[2013] The Heart Echoes

by Helena vonZweigbergk

  Silence.

  Death.

  Astrid climbs up onto a big moss-covered rock on the lakeshore. In one hand she is holding her cell phone, in the other a piece of moss that she picked up. She sniffs at the earthy underside of the moss. There is something primordial and reassuring about the way it smells.

  She puts down the moss and stares out at the water. The lavender evening sky is reflected in the smooth surface of the lake. She picks up the piece of moss again and, balancing precariously, throws it as hard as she can. But the moss doesn’t go far enough to land in the water and disturb the motionless lake.

  Astrid sits down on the rock. She checks Michael’s messages on her phone. One after another she listens to his words drifting out over the lake, his voice searching like a faint murmur in a vast nothingness as she holds out the phone at arm’s length. She is keeping it as far away from herself as possible. Michael’s voice reaches her as if from a great distance, sounding ridiculous and pitiful. His words float across the water, and she catches only a few phrases here and there.

  “So young. Terribly sorry. What can I say? So ashamed of myself. I never meant to hurt . . .”

  She erases that last part before he even finishes the sentence. She doesn’t want to hear anything about not wanting to hurt her. She feels angry tears running down her face as she skips to the next message, letting the wind carry the words away.

  “Please, Astrid. Talk to me.”

  But Astrid sits on the rock, shaking her head. Never. Never again.

  And when she thinks she hears something about “I still love you,” she deletes all the other messages without letting his voice say anything more.

  Michael’s name has not been mentioned in their home for a long time. But Astrid knows that sooner or later he will come up in conversation again.

  It happens at dinner, a few nights after she sat on the rock near the lake in Hellasgården.

  The family is gathered at the dinner table, eating rice noodles tossed with shrimp, chili peppers, lime juice, watermelon, sugar peas, and balsamic vinegar. It’s one of Henrik’s signature dishes in the summertime. Sara has baked the bread, which both Henrik and Astrid praise. Sara smiles with pleasure, while Josefin looks sullen.

  Astrid is annoyed. Why do the girls always have to compete? Josefin needs to learn not to be jealous, just like Astrid did with her own sisters. If someone does well, then she deserves to be praised. Astrid thinks about how often she has downplayed her own accomplishments or refrained from mentioning something she was proud of.

  “What a great baker you are, Sara,” Astrid says now. “Good job.” And she gives Josefin a reproving glance.

  Suddenly Viktor asks his mother if she has talked to Pappa Michael lately.

  “No, why should I?” Astrid exclaims, feeling her cheeks flush. She looks at the others and realizes what a strange response that is.

  “I just mean . . . Well, no reason, really,” says Viktor. “I guess he dropped out of the picture long ago.”

  A shadow falls across his face. He looks hurt.

  “So why ask about him?” Astrid is quick to reply, although she tries to smile in order to change the tone of the conversation. “We’re not exactly in the habit of talking to each other, Michael and I.”

  “Forget it,” says Viktor, bending over his plate.

  As Astrid waits for him to say something more, she notices that her mouth has gone dry. She can feel Henrik giving her a surprised look, but she keeps her eyes fixed on Viktor as panic churns in her stomach. Shrimp in vinegar. That suddenly feels like a disgusting combination. As soon as she can, she’s going to go outside in the fresh air, just to get rid of the smell of food.

  “Something must have prompted your question,” Astrid presses. “It didn’t just come out of nowhere.”

  “Isn’t he supposed to move back to the States, or wherever he lives?” Sara asks. She looks around at the others, fishing for confirmation.

  Viktor’s face is white with anger and confusion. “What do you mean ‘out of nowhere’? What’s wrong with you?”

  “Yes, what’s wrong with you?” Henrik chimes in.

  “I was just asking,” Viktor says, his eyes shiny with tears. “And besides, it was Sandra who wanted to know.”

  “Sandra?”

  Astrid tastes blood in her mouth, and for a second everything goes black. “Where did you see Sandra?”

  “She came over to give something to Josefin.”

  Astrid turns to her daughter. “What do you have to do with Sandra?” Is my own family keeping secrets from me now? she wonders.

  Josefin looks embarrassed. “I just wanted to borrow a pair of shoes from her. That’s all.”

  “I don’t want anybody in this family going around whispering secrets with Sandra,” Astrid says. “And when it comes to Michael, I have no idea what he’s doing, but whatever it is, it has nothing to do with either Sandra or me. You’ll just have to keep in touch with him yourself, Viktor, if that’s so important to you.”

  “How can you be so fucking mean?” Viktor shouts before standing up and running out of the room.

  “Astrid, that was out of line,” Henrik exclaims. “You shouldn’t treat Viktor like that.”

  But Astrid stands her ground. “It’s time for Viktor to learn that he’s on his own if he wants to stay in touch with that bastard, Michael. Because I don’t want anything more to do with him.”

  Henrik, Sara, and Josefin are staring at her. She can see both fear and denial in their eyes. Why don’t they ever get it? she thinks. Why do they always have to give me these looks of stupid surprise? Why can’t they focus on something else instead? What if I . . .

  “I just want everyone in this family to learn to be a little more independent,” Astrid goes on, licking her parched lips. “The way we . . . I don’t know, but it just seems like we’re so dependent on each other, and . . .”

  Astrid looks at her bewildered family. She thinks about Viktor in his room, probably lying on his bed, feeling sad and hurt. Suddenly everything seems so unreal, and for a few seconds she doesn’t even know who she is. Then she bursts into tears, her sobs filling the otherwise quiet room and frightening her family.

  “I can’t take it anymore, I just can’t take it.”

  She gets up and runs into the bedroom, then throws herself on the bed and buries her face in the pillow. The familiar scent from the pillowcase feels like the only secure thing in the whole world. She doesn’t ever want to lift her head, even though she knows Henrik is standing in the doorway, looking at her, no doubt with that worried expression on his face. Her family . . . It seems to be nothing more than a conspiracy of naïveté and secrets. They’re all colluding; they’ve come to some sort of covert consensus that she is impossible to understand.

  She turns her head toward Henrik to look at him.

  But he’s not there. No one is standing in the doorway.

  Astrid lies in bed, apathetically monitoring the voices of her family, which she hears as a vague murmuring, far away. Now and then she turns her head toward the doorway, but no one is there giving her an inquiring look. Suddenly she hears the front door slam. She sits up in bed to listen.

  Not a sound.

  She goes to the bathroom and blows her nose, listening again. Total silence.

  The door to Viktor’s room is ajar. She slips inside, involuntarily cringing when she sees what a mess it is. The chaos seems so private, as if she shouldn’t be sneaking into his room when he’s not there. She leaves, closing the door behind her, and goes into the kitchen. The dishes from dinner have been cleared away, but the room is empty. The TV is turned off in the deserted living room. She hurries to Sara’s room, then to Josefin’s, opening the doors without knocking.

  “Hello?”

  Her voice echoes through the apartment. Her heart is pounding hard as anxiety surges. Have they left her? No, they wouldn’t do that. Henrik knows how scared she is of being abandoned. Astrid goes into the living room and sits do
wn on the sofa. Sara’s bright-yellow nail polish is on the coffee table. A light-blue hoodie is draped over one arm of the sofa. Is that Sara’s, too? Or is it Josefin’s?

  What does she really know about her daughters?

  What do they know about her?

  Lately she seems to have lost touch with them. She has turned away and become completely dependent on Henrik’s care and concern.

  The silence is broken by the sound of a text message. Astrid gets up and follows the sound to the kitchen. She looks around and sees a cell phone on the counter. The display lights up for a moment but then turns off. Astrid picks up the phone. She can tell from the case that it belongs to Josefin.

  She can’t stop herself from reading the message. I promise, not a word to Astrid. Rage and confusion prompt her to look through the previous messages Josefin and Sandra have exchanged. There are five of them.

  From Sandra: Okay, see you on Thursday night followed by a smiley face and a heart.

  From Josefin: You’re the best in the world!!!! followed by two smiley faces and three hearts.

  Sandra: It’ll be fun and another heart.

  Josefin: But don’t tell Mamma, promise me that!

  Sandra: I promise, not a word.

  Not a word to Astrid.

  Has Josefin started confiding in Sandra? About what?

  Astrid erases Sandra’s text about not saying a word to her. Then she puts the phone down. She goes into the bathroom and spends a long time rummaging through a drawer filled with various medicines. Finally, she finds what she’s looking for. Henrik’s elderly father left behind some sleeping pills when he stayed with them two or three years ago. With trembling fingers, Astrid tries to shake a single tablet out of the bottle but a whole bunch spill out into her hand. She sits there for a moment, holding all those tablets. They weigh almost nothing. Tiny oblong white pills with a scored surface. What would happen if she took them? She pictures Henrik and the children coming home to find her unconscious, their faces even more surprised and scared.

  She laughs. It’s the thought of Sara’s expression that evokes a helpless giggle. As the youngest in the family, Sara has a habit of mimicking everyone else, but in a much more exaggerated way. If she and Josefin are both mad about some perceived injustice, Sara’s indignation is always more evident in her expression. If Viktor responds in a sarcastic and superior way to something another family member says, Sara will display even greater derision. And now, as Astrid pictures her family’s upset faces at finding her unconscious and half-dead, it’s Sara, her youngest, whose mouth is most agape and whose eyes are open widest.

  But the laughter is quickly followed by more sobs.

  Where are they? Have they left her?

  They knew she was feeling sad.

  But she refuses to phone Henrik. She puts all but two of the sleeping pills back in the bottle and leans forward to drink water from the faucet. Then she returns to the security of her pillow on the bed.

  The next morning Astrid wakes up with a bad headache. She sits up and realizes that Henrik’s side of the bed is empty. Stumbling out of the bedroom, she hears his voice and follows the sound to the kitchen where the whole family is sitting at the kitchen table. Sara is showing Henrik something on his cell phone. Viktor has his chin propped on one hand as he reads the newspaper. Josefin is spreading butter on a piece of toast in that fussy and frantic way of hers that sends crumbs flying.

  “Hi,” Astrid says.

  They all look up at her, and she gives them a faint smile.

  “I must have overslept.”

  “It’s Saturday,” Henrik answers. There’s not even a trace of a smile in his eyes. “You’re allowed to sleep as late as you want.”

  “Oh, that’s right, it’s Saturday,” Astrid says. She stands there in the middle of the kitchen, not knowing what to do with herself. Her head is pounding. Henrik and Sara have turned their attention back to his phone.

  No breakfast in bed today, Astrid thinks. He must be mad at me. He doesn’t usually act like this. But I’m so unhappy. Doesn’t he understand that?

  “Where did all of you go yesterday?” she asks, rubbing her arms because it feels a little chilly in the kitchen after the warmth of her bed.

  “We went to a movie,” Josefin replies. Is that a triumphant look in her eyes? “Pappa, Viktor, Sara, and me.”

  “Oh, okay. That’s nice. What did you see?”

  Josefin starts telling her mother about the movie, though a little reluctantly, as if she doesn’t really want to share.

  While Josefin is talking, Astrid lets her eyes sweep over the others seated around the table. Then she looks at the kitchen counter, surveying the room as if she’s searching for other signs that her home is about to desert her.

  “Sounds fun, sweetie,” she says without thinking.

  “Fun? It was horribly sad!” Josefin exclaims.

  “What? Oh, of course.”

  “Then why did you say it was fun?”

  “Um . . . I meant it was fun that all of you went to see a movie together.”

  Astrid smiles uncertainly. Damn it, Josefin, she thinks. Why does she always have to be so literal? Now she’ll probably have something else to confide in Sandra.

  Astrid pretends not to see Josefin’s annoyed expression. Instead, she turns her attention to Viktor. He’s leafing distractedly through the newspaper. For a moment he looks up at his mother, but then quickly turns away when he sees her trying to make eye contact.

  “Did you think the movie was fun, too?” she asks Viktor.

  “It wasn’t fun. Shit, aren’t you listening to anybody?”

  Viktor gets up and angrily leaves the kitchen. Astrid casts a frightened glance at Henrik. What has she done now? But when she sees the disapproving look on his face as he opens his mouth to say something, she holds up her hand to stop him.

  “I’ll handle this,” she tells him.

  She goes to Viktor’s room and knocks on the door, her head continuing to pound.

  “Please, Viktor. Please open the door. I want to talk to you.”

  As she’s standing there, the conversation from last night slowly resurfaces in Astrid’s foggy mind. What does Sandra have to do with her and Michael? What business is it of hers whether they see each other or not? And why is she getting Josefin mixed up in the whole situation?

  Viktor yanks open the door, but not wide enough for Astrid to slip inside.

  “What do you want?” he asks.

  “Well, I want to apologize for yesterday.”

  “Okay.”

  Viktor tries to pull the door shut, but Astrid won’t let him.

  “Sweetheart, what’s wrong? You need to stop all this nonsense!”

  Astrid puts out her hand and tries to force the door open. After a moment Viktor relents, and she stumbles into his messy room.

  “Don’t you dare slam the door in my face!” she shouts. “Don’t you dare! The least we can expect in this house is to be treated with respect!”

  Astrid’s head is spinning. She leans her hand on the wall for support. It must be those pills, she thinks. They’re making her lose control. All her defenses have fallen away. And rage has taken a firm grip on her.

  “What do you want?” Viktor presses her.

  “I already told you! I want to apologize. Is that so hard for you to understand?”

  “Okay, okay. I heard you. So could you get out of my room now?”

  There’s something about the way Viktor is standing. He looks exactly like Michael. That’s what Astrid sees as she searches for something else to say to her son before leaving his room.

  “What you said about Pappa Michael . . .”

  Viktor is trying to look unconcerned as he waits for her to go on. But he’s blinking nervously, which reminds Astrid that only a short time ago she saw him badly beaten and lying in a hospital bed in Copenhagen. And in an instant, her anger turns to shame and tenderness.

  “Oh, Viktor. I just meant that you and Michael need
to establish your own relationship with each other,” she says as she feels the tears run down her cheeks.

  Then she gives a start when someone knocks on the doorframe. She turns around to see Henrik standing in the doorway, giving her a stern look.

  “I need to talk to you for a moment, Astrid,” he says.

  She stares at him, not fully understanding what is going on. Is he admonishing her? What does he want?

  “Sure, but at the moment I’m talking to Viktor.”

  “I need to speak to you now.”

  “And I said that—”

  “Now!”

  Astrid glances from Henrik to Viktor. They look nothing alike, and yet they have the same frosty expression when speaking to her.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” Astrid says as the panic she experienced yesterday sets in again. “Am I not allowed to finish talking to Viktor?”

  Viktor shakes his head and shrugs. “I don’t have anything else to say.”

  “I think you and I should go for a walk, Astrid,” Henrik says. “Go and get dressed.”

  He holds the door to Viktor’s room wide open as he gives her a meaningful look, indicating she needs to leave.

  Viktor is now sitting on his bed, looking miserable.

  “You patronizing—” she begins, speaking English.

  “I don’t know who you think I am, Astrid,” Henrik interrupts, “but you need to speak Swedish with me.”

  “This whole thing feels like you’re trying to bully me. I didn’t think you were like that, Henrik.”

  “We need to talk. That’s all. You’re wound up tight, and it’s getting hard to take. Let’s go for a walk and calm down. There are things we need to discuss, you and I.”

  What does he mean? He doesn’t know, does he? thinks Astrid. Sandra! Of course! What if Sandra said something? That would be so like her; she’s always had an unhealthy ambition to wheedle her way into my family.

  Astrid takes a deep breath. She casts a quick glance at Viktor, hoping he’ll come to her rescue, but he doesn’t. His whole body is saying “leave.”

  “Okay. But you’ll have to wait until I take a shower and have some breakfast. Then we can go out,” Astrid acquiesces.