The Key (13 page)

This is my mother’s funeral, she tells herself as she collects a napkin and a cutlery set. My mum has died. She will never be back. I will never meet her again.

But she doesn’t feel anything. Nothing, except a vague sense of shame that her feelings aren’t stronger, and an intense wish that today would soon be over. She doesn’t want to be here. Earlier on, she hadn’t wanted to be in the church, hadn’t wanted to listen to the minister or walk up to the coffin to place a rose on it in front of all the watching eyes.

There is a surprisingly large crowd here, though most of them are Grandpa’s friends. She catches sight of Åke, and wonders if Stian has told him how useless she was.

Anna-Karin goes to sit next to Grandpa in his wheelchair. She stares at the floor, hoping that her hair will hide her face so the other people at the funeral reception won’t notice that she hasn’t been crying. They have been lining up in front of Grandpa and her all day long, expressing their condolences in subdued voices. All these people must wonder about her.

Since the night in the hospital, she hasn’t been able to cry. The massive lid that used to cover the well of tears inside her during all those years is back on now. Welded into place.

She puts her plate on the table with its white paper cloth and sits down.

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like something to eat, Grandpa?’

He shakes his head. There is a vacant look in his eyes.

‘I can’t eat today,’ he says quietly.

Anna-Karin looks at her large slice of gateau. Grandpa seems to understand what she’s thinking because he pats her hand.

‘But it’s a good thing that you’re eating, my dear child. You need the strength.’

Anna-Karin eats a chunk of gateau, then another. The mayo sticks to the roof of her mouth. She speeds up, determined to get through it all before her body orders a stop.

She only realised what she had been hoping for when she sat down in the church. That he would come. She discovered herself looking from face to face in the pews for an older version of the man in the photos. A man called Staffan. Her father. Grandpa had only spoken properly of him once.

I don’t think he had a lot of love in him to start with. Mia was drawn to those boys. The ones who didn’t have much to give
.

Does he even know that Mum has died? And, if he does know, has it even occurred to him to get in touch with Anna-Karin?

The gateau is swelling in her mouth. From the corner of her eye she sees Minoo stop at the empty chair next to her.

‘All right if I sit here?’ Minoo asks.

Anna-Karin nods. If she keeps her mouth shut, maybe people will assume that grief has made her mute.

‘I’ll fetch a drink for you … what would you like?’ Minoo asks.

Anna-Karin stays silent.

‘Maybe some mineral water? Natural? Or citrus? Or would you rather have lemonade or something?’

Still no reply, so Minoo goes to scan the rows of bottles. Anna-Karin watches as her friend chooses both kinds of mineral water, an orange fizzy drink and adds a fruit soda. Minoo looks tired. She must have had nightmares about Max again. These last few weeks, Anna-Karin has often heard her scream at night.

Anna-Karin knows that she couldn’t have got through the time after her mum’s death – and all the practical things there were to deal with – without Minoo and her father. Throughout, they have both been there for her. Phoned people. Arranged appointments. Filled in forms. Helped her to make up her mind. Anna-Karin simply didn’t know what she wanted to do; she had been her usual pointless self. As for Grandpa, he was too frail. He just cried. Cried and cried and apologised for not being stronger.

‘We will have to comfort each other,’ Anna-Karin would say and hug him, but at the same time, she would close her eyes and flee into the consciousness of the fox.

She only feels alive when she’s with the fox. She has been with him more often now than ever before. They run through the forest together. The fox continues to search for the unknown presence that seems to call to it.

Anna-Karin swallows another mouthful. Only a little longer now. Then she is free to go home to Minoo, pull down the blind and lie down. Zone out.

‘Do you mind if we sit here?’

Anna-Karin looks up. Jari’s parents stand on the other side of the table and look at her and Grandpa with that pasted-on funereal expression. Like they’re trying to exude compassion, but to make it clear at the same time that they’re not being pushy. It is really hard to respond to. Even though people do mean well, they project a sense of demanding something, as if it was up to Anna-Karin to make them feel more at ease.

‘Please, sit,’ Grandpa says.

‘Jari sends his regards,’ Jari’s mother says. ‘He’s hard at work at the agricultural college just now, or he would have come today. Of course.’

Anna-Karin nods. And remembers the only time she saw Jari at home. The pool of vomit. The disgusted outcry. She wonders if Jari’s mum knows that it was Anna-Karin who had escaped through the front door. Still, all that feels like a thousand years ago. Like something in another life.

Minoo puts bottles and glasses on the table. Just so she has something to do, Anna-Karin pours herself an orangeade. It fizzes with gas.

The minister arrives, sits down opposite Minoo and looks kindly at Anna-Karin, who avoids meeting his eyes. She catches sight of Vanessa and Linnéa, sitting together without speaking. Anna-Karin wishes that Vanessa, if no one else, would behave as usual. Giggle. Talk a little too loudly about boys she has never heard of.

She thinks about the night in the hospital. Vanessa had held her and she had cried. Why was it so easy then?

Jari’s parents and Grandpa are talking about the farm, Anna-Karin’s childhood home, which burned down. Afterwards, Mum sold it to Jari’s parents. Grandpa asks politely about their pig-breeding business and they reply at length.

But, inevitably, they move on to the funeral. Anna-Karin registers that Jari’s mother tries to connect. She has worked herself up to say something dutifully appreciative about Mia.

‘Sorry, I’m going to the toilet,’ Anna-Karin mumbles as she gets up.

She accidentally gives the table a push, making the glasses and cutlery rattle and the bottles wobble. She walks quickly towards the loos, locks herself into a cubicle, goes down on her haunches, leans her back against the door and closes her eyes.

And she arrives straight away. She is with him in the sunshine, somewhere near the manor house. She feels ashamed about her sense of liberation, but convinces herself that the two of them have something they must do. That she and the fox are charged with keeping an eye on the Council.

The fox vanishes into a shrubbery when its sensitive ears pick up the low, purring engine sound of an approaching car.

The sound grows stronger. A little later, they hear the crunching noise of a car driving across the gravelled yard. It stops in front of the large, white-painted wooden building; the engine is shut down and Viktor gets out of the car.

He hasn’t been seen in school since May Day Eve. Today, Anna-Karin caught a glimpse of him in the church. Unlike most of the funeral congregation, he looked perfectly natural in his black suit. But there is nothing natural about him being here, and Anna-Karin wonders why he has turned up.

He walks towards the main entrance but stops at the bottom of the steps, sits down and pulls a packet of cigarettes from an inside pocket. Anna-Karin has never seen him smoke before. His hands shake a little as he lights the cigarette.

The fox hears the steps of someone walking inside the manor house before Viktor does. He lowers the cigarette when the door behind him opens.

Adriana.

She looks like a complete stranger, Anna-Karin thinks at first.

Then she changes her mind. Adriana looks just as she did when they first saw her up close. They had been in the first year and had been called to her office. At the time, they suspected her of Rebecka and Elias’s murders. Watching as Adriana crosses her arms and stares sternly at Viktor, Anna-Karin feels a pang of fear, triggered by this unexpected echo of the past.

‘Where have you been?’ Adriana demands. ‘Why didn’t you answer your mobile?’

‘I’ve been at a funeral,’ Viktor says. ‘Anna-Karin’s mother died.’

He looks keenly at her, but Adriana is indifferent. The name Anna-Karin no longer means anything to her.

‘I am sorry to hear that. However, you should have informed Alexander of your whereabouts. Come along now.’

Viktor drops his cigarette and rubs it out on the gravel. Adriana glances disapprovingly at him.

‘Do pick up your cigarette end, please.’

Viktor bites his lip, does as he is told, and then follows Adriana into the house.

Anna-Karin opens her eyes, goes to a basin, soaks a paper towel under the cold-water tap, and pats her forehead and temples with it. She meets her face in the mirror and notes the emptiness in her green eyes.

She wishes something shattering would happen, something that could wake her from this cold, dulled state. Maybe she could finally feel again. Maybe even be able to revise for tomorrow’s big biology test. If only qualifying for veterinary college felt important to her again, she could make herself study.

Anna-Karin leaves the toilets and finds Minoo standing there. Perhaps she has been hovering outside, listening out for sobs and preparing to come to the rescue.

‘I was with the fox,’ Anna-Karin says quietly. ‘We saw Viktor go to the manor house. And we saw Adriana come outside for a bit.’

‘Did she seem all right?’ Minoo asks.

‘She was like she used to be. You know … earlier.’

Minoo looks troubled, but says, ‘Good.’

‘But I don’t understand why Viktor came to the funeral.’

‘Perhaps he has a bad conscience about what he did to you. He ought to have.’

They are silent for a while, absently listening to the distant murmur of voices.

‘People are asking for you,’ Minoo tells her. ‘But if you’d rather, I will get Dad to collect us and drive us home. Everyone would understand.’

Minoo looks uncertainly at her. Anna-Karin longs to say yes. But knows she shouldn’t leave Grandpa to face all this on his own.

‘No, don’t worry. I’m coming,’ she says.

Minoo looks at Gustaf. They stand so close that their big, padded winter jackets touch.

‘I think about you all the time,’ he tells her.

The cold makes their breath turn into white clouds of frozen vapour. His lips are so near hers that the clouds merge.

‘At first, I thought it was because you remind me so much of her. But now I finally understand. I understand.’

She knows his words so well but can’t recall when she heard them for the first time.

‘I care so much for you, Minoo. So much.’

He bends over her and kisses her.

Now she remembers.

She pushes him away.

Max fixes her with his black bird’s eyes. His thin skin is tightly stretched over his skull and face. Minoo takes a step back, but he moves faster. His claw-like fingers reach for her and then close around her neck.

He smiles.

She tries to release the black smoke, but it is no longer there inside her. She cannot scream, can hardly breathe.

She can’t breathe.

Max’s voice thunders inside her head.

Nothing is as you think
.

Minoo is woken by her own screaming.

She has fallen asleep on the sitting-room sofa. When she stretches and sits up, the notebook in her lap slides to the floor. She picks it up, then listens for sounds from upstairs. All is silent. Maybe Anna-Karin didn’t hear her screams. Or else she has become used to Minoo’s nightmares about Max.

The papers wrote up the story about the patient in a coma, who had woken up after more than a year and then died of a heart attack. Max had already been splashed on the front pages as the maths teacher found unconscious in the ‘suicide-pact school’. Cissi, a trainee journalist at the
Engelsfors Herald
, wrote quite a few of these articles. So far, her career has been based on reporting the mysterious events in Engelsfors.

Minoo holds her hands out and checks that she can still release the black smoke. It’s a relief when it works.

If only the
Book of Patterns
would start communicating with her again. She wishes that the guardians would explain what Max meant with his
Nothing is as you think
. If he meant anything at all.

She opens her notebook, tries to focus on more ordinary worries. Ove Post always adds questions about stuff he has gone through in class that isn’t in the biology textbook. The real problem is that he can forget which class he has told what.

She puts her feet up on the table and leans her notes against her knees. Usually, she prefers studying at her desk, but when she tried that earlier tonight, all she did was listen for noises from Anna-Karin’s room and wonder what she was doing in there.

When they came home after the funeral reception, Anna-Karin said she wanted to be on her own, but Minoo isn’t convinced she meant it. Besides, even if she meant it at the time, Minoo suspects that being alone isn’t good for Anna-Karin. Perhaps she should go to her and simply sit at her side. Or ask all the right questions, so that Anna-Karin can at last speak about how she feels. Next, Minoo worries that she is a useless friend because she doesn’t have an automatic sense of what would be for the best.

She almost looks forward to the next day, when they have agreed with Vanessa and Linnéa to meet up in Anna-Karin’s flat and clear it out. At least that will give Minoo something practical to do to help.

She leafs through a few pages and then stops at her copy of one of Ove’s drawings on the whiteboard. A cross-section through the main body artery. It carries the body’s life-sustaining blood supply. The aorta.

Mum told her that people can have an inherited tendency to develop aortic aneurysms and that they can occur at any time. Mia’s lifestyle needn’t have been the cause. But at the funeral reception, the guests would again and again utter the phrase
she has always been unwell
, like an incantation. As if people were trying to reassure themselves that death can’t strike anyone at any time.