If she only would have cried.
Then I remember that we heard footsteps on the gravel, and Jill and I threw away the sticks and ran. Good Lord, how we ran, down the hill which is now the meadow of remembrance for those who have been cremated, out the gate and into the forest to the right, and then we threw ourselves into the moss. I don’t think we thought so much about Justine, how she was doing, if we had hurt her. The only thing we were worried about was that she might tattle, that we would get caught.
She couldn’t sleep. The lit clock on the wall showed it was twelve-thirty. Tor was lying with his face toward her; he was snoring slightly and audibly. She got up. There must be some sleeping pills in the cabinet, once she had received a prescription for Sobril when her nerves were acting up, but she’d never opened the package. Yes, there it was. Maybe the medicine was too old; she couldn’t read the date without her glasses. She popped a few of the small white tablets into her mouth and swallowed them with a bit of water she poured into her toothbrush mug.
Chapter THIRTEEN
Hans Peter’s apartment was on Fyrspannsgatan with a view over the cemetery. On All Saints Day, he usually lit two candles and placed them in the living room window. He would stand still for a minute. Outside, the grave votives shone their solemn light. It was the only time of the year that the cemetery parking lot was full. Cars were even parked along Sandviksvägen.
At that time, with darkness like a cape over city and countryside, it was natural that he thought about his sister. She would have been thirty-eight years old now, probably a happy mother of two children and maybe a preschool teacher or the owner of an organic food store. This was how he imagined her. She and her husband would most likely have a single family house in Stuvsta, near their parents. Oh, his mother would have been happy.
This morning he woke from the light and the sound of a snowplow driving back and forth, clearing the sidewalks. An ache, almost a real pain, was situated behind his temples. He hadn’t been able to sleep when he came home at five in the morning; he dozed a bit, dreamed strange and sick dreams. What was the time now? Ten-thirty. Might as well get dressed.
Snow lay over the cemetery like a thick layer of whipped cream. Hans Peter prepared some coffee and made some sandwiches with ham and sliced tomatoes sprinkled with salt and black pepper. Sat at the kitchen table, flipped through the newspaper, Dagens Nyheter.
Today there was quite a bit about a woman who was going to be executed in Texas. She was called Karla Faye Tucker and she was condemned to death. She was just as old as his sister would have been. Karla Faye Tucker had thick hair and beautiful calm eyes. The article stated that she had been saved and converted. Even the Pope had asked for clemency, but that probably wouldn’t happen. Probably she’d be tied to the stretcher in the death chamber at one in the morning, right when he was sitting behind the reception desk. An executioner would search for the vein in her arm and then, once he found it, inject the deadly liquid.
You only have one life, and you do with it what you will, he thought. Karla Faye Tucker didn’t understand that until it was too late.
He still felt down. This happened a few times a year, not a real depression. He imagined that a real depression would be heavier, deeper, more difficult. No, it was a certain kind of weariness. Weary of the rhythm of the days, the standardization of everything.
Maybe a long walk would help him get into a better mood. He put on his lined winter boots and his parka, which he once received as a birthday present from Liv. It was still around even though the birthday had been a long time ago. It wasn’t all that warm, but it kept out the wind, and if you put on a sweater underneath it, you didn’t freeze at all. He usually sprayed waterproofing on it each time he washed it, and he imagined that it helped.
Right when he was about to leave, the phone rang.
It was his mother. He said that he was about to go, anything important, could he call back?
“It’s your father’s birthday today, Hans Peter.”
“Oh hell. Of course!”
“You hadn’t forgotten it?”
“There’s been so much going on at work. Yes, I totally forgot.”
“You don’t have all that many relatives to forget.”
That burned him.
“I know! I just forgot! It was unforgivable.”
“He went out early to look for the mail.”
“Stop it now, Mamma.”
“Are you coming by for a visit this weekend? We can have a birthday dinner then. If you have time, that is.”
“Yes, yes, yes, of course. I’ll come.”
He walked between the bus stops on Sandviksvägen and turned to the left at the gold kiosk. The snow made it difficult to get by in certain places. The cars crept along. The snowplows were out in force, pushing away the snow and sanding the street. He saw a young mail carrier fly past on his heavily burdened bicycle and remembered when he himself had worked delivering mail. Nice that job was over. He was too old for that kind of thing now.
He would soon be too old for everything.
He passed by the hill toward the General Bathhouse, which today looked nothing at all like a bathhouse. The snow covered the sand and the piers and lay over the ice so thickly that you could not even see the edge of the beach. It was still snowing, but not too much; it didn’t have the small white flakes that whirled into your eyes and gave you a headache. At least, they didn’t make his headache worse. He pulled his cap further down and followed the beach path toward Riddersvik.
It would be nice to live here, in one of the row houses with their fantastic views of the lake. But of course, they cost an arm and a leg. And he was a single man. Sometimes he thought about finding an apartment in the middle of Stockholm instead, but he liked nature; he was not really a city person. This was a combination which suited him fine.
A few years ago, a boardwalk was built along the side of the hill and out over the water like a balcony. It made a short cut to Riddersvik and Tempeludden. He felt closer to nature out here, close to the large willows. When the lake froze, large groups of long-distance skaters came gliding all the way from Enköping or places even farther away. He wondered whether the ice was strong enough to hold, but didn’t see any human tracks, just light paw prints from smaller animals. The bushes had frozen; drowned in snow and ice, they looked like large coral chunks. He leaned out above the edge and observed them. He should have brought his little camera. Why did he never think of taking photos in the middle of winter?
He heard a sound and saw a woman coming with a large black dog, walking over the bridge path. The dog was strong and she had great difficulty holding on to it. Its shaggy nose was speckled with snow, and the sight was so funny, he couldn’t help smiling.
Then she stopped, pushed some hair back under her hat. Her face was red and she didn’t wear make-up; her jacket was bright yellow.
“Nice dog,” he said, but he didn’t know whether he should dare pet it.
“Yeah,” she said. “It’s my daughter’s.”
“You going out with him, or is he going out with you?”
“You could wonder which,” she laughed.
She pulled the leash and said something which sounded like Freya.
“Is she named Freya? Like the radio program?”
“No, her name is Feja. And usually she’s not so stubborn. Just with me… my daughter and her husband are teaching it to be a rescue dog.”
“Rescuing what, then?”
“Well…,” she said evasively, “people who’ve gone missing or gotten trapped in a fallen house. Things like that.”
“Sounds interesting.”
“But she’s still fairly young, three years old.”
“Is she a Schnauzer?”
“Yeah, a Great Schnauzer. She’s in heat now; that’s why she has difficulty listening. But we have to go now. Come, Feya!”