In the instant that the rope burned through and the body collapsed in a heap to the burning floor of the barn, Brand finally understood the true extent of the horror. The dead man was her grandfather, Gustav Dalgren. She powered forward and joined the weeping females, thrusting herself in between Klara and Alice as if they could shield her from grief. The three of them all huddled together while the flames still sent out waves of intense heat. Days later Brand’s face was still red as if from radiant burn.
More odd than death, her first reaction was a stab of extreme guilt. The thought floated up in her mind unbidden, a shot of psychological venom.
He did it because of me.
Oh, no, Veronika, another interior voice answered, attempting to smother the crazy notion before it took another life—before it took her life.
No, no, no. Klara would certainly not want Veronika to feel guilty, Alice wouldn’t, her mother wouldn’t. It was just a stupid wayward brain wave brought on by the extremity of the situation. She managed to beat the idea back, but it simply retreated into her mind’s darkest recesses, not exactly alive but never extinguished.
Grandpa Dalgren always ran hot and cold with his only granddaughter. In his drunkenness he’d sometimes seize Brand up, holding her squirming in his arms, slobbering and telling her he was sorry. For what, he never said.
Other times she caught Gustav staring at her from across the farmhouse kitchen, bleary-eyed from whiskey. The slack expression on his face tilted into an almost evil sneer. He was not in control of himself. The sight of him looking at her would give Brand a skin-crawling impression.
He hates me. My own grandfather hates me.
The suicide was hushed up. The roof of the old barn gave way. The whole structure fell into a charred jumble. The body of the deceased was cooked in thousand-degree heat. Neighbors came running to find Klara, Alice and Veronika still knotted together in a weeping heap.
Gustav had run into the burning barn to try to save the structure, Klara told everyone. The neighbors and the fire crew came too late. Such was Klara’s story and she stuck to it. Law enforcement authorities showed up throughout the remainder of the night. No one seemed much interested in challenging the accepted version of the incident. There was no investigation, no autopsy.
“Death by misadventure,” read the post-mortem medical certificate, listing heat shock as the cause. As with any burning, Gustav Dalgren’s body had retracted into what is termed a boxer’s pose or the pugilistic posture, elbows and knees flexed, fists clenched and raised. For a man who had began his life as a fighter for social justice, the end was somehow fitting.
“Gustav was never the same after we came here,” Klara told Marta when she came up from New York City for the funeral. It was as close as either woman ever came to an explanation. “Leaving Sweden broke him. Here he is, another victim of the troubles during the war, but fifty years later.”
His American neighbors called him Gus. They had always found him distant. No one knew his history. The funeral was sparsely attended, the casket, of course, closed, the mortician’s art not up to the task.
Klara, Alice and Veronika remained quiet about what they had seen. The three of them never colluded, never agreed that this was what they would say, and that was the brave face they would present to the world. In fact, Brand had bitten her tongue for years, since she never spoke to Klara or Alice about the lie, and never confessed the particulars of the death to her own mother, the dead man’s daughter.
But in her mind the lie grew until it achieved capitalization, the Lie. Fed on fear, grief, and memory, it became a beast that haunted her well into adulthood. She mostly kept it contained, but every once in a while it broke loose, appeared in the mirror looking like the very spit of her, and stalked abroad dressed in Brand’s clothes.
52.
The Voss family gathered in Stockholm for the 70th anniversary of Voss Trucks. The day marked Loke Voss’ first truck purchase, a fleet which would eventually grow into a European transportation giant. Tributes, both floral and otherwise, flowed in from around the country. Everyone honored the economic and social contribution of the company and the distinguished public service of its founder, Loke Voss. The celebrations at the Stockholm Cathedral would attract luminaries from government, military and business. Since the Voss transportation empire reached well beyond Sweden, representatives from the international community attended as well. The King sent best wishes for the affair.
The unstated sentiment behind the festivities held that the founder was after all ninety-eight years old. There would not be that many more occasions to celebrate. The next opportunity for such a commemoration might well be a funeral.
Within the family, the only discordant note was sounded by Ylva Voss. “Do you think farfar is strong enough for this? He’s been looking a little rattled lately.”
Her father, Gabriel Voss, knew the real source of Ylva’s feelings on the matter. She believed it would be unseemly to hold a party so soon after the death of her cousin Malte. But the huge fête had been planned long before the incident on the Hede River. It wasn’t just close relatives, either. The whole family-owned trucking company was involved. A hundreds strong convoy of vehicles from Voss Transport had been organized.
“The celebration has taken on a life of its own,” Junior told her. “I’m sure Malte would have wanted it to go forward.”
So Ylva kept her own counsel. She had noticed that her grandfather had changed lately. His face had taken on a haunted look. Hearing the approaching footsteps of mortality, that had to be it. The
