The Chosen

by Kristina Ohlsson

  The whole idea was sick, but it was logical in spite of that. It bothered Fredrika that both Gideon and Mona were dead; she couldn’t shake off the feeling that they hadn’t managed to reveal the whole truth about the murders of the two boys.

  Another thing that bothered both Fredrika and Alex was Mona Samson’s role in the murders. The secretary at the Solomon Community was shown a picture of her; she confirmed that it was Mona who had delivered the chrysanthemum in a bag with a face on it. What had driven Mona to help Gideon? Could it really be just because she loved him?

  “I don’t understand what made her go up on that roof and try to shoot Polly Eisenberg,” Fredrika said.

  “There’s so much we don’t understand,” Alex said. “We don’t even know for certain that it was her. Gideon wasn’t very tall, remember. It could have been him up there; maybe Mona changed her mind and tried to save Polly. Someone must have taken her to Finland, after all.”

  But Fredrika wasn’t happy. Regardless of whether or not Mona Samson had tried to kill Polly Eisenberg, she had shot Efraim Kiel and Eden’s husband and children. No one would commit crimes like that without a personal motive. Unfortunately, Polly didn’t remember anything about the person who had abducted her.

  And so the quest for information continued. They tried turning the thumbscrews on the only person they had left.

  Saul Goldmann.

  But he consistently refused to talk about his past, about how he knew Efraim Kiel, about the work they had done, and what had happened to make him and Gideon leave Israel. He swore that he would have helped them if only he could have done so; he said that he was sure all this had no connection to his years in the military. Fredrika got the feeling that he was partly telling the truth and that this was causing him considerable pain.

  • • •

  There was some light in the darkness: Peder Rydh had gone to the Labor Court and was trying to get his job back. It looked as if he was likely to succeed. Alex and Fredrika didn’t often discuss it, but they were both hoping he would rejoin the team.

  Fredrika was finding it difficult to sleep. The death of Eden Lundell’s daughter, and the boys who had died out on Lovön, gave her no peace.

  The silence from the Israelis was deafening. The official line was that, from their point of view, the matter had been resolved. The perpetrators were dead and would claim no more victims. That was the important thing.

  In the center of everything that had happened stood Eden Lundell.

  Fredrika couldn’t help feeling that she knew more than she was prepared to say. When questioned, she had said that she had met Efraim in London a few times, but that he had been no more than a passing acquaintance. She had no idea why he had died in her apartment along with one of her daughters.

  Her other daughter survived. So did her husband.

  Fredrika knew that the family had moved abroad; perhaps that would help the healing process.

  “She seemed so worn down when we interviewed her,” Fredrika said.

  Alex glanced away, mumbled something she couldn’t quite hear.

  On the evening when she walked away from the crime scene, they found her at the hospital, by her daughter’s side. She stayed there until the child regained consciousness.

  Fredrika saw Eden once more before the family moved away. They met on Kungsholmsgatan. Eden was pale and gaunt but calm. Almost serene.

  And that was what eventually saved Fredrika Bergman’s nights: the fact that Eden, who had come so close to losing everything, seemed to be one of the few who knew why.

  There were days when she didn’t cry. Days when they went on short outings, her daughter played, and her husband wasn’t tired or in pain. But those days were few and far between. As a rule she had to make do with brief periods of peace of mind. The nights were long and silent, the days equally long and light. She had begun to grow accustomed to a fragmented daily rhythm. When it came down to it, she could get by on just a few hours’ sleep at a time.

  Israel had been Mikael’s idea, and this time Eden had said yes. They didn’t know how long they would stay.

  Until they were whole again.

  Until they could cope with everyday life.

  Mikael said very little. Asked too few questions. Eden thought she would go under if she wasn’t given the opportunity to unburden herself.

  When she brought it up and wanted to talk about what had happened, Mikael shook his head, withdrew into himself, said they could discuss it some other time. She told the police, and her parents, no more than necessary. The only person who pinned her down was her boss at Säpo.

  “This game stops right now,” GD said. “You tell me what you know.”

  But Eden kept her counsel.

  “You have to believe me when I tell you it’s over,” she said. “There will be no further consequences.”

  “What the hell was Efraim Kiel doing in your apartment? You must realize that I can’t just overlook such a thing, not when I know your history.”

  She had gazed at GD for a long time.

  “How do you know I was telling the truth when I said that Efraim and I had an affair? How do you know I didn’t allow him to recruit me? How do you know I’m not exactly what you thought I was in the first place—a Mossad double agent?”

  GD had looked at her sorrowfully.

  “I just know, Eden.”

  At which point she had burst into tears yet again.

  She had offered to resign, but GD suggested she take a year’s leave, effective immediately.

  Dani was laid to rest the following week. If Eden so much as brushed against the memory of her daughter’s funeral, she broke down and wept for hours, particularly during the night. Sometimes she had to bury her face in the pillow in order to smother the scream that was trying to get out. The grief never loosened its grip, refused to release her.

  • • •

  Eden thought she understood what had gone on. The press wrote about Gideon Eisenberg and the woman who had been his lover. They made much of his past and his childhood experiences. But Eden knew better. The attack on her children confirmed that she had been right all along. The murders that had devastated the Solomon Community were related to the events on the West Bank all those years ago. The only thing she couldn’t work out was who Mona Samson was and why she had followed Efraim to Eden’s apartment.

  Eden could not leave these questions unanswered. On her second day in Israel she made contact with Mossad. She explained her business in one sentence and was given an appointment to meet the man who had been Efraim Kiel’s boss.

  “I want to know why Mona Samson wanted Gideon Eisenberg and Saul Goldmann’s children dead,” she said.

  “You’re asking for information that I am not at liberty to give you,” he said. “You must realize that, even though I obviously have the greatest sympathy for you and your family in view of the tragedy that has befallen you, and the pain it has caused you. I really am very sorry for your loss.”

  Eden had never been so close to killing another human being.

  “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t go to the press with the whole thing,” she said. “Or to my employers in Sweden.”

  The man thought it over. For a long time.

  “You’re playing a dangerous game,” he said eventually. “And I will allow you to win. But everything I tell you stays between us. I have a question for you first of all: What was the connection between Efraim Kiel and your children?”

  Eden accepted his rules without hesitation.

  “He was their father,” she said.

  She could see that the answer was unexpected, in spite of the fact that it should have been obvious, given the circumstances.

  “I understand. Did Efraim know that?”

  “I answered your question. Now you answer mine.”

  Efraim’s former boss gave a wry smile, then told Eden what she had already heard from Fred Banks in London. It was only when he reached the end of the story that she found out who
Mona Samson was.

  “Mona Samson—or Nadia Tahir, her real name—was the Paper Boy,” he said. “The source Efraim ran in the Palestinian village on the West Bank. And it was her son who died in the explosion.”

  He spread his hands wide.

  “It’s a terrible story from start to finish. Gideon and Saul left Israel after that, which was a sign of weakness, if you ask me. But I suppose everyone makes their own judgment.”

  Eden wasn’t interested in making a judgment. She was trying to feel something after what she had just learned, but she couldn’t. The fact that the woman who had murdered Eden’s daughter had lost her own child was of no importance.

  “How come she was carrying Israeli passports?” she asked.

  “That was because of Efraim. Her life would have been in danger if she had stayed on the West Bank after the deaths of her husband and son; she was at considerable risk of being exposed as a source. We offered her the chance to disappear in another country, but she wanted to stay in Israel, so she was granted Israeli citizenship. It was no big deal; her father was an Israeli, after all. A year ago she contacted us and asked for a new identity; she said she thought she was being followed. It was then that she became Mona Samson.”

  “Do you think Efraim was involved in the murders?”

  The man’s expression hardened.

  “Of course not. Nadia was behind all this, and she persuaded Gideon to go along with her by exploiting the terrible experiences he had been through as a child. I can guarantee that he didn’t know what her real motive was: to avenge the death of her son. Efraim was the only one who had met her; Saul and Gideon had no idea who she was, what the Paper Boy looked like.”

  “So the fact that Efraim was in Stockholm when this all kicked off—that was pure coincidence?”

  He nodded.

  Eden thanked him for his help and got to her feet. The man she had come to see also stood up.

  “We’d still really like you to join us, Eden,” he said. “Anytime.”

  She didn’t answer; she just turned and left.

  • • •

  Mikael was still on leave so that he could recover from the bullet wound. Saba was the one who had healed faster, although she often asked about her sister Dani. Time and time again they explained that she was gone.

  “She’s not coming back. Ever,” Eden said, feeling as if she was about to fall apart.

  How many times could one heart break?

  An infinite number of times.

  Tears poured down her face without her even noticing. When she was driving the car. When she was out shopping. When she was watching TV. When she was cooking.

  She exercised as frequently as she could, often twice a day. Physical exertion and pain became a balm for her soul.

  “You have to forgive yourself” was the last thing GD had said to her. “You couldn’t possibly have foreseen this.”

  But that was exactly what she had done, and still she had failed to act decisively enough. If only she had explained to Mikael why they had to get out of the apartment, why they weren’t safe there. She also hated herself for her misjudgment when she first walked in: she had simply assumed that Mikael must be dead, since Efraim was lying on the bed with the children.

  Mikael was haunted by the same demons. He blamed himself because he hadn’t done what Eden said. Their anguish grew into a monster that threatened to destroy everything they had left. It was as if they were caught in a raging torrent, and neither of them had the strength to stay afloat.

  They were being carried away from all their routines, away from each other.

  Until the day when Eden realized she was pregnant and saw a light flicker in Mikael’s eyes. A faint light, but it was there.

  And she knew that she couldn’t wait for him any longer. He had to know what she hadn’t been able to bring herself to tell him for five long years.

  She told him one night when they were both lying awake. Her voice was no more than a whisper, and she couldn’t look at him as the words left her mouth.

  “You’re not Dani and Saba’s father.”

  Her whole body was shaking.

  She could feel the tears running down her cheeks, seeping into her hair.

  Mikael lay there motionless.

  On his back, his gaze fixed on the ceiling, he reached out and took her hand in his.

  “I’ve always known that,” he said.

  Afterword and Acknowledgments

  To begin with, there was only the title. The very first time I visited my publisher, Piratförlaget, I said that the title of my fifth book would be The Chosen (Davidsstjärnor). Looking back, that seems completely incomprehensible. I never even thought that I would write five books. Or six, actually: I’ve started writing children’s books, too.

  I am sitting at my desk, trying to remember what it felt like to write The Chosen. It isn’t particularly difficult, because I have never enjoyed writing something so much in my whole life. I have been fascinated by the history of the Jewish people and the creation of the state of Israel for such a long time; how could I resist the temptation to write a book with that title at some point? When I had finished, I wept; the sense of loss was so overwhelming. You can write a book only once. Everything that follows—the rereading, the revision—is something else. Something that, for me, doesn’t have much to do with writing. So when The Chosen was finished, I felt bereft. There was only one cure: to start a new project as soon as possible, because it is when I am writing that I feel best of all.

  I thought we could have a little chat about that, dear reader.

  About the importance of feeling good. And about where I was in my life when I wrote this book.

  A few years ago I wrote a piece that was published when Unwanted (Askungar) came out in paperback in Sweden. I said that we must get better at following our hearts, at devoting ourselves to things that give, rather than take, energy. I differentiated between what we do because it is right and strategic (or “good for our careers”) and what we do because we want to. And writing was—and is—exactly that: something that I want to spend time on because it is so much fun. Because it makes my life better on so many levels.

  Yet for a long time I insisted on marginalizing my writing, keeping it as a leisure activity. In spite of the fact that I was producing a book a year and had been published in a dozen countries, I continued to work full-time, often in locations in a constant state of reorganization, with almost comically poor leadership which suppressed both creativity and productivity. I used to say that I would never be able to resign. This was based on the erroneous assumption that if I stopped working, I would also lose contact with the politics of international security, and, to be honest, I can’t imagine my life without that contact. As time went by, it became clear that I had been wrong. I could integrate what was going on in the world with my writing, as long as I had the courage to expand my authorship to include nonfiction pieces and perhaps journalism. And if I missed having a job, I could always apply for a new one.

  So since January 2012 I have been a full-time author, and at the moment there is very little from my old life that I miss. The transition between old and new was actually supposed to happen at the end of 2010/beginning of 2011, but then I got another allegedly good job. In Vienna. As a counterterrorism expert. That was something I couldn’t say no to, and so 2011 became yet another year when I worked and wrote at the same time.

  I had so much fun that year!

  And I was utterly exhausted.

  Another dysfunctional workplace where I was sapped of strength and energy. My airways hated the dry air in Vienna; I had a permanent cold. On top of that I did too much traveling, slept too little, wrote at night, worked during the day, had visitors from Sweden on the weekends. Eventually I had had enough. I am too smart to carry on like that. I had to stop doing two jobs at once and I had to catch my breath. So that’s what I did. The autumn of 2011 was a long wait for my contract in Vienna to come to an end so that I could return h
ome to Stockholm, where my new life would begin.

  And then everything went wrong. To make a long story short, less than a week after I moved back to Sweden, I ended up in the hospital, more ill and more terrified than I have ever been in my life. Then I got better. The long version of the story doesn’t belong here, but I remember the feeling so well. The feeling that I was rotting from the inside. I had lost every scrap of energy in just a few days. My body felt like a small town where the lights were going out in one area after another. I was drowning. Try taking a deep breath with water in both lungs. It’s impossible.

  Becoming aware of your own mortality is a good way of starting to examine both your lifestyle and life choices. When I looked back at the way I had lived over the past few years, it wasn’t difficult to see that I had spent way too much time on things that I didn’t really value but hadn’t had the courage to say no to. There was a cruel irony in the fact that when I finally dared to make the leap, I was doomed to fall at the final hurdle. I couldn’t reconcile myself to that. Not under any circumstances.

  And I didn’t have to, as it turned out. Apparently I had brought a souvenir back from Vienna: streptococcus. Physically I recovered quickly; mentally, much more slowly. I had seen my own fragility, and to a certain extent I had become a different person, someone who was suddenly in a hurry. If I was ever struck down by a serious illness again, or affected by something else that threatened my existence, I was determined not to stand there regretting a whole lot of important stuff.

  In many ways, 2012 was one of the best years I have ever known. That was the year when I sat in the historic American Colony Hotel in Jerusalem beneath a clear sky studded with stars and wrote The Chosen. Something I had dreamt of for so long: to spend time in Israel and write a book. It was magical, the most perfect writing experience ever.

  It’s hardly surprising that I grieved when it was over and that I love being a writer on a full-time basis. Because this is what I have come to realize: if you sort out the big things in life, the small things will follow.