The Ice Beneath Her

by Camilla Grebe

  I see them instantly. They’re sitting in the kitchen, eating, and the binoculars take me so close to their family idyll that I shudder. Jesper sits with his back toward me, and the woman with the dark hair sits opposite. She has a T-shirt on, and it looks like she’s in the midst of some sort of discussion with Jesper; she gestures excitedly, leaning forward toward him while stabbing something that looks like a piece of meat with a fork.

  A blond girl who’s probably around six or so is sitting next to the woman. That must be her daughter, I think.

  Suddenly I feel ill and the heaviness in my chest returns.

  HANNE

  Gunilla wraps me in a blanket and puts on some tea. All the while telling me about the responsibility she says I have to myself.

  “If he likes you, and you like him, I don’t understand why you persist in pushing him away.”

  “But I’m sick,” I insist.

  “Oh, please. Stop that. You might not get any worse for several years. Are you going to sit here alone until then? With me and Frida? Do something with your life instead. Otherwise, you might as well move back in with Owe.”

  The thought of Owe and our dreary apartment on Skeppargatan makes my stomach turn.

  “I will never move back in with Owe.”

  Gunilla sighs and sinks down on the chair opposite me, massaging her bad back with one hand while lighting a candle and yawning.

  “This is exactly what Owe wants. You’re trapped in your own self-pity. Taking no initiative and acting like you’re still with him. Enjoy your life instead of punishing yourself.”

  I ponder her words. That I might be too strict with myself is a completely new thought. I’ve always been the one who revolted, at least until Owe forced me into submission. Owe is the rigid one, not me. He’s the father to my defiant teenager. But maybe there’s something to what Gunilla says: I don’t allow myself anything. I use my illness as an excuse not to participate in life—which is flowing like sand from a fist, with me unable to stop it.

  “I just mean that I can’t burden him with my disease. I can’t expect him to be my caretaker.”

  “Oh my God. Listen to yourself. He’s a grown man. He can decide for himself if he wants to be with you. You were honest and told him about the disease.”

  I sip the hot tea without answering. Maybe she’s right.

  “So what do you think I should do?” I ask after a while.

  “You don’t need to make any life-changing decisions right now. Date a little. Allow yourself to feel what you want. Don’t take everything so seriously. You’re not gonna get married and have kids, right? You’re two middle-aged people who like each other and want to spend time together. That’s all.”

  “But that’s also a problem. I’m far too old for him. He should meet a younger woman. Start a family. You know, all that stuff.”

  “It doesn’t seem like he wants a family. Maybe that’s not his thing. Besides, he already has a son, right?”

  I think about Albin, the boy he never sees and never wants to talk about. There’s so much about Peter I don’t understand, so much that’s strange. But maybe that’s just how life is. People make strange choices, and it’s impossible to ever fully understand anyone else. Sometimes you just have to accept them as they are. Actually, the same is true of Owe. I don’t really know why he is like he is, even though we’ve lived together for so many years. The only thing I know for certain is that I can’t stand him anymore. That I’ve had enough.

  “Maybe,” I say. “We’ll see.”

  “Maybe is good,” Gunilla says, and nods slowly.

  Gunilla leaves to hang up laundry in the basement, and I remain in the kitchen. Staring into the warm flickering flame of the candle and thinking about the children who never came. The children who never grew up in our big apartment, who never started school or joined the scouts. Never came home with skinned knees, never played videogames or asked for more allowance. Never graduated or had girlfriends or boyfriends, never moved away from home.

  I didn’t miss them until it was too late. But afterward, when I was too old, the sadness of what never was hit. Sometimes it almost felt like it took physical shape, materialized between Owe and me at the dinner table, keeping us from reaching each other.

  I reach for the notebook lying on the kitchen table. Tear out a sheet and pick up a pen. Begin a list titled “Continue Seeing Peter.”

  In the plus column, I write:

  Company.

  Good sex (finally!).

  True love (?).

  Something I’ve chosen, for my own sake.

  I think for a moment and continue with the minus column:

  Becomes complicated if/when I get worse.

  Becomes unbearable if/when he betrays me again.

  I look at the list for a while without getting any wiser. Then I move it over to the candle and let it catch on fire. The flame flares up and a wave of heat slams into my face as my fears and hopes are turned to ashes.

  I’m about to blow out the candle when my cell rings. It’s Manfred. He sounds out of breath, as if he’s just run up a flight of stairs. But when I hear what he says, I realize that something else is making him sound that way: excitement and maybe a hint of stress.

  “Jesper Orre had a relationship with Angelica Wennerlind, and it can’t be ruled out that’s she’s dead too. The investigation team is meeting in a half hour. Can you come?”

  —

  On my way to the police station, I think of Peter. How strange it is that he never explained why he didn’t show up on that night ten years ago. I’d like to ask him about it someday. Not because I’m still angry, but because I need to understand what happened. What he was thinking when he left me on that stoop, alone with my shame and my two old suitcases plastered with stickers from our family vacations.

  The event was so life-altering for me, so self-defining, and he’d never given me an explanation. All I got was that silly letter, in which he wrote that he couldn’t live with me because he’d only hurt me.

  Hurt me how? I want to ask him. As if his betrayal didn’t hurt enough, I think as I look out the car window and the taxi stops in front of the police station entrance.

  I exit into darkness so black and dense, it’s almost possible to touch. I think about the Inuit. They’re not afraid of the polar night. They lie on the ice, waiting next to the seals’ breathing holes until one of the fat, spool-shaped animals surfaces. Waiting for the right moment to throw their harpoons.

  Or rather, they did until the Danes came. Now I’ve heard it’s all about movies and beer, even in the most remote corners of Greenland. Sitting inertly in front of a TV has replaced waiting alertly atop pack ice even in the smallest villages.

  Seven years ago, I actually managed to convince Owe we should go there. The flight to Nuuk was booked, as well as our transportation to Ittoqqortoormiit, via Kulusuk. We had a dog sitter for Charlie, and Owe had taken two weeks off. But then the Edith incident happened.

  Edith was a doctor doing her residency, and Owe was her adviser for the psychiatric portion. I soon realized she was more than that. There was something about the way he talked about her, how he mentioned her name all the time, and how he lingered on that first syllable when he said it.

  Eeedith.

  I knew he’d soon tire of her. He always did. Especially with the younger women, who didn’t offer sufficient intellectual stimulation. Even if he was a dirty old man, his vanity needed someone who could reflect his intellect and confirm it—and usually those younger women couldn’t do that for him.

  And it turned out just as I had predicted. After a few weeks he stopped talking about Edith. But then one night, two days before we were going to leave for Greenland, he came into the bedroom and stood behind me. I was packing and had my back to him when he put his hands lightly on my shoulders.

  “I can’t go, Hanne.”

  I carefully folded my thermal underwear and put it in the suitcase on the bed. Turned around and met his eyes.
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  He released me and looked out the window. “It’s Edith. She had a miscarriage.”

  —

  The difficult thing about Edith wasn’t that she’d fucked my husband—many had. The difficult thing was that she got pregnant, when I couldn’t. That her young body was actually willing to bear Owe’s children.

  But Edith didn’t really change anything between Owe and me. Our relationship was what it was. We just never went to Greenland. And after that story I no longer felt like going anywhere with him. Now I’m starting to suspect that my obsession with Greenland is about something else. That Greenland is a kind of symbol for all the things in my life that never turned out. That the country embodies all the hopes and desires I once had.

  —

  The office is lit up like a Christmas tree, far out into the corridor, and the atmosphere is animated but also nervous, as if everyone is aware that something crucial has occurred. Manfred and Peter are talking to each other, and Bergdahl, the investigator who helped sort the tips, is pacing around the room in large circles with his hands in his pockets.

  Peter raises his hand, and I nod back. I try to avoid looking at him too much. Maybe I’m afraid he’ll see what I feel.

  Owe always claimed he could see what I was thinking and feeling just by looking at me. And as the years went by, I started to believe that was true, because he was almost always right. Though in hindsight, I think it was probably just another way for him to exercise power over me. He was so obsessed with controlling me—he wanted me to believe I couldn’t think an independent thought without his approval.

  “Angelica Wennerlind and Emma Bohman both had relationships with Jesper Orre,” Manfred says, and pours fresh coffee into flimsy paper cups. “We have to assume that there may be at least one more victim that we haven’t found yet. The area around Orre’s house will be searched again tomorrow morning and the radius will be extended. Bergdahl is in charge of that. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that we don’t find any more bodies on that block; we’d never live that down. Sanchez is working on trying to connect Orre to the Calderón murder, and other than that we’re waiting for confirmation from the odontologist as to the identity of the woman in Orre’s house. We should get that in the next few hours.”

  “What a fucking psychopath,” Bergdahl mumbles.

  Manfred catches my eye. “What do you say, Hanne? Was Orre a psychopath?”

  I shrug my shoulders. I’m both flattered and worried that Manfred seems to think I can determine such a thing without ever having met Jesper Orre. Laypeople often make that mistake—they think that psychologists and behavioral scientists can diagnose people just by reading a report about them. As if evaluating a person’s mental health is something you can learn through a correspondence course.

  “ ‘Psychopath’ is a misused word. We call everyone a psycho these days.”

  “Fuck psychological subtleties for now,” Manfred says.

  “Psychological subtleties are my profession,” I say. “And I’m not going to abandon that just because you want me to make a premature statement. Based on what we know about him, there’s actually nothing to suggest he was a psychopath. Sleeping around and preferring his sex kinky doesn’t mean he also likes to kill people. And being an asshole at work isn’t particularly damning either. Sure, he may have killed those girls, but there’s just not much in his past to suggest he’s capable of such a thing. That’s all I can say.”

  “Okay,” Manfred says. “But what do you think?”

  I ponder for a moment, go over to the wall, and stare at the information hanging there about Orre, Calderón, and the missing women. There’s something bothering me here, something lurking beneath the surface that doesn’t want to reveal itself, and it frustrates me.

  “Something is off,” I say.

  “Oh, you don’t say,” Manfred says acidly.

  I ignore him. Run my finger over the papers. Stop in front of the document about Emma Bohman’s background: Raised on Kapellgränd on Södermalm. Went to primary school at the Katarina Norra School. Started working at Clothes&More three years ago. Her mother died in September of this year, her father in May exactly ten years ago.

  “Here,” I say. “Here it is!”

  But just as I’m formulating my thoughts, I’m interrupted by the ringing of a cellphone.

  Manfred raises his hand to me and answers.

  “Yes,” he says. “Okay. And he’s sure? Thanks; see you soon.”

  He hangs up and puts the phone on his desk, clasps his hands behind his neck.

  “That was Sanchez. The murdered woman has been identified as Angelica Wennerlind.”

  EMMA

  ONE WEEK EARLIER

  First night in the shed. I close my eyes and hope the sleeping bag is as good as they claimed. So far it feels fine, but I’m wearing both my hat and coat as I lie motionless in my yellow polyester cocoon.

  I’m just like the butterfly, I think. I’m biding my time, waiting for my transformation to happen, so I can do what I’m destined to do. I fiddle with the short tufts of my hair, thinking about Olga and Mahnoor walking back and forth across the store, listening to that hopelessly repetitive soundtrack day in and day out. I feel sorry for them. They’re no more than animals in a cage. I am infinitely freer. I’m broke and dumped, but I’m free. And soon, very soon, I’ll finish what I started.

  The plan is simple. I’ll wait until the dark-haired woman and child leave the house and go speak to Jesper. I’ll force him to listen, even if I have to threaten him. And this time he won’t get away. I deserve to know the truth.

  What happens after that I don’t really know. But I won’t hurt him, because I’m not a monster.

  A monster is a person who lies and deceives. Someone who wrecks and destroys things for his own amusement. Who leaves another person’s life in ruins like a bombed-out city or a burnt-down forest.

  A monster is someone who does all that and enjoys it.

  Like Jesper.

  Mom said I should be cautious about men, that they were always after something. She made it sound like they wanted to steal something from me: my dignity, or maybe my independence. I wish she’d told me the truth instead. The opposite is true. You never get rid of the men you let in close. It is as if they’re stuck fast to your life.

  Jesper. Woody.

  I carry them with me wherever I go. They’re in my thoughts and in my dreams. Even my body remembers them: their scent, the feeling of their soft, warm skin against mine, the sound of muffled groans and heavy breathing next to my ear.

  I wish I could wash them off like dirt. Wish soap and water could take away what I can’t erase from my consciousness. I wish in some mysterious way I could be transported back in time to before I met them. Back to when I was still full of hope and had a clear, naïve vision of how my life would turn out.

  —

  I wake up to something tickling my cheek. Gray light filters in through the dirty windows, over which hoarfrost has spread during the night. Even though it must be below freezing in the shed, I’m not cold. But my neck and back ache after a night spent on that hard, too-short sofa.

  I sit up wearily, reach for the coffee thermos, and pour the hot liquid into a tin cup. The floor is freezing cold, and I immediately pull on a pair of ski pants. Then I go to the window with my binoculars. Only now do I see that the hoarfrost is on the inside of the window. I rub off a bit with my sleeve. The sky is a dull steel gray, as if it’s carrying more snow. The slope down toward Jesper’s house is untouched under a thick layer of new-fallen snow. No one—no sledding children, not even a dog—has been anywhere near my hiding place during the night.

  It’s almost funny.

  They’re sitting at their kitchen table eating breakfast, in exactly the same places as yesterday. As if they’ve been sitting there all night and just exchanged their meat for cereal. The little blond girl is there too. She’s wearing striped pajamas, and the woman is wearing a thick white robe, like something out of a sp
a ad. Jesper is still sitting with his back to me, as if he knows where I am and wants to demonstrate by his indifference how little he cares about me.

  You can turn your back to me, but you can’t escape, I think. I’m close now. Can almost reach out and touch you and your perfect life. Poke at it and make it collapse like the flimsy house of cards that it is.

  The thought puts me in a better mood, and I take out bread and ham from the bag tucked under the old rusty grill and we all eat breakfast together, or whatever you want to call it with me eating my breakfast while watching them eat theirs. A moment later Jesper leaves the kitchen. The woman and child remain. Five minutes later he comes back in, dressed in some sort of workout clothes. The dark-haired woman, who’s still sitting at the table, leans back so that the dressing gown gapes open, and Jesper bends forward and kisses her while putting his hand under her robe against her breast.

  I put the binoculars in my lap, clench my eyes shut. Pick at the scab on my hand so hard that it falls off and warm blood starts to drip onto the floor. It’s strange that it hurts just as much every time. I know that he deceived me. That’s not news. I’ve been in their house, seen them together. So why does it still hurt so fucking much? Why haven’t I learned to defend myself against the pain?

  I pick up the binoculars again and catch a glimpse of Jesper jogging away from the house toward the water. Then he disappears out of sight. And now the kitchen is empty. Just a solitary cup remains sitting on the table.

  I follow the side of the house with my binoculars and up toward the upstairs windows. The curtains are pulled in Jesper’s bedroom, but in the window next to it, I see the little girl again. It’s impossible to make out what she’s doing, but her little blond head is moving up and down in the room, as if she’s jumping or running around. Then she disappears too. The house seems empty, abandoned, but I know they’re in there somewhere.

  I decide to take a break. I pee in the old red plastic bucket standing in a corner, brush my teeth, and run my fingers through my short hair. Then I settle back into the sofa and wait, staring out the small window. After maybe a half hour Jesper returns. I see him come jogging cautiously back, as if it’s slippery and he’s afraid of falling. He stops and stretches a bit against a tree before heading toward the entrance.