It all plays out like a movie in my mind. I see the knife in Stella’s hand as she raises it back over her shoulder and stabs.
I have to stand up. People stare at me; everyone knows who I am, of course. The journalists have long since identified me. One last shred of professional honor and respect for others is the only thing that stops them from assailing me with questions and blame. I look around and take a few steps to the right, then a few steps to the left—and then I duck back down onto my chair. Everything is spinning.
“Are you okay?” the bearded man asks.
I shake my head. I am far from okay. I press my hands to my belly and breathe, my lips trembling.
I know Adam is sitting right outside the door, but even so I feel thoroughly, deeply abandoned. I don’t understand. Usually, when people talk about the fact that humans are social animals, part of a mainland and never an island, I have trouble relating. For my entire life I have felt cut off from the rest of humanity. This has never been a great cause of sorrow for me, possibly because it’s impossible to miss what you never had, but the strong bonds that united other people, whether or not they were symbolized by rings or blood or something else, have always appeared to be looser, thinner, less meaningful for me than they are for others.
The first time I realized this was a few years ago, when I observed Stella and Amina’s friendship and saw something I longed for. It was a thoroughly unnatural feeling, to feel jealous of one’s own daughter’s relationship with a friend. It took quite a bit of time, resentment, and tears—a full-fledged catastrophe around the corner—before I realized that even if I have strong feelings about Amina, even if I see myself in her and feel a great kinship with her, what I really longed for was my own family.
I longed for Stella. I longed for my beloved little girl.
And I missed Adam.
85
I think it was Adam’s humble image I fell for first. I had seen him gliding past me in the hallways of Wermlands dorms before, but I never really noticed him. One late December night, we happened to end up sitting across the table from each other in one of the shared kitchens, and a few years later we had made a family.
It sounds ridiculous in hindsight, but I was hardly aware that men like Adam existed. I’d had many boyfriends back at home, but there was seldom anyone worth keeping more than a few months. The guys I was interested in were attractive, outgoing, and confident, which often meant that as soon as you scratched the hard outer surface you found a scared little boy.
For a few weeks in the last semester of my third year of high school I dated a guy named Klabbe, who did arms and chest in the gym four nights a week whenever he wasn’t driving back and forth between the two city squares in the BMW that ate up half his salary from the bread factory. He liked to call me Princess because I made him rinse the tobacco from his teeth before we kissed.
Certainly there had been other men like Adam in my vicinity, but they passed under my radar since their position and status were practically nonexistent in the small town I came from. In Lund, everything was different. Other characteristics and attributes were of value here. I was absolutely determined never to return home.
Adam offered thrilling perspectives on both our little world and the wider one. More often than not, the starting points of our discussions were our diametrically opposed views, which eventually led us to fresh insights and some form of consensus. He was in possession of an incomparable ability to treat others’ thoughts with such dignity and respect that it was impossible to become angry with him. And that made me angry.
“You can’t just acquiesce, Adam! On the one hand, on the other hand, everyone is right in their own way. The whole point of a discussion is to win!”
“You think so? I think the point of a discussion is for us to develop as people. Every time my views are questioned, I learn something new.”
We sometimes spent half the night sitting in his small dorm room: Adam on the bed, his knees drawn up beneath him; me on the floor below him, my legs outstretched. A bottle of wine and a bag of chips.
“All this increasing relativism makes me nervous, Adam. Certainly some values must be absolute. Isn’t that true of religion? Are you really allowed to believe as little of it as you like?”
“Of course. That’s why it’s called ‘believing,’ not ‘knowing.’”
This whole idea of belief was new and rather frightening. Without quite knowing why, and as a matter of routine, I had judged all religion to be dogmatic and the enemy of individuality. There was no room for such things in my liberal, secular worldview. I came from a place where it was as natural to christen your children in church as it was to scorn and ridicule those who called themselves Christian.
“I don’t think it’s a good thing to be driven by conviction, no matter what sort,” said Adam. “It has nothing to do with religion or a belief in God.”
“Stop sounding so sensible,” I said, stuffing more chips into my mouth. “I want to have a discussion I can win!”
“You’re going to make an excellent lawyer.”
We laughed and kissed and had sex. This was all new to me. Adam touched me with new hands; he looked at me with a kind of gaze I had never experienced before. He put his heart on the line for me, laid his soul bare, and sat before me, absolutely fearless, in his sloppily made bed that smelled of Axe body spray and sour cream chips.
I saw it as a stormy relationship. Somehow I assumed all along that it would end as unexpectedly and explosively as it had begun. That was my image of romantic relationships: they were brief, intense, and hastily forgotten. You should enjoy them while they lasted but get out before everything was reduced to rubble.
People around me always reacted strongly when I mentioned Adam’s education.
“Is he really going to be a pastor?”
Each time, I recoiled too. I usually defended Adam by pointing out that he wasn’t at all like a pastor. Not a real one.
“But he believes in God and the Bible and all that?”
I couldn’t deny that.
“But it’s not like you think,” I said sometimes, though I wasn’t able to express how it actually was.
It was perfectly natural for our relationship to continue. Now, almost twenty-five years later, it might sound trivial and boring, but my and Adam’s relationship was first and foremost based on security, solidarity, and the strong sense of having found our proper places in life. And that was exactly what I needed.
The future was never particularly present in our everyday lives. We were too busy with everything that was going on. In that sense I don’t think we were all that different from other people our age. It wasn’t that we refused to consider what lay ahead of us, decisions we would have to make about family and careers and so forth. It was just that we couldn’t see over the horizon.
That line on the pregnancy test a week or so before Christmas changed everything in one fell swoop. At first I went around in a captivated state that most closely resembled being newly in love, but once that state of dizziness passed it didn’t take long before I was beset by anxiety the proportions of which I had never before come close to. It began with doubt about our decision to have a family—wouldn’t it be better to wait a few years?—and ended in hopeless frustration about a deteriorating world imbued with violence and misery. I was aghast and found myself in tears over the future that seemed inevitable for my unborn child.
It’s horrid to think of now. As if I knew, even back then. A terrifying premonition deep inside me, warning me about bringing Stella into the world. The guilt twists and tears at my insides.
I was far too young. I allowed myself to be persuaded.
86
The presiding judge turns to Stella.
“Would you like to speak about these events and what, if anything, you have witnessed?”
Stella glances at Michael, who nods at her. I am so grateful that he’s the one sitting there.
When he called that Saturday night in the beginni
ng of September to tell us that Stella had been taken into police custody, I knew I would be able to make him listen to reason. He owed me that much, after everything that had happened. It was, of course, a torment to sit in his office with Adam, it was a constant balancing act to keep from giving anything away, but none of this would have been possible without Michael.
“Where should I begin?” Stella asks, looking at the judge.
The whole court is staring at her. Göran Leijon’s eyes may be warm and kind, but I see Stella’s hand trembling on the edge of the table. I wish I could sit beside her and hold her. The tunnel is closing in around me, and I gasp for air. The bearded journalist looks at me.
Stella knows exactly what she must and must not say. Michael has run through it with her several times. The important thing now is that she—for once—does as she’s been told. Please, my darling Stella!
This part of the proceedings is so tremendously important. The defendant’s first and likely only chance to make an impression on the court. I know Michael’s technique inside and out. Most of what I’ve learned has come from him. It’s crucial for the defendant to create trust, to present herself as both strong and vulnerable. It is best to agree with the prosecutor’s narrative to the greatest extent possible, and only depart from it on the points that are absolutely necessary in order to object to that version of the crime. It is important to appear cooperative. Stella must show that she is human; no more, no less.
“Are you acquainted with Christopher Olsen?” the presiding judge asks. “I suppose we can start there.”
Stella takes a deep breath and looks at Michael. He nods at her as if giving her the green light, then twists his body to the side, away from the audience, away from me.
I feel a stabbing sensation in my belly. A flash of doubt. I can trust Michael, can’t I?
“We met him at Tegnérs,” Stella says in a subdued voice. “Me and Amina.”
I don’t dare move a millimeter; I hardly dare to breathe.
“It was sometime in June. I thought Chris was charming, and … you know, exciting. He was so much older. He was thirty-two and I was seventeen.”
The female lay judges glance at each other.
“He told me he traveled a ton,” Stella continues. “He had been, like, everywhere. And you could tell he had money. He seemed to have a super-eventful life. Kind of like I dream of having.”
She’s using the present tense: dream. Not dreamed. She’s still dreaming.
“After that night he texted me and wanted to meet up again, so we did.”
Her voice sounds stronger now. Every so often she lifts her head and looks straight at Leijon and the lay judges. Michael straightens up and encourages her to go on with a pat on the arm. Naturally he’s wearing one of those blue shirts he special-orders from a tailor in Helsingborg. Many years ago, when we worked together, he confessed that he usually tosses each shirt after a day in court. The sweat is impossible to wash out.
“We went to Chris’s apartment a few times,” Stella says. “We took a limousine to Copenhagen and went to a fancy restaurant. We went to the spa in Ystad and one night we got a suite at the Grand Hotel.”
It’s ridiculous how little you know about your own child. Here I had convinced myself that Stella and I had grown closer in recent years. Yet I know only a fraction of what goes on in her life. I consider whether this is strange, or even wrong; if it’s characteristic of our relationship in particular or if mothers of teenagers generally believe that they know more about their children than they actually do.
“Sometimes all three of us hung out. Chris, Amina, and me,” Stella says. “I mean, Chris and I weren’t in a relationship. We had sex a few times, but we weren’t a couple.”
The lay judges exchange glances again. The two women cringe, and the Sweden Democrat’s face glows red. I don’t want my daughter’s sex life laid bare either, but it takes quite a bit more than this to shock me.
“It was nothing serious, nothing like that. For me or for him. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think Chris wanted to be with a seventeen-year-old, and for me it was unthinkable to start anything. I was going to leave soon on a big trip. To Asia.”
My eyes sting and I carefully dab at them with a tissue. In my mind I see Stella under a palm tree on a beach in paradise. I hardly dare to imagine the alternative. Several years in prison. And presumably a life sentence from society—on the job market, among friends and acquaintances. How would Adam and I manage to go on? How would Stella manage?
“I know Amina was with Chris too, a few times,” Stella says. “It didn’t bother me.”
Göran Leijon scratches his head.
“Can you be more precise on that point?”
“Which?”
“What do you mean, exactly, when you say Amina was with Chris?”
For the first time, the court gets to see a different side of Stella. Her eyes flash and the veins in her neck stand out.
“I mean they spent time together. That’s it! Amina didn’t have sex with Chris, if that’s what you’re implying.”
Göran Leijon’s cheeks turn red and he takes a sip of water as Michael places a calming hand on Stella’s arm.
“I was in total shock when I found out…” Her voice trembles and Stella scratches near her lips. “When the police told me what had happened. I couldn’t believe it. I knew Chris had received threats, but for him to die … I still haven’t come to terms with it.”
Faces are slowly changing in the gallery. The journalists’ typing starts to slow. Behind me, someone’s whisper is a little too loud as he wonders what threats Stella is talking about. Is it the ex-partner? I close my eyes and breathe. The tunnel has widened a bit.
“Before the prosecutor asks her questions, perhaps you would like to tell us what you were doing on the night of August the thirty-first,” says Göran Leijon.
His voice is gentle, his eyes empathetic and trust inducing.
“I worked at H&M until we closed at seven fifteen,” Stella says. “Then I went with some coworkers to the Stortorget restaurant. We hung out at the outdoor seating there for a few hours. It was probably around ten thirty when I went to get my bike.”
Michael has sunk back into his chair slightly and his shoulders have relaxed. This makes me feel relieved and worried at the same time.
“Just when I was about to get on my bike, I caught sight of Linda Lokind on the other side of the street. Chris’s ex, that is. She had followed me another time too. She’s pretty creepy, so I tried to call Amina, but she didn’t answer. I didn’t know what to do. That was when I tried to get hold of Chris.”
I tried to put myself in her shoes. What would I have done? It’s so easy to believe you know exactly how you would react in different situations, but I have learned, not least through my work, that such notions don’t mean a thing when the chips are down. It’s simply not possible to predict how you will handle certain situations.
Stella explains that Linda Lokind had been following and harassing her for several weeks. She was scared; she knew Linda was unstable and perhaps even dangerous. That was why Stella slipped into Tegnérs, mostly to surround herself with people while she waited for Amina or Chris to respond.
“They never did, so once I had calmed down a little, I decided to bike home. I only made it to Kyrkogatan, the intersection by the library. And there stood Linda Lokind again.”
The lay judges are startled and a buzz goes through the gallery. The only person who doesn’t seem affected in the least is Jenny Jansdotter. She is sitting ramrod straight, perfectly still, as if she’s just waiting for her chance to crush Stella.
“I was terrified,” Stella says, and she explains how she darted into the pub Inferno, right at that intersection.
She hid in the back of the pub and hoped Linda Lokind wouldn’t follow her.
“Amina still wasn’t answering and I couldn’t get hold of Chris, so I decided to bike to his place. It was all such a nightmare. I didn’t know what to do.
”
Stella’s breathing is the only sound audible in the room. All eyes are on her.
“They weren’t there,” Stella says.
Beside me, people turn their heads. Someone scrapes their shoe against the floor. A gal from the TV news chews her gum.
“I rang the bell and banged on the door. Then I pressed my ear up against it to listen, but they weren’t there.”
Stella lifts her water glass. Her hand is quaking and as she leans forward, her hair falls in front of her face.
Something seems off. What if she tells the whole story? Stella has always loved drama. She used to dream of becoming an actor, and here she has her stage, her audience, her big number. I desperately extend one arm toward her.
“I biked home. I biked home and went to bed,” she says, brushing her hair to the side. “I don’t know what happened after that.”
87
“With that, the prosecutor has the floor,” says the presiding judge.
Jenny Jansdotter doesn’t move. Every muscle in her severe face appears to be in deep concentration. The whole courtroom is waiting for her.
Then she gives a start and turns toward Stella.
“Who wasn’t there?”
Her voice is sharp and authoritative, not at all in keeping with her stature.
“What?”
“You just said ‘They weren’t there.’ Who were you referring to?”
A Nearly Normal Family Page 28