The Ice Beneath Her

by Camilla Grebe

  “What has she done?” Mom asked.

  “No, no,” Britt began. “Emma hasn’t done anything wrong. It’s come to our attention that one of our teachers…that a certain teacher has made advances toward Emma.”

  “What?” Mom said, and lost her grip on the cornflower-blue purse. It fell to the floor with a thud.

  “One of our subs. A shop teacher. He’s actually quite good, but…according to our information he’s also…Emma, maybe you’d like to tell us yourself? Am I correct? Has he made advances toward you?”

  I couldn’t answer. It felt like my mouth was full of sand and a hard lump had parked itself in my throat.

  “Emma,” Sigmund said in his nasal German accent. “It’s very important that you tell us what happened. Both for your own sake and for the other young people in this school. Has he ever approached you?”

  I hesitated for a second and then nodded. Mom emitted a hissing sound and picked up her purse from the floor.

  “What did he do?” Britt asked in a softer tone, and put her bony hand on mine. I pulled my hand away without answering. A tiny ladybug with two dots was crawling on the table beside my lemonade. What was it again…Could I wish for something, or did the ladybug need to have more spots?

  “I’m sorry, Emma, but we need to know. Has he kissed you?”

  The ladybug crawled toward the edge of the table. It was so close now, I could touch it. I stretched out my hand to see if it might want to climb up on my finger.

  “Emma.”

  Britt’s voice was insistent.

  “Has he kissed you, or touched you in any way?”

  I nodded without lifting my eyes from the ladybug. The room fell silent. So silent I could hear the cars passing by on the busy street outside and the sound of children laughing in the schoolyard.

  “Have you…” Britt hesitated. “Have you had…intercourse?”

  Intercourse. I shuddered. The word sounded like a contagious disease. I poked at the little orange insect with my fingertip.

  “Yes,” I said. Yes.

  The ladybug changed direction and headed toward the glass of lemonade again.

  —

  The frosted door closed behind us, and my mother pulled on her blazer. Every breath she took was followed by a loud hissing.

  Her face was red, and she pressed her purse tightly against her chest as she turned to me.

  I don’t know what I was expecting. A comment about how hard all this was for her, maybe. Or irritation that she’d lost valuable time coming to school in the middle of the day.

  The slap came without warning and almost knocked me off balance. For a second the room spun, and then a burning pain spread across my cheek.

  “Slut,” Mom said, and walked out of the room with heavy steps.

  HANNE

  I get lost on my way back to the police station. I don’t know if it’s because I’m upset after talking to Peter or if it’s the fault of the disease.

  Maybe it’s just the weather. The snow makes it hard to see more than a few yards in front of my face, and all the buildings are wrapped in a white haze. The street names are visible, but I can’t seem to remember where the streets lead, as if the whole map of Kungsholmen has been erased from my memory.

  The snow is creeping in around my neck, melting, running down my chest. My hands are frozen, and panic lurks somewhere behind my ribs, like a fist in my chest. It would be easy enough to ask the people I pass on the street: the young woman with the stroller, the man with a tennis racket slung over his shoulder, or even the couple making out unabashedly in front of an apartment building. But I can’t; I’m not able to admit even to myself that I can’t find my way back to the police station.

  The wind tears at my hood, and the hard little flakes whip against my cheek. Everything is white. Everything is snow and ice. I might as well be with the Inuit in Greenland, it’s that cold.

  I think of the men who tried to conquer the polar regions, often with disastrous results: Amundsen, Andrée, Strindberg, and Nansen. But most of all of Claus Paarss, the Danish-Norwegian military man who traveled to Greenland in 1728 to find the Norwegian settlers no one had heard from in two hundred years.

  When they’d planned the expedition, they figured young Norwegian men on skis would be able to explore the unknown continent in all directions without much trouble.

  Paarss crossed the North Atlantic with about twenty soldiers, twelve convicts, a group of prostitutes, and twelve horses. Once they arrived, his struggle against the elements—and his own men—began. Paarss’s men committed mutiny, and no sooner had he suppressed their insurrection than the crew began to die of scurvy and smallpox. The horses died too. And twice Paarss failed to cross the continent on foot over the sharp blocks of ice. Eventually, even the native Greenlanders abandoned the colony, and Paarss’s dream to populate the continent with Danish aristocrats and their families was dashed.

  Where does the human urge to tame the world come from? This urge is by no means limited to nature—we humans want to rule over each other as well, both in our societies and in our close relationships.

  Like Owe, I think. He’s spent his life trying to tame me. But he won’t succeed. Because I’ll do as the polar ice did: tire him out with my stubborn cold until he gives up and finds someone else to dominate.

  I blink against the snowflakes. Try again to find something to fix my gaze on, a landmark in all that white. It’s almost tempting to call Owe, because I know that he’d drop everything, jump into the car, and come pick me up. Save me, just like he always has when I mess up.

  A few seconds later the snowfall lessens, and the familiar contours of St. Eriks Hospital emerge. I draw a deep breath. Now I know exactly where I am, and how to get back to the warmth of the police station. But that terrible, paralyzing feeling of helplessness has taken hold. Doesn’t want to let go of me even once I’m back at my desk again, looking out the window toward Kungsholmsgatan. And even though I drink three cups of hot tea in a row, I’m still so cold I’m shaking.

  —

  I glance at Peter. He’s sitting a few yards away, his back turned to me, his eyes fixed on his computer. His gray-blond hair is damp, and on the floor beneath him small puddles have formed around his ridiculously thin sneakers.

  I wish I did have cancer—then I could tell him. But you can’t tell people you have emergent dementia. Especially not if it’s a person you just fell into bed with. It’s a thousand times worse than a sexually transmitted disease. More shameful, in some way. Losing your mind, getting lost inside yourself, is disgusting. Repulsive. I’m slowly turning into a vegetable, and nobody wants a vegetable.

  Except Owe.

  Maybe that is love. Being there for each other no matter what happens. It reminds me of that verse from Corinthians: Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

  But I don’t want Owe to “bear” and “endure” me. I just want to be left alone.

  Maybe I should go to Greenland. Make the trip that never happened. Now, while I still have time. But instead I’m sitting here, in the police station, the place where it all began, and where it might all end.

  Gunilla keeps saying I shouldn’t give up hope.

  There you go, something that is even more shameful: giving up hope. No one who is seriously ill should ever give up hope; it’s an unforgivable betrayal of your family and doctors. Yes, of your whole society, which believes all problems can be solved, all diseases cured.

  Gunilla says that as long as there’s life, there’s hope. Who knows—maybe the scientists will find a cure tomorrow.

  But if you don’t have the strength to hope, what then?

  Hope is just an overrated life raft that sick people are expected to cling to with a brave and grateful smile. Letting go is apparently not only foolhardy, but disloyal.

  But I’m so damn tired of being loyal.

  —

  After lunch I go through the local police’s interrogation of Emma Bohman
. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but something about it bothers me—something that’s not consistent with our theory. Suppose the woman in Jesper Orre’s house really is Emma Bohman. There remains the question of why Orre would murder her. If they had an affair and he wanted to get rid of her, then he couldn’t have been that emotionally involved. So why kill her in such a way? The placement of the head, the braced-open eyelids—all of it points to a perpetrator who harbored a very intense hatred of the victim. And I really can’t make out why Orre would hate Emma Bohman that much. At least not with the very limited knowledge I have of the two of them.

  Also, if Orre really wanted to kill Emma Bohman, why did he do it in his own home and not even bother hiding the body afterward? He must have realized he would be exposed as soon as she was found.

  Finally, if he did kill her—out of rage or perhaps affected by a temporary psychotic break—why leave home without a wallet or cellphone? Where do you go with no money and no phone in the middle of winter?

  It’s starting to get dark outside, and the yellow glow of the Advent candles reflects off the window. A calm has descended over the office. Only scattered quiet conversations and the clicking from Sanchez’s desk as she types something on her computer can be heard.

  I keep skimming through the investigation. Reading testimony of Jesper’s colleagues and friends. Nothing indicates any kind of psychiatric problems. No mention of violent behavior. This is also a problem. These types of crimes aren’t committed by healthy people with normal personal histories. Serious violent crime is also a kind of career, or whatever you want to call it. Usually, there are signs from a young age that something is wrong—deviant behavior, early criminality, or perhaps violence against animals or young children. Jesper Orre’s partiality for rough sex and pilfering women’s underwear must be considered normal enough. Most of us have dirty little secrets, but very few people murder or chop off other people’s heads.

  That behavior is so deviant it requires completely different explanatory models.

  And then there is Calderón. Who is not Chinese. Where the hell did I get that from, anyway? Just one of those stupid things I say nowadays. Maybe when I’m seriously ill, I’ll end up being really funny for the first time in my life. One of those patients who doubles their caretakers over with laughter and has the other patients choking on their baby food.

  Oh well.

  And even though Sanchez has gone through the Calderón investigation with a magnifying glass and interviewed his family again, she’s found no connection between him and Orre.

  I’m roused from my thoughts by a commotion at Sanchez’s desk. Manfred is talking loudly, waving his arms, and a few seconds later, Peter goes over to them. Manfred pulls on his coat. Sanchez does the same, puts her cellphone in her pocket, and turns off the light on her desk with a quick movement.

  Peter turns around and walks over to me. There’s some nervous energy in his body, and I understand immediately that something has happened.

  “They found a dead man near Orre’s house. Are you coming, Hanne?”

  —

  We’re in a small woodsy area just a quarter of a mile from Jesper Orre’s house. The snow has almost stopped falling as police lights sweep across the white landscape, turning it blue in the twilight. The branches groan under the weight of fallen snow, which crunches beneath me as I walk. Manfred holds up the blue-and-white police tape and waves me beneath it. Sanchez and Peter are already at the front of a group of people gathered about thirty feet away. Outside the police tape, some curious onlookers jostle about. One is jumping in place to stay warm; another takes photos with his cellphone. Uniformed police officers hold them at bay, telling them there’s nothing to see and urging them to go home.

  As I get closer to the group of officers and forensic technicians standing under a big tree, I see a familiar green box with the word “SAND” sticking up out of the snow, a storage container for the kind of sand they put on roads in the winter.

  “Some kids found him,” Manfred says, and meets my eyes. “Why do kids always have to find the stiffs? They were playing hide-and-seek when they found the body. As frozen as a fucking Popsicle.”

  I reach the group gathered around the box. Nod to some familiar faces and try to see what’s hidden inside. On the bottom of the container, I can just make out the outline of a man. He’s lying in a fetal position and is dressed in jeans and a light sweater. His face, which is covered with blackened blood and frost, looks strangely familiar.

  It’s Jesper Orre.

  EMMA

  TWO WEEKS EARLIER

  I root around in my makeshift toolbox. Decide on a hammer and chisel and stow them in my bag. The temperature is close to freezing, so I put on my thick jacket and winter boots, then leave the apartment and walk out to Valhallavägen to find a taxi.

  I’m freezing, even though I have on both hat and gloves. A few dog owners walk past in fur coats and down jackets, hunched over in the gusty wind. There aren’t many cars in sight. It would obviously have been better to preorder a taxi, but I don’t want to leave any trace in the taxi company’s booking system.

  After maybe ten minutes, I manage to flag down a cab. The windshield is covered with small ice crystals. I give the taxi driver an address a few blocks away from Jesper’s—might as well be cautious. The driver is named Jorge, and he’s very chatty. I answer his questions curtly and hope he’ll take the hint, which he does, falling silent after a while. Then there’s only the sound of the engine and the classical music on the radio.

  How could he do it? How could he live a double life for months, maybe years? How could Jesper be with me at the same time he was with another woman? Was it a game, a sport; was he trying to fool everybody—or just me—for as long as possible? Did he want to hurt me, ruin my life?

  I still have no answers, but the questions abound.

  And who’s to say I’m the only one? Maybe there are more women out there that he’s fooled. I rest my cheek against the cold window of the car and close my eyes. Trying to imagine others like me scattered across Stockholm in lonely apartments, but I can’t. I neither can nor want to believe that’s the case. How would he have the time, anyway?

  The taxi slows down in front of a red wooden house. I pay cash and step out into the cold. Jorge disappears into the night, and everything is still and quiet. In the distance, a dog is barking.

  I start walking along the narrow street. Almost immediately, I step in a puddle. A thin film of ice cracks with a brittle crunch. On both sides of me stand big, turn-of-the-century houses. Their windows are lit, and I think about how in every house there’s a family with its own unique story. I catch myself assuming that the people who live in those big, beautiful houses are happy, but of course that’s ridiculous. Because money and power are no guarantee of happiness, right?

  The cross street is so small I almost miss it. Here the houses are newer, maybe from the fifties, and a bit smaller. The sidewalk is covered with drifts of leaves, which frost has transformed into a treacherously slippery patchwork. A full moon floats above the houses on the right, perfectly round and shimmering gold, like a ripe piece of fruit.

  I recognize the house immediately. Blackened stumps stick up out of the ground where the garage once stood, and a faint odor of burnt wood speaks to what happened. Blue-and-white police tape is wrapped around the burnt-down building like ribbon around a giant gift. It flutters a little in the wind. My heart leaps in my chest. At least I’ve had some impact on his life, reached him, even if it’s not in the way I had imagined.

  You brought this on yourself, I think. It didn’t have to turn out like this.

  There’s a light shining from the window in the front door, but otherwise the house lies dark on its woody slope. I hesitate for a second before opening the gate and approaching the entrance. Drooping, frostbitten summer flowers line the narrow gravel path, and beyond them lies a wide lawn. A few scattered junipers and pine trees stick out like on a barren mountainside. It’s
not a very nice yard. Gardening must not be one of Jesper’s interests. But then again, what do I actually know about his interests, about who he really is?

  The brass button of the doorbell is cold under my finger. For a moment it feels like something very important is about to happen, as if by pressing this button I’m making an irreversible decision. I push away the thought as ridiculous. This started a long time ago. That I’m standing here today is a natural consequence of what Jesper did to me.

  But maybe this is exactly what he wants?

  The thought bothers me, and I do what I can to avoid following it to its inevitable conclusion. Instead, I press the doorbell. Immediately I hear an angry buzzing sound inside the house. My heart is racing now, and my stomach cramps up. I’m not sure what I’ll do if he opens the door and we end up face-to-face. Maybe I should have prepared more, written some notes, because I don’t trust myself to remember everything I need to say.

  I stand for a while on the front steps with my finger on the doorbell, watching my breath turn into small white clouds that the wind dissolves, but nothing happens. I press the doorbell again. It buzzes. Drilling a deep, ugly hole into the silence.

  I look around.

  I see the house across the street, which is completely dark, and farther away, down toward the water, more houses. There are lights in some windows and smoke rising from one chimney, but besides that all is still, no people or cars in sight.

  After a few minutes, I go down the stone steps and walk around to the short side of the white stucco house, where two basement windows sit low to the ground. I crouch down and peer inside. It’s dark, except for a faint light streaming through an open door at the far end of the space.

  After a while, the contours of a washing machine emerge from the gloom. I continue around the building, inspecting windows. The house seems empty. I consider the risks—the house could have an alarm. But surely I’ll hear it if it goes off? Also, I haven’t seen any signs or stickers warning of an alarm system.