She sat down on the top step, sit down, she told the boy, did you know that we saw a tiger’s spoor?
“Do you think a tiger could have killed him?” he said thickly.
“More likely it was an elephant.”
“An elephant…”
“Yes, there were elephants near the camp.”
“Jesus Christ!… Did you see them?”
“Not me. One of the guys with us in the jungle, Ben, said that he had never had experienced an animal attacking.”
“Maybe he annoyed them?”
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“No, he didn’t bother them. But maybe there was a sick or injured animal… you never know what could happen… the jungle is so… well, unpredictable.”
“He was so into this job. I’ve never seen him like that. He thought he’d found his niche, we talked about me… eventually…”
“How old are you, Micke?”
“Soon I’ll be sixteen.”
“Almost grown up.”
He shrugged.
Suddenly, it all seemed to her a scene from the theater. She got up and went to him, next to him on the stair. The bird flew away to her room.
She placed her hand on the boy’s head. The lines came just as they were supposed to.
“Go home and comfort your sisters. We can believe that your pappa is doing fine wherever he is. He was a man of adventure; he died with his boots on, as they say. He died when he was most happy. Out in nature, in the middle of a great adventure. How many people get to do that?”
And as she spoke, she realized that what she was saying was the truth. By sacrificing the one person she loved and valued more than any other, she had let him escape from trivial everyday life which sooner or later would overcome him, as it overcomes all of humanity. He would never be forced to return home, never need to grow old, never need to experience how his body broke down bit by bit, so that he finally would be sitting crippled and distorted by arthritis, forgotten and alone in a nursing home somewhere. She had helped him escape all that.
But the sacrifice was enormous.
The awkward boy fell to pieces; he cried loudly and violently.
She embraced him, as she had once embraced his father, felt his jacket and skin.
“He was so wonderful, Nathan, so strong and fine and courageous. I have never loved anyone as much as I loved your pappa.”
She pushed him carefully away.
“Sometimes I used to play for him. I have a horn… Maybe I could play a melody or two for you, if you want.”
“What kind of horn?” he said, suspiciously.
“An old post horn which I received when I was a little girl.”
“I don’t know… Can someone really play those things?”
“Oh, yes.”
She got up and took down the instrument. It was covered by a thin layer of dust. She rubbed it with a fold of her skirt.
“I played for him a few times. He liked to hear me play.”
She stood by the window and placed the horn to her lips.
While she played, she saw the boy clench his fists.
When he had left, she broke down. A shrieking and cackling laugh rose from her throat. She wasn’t able to stop it. It gushed out of her, forced her to cramp up. She pressed her tongue to the wall, the taste of stone, the taste of dust and stone. But the laugh kept coming.
Until it finally hacked itself to pieces, until it transformed into crying.
Then there was Martina’s parents. A very absurd story in itself.
Hans Nästman, a policeman who had spoken to her quite a bit, insisted on this.
“Of course I want to meet with them,” she said. “It’s just been so difficult. I’ve been so tired.”
She did not want them in her house. She didn’t say that to Hans Nästman, though. She said, “Can we meet in a room at the police station?”
“I’ll take care of it,” he promised.
He even came to pick her up. It was a normal, neutral car and he was wearing normal clothes.
“You have a nice place here,” he said, and looked out over the lake. “And the boat down there; it’s not exactly small.”
“It was my father’s.”
“Not bad at all. Can you drive it?”
“I haven’t driven it very far. Just around and about on the lake. But maybe I’ll take a longer trip someday, maybe to Gotland or Åland.”
“Well, you’ll have to get more practice in. Have you taken a skipper’s examination?”
He was speaking with a trace of dialect; it seemed like the Värmland one.
The bird was in the attic. For some reason she didn’t want Hans Nästman to see him. She locked the door and followed him.
The car smelled new, a good smell. She thought about her old Opel and maybe it was just this moment that she decided to buy a new car.
Too late, she noticed they weren’t heading to the police station on Kungsholmen.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“They live in Djursholm. They wanted to have you visit them in their home.”
A pain in her head, as if her head were shrinking.
“What’s wrong? Do you have something against it?”
“Not at all. It’s just the smell in the car… I just feel a little carsick. Maybe we could roll down the window just a little bit?”
Their last name was Andersson. She realized that she had never known what Martina’s last name had been. Their house was as gray as a bunker with high narrow windows.
“I wonder if this is a Ralph Erskine,” said Hans Nästman. “What?”
“The guy who designed the place, I mean.”
“No idea.”
He walked closely behind her, so closely that he almost stepped on her heels.
“Nice area,” she said, to have something to say. “Yes, indeed. I wouldn’t have anything against living here.
But you can’t complain. Where you live is just as nice.”
The door was made from a massive piece of wood. There was a door knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. Hans Nästman was about to use it when the door opened. A man wearing a dark suit was standing in the doorway.
“Not to bother with that,” he said. “You can’t hear it from the inside anyway. It’s mostly there as a decoration.”
He was thin and tanned; he wore his hair in a ponytail. He gripped her hand.
“Mats Andersson. Welcome.”
Hans Nästman held onto her elbow, guided her into the house. She could sense movement in the house.
“Come in, my wife will be joining us soon.”
He lowered his voice.
“This has been… how should I put it… difficult for her, naturally, for both of us.”
They entered a large, longish room, decorated totally in black and white. There was a grand piano in the middle of the room. The sun burst into the room through narrow windows making a staff-like pattern. A row of black leather armchairs stood against one wall. Next to them, some kind of altar had been placed, with candles in silver candlesticks and a photo of Martina, happy and smiling, wearing a dress of lilac linen. One could see her nipples through the fabric.
The policeman went up to the photo.
“Yes,” said her father. “That’s her.”
“I thought so. When was it taken?”
“Last summer, during one of those really hot days. She loved the heat; she never should have been born in a country like ours.”
“So she was twenty-four when it was taken?”
Her father said, “Yes, she should have been. Excuse me for a moment; I need to…”
And he disappeared from the room, and everything was silent.
They sat down beside each other on the armchairs. The grand piano’s lid was lifted; it was a Steinway.
“Maybe you’ve heard of Mats H. Andersson?” the policeman asked. “He’s a famous concert pianist. Or maybe you don’t know much about classical music?”
Her eyes rested on the piano’s emblem, it was embellished with gold and looked like a cognac cup. She suddenly had a longing for a glass of port or sherry.
They heard Martina’s pappa talking out there, exhorting, like talking to a puppy. Then he stood in the doorway with a tray and some coffee cups.