The Ice Beneath Her

by Camilla Grebe

  “We could ask one of our artists to produce a reconstruction, an image of the face,” Sanchez suggests. “It’s not as sensitive as publishing a…mutilated, severed head.”

  Greger gives her an exhausted look.

  “That’s the best idea you’ve had in a long time, Sanchez. Do it!”

  —

  I’m sitting in the big leather armchair in front of the fireplace, reading the preliminary investigation reports from the Calderón murder. The fire crackles, and on the low marble coffee table next to me a candle is burning. It’s an odd feeling to see old reports I coauthored. So many years ago, and still so little has happened, I think. I live in the same apartment with the same man. Only the dog is new.

  I look down at Frida curled up on the rug at my feet. Her black body trembles and her paws jerk in the air, as if she’s dreaming of some violent hunt.

  I return to reading. Remember that we noted at the time that the victim’s eyelids were taped open. I close my eyes, feel the heat radiating from the fire into my body, and think. Why tape open the eyelids of your already dead victim—which the coroner concluded was most likely when it was done. The eyelids had been taped postmortem, after death. The theory was supported by the presence of bloodstains under the tape.

  So, the killer tapes open the eyelids of his victim and places the head in such a way that the next person who comes into the apartment will meet the dead man’s gaze. Why? Did the killer know who would find Calderón? Was it a message to that person? Or did he just want to humiliate the victim? Like the Celts, who hung their enemies’ heads from their horses and rode home with them like trophies.

  I make it no further in my thinking before I hear a key in the lock. Frida freezes, then jumps up and runs into the hall with her tail wagging. I know I should hide the investigation reports—Owe will be furious if he finds them—but I can’t. Instead, I remain sitting with the papers in my lap.

  He stands in the doorway, his gray hair tousled, his cheeks dark red with cold. His burgundy sweater stretches over his stomach, and his posture is one of irritation. He’s like that sometimes, grumpy as soon as he gets home. Usually it’s because he’s quarreled with somebody at work. It tends to seep out after a while, his frustration with some incompetent colleague or an unpleasant patient who treated him badly.

  “Hello,” he says.

  “Hi.”

  He remains in the doorway, shifting his weight from foot to foot, as if unsure where to go.

  “How was your day?”

  “Good,” I say. “Yours?”

  He shrugs.

  “Well, what can I say? The county hospital doesn’t exactly attract the brightest bulbs in the bunch. I’m so damn tired of teaching all these foreign doctors who can’t tell the difference between a schizophrenic and a bipolar patient. And who can’t write a decent report, because their Swedish is so shitty.”

  “Sounds tough.”

  He grunts something, but I can’t really hear what. It’s one of those guttural sounds he sometimes makes. Maybe I should be able to read them by now, after all these years, like parents who instinctively understand what their babies want when they scream.

  “By the way, did you buy wine for tomorrow?” he asks.

  “No, I…There were some other…”

  My voice dies away. I didn’t forget to buy wine; I’ve just been too busy at the police station. But I can’t very well tell him that.

  He sighs and starts to turn, but stops halfway. “What are you reading, anyway?”

  I cover the papers with my hands, but it’s too late. He’s already registered my hesitation, seen my hands instinctively try to hide whatever it is I have in my lap.

  “Nothing special,” I say, but he’s already on his way over to me.

  He stops right in front of me, a huge, dark silhouette against the fire. Bends over and firmly lifts my hands.

  “What the hell is this?”

  His scent overwhelms me, that stale mixture of smoke and sweat and something else I can’t put my finger on, reminiscent of boiled cabbage. “It’s a…preliminary investigation report.”

  “I can see that,” he answers with a voice one octave higher than usual. “I’m wondering what the hell they’re doing here, in our home? You said you weren’t going take on any assignments for the police again.”

  “No, I didn’t say that. You said that.”

  In a single movement he grabs the papers and throws them across the room. From the corner of my eye, I see Frida run out into the hall with her tail between her legs.

  “Goddammit, Hanne. We discussed this already, and decided it wasn’t appropriate. You’re not well enough to work. And now you go behind my back and do it anyway.”

  And when he says that, with all his patronizing solemnity, while I’m surrounded by his stink, something inside of me bursts. Breaks like when a load-bearing wall collapses and the whole house crumbles. It’s like a thousand small explosions inside, and all the anger I’ve collected wells up, and needs to find some way out.

  I spring from the chair and start hammering his big body with my fists. The blows make no real impact—they’re aimless, springing from hopelessness and despair that I can’t quite put into words—and they mostly seem to surprise him.

  “You bastard!” I scream. “We never decided anything of the sort. You said I couldn’t work. You decided it. As usual. You, you, you. I’m so fucking tired of you telling me what to do.”

  He catches my arms in the air, locking them in a tight grip.

  “Calm down. Have you gone completely fucking crazy? This is part of your disease, don’t you understand that? Aggressiveness, depression. It’s the disease.”

  It’s nothing new for Owe to blame my moodiness on the disease. Several times he’s told me to get on antidepressants—whose welcoming, prescribed embrace scares me more than the disease itself.

  “Stop blaming the fucking disease. This is not about the disease. This is about me. About how tired I am of your never-ending bullying and need to control.”

  I fall silent, and we stand there in front of the fire. Everything is still. The only sound is the fire crackling, and my heavy breathing. His grip on my arms is painfully hard.

  “Let me go!” I say.

  He does as I say and remains standing there in the middle of the floor as I rake up the papers and rush into the bedroom.

  —

  “Hanne. Honey. What happened?”

  “I left him,” I say, and set down the heavy suitcase beside me on the stone floor of the stairwell.

  “Oh sweetie. Come in.” Gunilla picks up my suitcase. “Jesus. What do you have in here?”

  “Watch your back. It’s books. About Greenland. Only the most important ones.” Gunilla shakes her head slowly.

  Frida runs ahead of me into Gunilla’s bright hallway, and I follow. Stamp snow off my shoes and take off my coat, hang it on one of the colorful hooks, go into the living room, and sink into Gunilla’s white sofa.

  “Tell me everything!” she says, and I do. About the meeting with the police. About Peter. About the ten-year-old cold case that has become relevant again, and my longing to do something meaningful with the rest of my time. To be able to use all of the knowledge I’ve acquired in a full career. And then I tell her about Owe, explain how his controlling behavior, his self-absorption, and even the smell of him repels me. How I simmer with anger for months, until it flares up like a forest fire, leaving me empty and exhausted. How I can’t cope with this emotional slash-and-burn anymore.

  “Well, then it was about time you moved out” is all she says when I’m done.

  The question I’ve been waiting for doesn’t come until later, after we’ve drunk several glasses of wine and eaten some of Gunilla’s stinky cheese.

  “Do you think it’s wise to leave him right now, when you don’t know how you’ll feel in a month or a year?”

  There is a short pause before I meet her eyes and answer.

  “That’s why it’s s
o important. I don’t want to spend the time I have left with him.”

  —

  When I wake up the next morning the sun is shining for the first time in weeks, and heavy drops of melted snow fall onto the window ledge. It feels like a sign, and both my elation and my relief swell inside. It’s almost narcotic, a wave to surf and be carried away by, in the midst of all this misery.

  From now on, things can only get better, I think, and pick up my Louis-Jacques Dorais book about Inuit language and culture. Flip through it at random.

  Snow falls from the roof and lands with a dull thud on the window ledge outside.

  The thing about the Inuit having so many words for snow is a myth, born out of Western civilization’s romantic passion for primitive people and their symbiotic relationship to the elements. Certainly, the Inuit have more than one word for snow—but so do we. Moreover, there isn’t “one” Inuit language. Rather, there are many languages and dialects spoken across the Arctic, in parts of Alaska, Canada, Siberia, and Greenland.

  But as usual, we humans need to simplify things, in order to make reality more manageable. Actually, we do the same thing at the police station. Simplify, try to understand, make connections, and see patterns in the complex materials of the investigation. And maybe we also make the same mistake: attributing characteristics to people and applying models to explain events because it fits our worldview.

  Again, I think of the Calderón murder. Did we miss something? Have our preconceptions colored our view of events?

  Gunilla’s timid knock at the door interrupts my thoughts. “Breakfast?” she asks.

  “Yes, please. I’m starving,” I say, realizing that I actually mean it. For the first time in months, I feel truly hungry.

  EMMA

  ONE MONTH EARLIER

  I’m sitting on the subway on the way to work, trying to make sense of what has happened. Jesper’s child, our child, is growing inside of me. In some dark, secret place a small tadpole with a tail and gills is about to assume a human form.

  It’s inconceivable.

  I can’t really grasp the fact that I’m pregnant; this is no longer just about me and my relationship with Jesper. Now I need to decide if I should keep the baby or not. I no longer have the option of simply letting go of Jesper and moving on. The equation has changed, and he has the right to know I’m expecting his child, regardless of whether or not he’s the asshole of the century.

  I have to track him down and tell him what’s happened, face-to-face.

  Mahnoor and Olga are both sitting in the staff room with a cup of coffee when I get to work. We don’t open for another twenty minutes, and Björne is nowhere in sight, so we might as well take the opportunity to have coffee now.

  “Coffee?” Mahnoor asks.

  “Yes, please.”

  I shrug off my jacket and sit down on one of the white chairs around the table. Mahnoor gently puts a cup of coffee in front of me. Her hair falls down onto the table as she bends forward, and I note how beautiful it is, the kind of hair many envy.

  “Where’s Björne?” I ask.

  “No clue,” Olga says. “Maybe he’s late.”

  “Late? But usually he’s so early. Maybe he’s sick,” I suggest.

  “I don’t think so,” Mahnoor mumbles. “He hasn’t had a single demerit for six months.” It’s quiet for a moment. I sip the hot coffee and try to think away the nausea. Try my best not to think about the stowaway somewhere deep inside my body.

  “You have ten dots this month,” Olga says, and turns her eyes toward me. There’s no tact or compassion in her voice. She notes the fact as objectively as if she’s told a customer the price of a pair of underwear.

  “I’m sure it’s not going to be a problem,” Mahnoor says, and lightly touches my hand.

  “Of course it’s a problem. If you’re out too many times, they fire you,” Olga says.

  “I was sick,” I say.

  “Don’t matter,” Olga continues, as if explaining the most obvious thing in the world to a very small or perhaps very stupid kid. Her fingernails drum the table, as if they want to take off on their own. They’re so long her hands make me think of deadly weapons.

  “You got to be careful with your job, and even if you’re sick sometimes you got to work. Try harder,” Olga says, emphasizing every word. She continues:

  “You have to be careful with all relationships. Sometimes you do things you don’t want to do, for the sake of making peace. For example, if I want Alex to be happy, I give him a blow job when he gets home.”

  “Oh come on,” Mahnoor protests. “That’s hardly the same thing.”

  “Yes it is. You have to make an effort, both at home and at work.”

  Mahnoor is clearly annoyed. She stands up and puts her coffee cup in the sink with a bang. Brown liquid splashes out.

  “You’re sick, you know that? This isn’t Russia,” she says, and leaves the kitchenette in a huff. The heavy scent of her perfume lingers in the room.

  “What makes her so pissy?” Olga murmurs.

  “Don’t know.”

  “Maybe because she’s Muslim.”

  “Maybe.”

  We ponder this for a moment. The phone rings, but Mahnoor beats us to it; she must have picked up the phone at the register, because I can hear her talking to someone out in the store.

  “Are you going to apologize to her?” I ask.

  “Apologize? For what? She’s the one who stops out.”

  “I think you mean ‘stomped.’ ”

  “Whatever. She thinks she’s special ’cause she studies at the university.” Olga pinches her mouth shut and crosses her arms over her chest.

  Steps approach from outside. Mahnoor appears at the door again, and I can see from her posture, even before she begins to speak, that something has happened.

  “It’s Björne,” she says, and her voice sounds almost breathless. “He’s been hit by a bus. He’s not gonna die or anything, but he’ll be gone for a while. At least a month.”

  Neither Olga nor I say anything. We all dislike Björne, but nobody wishes him bodily harm. The thought of his lean form underneath a big bus makes me nauseous again.

  “Poor Björne,” Olga whispers.

  “Yes, poor Björne,” Mahnoor says.

  “What happens now?” I ask.

  “We have to run the shop by ourselves,” Mahnoor says, and straightens up a little. “They asked me to take charge until further notice.”

  I wonder if they decided to make Mahnoor responsible for the shop, or if they asked her because she happened to answer the phone.

  “Oh, and there was one more thing,” Mahnoor says. “There have been some articles about our dear CEO again. If any journalist tries to contact us, we’re supposed to make no comment. All questions should be referred to the corporate office.”

  “He’s been a naughty boy again?” Olga smiles slyly. Mahnoor shrugs.

  “No clue.”

  But Olga doesn’t give up.

  “Your friend, the one in the personnel department. She’s investigating him, right?”

  “She doesn’t work in the personnel department, she works in the finance department, but yes, there was something about how Jesper Orre had the company pay for his birthday party. But I don’t know anything about that.”

  —

  My lunch consists of a plastic-packed salad. The shrimp are so tasteless and mushy that I find it difficult to imagine they ever lived in the sea. It feels more like they were molded from flour and fish broth.

  I’m sitting in front of the computer at the small desk in the staff room. To my left is the kitchenette. The table is covered with magazines and a plastic bowl with a few lonely shrimp standing on the counter.

  I wipe my hands off with a napkin, pull the keyboard toward me, and look up Jesper Orre. After just a few seconds this article pops up: “Jesper Orre Accused of Sexual Harassment.” I click on the magazine’s website and scroll down. A woman who “worked closely with Jesper”
for a few years has accused him of sexual harassment. It doesn’t say who she is or what she was working on, but I conclude it must be someone at the corporate office, because they worked together. Maybe a secretary or someone in the marketing department. Neither Jesper nor the company will make any comment about the matter, but “reliable sources” claim that an internal investigation has been launched.

  I wonder. For some reason, the article doesn’t upset me. Jesper often spoke about how vulnerable he was, how the people around him could be divided into two groups: yes-men, who tried hard to stay close to him all the time, and those who did their best to sabotage him at every opportunity. And often the yes-men slowly turned into saboteurs when they didn’t get the response they hoped for.

  I’m guessing this woman is a saboteur. Jesper is fair game now; the train has left the station. This is an easy way to get attention, and perhaps avenge some old injustice. Jesper was right: It’s tough at the top. You’re exposed up there and can’t trust anyone.

  And yet. There is always the possibility that I’m wrong.

  How well do I know Jesper, anyway?

  I look at the article again, my eyes struck by the byline. Anders Jönsson. The name sounds familiar. Where have I heard it before?

  Then I remember. That journalist who came into the store, who wanted to talk to me about working here and gave me his card. It’s in my overflowing bread bin now, along with all my bills.

  Mahnoor enters the room, sits down on the chair opposite me. “What are you doing?”

  I quickly shut off the computer.

  “Nothing special. My Internet isn’t working at home.” She nods slowly.

  “Are you okay, by the way?” I say. “It seemed like you were a little upset earlier.”

  Mahnoor sighs and rolls her eyes.

  “It’s just that Olga has fucking awful ideas about being a woman. It bothers me. You’d think she came straight from the 1800s. Right?”

  I wonder. Olga is different. I haven’t actually thought about her attitudes toward women—more about her insensitivity, about how her comments, probably unintentionally, sometimes sting like a slap.