The Gingerbread House

by Carin Gerhardsen

  ‘I’ve never looked at it that way, but maybe you’re right,’ Peder said. ‘Let’s drink to that.’

  They did, and Peder also had a few things to say about the refugee camp in Beirut where he had worked and then revealed, in answer to a direct question from Petra, that he was now working as an anaesthetist at Karolinska Hospital.

  ‘What kind of work do you do?’ he then asked.

  Petra was in no way ashamed of her choice of occupation, but over the years she had discovered that people’s reactions sometimes disappointed her when she answered that question truthfully. For that reason she had a standard response that she gave to people she met off duty and whom she had no intention of seeing again.

  ‘I’m an insurance agent at Folksam,’ she replied, absentmindedly fingering her watch.

  This answer was so uninteresting there were seldom any follow-up questions, and that was the point of it.

  ‘Then you’re close to work anyway,’ Peder said.

  Petra smiled back and downed the last drops in her glass. She noticed that it was almost midnight and she was starting to feel extremely tired. The week had taken its toll after all, although she had not really accomplished anything. She waved at the bartender and showed him the four hundred kronor piled neatly on the bar. She knew that would be more than enough, tip included.

  ‘Well, I think it’s time to move along,’ said Petra, getting down from the bar stool.

  ‘I agree,’ said Peder, anticipating her attempt to take her coat from the hook under the bar.

  He helped her on with her coat and handed her the bag she had set down on the counter, then he put on his own jacket. Petra had spent twenty minutes in the shoe shop trying to decide whether to buy the better-looking boots with a higher heel or the not-as-fashionable but more comfortable ones with a lower heel. In the end she had chosen the trendy boots with the slightly higher heels. Which she regretted now, as one foot folded under her.

  ‘Whoops,’ said Petra, with a vague thought going through her mind that had something to do with flirting.

  ‘I’ll follow you to your taxi, young lady,’ said Peder Fryhk, taking her arm under his.

  Diary of a Murderer, November 2006, Saturday

  It’s eleven-thirty. A man in his sixties, in a leather jacket with a fur collar and checked old-man cap, comes out. The first thing I notice is his hand, and sure enough – there’s a ring on it. That’s the way to take care of your marriage. Have a lot, want more. I’ve never had anyone myself. No one to love, no one to talk to, no one to eat with, no one to sleep with. But tonight I’m going to talk to someone. And sleep with someone.

  I ring the doorbell. She opens the door and looks at me in surprise, but lets me in right away and closes the door behind us. I’m sure she’s worried the other tenants will notice all the comings and goings from her apartment.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asks.

  ‘A customer,’ I reply.

  She studies me up and down suspiciously.

  ‘How did you find me?’

  ‘I’ve seen you,’ I answer truthfully.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘John Holmes,’ I say disarmingly.

  She bursts into laughter and shrugs.

  ‘Well, what the hell!’ she says, still laughing. ‘So, what do you want?’

  ‘Same as everyone else,’ I answer. ‘Sex.’

  She helps me off with my jacket and hangs it up. I take off my shoes without feeling at all nervous. I feel like I’m finally in my element. The forbidden fifth dimension.

  ‘Is this the first time?’ she asks, probably meaning something different from me when I answer, ‘Yes, it’s the first time.’

  ‘Are you nervous?’

  ‘Yes, I am,’ I lie. ‘Let’s have a little something to drink first.’

  She doesn’t hesitate to take me up on my suggestion, and I offer her the drink I brought with me, while she provocatively takes off one piece of clothing at a time, until finally she is standing naked in front of me, in all her flabby shame. Then she eases my clothes off, as carefully as if I were made of glass. She kisses me all over my body except on the mouth, which I appreciate. Never will this repugnant creature touch my mouth with her disgusting, sticky lips. But she knows her stuff, I must admit, and as her lips and tongue wander between my legs I cannot hold back the tears. She leads me to the bed where we wallow in our shameless nakedness.

  She is lying under me and her movements are languid and slow now. I slide my fingers inside her and she moans quietly as I whisper in her ear, through her worn, bleached hair, ‘May I tie you up … ?’

  And she nods in response, with closed eyes, while her thighs still arch around my hand. I carefully remove my fingers, retrieve my scissors and twine, and then bind her hands and feet gently but tightly and meticulously, to the bedposts. She is sleeping now, but she wakes with a shriek when I shove my knee into her crotch with all my strength. Her wide-open eyes look at me in stunned terror, but I continue talking in a smooth, almost whispering voice as I straddle her and wave the scissors.

  ‘Now it’s time for a haircut …’

  She screams, but I smother the sound with a corner of the sheet that I force into her mouth. I feel just as gloriously soft and diffuse as when we were having sex, and her quivering body and frightened eyes cannot alter my state of mind. I cut her hair, one lock at a time, and do not neglect to show her the result. All the while I tell her who I am and what she did to me, and she nods energetically to confirm that she knows. I take the sheet out of her mouth and she promises not to scream. Instead she apologizes and she promises and promises to make it up to me, to do anything, while I cut off her eyelashes and finally her eyebrows, although some pieces of flesh come off too.

  The blood is running in steady streams down her tear-stained whore’s face smeared with make-up, and I ask if it hurts as I cut a little inside her with the scissors. She screams that it hurts and I shove the sheet back in her mouth and tell her that there are many, many different kinds of pain. She shudders convulsively, so I am nice to her and take the sheet out of her mouth again. She begs and pleads, and so I light a cigarette for her. She thanks me and smiles desperately. I say, ‘No problem,’ then I put the sheet back and use the cigarette to burn a deep hole on her belly. All the while I am telling her more childhood memories, but eventually the cigarette goes out. I wonder how a little salt in the wound might feel, so I get salt from the kitchen and pour it on the wound but that doesn’t seem to feel good at all, and I explain to her what loneliness feels like and self-contempt. I am starting to get tired of the physical violence, because I’m really not a physical person at all, I prefer to stay on the mental plane instead, but I can’t think of anything more to say, so for the last time I take the sheet out of her mouth and ask her nicely to really beg me for forgiveness from the bottom of her heart, and then it will be over, and she does that and I strangle her and then it’s over.

  Now here I go again, not without a little pride, venting my feelings about people’s – and my own – evil. I’m no better than they are – never really was – but now the roles are reversed. Now they’re the victims and I’m the bully. I have reached a turning point in life and stopped pitying myself. I choose action instead of brooding. The sands of navel-gazing have run out in their hourglass, and the time for retribution has come.

  Imagine that Ann-Kristin – pretty, strong, tough, self-assured, unbeatable Ann-Kristin – ended her days as a low-life hooker in an inhuman grey concrete suburb! The thought makes me dizzy. Maybe I did her a favour by putting an end to it all? Then again, she would probably have gladly traded her last half-hour of life for another fifty years in the brothel of this concrete ghetto.

  And what have I got out of the events of these last few days? Happiness? Self-respect? Sunny childhood memories and a bright upbringing? No! I couldn’t even say that justice was done, because justice would have been for them to suffer for thirty-eight years and for me to have thirty-eight happy year
s ahead of me. But unfortunately it’s too late for either. A broken childhood can never be repaired. Never forgotten, never changed, never got over. It’s a kind of chronic pain. What kind of world is it, where happy little children like Hans and Ann-Kristin are allowed to smash other, less fortunate people’s lives to pieces?

  What I got out of the past few days in my miserable life is revenge. Which in turn has given rise to a new, exciting dimension – insanity. The five dimensions of life: right–left, up–down, in–out, tick-tock and cuckoo. They stole my time, I took theirs – cuckoo; I gave myself the new dimension of insanity.

  Saturday Morning

  She turned her head carefully and determined that she was alone in the bed. Carefully, she eased herself up into a sitting position and looked around. The lights were off, but a door leading into a bathroom was ajar, emitting enough light for her to form an impression of the room she was in. It was sparsely but fashionably furnished. On the wall to her right was a window with designer venetian blinds. On the windowsill was a large, square pot made of a grey, cement-like material containing a well-tended plant, the name of which she did not know. Straight ahead, large, white custom-built wardrobes covered the wall, and to their left was a closed door. The bathroom was to her left. The large double bed had expensive Egyptian-cotton sheets in shades of beige and brown. On both sides of the bed were small wall-mounted tables. On the one closest to her were two empty beer bottles. Had she had even more to drink? Behind her, a fabric-clad headboard and two wall-mounted lamps. On the ceiling, four built-in speakers and track lighting.

  Shit. Her whole body hurt and her heart was racing. Drunk as a skunk, without a clue where she was. Maybe in a hotel room? In that case, a suite. At a very expensive hotel. How could she have been so damn stupid? Why hadn’t she left the bar with Jamal? He had told her earlier that she wasn’t sober. Why hadn’t she listened to him? Instead of staying there to sit and court strange men. Flirting.

  But is that what she had been doing? After all, they had just talked. About politics. There hadn’t been any flirting. And she wasn’t the least bit interested in fifty-year-old men. She was twenty-eight and had never been attracted to older men. She hadn’t started last night, either. There had been no vibes like that. He had simply been nice to talk to. True, he was handsome and charming. Educated. But the thought of sleeping with him never crossed her mind.

  So how had she ended up here? Wherever that was. Had she been so drunk that she couldn’t get home on her own? Maybe she had simply slept here? No, never. The pain she felt in her nether regions spoke for itself. But her bum … ? Anal sex was not really her thing. Never had been and never would be. Had she been so drunk that she’d gone along with that? Then she must have been practically unconscious. Would that nice guy – Peder, she recalled – really have exploited her when she was dead drunk? And both front and back besides. Doctors Without Borders … she had been into that. So she must have offered it to him. What a slut she was, a drunken slut.

  She had a vague recollection that they had got into a taxi together. They were heading in the same direction – that was it. She would drop him off somewhere on the way home to Telefonplan, where her apartment was. She had leaned against him as they made their way out of Clarion’s bar. Now she remembered. She had suddenly felt extremely drunk and had a hard time walking in her new boots. He had helped her, called for the taxi and would ride along part of the way. But after that it was a complete blank. She remembered she had had some difficulty getting into the taxi, but what happened after that … it was gone. She should have eaten properly. Had less to drink.

  Don’t be so hard on yourself, Petra, she thought. No damage done. After a nice evening you go home with a nice man – or to a hotel or wherever the hell she was now – and have a nice night together. A little roll in the hay. He was handsome, smart and well-educated besides. It was just what you needed. Get drunk and get laid. A life, as Jamal called it. Fine.

  But what if it wasn’t even him she’d ended up in bed with? Peder. Fryhk. Maybe it was the taxi driver or someone else who’d got his hands on her in the miserable condition she was in. Suddenly she was struck by yet another unpleasant thought. Maybe she’d been robbed. She threw the blanket aside and got out of bed. Hell, how it hurt. In her head and down below. No more sudden movements. There it was. On the floor beside the bed was her handbag, along with her clothes in a pile. And two used condoms, my God. She reached down carefully for her bag and sat on the edge of the bed to investigate its contents. The mobile was there. Her keys. And her wallet too. She opened it and could see that nothing was missing – the money and credit cards were untouched. Her police ID was still behind her driver’s licence where it should be, and everything was in order. That was good anyway. And the watch she got from her parents when she got her law enforcement degree was still on her wrist. It was a quarter past four in the morning. What should she do?

  She gathered up her clothes and with her thumb and forefinger carefully picked up the two condoms from the floor and slipped into the bathroom. She did not want him to hear her if he was outside. She was not really sure why – he had already seen her naked. She was unsteady on her feet and her vision was blurred, but she managed to make her way into the bathroom and close the door behind her without making too much noise. Looking around, she quickly ascertained that she was in a home, not a hotel. The bathroom was a designer’s dream. Large and airy, Italian tile and mosaics, jacuzzi, and a shower with glass doors. Showering was not an option, not here. She wanted to get home as quickly as possible and sleep off the intoxication in her own bed. Wash away everything that had to do with this damned night.

  She was about to drop the condoms into the toilet bowl when something made her change her mind. Somewhere in the fog in her head there was a gnawing doubt. Had she been raped after all? However drunk and … flirtatious she may have been last night, no one had the right to exploit her in that situation. Sex with an unconscious woman was the same as rape. Even if she mostly blamed herself, no man had the right to do that. Not according to the law, not according to common decency.

  She stood for a while, wondering, her gaze fixed on her own mirror image. Tall and slim with straight, ash-blonde hair down to her shoulders, divided by a straight parting almost in the middle. Her eyes were an indefinable colour, between brown and dark grey. Personally, she preferred to call them green. She had thin lips, but her nose was narrow and rather pointed and just the right size, she thought. She refused to look below her face. This bathroom was the wrong place to stand naked in.

  Should she take the condoms with her? The man who had used them might wonder where they had gone. On the other hand, her intention had been to flush them down the toilet, wasn’t that the most natural thing for her to do? But no, she would not take any risks, did not want to draw suspicion to herself. Didn’t she have a packet of condoms in her bag?

  She took two out and managed, with fumbling fingers and blurred sight, to pour about half of the unappetizing contents of the condoms into two of her own. The two used ones she sealed with a knot and placed in a little compartment with a zip in her handbag. The new ones she set carefully on the bench by the sink so the contents would not run out. Then she got dressed, picked up the condoms and soundlessly opened the door to the bedroom. She slipped over to the bed and set the new condoms down approximately where she had found the other two. She took the two beer bottles from the bedside table, disrespectfully emptied the last drops on to the bed and then put them in her handbag.

  Her head felt clear now, despite a throbbing pain in her temples. But her balance was a different matter. By pure willpower she managed to force her legs to obey her, but more than anything she wanted to go to bed and sleep. She needed to get out of here, and hoped she could avoid meeting the man she had spent the night with.

  Carefully she pushed down the door handle, and without a sound the door glided open. Before her was a large room that epitomized the concept of an open floor plan. The ceiling was
high: dining room, living room and kitchen all in one, with more square footage than her entire apartment. Everything about the furnishings was in accord with the trends of the time: light wood, large windows with no curtains, and no frills. She was in a villa. She noticed a stairway that led down to the basement level on her right. She had a definite feeling that someone was down there – she seemed to hear faint sounds from below.

  At the far end of the large room was a hall and the outside door. She padded off in that direction and caught sight of her boots and her coat, neatly hanging on a hanger, but as she passed the kitchen she stopped. On the glossy black granite countertop, which divided the kitchen from the rest of the huge room, were a number of beer bottles, the same brand as the ones she had put into her handbag. Better safe than sorry, she thought. She wanted to avoid arousing suspicion at any cost, and possibly the fact that the two bottles from the bedroom had disappeared would do just that. She took two bottles from the counter and from her handbag fished out her key ring, which had a bottle opener on it. The problem was how to open the bottles without being heard. She grabbed a hand towel hanging on the cupboard handle under the sink, and held it over the first of the bottles as she opened it. It fizzed, and she imagined the sound could be heard throughout the house.

  Suddenly she heard laughter from the lower level. It almost scared her out of her wits, but she seized her opportunity and quickly opened the other bottle too. Then she poured out the contents into the sink. There was no way for her to rinse away the beer smell without being heard. She quickly headed back to the bedroom, passing the stairway with a shudder. She could swear she heard someone moving down there. She entered the bedroom and went straight to the bedside table. She placed the bottles where they should have been. From force of habit she pulled down the bottom edge of her shirt and tucked her hair behind her ears. And there he stood in the doorway. Peder Fryhk.