“And Henrik? Do you have any contact with him?”
“No.”
“Not at all?”
“No, I’ve only met him one time. It was at Mom’s funeral.”
“You’ve never been curious? He is your half brother, after all.”
“He was never mentioned at home. I was pretty grown up before I even found out that he existed. And why they did what they did with him, that’s perhaps—”
She paused and searched for words.
“You’ll have to ask my dad about that. I wasn’t even born. I’ve decided to let that be.”
Alma clearly pushed away from herself with both hands.
“I just want to live my life. Can I do that?”
Fredrik looked at Alma and saw a young woman who had made a decision, very deliberate and perhaps also wise. But he also saw something that resisted that decision inside.
“Be my guest,” he said, making a gesture with his hand toward the stairs.
Alma hesitated a few moments, as if it could not be that easy, then she got up and left with a quick good-bye that almost sounded disappointed.
“But we may be in touch again,” Fredrik called out after her.
She gave him a glance, but then continued down the stairs without answering.
11.
Malin made a quick trip to Nyström’s. She was out of garlic. And she needed to get milk.
The little store with yellow paneling was a lifeline. If it didn’t exist she would not have been able to live on Fårö. True, the assortment was limited, and true, she had to drive to Visby anyway at least once a week to get everything she needed. But to have to take the ferry even to shop for simple things like milk and flour would have been much too claustrophobic. She could not have handled that. At Nyström’s you could also mail letters and order from the state liquor store and the pharmacy. Which also made existence on the island a bit simpler.
Malin was at the back of the store searching in the corner with organic products when she heard it.
Go home.
A hiss behind her back. She turned completely cold, stood stock-still with a package of crushed linseed in her hand. Had she really heard right? Go home?
She recovered her ability to act, put the package of linseed back on the shelf, and rounded the store shelves behind her just in time to see the outside door to the shop shutting with a firm swoosh.
She set her shopping basket right down on the floor and rushed toward the exit, grazed a stand with paperback books, which swayed worrisomely, and had to squeeze past a sportily dressed tourist who was poking among the foreign coins in the palm of her hand.
The doors refused to open. She had been too quick, was forced to back up a few feet and slowly go forward again. This time they slid open and she was outside.
Malin stopped outside the entry. Not a soul. But a little over a hundred yards away on the road south a car was leaving. She could hear the driver putting it in higher gear. It was too far away for her to see either the license plate number or what model it was. Even so, she tore her cell phone out of her pocket and took a picture. It was only an idiotic spot on the display.
She remained standing on the concrete landing outside the doors. Looked around again, a little more thoroughly this time. But no one was visible. Was it really possible to make it outside, start the car, and get that far away in the time it had taken her to get out of the store? The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that the driver of the car could not be the same person who whispered to her. Whoever it was, she, or he, had gone in a different direction. Malin thought the voice had sounded like a woman’s, but she was not completely sure.
Could the person who ran out be hiding around the corner or crouched down in one of the cars in the parking lot, and was now just waiting for Malin to leave?
Go home.
Was it even a whisper she had heard? Was it perhaps only the hissing of the door as it closed? Go-ohm. Did it sound like that?
Malin went back into the store and found her basket. Berit, at the checkout counter, looked at her inquisitively.
“You were really in a hurry.”
She could, of course, ask Berit who had just gone out the door. But wouldn’t that sound strange?
“Excuse me,” she said. “I thought I saw someone I knew, but I guess I was mistaken.”
She thought that Berit was about to say something, but seemed to purse her lips at the last moment. Or was that just her imagination, too?
12.
Fredrik rolled onto the grass-covered farmyard in front of his family’s stone house at five thirty. After several years of renovations and puttering they had got it into really good condition, even if the work, of course, was never ending. Many times he had cursed the idea of buying an old Gotland farmhouse that needed renovation. On the other hand, he had felt grateful just as many times that the house was no more than a hundred and fifty years old.
The mere thought of acquaintances who wrestled with shale and grass roofs on, practically speaking, medieval houses left him in a cold sweat. They were forced to gather a whole neighborhood council and at least one wise old man as soon as anything had to be repaired. People to whom they then owed return services for all eternity.
Fredrik got out of the car with a pike in a plastic bag. Out of nowhere he had gotten the idea to fix quenelles for dinner. He had stopped by the fish market in Hemse on his way home and asked if they had pike.
The man in the fish market opened a door to the nether regions of the store, pulled a pike out of a plastic tank like a large garbage can, more or less wrestled the fish down onto the floor, and killed it with a wooden club.
Fredrik had almost recoiled behind the glass counter. He was aware in principle that the animals he ate had been killed at some point and had no problem either with fishing or then killing and taking out the catch. But when he stepped into a fish market he didn’t really expect to witness an execution.
Now, in any event, he was at home with a very fresh pike and hoped that he could transform it into quenelles before it got too late and Ninni and Simon were too hungry.
The pike in the bag aroused no enthusiasm from Simon. Fredrik’s explanation that quenelles were like fish balls although much tastier did not make things any better. But he felt sure of himself. Once the quenelles had melted in their mouths, along with a mousseline sabayon sauce, not even Simon could complain.
Food had been an important part of Fredrik’s rehabilitation after the accident. He refused to look in his old cookbooks. Convinced that it must be possible to coax the know-how out of the reluctant convolutions of his brain, he had cut loose in the kitchen without any guidance other than feeling. After a few initial catastrophes, it was as if his senses showed him the right way: tastes and aromas, the color of the raw materials, the very feeling of an avocado against his fingertips or the sound of a pepper being slapped down on the cutting board. The tears in his eyes from a finely chopped onion.
Sometimes he wondered whether the fall and the injury had affected his sense of taste. That it had become more sensitive. Or just different. It was an interesting, slightly strange thought. That what tasted one way for most other people tasted completely different, or at least more, in his mouth.
He quickly filleted the fish and assembled the meat grinder. That was the trick. An ordinary food processor would mercilessly transform the pike into a tough, unappetizing mess.
When, a short time later, he was whisking the sauce over a water bath, Joakim called his cell phone. Fredrik decided to answer and somehow managed the sauce with one hand.
“Hey, how’s it going?” Joakim said happily.
“Fine,” he answered. “How’s everything with you? You sound upbeat.”
Joakim had been accepted to the Nyckelvik School’s photography program, and today had been the first day at school. His boisterous tone of voice sounded promising.
“It’s going fine.”
“Cool. Any decent classmates?�
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Fredrik felt divided, had a bad conscience because he couldn’t really concentrate on the call.
“Yeah, they’re really nice,” said Joakim. “But I’ve already met most of them.”
“You have?” said Fredrik with surprise.
“One guy, Johann, set up a Facebook group when the admissions were done. We went out a couple of times last week.”
“That’s great,” said Fredrik. “Then you don’t need to have acclimatization, where you roll around on the floor in sweat suits and hug each other for two days.”
Joakim giggled into the receiver, then he briefly cleared his throat and his tone of voice became more serious.
“Well, I was wondering … Could I borrow a thousand for rent? It’s just temporary, until my student loan arrives. That will take about a week.”
“Of course,” said Fredrik without even thinking about it. “I’ll transfer the money to your account after dinner.”
“Thanks. That’s really nice.”
“I’m happy to do it, but now I have to go before I completely destroy this sauce.”
“Okay, but we’ll be in touch,” said Joakim.
Fredrik ended the call and removed the water bath and saucepan from the stovetop.
Photographer. Fredrik didn’t know whether that was something Joakim saw as his future, or just something he wanted to try out. Considering what he had seen today, it seemed to be a profession that a person could live on. But perhaps Henrik Kjellander was an exception. Like all artistic professions it was certainly tough.
Joakim had truly changed. It was as if a kind of castling had occurred in the family. Only a couple of years ago Joakim was always sitting in his room in front of the computer with the door closed while Simon was the happy and outgoing one, still with a focus on Ninni and Fredrik. Now it was the other way around. Joakim had suddenly become a responsible, talkative, and independent adult. Perhaps not so much with focus on his parents, but in any event present when they met. Simon had taken over Joakim’s old role and closed the door to the boys’ room.
“How’s it going?” asked Ninni.
She rounded the table, picked up a magazine from the pile on one of the chairs, and was about to sit down.
“Almost ready,” said Fredrik, “I’m just going to simmer the quenelles. It would be great if you could set the table.”
Ninni tossed the magazine aside on the table with a mock sigh. She opened the cupboard and took out three of the light yellow plates.
“Could we use the white ones instead?” said Fredrik. “The sauce disappears on those.”
“Yes, boss.”
She put the yellow plates back and took out the white ones.
“So it was fish balls you thought of to celebrate?”
“Listen, this is culinary art of a higher school,” said Fredrik, pointing to the quenelles waiting to be put into the pan. “Ask anyone at all who knows a little about food.”
“And I don’t?”
“Okay, ask anyone at all who knows a little more about food.”
Ninni put the plates on the table and took out glasses and silverware.
“Wait till you taste them,” he added.
“How was it then, the first day?” said Ninni while she put out the three place settings.
“Good. It was really good. Not a remarkable job. Sara and I were on a quiet tour to Fårö.”
“Sounds like a real vacation. And female companionship besides.”
Fredrik made a face.
“That was a joke.”
“I hope so,” he said.
There was silence. Why did she have to say that? Today of all days.
“It really was just a joke,” she repeated. “I’m happy that you’re back at work. It will do you good. You can see it already.”
“Okay, I believe you. Anyway it felt really good.”
Fredrik removed finished quenelles from the pan with water and put in the last batch. He observed the pile of newspapers on the chair while he waited for the quenelles to float up. He did not like that pile, it had started since Joakim moved to Stockholm. He did not like the pile of newspapers and he did not like that the table was only set for three. There was something gloomy about that. In one stroke the house had become much too large and quiet. They had barely managed to get their existence in order before conditions changed again.
At the same time that Joakim was accepted at the Nyckelvik School’s photography program, his girlfriend of two years had been accepted in the general studies program at the same school. They had arranged for an apartment for themselves in Stockholm. A microscopic studio at Gärdet, only one subway station from Ropsten where they took the bus to school. He did not doubt that Joakim would manage in Stockholm. Besides, both his grandmothers were in Gustavsberg and his paternal grandfather in Nacka. It wasn’t that. But it was sad not having him at home. Sad above all to have him so far away that he could not even come home on weekends. More than occasionally. It made him feel old.
Or did it have nothing at all to do with age and the empty fourth chair? Perhaps it was in his head, something to do with all the shit. The hell of Östergarnsholme. The accident.
“Simon,” he called out to the second floor. “Time to eat.”
He got no answer. One who moved out and one who closed the door.
“Simon,” he called again.
Louder this time. The scraping of a chair being pushed back was heard faintly through the ceiling.
* * *
The first day. Maybe she should have made dinner, not him. At least she ought to have thought of a little surprise.
Instead she had reminded him about that old infidelity. Completely unintentionally, she could swear to that. Or not old. It wasn’t really all that long ago. It only felt that way. The accident and the long period Fredrik had been on sick leave were like a boulder of eternity between the present and everything that happened before.
When Ninni tried to think back to what it had been like before the accident, it was like peering out over the sea in dense fog. It was as if it had lost its significance, vanished somewhere far away, and was something you could barely get hold of any longer. And yet that stray comment. Today of all days.
She was clearing up after dinner. There were never many dishes when Fredrik was cooking. During his training at cooking school, which he dropped out of after three months, he had learned to do dishes and clean up in the short breaks while you waited for something to be done. When the food was on the table the kitchen was often just as sparkling clean as when he started. She was the exact opposite. Left behind an explosion of saucepans, sticky beaters, and peelings.
She was happy for his sake, she really was. But if she were honest the feeling was mixed. Back on patrol duty. That meant risks, you couldn’t ignore that.
Fredrik had been checked up and down by doctors, psychiatrists, and psychologists, and they had taken their sweet time. There was no one who said okay, let’s test and see how it goes. She understood that. She was not worried that he wasn’t ready. But there was a different worry. That he would stretch the limits a little too much, not think enough about himself, and for that reason something would happen to him again. The danger was just as much him, the person he was, as the risk the job entailed.
Of course he ought to have learned something from what had happened. Ninni had spoken with him about it countless times. His memories from the accident itself were incomplete and his conclusions not completely clear. Not to her anyway. She had even talked with Sara about it on several occasions and she could not really get the pictures to fit together. Sara had hinted in some way that Fredrik had done more than he really needed to. In the heat of the moment, of course, there were difficult considerations, but if Ninni understood Sara correctly she thought that Fredrik could just as well have let the man they arrested at Östergarnsholme get away. He could have let him jump off the cliff if that was what he wanted. It involved an unreasonably large risk to try to stop him. No one had demand
ed that of Fredrik. No one would have held him accountable.
Ninni dried her hands on the linen towel with Grandmother’s monogram. She looked out the window. August. It was still light. And then a darkness opened below her without warning. That accursed anxiety.
She took a few quick steps across the floor, as if she could get away from her inner darkness through a quick maneuver in the kitchen, and it actually worked. It usually did.
13.
Little puffs of fog were creeping across meadows and fields when Fredrik peered out the kitchen window on Tuesday morning. They looked beautifully elfin as they hovered in the blue light of dawn. The light Charoles cattle stood motionless in the ribbons of fog, the calves still with the cows. It would be a few months before they would become beef for twelve hundred kronor a pound.
Fredrik showered, got dressed, got the newspaper, and set the table for breakfast. Ninni came in as usual just as the last drips of coffee ran through the filter.
“Is anything going on?” she said, pointing to the disarray of newspaper supplements on the table.
“Doesn’t seem like it,” he said. “It was an unusually quick read today.”
Ninni sat beside him on the kitchen bench, as close as possible without sitting on his lap. She looked at him, smiled broadly, and then gave him a kiss. A friendly morning kiss.
He could not help but wonder how she had endured these two years. The last year perhaps had not been so bad, in and of itself. Perhaps even better than a normal year considering that he was home so much. But those first six months. How did she manage?
* * *
When he was in the car on his way into Visby a little later, the fog was gone, burned off by the sun.
Yesterday had been a long day, his first on patrol duty in almost two years. Back and forth to Fårö, then intensive work at the computer and on the phone, and then straight home to the stove with the newly clubbed pike. Yet he had not felt the slightest bit tired, more like the contrary. Presumably it was the kick of being a policeman for real again that kept him going.
He drove north without really seeing the landscape he was passing. He must have driven this same stretch more than a thousand times, back and forth. Hemse, Linde, Lojsta, Hejde, Väte … What he actually saw was a mixture of memories that were stored on one another like double exposures. A black-tarred church steeple; a big lifeboat that, according to rumor, belonged to someone who was waiting for the Flood; the closed shops, of which there were more and more; the military-green back loaders rusting alongside the road; and the sign with the tennis court that pointed right into the forest. And after what sometimes felt like two hours, sometimes ten minutes, the sign with VISBY 8 showed up. Then he was there. He did not even notice the last few miles.
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