26
THE TEMPERATURE DROPPED LATE IN THE NIGHT. WHEN WINTER awoke, the air in the apartment smelled different—of green instead of white. It was colder and darker, like a lingering sadness at the long summer’s passing, finally expired at a record old age.
He put his feet on the sanded fir floor, its coolness soft beneath the arches of his feet. Then he yawned, a leftover from burning the midnight oil with his head bowed over the PowerBook he could now see through the bedroom doorway, screen still open. Today it was a different apartment. He’d grown used to four months of almost constant sunshine and a home that offered no protection from the light.
In the kitchen he raised the blinds without getting dazzled. The sky had no opening. An invisible rain made the awnings across the park glisten. The streetcars passed beneath him with a sound reminiscent of a ship.
Winter walked back into the living room in his robe and opened the door to the balcony. The wet became more audible, as if he’d stepped out of a wheelhouse and found himself at sea.
He drew air into his lungs, as much as he could manage. It felt good. He felt good. The fatigue from the night before was gone, and he realized that the heavy heat had had an adverse effect on him, on his work.
It was like a depression, he thought. Everything started to crumble to bits. We saw the proof. Things exploded. People went crazy and shot each other. A man and his son were at the end of their tether.
A week earlier, the dramatic standoff outside Ullevi had had an undramatic resolution. The man left his gun on the bus and stepped off, holding his son by the hand. Winter heard that the son seemed happy and perky, waving to his mother, who was standing there—she who had pleaded with her husband.
The family’s lawyer had submitted a new application for a residence permit. But the government was following a hard line. Desperation was to be regarded as threat and coercion. Despair, though it may move the hearts of the weak, had no effect on the authorities’ judgment.
It was nine o’clock in the morning and it was Saturday. The dizziness had returned for two split seconds on Friday afternoon, so Winter had decided to stay home in the shadows today.
Now the shadows were gone, as was that nagging sensation of losing his footing. He knew he would not feel dizzy again, not for a very long time. I’m more of a northerner than I realized, he thought. Surround me with crispness and cold and I function better.
Winter stepped back inside and lingered by his desk. He looked at the computer screen but didn’t turn it on. Last night he’d tried to sort through all the various sidetracks, as if he were working in a rail yard. He’d followed different leads until they ended, then reversed course to see if he could spot anything that had fallen off along the way, in a ditch or in the grass.
A lot of time had been spent following up on every public sighting of thirty-year-old fair-haired women at “mysterious” locations or who’d appeared generally confused or suspicious. Winter had sent all the documentation to Interpol. It was a new tack, and he hadn’t received any usable information from there as yet. He didn’t think she came from another country. The fillings in her teeth were done in Sweden, even the ones that were done when she was a little girl. She could have been living abroad, but that was another matter.
He’d called up other police precincts throughout the country.
His staff had continued to question the boys about the boat, and they were telling the truth. But their boat had been used for something. Maybe it was the boat that Andrea Maltzer saw out on the lake. If she really had seen a boat. Winter had thought about her, and her lover, von Holten. There was something—he didn’t know what it was—something that made him not quite swallow her whole story. Why hadn’t she called a cab right away? Had she planned on borrowing the car? Was she there alone? All these questions ran through Winter’s mind, and he’d typed them on his screen before the temperature outside had dropped.
Two officers had spent almost a week trawling through the vehicle registration database in search of the owners of the Ford Escorts located within the geographical area he had decided they should limit themselves to. They would start with all the license plates beginning with the letter H. Not even then could they be sure. I don’t know, he’d thought to himself the night before, with the blue glow from the screen on his face. Is this therapy? He’d thought about the woman again. Helene with no name. Inside he knew they wouldn’t make any progress without her identity. He knew that the others knew.
He raised his gaze from the PowerBook and returned to the kitchen to put on the electric kettle for tea. He poured the leaves into the pot and toasted two slices of French bread from the day-old loaf he’d bought at a convenience store on the way home. He could have pulled on his trousers and shirt and taken the elevator down to the bakery across the park. Why don’t I do that, he thought, and left the bread where it was and went back into the bedroom and threw off his robe and put on a pair of shorts and a shirt.
He bought fresh poppy-seed buns and a brioche, returning across the grass and feeling his sandaled toes get wet. Back upstairs he made himself a café au lait instead of tea and squeezed three oranges and poured the juice into a glass. He ate the still-warm bread with butter and cherry jam, and with a boiled egg that he peeled and sliced up and ground black pepper over. He drank two cups of coffee and read the paper. He felt ready for anything.
Ester Bergman cautiously stuck her hand out the window and felt the dampness. It was good for the skin. She kept her hand there long enough that tiny droplets of water formed in the folds of her palm. She thought the world looked dark when the sun wasn’t there to wash everything out.
She’d stayed indoors for several days because she hadn’t been feeling well. She hadn’t had the energy to go to residential services, or whatever it’s called. Then the woman from the home-help service had come—the new one whose name she didn’t know—and had futzed around the apartment as if she were cleaning. But Ester knew she wasn’t actually cleaning, that everything looked almost the same when she left as it had when she arrived. Sometimes she does the dishes even though I’ve already done them, Ester thought. When she thinks I’m not looking, she takes out the glasses and washes them again, as if I couldn’t look after myself.
She may be nice, but she’s not family. Ester Bergman had thought about that sometimes, but there was no point in thinking like that. No family was going to drop in for a visit, no matter how much she wished for it. That’s just the way it was. An old woman couldn’t have a family if she’d had an old man who didn’t want more people in the house.
“Seems like you’ve got a little fever, Ester,” the home-help woman had said, and put her hand on her forehead.
“I’m lying here thinking about something.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Do you notice the people who live around this courtyard?”
“How do you mean, Ester?”
“Do you recognize them, you people who work around here, visiting with old people and such?”
“You mean, do we recognize our clie—the ones we go to visit? Of course we do.”
“No no. I mean the other people around here. The others who live here.”
“The others?”
“The children and the others on the street! The children and their mothers!”
“Are you thinking of anyone in particular, Ester?”
“No, never mind.”
“Tell me if you’re thinking of anyone special, Ester.”
It’s always Ester this and Ester that with this woman, she’d thought to herself. She was getting a headache from hearing her name all the time. “There used to be a little girl with bright red hair. She would sit out there with her mother sometimes or play while her mother sat nearby. They’re not here anymore.”
“You haven’t seen them, Ester?”
“I haven’t seen them for quite a while. I was just wondering if you’d seen them.”
“A girl with red hair? How old?”
“I don
’t know. A little one, five or something maybe.”
The woman from the home-help service looked like she was thinking. I wonder if she really is thinking, Ester Bergman thought. She smells of smoke. She wants to get out of here and have a smoke out on the steps.
“The mother smoked too.”
“What did you say, Ester?”
“I said that the girl’s mother smoked too. If she was her mother.”
“What did her mother look like?”
“She was fair and looked like all young people do these days, I guess.”
“She was young, you say, Ester?”
“Everyone’s young to me, I suppose.”
The home-help woman smiled. She looked like she was thinking again.
“I can’t picture them,” she said. “But I don’t get to see much of the courtyard. We just come in here, after all, and into the entranceways.” She appeared to be thinking again. “No, I can’t picture them.”
“Ester would like some coffee now,” said Ester Bergman.
The service woman again placed her hand on Ester’s forehead. “Now, you just lie still here while I go fetch the cup.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Then she’d been left on her own again. She thought about this now, as her hand grew increasingly wet. The rain felt good. Old people have a hard time in the heat, she thought. Even old people from other countries stay indoors when it’s hot outside.
She pulled in her hand but left the window open. There were streaks running down the pane. It smelled like when she was a child. Through the rain-washed window she could see the children outside.
Suddenly it was as if something struck her hard in the chest. She thought she saw a head of red hair through the window. She leaned forward, then pushed open the window to get a better view. But she didn’t see anyone with red hair or anyone else for that matter—there was nothing outside her window right now. Look how I’m behaving, she thought. I’m seeing ghosts.
Aneta Djanali returned home with the fall. It smelled stagnant in her apartment. She opened a window, and despite the total absence of wind she saw a little fluff of dust whirl in the center of the room. The first thing she did was put on some music, and it wasn’t jazz.
It was early afternoon, but it felt like evening, when the light is gone and doesn’t pierce through everything anymore. This light lingered around things. It was discreet, relaxing for the mind, she thought, pouring herself a glass of whiskey from the bottle on the kitchen counter. The last time she’d poured from it was the evening she was beaten up. It was a strange feeling. She’d sat here with Lis, sipped at a whiskey, and then gone out. Now she was back and sipping another as if it had just been a little parenthesis in time. She drank a little more and grimaced as much as she dared with her patched-up mandible. The alcohol flared up at once and became a little flame that flickered around inside her body, swept down her nerve endings, and flushed out into her bloodstream. Better than painkillers, she thought, and took a little whiskey in her mouth and let it slowly trickle down into her throat. I feel pretty good, she said silently to herself.
27
ESTER BERGMAN TOOK A SIP OF HER COFFEE, BUT SHE WAS thinking about something else. The young man on the radio had just said that it was eight o’clock. She was all dressed and ready to go. The woman from the home-help service wasn’t coming today, and that was a relief.
She lingered outside the office and read the sign, just to be sure. She was a little nervous once she was standing there. Speaking to a stranger about that girl and her mother—it felt silly now. What business was it of hers? It was better to go back and che—
“Mrs. Bergman, you shouldn’t be standing out here in the rain,” the girl who had come out from the office said. “Can I help you with something? Do you need help with anything from the store, Mrs. Bergman?”
“No. No, thank you,” she said, recognizing the girl from her courtyard. They had said hello a few times. “You know my name?”
“Well, you’ve lived here for such a long time, Mrs. Bergman,” the girl said. “We’ve spoken to each other. My name is Karin Sohlberg.”
“Lived here for a long time? Since it was built.” That was true. They’d moved here in 1958, when everything was new and filled with light. Elmer had never explained how they had been able to afford it, and she hadn’t asked. She hadn’t asked about anything at all, and that had been foolish.
“You’re getting wet, Mrs. Bergman.”
“Could I come in for a moment? There was something I wanted to ask you about.”
“Sure. We shouldn’t stand out here any longer. I’ll take your arm, and we’ll walk up the steps.”
Inside the desk lamp was on, illuminating a surface covered with papers. She was offered a comfortable chair to sit in.
The telephone rang, but by the time the girl picked up the phone there was nobody there. She put down the receiver and turned to her visitor. This could take a while, and that didn’t matter.
“The weather really turned around.”
Ester Bergman didn’t answer. She was thinking about what to say.
“It really feels nice,” the girl said.
“I wanted to ask about those two who were living in one of the units farther up from me. A mother and her daughter.”
The girl looked at her as if she hadn’t heard, as if she wanted to keep talking about the weather. It used to be old people that talked about the weather—now it’s apparently young people, thought Ester Bergman. “A little girl with red hair,” she said.
“I’m not sure I understand, Mrs. Bergman.”
“There’s a little girl with red hair I haven’t seen for a long time. And her mother. I haven’t seen them and that’s why I’m asking about them.”
“Are they friends of yours, Mrs. Bergman?”
“No. Do they have to be?”
“No no. But you want to know something about them, Mrs. Bergman?”
“I haven’t seen them for some time. Do you know who I mean?”
The girl stood and walked over to a filing cabinet, returning with a thin pile of papers, which she laid on the table in front of her. Then she looked at Ester Bergman again. “This is the list of all the apartments on your courtyard, from number 326 to 486.”
“I see.”
“You said a little girl with red hair? And her mother? What did she look like?”
“I don’t know that she actually was her mother. She had fair hair, but I don’t know any more than that. I never spoke to her. Not once.”
“I think I remember,” the girl said. “There aren’t that many girls with red hair, after all.”
“Not in my courtyard anyway.”
“A single mother with one child,” the girl said, and flipped through her records.
“I saw the notice from the police,” Ester Bergman said suddenly.
The girl looked up. “What did you say, Mrs. Bergman?”
“There’s a notice from the police out here on the bulletin board. They’re looking for a young person.” She hadn’t thought about that before. “They’re looking for a woman with light hair.”
“They are?”
“Haven’t they handed them out to this office? The police? They should have, surely.”
“I’ve been on vacation. The office was closed for a while for renovation. You might still be able to smell the paint, Mrs. Bergman.”
“No.”
The girl looked in her files again.
“We have a number of single mothers with small children. You only saw the mother with the one child, Mrs. Bergman?”
“The mother had fair hair and the girl had red—”
“I mean, did she have any more children. Or a husband.”
“Not that I saw.”
“And you don’t know which entrance was theirs?”
“No. But it was down a bit from mine.”
The girl looked in her files again, flipped through them a ways. “Judging from the apartment numb—”
The girl looked up. “I’m looking for possible apartment and personal identity numbers from the list here,” she said.
It wasn’t the first time somebody had asked about someone who hadn’t been seen for a while. Last spring a neighbor had started to wonder why he never saw the gentleman who lived in the apartment just below him, even though the light was on. After a week, the neighbor had come to see the unit super. Karin Sohlberg went over and rang the doorbell, and when no one opened the door, she peered through the letter slot at a pile of mail. Since the man had no family she could contact, and she didn’t have the authority to enter the apartment herself, she called the police. The old man was sitting there dead in his chair. Afterward she thought about how she hadn’t detected any smell.
She continued to run down the columns on the list.
“Find anything?” Ester Bergman asked.
“It could be Helene Andersén you’re wondering about. She lives two doorways up from you.” She muttered an apartment number that Ester Bergman couldn’t catch.
“Does she have a red-haired girl?”
“It doesn’t say, Mrs. Bergman.” The girl looked up. “But I wonder if she doesn’t—wait a minute.” She eyed the list again. “She has a little daughter named Jennie. It actually says so here.”
“Jennie?”
“Yes. That might be them. I can’t really say what they look like until I’ve seen them.”
“But they’re not here anymore. They’re gone.”
“How long has it been since you last saw the girl? Or the mother?”
“I can’t say for sure, but it was a month or so ago. When it was hot. And it was hot for a long time after. And now it’s been bad weather for a while too.”
The Shadow Woman Page 15