I sat down on the bed.
A couple of days earlier over dinner Emil had talked about some major project they were going to be doing in school. I couldn’t remember what it was. I hadn’t been listening.
I wished they were with me now. All of them. That they were telling me something, holding me tight, shaking me. That I could look into their eyes and recognise them, that they knew I was their mum, wife.
I got dressed and went down to the sea.
The wind during the night had blown the pack ice into jagged mounds, irregular patterns in the inlet. The tender from Domarö was on its way in, making for the steamboat jetty and passing a flock of tufted ducks paddling by the edge of the ice. There was no more than a faint breeze now, but it was still so cold that it pinched at my nose and cheeks. Perhaps the ice would stay this year. Perhaps we would be able to buy cross-country skis and head off beyond Domarö and Gåvasten. Light a camp fire on some distant island and grill sausages, far away from everything and everyone else.
I walked up towards your house. This would have to be the last time. I really just wanted to explain to you that you were a nasty piece of work who didn’t deserve my care and attention. Then I would leave you to rot until the spring.
I had a premonition. It turned out to be correct.
Before I even turned off the road I could see there were footprints on the drive leading up to your house. I kept on walking. Sweat broke out along my hairline. Itching beneath my woolly hat.
Did I leave anything inside? The make-up…
But there was no way anyone could link the make-up to me. They would realise someone had been in the house, but was there any way they could know it was me? Had anyone seen me?
No. I didn’t think so.
I carried on around the bend in the road so that I could see the back of the house. The footprints led up to the patio door. Only now did it occur to me that it was strange that there were no tyre tracks. If they had come to pick you up, surely they would have had some kind of vehicle?
Besides which, it had been very windy during the night, and yet the tracks were perfectly clear. That meant they must have come at some point between three o’clock in the morning and now. It was just after ten.
I turned and went back, constantly on the lookout for some movement, some glimpse of activity inside the house. But there was nothing. When I reached the tracks I slowed down. And stopped.
The tracks had been made by bare feet. The soles were clearly visible in the snow, which was about three centimetres deep. They were your footprints. I took a few steps along the drive, following them with my eyes. They went in both directions, but the ones leading to the road were much less clear. You had been out, then gone back home.
I stood staring at the tracks for a long time, glancing frantically over towards the road, until a thought struck me. I ran back to my house. Our house. Lasse’s and my house. Lasse’s and Emil’s and Johanna’s and my house. My family’s house.
They began halfway up the path leading to the front door. They ran along the side of the house. I crouched down. These were tracks made when you were leaving, the heels were facing the house. But next to them was a series of faint indentations in the snow. The footprints you left on the way in, which had been filled in by the wind.
I followed the tracks, flattening them down and rubbing them out with my boots. They stopped below my bedroom window, ending with two feet side by side, clearer than the rest. You stood here. For a long time. Stood in the cold wind during the night below my window, as I sat in the chair unable to sleep.
It could have been romantic.
I fetched the straw broom and swept the entire area. I really had to scrub and bang to obliterate the last two impressions. The ones where you had stood.
‘How did you know where I live?’
Few things are as unpleasant as getting hot and sweaty, then standing in the cold as the sweat dries on your skin, with your clothes still wet. My breath was coming out of my mouth in dense clouds, saturated with moisture.
You were lying on the bed as usual. The make-up was smeared across your face, the blanket stained where you had used it to scrub at your skin. I ripped the blanket off your body.
‘Answer me!’
I no longer thought you were beautiful. You were nothing more than a lump of frozen meat, lying there weighing down a bed. That ridiculous sausage between your legs, your messy face. And that knife in your chest. I yanked it out. I threw it at the wall. You didn’t move a muscle. A viscous, brownish bubble rose from the wound and stopped. Your lips parted and you whispered, ‘You are dead.’
My stomach contracted in painful cramps, and I could feel the menstrual blood seeping out to compensate for the blood you were not bleeding. Everything went red before my eyes and I screamed, ‘I am not dead, you’re the one who’s dead you disgusting bastard and you can lie here and rot as far as I’m concerned, I don’t care about you anymore, so what have you got to say about that?’
My face was burning, and I didn’t hear your answer. I leaned closer. Every word you said, every breath carried with it the stench of jam that has been left in the freezer for too long. ‘Everything you told me. Indicates. That you are not. Alive.’
At first I didn’t understand what was happening. It was as if the light had changed, as if the room had begun to tilt and my body was being twisted into a position where it did not want to be. A great weight fell through the air. My eyes pricked and the tears welled up.
‘It’s possible. But I…I…’
I cracked. An abscess of tears burst in my throat, and although I didn’t want it to happen, although I didn’t want to humiliate myself like that, my anger turned to sobs and my voice trembled as if in prayer when I spoke.
‘I’ll be better. I promise I’ll be better. Leave me in peace. Don’t come to me. Leave me alone.’
The fury ebbed away. The room was silent. There was only the sound of my sobs, the warm tickling feeling down my inner thigh as the blood overflowed. You opened your eyes, wider than you had ever done before, and looked at me. Two lumps of grey slime. You were smiling. This time you really were smiling. You said, ‘I’m sorry. But that’s not actually your decision to make.’
I don’t remember how I got home, how I found the tools in the shed, how I got back. The images all flow into one. Suddenly I’m standing there again, in your bedroom. But this time I’ve got a hammer, nails and staples.
I forced your hand down towards the frame of the bed. I hammered two nails through the hand itself, then a staple around each finger. The sharp ends peeled away the skin, but the hoops clamped the skeleton firmly. The hand was securely fastened. You couldn’t go anywhere.
All this is logical. A reasonable course of action. I had nailed you down so that you couldn’t come and threaten my family, my children. I did what had to be done.
But as I stood there looking at you and panting, you smiled that smile again, the smile that said you had the upper hand because you knew my most fragile secrets, while I didn’t even know your name. The smile that said I was worth nothing, a little grey, flat woman whispering and worshipping by your side.
I undid my trousers and took out my sodden sanitary towel. I painted you red. Chest, arms, legs. To finish off I tried to force the towel into your mouth, but it was too tightly closed. I placed it over your eyes instead.
Then I left.
I took a long, hot shower, then I crawled into bed and wrapped myself in a cocoon of warmth and darkness. I closed my eyes and tried to persuade my body that none of this had actually happened.
I said I was ill, that I had a temperature. Perhaps I did. The combination of sweating and getting cold. I felt wretched, shivering fits running beneath my skin, and my body felt sick, sick, sick in a way that no thermometer could measure.
They brought me food. Spaghetti bolognese. Lasse sat down by my bed and asked what I’d been doing during the day. Emil came up and told me about his project again. It was to do with a farm
. They were building a farm out of cardboard and making animals out of clay. Next week they were going to visit a farmer. It sounded terrific. I just wanted to cry. I managed to control myself.
When I was alone again, I crawled onto the floor. I lay down on the wooden floorboards and lifted up my hair, exposing the back of my neck.
Seize me. Stab me.
Nothing. I wanted it to happen. There was no prayer so heartfelt or so eloquent that it could match my need. There was only one thing to say: Punish me. Or forgive me.
Perhaps God would punish me later. Perhaps he would allow Emil to drown. From now on, every terrible thing that befell my family was my fault. It was a dreadful thought. The alternative was that he might forgive me. Yes. It was possible. But I didn’t believe it. If our picture of God is a projection of what we ourselves are, then there is no forgiveness. Not for me. Never. Everything remains as it is.
Evening came, then night. When Lasse came to bed he asked me how I was, how things really were. I said I felt sad. I wanted to tell him everything, but I said I felt sad, then I rolled over with my back to him and asked him to hold me. He did as I asked and it was nice, but it wasn’t enough. He would have had to be ten times bigger. A hundred times bigger. I would have needed to lie in the palm of his hand.
So the night came, and the minutes. They were long. Lasse’s breathing was warm and whispering against the back of my neck. The minutes crawled on spider’s legs through pine resin. I slid out of Lasse’s arms and got up. Stood for a long time in the middle of the floor listening to the wind in the tin roof. Bang. Bang. Bang bang.
I will stand here. All night. As a penance.
It was the first thought I had had all day that made me…well, not happy. But contented. It was a good thought. Stand motionless in the middle of the floor all night. See if I could do it. Perhaps God would notice me then.
I had been standing there for maybe half an hour when the urge to do what I shouldn’t do began to make itself felt: to go over to the window, peek through the blind and see if you were standing out there. I pinched my earlobe. Hard. Lasse turned over in bed. A relief. If he opened his eyes now he wouldn’t be able to see me.
Ten minutes passed. My knees were beginning to ache. The urge came over me again. I stared at the blind, tried to stare straight through it. Pinched my earlobe again. Harder this time, I almost squealed out loud.
Bang. Bang bang.
Loud bangs. I thought: if the front door opens, I won’t be able to hear it.
I made my body stiff and straight, like a plank of wood. Nailed myself to the floor. I was the one who usually locked the front door at night. Had Lasse done it tonight? He had once said it made him feel as if he was at work, at the prison, if he had to lock the front door. He wanted to feel relaxed at home.
My stomach was churning. The torments of the night would be even worse if I stood here not knowing.
Anyone who really wants to get in will get in anyway, Lasse had said on that occasion.
I pinched my earlobe again. It didn’t help. I had to check the door. On feet that tingled from standing still, I crept over to the door, opened it cautiously and peered down the stairs.
The air. What’s different about…the air…
The air outside the bedroom was fresh and cold. Not only was the front door unlocked, it was standing wide open, with the night wind blowing through the hallway. My heart leapt in my breast, and just as I reached the top of the stairs I heard Emil scream.
Not scream. Roar. Nothing on earth is worse than hearing a child roar like that, from the depths of his body, with horror, pain, when it’s your own child roaring. Nothing. Nothing.
I almost fell down the stairs as I hurled myself forward and my body was an open wound, Emil’s roar was a red-hot poker being thrust into the wound. I reached the landing and saw you coming out of Emil’s room.
You were naked. Your body was smeared with my blood and you were holding the clasp knife in your hand. The blade was open. Your hand reached out towards my face and Emil kept on roaring and somewhere right at the back of my mind a voice was whispering:
He’s yelling. He’s alive.
And the hand reaching out towards my face was not a hand but merely a ragged combination of bits of skin and skeleton left over when you tore it free of the nails and staples. You hit me across the cheek. My head jerked to one side and I fell.
As you walked out through the front door I crawled towards Emil’s room. I wanted to be sick. I didn’t want to see. I could see the soles of Emil’s feet drumming against the mattress as if he were running up towards the ceiling ridiculously fast. I dragged myself to my feet.
Emil was stretched out on the bed, dressed only in his underpants. The quilt had been thrown to one side. The whole of his little body was shaking and jumping with the jerking of his legs as they ran and ran. His mouth was wide open, a gaping hole letting out that roar.
The wound was directly over his heart. I fell on him, I wrapped him in my arms and his roaring deafened me.
‘Don’t die, don’t die…’
The sensible part of my brain, the cold, clear sense somewhere behind the fear was whispering:
Stop the bleeding. Help him.
I obeyed. With shaking hands I switched on the bedside light and looked at the wound, ready to tear strips off the quilt cover, tear strips off myself.
It was only a scratch. Making a point. Emil carried on screaming.
At last I heard Lasse’s footsteps on the stairs. Three long strides, loud thuds and he came running into the room.
‘What is it? What’s happened?’
What I said couldn’t have made any sense to him, couldn’t possibly have seemed like the right reaction to what he could see before his eyes. I ran my hand over the wound, got a tiny drop of blood on my fingers, and I whispered, ‘It’s only a scratch…just a little scratch…’
It took two minutes before Lasse grasped what had happened. A man had come into his house and marked his son, frightened him out of his wits. Lasse went out to look for the man. Someone from the mental institution, no doubt.
I sat with Emil. Johanna came to join us. We sat with Emil. The fear shone from his eyes, he couldn’t speak. I thought:
Thank you, Lord. Thank you for letting him live.
Lasse came back after a quarter of an hour. He hadn’t found the man, so he called the police. Emil was no longer screaming, he was just panting. I asked Johanna to stay with him, then I got up and went outside. Lasse was busy on the phone.
I went to the woodshed and fetched the axe.
Nobody knew you had been dead from the start. It wasn’t even possible to identify you from the remains. But there were other mitigating circumstances. Several.
I’m happy with my punishment.
Can’t see it! It doesn’t exist!
Frank Johansson is waiting for the picture that will change his life.
He is sitting in an elm tree, six metres above the ground. In order to avoid chafing, he has wrapped two layers of foam rubber around the branch on which he is sitting. Since he began his surveillance two days ago, he has drunk fifteen litres of water. His back is killing him.
It is summer. A fat, Swedish summer. The sun is blazing down through the foliage and the sweat is pouring off him. The only breeze comes from the wing beats of fate. This is his last chance. It’s the picture or the abyss. Well, bankruptcy anyway.
One million.
The picture will bring him a million, as a ballpark figure. He’s worked it out, he’s checked. The Sun alone is willing to cough up fifty thousand pounds for the rights. Then minor royalties from others, later.
A million will solve all his problems.
1/250th of a second is all he needs. The shutter opens, exposes the film to the Picture, closes again, stores it in the darkness of the camera and Frank is a rich man.
His palms are sweaty; he wipes them on his trouser legs and grips the camera with both hands, points the lens at the pool and sees the
same thing he has been seeing for two days now:
Blue water. Two wooden deckchairs beneath a large white parasol. A table between the chairs. A book on the table. With his 300 millimetre lens he can zoom in so close that he can read the title: Lord of the Flies.
The surface of the water is like a mirror. Nothing is moving.
It would take less than this to drive a person crazy.
Frank zooms out, allowing the surface of the pool to fill his viewfinder. A cloud drifts across the sky, making deeper shades of blue flicker across the water. His head is boiling. If only he could slide down into that water, allow himself to be embraced, cooled.
He takes a swig of water warmed by the sun from his bottle.
One million.
Someone has been here. Someone has sat on the deckchair, read Lord of the Flies and put it down. Amanda. It has to be Amanda. Roberto—can he even read?
All they have to do is walk out through that door—Frank tracks their route with his finger—walk over to the edge of the pool and… kiss. One kiss, one simple little kiss and Frank will be saved.
But they don’t appear, they don’t want to save Frank, and he hates them. As the scalding sweat pours down into his eyes and his back is agonising crystal and weariness gnaws at his soul, he keeps himself busy by dreaming and hating.
Wouldn’t you?
Someone can save you with a kiss, but refuses to oblige. Perhaps that was all Judas wanted: a kiss. When he didn’t get it, he responded with his own. Thirty pieces of silver, what was he going to do with those? He had responded. Then he went and hanged himself.
Frank stares at a thick branch above his head. He pictures a rope and feels himself falling, hears the sound as his neck is broken—chapack as the connection between body and soul is severed and you are as free as a little blue bird in a night without end.
Blue, blue…the surface of the pool lies at his feet and his thoughts begin to wander. Minutes pass, hours. A mosquito lands on his forearm and he watches it with interest as it sucks his blood. Paparazzi. They say Fellini came up with the name because it reminded him of an irritating mosquito. Paparazzi, paparazzi.