After She's Gone

by Camilla Grebe

  Manfred runs over, rubbing his palms against each other and grimacing with pain. Andreas takes a step forward, but stops short in front of me.

  “Jesus Christ!”

  I lean forward to get a better look.

  A bloody hog’s head is lying in the snow, attached to a heavy, rusted butcher’s hook.

  * * *

  —

  Mom’s hand trembles a little as she pours coffee into the small, beautiful gold-edged cups Grandma and Grandpa saved for special occasions, like graduations, birthdays, and Midsummer.

  I took a very long shower when I got back from the refugee camp. As if the hot water could rinse away the memory of the bloody hog’s head, and something far worse: a hate so strong that someone would go to the effort of hoisting that hog’s head up into a tree outside a place where Muslim refugees live.

  Malik gave us a detailed explanation of why exactly pigs and pork are considered unclean and therefore haram—forbidden—within Islam.

  The violation, or threat, that gray head was meant to represent was surely directed at the refugees. But as for whether or not it has any connection to our investigation…well, that remains to be seen.

  I look at Margareta.

  She raises her wrinkled and sun-spotted arm. She cradles the cup in her palm like a piece of jewelry.

  “Just a sip,” she says, and coughs. “Have to head off soon. Rut and Gunnar want a few kilos, too.”

  Margareta has come by to drop off some frozen elk meat. The hunters who hunt on her land took down too many elk this year, and she has more meat than she knows what to do with.

  Mom sits down, shakes her head, and turns to me. Her eyes are filled with distrust and fear.

  “It’s just so terrible, Malin. Do you mean someone smashed that poor woman’s face off?”

  I regret telling her about Azra’s injuries. But it can hardly be news to Margareta. She knows everything that happens in Ormberg, sometimes almost before it happens.

  “Yes, it’s terrible.”

  Mom puts the coffeepot on the table.

  “Who would do such a thing? It can’t be anyone from around here.”

  “Of course it’s nobody from the village,” Margareta sniffs. “But there are so many random people in the area nowadays, who even knows where to start looking.”

  I bring the cup to my mouth, take a sip of hot, weak coffee, and wonder what they’d say if they knew Stefan Birgersson was sitting in jail in Örebro. A man who is neither an Arab nor a Stockholmer, who’s just as deeply rooted in the Ormberg mud as we are.

  “And you still haven’t found that cop from Stockholm yet?” Margareta continues.

  “No, but we will.”

  “You can’t be sure about that. I once attended to a woman whose husband got lost outside Marsjö, and they never found him.”

  “Please, Margareta,” Mom says. “Must you?”

  “I just mean that the woods are large around here,” Margareta says, looking offended. “And the lakes are deep. It’s possible to disappear. Forever.”

  “We will find him,” I say again. “Somebody has to have seen something. And Hanne, who was with him in the woods, remembers a few things.”

  “What kind of things?” Mom asks.

  I shrug.

  “Nothing I can discuss.”

  Mom shakes her head and puts a hand to her chest, as if she’s having a heart attack.

  “What if he’s dead,” she whispers.

  “Of course he’s dead,” Margareta says drily. “Coldest winter in living memory. Minus ten degrees and thirty centimeters of snow. Nobody could survive that. You’ll find him when the snow melts, mark my words.”

  Mom sniffs loudly.

  “What in the world is going on these days? Ormberg has always been such a peaceful, safe place. Things like this don’t happen here. I just don’t understand it.”

  The warm light of the lamp falls on my mom’s plump, rosy cheeks.

  I think of what Hanne told us. The memory fragments could be real memories—or just a bunch of dreams and fantasies.

  I get an idea. Ormberg isn’t big, and if anyone would know about the people living here, it’s Margareta and Mom.

  “Do you know anyone who likes to read English books in Ormberg?” I ask.

  “English books?”

  Mom shakes her head and puckers her mouth, but Margareta looks thoughtful.

  “Maybe Ragnhild,” she says. “Yes, I’m not sure, but she’s so conceited about how she used to work as a language teacher. I wouldn’t be surprised if she has English books.”

  And then:

  “Or Berit. She had an Irish boyfriend in the eighties. A gardener. He was fond of reading thick books, as I remember it. But not so fond of working. Unfortunately. But Berit always did have terrible taste in men.”

  Margareta sighs and shakes her head.

  I ponder a bit more. Decide I might as well ask the second question, too.

  “You’ve lived here for a long time—do you remember when that story of the Ghost Child at the cairn started being told?”

  Mom and Margareta look at each other.

  “Honey,” Mom says, shaking her head. “That’s just foolishness.”

  “Of course,” I say. “But when did the rumor get started?”

  Mom’s gaze turns upward, toward the ceiling.

  “I don’t rightly know. Sometime when you were little, maybe.”

  “Sump-Ivar saw that child,” Margareta inserts helpfully. “He saw a naked infant in the grass at the cairn. Pale as death with blue lips. But when he went to pick up the baby, well, poof, it turned to smoke.”

  Sump-Ivar was Gunnar Sten’s brother.

  He lived on the other side of the church, next to the marsh, until he died eight, maybe nine years ago. He was psychotic and thought his neighbors were spying on him and had placed radio transmitters in his teeth. One winter he wrapped his entire cottage in Bubble Wrap to stop the radio waves from penetrating it.

  Me and my friends had a lot of fun with that. We climbed all over his house, and plunged a knife into the ridge of the roof.

  I feel ashamed when I remember it.

  “Sump-Ivar was mentally ill,” I say.

  “But he saw the baby,” Margareta says, nodding seriously.

  “He saw all sorts of things,” Mom says. “I wouldn’t trust a word he said.”

  “When was this?” I ask.

  Margareta purses her thin, wrinkled mouth.

  “Must have been after Berit burned up her old jalopy. Yes, that’s when it was. But it was before Rut and Gunnar built that flashy sunporch.”

  “And when was that?”

  Margareta shrugs.

  “I don’t know. But I can ask Ragnhild. She may remember.”

  Then she stretches, pushes her thin hair aside with a wrinkled hand, and takes a deep breath as if preparing to tell another one of her stories.

  “Listen, you two,” I say. “I need to head to bed soon. I have to get up early tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?” Mom says. “Are you going to work on a Sunday?”

  “We’re investigating a murder, Mom.”

  “Well, I won’t keep you any longer,” Margareta says, deflating a bit as if disappointed that I don’t want to listen to her anymore.

  She empties the coffee cup and places it back on its dish with a tiny bang. Then she stands up. Turns to me and meets my eyes. Her expression is very serious.

  “Promise me you’ll be careful, Malin.”

  I nod.

  Margareta squeezes Mom’s shoulder lightly and thanks her for the coffee. Heads out toward the hall.

  Mom stands and follows after her.

  I look around the room.

  Sitting here on Grandma and Grandpa’s old s
ofa drinking coffee from their cups evokes a wave of vague anxiety. Everything in the room—the drab wallpaper, the sagging old sofa, the clumsy paintings of Norwegian mountain motifs—transports me back to growing up. To nocturnal swims in the creek, drunken parties, make-out sessions in rumpus rooms with cork floors, and unbelievably boring dinners with Margareta and Ballsack-Magnus that never seemed to end.

  This was my childhood, I think as I grasp hold of the delicate porcelain cup, carry it to my mouth, and feel the steam rise from the hot coffee to my lips.

  This is me, but not for long.

  Soon I’ll be gone, in Stockholm.

  My boring condo in Katrineholm with its handicap-accessible bathroom and kitchen is just one step on the path away from here.

  It’s sad, but it still feels right. I’ve always known I would leave Ormberg. Not because I had a bad childhood—I had tons of friends and my parents were neither better nor worse than any others. No, there’s something about Ormberg itself that I can’t stand. It’s as if the air here is heavy and hard to breathe, as if the woods are watching me, as if all the miserable lives that never managed to escape are trying to hold me here.

  Maybe I’m afraid of Ormberg—or maybe I’m afraid of what would happen to me if I stayed. I’m convinced I’d drown in the hopelessness that hovers over everything here and end up like everyone else in those cottages.

  Gray, narrow-minded, devoid of dreams.

  And then there’s Dad. And Kenny. And the skeleton in the cairn that was no mushroom but instead a murdered little girl.

  They’re all here in Ormberg: the dead who won’t leave me alone.

  And now they’ve been joined by a faceless woman.

  * * *

  —

  When Mom comes back, I’m sitting on the sofa with a framed picture of Dad in my hands.

  She gives me a long look, but says nothing.

  Even though Dad’s death wasn’t as shocking as Kenny’s, of course I loved him.

  We were close. In many ways closer than Mom and me. Maybe because we were more alike: impulsive, emotional, but at the same time pragmatic and unsentimental.

  When Dad was younger he was quite outdoorsy. We used to ski in the winters and camp at Långsjön Lake in the summer. Mom never came along. I think she thought it was silly to sleep in a tent when there’s a perfectly good house to live in instead.

  Later, when Dad started having heart problems, we stopped going out on excursions. Instead, we used to sit in front of the woodstove and plan trips we both knew would never happen: Rome, Paris, Krakow, and Prague.

  Dad liked big cities.

  Mom gently takes the photo from my hands and puts it back in its place on the shelf. Then sinks down next to me.

  The sofa creaks under her weight.

  She cocks her head and looks at me.

  “I talked to the priest today,” she says, stroking my cheek gently. “Midsummer’s Eve will work.”

  “Thank you. That was kind.”

  “And then I mentioned to Margareta that we might want to borrow her barn.”

  “I told you I don’t want to have the party there.”

  “But Malin…”

  Mom has that slightly reproachful tone, the one she gets when she’s done something for me and I’m not appreciative.

  “I don’t want to be at their place.”

  “There’s not enough room here; not everyone will fit,” Mom says.

  “Yes they will. If we set up a tent in the garden.”

  Mom shakes her head and sets down her small coffee cup so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t break. The pale flesh on her throat wobbles as she jerks her head back.

  “A tent? I have never heard anything so stupid in my life! When you could have a roof over your head.”

  “Stop! I don’t want to be at Margareta’s. She always inserts herself into everything.”

  “We owe a lot to Margareta.”

  “I know. But this is different. This is about my wedding. Okay?”

  Mom snorts, but I can see that she’s resigned.

  Margareta has always ruled the roost here in Ormberg. She’s one of the biggest landowners and better off financially than most, which is hard to believe when you visit her and Magnus in their ugly house in the woods. There’s not a family in Ormberg who hasn’t borrowed money from her at some time. That’s what’s given Margareta her influence. People listen to her and usually do as she says.

  But it’s not just about her power over people. She’s resourceful and has done a lot of good things, too, like ensuring that when the road was rebuilt the bus line from Vingåker was redrawn almost all the way to the church. And she forced the county to improve snow clearance as recently as last winter.

  Mom sighs heavily, but seems to have decided not to argue anymore on that matter.

  “Have you found a dress yet?” she asks, her voice soft and conciliatory.

  “No.”

  “You could take mine. We’d have to take it in a great deal, of course.”

  Mom laughs a little.

  She’s fat, always has been.

  It’s not something we talk about much, and nobody cares about that in Ormberg anyway. I have vague memories of her doing various diets when I was younger—for a while she ate only eggs and iceberg lettuce. Another time, it must have been in the late nineties, she lived on clear soups and grapes. After Dad, I think she just gave up on diets and indulged her love for fatty foods and pastries.

  “Wait a minute,” Mom says, getting up and going over to the bookshelf.

  She returns with an old photo album under her arm.

  “Mom,” I say. “Surely we can look at this tomorrow?”

  “I just want to show you one thing,” she says, flipping purposefully through the album.

  Pictures from my childhood flit by: a thin girl with two long, dark braids, my unimaginably pale childish body in a small inflatable pool on the lawn, Ballsack-Magnus looking at me with thick lips shaped like an O while Margareta pushes me in front of her on the gravel road in his old red soapbox car.

  I yawn.

  Mom doesn’t seem to notice my reaction. She keeps flipping toward the beginning of the album.

  “Here!” she says.

  I examine the faded Polaroid of Mom and Dad in front of the church. They look so stiff and uncomfortable I have to smile. I’m overcome by an unexpected tenderness, consisting in part of love, and in part of a stinging sadness at what once was, but will never be again.

  Dad is wearing a dark suit and has a red flower in his buttonhole, maybe a carnation. Mom is wearing a lace dress stretched tight across her bust and around her chubby arms. The fabric is beautiful and could certainly be used again.

  “Yes,” I say. “Very nice.”

  “There’s a good seamstress in Vingåker,” Mom begins.

  “Please. I want my own dress.”

  Mom falls silent and runs her thick fingers over the thin plastic film that covers the photo.

  “I just thought that…”

  Her voice dies away, and I immediately feel guilty.

  “I’ll think about it,” I say, stretching for the photo album and flipping through a few pages.

  “Your first summer,” Mom says, and smiles introspectively.

  I look at the pictures of myself as a baby, trying to find any familiar features in that round face. It’s me and yet not: the dark eyes, the slightly plump upper lip, and the eyebrows like arches on the thin, snowy white skin.

  Another thought sneaks in—maybe because we were just browsing through a photo album of old baby pictures. I think of Andreas and my meeting with Esma Hadzic in Gnesta. Of the photos of Azra and Nermina and of Esma’s bent fingers stroking the pictures in the same way Mom just did.

  I wonder if Azra ever had another child and whe
re it could be. I actually called the medical examiner and asked how likely it was that she gave birth to the child. The doctor couldn’t say for sure, but explained that if Azra had made it through her first trimester without complications, the probability was “quite high” that she went on to give birth to a healthy child.

  I’m convinced it’s just a matter of time before we find that child’s remains buried. And I plan to make sure of it, even if I have to turn that forest upside down. The child has to be given a grave, and Esma deserves to know what happened, even though she annoys me in some vague way.

  I can understand fleeing from war and misery. But why should I, and every other taxpayer, fund her disability pension when she could have returned to Bosnia a long time ago? Mom has never received any subsidies, though God knows she’s needed it. Instead, she’s had to borrow from Margareta, like everyone else in the village.

  The phone rings just as Mom, apparently lost in memories, is about to show me a photo where I’m pulling a slimy pike out of the pond next to the old sawmill.

  I apologize and answer.

  It’s Max.

  I ask him to wait a few seconds and then leave the living room and go toward the stairs.

  Mom looks a little disappointed as I disappear, and it makes me feel guilty again.

  Staying with Mom was not a good idea—adults shouldn’t live with their parents. I don’t understand how Margareta and Magnus can stand it. He should have moved away from home twenty-five years ago.

  But Margareta doesn’t have anybody else, and neither does Magnus.

  Loneliness is apparently a far more powerful adhesive than love.

  * * *

  —

  I stand in front of the window in my old childhood room and talk to Max. He’s in a really bad mood today. A cyclist who was hit by a local bus won a trial against his insurance company and was awarded the maximum sum the law allows.

  “What kind of injuries did you say he suffered?” I ask while absently using a finger to draw in the moisture on the window.

  Outside, snowflakes swirl by.

  Max tells me about a twenty-five-year-old man who’s confined to a wheelchair, who uses a catheter to empty his bladder and bowels. I can feel the cold sneaking in—the cold and something else: an uneasiness and irritation I can’t quite define.