“Because that’s what people think. That my job is fucking awesome and interesting. You know, it’s a myth. It’s not like that at all.”
“What is it really like, then?”
The drinks arrived. I was nervous, noticed my hand shaking as I lifted the glass to my mouth. I had to hold it with both hands, but the liquid still splashed out. My fingers got wet. Sticky. Stuck to the cocktail glass. I tried to wipe them off with the napkin, but small pieces of paper stuck to my hands instead. Jesper didn’t seem to notice anything. He was smiling in an introspective, almost uninterested way.
“Honestly?” he said.
“Honestly.”
He took a sip of his drink and leaned toward me. A strange expression glimmered in his eyes, something I didn’t recognize. Tiny wrinkles appeared around his eyes. How many years older was he than me? I figured he was in his forties. So: fifteen? Twenty?
“It’s lonely,” he said.
“Lonely?”
“You don’t believe me, do you? I promise. There’s nothing lonelier than the limelight, than being on television or in newspapers. Being the boss. Everybody knows who you are, but you don’t know anybody. Everybody wants to be your friend, but you can’t trust anyone.
“Not for real. Do you understand?”
“I understand.”
He smiled. A joyless grimace that revealed his unnaturally white teeth. What did he do to them anyway? Bleach them?
“I knew you’d understand. We’re the same, Emma. We feel the same.”
Again I got that creepy feeling that something wasn’t right, that he saw things, qualities in me that weren’t there. He’d decided I was something that maybe I wasn’t. Another feeling was pushing its way inside too: fear. Would he be disappointed when he discovered who I really was, if he got to know the real me? Was I just a way for this powerful man to amuse himself? Would he dispose of me afterward, like an old toy?
“What about privately? Don’t you have any family?” I asked.
The question was, at least partially, rhetorical. I knew very well that Jesper had no wife or children. Girlfriends had come and gone.
Anyone who could read knew that. In fact, you didn’t even have to read. It was enough to look at the pictures on the front pages of the tabloids.
Jesper’s smile fell a fraction of an inch.
“It’s never worked out,” he said curtly. “Should we look at the menu?”
We ordered.
Outside the window, a couple was kissing in the evening sun. I felt embarrassed, didn’t know where to look. I tried in vain to remove the little pieces of paper from my sticky hands.
“And what about you,” he asked. “Do you have family?”
“Me?”
He smiled.
“Yes. You, Emma.”
I felt my cheeks turn red and cursed myself for not pulling myself together faster.
“If you’re asking if I have a boyfriend, the answer is no. As for family…I have my mother.”
“Ah. Do you see her often? Are you close?”
“We see each other a couple times a year, so I guess I can’t say we’re particularly close.”
“Okay.”
I had a sudden impulse, a desire, to confide in him. I didn’t usually talk about my mom, but for some reason it felt appropriate at this moment, with Jesper.
“My mother is an alcoholic,” I said.
He rested his dark gaze on me, leaned forward, and squeezed my sticky hand. “Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
I nodded, looked down at the table, suddenly couldn’t speak, couldn’t meet his eyes.
“Has she had alcohol problems for a long time?”
There was a pause while I considered how honest I dared to be. “As long as I can remember.”
I thought back. Was there a time when Mom didn’t drink? I couldn’t remember it. But she was happy and full of energy when I was little. We’d sneak out late at night, long after bedtime, and chase each other barefoot through the snow. One time we went to the pet store and bought a puppy when Mom was drunk. She wobbled so much on the way there that I had to support her. And then there was that time we were out of money and went shoplifting together at the grocery store.
Good memories, despite everything.
“What about your father?” Jesper asked.
“He died when I was in junior high.”
“Do you think about him often?”
“Sometimes. I dream about him.”
He nodded as if he understood exactly. “Stepfather?”
An image of Kent popped into my mind, and I shuddered immediately.
Mom had been with him for several years. I never understood what they had in common, besides drinking.
“It has to be hard growing up with an alcoholic parent.”
Jesper’s hand rested on mine. Warmth flowed from him, like sunshine. “It was…lonely.”
“You see,” he said triumphantly, and squeezed my hand even harder.
“What?”
“You’re lonely too. Just like I said. I knew it.”
—
On my way home from work, I get off at the Slussen subway station. A cold wind is blowing, pushing leaves and cigarette butts down Götgatan. Small ice crystals have formed on the damp ground. They sparkle under the streetlights. It’s slippery, and I almost lose my balance when I turn left at Högbergsgatan. A faint smell of food streams out of the cheap restaurants and cafés. Two guys are sharing a cigarette in a stairwell. They look at me as if I’m bothering them, as if I’m interrupting something intimate. Their eyes seem almost threatening. I pull my leather jacket tighter around me and pass as quickly as I can with my eyes fixed on the frozen ground.
Then I’m in front of the apartment building on Kapellgränd.
I recognize it immediately. The withered rosebush outside, the colored glass panes in the door. Just as I’m about to go inside, an elderly man exits with a dog. He greets me and holds the door open. I nod back.
I don’t recognize him.
There’s no name on the door, just a little sign that says “No Junk Mail,” which Jesper wrote himself and which tells me that I’ve come to the right place. I always thought it was strange that he didn’t want his name on the door, but he said he preferred anonymity. To avoid nosy neighbors and journalists. I press the doorbell. Nothing happens. I wait a little, then press it again, maybe hold the button down a little too long. The doorbell rings angrily through the door. Somewhere inside I hear steps, and the door flies open.
“Yes?”
The man is wearing a tank top and sweatpants and holding a beer can in one hand. His arms are covered with tattoos and his long hair is held back in a ponytail at the nape of his neck. But there’s something else that surprises me: The furniture in the hall is completely different from what Jesper had there before. The red chairs and the small sideboard are gone. Instead, paintings are leaning against the wall, and there’s a heap of coats in the corner. The rug, which Jesper’s mother wove herself, is also gone.
“Excuse me, is Jesper here?”
“Jesper? Jesper who?”
The man pops open the can of beer. It snaps, then hisses. He puts it to his mouth and takes a deep swig while keeping his eyes on me.
“The man who lives here. Jesper Orre.”
“Never heard of ’im. I’m the only one who lives here. You must have the wrong address.”
He starts to swing the door shut, but I’m faster, pushing my foot into the gap. “Wait, is this the only apartment on the ground floor?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know if a Jesper lived here before you moved in?”
“No fucking clue. I’ve only lived here for a month, and I’m moving out soon. They’re demolishing the place. There’s some shit in the walls. And if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got things to do now.”
I back away. Apologize. The man closes the door without saying another word.
—
I walk around my apartment. Pace back and fo
rth on the creaky wood floors. The darkness outside is compact. From inside, it seems as if someone has bricked up the windows. Wind howls around the house, almost making it sway, and the windows rattle with each gust, protesting the harsh treatment.
My apartment is the kind you can walk around in, and it strikes me I’m behaving just like when I’m at work. I circle around aimlessly, as if that will help me sort out my thoughts.
No calls, no text messages.
I’ve even been keeping an eye on the mail. But it’s just junk mail and bills. I don’t even have the energy to open the letters, just stack them on top of the others in the old bread bin.
I sink down into one of the green armchairs. Twisting my engagement ring. It feels big and chafes a bit. Carefully, I slip it off, hold it up against the light. It has no inscription. We agreed to arrange for that later.
The stone is ridiculously large.
In fact, I’ve never seen such a large diamond in real life before. I think about Olga, who asked what it cost. It’s a legitimate question, even if etiquette forbids it. What does a ring like this cost? Jesper made very sure I wouldn’t see the price tag. And I, I thought it was romantic, felt like Pretty Woman sitting there on the jewelry store’s worn velvet sofas.
At least fifty thousand, I think. Given the prices on the other rings in the store with smaller stones, it must have cost at least fifty thousand. The thought is dizzying. I have never had so much money to spend on something so completely unnecessary, and I don’t think anyone else in my family has either. With the exception of my aunt, of course.
I’m walking around with a fortune on my finger, but the man who gave it to me has gone up in smoke. Why would you say you love someone, give them an expensive engagement ring, and then disappear? Is there any other explanation than an accident, a sudden illness, an urgent business trip, a lost phone? Could he have done it on purpose? Does it give him some kind of sick pleasure to know I’m worried, that I’m at home waiting with no idea what’s happened?
I push the thought away.
Of course, he’ll come back. I just don’t know when.
I brush my teeth and crawl into bed, feel the cool sheets against my skin. Despite the thoughts crowding into my head—the argument I’m having with myself—I fall asleep almost at once.
—
I dream he’s standing by my bed, stone-still, staring at me without saying a word. The moon shines through the window, but although I strain my eyes, I can’t see his face. He’s just a black silhouette against the silver-white light, the contours of a man I no longer know. Whom I may never have known. I want to talk to him, make him explain, but when I try to open my mouth, I discover that my body is paralyzed. And when I try to scream, no sound makes it through my lips.
Then he’s gone.
—
Gray morning light filters in through the window. I’m standing up in bed, my hand on the faded wallpaper. Trying to sort through my thoughts and make some sense of them.
The Ragnar Sandberg painting is missing.
There’s a bright rectangle on the wallpaper where it hung. The nail is still in the wall. Even though I know it’s an unreasonable explanation, I drag out the bed and look behind it. There’s nothing there, just dust bunnies and an old receipt from the liquor store.
I climb down on the floor again, slowly formulating the question to myself: Did someone come in here and take the painting while I slept, or was it gone when I came home yesterday? I try to remember if anything odd happened the night before, but can’t. It was an evening just like any other. A lonely evening at home in the apartment with Sigge as my only company, an autumn storm raging outside the black windows.
The painting was the only truly valuable thing I owned. And all the money I had, I lent to Jesper. What will I do now? The bills lie in a pile in the rusty bread bin, like moldy slices of bread. True, there’s only a week left until payday, but that money won’t last long.
What if someone came into the apartment and stole the painting? And what if that someone broke in during the night, leaned over my sleeping body, and lifted the painting from the wall. Listened to my breathing, while I lay there unaware of what was happening.
Suddenly I remember the dream. The silhouette in the moonlight. The paralyzing horror when I realized I couldn’t move or scream.
Nausea explodes in my stomach. I stagger to the toilet, sink down on my knees, and vomit up a bitter, yellow liquid. As soon as I try to stand up, there’s more. I lie on the cold bathroom floor, roll over on my back with my arms and legs spread out, like a starfish.
Dust hangs in long strands from the ceiling. They flutter in the faint rush of air coming from the ventilation. Somewhere in the building someone flushes a toilet; it gurgles and whispers through the pipes running along the wall, as if speaking to me in a foreign language.
Sigge comes over to me, seems surprised. He’s probably wondering what I’m doing on the floor. Then he turns around and walks out with his tail in the air.
If only you could speak, I think. Then you could tell me what happened while I was sleeping.
HANNE
It’s Owe’s fault that I’m standing at the entrance to the police station. Last night after the concert at Hedvig Eleonora Church, we had a terrible fight. The kind that’s like an insane explosion. No, he was insane. Explained to me how irresponsible and childish it was to even consider meeting with the police to talk about work, when our kitchen is full of Post-its, when I can’t even remember which bread he wanted from the grocery store (the one with dinkel wheat and pumpkin seeds, which I remembered; I just bought the other kind to annoy him).
I wanted to tell him to buy his own fucking bread, but I didn’t, of course. Instead, I took Frida with me and went to sleep in the narrow bed in the guest room. Tried to figure out why I have such a hard time saying no to Owe, why I let him treat me this way.
I couldn’t find any good answers.
The next morning, after Owe had gone to work, I called that detective and explained I’d be more than happy to come by and talk for a bit; would tomorrow work?
He said that would be perfect.
—
The young woman showing me up to the conference room on the third floor is babbling on about the weather. She asks if I had any trouble getting here through all the snow. I respond politely that the subway worked just fine, and that my clothes are so warm I could sleep outdoors.
She smiles pityingly, glancing at my baggy coat.
We arrive at a door. The woman taps on it, and after a few seconds it opens. I don’t know what I expected, but not this.
In the middle of the room, by the window, there he sits.
Peter.
And it’s as if all the blood suddenly rushes down to my legs. As if the air is in some mysterious way sucked out through the cracks in the window, leaving behind a vacuum. My fingertips tingle, and my heart jumps in my chest, as if it wants out, as if it wants escape from the seemingly innocent, middle-aged man sitting in the blue chair.
He looks just like I remember him. Maybe more tired and a little rounder around the belly. Light, graying, short hair and deep-set green eyes. A sharp, hooked nose, reminiscent of something from a Mafia movie in the sixties. Slender hands, so delicate they might belong to a woman.
I know exactly what those hands are capable of.
The thought comes from nowhere, and it makes me ill. Once again I have to fight the impulse to turn around and flee the room. But I force myself to stand still, even though my body wants to do something completely different.
“Hello,” I say.
“Welcome,” says a vigorous, flushed-looking man wearing a pink shirt with a yellow handkerchief.
He looks comical. Out of place inside the institutional-gray interior of the police station. As if he were a long-lost friend from one of Owe’s hunting parties who, for some inexplicable reason, had wandered in here.
A dark-haired woman in her thirties approaches and introduces herself.
I smile, take her hand, but don’t hear what she says. Then he’s standing in front of me. There’s still something boyish about his body, his way of moving. A gangliness that never really went away. He stretches out his hand, and I see clearly how uncomfortable he is with this situation.
I take his hand but avoid meeting his green eyes. Still my reaction is so palpable, so physical, that it scares me. It feels like someone has kicked me hard in the stomach. Then the moment is over, and we let go of each other. I shrug off my coat, slide down onto a chair, and say no when the woman offers me coffee. I don’t trust my hands to be able to hold the cup steady.
I look down at the white table. Small scratches crisscross its shiny surface. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse Peter. He seems to be looking through the window.
“As I said, thank you so much for coming in,” the heavy man says. “We met briefly ten years ago in connection with the investigation of the murder of Miguel Calderón.”
I nod, meet his gaze. He takes out a thick folder and starts pulling out reports and photos. The paper is yellowed and the photos are dog-eared. He lays them on the table.
I lean forward, examining the black-and-white images. The memories gush forth unchecked: the smell of the morgue, the young man’s head placed several feet from his body, intentionally put on its neck and turned toward the door. The victim’s taped-open eyes had haunted my dreams for months.
“Miguel Calderón, twenty-five years old, a temp who held down all kinds of jobs,” continues the heavy police officer in a soft voice, who I remember now is named Manfred. “Found dead by his sister, Lucia, in his apartment on Hornsbruksgatan near Zinkensdamm on August fifteenth ten years ago. She’d been trying to get ahold of him for a week and was worried. She had a key to his apartment, so she went in, and found him murdered on the floor of the hall. The cause of death was numerous blows to the neck with a swordlike object, which was never found. The head had been removed from the body and placed next to it on the floor, and the eyelids had been taped open with duct tape, as if the killer wanted everyone who came into the room to be forced to meet the victim’s gaze.”
I nod, concentrating on the images, and feel my heart slowly calming down. Feel the oxygen return. Thinking how strange it is that a brutal, ten-year-old murder seems to work so well as a distraction. Maybe I can pretend he’s not actually sitting just a few feet away from me. Maybe I can imagine him gone, if I just try hard enough.
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