowed away the groceries, and politely returned the cart to the neat row outside the entrance.
It was only when she had started the car and backed out of the parking space that she caught sight of Stina Hansson. She was just getting into her white Toyota at the other end of the asphalt lot and started it up just as quickly as that time outside the school. Had she even put on her seat belt? Had she caught sight of Malin, was that why she was in such a hurry?
The rest was instinct. When the white car rolled out from its parking space and headed toward the exit she quickly put the gear selector in drive and stepped on the gas. She had to keep to the left, dangerously close to the parked cars to get there ahead of Stina Hansson, but it worked. She jammed on the brakes with the SUV at a diagonal, right in front of the exit. A sharp sound of metal scraping against metal cut across the parking lot and the SUV jerked sideways.
Malin quickly unbuckled her seat belt and jumped out of the SUV. She rounded it in back and rushed over toward Stina Hansson’s Toyota.
She struck her fist on the white car body.
“You damn well leave my family alone, do you understand? You damn well leave us alone.”
Malin’s throat ached after the outburst. Stina Hansson stared terrified at her through the side window. A little splash of saliva had stuck to the glass.
September 3
I’m caught here—in what was us. I do think that everything will work out. Because it can’t feel this way and have it just be me. It’s impossible. But then come the short flashes of something different. Violent blows that say I’m wrong. That I sit here like an idiot with my messed-up feelings and you don’t care at all about what I feel, if I live or die, if I kill myself or just lie down somewhere and rot. And you get that pained expression—that you want to be somewhere else. I’m just something that’s in the way, something you would prefer to throw away. And that burrows its way deep inside. I’m afraid then because I don’t know how I’ll manage—I hardly know how I will put up with waiting for everything to be all right, that you will understand, gather courage or whatever it is you need to do, that time will convince you that you must take the step and come back. That it will be you and me. I hardly know how I will bear to wait for that—how I will stand it if I’m wrong. I’m not wrong, I know I’m not wrong, but I’m saying if. Then I get afraid and only think about death. My death, your death. I know that these are just bad, ugly fantasies that come over me when those flashes come. Flashes—like short bursts of lightning, yes, but there are flashes of darkness, when the black gets so compact that there is no other side, no way out, no hope. Maybe it’s just a silly cliché that hope is the last thing that abandons us. But if that is true then those dark flashes are the end, because there is no hope, no continuation. The darkness is so dense, it is earth, denser than earth. Like black, congealed formalin and I’m floating in it. Caught, incapacitated—I have reached the end. This is total loneliness.
Should I try to kill myself? Again. Cut open my veins. A knife. Can I do that, cut myself apart? It’s nice to think about, but can I do it?
A knife. I will kill you. An ugly fantasy. I could never harm you. But I want to free myself. The thought liberates me.
Have you been down? Sometimes I think that you are completely different inside. That you have never been tormented by your feelings. That it’s so easy for you. That you’ve already forgotten me.
Malin studied the carefully arranged red beet carpaccio that the blond, talkative waiter set down on the table in front of her. The last evening light filtered in through the high windows of Friheten facing toward Donners Place. They had gotten one of the two tables on the little raised platform next to the windows. Malin sat turned in toward the restaurant with a view of the patrons a half-flight down and the darkness in the bar.
Henrik raised his glass, and his eyebrows. The candles on the table glistened in the wineglass.
“Cheers,” he said quietly.
It felt nice to have him home again. Extremely nice. Even though Stina Hansson’s perfect breasts were dancing before the wineglass. They were sharing a glass of Sauvignon blanc with the appetizer. Henrik could not drink more than that. He would be driving.
It was Maria who suggested they should take the opportunity to go out when she was there and could take care of the kids. Malin’s very first thought was that she didn’t want to leave them, not even with Maria, but then she changed her mind. Maybe it was just the sort of thing they needed. Some time to themselves.
Henrik told about the days in Barcelona. Long and intensive, but not without enjoyment.
“It’s so typical,” he said. “First they’re as tough as nails in negotiations, then they send along three people who don’t fill any function at all and book everyone in business class and of course we have to go off to some legendary restaurant that takes an hour to get to by taxi. Fun, but they could have held down the costs and paid me a little better instead.”
“You don’t appear to be suffering,” said Malin.
Henrik laughed.
“It was great, but it’s crazy. You never cease to be surprised by this advertising world.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Regret it? No. What do you mean?”
Yes, what did she mean? Fårö. Her. The children. That he had dropped his dream, or changed dream, or whatever it was he had done. Everything that picture of him and the almost-naked model and the over-the-hill Elvis impersonator stood for.
She had not said anything about the pictures she found in the negative cabinet. Not about what had happened in the parking lot outside ICA, either.
Fredrik Broman had called her up the following day to tell her that Stina Hansson had reported the incident. Threat and negligence in traffic. It was hard to deny. He was not the one running the investigation, Fredrik explained, but he wanted to advise Malin to let them run the investigation of the incident at the school and keep as far away as possible from any possible suspects. Malin had asked whether he knew anything more about Stina Hansson’s report, but he only said that she would be called in for questioning.
There was at least one witness, she could figure that out for herself. There were people in the parking lot. They would obviously testify to the Gotland native’s advantage, whatever had happened. Fucking banana republic. It was good luck anyway that the police who were investigating what had happened to Ellen were not all from Gotland, then she would really have gotten paranoid.
She reached out her hand and took a big gulp from the glass. She should have told Henrik. She tried to make herself believe that she hadn’t had time, but that wasn’t true. Not really.
“What’s going on?” Henrik asked.
Malin reached for the cell phone.
“I’m just going to make a quick call to Maria,” she said.
“Again?”
“I want to hear that everything’s okay.”
She had called from the car, on the way to Visby, but that must have been an hour ago.
The phone rang, but no one answered. Finally the voice mail started.
“Strange,” said Malin. “She doesn’t answer.”
“Maybe she’s in the john,” Henrik suggested. “Try in five minutes.”
“I’ll just try the landline.”
He did not protest, but she knew what he was thinking. Malin got no answer on the home phone, either.
“They must be outside,” said Henrik.
“But it’s almost dark.”
“Malin, take it easy now,” he pleaded. “Call again in a little while.”
She took a deep breath and set the cell phone down on the table.
“You’re right, but…”
“I get that this is tough,” he said. “I think it’s tough, too. But we have to pull ourselves together. Otherwise this is going to make us completely nuts in the end. The children don’t do well, either, if we’re getting ourselves upset all the time.”
“I know, I know,” she said, becoming aware of a slight panting in her own voice. “I’ll call again in ten minutes. Fifteen.”
She speared a piece of red beet on her fork and chewed it slowly. It was hard. She had completely lost her appetite.
Henrik fished for something in the inside pocket of his jacket, which he had hung on the chair alongside.
“Look at this,” he said with a broad smile, holding up a white plastic card.
Malin did not understand. It looked like some kind of membership card. Only when Henrik handed it to her did she see Wisby Hotel’s logo on the card. A key card.
“Know what I mean, know what I mean?” Henrik said with a smile.
She was flattered, happy, and actually a little turned on. But also worried.
“What do you mean, are we going to spend the night?”
She noticed that it was not really the response Henrik had been hoping for, but he exerted himself.
“Not necessarily. A couple of hours is enough for me.”
“Okay,” she said, trying to sound flirtatious, but she could not think of anything except that those ten minutes she had promised to leave the cell phone alone should pass.
Somehow Malin managed to eat up most of the appetizer. The waiter cleared the table and came in with a glass of red wine that she had ordered earlier and a mineral water for Henrik.