They ate in silence. Jonna couldn’t think of anything to say. Alexander seemed to share her dilemma. Finally, he broke the ice.
“This might sound a little strange, but in some ways I’m glad that I didn’t start on the trip,” he said, taking a little sip of the wine in an attempt to gain more confidence.
“Really? Why are you glad?” asked Jonna, hoping that the answer would be . . .
“It meant that I could see you again,” he said, with a nervous smile.
Right answer, she thought, trying to stay cool. Or maybe not. She was damned if she was going to play games.
“I’m glad too,” she answered, drinking some wine as well. A big gulp. The air was suddenly charged with electricity. It was as if she could feel the electrons flowing between them. What should she say now? For once, nothing. She would find her way in silence.
After clearing away the worst of the dishes, it was time to move into the living room. Jonna lit some candles and looked out of the window. It was windy outdoors and the bracket of the balcony window box was banging against the railing. Far off, she saw the lights of an emergency vehicle flashing. Perhaps an ambulance. Perhaps some of her colleagues responding to an emergency call. How distant it all felt from the safety of her home. The impressions of the day began to surface slowly, but she had to suppress them. If only for one day: today. In the reflection in the window, she could see Alexander on the sofa. He was flicking through an edition of the magazine Police in Sweden. This was the right moment. Everything was just so right.
“See anything exciting?” she asked, and sat next to him.
“It’s not every day that I get to read what police write about other police.”
“More often than not, it’s about tedious topics like administration or some other red tape,” she said, and refilled their wine glasses. She was beginning to feel the effects of the alcohol.
Alexander put down the magazine and they toasted each other.
“Delicious wine,” he said, looking at his glass.
“From South America,” Jonna said. “Argentina, to be precise.”
Alexander laughed. “I should’ve guessed,” he said. “Do you have any more South American surprises for me?”
Jonna smiled. “Later, perhaps,” she said.
A pause.
Alexander put his glass on the table. The candlelight played on the glass, turning the wine black. “There’s a mountain in Chile called the Cerro Armazones,” he began. “It rises over three thousand metres and the view is fantastic. It almost never rains there.” He paused, as if he was trying to remember something.
“How far can you see?” Jonna wondered.
“Far. Very far. In fact, more than two million years back in time.”
“Are there caves?”
“No, quite the contrary. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve seen.”
“Tell me,” Jonna said impatiently.
“To lie on your back in the middle of the night on top of the mountain and to look at the clear, starlit sky is an experience everyone should have. It’s magical. It’s one of the places on Earth where you can see the Milky Way so clearly that you almost feel like you are part of it. Which, actually, we are.”
“Sounds fantastic,” Jonna said. “How did you manage to get there?”
“It’s a long story. A good friend of mine is an astronomer and they are planning to build a new observatory right at the top of the mountain. Instead of spending two weeks on a sandy beach in Spain, I travelled there to visit him.”
“Sounds like a smart choice,” Jonna agreed.
Alexander fidgeted slightly. “Jonna, do you know what I’m thinking?”
She shook her head, drank a little more wine and played with her glass in anticipation of his answer.
“When I look at you, I think of that night. I lay there, under the heavens, unable to stop marvelling at the beauty of the galaxy. How lucky we are to live on this amazing planet, which we know so little about.”
Jonna stood up from the sofa and went towards her bedroom door. “I know one thing for sure,” she said, beckoning Alexander with her finger.
He was surprised, but followed her into the bedroom. Shy, but not timid. His warm, urgent gaze made any resistance she had left dissolve into atoms. In his eyes, she saw a starry night appear. It was beautiful. She closed her eyes as his warm lips touched hers.
Their tongues melded and a shiver of sensual pleasure ran through her body. She surrendered unconditionally and they fell onto her bed entwined with each other. Together under the Milky Way.
Epilogue
The road down to the village was framed by large fields of waving, yellow rape. On the horizon, the sea sparkled, as if it were winking a welcome to her.
She felt she was home. She had wandered along this lane as long as she could remember. Yet this was the first time her feet had touched the gravel of the lane, which led to the seaside town. She stroked the rape and a familiar sensation of joy spread through her body. She was going to be reunited with loved ones whom she had not seen for a lifetime. She hummed that song again. The song that kept popping into her head and that never stopped. Eventually, it had become her travelling companion. A mourir pour mourir – to die, since I must die.
She walked down the cobbled road that was just wide enough to accommodate two cars. This was the main street, along which she used to ride her bicycle every morning when she was a child, to fetch bread from the bakery. A little farther down there would be a dark green house and then she had to turn right. As she came down the hill, she saw the building and the street that led up another hill. A car passed by slowly. The man in the driver’s seat looked at her as he drove by. She thought she recognized him and tried to recall his name. It was almost on the tip of her tongue when something flickered at the corner of her eye.
There were the dark shadows again. She stopped and turned around, but could not shake them off this time either. They swooped over her and her vision soon became blurred.
Then came the silence, the emptiness and darkness. Afterwards, the flames. The flames racked her body and she felt the agony burning her inside.
“No, no more!” she screamed.
Excruciating pain shot throughout her body, culminating in her head. Her body twisted with agony.
Hold on, just a little longer, she told herself.
Then that sound again. The high-pitched wailing that penetrated skin and tissue and headed towards her brain. Everything went to her brain. After that, instant silence. There was peace once it stopped. She could hear her own breaths as she gasped for air. Colette Rousseau opened her eyes, to find herself lying on the side of the road.
“Are you all right, Mademoiselle?” a concerned voice asked.
Colette got to her feet again. She declined the woman’s help. “I’ll be fine,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
Colette nodded and turned her back on the old woman. She gazed up at the house. “There,” she whispered quietly to herself.
Confused, the lady stared at the stranger in worn clothes as she walked towards the only house on the hill.
The house of the Rousseau family.
Author’s note
Prime Minister Olof Palme was shot down on the streets of Stockholm on 28 February 1986. The murder investigation remains open.
The Special Investigation Unit, or RSU, is a fictional organ-
ization.
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