“Awake but dreaming,” Krister Hammar whispered, his first words to her since coming out of an eighteen-hour coma.
“Wow,” Brand said. “You look terrible. You look like Santa Claus on the day after Christmas.”
“My head hurts, but I’m in a lovely morphine haze,” he said, twisting his mouth into a horrible approximation of a smile. “How do you feel?”
“Jesus, a lot better than you look.” Brand felt an enormous tenderness toward him.
“Do you know the Arctic explorer…”
“Don’t talk. Talking looks as though it hurts you.”
“There was a man,” Hammar told her, “a Dane named Peter Freuchen, an— an—an arctic explorer…”
He seemed to be having difficulty forming words, and Brand tried to shush him again. She didn’t care about any Dane explorer, so relieved and happy was she to find Hammar living, breathing, and speaking.
He would not be shushed. “So Freuchen got buried when a snow bank collapsed on top of him. No way out. Slowly freezing to death. Know what—what—what he did?”
“No,” Brand said, indulging him, tearing up. “What did Peter Freuchen do?”
“Took a crap, formed his poop into the shape of a trowel, let it freeze solid, then dug his way out with that. That’s— that’s— how I feel. Like I just dug my way out of a coma with a shovel of frozen shit.”
Hammar and Brand both laughed, but his laughter passed into a spasm of coughing.
“Krister…I…I’m so…” Brand said, then stopped, unsure of her feelings or what words might pop out. “I’m glad, just…glad, that’s all.”
“How did you—?” He trailed off, his lips moving spasmodically.
“How did I…what?”
“How did you save me? Was I under— beneath— the water…?”
“Well, no poop was involved,” Brand said. “Although I could well have shat myself from sheer terror.”
“Where are you? No, wait, you better not say.” He lowered his voice. “There are polis here.”
“Here, too—in fact, you’re looking at one. Your friend in blue, always on duty.”
“No.”
“Yes,” she said. “Hang up and rest, okay? You need to get better. I foresee some sauna therapy in your future.”
Even trying for a smile caused Hammar to wheeze. “You are trying to— to—”
“Kill you, I know.”
“Varzha Luna?” he asked. “No one has told me…”
“Sleep now. She’s fine, I’m fine, everything else is total crap.”
A long wordless pause. She wondered if the man had fallen back asleep. “Krister?”
“Yes?”
“I can trust Moro, right?”
“No,” he said.
Brand punched the red screen button to end the call, then began to cry. Exhaustion, apprehension, and sadness swirled within her. For the first time since coming to Sweden she fully gave in to tears. Sandri, her caretaker and guard, stuck his head into the room, as always arriving softly. She handed the iPhone back to him, and he wordlessly gave her a colorful embroidered linen handkerchief to dry her tears.
54.
By the morning of the third day sequestered in her hotel room Brand felt the first twinges of cabin fever. What, am I a prisoner here? She would pose the question if only she had someone to ask. Sandri, her near-mute minder might only smile and shrug. Moro Part would be the one to supply the answer. The big man had promised to visit but never did. So when there came a knock Brand thought it could be him, coming to liberate her.
“Yes?”
Sandri stuck his head through the half open door. “A visitor,” he said, stepping aside to allow a slight, brilliantly dressed woman to enter the room.
Varzha Luna. A wave of sentiment hit Brand that took her by surprise. Perhaps she hadn’t fully recovered her emotional equilibrium after all. Here was the young woman who had somehow become the focus of Brand’s sojourn in Sweden. She appeared impossibly young, impossibly vulnerable. Brand rushed to embrace the girl.
Varzha submitted to the hug. “Veronika Brand,” she said softly. Her English wasn’t equal to the situation, and Brand’s Swedish wasn’t, either. They made do.
“Hello!” Brand exclaimed. “How are you? I am so happy to finally meet!”
“I want to come thank you,” Varzha said haltingly.
“Thank me? You were the brave one!”
Varzha smiled shyly. Brand took a step back to examine her.
The girl had left off her usual heavy white makeup. Clear-faced, she appeared a delicate, ethereal beauty. She wore an ankle-length skirt of many colors, a beautiful embroidered tunic, three lovely silk scarves, each setting off in complementary hues the rest of the ensemble. Over it all went a warm woolen monkey jacket with elaborate brocade, a gorgeous number that would fetch thousands of dollars in any Madison Avenue boutique. A little round Astrakhan cap topped off the outfit.
Varzha performed an odd, formal half bow. “I would to…” She stumbled over the words. Sandri lurked in the background, feeding her the English in a whisper.
“I would like to invite you…to my engagement blessing ceremony.”
Brand beamed a smile. “Oh, yes, congratulations! But you are too young to marry!” she blurted out.
Varzha looked to Sandri. “No, no!” Brand said to him. “Don’t translate that last part! Just tell her I am happy for her.”
Drawing Varzha into the suite, Brand gestured to an arrangement of chairs pulled up next to a couch. They sat, communicating in smiles, nods, and sign language. The girl knew the words, “New York City,” and two of them repeated that to each other a few times.
Sandri interposed. “She can’t stay,” he said.
“Get me to the church on time, right?” Brand said brightly. She felt strangely flustered, not wholly in total control of her thoughts or feelings. She wanted to tell Varzha…what?
“I have to say—” She broke off. “I am a police.”
“Polis,” Varzha repeated, nodding.
The words came out in a spill. “I have to say how much I admire you. I’ve done what you did, I mean, in my job as a police officer, I’ve served as a decoy in prostitution stings, and it was the most dangerous work I’ve ever done.”
Sandri appeared baffled. Brand waved him off. “That’s okay, that’s okay—you don’t have
