More Bitter Than Death

by Camilla Grebe

  “Tobias—” Kattis begins.

  “It’s okay, I don’t mind,” I say, but she shakes her head.

  “I need to talk to Siri a little. You’ll have to take a seat over on the couches by the front door, okay?”

  He makes eye contact with Kattis for the first time, and there’s something pained about the way he’s looking at her, something resentful. As if she has insulted him by asking him to wait. But a second later he looks down at the table again and shrugs. Then he picks his lanky body up and plods over toward the front door without turning around.

  “Sorry,” Kattis begins.

  “No need to apologize, my God. I mean, you are at work.”

  She continues, still apologetic. “Tobias is one of the guys I’m in charge of. He’s a sweetheart, really. And I think he might have a little crush on me too.” She chuckles. “Maybe I should go for him, then at least I’d end up with a nice guy.” She smiles and shakes her head, looks almost tender, like a mother or a big sister.

  Suddenly I’m curious about what Kattis does. I want to know more about her job.

  “What do you guys actually do here at the Employment Center?” I ask her. “I mean, I know you’re a case manager, but what exactly does that mean?”

  “The Employment Center is a resource for young adults who have a hard time entering the workforce for a variety of reasons. For example, they may have some sort of disability, or they’ve been unemployed for a long time, or maybe they’ve suffered some sort of chronic illness. We meet with our clients, perform a skills assessment, and prepare an action plan that can include various components, for example, vocational training, or a list of what types of jobs they should look for. Then we help them with the actual job search, writing resumes and cover letters and so on. We receive government funding, but we’re owned by a private foundation.”

  Suddenly a young black woman is standing by our table. She’s wearing a batik dress and her dreadlocks are wound up into a bun she wears high on the back of her head. The expression on her face is dogged, grim.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Kattis, but something has happened,” the woman says.

  “What?” Kattis raises her eyebrows.

  The woman sighs and looks at me, troubled, then whispers, “It’s Muhammed . . .”

  “Yes?” Kattis says encouragingly, and I wonder if the woman is another caseworker.

  “He burned the whole goddamn thing down.”

  “What? What happened?” Kattis asks.

  “Something apparently went wrong with the welding torch. I don’t know, maybe it wasn’t his fault, but they’re saying he did it on purpose. He’s on his way over here now.”

  “Given his track record, it’s pretty likely it was his fault,” Kattis says with a sigh. Getting up, she touches the woman’s arm, squeezes gently. “It’ll be okay, I’ll take care of it. Do you have the number for Asplund Sheet Metal?”

  The woman nods and smiles in relief. “Thank you. I really appreciate it,” she says.

  Kattis smiles. “It’s my job. I’ll talk to Muhammed when he gets here.”

  Then she turns to me. “It’s one of our clients. We’ve really had a lot of trouble with him. Well, you just heard it for yourself. He has, uh, a rather nasty habit of setting fire to things. This isn’t the first time. Maybe we could talk about that sometime? I mean, you’re a psychologist, right? Maybe you can explain to me why he does this?” She falls silent and fiddles with her hair before continuing. “I’m sorry. I’m going to have to go take care of this now. And maybe I should go talk to Tobias first, so . . .”

  “That’s fine,” I tell her. “I have to get back to work anyway.”

  It isn’t until I step out into the rain on St. Eriksgatan that it hits me that I’ve forgotten the little vase on the table in the kitchenette. I turn around and walk back into the building.

  In front of me, on the red visitors’ couch, Kattis is sitting very close to a black guy with long hair in a blue jumpsuit and bright white sneakers. His hand rests in hers and her face has a determined expression.

  He looks at me in surprise when I walk in, pulls his hand back.

  “The vase,” I mumble, suddenly overcome by a strange sensation that I’ve barged in on something, interrupted a private moment.

  “This is Muhammed,” Kattis says.

  The long-haired guy doesn’t say hello. Instead he makes of point of staring at his shoes with his arms crossed. I look at him and something occurs to me: there’s something about this guy, something about welding and fires, but I don’t remember what. And then the thought is gone; it slips away like water through my fingers, impossible to hold on to.

  Kattis smiles, walks over, and grabs the little blue vase without saying anything else. Once again I’m struck by how secure and confident she seems in her professional role, how much her clients and coworkers seem to value her.

  Then we hug one more time and I set out for Medborgarplatsen in the autumn darkness.

  SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE STOCKHOLM

  NOVEMBER

  Tilda is sitting next to him on the couch in the funny room with all the dusty old furniture. It reminds her a little of the dollhouse she has at her mom’s place. The furniture is all scattered around, some of it upside down or stacked up in little piles, like cans of food in a pantry. He gave her a popsicle, which she’s eating silently, trying to avoid slurping so he won’t get mad. He doesn’t like it when she makes noise. He doesn’t like it when she plays either. Or when she talks. It’s best to sit in total silence without moving so he doesn’t get mad.

  She thinks about Henrik. He always let her eat her ice cream on his lap and never got mad when she played, not even if the whole scoop fell on his pants or his shirt. He just laughed and gave her a new one, even if Mama protested. He said ice cream is good for the stomach. Just like beer.

  She covers her legs with her nightgown so she won’t be cold, but it doesn’t help. Cold air seeps in anyway, sneaking in around her body like a cold little animal, wrapping itself around her stomach, her legs, her ribs.

  She can’t help it. Her fingers get sticky as the popsicle melts and starts dripping, and she eyes him cautiously before wiping her hands on her Dora the Explorer nightgown. But he doesn’t notice, just smokes and peers out the dark window at the falling rain.

  Outside there’s only woods.

  She knows that because he let her look out, explained to her that the woods went on for many miles, that she would get lost if she went out there, that no one would ever find her, and the foxes and crows would eventually eat her up since they’re always hungry, and besides they think little children are super yummy.

  Music streams from the little TV in the corner. On the screen two guys in sunglasses, baseball hats, and big gold necklaces are riding around in a long white car and singing while they seem to be speaking sign language with their hands. Fadime at daycare, the one who can’t hear at all, speaks sign language with her hands like that. But he doesn’t seem to be watching the TV or listening to the music. He just wants to smoke and smoke and watch the rain.

  The big white dog is lying on its side on the floor in front of her, sleeping. She’s not allowed to touch the dog in front of him, even though it’s a nice dog. She can tell because it usually comes up to her and licks her face and hands with its long, sticky tongue, which smells gross.

  She used to want a dog. She always asked for a dog when it was her birthday or Christmas, but she never got one, because Mama said dogs were toomuchwork.

  Now she has a dog.

  But no Mama.

  And she thinks that she would much, much rather have Mama back. He can keep his stupid dog with its mouth that smells like poop. If only Mama would come back, then she really wouldn’t need a dog. She would never ask for a dog again, would never ask for anything again.

  If only—

  Riiiiiing.

  The sound is so shrill it almost hurts her ears. For a second she thinks the noise is her fault, that yet again s
he must have touched something she wasn’t supposed to touch, talked when she was supposed to be quiet, kicked her leg again even though she was supposed to stay still.

  She curls up into a ball on the couch. Makes herself so small that maybe he won’t see her, won’t hit her. Can you make yourself so small and invisible that you can’t be seen? Is that possible?

  But he doesn’t seem mad, just nervous. He looks toward the front door, where the dog is already standing and barking, hops up off the couch and runs over to the door, pushes the dog out of the way with his foot, and peeks through the little eye that sees everything outside.

  The spying eye.

  Then he comes back, squats down in front of her, and holds her firmly but gently by the shoulders.

  “Listen up now,” he says.

  She nods slowly, doesn’t dare look at him. She looks down even though he’s so close she can smell his ashtray breath.

  “You hide behind the couch here. You got it?” he says, pointing behind the back of the couch, and she nods again. “Do not come out. Okay?”

  She looks at the floor behind the couch. She sees a heap of dust bunnies and ice cream wrappers. A pair of headphones peeks out from under the couch; an old cord is wrapped around one of the legs like a lonely snake.

  “Now. Lie down behind the couch,” he orders.

  She quickly climbs over the back of the velvet couch and slides down onto the cold floor behind it. She lies down on her side. She can see his feet under the couch as he once again moves toward the front door and opens it.

  Tilda thinks she sees a woman. She can’t tell for sure, because the legs wearing jeans and rain boots could belong to either a man or a woman, and she can’t see any more than that from her hiding spot, but the voice—the voice is a woman’s. And there’s something familiar about it. The woman speaks quickly, quickly and quietly, and he mumbles something in response now and then.

  Then she watches his feet disappear into the kitchen. The woman’s legs stay in the front hall, not moving, as if her rain boots were glued to the floor. Cupboards open and close, pots rattle. Then his feet come back, walk to the front door, and stop in front of the rain boots.

  “Oh, thank you,” the woman’s voice says. “How nice of you. See you later, then.”

  The rain boots turn around and disappear out into the dark. The door shuts again with a bang, but he stays there, taking his time in front of the spy eye, not moving, peering out into the darkness.

  Just as he starts to walk back into the room, that shrill sound happens again.

  Riiiiiiing.

  “Shit,” he mumbles, then turns and walks back into the entryway.

  He opens the door again and Tilda feels a cold gust of wind race across the worn parquet flooring.

  “Yes?” he says.

  “Uh, yes. One thing. I forgot . . . ,” the woman’s voice says.

  And suddenly Tilda knows whose voice it sounds like: Mama’s. It’s not that it is Mama’s voice, it’s just really similar, and suddenly Tilda remembers exactly how Mama sounds and how she smells when Tilda burrows her nose into her side and how soft and warm her stomach is to touch.

  Tilda is suddenly filled with a fear that is bigger, much bigger, than her fear of the man in this house. What if Mama is really at the door and Tilda doesn’t get to see her? What if Mama came to get her and can’t find her? The thought makes Tilda feel sick, makes her heart start pounding hard. It only takes a few seconds for Tilda to make up her mind. Quickly she hauls herself up over the couch, clambers over the stacks of newspapers on the rug, and races to the door.

  “Maaama!” she cries.

  A shock of cold air hits her. He turns around and she can see that his eyes are wide and his fists are clenched.

  “Maaaama!”

  A lady with short, gray hair and glasses is standing outside the door. She’s holding a cheese grater in her hand and her mouth is hanging open, as if she were waiting for someone to feed her something. The lady takes a couple of unsteady steps backward, with her mouth still open.

  “Damn it,” the man growls, catching Tilda in midstep and shoving her down onto the cold floor so that she feels something sharp against her cheek. “I told you, you brat. I told you, I told you.”

  Then he turns to the woman at the door, who isn’t Tilda’s mother after all, just some stupid gray-haired woman she’s never seen before.

  “Sorry, Gunilla. This isn’t . . . ,” the man begins.

  But it doesn’t seem like the woman is listening. She just keeps backing away onto the front porch as if she’s seen a ghost. He lets go of Tilda and takes a couple of steps toward the woman, pulls her inside, and closes the door behind her.

  “Gunilla, please . . . ,” he says, but the woman isn’t listening. Tilda can tell that from her eyes, which have gone totally vacant.

  “My God, just what is going on here?” the woman whispers, clutching the grater to her chest like a teddy bear.

  Again Tilda tries to make herself as small as possible, like a ball, an invisible ball in the corner. And she stuffs her fingers into her ears and mumbles the rhyme her grandfather taught her: “One two, buckle my shoe, three four, shut the door.” But even with her fingers in her ears and repeating the rhyme, she can still hear the thuds and the crunching. She repeats it louder: “Five six, pick up sticks.”

  Then something cold bumps her leg. She peeks through her fingers, sees a single rubber boot, and when she follows it with her eyes she sees that the lady’s leg is still in the boot, that her whole body is stretched out on the floor, flat as a pancake, as if she were tanning at the beach.

  VÄRMDÖ

  NOVEMBER

  Aina and I are balancing on the slippery rocks along the bay, huddled to protect ourselves from the wind, looking out over the dark water. The waves have whitecaps.

  “Watch out, it’s slippery,” I warn her. But she doesn’t answer, just stuffs her hands further down into the pockets of her parka. Her hair dances around her head in the wind.

  We carefully make our way toward the big, flat rock where we usually sit in the summertime to enjoy the sun. That feels like a lifetime ago; there’s no hint of the warm, inviting summer sea that was so welcoming to us only a few months ago.

  Aina is quiet and sulky. I was surprised but happy when she called and said she wanted to come see me. She used to come all the time, before Markus. Now it almost never happens.

  “Elin almost cried on Friday. The office has apparently been receiving so many calls from journalists that the patients can’t get through,” she says.

  “As long as Elin doesn’t give them our home numbers, I guess . . . I don’t really see why they want to talk to us.”

  “I do. A mother of three shot to death at a counseling clinic in central Stockholm. That’s pretty uncommon. But at least they haven’t discovered the possible connection to Susanne’s murder. Did the police question you too?” Aina asks, and I can hardly hear her words with the whining of the wind and the roar of the waves.

  “Yeah, they questioned everyone. According to Markus, at least.”

  She smiles quickly, a fleeting, mysterious smile. “What else does he say, your Markus?”

  My Markus? I cringe a little at her choice of words but decide not to let it get to me. Sometimes Aina is moody; there’s just nothing to be done about it.

  “He says they questioned everyone from the office and everyone in the support group. They still don’t have a suspect in Susanne’s murder, or in Tilda’s kidnapping. And Henrik is on the loose. They’re not even sure if Hillevi’s murder is really connected to Susanne’s murder.”

  “That’s all?” Aina asks.

  “Yeah, Markus mentioned yesterday that Henrik apparently worked out at the same gym as that guy who raped Malin.”

  “Interesting. What does that mean?”

  “Probably nothing. There aren’t that many gyms in Gustavsberg, so it’s probably just a coincidence. But that particular gym is notorious. There are apparentl
y a lot of drugs there.”

  “So?”

  “I don’t know. That might mean that Henrik had access to drugs too, which could explain his behavior, his aggression. Anyway, what do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” Aina begins hesitantly, “but I’ve been thinking a lot about what Sirkka said. I can’t get it out of my mind.”

  “Sirkka?”

  “Yeah, she actually admitted to us that she basically killed her husband. And that she doesn’t feel any guilt about it.”

  Aina brushes away several damp, blond strands of hair and then turns toward the wind so her hair blows back off her face.

  “I guess I haven’t really thought about it. She didn’t call for help, that’s all. And then he died.”

  Aina smiles wryly. “Come on, now you’re being naïve, Siri. She knew exactly what she was doing. She killed him and she doesn’t feel any guilt over it. Doesn’t that bother you?”

  I shrug, unsure what to say. “What are you getting at?”

  “I’m just wondering. If a person does something like that once, does that mean they’d be capable of doing it again?”

  I have no response. Aina turns around and gazes at my little cottage huddled between the rocky shore and the pine trees.

  “Should we head back in?” she asks, and I nod.

  Slowly we follow the little path back to the house. I’m carrying the big flashlight in my hand, lighting our way so we don’t stumble over any tree roots or slip into one of the small hollows filled with wet leaves.

  * * *

  It’s warm in the cottage. The woodstove in the living room is crackling, and the faint but unmistakable scent of smoke permeates the air.

  “Would you like some tea?” I ask.

  “I want wine,” she says without looking at me, flopping onto the couch, pulling her legs up toward her body, and wrapping her arms around her knees. I head into the kitchen to see what we have. Not that long ago it would have been unheard-of for me not to have any wine in the house, but to my surprise I determine that we are currently actually totally wineless. The cupboard where I keep the wine is empty.