Room No. 10

by Ake Edwardson

  “Did he see you?”

  “Yes . . . he might have. But I don’t think he recognized me. It was pretty dark . . . and it was raining a little. I had a hood.” Halders heard her swallow. It was audible. “And then he turned his head again.”

  “When did this happen?” Halders asked.

  “The day before yesterday. About four thirty.”

  “Why didn’t you call right away?”

  “I . . . I don’t know. At first I was sure it was him. And then . . . I don’t know.”

  “Were you afraid?”

  “Yes.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “That he saw me.” Halders heard her breathing. “That he would . . . I don’t know . . .”

  “Even more reason to call me right away. If you thought he would try to find you.”

  “Yes . . . I know.”

  “Have you seen him other times?”

  “No . . .”

  “You’re hesitating, Nina.”

  “I’ve . . . felt like I’ve been . . . I don’t know . . . being stalked recently.”

  “Stalked?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “Have you seen anyone?”

  “No . . .”

  “What do you mean, then?”

  “I . . . how should I put it . . . it’s like someone is following me. Or spying on me. Watching me. Is that just silly of me? Maybe it’s nothing at all.”

  “And you haven’t seen anyone?”

  “No . . . not exactly. I’ve thought that I caught a glimpse of someone outside the window. Someone . . . who was standing out there. But I’m not sure. And one time the phone rang but no one said anything. But the line was open. And there was a siren from an ambulance outside, or maybe a police car; I heard it in . . . the room, and I also heard it on the phone. It seemed to be the same sound . . . at the same time. And it was really close by.”

  “Why didn’t you say something about this earlier, Nina?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Nina?”

  “Is it . . . could it be dangerous? For me?”

  “Is there anyone you could get hold of?” Halders asked. “A friend, or family? Whose house you could go to?”

  “I guess I can . . . call someone.”

  “Do it.”

  “Do you mean now?”

  “Yes.”

  Halders heard the fear in her voice. He didn’t want to scare her. But he took her fear seriously.

  “Nina . . . are you completely sure that you haven’t seen him any other times? The guy Paula met, I mean.”

  “I . . . think so.”

  “Not in town? Anywhere?”

  “No.”

  “At Friskis & Svettis?”

  “I don’t go there anymore. Not since it happened.”

  “What happened after you passed him that time? When you saw him?”

  “Nothing . . .”

  “Did you turn around? Was he still standing there?”

  “I turned around a bit farther on. But I didn’t see anything then. The bushes were in the way.”

  “And then you took the streetcar?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’ve never seen him before in that neighborhood? Near where Paula lived?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, Nina. Thanks for calling.”

  “What . . . happens now?” she asked.

  “We’ll have to have a little talk with him,” Halders answered.

  • • •

  No one opened up when they rang at Jonas Sandler’s door. No one had answered the telephone that was somewhere inside. No one answered Jonas’s cell phone. Halders tried again.

  There was a small, handwritten sign on the door: No ads, please.

  “No Jonas, thank you very much,” said Halders.

  “He’s probably out taking a walk,” said Winter.

  “Sure that’s what he’s doing,” said Halders, putting his cell phone into the inner pocket of his leather jacket. “Walking and stalking.”

  “It’s too bad when people are unemployed,” said Winter, ringing the doorbell again. “You can’t get hold of them at work when they’re not home.”

  Halders laughed.

  “A case for the Social Democrats,” he said.

  “We’ll have to take it to the national police commissioner,” Winter said, and he turned around and looked down at the stairwell.

  “Isn’t he a Social Democrat, too?” said Halders.

  “Don’t you like Social Democrats, Fredrik?”

  “If I got to know one for real, maybe I would like him, or her. No doubt there are female Social Democrats, too. No doubt there are also nice ones.”

  “I’m a Social Democrat,” Winter said, starting to walk down the stairs.

  “Are you joking?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you, then?”

  “A feminist.”

  “Are you joking?”

  “No.”

  “I’m a feminist, too,” said Halders.

  “I know, Fredrik.”

  “It’s true. I’m not joking.”

  “You’ve tried to hide it, but you can’t fool me,” said Winter.

  “No one can fool you, can they?” said Halders.

  They were standing outside the front door. It closed behind them with a creaking sound. The sound made Halders think of a Social Democratic politician who had to make decisions that didn’t necessarily help his own career.

  “Jonas,” Winter answered. “He may have fooled me.”

  • • •

  “We’ll wait until tonight,” said Ringmar.

  Winter nodded.

  “He might be out roaming the streets,” Ringmar continued. “Sounding the alarm now . . . well . . .”

  “He might have roamed a good bit of the way to hell at this point,” said Halders.

  “If that’s the case, we have our man,” said Ringmar.

  “Not necessarily,” said Winter.

  • • •

  Anne Sandler didn’t answer the phone. Winter had called the first time as they stood in the yard outside Jonas’s apartment. He had kept calling. She didn’t have an answering machine.

  Winter passed the swings in the empty playground. He hadn’t yet seen any children there. It was as though that time was forever gone. The only children he knew who had sat on those swings were Jonas and the girl. But even that was uncertain. Anne Sandler could have been mistaken. Maybe that family never lived here, or at least not in her same stairwell. How was Jonas supposed to remember a girl from one month in a distant childhood? For many people, childhood was very far away. For many, it had never even existed. In his work, Winter had met many people who missed a childhood they’d never had, who were looking for it, desperately searching for it.

  That could have horrible consequences.

  Had Jonas had a childhood? Winter didn’t know. He had met the boy that was Jonas, but he didn’t know the other one. Had Paula had a childhood? He didn’t know that, either. Yesterday he had thought: This is about childhood, or what could have been childhood. Paula’s. Someone’s. Several people’s. Ellen Börge’s. Or Elisabeth’s, Mario’s. Ellen’s, he had thought again. I can’t get away from it. I-can’t-get-away-from-it. Why won’t she leave me alone?

  The swings were swinging in the wind again. The invisible children. It was as though the wind were swinging through time, and time was the same. Nothing was old or new. Everything was there.

  No one opened up when he rang at the door. He hadn’t expected anyone to. And yet he came out here. It’s like a magnet. Is it the swings? The grove of trees? Yes, it’s the grove of trees.

  Winter walked out of the building and over to the small group of trees and bushes. It wasn’t possible to see anything in there. It was like a room with walls, without doors. Dusk was falling again; it was always falling at this time of year, falling and remaining like a black light.

  He took a few steps toward the trees. He heard a sound, a n
oise. Was there a dog in there, digging in the earth? It sounded like something was digging, or moving around in the dirt. It was a sound you recognized. Winter pushed aside some bushes and took two steps farther in. He saw a movement behind the large tree. He saw another movement, a hand. He heard the sound of something digging in the ground. Then he heard a sniffle.

  Jonas turned around as Winter stepped forward behind the tree.

  He was on his knees, digging in the ground with his hands. It must be hard work. The earth had begun to freeze for the winter. The autumn leaves lay like a tough skin on the ground.

  He didn’t stop digging.

  “Jonas?” Winter said, taking another step.

  He didn’t answer. There was nothing in his face that didn’t remind Winter of the first time he’d seen him. That had been a powerful experience for Winter. Sandler was sniffling, breathing hard, digging, digging. Winter could see blood on his knuckles. It was still light enough that he could see the red color. All the other colors around them had begun to creep down into the ground for the night.

  “Jonas!”

  He looked up but kept on digging, scratching at the crust of dirt. Winter took the last few steps and placed his hands on the young man’s shoulders. It was like touching stone. Sandler kept moving his arms, his muscles. He was like a machine.

  “Jonas, calm down.”

  Winter could feel the movement slowly cease; this was a mechanical movement, too. The sniffling didn’t stop.

  “Jonas.”

  He turned his face up to Winter. There was great terror in his eyes. Winter knew that this wasn’t about him. Jonas hadn’t been afraid of being discovered. He seemed to be beyond that now. He had been searching for something, looking for it in here. Digging for his childhood, something in his childhood that had never left him in peace. It wasn’t necessarily the crust of dirt. That was only the top layer.

  “Paula,” the boy said, turning his face toward the ground again. “She’s here.”

  29

  Sandler held up his hands as if they were proof of something. Winter didn’t see any proof, not yet. He saw the young man’s intense agitation, as though he were about to be blasted to pieces.

  “Jonas,” Winter said, extending his hand.

  “Paula!” said Sandler. “I saw her!”

  “Where did you see her, Jonas?”

  “Here!” he said, waving at the ground with his arms. “She was here!”

  “When did you see her?”

  “She was here!” he repeated.

  “When did you see her, Jonas?”

  “You saw her, too!” he said. “You were here, too!”

  “That was a long time ago, Jonas.”

  “No!”

  Sandler’s agitation increased even more, as though he would lose consciousness, or his senses, at any second. Maybe he already had. Something had happened in the last few days. Or hours. The boy had been yanked from his lethargy. That was the word that came into Winter’s head. He suddenly had an image of Christer Börge in his mind, with the book in his hand, under the bookcase in the creepy living room where time stood still. Lethargy. It meant a trancelike state, Winter had looked it up once himself. There was nothing trancelike about the way Jonas Sandler was acting now. Perhaps he found himself in a nightmare, but it wasn’t a trance.

  And time had frozen in the grove of his youth.

  Now Sandler was back there.

  “Paula!”

  Winter got down on his knees. He tried to place his hand on the young man’s shoulder, but Jonas twisted himself away from it. He had stopped digging now. He had made only a shallow pit, like a bowl among the leaves. His hands were covered with wounds, rasped, as if a pattern had been pulled over them. The light was gone now. The scratches on his hands were black. Winter thought of the black stones he’d seen here eighteen years ago. They were no longer here, or else Jonas had tossed them aside. He thought of the hand that only Jonas had seen. That wasn’t here either. The white hand that the boy had described with large, frightened eyes. Maybe he would always see it, whether or not it was gone. And Paula wasn’t here, either. But Sandler was just as convinced now as he had been then. What did he know? What had he done? What had someone done to him? What was there, in this black earth?

  Sandler had begun to cry, a quiet sound. Winter suddenly heard the distant hum of the traffic on the island. Now it felt very small, as though the island consisted of nothing more than this grove of trees. Above them, a bird screeched. The boy gave a start. He looked at Winter as though he recognized him now. It was as if he was waking from the nightmare. The boy turned his face toward the ground, as though it had been part of the dream, too, but was now foreign to him. It wasn’t an act, a role. He didn’t repeat her name. Winter did.

  “The girl you played with here was Paula, wasn’t it?”

  • • •

  Sandler was calm as he sat in Winter’s office. It was a better place right now than the cold interrogation room, which was reminiscent of a nightmare. Winter was afraid that Sandler would return there. Then it wouldn’t be possible to reach him.

  The light over Winter’s desk was warm. Sandler appeared to be warming himself in it. Winter felt himself beginning to thaw from the iciness he’d experienced among the trees. He had driven straight here, with Sandler as a silent passenger. He glimpsed Sandler’s hands under the desk. He was holding them in his lap. His knuckles were covered in gauze. It looked like he was wearing white gloves.

  “Tell me about Paula,” said Winter.

  Jonas tried to say something, but no words came out. It was like a weak breeze. He tried again.

  “There’s . . . nothing to tell.”

  “You played together.”

  Sandler nodded slightly.

  “Did you play with Paula when the two of you were little?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I don’t understand,” Sandler said, looking up at Winter. The boy was leaning forward in his chair, with his head near the surface of the desk.

  “How can you be so sure now? You said earlier that you didn’t know her.”

  “I . . . knew her.”

  “Why didn’t you say so before, Jonas?”

  He didn’t answer.

  Winter repeated the question.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You know, Jonas.”

  He looked up again.

  “You’re afraid of something,” Winter continued. “What are you afraid of?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Who are you afraid of?”

  Sandler didn’t answer.

  “Has someone threatened you?”

  “No.”

  “Who has threatened you, Jonas?”

  “No one.”

  “Did Paula threaten you?”

  “Wh-what?”

  Sandler raised his head.

  “Did you feel threatened by her?”

  “N-no. Why would I?”

  “Did you feel threatened when you met her again, Jonas? When you were adults? Did she know something about you?”

  “N-no. Like what?”

  “Why did you go out there? To that grove of trees?”

  “I . . . don’t know that either. It’s like . . . I don’t know why I did it.” He searched for Winter’s eyes. “It’s like the other thing. That we had played . . . out there.”

  “Did you talk about it when you saw each other?”

  “Yes . . . once or twice.”

  “So what did you say?”

  “Nothing in particular. We . . . just remembered it.”

  “How did you meet, Jonas?”

  “You know that. At the gym.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “What? Happen?”

  “Did you recognize her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Yes. She . . . was the same.�
�

  “What do you mean? The same?”

  “She looked like she did then.”

  “After eighteen years?”

  “Is that so long?” Sandler said.

  “Did she recognize you?” Winter asked.

  “No . . . not at first.”

  “When did she recognize you?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Did she ever recognize you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Was she as sure as you were?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where did you meet the next time?”

  “What?”

  “Where did you meet the next time?” Winter repeated.

  “There. At the gym. Friskis.”

  “I mean outside of Friskis.”

  “We never met . . . outside.”

  “I don’t believe that, Jonas.”

  “It’s true.” The boy sat up straight. It had been like a slow awakening of his bodily function. “We didn’t. It’s true.”

  “No coffee on the town? A pub?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “She didn’t want to.”

  “Did you ask?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you invite her home?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said no.”

  “Why?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “Did you ask?”

  “What?”

  “Why she said no?”

  “No . . . yes . . . she didn’t want to. I couldn’t nag her.”

  “But you knew where she lived?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “Have you been there?”

  “I . . . don’t understand. I just said I wasn’t . . . invited.”

  “You were seen outside,” said Winter.

  Sandler didn’t answer.

  “Have you been there?” Winter asked.

  “Yes.”

  “When?”

  “The other day . . . several times.”

  “What were you doing?”

  “No-nothing. I just stood there.”

  “Why?”

  “I . . . don’t know.” Sandler looked at Winter again. “I don’t know that either.” He looked somewhere else, maybe toward the window. “I missed her. I had met her again and then she was gone.” He looked at Winter. “She was gone.”

  “Why was she gone, Jonas?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Have you thought about why she was gone?”