Amina’s words swirled around in my head. They’ll figure out that one of us did it. But that is not enough for a conviction.
I looked at Amina; I thought of Stella. My heart ached.
A person cannot be convicted of murder if there are two potential perpetrators and it’s impossible to prove which one of them committed the murder or, alternately, that they were in collusion.
I put my car keys back in the dish.
105
I pulled Amina over to the sofa and told her to sit. Her motions were mechanical. It was clear that she hadn’t had time to work through what had happened. It was my job to be strong and rational, to think like a defense attorney.
“Aren’t we going?” Amina asked.
I sat down right next to her and placed my hands on her knees.
“You have to trust me.”
“But…”
Her knees were trembling. Her dry lower lip hung toward her chin like a flap of skin.
“Both you and Stella were there when Christopher Olsen died, right?”
“Yes.”
“Here in Sweden the burden of proof is high,” I said, even as I tried to figure out where I was going with this line of reasoning. “If there are two potential perpetrators at the scene when a murder is committed, the prosecutor must be able to prove either that one of them was without a doubt the killer, or that they committed the murder together.”
The strong beats of Amina’s pulse spread through my palm and turned my body into a single throbbing thing.
“What are you saying? Should I tell the police that Stella and I were both there?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
Maybe I was a raving madwoman. The idea had sprung from sheer desperation; I had formed it without examining it deeply. What would it involve? Could I save both Stella and Amina? And was I prepared to subject them to everything it would take?
“Presumably that wouldn’t work,” I said. “If you tell the police, they will do everything in their power to convict you both. For this to work, you have to wait until the trial.”
“Why?”
“It has to come as a surprise to the prosecutor. Suddenly the possibility of a second perpetrator appears, and the court cannot deny that there is reasonable doubt. And once there has been an acquittal, a great deal of new evidence is required for the prosecutor to bring a new indictment in a case. No prosecutor wants to lose the same case twice.”
Amina stared at me, her mouth open.
“A trial? Doesn’t that take a long time? Do we have to let Stella…?”
No, of course, we couldn’t do that. We couldn’t allow Stella to remain behind bars.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“It’s better if I just confess.”
“But your education, Amina. Your entire future…”
At the same time, I was picturing Stella in a shabby jail cell. What kind of mother even considers letting her child stay locked up? It might take weeks, even months, for the indictment to come.
“We have to make sure Stella doesn’t say anything,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t tell her. You know Stella. We have to get her to keep quiet. At the same time, we can’t reveal too much.”
“Are you nuts? We’re going to let Stella stay in jail without saying anything?”
“There’s no other way, if you’re both going to walk free. I know Stella’s attorney. He’ll help us.”
“No, we can’t,” Amina said.
I took her hand.
“We love Stella, and she knows that. She’ll know it more than ever once this is over.”
Amina gave a sob.
“This is all my fault.”
I wondered if this was really true. If it’s ever true. Is there any sort of situation where you can say with certainty that a single person is responsible for what happens? Everything in life is dependent on so many different factors that interact in so many different ways.
Whose fault is it that our family turned out the way it did?
Sometimes I wish I could believe in a god, a higher power of some sort. Perhaps it would be simpler to have something to blame. On the other hand, not even the most dogmatic fundamentalists seem inclined to blame their omnipotent gods for the misery that strikes us all sooner or later. To be born human is to carry blame.
“What do you think Stella would want us to do?” I asked. “Let’s let her decide.”
Amina looked at me in despair. I was holding both of her hands now, like a bond, a promise.
There is no justice. All that exists of justice is what we create together.
“Stella would convince us to do it,” Amina said.
She went out to the entryway to get a plastic bag. I knew immediately what it contained.
106
Amina buries her face in her hands and all that remains are the shaking shoulders of a little girl.
“Would you like us to take a break?” Göran Leijon asks.
Michael nods at the suggestion. Both he and Leijon seem seriously shaken by the story they’ve just been forced to listen to.
After Stella was raped, she and I were finally able to be closer to one another, in a way that had previously been impossible. I was the one she came to in the middle of the night when she was sure she would never wake up again if she fell asleep. I was the one who sat on the edge of her bed, wiping tears from her face with my fingertips. And as she slowly opened up to me, I became aware of how much we shared once you dug under the surface. Our shared fear of showing weakness. The constant worry that we weren’t good enough. And not least, the paralyzing feeling of being incapable of connecting—either to our own emotions or to other people.
“Sometimes I wish I could be more like Amina,” Stella said. “That I knew who I am and what I want, like her. I hate that my brain is like a fucking pinball machine.”
“I don’t want you to be like anyone else,” I responded, a lump in my throat. “You’re perfect the way you are.”
I stroked her cheek but couldn’t bring myself to look her in the eye. The shame was such a burden, the shame I felt because I, too, had wished Stella was more like Amina.
* * *
Stella whispers and gestures at Michael. She seems annoyed and confused. I wonder how much she understands.
“I don’t need a break,” Amina says, crumpling yet another tissue.
Adam grabs my arm.
“What is going on?”
I shush him without looking at him.
“Then the prosecutor may continue her questioning,” says Göran Leijon.
Jansdotter is consumed with paging through her documents. The assistant prosecutor hangs over her, pointing and discussing.
“I don’t understand, Amina,” the prosecutor says. “Why didn’t you tell this to the police?”
“I couldn’t.”
“But now you can?”
“I have to,” Amina says. “For Stella.”
The prosecutor picks up her pen again and brings it to her chin.
“What happened after…?” She swallows the last word. “What happened afterwards, Amina? Did you come back to Lund with Christopher?”
“I cried the whole way in the car. But I didn’t have a choice.”
“Why didn’t you have a choice? You could have—”
“I was so damn scared!” Amina interrupts. “I understood that everything Linda Lokind had said was true. Chris was a psychopath. I tried to text Stella, but Chris noticed and he took my phone away. I figured if I could just get back to town I could run away as soon as I got the chance. I had my pepper spray in my purse and I thought if I sprayed him when he stopped the car I could jump out and escape.”
Jenny Jansdotter leans forward, propped on her elbows.
“Why did you have pepper spray in your purse?”
“I always carry it. As a girl, you have to be prepared to defend yourself.”
Jansdotter doesn’t seem convinced, but she
lets it go. She clicks her pen and makes a brief note in her papers. Then she asks Amina to describe what happened when Christopher Olsen stopped the car outside his building.
“As soon as he turned off the engine I sprayed him. I grabbed my phone and threw myself at the door, but I couldn’t open it. Chris was screaming. My eyes, my eyes. Finally, I found the lock button and then I ran as fast as I could. I’ve never been so scared in my whole life. I was sure he would kill me if he caught up to me.”
“Which direction did you run?”
“No idea, I was just trying to get away. I remember I saw Polhem ahead of me, the school, but otherwise it was all a big blur.”
“What about Christopher, what did he do?”
“When I turned around the first time, he was still in the car. But then I saw that he had gotten out. I knew he was after me, so I just ran as far as I could.”
Jansdotter tries to ask another question, but Amina won’t give her the space.
“I saw a bunch of guys in the parking lot at the Ball House. So I slowed down and walked right behind them, all the way to the station. I kept turning around, but Chris wasn’t there. It seemed like he had given up.”
“Did you call the police?”
“Obviously that was my first thought, but then…” Amina shook her head. “Then I started thinking about what would happen.”
“What do you mean?” Jansdotter asks.
Amina is breathing heavily. I see her back moving slightly.
“There was one week left before I would start medical school. I’ve been dreaming of that since I was little.”
“So you didn’t tell anyone you were raped?”
“I didn’t dare to. I was thinking about Dad. I know how stupid it sounds, but it would destroy Dad if he found out. I was afraid of what he would do. Plus, Linda Lokind had already reported Chris, and it never led anywhere. Guys like him always get off.”
I can hardly bring myself to listen any longer. I just want this to be over now. Adam is glaring at me from the next seat, and I’m afraid of how he’s going to handle hearing the truth.
Amina raises her voice a notch.
“Stella was raped too.”
It takes a moment for the words to sink in. My gasp is so loud that the journalist in front of me turns around.
What are you doing, Amina?
“She was only fifteen.”
A buzz goes through the room. I slouch down in my seat. I just want to keep sinking.
“Her parents didn’t report it,” Amina says.
All eyes are on Adam and me. I feel myself crumbling to pieces.
“Stella’s mom is a lawyer. She knew what a trial would involve. A rape trial.”
Please, Amina. Stop!
I shrink into myself, trying to disappear. Adam is staring at nothing. His eyes look like they’re made of porcelain.
“I wouldn’t be able to deal with that kind of trial either,” Amina says. “I realized that right away. Having everything questioned, being blamed, and then having to watch Chris go free or at most get a few months in prison. I saw how Stella felt when it happened to her, and I saw how destroyed Linda Lokind was.”
I know what Amina is up to. She’s smart. She’s sacrificing my reputation for Stella’s sake. She knew I would never go along with this, so she didn’t say anything. As I peer over at Göran Leijon and the upset lay judges, I realize it’s working.
“When did you tell Stella?” Jansdotter asks.
Amina’s shoulders rise slightly.
“I didn’t. I just couldn’t.”
I can see how Stella is looking at her. She’s trying to summon up a rage that is completely overshadowed by sadness.
“You didn’t say anything to your best friend?”
A moment passes before Amina can bring herself to respond.
“I had betrayed Stella. Obviously I wanted nothing more than to talk to her, but I couldn’t. It was impossible. I would have to tell her that I betrayed her trust and went behind her back and I just couldn’t stomach it.”
“So you had no contact whatsoever with Stella, on the evening and night Christopher Olsen was murdered?”
“Stella texted me and called several times, but I didn’t answer.”
As Jansdotter confers with her assistant, I once again dare to sit up tall. A quick glance at Adam and I suspect, from how he’s looking at me, that he’s come to a certain understanding.
“Stella herself said that she biked to Christopher Olsen’s residence that evening,” the prosecutor says. “She rang the doorbell and banged on the door. Did you see Stella there, at Olsen’s residence?”
“No.”
“Did you see Stella at any point during that evening or night?”
“No.”
Jansdotter sighs. The assistant points at something in her documents.
“Did Christopher Olsen bring a knife to your picnic?”
Amina answers quickly, with no hesitation.
“Yes, there was a knife in the picnic basket.”
Jansdotter asks her to describe the knife.
“How long was it?”
Amina holds her hands ten to twenty centimeters apart.
“Where did this knife end up afterwards? As you were driving back to the city?”
“It must have stayed in the basket.”
“But it didn’t. The police have not found a knife like that.”
Amina hesitates for a moment. All three lay judges are on tenterhooks.
“I don’t know what happened to the knife.”
I find myself nodding. I don’t mean to.
Both Stella and Amina were there when Christopher Olsen died, and each has a motive. But there is no murder weapon.
They will never find the knife.
“Were you the one who killed Christopher Olsen?” Jenny Jansdotter asks.
Adam makes a sound of surprise. Amina looks straight at the prosecutor.
“I didn’t kill him,” she says. “I sprayed him with pepper spray and ran for my life. I don’t know what happened after that.”
The prosecutor looks at her assistant. Adam looks at me, and I take his hand.
“I would never be able to kill someone,” Amina says.
107
I hardly hear what is said during the closing arguments. The voices turn to vacant, tinny echoes in the distance. Foreign languages I don’t understand.
One moment I’m convinced that everything will be okay. The next I fear that we have made a terrible mistake. Stella will be locked up, forever stamped as a killer, and Amina will be sentenced by the court of public opinion; her career as a doctor will be over before it can even begin.
Prosecutor Jansdotter is having a hard time keeping her voice steady. She loses her place a number of times and glances down at her notes or discusses something with her assistant. But in any case, she claims that she has proven Stella was there when Christopher Olsen was robbed of his life. She also considers it clear that Stella had a motive to kill Olsen. Stella was jealous and out for revenge because Olsen had initiated a relationship with Amina. According to the prosecutor, Stella had plenty of time to think through a plan. She went to Olsen’s apartment with the intent to kill him. Jansdotter therefore maintains that Stella must be convicted of murder. She says there is far too much doubt surrounding the information given by Adam and Amina. There are, according to Jansdotter, solid reasons to question Amina’s entire story of rape, not least because she had neglected to inform anyone about the incident earlier, during the investigation. Thus the court ought to find Stella guilty of murder; the prosecutor calls for a sentence of fourteen years in prison.
My mind is spinning. In fourteen years, Stella will be thirty-two. I think of all the things she would miss out on. One can experience so much of the world in fourteen years! When I was thirty-two, I was midstride in life. Stella might never have the opportunity to become a mother, create a family, or have a career.
Fourteen years is a long time. Fourteen years
in prison is an immensely long time. A goddamn eternity.
I look at Stella and am struck by how small she looks. She is still twelve years old with blue eyes full of longing, the same snot-nosed seven-year-old whose bad dreams woke her up, sneaking in to sleep between Mom and Dad. Maybe I’ll always see her that way. In my eyes, she remains a child. My child.
My guilt is eating deeper and deeper into me. What have I done? Why didn’t I put Amina in the car and drive her to the police station?
On several occasions I have felt that this is my way of repaying my debts for neglecting my family, but what if, in fact, I have sacrificed my own daughter to save Amina? I don’t know if I can live with that.
Michael adjusts the knot of his tie before beginning his closing arguments. He is quick and to the point as he breaks down the prosecutor’s evidence point by point until nothing is left.
“The only thing the prosecutor has succeeded in proving is that my client was in the vicinity of Christopher Olsen’s residence on the night he was attacked. Meanwhile, during today’s proceedings, we heard that Amina Bešić was there as well, at that point in time.”
He looks at the presiding judge and his tone is confidential, almost as if he is addressing the judge personally. As if there is no one else in the room.
“Both Amina Bešić and Stella Sandell were there, then, when Christopher Olsen died. Furthermore, it seems both of them had a motive to want to hurt Olsen. But naturally, that proves nothing. It is in no way proven beyond reasonable doubt that my client was the one holding the knife that caused Christopher Olsen’s death.”
And then it’s over. Everything that happens after this is beyond my control.
Göran Leijon casts the hastiest of glances at his lay judges and then turns to the gallery to declare the proceedings closed.
“The court will now deliberate, and then a decision will be delivered.”
I sink far down into my seat again. It feels like I’m hanging over a cliff, a gap in time and space, my feet kicking desperately.
Stella is guided out through the basement door along with Michael, to avoid confronting the crowd of journalists and photographers that have gathered in the hallways of the courthouse.
A Nearly Normal Family Page 34