The Drowning (19 page)

‘Are you all right? Everything okay? It looks like you almost hit that deer.’

Christian turned his head towards the voice. A white-haired man in his sixties was standing there, looking at him.

‘I’m fine,’ Christian muttered. ‘I was just a bit shocked. That’s all.’

‘I can understand that. It’s awful when something jumps out in front of your car like that. Are you sure you’re all right though?’

‘Absolutely. I’m going to head for home now. I’m on my way to Fjällbacka.’

‘Ah, I see. I’m going to Hamburgsund. Drive carefully.’

The man shut the door, and Christian could feel his pulse begin to slow down. It was only ghosts, memories from the past. Nothing that could harm him.

A little voice in his head tried to talk about the letters. They were not figments of his imagination. But he turned a deaf ear, refusing to listen to the voice. If he started thinking about that, she would be in control again. And that was something he could not allow. He had worked so hard to forget. She wasn’t going to get hold of him again.

He started driving, headed for Fjällbacka. In his jacket pocket his mobile was buzzing.

10

Alice kept on crying, both day and night. He heard Mother and Father talking about it. They said she had something called colic. No matter what that meant, it was unbearable listening to the racket she made. The sound was encroaching on his whole life, taking everything away from him.

Why didn’t Mother hate her when she cried so much? Why did she hold her, sing to her, rock her to sleep, and look at her with such a gentle expression, as if she felt sorry for the baby?

There was no reason to feel sorry for Alice. She behaved that way on purpose. He was convinced of that. Sometimes when he leaned over her cot and peered down at her as she lay there like an ugly little beetle, she would stare back at him. She gave him a look that said she didn’t want Mother to love him. That was why she cried and demanded everything from her. So that there would be nothing left for him.

Now and then he could see that Father felt the same way. That he too knew that Alice was acting like that on purpose, so that Father would have no share of Mother either. Yet Father did nothing. Why didn’t he do anything? He was big and grown up. He should be able to make Alice stop.

Father was hardly allowed to touch the baby either. Occasionally he would try, picking her up and patting her bottom and stroking her back to get her to calm down. But Mother always said that he was doing it wrong, that he should leave Alice to her. And then Father would retreat again.

But one day Father decided to take charge of her. Alice had been crying worse than ever, for three whole nights in a row.

He had lain awake in his room, pressing the pillow over his head to block out the sound. And under the pillow his hatred had grown. It began spreading, settling so heavily on top of him that he could hardly breathe, and he had to lift the pillow away to gasp for air. By now Mother was worn out after being awake for three nights. So she had made an exception, leaving the baby to Father while she went to bed. And Father had decided to give Alice a bath, asking him if he’d like to watch.

Father carefully tested the temperature of the water before filling the bathtub. He looked at Alice, who for once was quiet, with the same expression on his face as Mother usually had. Never before had Father seemed so important. He was usually an invisible figure who disappeared in Mother’s radiance, someone who had also been shut out from the relationship that Mother and Alice shared. But now he was suddenly important. He smiled at Alice, and she smiled back.

Father cautiously lowered the tiny naked body into the water. He placed her in a baby bath seat lined with terry-cloth, almost like a little hammock, so she was partially sitting up. Tenderly he washed her arms, her legs, her plump little belly. She waved her hands and kicked her feet. She wasn’t crying. Finally she had stopped crying. But that didn’t matter. She had won. Even Father had left his place of refuge behind the newspaper to come out and smile at her.

He stood quietly in the doorway. Couldn’t take his eyes off Father’s hands touching that little body. Father, who had been the closest thing to an ally after Mother had stopped looking at him. The doorbell rang and he gave a start. Father looked from the bathroom door to Alice, unsure what to do. Finally he said:

‘Could you look after your little sister for a minute? I just need to go see who that is. I’ll be right back.’

He hesitated a second. Then he felt his head nodding. Father got up from where he was kneeling beside the tub and told him to come closer. His feet moved automatically to carry him the short distance over to the tub. Alice looked up at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Father leave the bathroom.

They were alone now, he and Alice.

Erica stared at Patrik in disbelief.

‘In the ice?’

‘Yes, the poor man who found him must have had a real shock.’ Patrik had given Erica a brief summary of the day’s events.

‘I guess he did!’ She dropped heavily on to the sofa, and Maja immediately tried to climb on to her lap. And that was not an easy task.

‘Hello! Hello!’ shouted Maja, pressing her mouth against her mother’s stomach. Ever since they’d explained to her that the babies could hear her, she’d seized every opportunity to communicate with them. Since her vocabulary was limited, and that was putting it mildly, there wasn’t much variety to her conversations.

‘They’re probably sleeping, so let’s not wake them,’ said Erica, holding her finger to her lips.

Maja imitated the gesture, and then pressed her ear against her mother’s stomach to hear if the babies really were asleep.

‘Sounds like it was a terrible day,’ said Erica in a low voice.

‘Yes, it was,’ said Patrik, trying to push aside his memory of the expressions he’d seen on the faces of Cia and her
children. Especially the look in Ludvig’s eyes. He was so much like Magnus, and that look was going to stay with Patrik for a very long time. ‘At least now they know. Sometimes I think that uncertainty is worse,’ he said, sitting down next to Erica so that Maja ended up between them. She slid happily on to his lap, which offered a little more room, and burrowed her head into his chest. He stroked her blonde hair.

‘You’re probably right. At the same time, it’s hard when hope disappears.’ Erica hesitated, then asked, ‘Do the police have any idea what happened?’

Patrik shook his head. ‘No, at this point we know nothing. Absolutely nothing.’

‘What about the letters that were sent to Christian?’ she asked, wrestling a bit with herself. Should she say anything about her excursion to the library today and what she’d been thinking about Christian’s past? She decided not to mention either of those things until she’d found out a bit more.

‘I still haven’t had time to think about the letters. But we’re going to have another talk with Magnus’s family and friends, so I can take up the subject when I interview Christian.’

‘They asked him about the letters this morning on the TV talk show,’ said Erica, shuddering when she thought about her own role in provoking the questions that Christian had been subjected to on live television.

‘What did he say?’

‘He dismissed the whole thing, even when they pressured him to discuss it.’

‘I’m not surprised.’ Patrik kissed his daughter on the top of her head. ‘So, what do you think, Maja? Shall we go and cook dinner for Mamma and the babies?’ He got up, holding Maja in his arms. She nodded eagerly. ‘What shall we make? Poop sausages with onions?’

Maja laughed so hard that she hiccupped. She was bright for her age and had recently discovered the pleasures of poop and pee humour.

‘Hmm …’ said Patrik. ‘No, I think we’ll cook fish sticks and mashed potatoes instead. Okay? We’ll save the poop sausages for another day.’

His daughter thought about this for a moment and then graciously nodded her agreement. Fish sticks it was.

Sanna paced back and forth. The boys were sitting in front of the TV in the living room, watching
Bolibompa
. But she just couldn’t settle in one place. She kept wandering through the house, gripping her mobile phone in one hand. Every once in a while she would punch in his number.

No answer. Christian hadn’t answered his phone all day, and one disaster scene after another had played out in her mind. Especially after the news about Magnus, which had shocked all of Fjällbacka. She’d checked Christian’s email at least ten times during the day. It felt as if something was building up inside of her, growing stronger and stronger until it demanded to be either denied or confirmed. Deep inside she almost wished that she could find something to blame him for. Then at least she would know and have some outlet for the anxiety and fear that kept gnawing at her.

In reality, she knew that she was going about things all wrong. With her need to be in control and her constant questions about who he had met and what he’d been thinking, she was driving him further away. She knew this on a rational level, but the emotions she had were so overwhelming. She felt that she couldn’t trust him, that he was hiding something from her, that she wasn’t good enough. That he didn’t love her.

The thought hurt so much that she sat down on the
kitchen floor and wrapped her arms around her knees. The refrigerator was humming behind her back, but she hardly noticed. The only thing she was aware of was the hollowness inside of her.

Where was he? Why hadn’t he called? Why couldn’t she get hold of him? Resolutely she tapped in his number again. Christian’s mobile rang and rang, but there was still no answer. She stood up and went over to look at the letter lying on the kitchen table. It had arrived today, and she had opened it at once. The message was as cryptic as ever.
You know you can’t escape. I’m inside your heart, and that’s why you can never hide, no matter where in the world you may go
. The handwriting in black ink was very familiar. With trembling fingers, Sanna picked up the letter and held it to her nose. It smelled of paper and ink. No perfume or anything else that might hint at the identity of the sender.

Though Christian persisted in maintaining that he didn’t know who had written the letters, she didn’t believe him. It was that simple. Fury rose up inside her, and she flung the letter on to the table, turned on her heel, and dashed upstairs. One of the boys called to her from the living room, but she ignored him. She had to know, she had to find out the answer. It was as if someone else had taken over her body, as if she no longer had control of herself.

She started with the bedroom, pulling out the drawers in Christian’s bureau and tearing through the contents. She took everything out, carefully examining each item, and then ran her hand over the inside of the empty drawers. Nothing. Absolutely nothing other than T-shirts, socks, and underwear.

She stood in the middle of the room and looked around. What about the wardrobes? Sanna went over to the large pieces of furniture that covered one entire wall and methodically went through them. Everything that
belonged to Christian ended up tossed on the floor. Shirts, trousers, belts, and shoes. She found nothing personal, nothing that would tell her anything more about her husband or help her penetrate the wall that he’d constructed around himself.

Faster and faster she pulled out his clothes. Finally only her own dresses and other clothing were left. She sank down on to the bed and ran her hand over the coverlet that her grandmother had stitched. She possessed so many things that revealed who she was and where she had come from. The coverlet, the dressing table that had once belonged to her other grandmother, the necklace that her mother had given her. Not to mention all the letters from friends and family members, which she kept in boxes in the wardrobe. There were also school yearbooks neatly stacked on a shelf, and her graduation cap safely stored away in a hatbox next to her dried bridal bouquet. So many little things that were part of her personal history, part of her life.

She suddenly realized that her husband didn’t have any such things. Apparently he wasn’t as sentimental as she was. Nor was he inclined to collect things. But there had to be something. No one went through life without holding on to at least a few mementos.

She jabbed at the coverlet with her fists. The suspense was making her heart beat faster. Who was Christian? Who was he really? An idea occurred to her, and she suddenly sat very still. There was one place she hadn’t yet searched. The attic.

Erik swirled the glass in his hand, studying the deep red colour of the wine, which was lighter towards the rim. The sign of a young wine, he’d learned at one of the countless wine classes that he’d attended.

His whole life was on the verge of collapsing, and he
couldn’t really understand how this had happened. He felt he was being carried by a current so strong that there was nothing he could do to resist.

Magnus was dead. One shock had merged with another, so it was only now that he could really take in what Louise had texted to his phone. First the news that she’d heard Magnus’s body had been found, and almost at the same time Cecilia had announced that she was pregnant. Two events that had shaken him to the core and that he’d learned within thirty seconds of each other.