He was dispirited, melancholy in a way that he did not completely understand. Not just at the discovery that extraordinarily enough his mother was mentioned but rather over the massive weight that the will expressed. There was no mercy, that was how he experienced it. Pure and sheer power. How could you object to such wealth? It stood out as a massive colossus of granite, obvious and imperturbable. The Ohler family had succeeded, to put it simply. To oppose it was to air your envy, nothing else.
He gathered up the papers into a package, not caring whether they were in the right order, pushed it all down into the folder and nonchalantly tossed it into the safe. The remaining contents he had not been concerned with so far, but now he crouched down to investigate what was on the other shelves. He picked a little absentmindedly for a while in the piles of papers, which appeared to be letters. But under everything he glimpsed something that he recognized from his uncle’s safe: bills. In a shoebox were bundles of five-hundred-kronor notes, held together by rubber bands. He rooted in the box and picked up a bundle.
Money doesn’t smell, it was said, but that wasn’t quite true-Karsten remembered the story about the hotel in San Francisco that washed and ironed the guests’ currency-the professor’s money smelled greasy and musty.
There must be a dozen bundles. Half a fortune, all in five-hundred-kronor notes. He wondered how much it could be, surely half a million, maybe more.
He pocketed the bundle without really thinking about it, then got up, numbed by all the wealth and not least by the will. He closed the safe.
A hundred thousand kronor his mother would have gotten. That was the amount that Ohler thought was suitable to pay for a ruined life. She had never really recovered from the rape. It was not about forgiveness, Karsten understood that when he read her diaries. Sure, you could try to forgive even the cruelest actions, but the wound was so deep that it could never possibly heal. His mother had been deprived of so much, not only her virginity, but above all a kind of faith in the future. She had always, as long as Karsten could remember, lacked faith in herself, always expressed an anxious worry that perhaps things wouldn’t go well, that any temporary happiness sooner or later would be ended.
He only realized now that the reason for her anxiety perhaps had its background in what played out in Ohler’s cellar in 1944. While she was alive he had often been irritated at her vacillation and nervousness. Now he regretted that deeply. If he had only known!
She had never recovered from the loss of the fetus either, even though it was the result of an assault. She had written something about that: “It was my chance to have a child of my own.” Those were words that hurt. In his late teens Karsten found out that Anna was not his biological mother. It had been a cataclysmic piece of news but still did not constitute a terrifying shock. He had always felt surrounded by Anna’s and Horst’s love and concern, so the message did not basically disturb his trust in them. At the same time his parents told him that Anna had adopted him.
When he read the diaries and his mother’s words about “a child of my own” he had been angry and heartbroken to begin with, but gradually the anger had subsided. He understood her longing and boundless despair that the abortion also made her sterile. In reality the circumstances enlarged the image of his mother as the considerate and loving person she had always been. She had never uttered even the slightest little comment that could have made him feel sidelined or a kind of substitute for a “real” child.
He leaned his head against the safe, whose steel was not cool. On the contrary, it burned his forehead.
One hundred thousand kronor for a rape. A domestic servant’s virginity, future life, and peace of mind.
Anna Andersson. Anna Haller. Raped, dead, and buried.
Someone called, woke him out of his daze. It was Miss Elly, his companion. She was calling as usual for justice. He raised his head, looked up toward the ceiling, burrowing his gaze through the brown-stained paneling and screamed with Miss Elly.
He started going like a warrior through the house, firmly determined to administer justice, but stopped suddenly when he came out in the hall. It was too simple to kill the professor, it struck him. He wanted to create greater damage than that. Then the old man could die in shame and disgrace.
Perhaps it was the thought that he had been given an aunt, perhaps two, that made him calm down. They could fill out his mother’s life story about her childhood and youth, a period in her life she never talked about.
The return through the cellar out into the fresh air went quickly. He was no longer afraid of being seen, whether from inside the house or by the neighbors. What of it, he thought rashly, I’m the one who’s sitting with the strong cards.
He jumped over the fence, took his bicycle, pulled it out onto the street, and disappeared from the block.
Twenty-six
It was with mixed emotions Agnes noted that Birgitta and Liisa Lehtonen had decided to spend the night in the house. After finishing the wallpapering they shared a couple bottles of wine and then decided to continue the renovation work the following day.
Cleaning and mess-dust and garbage to take care of-Agnes had thought the evening before, but now at the breakfast table having the two women there felt refreshing. The Finnish woman was in an unusually good mood besides and entertained the others with hilarious episodes from the time she was active as a competitive shooter.
The professor preferred to have breakfast in the dining room and had then withdrawn to his study.
“Did you hear all the commotion last night?” asked Birgitta. “Were you the one who was up?”
She looked with a curious expression at Agnes, who realized that Birgitta saw a chance to ventilate her theories about night sleep, the position of the planets, and inner harmony. Agnes denied having left her bed.
“I usually sleep like a log,” she said. “You know that.”
“And then someone screamed,” said Birgitta. “But that was probably Daddy having a nightmare.”
Agnes had also heard the scream but was convinced it was not the professor, the scream had come from the ground floor. She thought Birgitta and Liisa had quarreled, and fell back asleep almost immediately.
“Maybe it was a ghost,” Liisa suggested. “Strange things do happen here in the house. And probably always have. What was his name, that chauffeur who worked here long ago that we saw a year or so ago?”
“I don’t remember,” said Birgitta.
“Don’t be that way, of course you remember!”
Birgitta shook her head.
“What was it? Something short, like Malm or Berg,” Liisa forged ahead. “Maybe we can ask Bertram? He must know.”
“Wiik,” said Birgitta.
“That’s it!” Liisa exclaimed. “He maintained that you could hear someone sighing and moaning in the cellar.”
Agnes saw that Birgitta was becoming more and more irritated.
“What was that?” she asked.
“It was before your time,” said Birgitta, “and the old man was ancient and gaga when we saw him.”
“I think he was as clear as anything,” said Liisa with an unconcerned expression. “He maintained that awful things had happened in the house.”
“Talk,” Birgitta said.
Now there was not just irritation but also discomfort in her face.
“When was that?” asked Agnes.
“During the war,” said Liisa. “He claimed that he was fired by the old Ohler. That he knew about things that-”
“Stop now!” Birgitta screamed suddenly and started sobbing. “I don’t want to hear a rehash of untrue old rumors. It’s enough with all the new untruths.”
“What do you mean?”
Liisa’s voice sounded unusually melodic. Agnes sensed the breakdown. From a pleasant conversation at the kitchen table to a stormy quarrel. She had experienced it before. There was something in the Finnish woman’s voice that called forth these recurring eruptions.