The Cruel Stars of the Night

by Kjell Eriksson

  He rolled closer to the desk again and started to look through the papers. A manila folder was lying on top. It concerned a man who had gone missing in September. Åsa Lantz-Andersson had written the report. Ulrik Hindersten, seventy, had disappeared without a trace from his home in Kåbo. Åsa had added a few notes. The man’s daughter had called several times during the past month.

  Sammy’s cell phone rang. Before he answered he silently prayed for it to be Ann or at least a message that she had turned up, but it was Ottos-son who reported that Ann had not been seen either in Alsike or in Palmblad’s stables in Skuttunge.

  Nor had any of their relatives heard from her.

  “Are you finding anything?”

  “No, Ann wasn’t exactly the best in the world at keeping notes, she . . .”

  He had said, “wasn’t.” To judge from Ottosson’s silence he had also caught the use of the past tense.

  “She’s alive,” Sammy said. “Isn’t she, Otto?”

  His commander was not able to respond immediately.

  “Of course she is,” he said finally.

  They ended the call. Sammy got up and walked back and forth anxiously although his gaze kept being pulled back to the picture of Erik. It was an enlargement of a day care photo that Ann had pinned to the wall. The boy was looking right into the camera and laughing. He had some of Ann’s features but the dark, curly hair had to be from the unknown father. Sammy had the feeling that Erik was looking at him and following his snooping.

  He continued his search of the desk. Under several files there was a newspaper that had run a photo of Ann. Someone, probably Ann herself, had doodled horns and a goatee on her face and written in a speech bubble: “Kiss my ass.”

  Sammy smiled. Why not, he thought, and put the newspaper aside. If Ann really was gone for good he wanted to keep that picture.

  Forty-three

  The driveway was full of leaves. It had been clean that morning. Stig Franklin’s first thought was to get a broom and sweep them out onto the street but he changed his mind. Why should I care, he thought and walked into the house.

  Jessica was half lying on the bed. She had piled a bunch of pillows at the head of the bed. A few reports that he recognized from the Haus-mann deal were spread out over the floor.

  “Have you been working?”

  “Yes,” Jessica said slowly, “I went home after lunch.”

  “I’ve been with Evita.”

  He could just as well have said he had been with Laura, or so he judged from her expression.

  “Now it’s all about other women,” she said and he heard that she was trying to inject an ironic edge to her voice but she failed completely. She sounded miserable.

  “I’ve had Evita just as long as you have been in my life,” he said. “You are the one who has seen her as a competitor and not as an asset.”

  She said nothing but shook her head and sat up in bed. She was wearing a light-colored tank top that reminded him of summer.

  “I’ve been thinking,” she said.

  Stig felt a tug in his stomach, fearing what would come next. Convinced he was making the right decision, he experienced this feeling as a solid mass in his body when he had left Laura’s house but this now threatened to crumble completely. To himself he cursed his timidity and steeled himself for what was coming.

  “I have too,” he said with unexpected rancor. “I’m leaving you. Now. I don’t want any fighting, I want us to be able to talk and separate—”

  “. . . in a clean way,” she filled in.

  He nodded.

  “Is it Laura?”

  “It’s not just her,” he got out, suddenly overwhelmed with sadness.

  Their life together suddenly appeared so trivial. Even splitting up became petty.

  “It’s not about you,” he said.

  “Stig,” Jessica said, “do you know what you want? Is it freedom?”

  He nodded and let out a sob. Damn, he thought exasperatedly, she makes me feel sorry for myself.

  “Don’t treat me as if I’m underage,” he said. “I can make my own decisions.”

  She looked closely at him as if to take measure of his steadiness.

  “Okay,” she said. “We’ll sell our shares, rent out the house, prepare Evita for a long-distance trip, and set off.”

  He stared at her. He could hardly believe his ears.

  “We’ll be able to scrape together a decent amount, especially now when it looks as if the Hausmann deal will go through. I don’t need any of this,” she continued and made a sweeping gesture.

  “Then what is it you want?” he whispered.

  “Don’t you think I have dreams too? I have been struggling like an animal to build up our life, you know that. We have done it together so I’m not complaining. I saw it as our project. Now you’re getting off because Laura . . .”

  “This isn’t just about her. We aren’t really living. All our so-called friends at all our respective dinner parties whine about not having enough time and that they should really devote themselves to living instead.”

  With each word he raised his voice. By the end he was snarling.

  “Look around you! No one we see lives a dignified life. I don’t want to be like this anymore.”

  “I’m not letting you go,” Jessica said calmly. “Not to a completely deranged lunatic. I care about you more than that.”

  It wasn’t her self-possession that frightened him but the very fact that she was speaking to him.

  “She’s not crazy.”

  Stig sank down onto the bed. He felt Jessica’s gaze on the back of his neck. It felt as if a giant glacier was forming in his insides and freezing his internal functions.

  Jessica inched herself closer and put her hand on his shoulder. He flinched and became terrified that she was going to hug him. But instead she stood up, crawled clumsily out of the bed, and left the room.

  He heard her in the living room. It sounded as if she was moving objects around, picking up.

  “Come out here and look,” she called out, but he did not stir from his spot, disturbed by her calm. It would have been easier if she had screamed and yelled.

  The sound of her bare feet on the floor as she approached the bedroom reminded him of their Åland vacation the first summer they had spent together.

  She appeared in the doorway.

  “Come,” she said and vanished again.

  He got to his feet and followed her. She had placed herself at the window. The Italian glass vase that they had bought in London, the eighteenth-century goblet they had bought at an auction in Helsinki— a real find—were both placed on the couch, and several paintings were leaning against the back of it.

  He looked bewildered around the room.

  “These are worth at least four hundred thousand, perhaps half a million. You know what we paid for Liljefors alone.”

  “Take it,” he said. “I don’t want anything.”

  He stared at a grotesque painting by Lindström. A distorted face in red and yellow with thick layers of paint. He hated it.

  “We’ll sell this,” she said.

  “But you love the paintings.”

  She shook her head.

  “We’ll sell them and start over. I want to. Do you remember what we talked about in the cottage at Kökar?”

  Something in her voice made him look at her as if he was seeing her for the first time. Maybe it was because Jessica was also thinking about that summer. Afterward they seemed like the happiest weeks of his life.

  “We can sail there,” she said.

  She’s tricking me, he thought, but there was nothing of the calculating expression in her light face that he recognized so well from when she wanted to tempt him into an argument from which she would emerge the victor. There was no aggression, but also no submissive pleading. It was as if her features were smoothed out, milder. She suddenly resembled a young girl, unscathed by years of tiring fights.

  “Do you really want that?” he aske
d.

  “Yes.”

  “Why this turnaround? All this,” he said and held out his arm, “that was so important.”

  “I have also been thinking,” was the only explanation she gave him.

  He tried to evaluate her metamorphosis. Jessica was not the one who threw out claims without first having worked them out carefully. The fact that the old Jessica never bared herself in this way convinced him she was being genuine, and he was suddenly touched by her courage. He knew what it must have cost her in self-esteem and pride.

  “I need a beer,” he said and went to the kitchen.

  He took down the bottle opener that was hanging above the counter but dropped it into the sink. It hit a glass that broke. It was not a valuable glass but the sight of the shards made him cry. He leaned his forehead against the cupboard and tried to be clear about what was happening. Jessica’s suggestion of leaving the company and setting out on the boat was too big. Even his own wild plans seemed harmless in comparison with a life reorganization on that scale. What had she been thinking? It remained a riddle to him.

  He picked up the opener and managed to get the bottle cap off, took a few sips, and then went back to the living room where Jessica was waiting in the same position as when he had left.

  “Why?” he asked again.

  “Because I love you,” she said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  “And you tell me this now? First now, after years of coldness? You mentioned Åland but do you remember what that was like? How we made love and talked. Talked! About everything and nothing. Do you remember the old graveyard with the crosses that stood piled up against the wall? The scent of thyme from the sand dunes and tar from the church roof?”

  “Of course,” Jessica said.

  “How moved we were by the simple crosses and the inscriptions. You said something about that fisherman’s wife.”

  She nodded. Stig couldn’t continue.

  “Of course I remember,” she said. “That’s why I want to go back there. Maybe we’ll recapture that feeling and find our way back to those words.”

  He looked dumbfounded at her. She was crying. He saw that she didn’t want to, but she couldn’t stop the tears.

  “Jessica,” he whispered, paralyzed by a mixture of guilt, bitterness, and tenderness.

  Lindström’s grotesque face on the couch grimaced at him. The anxiety communicated by the picture became his own and suddenly it struck him that he never wanted to sell it.

  Jessica advanced several steps. Stig fled to the bathroom.

  Jessica had scrubbed it. It smelled of lemon. He stood in front of the mirror and for several minutes he studied his image. His anxiety felt like a pole thrust into his stomach. He knew he had to make a decision. A decision that would influence the rest of his life.

  He took off his clothes. The overalls and the shirt landed in a heap at his feet. He pulled off his socks and his underpants.

  “Who is Stig Franklin?” he asked the mirror.

  He heard Jessica walk past, how she put on the kettle for tea and took milk out of the refrigerator. He sank down onto the toilet lid and held his head in his hands.

  “How is it going?” Jessica asked through the door.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” he said.

  “Would you like some tea?”

  “No thank you,” he replied and stepped into the shower stall.

  When he stepped out of the shower a quarter of an hour later there was a suitcase in the hall.

  Jessica was sitting in the living room with a cup of tea and a few rusks.

  “Have you packed?”

  “Only the essentials,” she said, picking up a rusk. She spread marmalade on it, looked at him, and smiled.

  Stig had only slipped on a bathrobe and regretted that he had not dressed properly. Now it seemed like she was the one who was leaving him and not the other way around. First she was going to drink a cup of tea, then stand up, take her bag with “the essentials”—whatever that was—and leave the house.

  He walked to the bedroom and quickly pulled on a pair of pants and a shirt. When he returned she had finished her tea.

  “I want you to unpack,” he said.

  The silence in the room was deafening. They looked at one another. There was no triumph in her voice when she finally answered.

  “Allright, I’ll stay.”

  She didn’t ask him why he had changed his mind, made no attempt to get up and throw herself in his lap or venture any words of reconciliation, simply a dry observation that they were still a couple. What he was grateful for was her passivity. It was as if she could tell that if she made a big deal of the whole thing then Stig would have fled.

  He poured himself a cognac. They sat quietly, Jessica on the couch and he in an armchair. He knew that the silence could only be broken slowly and with great care. For a long time they would have to walk across new ice.

  He thought about Laura, about her suitcase and the decision to leave the country for Italy. She had shown him the airline ticket to Palermo, told him which hotel she was going to check into, and that he could come later.

  She was going to leave on Saturday morning and then wait for him there. An old song about longing came back to him. It was about Italy, wasn’t it? He only knew the fragment of a stanza:“. . . where small lemons grow . . .”

  Then, a couple of hours ago, the thought of spending days and nights with Laura at a romantic hotel by the sea had seemed fabulous. Granted it is not particularly warm in Sicily in November but the air in the mountains is fantastic, there are few tourists, and the wine is excellent, Laura had explained.

  Can I ever trust myself again? he wondered and glanced at Jessica. Can she trust me? He was unable to feel real joy. Not yet, maybe it would come. It felt as if he had completed a terrible training session, run a marathon, or wandered thousands of miles through the desert under the burning sun. The exhaustion was total, both physical and emotional.

  He felt as if he could go on now that he was cleansed. Of course he had heard friends talk about similar conflicts, emotional and mental cleansing rituals, but he had not understood how arduous they could be.

  Jessica was lost in thought. He knew she was keeping tabs on him and that she would continue to do so for a long time.

  What he was dreading most was the conversation he would have to have with Laura. Was that what Jessica was waiting for? He suddenly stood up and left the room without a word, closed the door to the study, and walked over to the phone.

  When Stig was gone Jessica made two calls from her cell phone. One was to the lawyer who took care of the firm’s business. They only exchanged a few words, as if speaking in code. The second call went to Lennart Öhman. He was still at the office.

  “It’s me,” Jessica said in a strained voice. “Whatever Stig may tell you, it’s not true. If he talks about any changes, wants to sell, or talks shit about Hausmann, then don’t pay any attention. Listen but don’t talk back too much.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t interrupt me! Stig is going through a crisis but everything’s going to be fine. First we’ll finish with the Germans and then continue on with Paris. Have you heard anything?”

  “Philippe called. He thought things would work out in Lyon.”

  “Great! As I said, keep up appearances and don’t do anything until you have spoken with me.”

  “But—”

  “I have to go,” Jessica said and hung up.

  When the doorbell rang twenty minutes later Stig realized it was Laura. He gave Jessica a quick glance and saw that she was thinking the same thing. As he slowly rose up from the armchair he could see Laura’s red car in the driveway through the window.

  The question was if he was going to open the door or not. Letting Laura in could result in anything. On the other hand, if he didn’t open then she could make a scene outside the house.

  Their phone call, when he told her his decision, was short. At first Laura laughed an
d called him a coward, then she became threatening and finally hung up.

  Now the doorbell was ringing nonstop.

  “Open it,” Jessica said.

  He walked over to the door. He could see her before him, the implacable Laura, who had been an asset in the negotiations with Hausmann but who on other occasions had made him and the others in the office wary and scared. It felt as if he was standing before his executioner. He heard Jessica leave the living room and walk into the study.

  Stig threw open the door, gripped by a sudden wrath. Laura was standing outside, her hair framing her face like a dark halo. Her features were almost unrecognizable, her mouth a line and her eyes black with hate. She was holding a pipe wrench in her hand.

  For thirty seconds, perhaps more, they stood there quietly with only the threshold between them.

  “I want to talk to Jessica,” Laura said finally.

  “There’s no point,” Stig said and was surprised that he even managed to open his mouth.

  “I’m going to kill that whore,” Laura continued and made an attempt to step into the house.

  Stig made himself wider, put his right hand up against the door frame, and prepared himself to stop her.

  The blow came unexpectedly. Laura swung the pipe wrench and brought it down on his arm. It was not a hard blow but his knees buckled and he took a step back. He registered Laura smiling before she forced her way past him.

  She saw the suitcase in the hall and turned around.

  “Is it yours?” she asked.

  “What the hell are you doing? You’ve taken my arm off!”

  “I don’t think so,” Laura said calmly. “Where is she?”

  At that moment Jessica opened the door to the study and walked toward them.

  “Watch out, she’s armed!” Stig yelled.

  “Laura,” Jessica said. “It would be best if you left.”

  Stig could not fathom how Jessica was able to retain her calm. It seemed as if Laura was taken aback for a few seconds at her unexpected entrance, before she went on the attack.

  “It’s you, you devil,” she snarled and rushed forward, raising the pipe wrench and striking.

  Jessica threw herself to the side and the wrench struck a painting behind her back. It was one of the first paintings they had bought, one by Nils Enar Eskhult. It depicted a blooming garden. The metal tool crushed a flowering apple tree in the middle of the picture. Slivers of glass spilled over the floor.