After She's Gone

by Camilla Grebe

  Maybe God exists after all, even if I have a hard time believing He’d have anything to do with me, an aberrant, when there’s so much else that’s wrong in the world.

  Magnus puts back the yogurt, closes the refrigerator, and lumbers out toward the hall. His figure fades away in the dark. Seconds later I hear his heavy steps on the stairs to the second floor.

  This is my chance—the only one I’ll get.

  This is the moment I’ve been waiting for.

  Magnus is upstairs now. He’s getting dressed to go meet Margareta at the cairn.

  With a fucking stone.

  I close my eyes and think of Hanne. Of Greenland, of the turquoise icebergs bobbing on the sea, and of P, whom she loved. P, who’s frozen like a hamburger from the superstore that you’re planning to grill in the summer.

  I think about how terrible it must be to grow old and not be able to remember anything anymore, to have a whole life behind you, like a long tail. And then I think of how life can end at any moment, even if you’re in the middle of something important, like growing up or writing a book or discovering the cure to cancer. Death can come whether you’re old or young—like Nermina.

  My whole body aches with longing for Saga, Melinda, and Dad, but most of all, for Mom. She would have known what I should do. She always knew what to do when things got bad. Like when Melinda fell from a tree and hit her head on a rock and bled a lot. Or when Dad got so drunk at Grandpa’s on Christmas that he couldn’t even walk.

  Mom could get through anything.

  Except cancer.

  What do you do when you run across a crazy murderer, anyway? Would an adult even know?

  I don’t think so.

  A part of me just wants to lie down on the floor and weep, give in to the fatigue and terror. But then I hear that voice in my head again—the one that whispers and coaxes, says nothing is impossible, that you can get through anything, can just let go of your thoughts and let them fly free, like birds. I think of Vincent, of his words: Blow me, faggot! And how then, through the chaos in my brain, that beast inside me woke up. How Vincent suddenly lay beneath me, terrified, because I’d done the inconceivable.

  The unthinkable is unthinkable only until you’ve done it.

  Then it’s just a part of life, part of the tail you drag behind you.

  I put my hand on the door to push it, and just as I feel that cool metal on my fingers I hear steps coming down the stairs.

  I freeze and peer out.

  Magnus passes by outside. He opens the fridge, and I can hear plastic rustling.

  Then silence. An alarming silence.

  I bend closer to see better.

  Magnus faces me. His mouth is half open, and he looks surprised.

  Then he walks toward me, raises his hand, and firmly pushes the door shut.

  Everything goes black, and I hear a click as the door locks.

  Hanne

  The snow falls heavily outside Berit’s window, covering the ground and the trees. I can just make out a fresh set of animal tracks crossing the field and disappearing into distant snowfall.

  I slept well, better than I have in ages.

  I look down at my feet.

  The bandages are gone, but the pale skin is still covered with scabs and small sores. The nails are blue and cracked and one small toe is taped up.

  I get dressed and look at myself in the small mirror on the wall. Note that at least I recognize myself: the ruffled hair, which is now more gray than red, the red-rimmed eyes.

  The freckles.

  That’s me, Hanne.

  There’s a photographer named Helene Schmitz. I think it was Owe, my ex-husband, who dragged me along to one of her exhibitions. He had a passion for culture—the more pretentious and difficult something was, the more he liked it. I doubt he was truly interested in art; rather, he saw it as a status symbol, something that made him feel like he was better than other people.

  But Helene Schmitz’s photographs were neither pretentious nor difficult. Instead, they were stunningly beautiful and somewhat discomfiting, which may be the reason I still remember them.

  The exhibition, which featured two series, depicted how nature takes over, or perhaps comes back, when humans retreat from what they’ve created.

  One series consisted of pictures of beautiful old houses in a deserted mining town on the coast of Namibia that the winds are slowly but relentlessly filling with fine-grained sand. The other series of photos featured a fast-growing Japanese plant that has gained a foothold in the United States, choking out local flora, wrapping buildings in a deadly green quilt, and even crushing houses.

  As I said, when I saw the exhibition I thought the pictures were beautiful and a little terrifying. But over time they’ve taken on a different meaning for me.

  It feels like I’m a beautiful house on the coast of Namibia, and the sand is my disease, slowly but surely drowning me. I’m the flora and the buildings, and the kudzu is this accursed dementia.

  I’m the narrator, I’m the story.

  I’m the camera, I’m the houses.

  I’m the object and the subject at the same time, because I can see it happening, but I can’t do a thing about it.

  And every day when I wake up, the sand has swallowed a little more of my reality. The kudzu has wrapped its branches around yet another of my abilities; another part of my life has been taken from me.

  I run a comb through my hair, put some ChapStick on my lips, and go out into the kitchen. Trying not to think of all that I’m no longer capable of.

  Berit is standing at the sink doing dishes.

  She has an old apron tied around her waist. A radio plays dance band music at a low volume.

  The fire crackles in the stove, and Joppe stands in the middle of the room, wagging his tail slowly, as if waiting for Berit’s attention.

  “Good morning!” Berit says, and smiles broadly. “Would you like some breakfast?”

  She holds out a coffeepot.

  “Gladly,” I say, and sit down at the kitchen table.

  Berit puts out bread, cheese, and butter. Then she limps over to me with the coffeepot.

  I always feel so guilty when she waits on me like this, because in many ways I’m healthier than she is. Other than my memory. But that doesn’t stop me from holding my coffee cup up.

  Berit serves me, sinks down in the chair opposite, and smiles again. Her gray hair, which lies in neat curlers around her head, reminds me of my mother. In her bangs she has a hairpin with a flower on it.

  I make myself a sandwich. Cut thick slices of cheese and place them on homemade bread.

  We have it pretty good, Berit and me.

  I like her—especially her undemanding, tranquil silence. She’s one of those people who doesn’t feel the need to fill in silence with talking. But more important: She’s stuck fast. When I wake up in the morning, I remember her. I don’t know if that means I’m getting back a part of my short-term memory or if it’s just because we’ve spent so much time together and she’s somehow become etched into my unruly brain.

  We don’t do much with our days.

  Berit likes to bake and knit, and we go on long walks with Joppe when the weather permits.

  Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and cry out for Peter. Then Berit gets up, lights the woodstove, and makes tea, which we drink in silence.

  Sometimes she gives me a sleeping pill.

  I’m beginning to doubt I’ll ever see him again. And I’ve stopped hoping that Manfred will come. Instead, I’ve come to fear that visit, fear what he will say. Because I don’t think Peter’s alive anymore. For some reason, I’ve convinced myself that I would know it, from some inner vibration. A heat somewhere under my breast or a tingling somewhere near my heart.

  At the same time, though, I know th
at’s foolishness.

  There’s no way I can sense if he’s alive or not.

  It bothers me that I don’t remember any of our time here in Ormberg. None of the investigation I participated in or the new colleagues I met.

  The last clear memories I have are from Greenland. We had such a wonderful time there, Peter and me.

  And there’s no reason to believe it was any different here in Ormberg. Surely a couple of weeks in a backwater village in Södermanland wouldn’t have changed anything.

  So when Berit has asked me about Peter, I’ve told her that he’s the man in my life, and that we have it very good together, that I’m very happy with him.

  Berit grabs hold of the table and rises slowly. She stops at one point and grimaces.

  “Are you okay?” I ask.

  She smiles crookedly.

  “Everything’s gone to hell in this old body.”

  She walks over to Joppe, bends down, and scratches her shaggy dog behind one ear.

  “I’m gonna take him out for a bit. I’ll be home in a half hour.”

  “I’ll clean up,” I say, popping the last bit of my sandwich into my mouth.

  “I’ll take care of the dishes later,” she says.

  “No. I’ll take care of that.”

  “You really shouldn’t.”

  “It’s no trouble.”

  I can see she’d like to protest, but stops herself.

  “That’s fine,” she says, heading out into the hall with Joppe in tow.

  As soon as she’s gone, I stand up and start to clear away my late breakfast. When I’m done, I put a few more logs onto the fire.

  It’s cold today, even though it’s snowing. Even with the fire blazing in the stove, the cold seeps in through cracks in this old house. And with the cold comes the dampness; it leaves its breath on the inside of the windows, and makes the bed linen limp.

  I hear a weak knock in the hall.

  At first I think I’m imagining it, but then there’s another knock, harder this time. It’s a knocking that knows what it wants, that won’t give up.

  I fold the linen towel, put it on the edge of the sink, and head out to open the door.

  A slight uneasiness awakens inside me.

  It couldn’t be Berit—she just left. Besides, she wouldn’t knock—she always comes straight in.

  Maybe it’s Manfred. Maybe they found Peter.

  My chest aches, because I’m not sure I can handle news of his death.

  Then another knock. Even harder this time. Urgent.

  I head into the hall to open the door.

  Jake

  It’s pitch black. Like a tomb.

  I try not to think of P lying in the freezer in the room at the bottom of the staircase, because if this were one of the movies I watch with Saga, he’d be arriving right about now. His frozen legs and arms would have creaked and crunched as he slowly crept up the stairs.

  I run my hands over the door, but all I feel is smooth, cold metal. There’s no handle on the inside, and I know why.

  You’re not supposed to be able to leave.

  I don’t think Ballsack-Magnus saw me; I think he just noticed the door was open and closed it. But now I’m stuck here, in his murder basement, his twisted fucking torture prison, while he and Margareta prepare to kill Hanne.

  And there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.

  The basement has no windows or doors—the only way out is this huge, locked metal door. I can’t even kick on the damn door, because then Magnus might discover me, and that’s surely worse than being stuck here in the dark.

  And my phone is fucked, so I can’t call anyone.

  I sit down on the top step, can feel tears coming and that familiar lump in my throat.

  I miss Mom. I wish she were here so much that it almost feels like I’m going to explode.

  I slam my fist against the door and start to cry. The bang is louder and heavier than I intended. Like a thunderstorm in the distance.

  I freeze in fear.

  What if Magnus heard me, what if he’s on his way, what if he puts me in the freezer next to P?

  I can hear a sound on the other side. A scraping sound and then a click as the door starts to open.

  My heart stops.

  It’s over.

  He’s here.

  But when the door glides open, Saga is standing outside, still wearing pajamas, but with a coat over them, and winter boots on her feet. She has snow in her hair, and her cheeks are red with cold.

  “What are you doing here?” I whisper.

  She takes me by the arm and pulls me into the kitchen. Then she looks around.

  “He just left,” she says, breathlessly. “We’re alone.”

  I squint in the bright light. My head is pounding, and my mouth is dry.

  “How did you know I was here?”

  Saga looks at me seriously, and gently squeezes my arm.

  “It was in the diary. I knew you’d come here after I read it yesterday morning. And when I couldn’t get ahold of you last night, I called Melinda. She said she hadn’t heard from you since yesterday. You sent her a text message and told her you were sleeping over at a friend’s. But I knew that wasn’t true…”

  Saga falls silent, but I know what she’s thinking.

  I don’t have any other friends besides Saga. So if I wasn’t with her, she knew I was lying.

  “Where did you sleep, anyway?” she asks curiously.

  “Brogrens.”

  Saga nods and continues:

  “Anyway. I decided to come here and check it out for myself. I waited for a super-long time in the woods outside, until Magnus left, and then I came in.”

  “You found the key?”

  Saga nods and rolls her eyes.

  “Under the flowerpot. People are so freaking predictable. Except for us, since we’re so much smarter.”

  She smiles a little, but doesn’t really seem happy.

  “We have to hurry,” I say. “They’re going to kill Hanne.”

  “What? Who are ‘they’?”

  “Magnus and Margareta. They kept the woman at the cairn locked in the basement, and they killed that cop. He’s in the freezer in the basement.”

  Saga wrinkles her nose, and her eyes widen.

  “Seriously? In the basement? Here?”

  I nod.

  “You saw him?”

  Her voice is a whisper. I nod again.

  “Oh, fuck. What did it look like?”

  I think for a moment.

  “Do you remember that movie about zombies at the North Pole? He looked like one of them. Had, like, frost on his skin and…”

  My voice dies away when I see Saga’s terrified expression.

  “We have to hurry,” I say. “I have to warn Hanne. Can you call the police and tell them they’re headed to the cairn?”

  Saga nods seriously.

  “My phone’s dead,” she says. “But I’ll head home and call. I can be anonymous.”

  And then:

  “And I won’t say anything about you or the diary, either.”

  Malin

  We park outside Berit’s little cottage. The snow is falling heavily as we make our way toward the front door.

  The landscape is perfect and beautiful, a powdery, white lushness like I’ve only ever seen in Ormberg.

  Andreas drove like a madman all the way here, and I sat with my heart in my throat. But the farther we got from Örebro, the more far-fetched it seemed to me that Berit would have had anything to do with the murders, even if there are circumstances I can’t explain.

  I just can’t imagine that gentle, stubborn woman would be capable of killing someone. I lean toward Rut and Gunnar Sten instead.

  Suzette and Malik
are going over to check their basement.

  Stefan Birgersson was telling the truth.

  With just a little pressure, his friend Olle confessed that on several occasions in 1993, they’d set fire to the bushes outside the refugee camp. When they asked him why they did it, he just said they “were young and stupid.” He also admitted they’d hung the pig head from a tree as well, but claimed that was “a joke.”

  Stefan was immediately released. Of course, he’s probably guilty of several other crimes, but likely none so serious that he needs to be detained.

  Just before we reach the house, Andreas stops.

  “What’s that?” he says, pointing to the forest on the other side of the field.

  I look and see something moving between the trees, but the snow makes it hard to see what.

  “Looks like somebody’s walking in there,” I say.

  We peer into the woods, but whatever we saw is gone now, so we continue on to Berit’s door.

  We climb up a few front stairs and knock.

  The door opens almost immediately.

  Berit’s cheeks are red, and she looks worried. A hairpin with a flower on it hangs loosely from her bangs, like a colorful artificial fly from a fishing pole.

  “Hanne’s gone!” she says before we even say hello. “I was just out with the dog, and when I came back she was gone.”

  Berit puts a hand over her mouth and pinches her eyes shut. For a moment, I think she might start crying, but then she takes a deep breath and meets my eyes again.

  “Wait a moment,” I say. “When did you get home?”

  I look in the hall. A pair of boots stand in the middle of the floor and a coat is slung down beside them.

  “Just a few minutes ago. But she’s nowhere to be found. I’ve searched the whole house.”

  “May we come in?” Andreas asks.

  Berit moves aside and we enter.

  “Excuse me,” she says. Then she puts away her shoes and hangs up her coat.

  We search the little house together, but find no Hanne.

  “Can we look in the basement?” I ask, grateful for an excuse to investigate it.

  “Of course,” Berit says, raising a brow. “But why would she be down there?”