She decided to tell the truth without revealing everything. “Details about an affair. We know that an unhappy love affair was behind Tekla’s suicide.”
Hook looked at the pile of papers with renewed interest. Still reading the letters, he said, as if it were just a passing thought, “And why would the reason behind an old suicide be of interest?”
“Honestly, we don’t know. However, we believe you found the truth in your article. The murderer was wearing an old-fashioned nurse’s uniform so that he would be taken for Nurse Tekla. We believe that Mama Bird saw him that night. We believe that’s why she was killed. Once your article was published, the murderer knew that Gunnela Hagg had seen him. We believe that the killer knew of her existence prior to the nurses’ murders, since he knew immediately she was the ‘anonymous neighborhood woman.’ ”
Hook’s face darkened, but his voice had a bit of belligerent guilt. “You can’t say that my article was the reason she was killed.”
“No, we’ll never know that for sure. These are our hypotheses.”
Silently, Hook read through the letters a second time. At length he shook his head and said, “No, there’s nothing in the text. It must be in the poems.”
“The poems?”
“Every one of her letters starts with a poetry quotation. Maybe this was a trick they used to convey something to each other they didn’t want to write down.”
“Maybe. But Anna didn’t use poetry in her letters.”
“But Tekla did in the letters that Anna saved,” Kurt Hook replied.
That thought hadn’t crossed Irene’s mind as she’d read. She’d only glanced at the poems.
Now she read them again, and with the recent revelations the poems seemed to fit into what Irene knew of Tekla’s life history.
The poem in the first letter, dated July 19, 1945, was a happy summer poem and contained no hidden message as far as Irene could tell. On the other hand, the second letter, dated August 25, appeared more somber:
As friendly evening stars burn
And send their rays down to the valley,
He looked at his servant,
See! He saw as the loved one sees.
WAS TEKLA TRYING to say that Hilding had declared his love for her? “His servant” seemed fairly belittling, but maybe that’s how Tekla saw her relationship to the much older head doctor.
The two poems following also did not appear to have any connection to a love story, but the poem of the fourth letter, dated December 10, 1945, made Irene’s jaw drop.
Take me.—Hold me.—Touch me softly.
Embrace me gently for a moment.
Weep awhile—such a sad truth.
Watch me sleep a moment with tenderness.
Do not leave me.—You want to stay,
Stay then until I myself must go.
Place your loving hand on my forehead.
Yet a little while longer we are two.
“This is not a love poem. It’s so … filled with pain and sorrow,” Irene said.
Hook nodded. “Certainly it was a painful love story, especially when you consider she killed herself.”
Of course Tekla’s illicit love affair gave her great pain. Having to give up her lover and then even her child would still be in the future here. This poem was simply about her pain in the relationship with Hilding. Irene didn’t mention this to Hook, but she had to give him credit for his intuition. Surely an invaluable quality in a journalist.
There seemed to be no connection to the love affair in the letters written between January and April 1946, as far as Irene could tell. On the other hand, the letter dated June 7, 1946, was as clear as a bell:
He came like a rushing wind.
What does the wind care for what is forbidden?
He kissed my cheek,
He kissed all the blood from my skin.
The kisses should have ended there:
He belonged to another, he was on loan
One evening only in the time of the lilacs
And in the month of golden chain.
“Well, that takes the cake! I know this poem. Hjalmar Gullberg. You can’t get any clearer than this. She regrets having an affair but finds she can’t resist him. ‘He comes like the wind …’ and she just toppled right over!” Kurt laughed.
“Hjalmar Gullberg. She had one of his poetry books, I remember.”
Irene went to the small pile of books. On the top was a poetry collection by Hjalmar Gullberg. She flipped through its pages until she found the poem. It took a second for her to realize that the quote had been changed.
“Look here. Tekla writes ‘He belonged to another, but in the book it says ‘You belonged to another.’ And she also writes ‘He kissed my cheek …’ while the book says ‘He kissed your cheek.…’ ”
“Well, there’s your code,” Kurt said calmly.
Irene could hardly restrain herself as she flipped to the next poem. The letter was dated November 30, 1946:
We women we are so close to the brown earth
We ask the cuckoo what he expects from spring
We throw our arms around the cold fir tree
We search the sundown for signs and comfort
Once I loved a man, he believed in nothing.…
He came one day with empty eyes
He left one day with forget written on his forehead
