Calmly and methodically, they unfolded it, pushing the various clasps into place. Annika felt the hair on her arms stand on end. A puff of fizz from the Coke rose into her mouth and made her burp. They'll roll out the body any moment now. She was ashamed of her morbid excitement.
'Could you move to the side?' the woman with the gurney said.
Annika looked down at the gurney rolling past. It shook as the wheels crunched over the uneven asphalt. On top of it lay a neatly folded bluish gray plastic sheet. The shroud, Annika thought, a cold thrill traveling up her spine.
The man and the woman ducked under the cordon. The orange sign saying No Entry swung after them.
The ambulance drivers reached the body. The men and the woman stood in a group discussing something. Annika felt the sun burn on the back of her arms.
'Why is it taking so long?' she asked Berit in a stage whisper.
Berit didn't reply. Annika took up the Coke bottle and drank some.
'Isn't it horrible?' the woman from
'Oh, yeah, it is,' Annika said.
The ambulance people unfolded the plastic sheet and spread it over the gurney, its bluish gray, shiny surface flapping among the leaves. They lifted the young woman onto the gurney and wrapped her in the sheet. Annika suddenly felt tears come into her eyes. She saw the woman's mute scream, her clouded eyes, the bruised breasts.
I mustn't start crying now, she thought, and stared hard at the worn gravestones. She tried to distinguish names or dates, but the inscriptions were in Hebrew. The delicate characters had almost been erased over time by the elements. All at once, everything went very quiet. Even the traffic down on Drottningholmsvagen stopped for a moment. The sunlight that filtered through the enormous crown of the lime trees was dancing across the granite.
The cemetery was here before the city surrounding it. And the trees were here, smaller and frailer, when the dead were buried. But their leaves would have performed the same shadow play on the stone when these graves had just been dug.
The gates were opening and the photographers got down to work. One of them pushed past Annika, jabbing an elbow so hard in her midriff that she lost her breath for a moment. Taken by surprise, she stumbled backward and lost sight of the gurney. She quickly moved farther away.
Which direction is her head pointing? Annika found herself wondering. They wouldn't roll her away feet first.
The photographers accompanied the gurney alongside the cordon. All the camera motors were rattling out of time; the odd flash went off. Bertil Strand was jumping up and down behind his colleagues, alternately snapping away above their heads and in between them. Annika held on to the back door of the ambulance; the paintwork burned her fingers. The driver stopped five inches away from her, operating the various mechanisms of the car. Annika noticed that he was perspiring. She looked down at the plastic-covered body.
I wonder if the sun has kept her warm, she thought.
I wonder who she was.
I wonder if she knew she was going to die.
I wonder if she had time to be scared.
All at once, tears were rolling down Annika's face. She let go of the door, turned around, and took a few steps away. The ground was moving, she felt as if she was going to throw up.
'It's the smell. And the heat,' Berit said, suddenly at her side. She put her arm around Annika's shoulders and pulled her away from the ambulance.
Annika wiped away the tears.
'Let's go back to the paper,' Berit said.
Patricia woke up with a strange feeling of suffocation. There was no air in the room, she couldn't breathe. She slowly became aware of her body on the mattress, naked and glistening. She lifted her left arm and the sweat trickled down her ribs and into her navel.
Jesus Christ, she thought, I've got to have air! Water!
For a moment she contemplated calling out to Josefin, but something made her change her mind. The apartment was completely quiet, so either Jossie was asleep or she'd gone out. Patricia groaned and rolled over, wondering what time it could be. Josefin's black curtains shut out the daylight and made the room swim in a musty gloom. There was a smell of sweat and dust.
'It's a bad omen,' Patricia had said when Josefin had come home with the thick, black material. 'You can't have black curtains. The windows will be wearing mourning- you'd stop the flow of positive energy.'
Josefin was annoyed. 'Then don't have them!' she'd exclaimed. 'Nobody's forcing you. But I want my room dark. How the heck are we going to be able to work nights if we don't get to sleep during the day? I bet you didn't think of that!'
Jossie got her way, of course. She usually did.
Patricia sat up on the mattress with a sigh. The sheet underneath her was screwed up in a damp knot in the middle of the bed. Angrily, she tried to straighten it out.
It's Jossie's turn to do the shopping, she thought, so I don't suppose there's anything in the fridge.
She got out of bed and went to the bathroom. She borrowed Josefin's bathrobe and returned to her own room to open the curtains. The light hit her like nails in the eyes and she quickly closed them again. Instead she opened one of the windows wide, wedging in a flowerpot so it wouldn't slam shut. The air outside was even hotter than inside, but at least it didn't smell.
She slowly walked out to the kitchen, filled a big beer glass with tap water, and drank it greedily. The kitchen clock showed five to two. Patricia was pleased with herself. She hadn't slept through the whole day, even though she'd worked until five this morning.
She placed the glass on the kitchen counter, between an empty pizza box and three mugs with dried-out tea bags in them. Jossie was terrible at cleaning. Patricia sighed and cleared things away, throwing out the trash, doing the dishes, and wiping counters without thinking.
She was just about to step in the shower when the phone rang.
'Is Jossie there?'
It was Joachim. Patricia straightened up and made an effort to seem alert.
'I just got up, so I don't know, actually. Maybe she's sleeping.'
'Be a darling and wake her up, will you?' Succinct but friendly.
She tiptoed to the end of the hallway to Josefin's room and knocked softly on the doorpost. There was no reply, so she opened the door slightly and peeked in. The bed was exactly as unmade as it had been the day before when Patricia had left for work. She hurried back to the phone.
'No, I'm sorry, I think she's gone out.'
'Where to? Who is she seeing?'
Patricia gave a nervous laughter. 'Nobody- or you, maybe? I don't know. It's her turn to do the shopping…'
'But she slept at home?'
Patricia tried to sound indignant. 'Of course she did! Where else?'
'That's exactly it, Titsie. Do you have any suggestions?'
He hung up just as the anger started to surface in Patricia's mind. She hated it when he called her that. He did it to humiliate her. He didn't like her. He felt she stood between him and Josefin.
Patricia slowly walked back to Josefin's bedroom and took another peek inside. The bed really did look exactly as it had the night before, the cover on the floor to the left of the bed and Josefin's red swimsuit on the pillow.
Jossie had never come home last night.
The realization made Patricia feel ill at ease.
