Annika stood up abruptly. “I don’t give a damn about your cards. It’s bullshit,” she said, and marched off to her room, shutting the door behind her.
Part Three
September
Nineteen Years, Two Months, and Eighteen Days
I think I’m quite good at living. I imagine that in reality my life is quite bright. My breath is so light, my legs so smooth, my mind so open. I believe I have a gift for being happy. I think I love to be alive. I sense a shimmer somewhere just beyond, just nearby, but intangible.
How simple it can all be. How little is really needed. Sun. Wind. Direction. Context. Commitment. Love. Freedom. Freedom…
But he says
he will never
let me go.
Monday 3 September
The landscape didn’t materialize until about a minute before the plane touched the ground. The clouds hung just above the trees, spreading a fine mist of rain.
I hope the weather’s been this bad all the time, Annika thought. It would serve the bastards right.
The plane taxied to Arlanda Terminal 2, the same one they’d taken off from. Annika had been seriously disappointed that Terminal 2 was only an annex to the real international terminal, with hardly any duty-free shops. It was where the marginal airlines carried on their business, international and domestic, charter and scheduled. No glamour whatsoever.
At least no customs agents were around.
It’s something, she thought as she walked through the green channel.
Of course, her bags came last of all. The airport bus was packed, and she had to stand for the forty-five-minute journey into central Stockholm and the City Terminal. When she stepped out on the Klaraberg Viaduct, it was raining properly. Her cloth bags absorbed the rain and her luggage got soaked. She swore under her breath and jumped on the 52 bus on Bolindersplan.
The apartment was quiet, the curtains resting peacefully in the morning light. She put her bags on the rug in the hall and sank down on the living room couch, groggy with fatigue. The plane had been scheduled to leave yesterday at four in the afternoon, but for reasons that were never disclosed, they had spent eight hours in the Turkish airport and another five in the plane itself before they finally took off. Oh, well, that’s the kind of thing that happened on last-minute trips. It wasn’t as if she was in a hurry to get anywhere.
She leaned back on the couch, shut her eyes, and allowed the unease to come to her. She had suppressed it during all those hot days in Turkey, focusing on absorbing the Asian sounds, the light, and the smells. She had eaten well, salads and kabobs, and she’d drunk wine with her lunch. Now she felt her stomach tighten and her throat constrict. When she tried to visualize her future, she saw nothing. Blank. White. Empty. No contours.
I have to forget, she thought. It begins now.
Annika fell asleep on the couch but woke up after ten minutes, freezing in her wet clothes.
She undressed and sprinted down to the communal bathroom in the basement.
When she returned upstairs, she tiptoed into the kitchen and popped her head around the door to Patricia’s room. No one was in. It was both disconcerting and surprising. On her way back to Stockholm, she’d been annoyed at the thought of Patricia’s being there. But she’d been wrong to think she wanted to be alone. The absence of her black mane on the pillow filled her with a sense of loss; it wasn’t a good feeling.
She restlessly paced the apartment, from one room to another. She made coffee that she couldn’t drink. She emptied out her wet clothes on the floor, then draped them over chairs and on door handles. The rooms filled with a sour, damp smell, so she opened a window.
Now what? she thought.
What am I going to do with my life?
How am I going to make a living?
She slumped back down on the couch. Her tiredness squeezed into a small lump of anxiety just beneath her breastbone. She had difficulty breathing. The curtain in front of the open window rose and billowed into the room, then sank back down again. Annika noticed that the floor next to the window was getting wet and got up to wipe it dry.
The building’s going to be renovated, she suddenly thought to herself. It doesn’t matter. It’s pointless. Nobody cares if the floor is ruined. Why make the effort?
The realization that this was somehow emblematic of her own situation filled her with oceans of self-pity. She sank back down on the couch. She pulled her knees up to her chin and rocked back and forth crying. She was clutching her arms so tightly round her legs that they ached.
It’s all over, she thought. Where can I go? Who’ll help me now?
The realization, clear as crystal, hit her.
Grandma.
She dialed the number and with closed eyes prayed that her grandmother would be in her apartment and not out at Lyckebo.
“Sofia Hällström,” the old woman answered.
“Oh, Grandma!” Annika was crying.
“Dearest little girl, what’s wrong?”
The woman sounded so frightened that Annika forced herself to stop crying. “I feel so lonely and miserable.”
Her grandmother sighed. “Life’s like that. Sometimes it really is a struggle. The main thing is to not give up. Do you hear that?”
“But what’s the point?” Annika said, on the verge of breaking out in tears again.
The old woman’s voice sounded a bit tired. “Loneliness is difficult. People can’t manage without their tribe. You’ve been expelled from the set you wanted to belong to, it’s cut the ground from under your feet. No wonder, Annika. It would be stranger if you were all right. Allow yourself to feel bad and you can take care of yourself.”
Annika wiped her face with the back of her hand. “I just want to die.”
“I know, but you won’t. You’re going to live so that you can put me in the earth when that day comes.”
“What are you saying?” Annika whispered down the phone. “Are you ill? You mustn’t ever die!”
The woman chuckled. “No, I’m not ill, but we’re all going to die. And you’re going to take care of yourself and not do anything rash, my dear. Take it easy and allow the pain to come to you. You can outrun it for a while, but it will always catch up to you. Let it wash over you, feel it, live it. You won’t die. You’ll survive, and when you come out on the other side, you’ll be a stronger person. Older and wiser.”
Annika smiled. “Like you, Grandma.”
The woman laughed. “Have a cup of cocoa, Annika. Curl up on the couch and watch one of those TV shows, that’s what I do when things feel difficult. Put a rug over your legs, you have to be warm and comfy. Everything will be all right, you’ll see.”
They fell silent and Annika realized how selfish she was being.
“How are things with you?” she asked quickly.
“Well, it’s been raining every day since you left. I only came here to do some shopping and do the washing, so you were lucky to catch me.”
There is a God, Annika thought.
“I’ve talked to Ingegerd and she tells me Harpsund has been very busy,” her grandmother said in her gossipy tone of voice.
Annika smiled. “And how’s the prime minister’s slimming plan coming along?”
“Not at all, it’s been postponed indefinitely. Others have been there who’ve been a lot less hungry.”
Her grandmother’s gossip with the new housekeeper at Harpsund didn’t really interest Annika, but she wanted to be polite. “Oh, who’s that then?”
“The minister that resigned, Christer Lundgren. He arrived the day before it was announced and stayed for a week. Every journalist in the country was looking for him, but no one found him.”
Annika laughed. “The things you know! You’ve been at the center of things, haven’t you!”
They both laughed and Annika could feel the lump in her chest slowly dissolving and trickling away.
“Thanks, Grandma,” she said in a low voice.
“Just come here to me if things
get too difficult. Whiskas misses you.”
“He does not. Not the way you spoil him. Give him a big kiss from me.”
The warmth that came when she thought of her grandmother lingered after they hung up; still, the tears began trickling down again— sad but not desperate, heavy yet lighter.
When the phone rang again, the shrill signal made her jump.
“So you’re back? Jesus, you’ve been gone for a long time. How was it?”
Annika wiped her face with the back of her hand. “It was great. Turkey is amazing.”
“Glad to hear it,” Anne Snapphane said. “Maybe I should go. What’s the medical service like?”
Annika couldn’t hold back her laughter, it just bubbled up and over before she had time to think. “They’ve got special clinics for hypochondriacs. X-ray treatment for breakfast, Prozac with your lunch, and antibiotics for dinner.”
“Sounds good, but what’s the radon emanation in the buildings like? Where did you end up?”
Annika laughed again. “In a half-built resort ten miles outside of Alanya, full of Germans. I went up to Istanbul and stayed with a woman I met on the bus and worked for a week in her hotel. Then I moved on to Ankara, which is a lot more modern.” A peaceful feeling spread over her body, making her legs feel soft and relaxed.
“Where did you stay?”
“I arrived late at night and the bus station was pretty chaotic. I just jumped into the first taxi I saw and said, ‘Hotel International.’ And there was one, with really nice staff.”
“And you stayed in a suite even though you only paid for a single room?”
“How did you know?”
Anne laughed. “You were born lucky. You know that.”
They both laughed. They had a real affinity. The silence that followed was warm and light.
“Have you left yet?” Annika wondered.
“Yep, I quit yesterday. My TV job starts on the twelfth with some kind of fall kickoff. What about you, what are you going to do?”
Annika heaved a sigh. The lump became tangible again. “I don’t know, I haven’t got that far yet. I could always work in the hotel in Istanbul.”
“Come with me to Piteå. I’m flying up this afternoon.”
“No thanks, I’ve spent the last twenty-four hours in planes.”
“So you’re used to it then. Come with me! Have you ever been north of the Klar River?”
“I haven’t even unpacked.”
“Even better. My parents have a huge house in Pitholm, so there’s plenty of room for you. And you could always go back home tomorrow if you want to.”
Annika looked at the depressing heap of wet clothes and made her mind up. “So there are seats available?”
After hanging up, Annika rushed to her bedroom, found her old work carryall, and threw in two pairs of panties and a T-shirt. She picked up her toilet bag from the living-room floor.
Before she went to meet Anne on Kungsholms Square, she got a rag and wiped the floor under the window.
*
Disappointed, Annika looked around. “Where are the mountains?”
“Don’t be such a Stockholmer,” Anne told her. “We’re on the coast. The Riviera of the North. Come on, the airport taxis are over there.”
The crossed the tarmac surrounding Kallax Airport. Annika’s eyes took in the surroundings— mostly fir trees, flat land. The sky was almost clear and the sun was shining. It was quite cold, at least for someone just back from Turkey. A fighter plane roared past above their heads.
“Air Force Base Twenty-one,” Anne said, and threw her bags in the trunk of the taxi. “Kallax doubles as a military air base. I learned to parachute here.”
Annika kept her bag on her lap. Two men in suits squeezed into the car before they set off for Piteå.
They drove past small villages and little patches of tilled land, but the E4 road they traveled along was mostly surrounded by forest. The leaves were blazing in radiant autumnal colors even though it was only the beginning of September.
“When does the winter start up here?” Annika wondered.
“I passed my driving test on the seventh of October. Two days later there was a blizzard. I drove straight into a ditch.”
They stopped at the turning to Norrfjärden to drop off one of the suits.
Twenty minutes later, Annika and Anne got out at the bus station in Piteå.
They put Anne’s bags in a left-luggage locker inside the waiting room.
“Dad will pick us up in an hour. Do you want to go for a cup of coffee?”
At Ekbergs Café, Annika had a prawn sandwich. She’d got her appetite back.
“This was a great idea,” she said.
“Haven’t you had any withdrawal symptoms?” Anne wondered.
Annika looked up in surprise. “From what?”
“Life. The news. The minister.”
Annika cut a large piece from her prawn sandwich. “I don’t give a damn about any of that,” she said morosely.
“Don’t you want to know what’s been happening?”
Annika shook her head and chewed frenetically.
“Okay,” Anne said. “Why do you spell Bengtzon with a z?”
Annika shrugged. “I don’t know, actually. My great-great-grandfather Gottfried came to Hälleforsnäs at the end of the 1850s. Lasse Celsing, the ironworks proprietor, had installed a new stamping machine, and my ancestor was in charge of it. A cousin of mine tried to do some genealogical research, but he didn’t get very far. He came to a stop on Gottfried. Nobody knows where he came from— he may have been German or Czech. He entered himself on the list as Bengtzon.”
Anne took a big bite from her marzipan cake. “What about your mom?”
“She’s from Hälleforsnäs’s oldest family of foundry men. I’ve practically got the blast furnace stamped on my forehead. What about you? How can you be called Snapphane and come from Lapland?”
Anne groaned and licked her spoon. “Like I said, this is the coast. Everybody up here, apart from the Sami, come from somewhere else. They were loggers, railway laborers, Walloons, and other drifters. According to the family legend, Snapphane was first used as a term of abuse for a light-fingered Danish ancestor who was hanged for theft on the gallows hill outside Norrfjärden sometime in the eighteenth century. As a warning to others, his kids were also called Snapphane, and they didn’t do very well either. A furnace on your forehead, well, I wish! My family crest has a gallows at the center.”
Annika smiled and licked up the last dollop of mayonnaise. “Good story.”
“There’s probably not a word of truth in it. Shall we go?”
*
Anne’s father was called Hans. He seemed genuinely pleased to meet one of Anne’s colleagues from Stockholm.
“There’s so much to see here,” he said with great enthusiasm while his Volvo cruised slowly down Sundsgatan. “There’s Storfors, the Elias Cave, the Böleby Tannery, Grans Farm Museum. There’s Altersbruk, the old ironworks with a pond and a mill—”
“Come off it, Dad,” Anne said, a bit embarrassed. “Annika is here to see me. You sound like a tour guide.”
Hans wasn’t put out. “Just let me know if you want to go anyplace, and I’ll give you a ride,” he said cheerfully, and looked at Annika in the rearview mirror.
Annika nodded and then turned her gaze out through the window. She glimpsed a narrow canal and they suddenly left the town center.
Piteå. That’s where he lived— the man who had called Creepy Calls on the same day that Studio 69 revealed that Christer Lundgren had visited a strip club. Wasn’t he married to the minister’s cousin?
She instinctively fished around in her bag. Her notepad was still there and she opened it toward the back.
“Roger Sundström,” she read out, “from Piteå. Do you know anyone by that name?”
Anne’s father turned left in a traffic circle and thought out loud. “Sundström… Roger Sundström— what does he do?”
“I
don’t know.” Annika turned the pages over. “Here we are, his wife’s called Britt-Inger.”
“Everybody’s wife is called Britt-Inger up here,” Hans said. “Sorry, can’t help you there.”
“Why are you asking?“Anne wondered.
“I got a weird tip-off about the minister for foreign trade on the eve of his resignation from a Roger Sundström in Piteå.”
“And I know someone who doesn’t give a damn about journalism anymore,” Anne said in a sugary voice.
Annika shoved the pad into her bag and put it on the floor. “So do I.”
Anne’s parents’ house was on Oli-Jans Street in Pitholm. It was spacious and modern.
“You girls get settled upstairs,” Anne’s father said. “I’ll fix some dinner. Britt-Inger is working tonight.”
Annika gave a look of surprise. “Mom. He wasn’t joking.”
The upper floor was open and bright. On the left, by a window, was a desk with a computer, a printer, and a scanner. On the right were two guest rooms. They took one each.
While Hans cooked dinner, they went over Anne’s old record collection that still stood in the hi-fi bench in the living room.
“Jesus, you’ve got this?” Annika said in amazement, pulling out Jim Steinman’s solo album Bad for Good.
“It’s a collector’s item,” Anne said.
“I’ve never met anyone who’s ever heard this record. Apart from me.”
“It’s fantastic. Did you know he used material from this for both his Meat Loaf productions and Streets of Fire?”
“Yep,” Annika said, scrutinizing the record cover. “The hook from the title song went into ‘Nowhere Fast’ in the movie.”
“Yeah, and ‘Love and Death and an American Guitar’ is an intro on Meat Loaf’s Back into Hell, except it’s called ‘Wasted Youth.’”
“Genuinely awesome,” Annika said.
“Godlike.”
They sat in silence for a moment, reflecting on Jim Steinman’s greatness.
“Have you got his Bonnie Tyler productions?” Annika wondered.
“Sure. Which one do you want? Secret Dreams and Forbidden Fire?”
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