by Håkan Nesser
Kristoffer thought about this.
‘Maybe, but in that case, well . . .’
Henrik sat up on the edge of the bed.
‘All right then,’ he said. ‘I’m going to meet an old friend.’
‘A friend? Here in Kymlinge?’
‘Yes. What’s so strange about that? They moved here a few years ago.’
You’re bloody well lying, brother, thought Kristoffer. And you’re doing it badly. But what the heck shall I say?
‘Is it a girl?’ he asked. It came almost automatically, without him thinking it first, but the moment the words were out of his mouth he realized it was exactly the right question to ask. In the circumstances. All the circumstances. Three seconds went by.
‘Yes,’ said Henrik. ‘It’s a girl.’
Kristoffer could feel the excitement ticking inside him, and had to simulate another yawn to camouflage it. Oh boy, he thought, you’re as bad at lying as a trotting horse is at shitting. Might that girl happen to be called Jens?
But how on earth could Jens be in Kymlinge? Didn’t Jens live in . . . ?
No, of course, yes, thought Kristoffer. It was Jenny who lived in Karlskoga, and the thing about Jenny was that she apparently didn’t exist.
‘Well?’ said Henrik.
‘Er . . . fine,’ said Kristoffer. ‘I’ll keep quiet. Not a word shall pass my lips.’
‘Good,’ said Henrik. ‘Well, I’m not entirely sure I’ll be going, but if.’
‘But if,’ repeated Kristoffer. ‘I get it.’
Or not, he added in his head. Not really.
Although, thinking about it, there was no reason why Jens’s parents’ house shouldn’t be somewhere near Kymlinge. Or even in the town itself. No reason at all, even though it did seem a bit unlikely.
Oh well, thought Kristoffer, this has undeniably turned out to be an interesting trip. Better than expected, I have to admit.
‘I don’t understand what you mean,’ said Karl-Erik in irritation. ‘What are you driving at?’
‘It can’t be that hard to understand,’ said Rosemarie. They were out in the laundry room, into which Rosemarie had unceremoniously bundled her husband. ‘Robert hasn’t come back.’
‘I had noted that,’ said Karl-Erik. ‘But the fact is, the table’s laid, the first course is ready, Ester says, and everybody’s sitting there waiting. Are you saying we should let that damned rascal ruin the entire—’
‘He’s your son,’ Rosemarie interrupted. ‘Consider what you’re saying.’
‘Bah,’ said Karl-Erik. ‘I’ve considered every word I’ve uttered for the past fifty years. I’ve had enough now. Can’t you get that into your skull?’
Good heavens, whatever is up with him? Rosemarie had time to think before the Robert cloud descended again and cast its darkness over her mind.
‘Calm down,’ she said. ‘Actually, I’ve discovered something.’
‘Well, well. And what is it you’ve discovered? It’s almost half past six, we really can’t wait any longer. It isn’t only me who’s losing patience.’
‘What I’ve discovered,’ said Rosemarie, forcing herself to speak slowly, ‘is that he didn’t sleep in his bed at all last night.’
‘Rubbish. Of course he did. Where else would he have slept? And his car’s parked outside.’
‘I know his car’s still outside,’ said Rosemarie, taking a step closer to her husband, so she was speaking very close to his face. It didn’t feel normal, but there was no better way of finding out how many glöggs he’d consumed. ‘Now you listen to me, Karl-Erik,’ she said. ‘Robert didn’t sleep in his bed. I put one of his old pairs of pyjamas and a towel under his pillow, and they’re folded up there just where I put them. Robert must have gone off during the night. He never went to bed.’
A nervous look flashed into Karl-Erik’s eyes, but she could only detect a reasonable concentration of glögg fumes on his breath. ‘Did you say anything to – to Kristina and the others?’ he asked. ‘I think he sat up with the others – whichever of them it was – who stayed up after you and I went to bed.’
‘I haven’t told anybody,’ said Rosemarie, stepping away again. ‘I only discovered this five minutes ago.’
Karl-Erik thrust out his chest and looked grim.
‘We’ll have to ask them, of course. Perhaps he said something . . . You think it looks as though he went out late last night, then?’
‘What do you think?’ responded Rosemarie. ‘It doesn’t feel very nice to sit down to dinner, anyway.’
‘His mobile!’ said Karl-Erik, seizing on the idea. ‘We can ring his mobile, of course.’
‘I’ve already tried,’ said Rosemarie. ‘Six or seven times this afternoon. It seems to be switched off, it goes straight to voicemail.’
Karl-Erik gave a sigh. ‘His bag? Presumably he had a bag with him yesterday?’
‘Still in his room,’ said Rosemarie. ‘Karl-Erik?’
‘Yes?’
‘You don’t suppose anything could have happened to him, do you?’
Karl-Erik cleared his throat at exaggerated volume while attempting to laugh and shake his head at the same time. It made him look and sound like a sick dog. ‘Don’t talk nonsense. What could happen to Robert here in Kymlinge? Let’s have dinner. He’ll probably turn up, and if he doesn’t, we’ll ask the others after the meal. There are more important things to consider at the moment, don’t you agree, Rosemarie dear?’
‘All right,’ said Rosemarie with a gloomy nod. ‘I suppose we’ll have to, then.’
In the doorway en route to the waiting dining table, Karl-Erik checked himself for a moment, as if suddenly remembering the lie of the land and wanting to underline the fact. ‘Let me tell you one thing, Rosemarie,’ he said. ‘Just at the moment, I’m pretty damn tired of Robert. If it turned out he’d run away to Australia again, nobody would be more grateful than I.’
‘I realize that, Karl-Erik,’ replied Rosemarie, and went off to the kitchen to tell Ester Brälldin she could serve the blinis with red onion, steamed asparagus and two kinds of lumpfish caviar.
There were speeches.
With the blinis and Riesling, the senior guest of honour welcomed the whole football team (evidently including himself, the absent Robert, and Ester Brälldin out in the kitchen, or they would scarcely have made it to eleven). This was a big day, he announced. For him and for Ebba. Turning forty meant you were still in mid-leap, and had ten years to go until you reached the midday high point of fifty. Turning sixty-five meant that you had not only landed, but also reached the goal. Figuratively, that was, and if you chose to continue along the route of sporting metaphor.
The last sentence was a bit tricky and Karl-Erik stumbled slightly over the words, causing his wife to wonder again how he really was. He wasn’t entirely himself, was he, the assiduous pedagogical pine tree?
At any event, he then launched himself into a twenty-minute survey of compulsory education in Sweden since the start of the current system in 1968, then proposed a proper herring for (that should surely have been ‘hearing’, thought Rosemarie), and a toast to, ‘good old Knowledge with a capital K, which is an end in itself and ought not to sell out to avaricious market sybarites and passing fads,’ and ended by bidding them all very welcome once more.
After that came saddle of venison with early season vegetables, glazed onions, blackcurrant jelly and pommes duchesse, and before the plates were cleared it was Leif Grundt’s turn. His contribution fell into three parts. First, he told an obscure story about a big-busted deli counter assistant at a Co-op store in Gällivare, then he praised his wife’s virtues for twenty seconds, and finally he said that, personally, he’d never have guessed his father-in-law was a day over sixty-four and a half.
During the cheese course, Rosemarie suddenly burst into tears. She was obliged to leave the table, explaining on her return that this outburst of emotion was the result of feeling so moved. What with (nearly) everybody gathered together and everything.
At that
moment, to everyone’s surprise (except possibly Ebba’s), Henrik got to his feet and sang a cappella – some sort of Italian serenade, it seemed to be – a bravura performance that was met with rousing applause and considerably heightened the mood.
Then it was pears topped with caramelized almonds and served with brandy cream, and Jakob made a sophisticated but slightly impersonal speech (which might be because he had delivered it about twenty times before in assorted contexts, noted his wife), thanking the hosts for the meal. At this point, even Ester Brälldin was dragged out of the kitchen and plied with a glass of the popular Málaga dessert wine.
Finally, it was time for coffee, cake and presents. The main event for Ebba was a new set of everyday china of a well-known English make: plates, dishes, saucers, coffee and tea cups, serving plates, bowls and a soup tureen – but she also received a couple of so-called ‘experience gifts’. A Japanese hot-stone massage and dining package at Yasuragi in Hasseludden, and a day – including body splash – at the Selma Lagerlöf Spa in Sunne (where she had already been twice, but who could keep track of such things?).
For Karl-Erik, the haul was rather more mixed: books of various kinds, a dressing gown, a walking stick with a silver handle, five silk ties (most likely purchased by Robert at Bangkok airport), a digital camera and an old lithograph of the autumn battle at Baldkirchenerheim in 1622.
It was only after they had ticked this item off the day’s agenda that the question of Robert’s whereabouts came up for discussion. It was now almost eleven, and the 105th birthday celebrations had, one might say, reached their formal end. It was time to air the skeletons in the closet, as Leif Grundt rather clumsily put it, earning a mild rebuke from his exactly forty-year-old wife.
‘He went out for a walk and a cigarette,’ said Kristina. ‘I didn’t check the time, but it must have been about half past twelve.’
‘How did he seem?’ asked Rosemarie.
‘I don’t know,’ said Kristina. ‘Much the same as usual, I suppose.’
‘Why are you asking how he seemed, Mum?’ asked Ebba.
‘It’s a natural question in the circumstances, surely?’ Rosemarie said.
‘Sure,’ said Leif Grundt. ‘I daresay he’s found a woman, that’s all. It seems to be what he needs.’
‘Leif,’ said Ebba sharply. ‘That’s quite enough.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ said Leif. ‘It’s just a theory. Have any of you got one of your own?’
‘I think it was a bit later than half past twelve,’ Kristoffer put in tentatively. ‘I went to bed at twenty to one and he was still here. I said goodnight to him.’
‘All right,’ said Karl-Erik. ‘Ten minutes either way makes very little difference. Have we really nothing else to talk about?’
‘I’m sure we have, Karl-Erik,’ said his wife. ‘But quite a few of us are a bit worried about Robert. Even if you don’t seem to be.’
Karl-Erik drained his coffee cup and stood up.
‘I’ve got to go to the toilet,’ he said.
‘Shit happens,’ said Leif Grundt.
‘But seriously Kristina, how did he seem to you? The two of you had that private chat outside, after all. Was he drunk when he left?’
Kristina regarded her mother’s anxious face and tried to weigh her words. What should she say? Had Robert behaved strangely in any way? Drunk? Well he clearly hadn’t been sober.
Nor had she. Most assuredly not. But truth to tell, her attention had been focused elsewhere. Good God, you could say that again, especially after Robert left.
And today Henrik had told her he definitely intended to meet her at the hotel. If she had imagined that, on reflection, the idea of him would grow sickly and pale, she could not have been more mistaken.
‘I’ll come to you tonight, Kristina,’ he had declared when, as if by prior agreement, they both slipped into the little supermarket after the town walk. ‘You haven’t changed your mind, have you?’
She had shaken her head. No, she hadn’t changed her mind. Not unless he had.
After that they had hardly exchanged a word all evening. Avoided looking at each other, and maybe it was only to be expected. And all through the long banquet she had felt a strange arousal, reminiscent of . . . well, of when she was fourteen or fifteen, full of raging hormones and fixated on one pimply teenage boy after another. As Henrik was singing his song, her heart had pounded dangerously.
But at the same time: if Ebba had had any suspicion of what was going on between her son and her sister, she wouldn’t have hesitated for an instant to kill her. Kristina knew this with a conviction as powerful as – as the one felt by a small animal when it suddenly comes eye to eye with a lioness determined to protect her offspring. Yes, that wasn’t a bad image for the whole scenario.
But Robert? No, she really had no idea what Robert might be up to.
‘Say something, Kristina,’ urged her mother. ‘Don’t just stand there thinking.’ They were out in the study, each with a small glass of Baileys. Rosemarie had manoeuvred them in there and Kristina realized her mother imagined her to possess some kind of secret information on the subject.
‘I’m sorry, Mum,’ she said, ‘but I honestly don’t know. Obviously, Robert hasn’t been feeling great, but if you think he went out and killed himself, I’m pretty sure you’re wrong.’
‘But I never said—’ began Rosemarie, but then interrupted herself by stamping on the floor. Then she stared at her foot in surprise and seemed close to tears again.
Kristina stood there mutely for a few moments, watching her mother. She suddenly felt infinitely sorry for her and was seized by an unexpected urge to give her a hug. But before she could so much as put a hand on her mother’s arm, Jakob appeared in the doorway.
‘Kristina?’
‘Yes?’
There was no need for him to say more. She knew. He had been drinking mineral water all evening and was near to breaking point. It was unmistakable to someone who knew how to interpret the signs. He couldn’t wait to get away from there. Couldn’t wait to dump his wife and son at the hotel and get into the car in solitary majesty. To drive home to Stockholm on the empty night-time roads, listening to a Dexter Gordon CD. This was a different sort of situation, and she felt she understood him to a degree.
And that sudden flaring of tenderness for her mother faded and died.
‘All right, Jakob,’ she said. ‘Yes, maybe it’s time now.’
‘You’re not going already?’ Rosemarie exclaimed. ‘I mean, we haven’t even . . .’
But she couldn’t find any words for the fictional obligations remaining to be fulfilled. ‘I’m so worried about Robert, that’s all,’ she said instead.
‘I’m sure there’s a perfectly natural explanation,’ said Jakob. ‘He’s bound to turn up any minute.’
‘Do you really think so?’ said Rosemarie, gazing artlessly at her son-in-law. As if Jakob Willnius, by dint of being cosmopolitan and employed in a top position in Swedish television, also possessed the clairvoyant ability to give his opinion on prodigal sons who had wandered off into the winter night out in the sticks and lost their way.
‘I’m sure,’ he repeated. ‘Perhaps he just felt all the pressure was getting too much for him. Of course, it would be entirely understandable if that were the case. Don’t you agree?’
‘May – maybe so,’ stammered Rosemarie Wunderlich Hermansson. ‘Well, I hope that you’re right. And that nothing’s happened to him. It’s just so . . .’ Her gaze flickered between her daughter and the daughter’s gently smiling husband a few times, but she could find nothing else to say.
For one second, she thought, for one second I got the idea Kristina was going to hug me. But I expect I just imagined it.
‘I’ll go up and get Kelvin ready, shall I?’ said Jakob.
‘Yes of course,’ Kristina nodded. ‘You do that. Thanks, Mum, it was a very nice party.’
‘But so soon, are you really . . . ?’ Rosemarie ventured, but even to her own ears it s
ounded so jarring that for the third or fourth time in swift succession she cut herself short and lapsed into silence.
What’s the matter with me? she thought. I can’t even talk normally any more.
12
Altogether, there were eighteen pictures of the house in Spain, and once Kristina, Jakob and Kelvin had gone off to the hotel in their Mercedes, these were brought out.
‘Who took them?’ asked Ebba.
‘I did, of course,’ said Karl-Erik.
‘So you two have been there?’
‘Only me,’ Karl-Erik explained. ‘I went down one weekend. The first weekend in Advent, in fact. It was twenty-three in the shade, though there was hardly any shade, hah hah. Sky as blue as a real Swedish summer’s day.’
The photographs were passed round. Eighteen slightly out-of-focus pictures of a flat-roofed, whitewashed house in a large cluster of other flat-roofed, whitewashed houses. Bare mountains in the background. A bougainvillea or two. The odd cypress. A small swimming pool with white plastic chairs and light blue water.
In a couple of the shots you could see the sea in the distance. It appeared to be a number of kilometres away, with a network of modern roads leading down to it.
‘No pictures of the inside?’ asked Leif Grundt.
‘The present incumbents were at home,’ explained Karl-Erik. ‘They move out in February. I naturally didn’t want to intrude.’
‘I see,’ said Ebba.
‘I only had my old system camera,’ he added apologetically. ‘It isn’t working properly, the light meter’s unreliable. That was why I asked for this digital one. We’ll be able to send you pictures every week. Via the internet.’
‘We’ll look forward to that,’ said Leif Grundt.
‘How many pixels?’ asked Kristoffer.
‘Lots,’ said Karl-Erik.
It all went quiet for a moment and the wall clock took the opportunity of striking twelve.
‘I really hope you’re both agreed on this and you know what you’re letting yourselves in for,’ said Ebba.
‘Have you ever been to Granada, Ebba, my dear girl?’ asked Karl-Erik, his voice taking on a mildly reproving tone. ‘Have you ever stood on the Puente Nuevo bridge in Ronda and looked down into the ravine? Have you ever—’