“She’s not?”
“No.”
He scratched the back of his neck and took a few big sips of his beer.
“Is she in her room?” I asked, pointing at the door.
“No, she’s not home.”
I stepped over and placed my hand on the door handle.
The truth had to come out.
“What the fuck are you doing? Stop!”
Dino flew off the sofa and an instant later Alexandra and Ulrika came out of the kitchen.
“Amina?” I said, opening the door.
There she was, across the dimly lit room, reading at her desk. She just had time to turn around.
Dino threw himself forward and grabbed at me. Soon he had me in a lock; his arms around my chest, he yanked me back out of the room.
“Stop it!” cried Ulrika and Alexandra.
But Dino didn’t stop. He twisted my arm up behind my back so roughly that it almost snapped, and hustled me away.
“What are you doing?” Ulrika shouted.
Alexandra ran up and yanked at Dino.
“Stop it!”
“He is out of here,” Dino said, forcing me into the hall, where he jabbed his knee into my tailbone and shoved me up against the wall.
“You’re crazy,” I said.
“Calm down,” Dino hissed.
Through the hubbub I caught a glimpse of Ulrika’s terrified expression.
“What happened?”
I tried to respond, but Dino drowned me out.
“He forced his way into Amina’s room.”
I protested, but it was all in vain.
“What is wrong with you?” said Ulrika.
Dino’s brutal treatment made me whimper. I waited for him to respond to Ulrika’s question, for some sort of explanation to all this utterly pointless violence. Only when I managed to twist around did I realize that Ulrika’s question had been addressed to me.
“You went in her room? Without permission?”
“It wasn’t locked,” I stammered. “Dino said she wasn’t home.”
“What is going on, Adam?”
Ulrika brought her hands to her face. Her cheeks were pale.
I didn’t understand. All I was trying to do was keep my family from falling apart.
“Adam,” Ulrika said. “Please, Adam.”
Dino looked at me, pity in his eyes. As soon as he let go of me I swung around, but I stumbled over a pair of shoes on the runner and fell backwards into the door, then landed on my behind.
“She’s lying,” I managed to say. “Amina knows more than she’s letting on.”
All three of them looked at me the way you look at someone who’s just revealed he is suffering from a fatal illness.
“I feel sorry for you two,” said Dino, turning to Ulrika. “But don’t make Amina suffer because of this.”
Ulrika nodded slowly and Alexandra put her arm around her.
“Of course we’ve spoken with Amina. She doesn’t know anything about what happened.”
“I understand,” said Ulrika. “I hope you can forgive us. We’re not ourselves.”
I got my shoes and jacket on and went out to the stairwell. My mind was unraveling. My thoughts galloped by like runaway horses; my ears were ringing and my vision was tumbling over and over. I don’t know if I said anything on the way out. I don’t remember if I shouted or muttered. It’s like a blank spot in my memory when I think back on it. Temporary derangement. I suspect a skilled defense attorney could even get away with an insanity plea.
38
I spent the rest of that weekend tucked in bed with a fever and a raging headache. Even moving from the bed to the sofa sapped all my strength, and I subsisted on soup, toast, and Tylenol.
“Maybe you should get help?” Ulrika said.
I turned off the TV. Every single sound was like a roar in my ears.
“What could a doctor do?”
Ulrika sat down on the couch and stroked my knee.
“I wasn’t talking about a doctor.”
I pulled the blanket up to my chin.
“Maybe you need someone to talk to,” she said.
“And what am I supposed to say? That I’ve done everything in my power to keep my family together? That I’ve gone against everything I believed in, all my moral principles? I lied to the police and tracked down witnesses at home and harassed them. I have done everything for my family, but now my wife is convinced that I’m losing my mind.”
“I never said that. We’re in the midst of a crisis. It’s no surprise that we’re on the brink of a breakdown.”
“We?”
Ulrika was no longer looking at me.
“We all handle crises in different ways.”
Early Monday morning, she flew to Stockholm for a few meetings, but also to get the keys to the apartment. I received a text with a selfie and a promise that we would make it through this. She wrote that she loved me and that we would handle it all together.
That morning I called Alexandra and Dino and begged a thousand times for forgiveness for my actions. Could they pass on my apology to Amina? They were understanding and said they hoped this hell would soon be over.
I slowly woke from my torpor. I staggered around the neighborhood with cloudy vision and gelatinous thoughts. Each person I encountered stared at me brazenly. A grizzled man in a duffle coat grunted and shook his head, but when I asked what he’d said, he looked at me, affronted, as if he had no idea what I was talking about.
Ulrika had stacked the entryway full of boxes. She’d already started packing the essentials. I stopped and stared at them, opening one box and rooting through it. A whole life, as I knew it, in eight banana crates. My chest gaped with emptiness.
Three weeks earlier, we had been a perfectly ordinary family.
* * *
On Thursday I waited for Ulrika outside the station. She stepped off the airport bus and smiled, squinting into the sun.
We hugged for an eternity, standing there as if in a gap in time, just holding each other—two bodies that belonged together, linked by love, by time and fate. By God? There among swerving buses and bell-ringing cyclists, late students with steaming cups of coffee, academics dashing here and there in pressed clothing, secondhand middle-class citizens. I don’t believe we were created for each other, that there was a plan drawn up ahead of time for me and Ulrika, but I believe—no, I know—that time and love have bound us together forever, until death do us part.
We walked close together across Clemenstorget and down to Bytaregatan. Paul’s words echoed in my head: He who doesn’t take care of his own has abandoned his faith in Jesus.
“How are you feeling?” Ulrika asked.
“Dreadful,” I answered honestly.
“I love you, Adam. We have to be strong now.”
“For Stella,” I said.
Later on we found ourselves once again in the easy chairs in Michael Blomberg’s office. He was wearing a baby-blue shirt with big rings of sweat under his arms.
“I’ve managed to get the preliminary investigation against Christopher Olsen,” he notified us, not without a certain hint of triumph in his voice. “The court bought my line of reasoning, although certain details remain confidential.”
He waved a sheaf of papers.
“Get this. It’s from one of the interrogations of Linda Lokind.”
I leaned way forward in my seat.
“LI: ‘This information you’ve given about Christopher—’”
“Who is LI?” I interrupted.
“Agnes Thelin, the chief inspector,” Blomberg said without looking up. “LI stands for lead interrogator.”
“Okay, okay.”
Blomberg read on.
“‘I’m sure you understand, Linda, that these are very serious accusations you have leveled at Christopher. If it’s the case that what you’ve said … that some things weren’t entirely true, you have to tell us now.’”
“Are you serious?” I exclaimed, throwing out my hands. “
Can she really say that? She’s arguing that Linda was lying!”
Blomberg gave a heavy sigh and dropped the papers onto the desk.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Go on.”
He took a deep breath and kept reading.
“LL—that stands for Linda Lokind,” he said with a glance at me. “LL: ‘I guess maybe … I don’t know. Sometimes I’m not sure if stuff really happened or if it’s just my imagination. It felt like it happened for real. It honestly did.’”
Blomberg looked at us, his expression serious, before he went on.
“LI: ‘Have you said things that aren’t true, Linda? All I want is for the truth to come out.’ LL: ‘I don’t know. I don’t remember. Everything is, like, blurry, reality and … and … my dreams.’”
I didn’t know what to think. This seemed insane. Wasn’t Linda able to differentiate between dreams and reality?
Blomberg folded up the interrogation report and handed it to Ulrika.
“It goes on like that. Linda Lokind doesn’t know what really happened and what is just fantasies or dreams. A real fruitcake, in other words. No wonder the preliminary investigation was closed.”
Ulrika paged through the document.
“So Christopher Olsen never assaulted Linda?”
Okay, maybe that was true. But that Linda couldn’t tell what was a dream and what was reality—I had trouble buying that. In fact, I was certain that she was extremely conscious of her lies. There was something she was hiding. From me, from the police, from everyone. And I had to find out what it was.
39
Ulrika and I left Blomberg’s office and zigzagged our way along the narrow sidewalks of Klostergatan. An older man in a khaki-colored overcoat stopped suddenly in front of us, staring at me as if I were a ghost. I passed him quickly, my eyes on the shop windows.
We slipped into a coffee shop, got a table in a hidden corner in the back, and had espresso and cream-and-marzipan pastries.
“You look different,” Ulrika said.
“More awake? I actually managed to get some sleep.”
She looked at me for a long time, taking in every millimeter of my face. It made me feel safe, as if her eyes were caressing me with warmth and gentleness.
“I know what it is. Your collar,” she said. “I’m not used to seeing you without your clerical collar.”
I tucked in my chin and looked down at my neck. I’d hardly reflected over the fact that I had taken it off. It wasn’t as if I had made a conscious decision. In the past few days, I had simply forgotten to put it on.
“Do you want to read it?” Ulrika asked, placing the preliminary investigation report on the table.
We divided the pages between us and took turns reading. Occasionally we sighed, looking at each other and shaking our heads.
There was no doubt that Linda Lokind seemed like a confused person who constantly gave conflicting information. Based on what came out in the investigation, a person could hardly blame the prosecutor for clearing Christopher Olsen of all suspicion. Linda Lokind’s accusations appeared to have been fabricated by a vindictive and mentally unstable partner who had been cheated on and abandoned. But was it really that simple?
* * *
When we left the café, Ulrika wanted to make a quick round of the shops downtown.
“I need a new scarf. It’ll only take half an hour, max.”
“Half an hour?”
She tugged at my arm.
“I don’t like it,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“How people are looking.”
“I’ll be quick,” she promised.
And, muttering, I followed her into Åhléns, crowded my way past people with lowered heads and sweat under their arms. All the while I stuck close by Ulrika. When we finally came back out, I handed a twenty-kronor bill to the shivering woman outside the entrance. She asked God to bless me.
“A quick run to H&M too?” Ulrika said.
“Not H&M. I can’t.”
“Just let them look.”
“But they might ask questions. The staff.”
She looked at me and stroked my elbow.
“It will all be over soon. Once we move away…”
I steeled myself and walked into the stuffy warmth of H&M just behind my wife; we went straight up the stairs. When I caught sight of a girl from the staff, I darted into the men’s department and headed for the back of the store. Using my back as a wall to keep out the rest of the world, I grabbed a few shirts and pressed so close to the racks that the scent of newness tickled my nose.
Several minutes passed as I stood there up against the chalk-line printed garments. Wasn’t Ulrika finished yet? I took a step to the side to check.
“Adam? Is that you?”
A single mistake, and she struck immediately. I recognized that shrill voice, the characteristic Betty Boop tone. And sure, if I had to talk to one of the H&M girls, I certainly preferred Benita.
“Hi!” she said, looking at me with a perfect mix of sympathy and delight.
“Hi there,” I said, holding back a sigh.
Benita was the same age as Stella and had started working there at around the same time. She had been over to our house a few times, and I liked her. She was a smart, cheerful, openhearted girl who dreamed of becoming a singer. We had said, half in jest and half seriously, that she should audition for Idol.
Benita threw open her arms, even as I pulled back, and we ended up in an almost-hug.
“I’ve been thinking of you all constantly,” she said. “How is she doing?”
I looked around the store. It seemed quiet; no one was eavesdropping.
“It’s ridiculous,” I said. “There is everything to suggest she’s innocent, yet the prosecutor refuses to release her. It’s almost made me lose faith … in the justice system.”
“I understand,” said Benita. “My cousin was held in jail last summer just because he knew a guy who had shot someone.”
I nodded but didn’t respond. I didn’t understand what that had to do with Stella.
“And it’s so awful how she can’t work here anymore. But of course, I understand our boss’s point of view too. I’m sure lots of customers would have been upset if they recognized Stella, and it would have been, like, bad advertising.”
“Hold on. What do you mean? She lost her job here?”
Benita’s hand flew to her mouth.
“I thought she told you. Malin wrote her days ago.”
“Stella has full restrictions in jail. She’s not allowed to communicate with anyone but her attorney.”
Benita looked over her shoulder.
“I…,” she said, pointing at the registers. “Well, say hi to Stella, anyway. Or, I mean, I hope everything turns out okay.”
“It’s fine,” I said, to spare her.
I didn’t look up even once on my way back to the stairs. There was no sign of Ulrika. Halfway down I had to grab the railing. The air went thick and I saw double. Swaying, I made it down the last few steps. All around me were voices, but everything was blending into an indecipherable slurry of sound. A hand touched my arm, but I shook it off, forced my way between the racks toward the door, and crossed the street in front of honking cars. I bent over outside the window of the tourist bureau and took a deep breath, sure I was seconds away from vomiting.
40
I jogged past the pretty little townhouses along Stora Södergatan. There was something I had to do, something that couldn’t wait.
I had to get some clarity about what had happened. Had Linda Lokind lied about the abuse, about Christopher Olsen’s tyranny? If so, why did she continue to cling to that lie now that Olsen was dead? And why did she claim, in the interrogation, that she got reality confused with dreams and fantasies? That couldn’t be true.
After my last visit, I’d been sure Linda was hiding something, but at the same time I recognized so much of what she said from other women who had suffered abuse in intimate relationships.
I didn’t believe Linda Lokind was so ill that she couldn’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality. Maybe it was something she’d made up when she realized the police weren’t taking her accusations seriously. Had she decided to get even with Christopher Olsen on her own instead? It seemed implausible that she would let Olsen get off, after what he had done.
But why had she mentioned Stella? Did she know something about Stella, or had she just read a bunch of nonsense online?
The questions were piling up. I had to know; I couldn’t wait.
I was only doing what was right, what would be expected of any father in my situation.
I stopped outside the door to her building on Tullgatan. I have no clear memory of how I got inside, but I repeatedly chanted a prayer as my feet trod heavily up the stairs.
My God is a just and forgiving God.
I knew I was doing the right thing. A family divided cannot stand. He who does not take care of his own family has abandoned his faith.
Linda Lokind unlocked the door and stuck her nose through the small crack allowed by the security chain.
“You again?”
Her gaze flickered in the dim light of the stairwell.
“May I come in? I just have a few more questions I need answered.”
She observed me, her forehead creased.
“Hold on a second,” she said, closing the door.
I assumed she was just going to undo the chain, but the seconds ticked by and nothing happened. I stood there staring into the closed, quiet door. Wasn’t she going to let me in? I waited patiently for a few minutes, then rang the bell again.
Soon her feet padded across the floor. Then silence. I said her name, and at last she let me in.
“Sorry to keep you waiting. I just had to … come in.”
I hung up my coat and bent down to untie my shoes. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the shoe rack.
They were gone. All the other shoes were still there on the rack, but that particular pair, the shoes that were identical to Stella’s, were missing.
“It shouldn’t take long,” I said when Linda offered me a seat.
She looked at me in surprise and pointed at her neck.
A Nearly Normal Family Page 13