More Bitter Than Death

by Camilla Grebe

  “But won’t you be like them, then?” Sirkka asks.

  Malin freezes, sets her glass on the table, and runs her hand through her short, platinum-blond hair. There’s a brief pause. “What do you mean by ‘like them’?” Malin asks.

  “Well, like a man, big and muscular, tough. We are still women, aren’t we?” Sirkka mumbles, rubbing her hands together, and suddenly I realize they’re hurting her, and I wonder why I haven’t noticed it before, her crooked fingers, her swollen joints. She has a faint smile on her lips that hides the countless tiny wrinkles around her mouth, makes her look younger, suggests who she was at one time.

  Back then.

  Before.

  Malin has her arms crossed. There’s something dark in her eyes now. “Better than being a victim,” she says defensively.

  “Does it have to be like that?” Sirkka says. “Do we have to turn ourselves into men to protect ourselves? Is that the solution? Can’t we remain who we are, without being raped and beaten and . . . denigrated? Is that too much to ask?”

  “At any rate, here’s what I think,” Aina suddenly says, setting down her almost-empty beer glass with a loud thud that makes everyone jump. “I think Sirkka is totally right that we shouldn’t have to change who we are. Wearing a short skirt should not result in rape. Getting out of a relationship should not result in being beaten to a pulp. No woman should be called a whore because she embraces her own sexuality. But until that’s the case, I prefer to take self-defense classes. Right?”

  “I wonder, though. Would a self-defense class have saved Susanne Olsson?” Sirkka mumbles.

  “Susanne Olsson? Her last name was Olsson?” Malin asks, freezing suddenly with her glass halfway to her lips.

  Kattis nods.

  “Where did she live?” Malin asks.

  “Blåsippevägen, I think it was,” Sirkka says.

  “Why, do you know her?” Kattis asks.

  Malin shakes her head vigorously and sets down her glass. “Absolutely not, I just . . . It’s nothing.”

  The food arrives. An intense debate arises about Gustavsberg, about how almost everyone has some connection to Susanne, about the pros and cons of living in a small town. Sirkka gesticulates wildly with her skinny, wrinkled arms. Malin still has hers crossed defensively. Sofie looks back and forth intensely, as if trying to assess the situation and decide where she fits in. Suddenly Aina lets out a loud, throaty laugh—the way only she can.

  Only Kattis is looking at me with her big, dark, vacant eyes. It’s as if everyone else has disappeared, like they’ve faded away into the noisy room, blending in with everyone else at the bar. And suddenly everything is quiet. Kattis’s pale face and those black eyes are all I see, and I so badly want to comfort her, be there for her, make this easier to bear, this burden that for some reason she has been assigned.

  She licks her narrow, cracked lips and attempts a smile, which comes out crooked and stiff.

  “It’ll be okay,” I tell her.

  Kattis smiles again now, and suddenly she’s beautiful. It doesn’t matter that her hair is greasy or that her eyes are red. She’s beautiful. Period.

  “You actually don’t know that,” she says hoarsely.

  “Yes, I actually do,” I say. And in that moment I know that I mean it, that some part of me intuitively knows that Kattis will always pull through. That she’s a survivor, the kind of person who makes it to the surface, who always lands on her feet.

  The kind of person who is loved and can love back.

  Not like me.

  This migraine is a steel hat weighing down my head, dragging it down toward the muddy ground as I jog across a lawn turned mud pit, with only the occasional tuft of grass sticking up out of the water. The wind is whipping the sea into a froth, which washes over the rocks along the shore, leaving behind small, gray foamy pools. Raindrops hit my cheeks like sewing needles.

  It’s five o’clock and Sweden is so far north that it’s already dark.

  Why, oh why did we put the bathroom in a separate building? Really, an outhouse in this day and age? Whose idea was that?

  Stefan’s. Always Stefan.

  Stefan’s idea: a cottage by the sea, just him and me, close to nature, perfect for someone who likes diving.

  Stefan’s idea: if we put the bathroom in the outbuilding, we’ll have room for a living room.

  Somewhere out over the sea there’s a drawn-out whine, as if from a dying animal, maybe an injured seabird? I pause for a moment, clutching the plastic bag from the drugstore in my freezing hand, and I can’t help it, the thought comes out of nowhere. Not again. The baby that died, that we killed. I know, I know, technically we “terminated the pregnancy,” and for good reason. The baby had a serious birth defect, thus putting an end to Stefan’s and my hopes of starting a family.

  But still.

  Suddenly I’m transported back in time, to that day when I took that pregnancy test and walked this same path to share the good news with Stefan. My body was filled with a warm, light, confident feeling. Confidence in Stefan. Confidence in life, maybe.

  This time that feeling has been replaced with an overwhelming sense of anxiety. If something is growing in there, in my dark insides, I’m not sure how welcome it is. Not sure if I can muster up that confidence again.

  Once in the warmth of the outhouse, I sink down onto the toilet seat, unwrap the test, which resembles a thermometer.

  I pee.

  I see David Bowie staring at me from the wall, provocative as ever, his snakelike body leaning back, squeezed into a silver bodysuit, platform shoes, red hair, a thick layer of makeup.

  He winks at me in understanding and I take a deep breath and read the test results.

  VÄRMDÖ POLICE STATION

  OCTOBER

  Sonja Askenfeldt stuffs the pack of cigarettes into her purse and wonders if maybe she’s been a cop for too long. They’re supposed to question a little girl today who in all likelihood watched her mother being murdered and all Sonja can think about is that she has to stop by Polarn O. Pyret, the children’s clothing store, after work to use her gift card, which is about to expire. Ten years ago her stomach used to hurt before this type of forensic interview.

  Sonja knows from experience that she will become more anxious once the questioning is under way, that it will become hard to listen to and absorb the testimony, but so far it’s business as usual, just another day on the job.

  She greets the child interview specialist, who says, “Hi, I’m Carin von Essen. I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

  Sonja nods and smiles. Of course she’s met Carin before, Bush-in-the-Bush Carin. Carin gave a lecture during a training seminar on questioning techniques last spring. Sonja also remembers her from last summer’s office party.

  That office party.

  What she remembers is a different Carin, not the formal, serious woman standing before her, but a tipsy, giggly, slightly dumpy woman in her forties wearing a silly party hat, flashing way too much cleavage and wearing ripped nylons. Carin had been one of the loudest singers, one of the most out-of-control dancers, and had flirted a little too much with their male colleagues. People had talked about her afterward, about how she peed behind a bush in the front yard, a very small bush, so small in fact that it didn’t even cover her private parts. Which is why people started calling her Bush-in-the-Bush Carin.

  And now here she was, standing in front of Sonja with her blond hair freshly blow-dried and her white polo shirt buttoned all the way up, looking clean and maternal, like a daycare worker, the way most of the child interview specialists look. Apparently there was an unwritten dress code.

  Carin greets Sonja’s colleague, Roger, who is wearing cowboy boots and a belt with a big brass eagle-embossed buckle. He lights up at the sight of Carin, and Sonja feels vaguely irritated and maybe a little embarrassed.

  Is Sonja ashamed of Roger? Does his ridiculous outfit bother her? Or is it the way he leers at Carin von Essen?

  Sonja qu
ickly decides she doesn’t care. The way he dresses, his chauvinistic comments, and his lecherous grin really have nothing to do with her.

  She has worked with Roger for years and for the most part he is a good policeman. But his heart isn’t in it anymore. The level of commitment he had ten years ago is gone, like a reservoir that’s almost empty. Roger’s energy and emotion are gone; just a flimsy veneer of empathy and dedication remains. He comes to work because he has to, because he has to pay his bills, and also because he wants to be able to take the wife and twins on vacation next winter. And to be frank, she can’t really blame him, can she? No one can remain an idealist in this profession for very long. Either you succumb or you become . . . hardened. You develop a kind of armor against the brutal realities that confront you every day. You learn to joke about death, vomit, and strung-out teenagers. You even learn to like the jokes.

  And yet . . .

  He bugs her. He’s crossed the thin line between resignation and outright laziness. Increasingly, she ends up staying late to write his reports, when he has to pick up the girls after school, or work out, or just sit down with a book and a cigarette.

  She reminds herself that she needs to have that talk with Roger soon. That it’s no longer okay with her that he’s the third child she never had and didn’t want.

  Carin, the child interview specialist, greets the little girl’s father. It is standard procedure to have the parents close by when little kids are questioned. The father looks nervous and disheveled, as if he has just woken up. His hair is messy; his eyes are swollen and red-rimmed; his worn wool sweater stretches unattractively over his belly.

  “Why are you going to videotape the session?” he asks, and Sonja detects suspicion, maybe even hostility, in his voice.

  “We videotape all sessions involving children under the age of fifteen,” Carin explains patiently. “That way the children won’t have to testify in court. Our footage can be used instead. You can go get Tilda and bring her to the questioning room now.”

  Tilda’s father nods and rubs his stubbly chin but doesn’t look completely convinced.

  “But I can’t be in there, right?” he asks.

  “No, as I explained when we spoke yesterday, only the child and the interviewer will be in there. It’s important that the child be able to concentrate fully on the questions and answer them all by herself. It is very easy for parents to try to help by prompting their child, and then you risk affecting the results. You can wait here with Roger and—?”

  “Sonja,” Sonja says. “We’ll look after you here. And you’ll be able to watch us through this window and hear everything that’s said. And if it’s too difficult for Tilda, then we’ll just take a break. Okay?”

  “Okay,” he says skeptically, turning around and leaving the room to get Tilda.

  “Well, then I suppose we’ll get started,” Bush-in-the-Bush Carin says, leaving the room quietly.

  Sonja thinks about what Roger told her before. He had discussed the interview with Carin beforehand, and she had described some of the difficulties involved in questioning a child. Explained how important it was for the child to feel safe, for the interviewer to ask open-ended, simple questions in language that a child with a limited vocabulary can understand. Carin had said that Tilda, who just turned five, probably only knew between a thousand and fifteen hundred words. Besides, children don’t develop what is called a declarative memory until the age of five or so. Before that children have a limited ability to remember abstract things. They can still remember what happened, particularly if they witnessed a traumatic event, but they have a hard time describing it. Children under the age of three are not routinely questioned at all since the value of their testimony would be minimal.

  Tilda and Carin sit down across from one another at the table. Sonja hardly recognizes the room. The child interview specialist brought in decorative pillows and plants and some stacks of paper and books. Sonja assumes that the purpose was to create a warmer atmosphere, and it actually worked.

  Tilda is sitting perfectly still. Her brown hair is pulled into a loose ponytail and her denim dress hangs like a sack on her skinny body. Her legs dangle in the air from the tall chair. Her feet are nowhere near the floor.

  “Tilda, my name is Carin von Essen and I’m a police officer. Do you know what a police officer does?”

  Tilda nods slowly but doesn’t respond.

  “It’s my job to try and catch people who do things that are against the rules. People who fight or steal, for example. I would like to talk to you a little about what happened to your mom.”

  Again Tilda nods slowly, as if she understands the gravity of the situation. Carin smiles faintly at her and continues.

  “Great. Here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to ask you a few questions about what happened and then you’ll answer them. If you don’t know, then you say, ‘I don’t know.’ Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  Tilda speaks so quietly that it’s almost impossible to understand what she’s saying, and yet her voice makes the hairs on the back of Sonja’s neck stand up. There’s just something about crimes that involve children. After all Sonja’s years on the force, it’s almost the only thing that really gets to her anymore. There are things that children shouldn’t know, shouldn’t see. And more than once she has wished she could trade places with them.

  Look at the pictures, answer the questions, point on the doll to where that nasty man touched you, show me which boy in the picture poked your little brother in the eye with the stick, tell us about the day your mother got run over by the train.

  “So, for example, if I ask you, ‘What color is my cat?’ what would you say then?” Carin asks.

  Tilda hesitates for a few seconds, fingering her dress, seeming to think about it.

  “I don’t know?”

  “Exactly. Because you’ve never met my cat, right?”

  “No,” Tilda says, looking down at her knees.

  “Good. Now you know how it will go. If I say something you don’t understand, then you should ask. Okay?”

  “Yes,” Tilda replies, in that quivering voice.

  “What happened to your mom, Tilda?”

  Tilda is quiet for a while, hesitant, but then starts talking. And her voice is suddenly strong and clear. Not at all weak or tentative like before.

  “The man killed Mama.”

  “And where did the man come from, Tilda?”

  “From the door.”

  “From which door?”

  “The door that goes out.”

  “The front door?”

  “Yes, he knocked on the door a ton, so Mama had to open it. You can’t knock on the door like that. The building people get mad.”

  “And what happened then?”

  “The man killed Mama.”

  “Did you see it?”

  Tilda nods seriously without answering the question.

  “Can you tell us what he did?”

  “He hit my mama.”

  “How did he hit your mom?”

  “He hit and kicked and kicked and kicked.”

  A pause. Carin rubs her arms as if she were chilly. “And then what happened?”

  “Mama fell down and a ton of blood came out and the rug got dirty. You’re not supposed to get the rug dirty, but it was dirty and he still didn’t stop yet, even though it was dirty and Mama fell down. And he just kicked and kicked and kicked. And he didn’t stop. Even though . . . Mama . . . even though . . . You can’t do that.”

  Tilda’s voice is shrill now and her little fists are clenched hard against her kneecaps. Her legs have stopped swaying, her little body is stiff and unmoving. Her hair has fallen out of her ponytail and it hangs soft and thin over her skinny shoulders.

  “Then what happened, Tilda?”

  Carin’s voice is calm, almost stoic. Suddenly Tilda slides from her chair and stands in front of the table with her hands over her ears. She screams at the top of her lungs, “Stop it, stop it
!”

  Carin steps over to her, puts a hand on her shoulder, waits until she quiets down, takes the girl’s little hands in hers, and squats down so that her eyes are level with Tilda’s.

  “Should we draw a little, you and me? Then we can go back to talking about your mom in a little while.”

  Tilda nods. They sit down at the table again. Carin takes out crayons and paper.

  “Should I draw my house?” Carin asks.

  Tilda nods.

  “Okay, it’s a really little house. Like this.” Carin draws something on the paper in sweeping strokes.

  “Where’s the cat?” Tilda asks.

  Carin laughs. “Ah, so you remember that I have a cat? Yeah, we can’t forget about Adolf.” Carin draws something small, then reaches for an orange crayon and fills in the outline. “There, that’s what he looks like. And then there’s a tree. There’s only one tree, because the yard is really small. But it’s a good tree, because it’s got tons of apples every year. And you can climb the tree too, because it has really good climbing branches.”

  “We don’t have a yard where Mama lives.” Tilda’s voice is calm again.

  “No, well, not all buildings have yards, but maybe you have something else that’s good?”

  “Our TV is huge. It hangs on the wall and it’s almost totally flat, like a pancake.”

  “Wow, that sounds really nice. Do you remember what you were doing that night, before the knock on the door?” Carin asks.

  Tilda looks down again, clenches her fists again, and squirms in her chair. She starts kicking her feet. “I . . . don’t know,” she says.

  “Okay, that’s good. That’s what you’re supposed to say when you don’t know. I’d like you to try to think a little now about the guy who hit your mom. Did you see what he looked like?”

  “I don’t know,” Tilda says.

  “Had you met or seen that man before?”

  Again Tilda writhes as if the question were uncomfortable to answer. “I don’t know.”

  “Did the man say anything?” Carin asks.