After She's Gone

by Camilla Grebe

  “Then why didn’t you let them go? If you just wanted to help them?”

  Magnus squirms again. He rubs his hands together, and his forehead wrinkles.

  “But…” he says.

  And a few seconds later:

  “But I liked her.”

  “Azra?”

  Magnus looks down at the table. The big head starts to bob up and down. His bald spot flashes under the fluorescent lights.

  “Yes,” he says, sniffing loudly. “And Mom said nobody would notice if a few Yugos went missing. She said it didn’t matter. Not in the grand scheme of things. She said I could keep her as long as I lived at home. But then…after Nermina…disappeared, Assa was different. She stopped talking and didn’t want to leave the basement anymore. She just sat there on her bed. So. Everything was good. At least until that police officer and that bitch from Stockholm came and scared her away. The policeman was really angry. I got so scared. It was awful, but I had to. To protect myself, that is. And stop Assa. But that old lady disappeared. The one from Stockholm.”

  Silence again.

  I sense Svante’s shock—even though the screen is blurry and the sound is scratchy, I can feel it vibrating through my body.

  He’s sitting with his mouth open, as if he can’t really take in what Magnus is saying.

  “Were you in love with Azra?” Svante asks in the end.

  Magnus’s head bobs even more, and he sniffs again.

  “Love?”

  “Yes. Were you in love? Did you want to be close to her? Were you attracted to her? Was that why you kept her?”

  “No,” he says, and sniffs again. “She was more like a pet.”

  My stomach clenches in shock, and I push Pause. It’s hard to breathe.

  He called her a pet.

  My mother, Magnus’s pet.

  Tears start to flow down my cheeks, and I remember all those times I spent with them when I was little.

  I remember I used to run into Magnus’s house and hide under the kitchen table, when we were playing hide-and-seek. I’d lie on my stomach with my cheek pressed against the cool linoleum floor. Breathing in the smell of cooking grease and cigarette smoke, swallowing my giggles while I waited to be found.

  She was there, below me.

  My bare feet ran over her head.

  My ear was pressed to the floor that was her ceiling.

  And I didn’t notice anything.

  Esma’s words come back to me, the Bosnian saying she mentioned when we visited her.

  Those who sow the wind, harvest the storm.

  The storm is here now. The evil seeds Margareta sowed that winter when they offered shelter to Azra and Nermina have grown into a raging storm.

  I hear a scraping sound from outside. The door opens, and Manfred comes in.

  He sits down opposite me, meets my eyes, and nods slowly as if to confirm that the horror I’ve just witnessed is actually true.

  I think of what Andreas said when we were arguing about refugees in front of Manfred, when I tried to explain why the people of Ormberg were so unkind to them. I remember doing my best to explain why we, the people from here, deserved more help and support than the refugees. As if my origin were a currency that could be exchanged for sympathy and privilege.

  I will never forget his words; they’re carved into my memory.

  Malin, it could have been you…It could have been you who had to flee from war and starvation.

  And I responded, it could never have been me.

  I was from Ormberg, I wasn’t some fucking Muslim who’d crossed the Mediterranean in a patched-up rubber boat hoping to take advantage of the Swedish welfare system.

  But that’s exactly who I was.

  At that moment, I know what I have to do, what I owe Azra, Nermina, and Esma, and also myself.

  “Manfred,” I say. “I have to tell you something.”

  Jake

  Four months later

  Berit puts tea and buns on the table.

  I look out the window.

  The sun has burned away the snow, revealing large, dark gashes in the field outside. Next to the small mound of stones at the edge of the farmland a brave little coltsfoot is growing.

  Berit’s buns smell delicious.

  I can’t remember the last time I ate freshly baked buns. It must have been before Mom died—she used to bake sometimes. Mostly sugar cakes, because those are easy to make, but now and then she baked buns, too, with cinnamon and crispy pearls of sugar on top.

  Dad can’t cook or bake, but that doesn’t matter if you have a microwave.

  Hanne looks at Berit and wrinkles her forehead.

  “Please, Berit. I can set the table.”

  “No, sit,” Berit says. “I’ll take care of it. Then the two of you can have some time to chat. Joppe needs a walk.”

  “Then I’ll do the dishes,” Hanne says.

  “No you won’t.”

  “Of course I will.”

  “That’s out of the question,” Berit says.

  They almost sound married.

  Dad and Mom used to sound like that, squabbling about little things like who was gonna take out the garbage or what TV show they should watch on Friday nights.

  Maybe Berit and Hanne like each other, like Mom and Dad did. Even if they’re not in love with each other.

  Dad says that it’s a “scandal” that the county is letting Hanne stay with Berit. He says it would be both cheaper and safer to put her in a home, but I don’t agree. I can’t imagine Hanne among a lot of old, confused people, locked in a rest home.

  Berit limps out into the hall, and Joppe saunters loyally behind her, throwing a last longing glance at the buns before reluctantly disappearing.

  The front door closes, and we’re sitting face-to-face.

  Hanne smiles a little.

  She’s not as thin as I remember her, and her face has a lot more color. Her hair is thick and shiny and falls in soft waves onto her shoulders.

  “I hear I owe you a thank-you,” Hanne says. “They say you saved my life.”

  My cheeks feel hot, and I look down at the table.

  She holds out the plate, and I grab the biggest bun. I take a bite and meet her eyes again.

  She looks curious, and even though she’s so old, she reminds me of a child when she looks at me like that.

  “I have to admit I don’t remember what happened,” she says. “But they’ve told me the story. Several times, in fact.”

  She laughs a bit when she says the last.

  “Is it hard not to be able to remember stuff?” I ask.

  Hanne nods and grabs a bun for herself. She holds it in the palm of her hand, observing it as if trying to figure out how much it weighs or what it’s made of.

  “Yes. Sometimes it’s very difficult. Though I think it’s gotten a little better. I started taking a new medicine. And now my life isn’t so dramatic anymore.”

  She raises her eyebrows and smiles when she says “dramatic.”

  “I remember more now,” she continues. “I still don’t remember everything that happened when Peter disappeared, but I know he’s…”

  She blinks a few times.

  “Dead?” I say.

  Hanne nods, but says nothing. She gazes out through the window.

  “Do you wish you could remember everything that happened here in Ormberg?” I ask.

  Hanne puts the bun on the table, straightens up, and looks at me.

  “I’m not really sure,” she says. “It depends. Sometimes ignorance is a blessing.”

  And then:

  “And what about you? Is it hard to be as brave as you are?”

  I feel embarrassed again, don’t know what to say.

  “Nah. Or, I guess. Maybe a little.”<
br />
  “In what way?” she asks, taking a bite of her bun.

  I consider it a bit before I answer.

  “It’s hard to find the courage to be the person you are inside. I think everyone could be brave, if they found their courage.”

  Hanne nods.

  “You’re not just brave, you’re wise, too. And how did you find your courage?”

  I look out the window again. Berit disappears between the trees, Joppe jumping around her legs. Water drips from the roof and down to the windowsill.

  “I was very afraid at first,” I say.

  “Mmhhhm.” Hanne nods again as if she understands just what I mean, as if courage is her specialty.

  It’s so strange to be sitting here telling her all this. Because I’ve never talked to any adult about these things. But with Hanne, I have to be honest, I just know it. When I read her diary, I learned so much about her—it’s only right that she learns a little about me, too.

  It’s a question of balance.

  “Courage is in short supply these days,” Hanne says, looking out toward the church.

  Maybe she’s thinking about what lies beyond it, of the refugee camp.

  The story of how Magnus held a refugee woman and her children captive in a basement has been in the newspapers and on television every day since Margareta fell off Ättestupan and died. And when it came out that Malin was the daughter of the refugee woman, journalists from all over the world came here.

  They call Magnus “The Ormberg Butcher,” and his basement “The Chamber of Death.” Apparently, someone is even going to write a book called The Pet about what happened.

  That’s what Ballsack-Magnus called Azra during his police interrogation.

  Saga said that was the most twisted thing she’d ever heard. And our social studies teacher told us that Magnus and Margareta probably didn’t think of Azra and Nermina as having the same human dignity as them because they were from a different background.

  Foreign journalists even called Dad and offered us money to interview me.

  He told them all to go to hell.

  You can’t trust journalists. Especially if they come from big cities like Stockholm, Berlin, London, and Paris.

  We talk for a while, then Berit comes back with her dog and starts to clear the table.

  “Please, Berit,” Hanne says. “I’ll take care of all this later.”

  “No you won’t,” Berit says.

  “I’ll help you,” Hanne says, starting to get up.

  “You sit,” Berit says, limping around the table and pushing Hanne down into her chair again.

  * * *

  —

  I feel good when I leave Hanne and Berit.

  Before I start my moped, I take out my phone and text:

  “See you in five.”

  Then I put on my helmet and head toward the old highway. I drive with my visor up; the air on my face is lukewarm. Dirty snow still lies in drifts on the side of the road, and glassy puddles of snowmelt stand in the deep potholes on the gravel road.

  I turn right after Orm Mountain and continue a few hundred meters, then stop and park my moped.

  The forest around me is awakening after a long, cold winter. Small, rolled-up ferns shoot up out of last year’s grass. The birds are singing. The sun is hot, and everything smells like wet earth and spruce trees.

  Saga is already there.

  She’s standing in the middle of the road with her hands pushed deep into her jean pockets. The wind plays with her blue hair.

  I give her a quick hug, and she hugs back. Then I take out the diary and flip through it. Stop near the end, near one of Hanne’s bloody handprints.

  I put my hand over it. They fit exactly.

  Saga does the same.

  I think again about how grateful I am that she forgave me and kept the diary secret. And about how lucky it is that her mom stopped dating that asshole Björn, and that she won’t end up killed in a sauna.

  I flip back a few pages. Read that spindly, familiar handwriting.

  I’m going to burn this diary when this is all over. Erase the last two weeks of my life. Forget Ormberg and all that happened here. Until we got here life was perfect, despite the disease.

  Dear God, I ask of you only this: Help me forget!

  “Shall I?” Saga asks.

  I nod and think of what Hanne said.

  Sometimes ignorance is a blessing.

  Saga digs in her pocket and takes out a lighter, flicks the little wheel with her thumb, and holds the flame to the book.

  It sparks as fire grabs hold of those brittle pages. The flames lick the pages, and for a moment it seems as if the text were floating freely in the air, receiving a new life, released from that mottled parchment-like paper.

  As if Hanne’s story no longer needed a diary in order to exist.

  I put the burning book on the gravel road and watch the fire eat it page by page, until it finally swallows everything, cover to cover. The paper darkens, and flimsy, black flakes float away in the wind.

  Saga’s hand slips into mine, squeezes tight.

  “Ready to go?” she asks.

  About After She’s Gone

  We live in a difficult time. More people have been displaced from their homes than ever before in history. And this stream of refugees has been met with xenophobia, conflict, and fear.

  My Ormberg isn’t a real place, but it exists all around us. Maybe you live in Ormberg, and don’t even know it, or maybe you drive through it on your way to work, or visit your relatives there. Ormberg is a state of mind, not a geographic location—a condition that arises when large changes sweep through, like forest fires. Ormberg is what grows out of the ashes of the old ironworks. It takes its nourishment from dejection, dissatisfaction, or maybe just sadness.

  “It could have been you who had to flee from war and starvation,” Andreas says to Malin. And it’s this simple but important message that I want to convey in After She’s Gone.

  To Åsa and Mats, for showing me there’s a way out of even the deepest darkness

  Acknowledgments

  I’d like to offer my sincere thanks to everyone who helped me during the writing of After She’s Gone, especially my editor, Anne Speyer; the team at Ballantine Books, including Jennifer Hershey, Kim Hovey, and Kara Welsh; and my agents at Ahlander Agency, Christine Edhäll and Astri von Arbin Ahlander. In addition, I’m eternally grateful to Åsa Torlöf, who read the manuscript and contributed important insights about police work; Martina Nilsson, who generously shared her knowledge of DNA analyses; and Lejla Hastor, who answered my questions about Bosnia. Finally, I’d like to thank my family and friends for their understanding and encouragement while I was writing this book. Without your love and patience, no book!

  BY CAMILLA GREBE

  After She’s Gone

  The Ice Beneath Her

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CAMILLA GREBE was born in 1968 in Alvsjo, Sweden. She holds a degree from the Stockholm School of Economics and was a cofounder of the audiobook publisher Storyside. With her sister Åsa Träff, Grebe has written five celebrated crime novels, the first two of which were nominated for Best Swedish Crime Novel of the Year. Grebe is also the cowriter of the popular Moscow Noir trilogy.

  @CamillaGrebe

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