“You see what I mean.”
Then he became serious.
“Why are you asking? You’re not a journalist, are you?”
“Oh no, I was just wondering. I mean, she lived here, and… No, that lawyer I was in here with yesterday evening, I work for him.”
“Carry his bag and book his flights?”
“Something like that.”
Rebecka Martinsson looked at the clock. She’d been afraid that a furious Anna-Maria Mella would turn up demanding the keys to the safe, but she’d wanted it to happen as well. But presumably the priest’s husband hadn’t mentioned it. Maybe he didn’t know what the keys were for. It was a complete bloody mess. She looked out of the window. It was starting to get dark. She heard a car drive onto the gravel yard outside.
Her cell phone buzzed in her bag. She rooted it out and looked at the display. The law firm’s number.
Mans, she thought, and hurried out onto the steps.
It was Maria Taube.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” answered Rebecka.
“I was talking to Torsten. He said you’d hooked them anyway.”
“Mmm…”
“And he said you’d stayed behind to take care of a few things.” Rebecka didn’t reply.
“Have you been to the village where your grandmother’s house is, what was it called again?”
“Kurravaara. No.”
“Problem?”
“No, it’s nothing.”
“Why don’t you go up there, then?”
“I just haven’t got around to it,” said Rebecka. “I’ve been a bit too busy helping our future clients sort out a load of crap.”
“Don’t snap at me, honey,” said Maria gently. “Spill. What kind of crap?”
Rebecka told her. She suddenly felt so tired she wanted to sit down on the steps.
Maria sighed at the other end of the phone.
“Bloody Torsten,” she said. “I’ll…”
“No, you won’t,” said Rebecka. “The worst thing is the locker, though. It must have the priest’s personal stuff in it. There could be letters and… anything. If anybody should have what’s in there, it’s her husband. And the police. There could be some sort of evidence, we don’t know.”
“I’m sure her boss will pass on anything that might be of interest to the police,” Maria Taube ventured.
“Maybe,” said Rebecka in subdued voice.
There was a silence between them for a moment. Rebecka kicked at the gravel with her shoe.
“But I thought you went up there to go into the lion’s den,” said Maria Taube. “That’s why you went with Torsten, after all.”
“Yeah yeah.”
“For God’s sake, Rebecka, don’t give me the yeah-yeah! I’m your friend and I’ve got to say this. You just keep on backing off. If you daren’t go into town and you daren’t go up to Kurrkavaara…”
“Kurravaara.”
“… and you’re just sitting there hiding in some village bar up the river, where are you going to end up?”
“I don’t know.”
Maria Taube didn’t speak.
“It’s not that easy,” said Rebecka in the end.
“Do you think I think it is? I can come up and keep you company, if you want.”
“No,” Rebecka cut her off.
“Okay, I’ve said my piece. And I’ve made the offer.”
“And I appreciate it, but…”
“You don’t need to appreciate it. Now I’ve got to do some work if I’m going to get home before midnight. I’ll call you. Mans asked how you were, by the way. I think he’s worried. Rebecka, do you remember what it was like when you went to the swimming pool when you were at school? And you jumped from the top board straight away, so you wouldn’t be scared of the other heights. Go up to the Crystal Church and go to one of their hallelujah services. Then you’ll have got the worst over. Didn’t you tell me last Christmas that Sanna and her family and Thomas Soderberg’s family had moved away from Kiruna?”
“You won’t tell him, will you?”
“Who?”
“Mans. That I… oh, I don’t know.”
“Of course not. I’ll call, okay.”
Erik Nilsson is sitting stock-still at the kitchen table in the priest’s house. His dead wife is sitting opposite him. He daren’t say anything for a long time. He hardly dares breathe. The least word or movement and reality cracks and splinters into a thousand pieces.
And if he blinks she’s bound to be gone when he opens his eyes.
Mildred grins.
You’re funny, you are, she says. You can believe that the universe is endless, that time is relative, that it can turn and go backwards.
The clock on the wall has stopped. The windows are mirrors. How many times has he invoked his dead wife these last three months? Wished that she would come gliding up to his bed in the darkness at night. Or that he might hear her voice as the wind whispers through the trees.
You can’t stay here, Erik, she says.
He nods. It’s just that there’s so much. What shall he do with all the things, the books, the furniture? He doesn’t know where to start. It’s an insurmountable obstacle. As soon as he thinks about it, he’s overwhelmed by such exhaustion that he has to go and lie down, even though it’s the middle of the day.
Sod it, then, she says. Sod the lot of it. I don’t care about all this stuff.
He knows it’s true. All the furniture comes from her parents’ home. She was the only daughter of a parish priest, and both her parents died while she was at university.
She refuses to feel sorry for him. She always has. It still makes him secretly angry with her. That was the bad Mildred. Not bad in the sense of nasty or malicious. But the Mildred who hurt him. Who wounded him. If you want to stay with me, then I’m pleased, she said when she was alive. But you’re an adult, you choose your own life.
Was that right? he thinks as so many times before. Is it all right to be so uncompromising? I lived her life, all the way. True, I made my own choice. But shouldn’t you meet halfway in love?
She looks down at the table. He can’t start thinking about children again, because then she’s bound to disappear like a shadow through the wall. He’s got to pull himself together. He’s always had to pull himself together. It’s almost black in the kitchen.
She was the one who didn’t want to. The first few years they did have sex. In the evenings. Or in the middle of the night, if he woke her up. Always with the light off. And still he could feel her stiff, ill-concealed reluctance if he wanted to do anything other than just stick it in. In the end it stopped of its own accord. He stopped making the approach, she didn’t bother. Sometimes the wound opened and they’d quarrel. He might snivel that she didn’t love him, that her job took everything. That he wanted children. And she, palms upward: What do you want from me? If you’re unhappy, it’s up to you to get up and go. His turn: Go where? Who to? The storms always passed. Everyday life stumbled on. And it was always, or almost always, good enough for him.
Her bony elbow on the table. The nail of her index finger tapping thoughtfully on the varnished surface. She looks deep in thought, with that stubborn expression she always gets when she’s come up with some idea.
He’s used to preparing food for her. Takes the plate covered with clingfilm out of the fridge when she gets home late, pops it in the microwave. Makes sure she eats. Or runs a bath. Tells her not to keep winding her hair round her finger, because she’ll finish up bald. But now he doesn’t know what to do. Or say. He wants to ask her what it’s like. On the other side.
I don’t know, she says. But it’s drawing me toward it. It’s powerful.
