Sylvia’s eyes widened in astonishment but soon resumed their inimical attitude.
“Why would I do that? I have my own!”
“You haven’t looked at his keys?”
“No, I told you! I just put them in the drawer.”
“Look at this. Hold out your set of keys and compare them to the keys in Richard’s case. That’s it, hold them in your hand,” Irene said in a friendly, persuasive voice.
Hesitantly Sylvia did as she was told. When the two sets of keys were held next to each other, she saw it too. Richard’s new, shiny ones were as gaudy as Christmas tree decorations, while the keys in the spare set were different colors from age, wear, and oxidation. They also had various numbers and letters on them.
With tight lips Sylvia whispered, “Heavens!”
She was transfixed by the keys; she couldn’t take her eyes off them.
Softly Irene said, “Somebody borrowed, or stole, Richard’s keys last summer. He didn’t get them back, but had another set made using the spare set as a pattern. Why did he do that? Why didn’t he report the keys missing? Change all the locks? Why didn’t he tell you?”
Sylvia just stared at the keys in Irene’s hand. Her eyes looked unnaturally large in the narrow, transparent face. A wailing sound rose from her throat, and she started tossing her head from side to side. At first it was barely noticeable, then the motion grew more and more violent. The wail rose to a shriek and Sylvia started shaking all over. Damn, she had done it again! Why, why couldn’t she ever handle Sylvia?
Irene rushed over to the bedroom door and called for Arja. Then, with hard-won composure, she approached Sylvia and tried to calm her down. It was useless. Sylvia had worked herself up to a state of hysteria and was screeching like a siren. When Irene tried to put her hand on her arm, she screamed. Then she fainted. The woman could really collapse beautifully! Like falling swan’s down she sank to the floor in a graceful rippling motion. One arm lay in an arc above her head and the other rested lightly across her stomach. This was the scene that greeted Arja when she came through the door.
“So, she’s fainted again,” she said calmly.
Without hurrying she crossed the floor to her sister. With a practiced motion she raised Sylvia’s legs in the air and began to massage her calves. All the while she looked at Irene, who thought that her guilt feelings must be blatantly visible. Calmly Arja asked, “What made her so upset?”
“Upset? It was the keys,” Irene said vaguely.
“Sylvia has always fainted when she gets upset. Her whole life! Sensitive artistic soul, you know.”
Arja gave her a broad, pleasant smile of camaraderie, and Irene began to feel a little better. She decided to tell Arja exactly what was going on.
“It was when I showed her that Richard’s set of keys was newly made. So the one we found in the door on Berzeliigatan was Richard’s old key ring. He had lost it last summer and never said anything to Sylvia.”
Arja gave her a long look. Emphatically she said, “There was a lot that Richard didn’t tell Sylvia.”
Now or never! Irene looked down at Sylvia, who was beginning to show signs of life. She said softly to Arja out of the corner of her mouth, “Tell me about the party!”
Arja started and cast a quick glance at Sylvia’s pale face. She put one finger over her mouth and made a gesture toward her sister.
“Could we lift her up onto the bed?”
They helped each other lift the feather-light body. Sylvia began to mumble weakly and her eyelids fluttered.
“I’ll call Mother,” said Arja.
The words were barely out of her mouth before a thin little shadowy figure slipped in through the doorway. Irene was dumbstruck. That’s exactly how Sylvia would look in twenty-five years. The little woman ignored the other two and tiptoed over to the bed. With her slender hands, in which the blue veins seemed to lie outside her white skin, she grasped her daughter’s equally pale and bloodless ones. Gently caressing Sylvia, she murmured long strings of consoling words. To Irene’s ears they sounded like magic incantations, but after a few moments she realized it was Finnish she was hearing.
Arja poked her furtively in the side and motioned with her head toward the door. Silently they slunk out and down the broad staircase. They continued into the entryway, and Arja took a key lying on the marble top of the ornate hall table. She opened the front door and gestured to Irene to follow. They hurried down the stairs to the floor below. With growing astonishment Irene realized they were on their way into the apartment below the von Knechts’. Arja unlocked the door. She motioned for Irene to enter and then silently closed the door and touched the switch on the wall. A naked lightbulb hung from the ceiling and cast a harsh light. The place smelled of paint and wallpaper glue.
Arja waved her hand and said, “Ivan Viktors is moving in tomorrow. The moving van is coming early.”
“Do you know that Sylvia and Ivan Viktors have a relationship?”
Arja stiffened and gave her a sharp look. “So you know about it too? Yes, of course I know that. You certainly can’t blame Sylvia. It wasn’t always much fun being Richard’s wife. He was a big shit!”
The way she said it with her Finnish accent made it sound quite pleasant. Irene decided to get right to the point to save time and skip the chitchat. With a hint of a smile in her voice, she asked, “Did he try to seduce you too?”
Arja pouted slightly and then gave Irene a big, soft smile. “Almost twenty years ago. But his charm didn’t work on me. I told him like it is, that I’m a lesbian.”
Irene gave a start. She hadn’t expected this.
Arja said dryly, “I’ve been in a relationship for many years. But neither Mamma nor Sylvia will accept Siirka. She’s not allowed to attend any of the family events, such as weddings and funerals. She couldn’t anyway. She’s a teacher, and it’s hard to get time off.”
Irene’s thoughts flew to Mona and Jonas Soder in Stockholm. How was he doing?
Irene collected herself and tried to ask the right questions.
“And you’re a journalist?”
“Yes. Freelance. I’m my own boss.”
“Can you tell me about the party? The one Sylvia doesn’t want you to talk about.”
Arja took a deep breath and for a shaky moment Irene thought she had changed her mind. But she began to speak. “It was at Richard’s sixtieth birthday party last summer. There were tons of people there. It was warm and lovely far into the night. But around two o’clock I was getting tired and thought I’d sneak off to bed. Mother and I each had a room in the guest cabin. Mother was feeling spry and still dancing. She had taken a nap in the afternoon. She loves parties! But I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Too much wine and champagne. The guests had to be driven to various hotels in Goteborg. Limousines had been rented, but they weren’t coming until three. No one would miss me if I slipped away. On the path down to the guest cabin I ran into Sylvia. She was tipsy like all the others, but she was also uneasy. People had been asking for Richard, but she couldn’t find him. I suggested that she follow me to the cabin, then we could have a glass of the Arctic raspberry liqueur I had bought on the ferry. Sylvia loves it. And that’s where we found Richard.”
She fell silent and rubbed her eyes wearily, as if to erase an image from her memory. Or maybe to make it clearer. A bitter tone slipped into her voice as she continued, “We didn’t just find Richard. Charlotte was there too. We saw them, but they didn’t see us. On the floor of the great room they were engaged in filthy acts.”
Irene was surprised at the choice of words. Did a lesbian consider heterosexual intercourse to be “filthy acts”?
Arja took her hands from her eyes and looked straight at Irene. Curtly she said, “They were sucking each other and. . ” She looked away and red flames shot down her neck.
“It was disgusting! We went back outside. They didn’t notice we had been there. Sylvia fainted, of course, but recovered quite rapidly. She made me promise never to tell anyone what we had seen. Not anyone.”
She paused and fingered the key to the apartment. In a low voice she said, “But I’m breaking that promise now. I think this has something to do with Richard’s death.”
“Why do you think that?”
“The keys. I know that Charlotte took them.”
“Tell me.”
“The next day the mood was naturally flat. Richard had fallen asleep on a sofa in the living room. He lay there
