The Double Silence (7 page)

Across from her sat Håkan, Stina’s husband, for whom she’d always harboured particularly warm feelings. He was so endearing, in a subdued sort of way, and his love for Stina was plain to see.

Stina looked small next to her imposing husband. She was so feminine with her petite figure, and her black shiny hair was pulled into a topknot
with a girlish pink ribbon. She was dressed in a blouse and skirt. Always attired in ladylike way; always pretty even without make-up. Stina didn’t have to make much of an effort to look good. At the same time she seemed so fragile, like a tiny delicate bird. She was eating slowly, with discreet little movements. She generally ate only meagre portions, and she had a habit of moving the food around on her plate before putting anything in her mouth. The various items would change places with each other several times as she poked and stirred the bits of food every which way before finally deciding to take a bite. And then she would study the food on her fork from different angles before she cautiously put it in her mouth.

Sam used to complain about how odd she was. Her finicky eating habits drove him crazy, but Andrea had persuaded him not to say anything. He could just look the other way.

Soon after they met, Andrea and Stina had started going for walks together to get some exercise, and eventually the walks had become an essential part of their daily routines. That was when they talked about their problems, gossiped about the neighbours, exchanged advice and tips about everything from home decorating to child rearing. But lately Stina had cancelled or declined to come along when invited, offering all sorts of excuses. Andrea couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed. Something was different about her friend, but she didn’t know what was wrong. She was hoping they’d have a chance to talk during this holiday trip. She missed their long, intimate conversations.

Next to Stina sat John. He was ten years younger than Beata. They had been the last of the group to move into the development. John was originally from San Diego in California. He and Beata had met in New York when she was working there as a model. John had come into the bar where she and her colleagues hung out every night, and they had started up a romance that ended with him following her back to Sweden. They now had three children, and everything had gone well for them. John had quickly adapted to life in Sweden. He ran a bar in Visby, and he spoke good Swedish, although with a strong American accent. Sometimes he just didn’t feel like making the effort and would switch to English. He was nice in a slightly affected way, bordering on pretentious, in Andrea’s
opinion. It was hard to figure him out. They spent a good deal of time together, of course, and talked about all sorts of things, but it was difficult to know where he stood on many issues.

Beata, on the other hand, was very easy to read – frequently too easy. She suffered from a constant need for attention, which could be terribly annoying. And she was always talking about sex, which was also tiresome. But there were plenty of good sides to her, so Andrea tried to be tolerant. Beata just needed to be seen, as Sam said every time Andrea complained about her friend’s behaviour. He ignored Beata’s innuendos. Everyone in the group was used to them. It was a different matter when they had big parties with new arrivals who weren’t aware of Beata’s idiosyncrasies. She often ended up sitting on the lap of some new neighbour’s poor husband, her peals of laughter louder than anyone else’s. She was always touching people, especially men, massaging their shoulders, dancing too close. She seemed to lack any sense of boundaries between what was considered decent behaviour and what was inappropriate.

Over the years Andrea had discussed this with Sam many times, but he claimed that Beata was harmless; no one took her seriously. Andrea shouldn’t be bad-mouthing their friends. And Beata was a good friend, she really was. She was forthright and honest, always saying what she meant, even if that wasn’t the wisest thing to do.

Andrea sipped her coffee and looked out of the window at the apple trees in the garden. A lone man with a beard and straw hat was sitting at a table in the shade, reading. The scene looked so peaceful.

He reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t think who that might be. There was just something familiar about him. Maybe she was thinking of an actor or someone else in the film business whom she ought to recognize. She would ask Sam later.

Suddenly the man looked up from his book and stared straight at her. Oddly enough, she felt as if she’d been caught out, as if she’d been surreptitiously studying him. She smiled with embarrassment, stirred her coffee, and turned her gaze to her friends seated around the table.

They all knew that she wasn’t particularly talkative first thing in the morning. She preferred silence, at least for her own part. She never wanted
to talk to anyone until after breakfast. That was why no one had tried to draw her into the conversation; they left her alone.

Sam, on the other hand, was eagerly conversing as he helped himself liberally to everything on the breakfast table. He kept making the others laugh. He seemed to be in an unusually good mood.

THEY WERE SITTING
across from each other at the kitchen table. On the radio Lisa Syrén was chatting about various topics with people at home all over Sweden. They were having breakfast indoors, in spite of the splendid weather. The children were still asleep. Knutas stole glances at his wife as she read the newspaper. Lina was wearing her reading glasses. Even though she couldn’t read anything without her glasses, she was always losing them. Each time she would rope the whole family into looking for them, and by now everyone had grown tired of it. Knutas had suggested that she fasten them to a cord that she could hang around her neck. That would make things easier for all of them. But Lina had retorted: ‘Not on your life. That will really make me look like an old lady.’

She does, in fact, look like an old lady, thought Knutas as she sat there in her worn-old bathrobe with her glasses perched on the tip of her nose. She was deeply immersed in reading about personal relationships in the special inside section of
Dagens Nyheter
. She wasn’t especially interested in the news or politics. Her attention was most often caught by someone’s tragic fate, people’s relationship problems, or the diseases they were suffering from. The sort of thing that Knutas found unbelievably upsetting. Absentmindedly she reached for her tea cup, all the while keeping her eyes fixed on the newspaper. She had eaten only an egg, a slice of ham, and a tomato for breakfast. Every once in a while Lina would go through a weight-loss craze, but it never lasted more than a couple of weeks. During that time she would completely change her diet and start working out. She had tried everything, from power-walking to African dancing, but she never stayed
with any programme consistently. During their entire marriage, Lina had always been about 10 kilos overweight, and she periodically managed to lose a few of them. At the moment she didn’t seem to care. It had never bothered Knutas. He thought she looked great with her plump curves, her soft white skin, and her freckled arms and legs. She gave a big yawn, without covering her mouth.

Lately they hadn’t found as much to talk about. They were each so busy with their own jobs. Lina seldom told him about her work any more. In the past she had enthusiastically talked about everything, until it almost became too much for Knutas. Sometimes he would shut her voice out, letting her talk while he settled into his own thoughts and stopped listening. Suddenly it occurred to him that he had no idea how his wife spent her time these days when she wasn’t at work.

‘I’ve got to go into the office for a while this morning. What are you going to do today?’ he asked.

‘What did you say?’ she murmured distractedly.

He repeated his question.

‘You know very well what I’m doing. I’m taking the eleven o’clock flight to Stockholm.’

Knutas raised his eyebrows.

‘I didn’t know about that. Why are you going there?’

Lina looked up from the newspaper with a reproachful expression.

‘I told you a long time ago. I’m going to see Maria.’

‘Maria?’

‘Maria Karlsson. The photographer. I’m going to help her with that documentary book about childbirth in various parts of the world. We need to discuss the contents and how to divide up the work.’

In a far corner of his mind Knutas recalled Lina once mentioning this trip to him.

‘Oh, right. Of course.’

‘What’s wrong with you? I’m going to be gone all weekend. Did you forget about that?’

‘No, no. Of course I remember. Now that you mention it.’

‘Good.’

Lina went back to her article. An uncomfortable silence settled over them. Knutas got up and cleared the table.

He thought about the conversation that he’d had yesterday with his contact at Interpol, who had told him that they’d had some reliable tips that the double murderer Vera Petrov and her husband were in the Dominican Republic. A Swedish tourist had contacted the Dominican police, claiming that he thought he’d recognized the couple in a restaurant in the town of Puerto Plata. The local police were investigating. Knutas could only hope that the witness was right. The man had managed to photograph the pair, and sometime today the photo would be sent to Sweden.

Knutas really didn’t have time to ponder his marital problems. He just wanted to get to the office.

EVERYONE HAD HIGH
expectations of the bus tour that would take them in Bergman’s footsteps. At ten o’clock on Saturday morning, a motley group had assembled outside Fårö’s former school, which now served as the information centre during the Bergman festival week. The group consisted primarily of people with ties to the film industry or the cultural world. Stina recognized Jan Troell and his wife, Jörn Donner with a well-known TV newsreader, the cultural director for the Gotland district, a Swedish author, several actors and a cinema owner from Visby. The bus tour was led by Gotland’s own film consultant, a colourful and beautiful woman. With great enthusiasm she told them about the filming that Bergman had done on Fårö and the various locations that he had used.

Andrea and Stina ended up sitting next to each other. Beata landed next to Sam, and way at the back sat Håkan and John. The bus jolted along the gravel roads, through flocks of sheep, and headed towards the wide expanse of the sea. Film clips were shown on the TV monitor before they arrived at each of the locations where the movies were shot.

‘Bergman made a total of four feature films on Fårö –
Through a Glass Darkly
,
Persona
,
Shame
and
The Passion of Anna
– as well as two documentaries,’ the guide told them. ‘According to some film critics, the windswept and barren landscape here on Fårö supposedly symbolizes the inner life of the main characters. Bergman himself said that the natural setting here suited him perfectly, and it inspired him tremendously.’

Everyone was listening attentively to the guide’s lively account.

‘Ingmar Bergman came to Fårö for the first time on a stormy April day in the early 1960s. He came here only reluctantly, looking for a location for
Through a Glass Darkly
. In reality, Bergman wanted to shoot the film on the Orkney Islands north of Scotland, but those plans were too expensive for the Swedish film company. The cinematographer Sven Nykvist had shot newsreels on Gotland and Fårö during the war, so he was able to tell his colleague about the barren landscape. Bergman instantly fell in love with the island, built a house here, and became a resident in 1967. He has meant a great deal to the people who live here. He donated money for various construction projects and filmed documentaries about the lives of the islanders. He put Fårö on the world map. That’s why the local people, for all these years, have been so loyal to him. No islander would ever tell a visitor where he lived, and in all this time they have respected Bergman’s well-known need for solitude.’

‘Is the location of his house still a secret, even after his death?’ asked Stina.

‘Yes. You won’t get any of the locals to tell you where it is,’ explained the guide with a smile. ‘Not even me.’

The tour continued. They found out that Bergman always drove his car down the middle of the road, that the islanders mostly viewed him as a nice man who drove to the shops and bought the newspaper every day, and as someone who was good at finding work for them – many Fårö residents were extras in his films.

While the guide was talking, Andrea poked Stina in the side.

‘Look how she’s carrying on,’ she hissed, motioning behind them. Stina discreetly turned around. Beata was on the other side of the aisle in the row behind them, sitting close to Sam and talking nonstop. She had one hand on his thigh, and he didn’t seem to mind.

‘What does she think she’s doing? Is she out of her mind?’ Andrea whispered to Stina. ‘She’s acting worse than ever. I’m going to say something to her.’

‘Wait,’ Stina told her. ‘Take it easy. You know how she is. Besides, he’s moving her hand away.’

Andrea took a quick look back. Beata’s hand was gone now, and she
could tell that Sam was feeling uncomfortable. He pressed closer to the window. She turned back to Stina.

‘I don’t understand why she acts like that. Last night she was bloody annoying.’

‘She drank too much,’ said Stina drily. ‘We all do sometimes, don’t we?’

Andrea was irritated by Stina’s apparent reluctance to bad-mouth a friend. That definitely didn’t improve her mood. She wished this damn tour would be over soon so they could go to the beach. She glanced at her watch; they’d been out for an hour and a half. The sun was blazing through the dusty windows, and it was getting hotter with every minute that passed. Sweat ran down her back, and to make matters worse, the bus had no air conditioning.

‘I’ve got a slight hangover myself,’ she went on. ‘But I noticed you didn’t drink much last night.’

Stina smiled.

‘No, but that’s because I’m on call, you know. They could tell me to come in to work at any time. I didn’t want to run the risk of getting drunk. But it looks like there are others suffering from a hangover.’