Shadow

by Karin Alvtegen

  If only they would show up some day.

  If he just held his breath until that car had passed, then they would show up soon. If he peeled the tangerine in one piece, then they would show up soon. If a man and a woman got on the bus at the next stop, then they would show up soon. As he approached each corner he would hope, and in every crowd he would search for his own facial features. He would stand for hours in front of the mirror. He memorised every detail of his face. Sometimes just for an instant he thought he saw someone else, one of the two unknown people who lived inside his body.

  His relationship to his adoptive parents had been quite distant. They had done everything to win his trust, but he had never been interested. In secret he had even despised their ingratiating behaviour, the way they would back off instead of restricting his freedom to act. Sometimes he had even seen fear in their eyes, when he flatly refused to obey their wishes, although sometimes he did it out of sheer obstinacy. They were and would remain intruders in a space intended for others, and when he turned eighteen he left home and broke off all contact.

  In January 2005 he had read their names in the paper in a list of missing persons after the tsunami in Khao Lak. He hadn’t felt anything in particular.

  He got up and turned on the desk lamp. The note was still lying on the sofa and his whole being was conscious of its existence. His mobile lay next to the keyboard, and he was just about to pick it up when the intercom buzzed. The unexpected sound made him jump; nobody should be coming unannounced. He decided to ignore it; he didn’t want any visitors, not right now when everything was upside down. The next moment his mobile rang. It was Jesper. Not now, he thought. The ringtone stopped abruptly and then there was a beep for a voicemail message.

  ‘Yeah, it’s me. I’m standing in the street outside your front door, because I thought I’d ask if you could do me a favour and take some pictures of me. I’ve got a camera with me. I think I’ve solved the problem with the book promotion. Call me as soon as you hear this. Bye.’

  Kristoffer deleted the message and pressed recall. Then he stopped and put down the mobile. Not a very nice thing to do, but these were special circumstances. Jesper would understand. Sometime in the future he’d explain. Besides, Jesper had sounded happier this time. No longer so gloomy.

  Somebody had died. Maybe it was all too late. He sat back down on the sofa. Got up again, went out to the kitchen, drank some water out of the tap, turned and went back into the living room. He wanted a drink. Just a little one to get up the courage to dial the number. He brushed aside the thought, drove it off, but could feel how it stayed close by in case he changed his mind. He clenched his fist and smacked himself on the forehead, trying to pound in the courage he was lacking, and went back to the kitchen. He had to do it, he had to decide to do it right now, before he had a chance to change his mind. Resolutely he went back to the living room, picked up his mobile and went over to the sofa. Sat down and began to dial, put the phone to his ear, got up again. Seconds passed. Maybe the last seconds of his life as it had always been. Then an unfamiliar voice.

  ‘Marianne Folkesson.’

  ‘Yes, hello, this is Kristoffer Sandeblom. I got your message on my answer machine but I’ve had my phone off for a few days. That’s why I didn’t ring earlier, because I’ve just played your message.’

  A little pause followed his speech. The nervousness had made him ramble. He sank back on the sofa.

  ‘How nice of you to call. Yes, I’m the estate administrator for the county council, and I’ve been looking for you because Gerda Persson has unfortunately passed away.’

  He could feel the rhythm of his heart. In his fingers holding the phone, in his thighs resting on the sofa. A regular pulse in his head.

  Gerda Persson.

  A woman, a mother. Not Elina but Gerda Persson. The name he had always been searching for.

  ‘As I said in my message, she named you as sole beneficiary in her will.’

  He couldn’t speak. All his questions had stuck. For decades they had been practised for this very occasion, but now that it was here, no words would come out.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Yes, I’m here.’

  ‘The funeral is on the twelfth at 2.30. I’ve begun the preparations since I haven’t been able to get hold of any relatives, but of course I’d welcome your input, if you want to take care of it some other way.’

  Gerda Persson. The name was taking up all the space.

  Gerda.

  Persson.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Yes, I’m here, that should be fine.’

  ‘Then there are a number of decisions that have to be taken with regard to her flat. Perhaps you’d like to go over there and see whether there’s anything you’d like to have before we clear it out?’

  There was a long silence. Naturally he didn’t say a word, and the woman on the other end seemed to have a hard time going on without a response. When she finally spoke, her tone was different. Less formal and more candid.

  ‘I’m sorry to harp on about all the details, it really wasn’t my intention to be insensitive. I’m sorry for your loss. I presume you were close?’

  He got up and went over to the window. Looked out over Katarina cemetery. Was he really ready for this, did he really want to know? Of course he wanted to know, this was what he’d always been waiting for. But what if the waiting had actually become more important than getting the answers? Everything had seemed so good the past few years. What would happen if all his assumptions were changed?

  ‘It’s like this, I-’

  He stopped abruptly. For thirty-one years he had kept his mouth shut, and he now found it impossible to allow a stranger to be the first person he told.

  ‘It’s like this, we didn’t know each other.’

  Now it was the woman on the other end who was silent, and he welcomed the pause.

  Here in Stockholm. Had she been so close?

  ‘Okay… But you have been in touch?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  She said nothing, as if waiting for more. He realised that it would be fitting to say something, but he had nothing to add.

  ‘It’s a little odd,’ she said, ‘so I understand your surprise. But you must be the one she intended in the will. You do live in Katarina Västra Kyrkogata, care of Lundgren?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s the information I have.’

  ‘But how could she know my address?’

  ‘I don’t know. You’re the only one with that name, and as long as you’re listed somewhere you wouldn’t be that hard to find.’

  And in a flash he understood. The money each month. The small sum that had appeared since he turned eighteen, wherever he was, and which he at first thought was from his foster parents. But they had denied it after he’d left, when he once confronted them. The money that had not shown up this month.

  Suddenly the word came down on him, the most shameful of all. Like a sharp glass shard it cut through all the evasive layers.

  Foundling! You’re a foundling!

  Whatever was found had been lost by someone. But you didn’t fasten little notes with instructions onto something that you lost by accident. It was deliberate.

  He could feel something let go, and tears suddenly blurred his vision. He who never cried. With his hand over the mouthpiece he tried to collect himself; more tears fell and he sank deeper into the sofa. With all the self-control he could muster he tried to continue the conversation.

  ‘So you have no idea where she could have got my name?’

  ‘No, unfortunately. I can understand if it seems strange. I’ve gone through the personal records and I didn’t find you in her family. She was unmarried, had no children, and the only family I found was a childless sister, but she died back in the late fifties.’

  Seconds passed; everything was swimming around. He straightened up.

  ‘How old was she, did you say?’

  ‘The sister?’

  ‘No,
Gerda Persson.’

  He heard her leafing through some papers.

  ‘She was born in 1914, so ninety-two.’

  He grabbed a pen. There was something that didn’t add up. Ninety-two minus thirty-four was fifty-eight.

  ‘A woman couldn’t have a child at that age, could she?’

  There was silence on the other end. Kristoffer realised to his dismay that all this dizziness had made him think out loud.

  ‘What?’

  ‘No, nothing.’

  ‘At the age of ninety-two? No, I don’t think so, even if science is discovering the most astounding things.’

  Kristoffer cursed his clumsiness. She couldn’t find out, nobody must find out! Not before everything was cleared up and it was possible to excuse what they had done.

  ‘What happens next?’

  ‘You mean with regard to the inheritance itself?’

  He had actually been thinking of something more important. How he could find out more about Gerda Persson and how she knew about his existence.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s not complicated. We can make an appointment to meet so that you can get some information about the estate, and then it’s up to you what you want to do. I can tell you about various alternatives, but first I have to arrange everything for the funeral. The flat and the rest will have to wait until afterwards. Perhaps you’d like to come?’

  Four weeks left till his deadline. The play suddenly felt very far away.

  ‘Yes, maybe, thanks.’

  ‘We’ll talk more about things after the funeral. I’ve been in touch with the family who employed her as a housekeeper during her working life, and they’ve promised to help out with the funeral arrangements. It’s the Ragnerfeldt family, by the way. If you like, I can give you the phone number of the son in the family, Jan-Erik; he’s the one I talked to. If you’d like to ring him and ask a few questions, I mean. I did ask them if they knew of you. They said no, but at least you might be able to find out some more about Gerda Persson.’

  He sat up in his chair. All the information was whirling past, seeking a foothold. He had an inheritance from Gerda Persson, and had finally found Mamma, but then hadn’t after all. Instead, he had inherited from Gerda Persson, whom he didn’t know and who was not his mother but who was probably the one who had been sending him money and knew that he existed, and then on the periphery there was Axel Ragnerfeldt. The greatest of the great. A man who almost didn’t seem real, he was so brilliant.

  He jotted down the phone number for Jan-Erik Ragnerfeldt, and they said goodbye. But to ring up the world-famous author’s son seemed inconceivable.

  Because what would he say?

  His confusion was still there. Even more questions than before had taken shape. But a possibility had also arisen. The gate to his hidden world was standing ajar, a little gap had been opened. He just wasn’t sure whether he actually dared go inside.

  There was only one thing he was sure that he wanted.

  To find an explanation that would bless him with the ability to forgive.

  13

  ‘What the hell is this?’

  Alice put down the crossword puzzle she was working on and looked at the piece of paper in Jan-Erik’s outstretched hand. Without ringing the bell he had let himself in with his own key. She had managed to feel glad that he had come. The feeling had lasted until he appeared in the doorway and she saw the expression on his face. With shoes and coat on he was now standing on the other side of the living room table. There was something threatening about him, a rage she had never seen before. His unusual behaviour made her nervous. She reached for the paper and he stood there looking at her, as if wanting to observe her reaction. With unwilling fingers she unfolded the paper. It took only a second for her to see what it was.

  She closed her eyes. Lowered her hand with the awful report and cursed Axel, who hadn’t had the sense to throw out something that could only cause pain.

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me about this?’

  What could she say? Nothing. What had happened had happened, but the lie they had chosen. Perhaps to be able to endure. A barrier had slammed down at first then all these strange feelings had surfaced to keep the pain away. What could not be admitted under any circumstances without allowing madness to take over.

  ‘Answer me!’

  ‘I’m trying.’

  She had done all she could to forget. Made an effort to take long detours around details when the memory came too close. Spent aeons of time trying to suppress the remorse about not having understood how serious things were. But certain voices are never silent. They’re still there, far away in the din. Nobody was ever whole after losing a child, especially not if the child died by her own hand. What could not be acknowledged at first had taken years to arrive. The conversation with her daughter that had never managed to get started, but which would now remain lost for ever. The thought of all the tiny, tiny steps that had been taken. The certainty that all the choices she had made, none of which was especially reprehensible, had added up and led to what could never be changed for all eternity.

  She took off her reading glasses and placed them on the arm of the sofa.

  ‘We don’t know why.’

  Jan-Erik shifted position, waiting impatiently for her to continue.

  ‘What happened? Did she leave a note?’

  Alice shook her head, rubbing her hand over her face. No, she hadn’t left a note. Only a message clearer than any words could ever have expressed.

  ‘But you must have noticed something before, surely? Something must have happened, or why did she do it? She couldn’t have simply decided to hang herself from one day to the next without something happening, could she?’

  ‘Don’t you think I’ve asked myself that question? That I’ve cursed myself because I didn’t understand how bad things were?’

  ‘How bad were they?’

  She sighed and put the paper down on the table. Took one of the embroidered sofa cushions and put it on her lap. Involuntarily her finger began tracing the intricate pattern.

  ‘We never got a real answer. It came out of the blue, she was suddenly changed beyond recognition. She’d been acting the same as always, but one morning she simply refused to get out of bed.’

  Alice tried to remember. Gather up all the bits that she had so conscientiously banished. All at once she realised that it was all intact, that the details were still there as if they had only been in a deep freeze.

  It had been a beautiful morning. She’d been in an unusually good mood, sitting in the kitchen drinking her coffee. The garden had been bejewelled with glittering new snow, and the sheaves of grain that Gerda had set out were full of little birds. She had thought that Axel’s gesture might be a turning point. That even he had finally realised that everything was untenable. She had viewed his initiative as a sign that he was making an effort.

  ‘We were in the city the evening before and went to the cinema, Axel and I. You know how he would never do anything like that. It was even his suggestion.’

  They had seen Face to Face by Ingmar Bergman. It was so rare they did anything together, shared any experience at all. Whenever he left the house it was on literary business: readings and banquets as guest of honour, and she went along only because it would attract attention if she didn’t. Those occasions were merely reminders of her own failure. At home Axel was hardly ever seen, locked in behind the door to his office. But that evening he had suddenly suggested the cinema, despite the fact that there was only an hour to go before the show began.

  ‘I was eating breakfast in the kitchen when Gerda came and told me that Annika was still in bed. We thought she was already at school. I remember that it was past ten o’clock.’

  Alice had left the kitchen and gone to her daughter’s room. Pulled up the blind with a snap and torn the bedcovers off the girl. She thought Annika was ruining everything, just when she finally felt a little joy for a change. She got a lump in her throat when she t
hought about it. The way she had scolded and scolded but got no reaction.

  ‘At first I thought it was just something to do with puberty, that she was just lying there out of sheer spite. Being difficult. But after a while I realised it was something else. She seemed closed off, as if she didn’t even hear what I was saying.’

  The days that followed: the worry; the frustration. Axel said nothing, withdrew, as if he didn’t want to be involved in what was happening.

  ‘I tried to talk to her, I really did. I asked her if something had happened, but she didn’t say a word. She just lay there staring at the wall.’

  Tears, so long bottled up, were spilling out along with the words. She remembered how she had tried and tried but finally lost patience. Gerda had cautiously suggested they should call the doctor, but Axel thought it was a family matter. And her vacillating between the desire to get help and the shame that their daughter was behaving like someone who was mentally ill.

  Jan-Erik went over to the window, turning his back to her as if he wanted to be spared seeing her tears.

  ‘How long did she lie there like that?’

  ‘Four or five days. Gerda and I took turns looking in on her at night. Then one evening she suddenly began eating again, and naturally we took it as a sign that she was getting better.’

  She needed a drink but knew that this was not the time. Jan-Erik seemed to have calmed down a bit, and she didn’t want to provoke his wrath. It had frightened her.

  ‘Afterwards I realised it was because she had made up her mind.’

  ‘Didn’t you ever talk to her friends? Did they not notice anything? What did they say at her school?’

  Early on the lie had been formed. The fear that what had happened in the Ragnerfeldt home might cause a scandal had prevented them from asking any questions. The hit-and-run accident had been given as an explanation at her school as well, and it thus became the official truth.