‘You’ve always been a bit forgetful, Sigrid.’
It wasn’t until I was lying in bed that it occurred to me she might have been there. Everything was so unnaturally still in my room. The window was open. The sea whispered quietly as it was stroked by the wind. And I could have sworn I heard her whisper from far off in the sound.
For the next few years, Henrik acted perfectly normal. This seemed to be his pattern – he would make trouble, and then nothing would happen for some time.
It was during this period that Aunt Ofelia suddenly died of a heart attack at the age of fifty-two. Uncle Markus was fifty-five then, virile and in good health, a man in the prime of life. Now we three were the only ones at the manor. And the servants of course – we had plenty of them.
I grew more and more restless. But then, in one of Uncle Markus’s better moments, he suggested I should get involved with charity work in the village. This brought back some of my spark and I created the Sigrid von Bärensten Fund, which still grants stipends to help girls of little means with their schooling.
But back to Henrik. It was his fifteenth birthday. He wanted to have a party at the manor, with his friends, and Uncle Markus really went all out. I had seldom seen such pomp and circumstance on the property.
The girl was perhaps fourteen or fifteen. She was impossible not to notice. She wore knee-length white boots and a clingy patterned dress – even though low necklines were out of fashion in the sixties, her dress did show off a bit of her chest.
And she was dazzlingly beautiful besides.
Henrik’s eyes were on her like glue, and my uncle noticed. I heard them whispering as I walked by.
‘Do you want her?’ Uncle Markus asked Henrik. ‘You can have whatever you like – it’s your birthday. Ask her to sleep over.’
And somehow, remarkably, they convinced her to stay.
Uncle Markus had long since stopped caring what anyone heard from the attic. He often left the door open when he had the maids up there at night. So I didn’t suspect anything when I heard a scream after the party had ended. But then there was another scream, louder this time – as if from someone in distress.
I hurried up the stairs to the attic. The girl was half-lying on an easy chair. My uncle held her down as Henrik stood between her legs. They had torn off her clothes, which were scattered across the floor.
I didn’t want to see any more. I didn’t go in. Dear God, forgive me, but what could I have done?
I waited until the howling stopped and I heard steps on the staircase.
I waited outside the door to my uncle’s office.
‘Uncle, what have you done to that poor girl?’
‘Nothing she didn’t want to have done. She’ll be back. Her family is poor. We have much to offer her.’
‘Henrik must absolutely not… Lord Jesus, she’s underage.’
The blow came so suddenly that I lost my footing and had to grab at the wall.
‘Go ask her! Go! She’s sleeping in one of the guest rooms. Go, I said!’
I didn’t go to see her. I already knew what she would say. I didn’t want to know how they’d bribed her. So I kept my mouth shut. Again. I went up to my room, unsure how much longer I could live with myself. I felt so miserable and alone that I wanted to die.
But by the next time it happened, I had gathered my courage. My conscience was nudging me. The feelings of guilt were growing. The girls were so young.
They had left the door to the attic open that night. I was down in the sunroom working on my embroidery. That damn embroidery I didn’t even care about. But it kept my hands busy and calmed my nerves.
I had seen the girl sweep through the great rooms on her way up to the attic. High-heeled boots. A clingy knit dress. Black eyeliner and red lips that hid her tender age.
The screams began half an hour later.
‘I don’t want to!’ she cried.
I put down my embroidery and went upstairs to the attic. Her screams had died down into a despairing whimper. She stood with her head against the wall, naked. Her hands were bound high above her head with rope. Henrik had a whip in his hand and Uncle Markus was in the corner.
I was filled with thick, oozing shame.
I padded downstairs to my room and took out my camera, which, ironically enough, had been a Christmas present from Uncle Markus. Then I sneaked back upstairs and stopped outside the door.
They didn’t notice me. Henrik was pressing up against the girl’s back; he had entered her from behind. She was silent now, letting him do what he wanted. My son turned around and looked at Uncle Markus with a triumph in his eyes.
I took a picture.
They didn’t notice I was there. I took another.
Right away, I could see in the police officer’s eyes that something wasn’t right. He looked nervous and apologetic.
‘Well, Mrs von Bärensten, we have developed the film you brought in, but there are certain issues.’
I listened, my heart sinking.
‘Your uncle isn’t visible in the image, only a shadow that could be anyone. Your son and the girl are there, but I’ve made some inquiries and the girl says everything was consensual. That she and Henrik were playing in the attic and your uncle wasn’t there at all. I’m sorry, but I can’t do much with this. Surely you don’t want me to apprehend your son – he’s only fifteen. Perhaps you must simply keep a tighter rein on him.’
He handed me the pictures I had taken. You couldn’t see Uncle Markus, only Henrik and the girl in the shameful pose I had captured so well.
‘But what goes on up there – it cannot continue,’ I tried. ‘You have to take me seriously.’
The officer placed his hand over mine.
‘There, there, Mrs Bärensten. Boys are curious creatures. I’m sure he’ll grow out of this behaviour soon. But by all means, if you would like to file a report…’
‘What would you do with it if I did?’
‘I suppose we would have to talk to your uncle. See what he has to say.’ The officer stood up hastily. ‘If you want my opinion, I think you should stop playing detective and set the boy straight instead.’
In that instant, a cold hand squeezed my heart. I was totally alone.
But then, once again, everything seemed to get better. Henrik was sent to boarding school in France. Uncle Markus had business in the capital city and only came home on weekends. For several years, the manor was quiet and peaceful. I volunteered and worked on my trust. I thought the worst was over. Mother had vanished and I hoped she had finally found peace.
Then Emelie and Karin came to the manor, and everything changed. They couldn’t have been more dissimilar.
Karin blew into our lives like a breath of fresh air. She filled every room with her energy, bringing new life into everything that had been dead. Emelie was more like an object, a pattern on wallpaper. She came from a rich family and had been selected by Uncle Markus to marry Henrik; she was quiet and withdrawn.
Karin was our housemaid. Her thick, dark hair fell to her waist. She was round with lovely eyes and a carefree laugh that seemed out of place in the dark rooms.
Uncle Markus was over seventy by now, but the glances he cast after Karin proved that he was in no way limited by his age. But Henrik was the one who fell head over heels. His eyes devoured her; he followed her everywhere. Karin rejected his advances, polite but firm. And there I was again, an onlooker, watching this game of cat-and-mouse which I just knew would end in disaster.
It took several years to happen.
Henrik prowled around Karin like she was a cat in heat. But somehow, remarkably, she managed to keep him in check. Until one ill-fated day.
I had been on the mainland and returned home late that afternoon. It was winter and darkness had already fallen. The door to Uncle Markus’s bedroom was closed and I knew he was having a rest. His age had finally caught up with him and he looked tired sometimes, much to my unspoken joy.
The silence that met me when I walked int
o the house was broken almost immediately by a piercing shriek from the kitchen. And another. Even louder. By the time I got there, it was too late. Henrik had Karin on the floor, in a chokehold, going at her like a steamroller. As I came through the door, he let out a muffled groan and rolled off her.
I was ten or fifteen minutes too late. If only I had increased my pace a little, jogged back from the ferry! Henrik turned around and spotted me. He sat up. Karin was screaming in frustration. I just stood there as if I had dropped from the sky. I had the urge to gather Karin into my arms, but she got up and glared at me furiously. She reached for a cast iron frying pan and threw it; it barely missed Henrik’s head as he ducked. She ran out of the kitchen as Henrik remained on the floor. He looked at me with a sheepish grin.
‘Shit, Ma, we were just having some fun.’
At that moment it was as if Uncle Markus were sitting there staring at me. The trajectory of life was an infinity symbol and we had returned to the point where all the evil began.
It was six months before we saw Karin again. Uncle Markus was the one who first got wind of what had happened. Karin was pregnant and the child was Henrik’s.
Despite months of diligent begging and fawning, Karin stubbornly refused to have anything to do with us. But Uncle Markus was like a bulldog. The child would grow up at the manor. I have no idea what finally convinced her to change her tune.
One night she was just there, big as a house, with a suitcase in either hand. Her anger was a thundercloud around her.
It was out of the question for Henrik to marry Karin. She came from a poor family. But Uncle Markus would have that child, the greedy old pig. So Henrik married Emelie. She was, and remained, a shadow in our lives.
On the night Fredrik was born, a snowstorm ravaged the island. It was absolutely impossible for the ferry to cross the sound, so the village doctor came to us to deliver the baby.
I held Fredrik in my arms that night. He was wrapped in a blanket. Huge dark eyes gazed at me without fear, wise but unfathomable. I wondered who he was, and whether one day he might flat-out change the world.
The next morning, Uncle Markus didn’t come to breakfast. This was unthinkable, so I went straight to his room. I found him dead as a doornail in his bed, his eyes staring at the ceiling. A heart attack, the doctor said, but whatever it was it hadn’t come a day too soon.
Karin lived in the annexes with her son, but she refused to work for us – she took a job in the village café. I took care of Fredrik each morning. Henrik watched him in the afternoons. They clashed from the start. Fredrik was by turns angry, insolent, and rambunctious. No one but Karin could handle him. Emelie had begun to study on the mainland and wanted nothing to do with Fredrik. So it came to be that Henrik was often alone with the boy.
It happened when Fredrik was three. Karin was at work and I was in the village. A storm was heading for the island, so we both returned home early that day. The house was empty; it felt eerily deserted when we came in. Karin called out for Fredrik, but there was no response.
‘They must be out on the grounds somewhere,’ I said. But Karin was anxious. ‘It’s almost dark. What would they be doing out there?’
‘Maybe checking on the animals? Let’s wait a bit.’
There was a thud and Henrik appeared on the stairs that led down to the cellar. When he spotted us all the colour drained from his face, but he didn’t have time to say anything – Karin shoved him aside and hurtled down the stairs. I followed her.
The first thing I saw when Karin opened the door was Fredrik’s eyes, blinking like an owl’s in the light that streamed in. He was tied to a chair in the middle of the room. Naked. His arms bound behind him, his legs tied to those of the chair. A clothespin was clamped on his little penis.
‘The boy has to learn discipline, dammit,’ came Henrik’s voice from behind us.
It took no more than thirty seconds. Karin loosened the ropes and swept Fredrik into her arms. She shoved past us, up the stairs, and dashed out with Fredrik held close. I could see a bruise on his back. I had the curious thought that it was odd we had never noticed anything.
This was the last time Karin set foot in the manor.
Now I suppose I will have to write about the fire. Everyone got it all wrong. They thought my mother took her own life, crushed by the captain’s death when his ship went down. They thought my father committed suicide when he realized Mother was dead. None of this is true.
I know because I was there. I was only a small child, but my memory of that night is the clearest of all the memories in my senile brain.
My brother Oskar woke me up. He shook my arm so hard I sat up in bed with a start. Someone was shouting downstairs – it was Mother, calling for help. The shot came as we were going down the stairs, and it was so loud we froze. Mother cried out again, screaming our names.
Father was on the dining room floor with a hole in his forehead. His empty eyes stared at the ceiling. A dark stain was beneath his head, spreading across the expensive, speckled rug. A figure was standing behind him. At first I didn’t know who it was. Her face was so badly beaten it looked like an open wound. Her clothes were torn and blood ran down her bare chest. She was holding a large can. She caught sight of us.
‘Run to the annexes! Go!’ she cried.
We took off. Out the door and across the courtyard.
It all happened at once. The flames flickered in the house and Mother’s figure dashed across the yard. She stopped and called out to us.
‘I’ll come back to you.’
Someone saw her on Devil’s Rock before she jumped. At least, that’s what they said.
All that was left of Father once the servants had put out the fire was charred remains. The police labelled it a suicide. After all, the pistol was right there beside him and the room stank of paraffin.
Only Oskar and I saw Mother that night. We were the only ones who heard what she said. We made a secret pact, as only children can do. We had seen and heard nothing. And we were determined to take our secret to the grave.
Now I wonder what would have happened if I had done to Uncle Markus what Mother did to Father, just shot the bastard and burned the place down. Whether my life would have turned out a different way.
She came back to me here at the nursing home. It was almost too good to be true. I was sitting and gazing out of the window, as usual. The delightful scents of summer were blowing in on the breeze. The grove of birches was green. It was around Midsummer when she came. The sound of her rustling skirts behind me. Her breath in my ear. Her hands stroking my old, brittle hair. I thought it was strange that she seemed so young. Here I had been so determined to drive out old ghosts, but there she was beside me again.
The spell was broken when the door opened and an aide came in.
‘Sigrid,’ she said. ‘Listen to this. People have seen the ghost of the countess out at Devil’s Rock. Wearing a cape and everything. Where do folks get such outlandish ideas? Wasn’t she your mother?’
I attempted a smile, but my blood had frozen to ice.
Just a few days after the tragic incident in the cellar, a police officer was stamping his feet on our doorstep. I had already shouted at Henrik until I was hoarse. For the first time ever, I had shouted at him. But what good would it do?
The police investigation went nowhere and Henrik and Emilie soon moved to France. I moved into an apartment in the village.
I haven’t spoken to Karin since that day. We have run into each other in the village a few times, but she only gives me a chilly nod. She moved away from the island and didn’t return until Henrik was gone for good. But now she lives here again, with Fredrik, in their little cottage in the woods. She holds her head high, that Karin, despite everything that has happened.
For many years, neither Henrik nor I could stand the thought of selling Vindsätra. Anyway, we had more money than we needed. But then, a few years ago, a doctor came by and put down an offer. Wanted to turn the place into a convalescent home. I
t felt like liberation when I handed over the key.
Now we’re rid of this misery, I thought. I expected it would help me forget.
But it didn’t. Because now here I sit at this godforsaken, dreary nursing home, writing as death breathes down the back of my neck, and I still can’t forgive myself for everything that happened.
I cannot find any meaning in the sad little life I have lived.
I can feel her presence now; I can see her sitting in the chair across from me. I want to ask her about the meaning of life, but then I realize that she, too, has grown old, because she has no teeth; her face is wrinkled and her eyes are so sunken in their sockets. And when I reach out my hand to touch her, she fades away. Her mouth and eyes become black holes and her body dissolves into a fine dust that falls over me and this book.
And here I sit, all alone in the world.
They say life is short, but that’s not true. Life is neither long nor short. It is nothing but a bloody game of Russian Roulette – you can only wait and see. Sometimes what happened to me just happens.
But then I look out of the window and see Fredrik.
He can’t see me from where he’s standing in the path. He’s talking to a girl who looks like a fairy. The doctor’s daughter, I think. Maybe they’re on their way to the beach, because he’s wearing shorts and she’s in a sundress. He’s so pretty, Fredrik is. That dark hair gleams like copper in the sunshine. That sinewy, tanned body. He’s so sure of himself; you can tell. He takes after Karin, thank God.
So now I pin all my hopes on Fredrik. I’ll send this book to Karin and ask that one day, when he’s grown, she give it to him. Perhaps he can take over the fading torch that was once our family, and make it burn strong again.
Shadow of Fog Island Page 30