Hans-Gunnar and Ewa are young in their wedding photo. She’s wearing a white dress and he’s in a tuxedo with a silver tie. The sky behind them is white. On a hill beside the church, there’s a black bell tower with an onion dome. The tower sticks up behind Hans-Gunnar’s head like a strange hat. Flora doesn’t know why, but she finds the picture unpleasant.
She tries to breathe evenly.
Silently, she leans the shaft of the mop against the wall. She waits until she hears her foster mother’s laughter before she picks up the photo and unhooks the ornate bronze key hanging behind it. Her hands shake so much she drops the key, which hits the floor and bounces beneath the bed. Flora has to support herself on the nightstand as she bends down to retrieve it. The blood beats in her temples and the floor outside creaks, but then goes silent again.
The key has landed by the dust-covered electrical cords that run along the wall. Flora can just reach it. She stands back up and waits a moment before she goes to the secretary desk and unlocks it. She lowers the heavy lid and slides open one of the tiny drawers inside. Beneath two postcards from Majorca and Paris, there’s an envelope where Ewa keeps cash for immediate expenses. Flora opens the envelope for next month’s bills and takes half. She stuffs the bills into one of her pockets and puts the envelope back. She tries to shut the tiny drawer, but it sticks.
“Flora!” Ewa calls.
Flora opens the drawer and doesn’t see anything strange about it, so she tries to shut it again, but she’s shaking so hard that she can’t. She can hear footsteps head down the hall. She shoves the drawer, and it jerks in, although it is crooked now. She lifts the desk lid back into place, but doesn’t have time to lock it.
The door is pushed open and water from the bucket sloshes out.
“Flora?”
Flora grabs the mop and moves the bucket as she starts cleaning up the spilled water.
“I can’t find my hand cream,” Ewa says.
Ewa’s eyes are tense, her lips pursed. She’s barefoot in sagging yellow sweatpants, and her white T-shirt strains over her stomach and voluminous breasts.
“It’s next to the shampoo in the bathroom cabinet,” Flora says as she twists the mop.
There’s a commercial break-the sound is louder and a shrill voice is talking about foot fungus. Ewa keeps standing inside the doorway, looking at Flora.
“Hans-Gunnar did not like his coffee,” she says.
“I’m sorry.”
Flora squeezes out the excess water.
“He says that you’re putting cheaper coffee into the expensive packet.”
“Why would I-”
“Don’t lie to me!”
“Well, I don’t,” mutters Flora.
“Go get his cup now, right now, and brew him a new one, a decent one.”
Flora leans the mop against the wall. She asks forgiveness as she walks out and heads for the living room. She can feel the key and the bills in her pocket. Hans-Gunnar does not even look at her as she takes his coffee cup from the tray.
“Ewa, get the hell back here!” he yells. “The show’s starting again!”
Flora jumps at his voice and hurries away. She meets Ewa in the hallway and catches her eye.
“Do you remember that I’ll be gone this evening for a job-search class?”
“Like you would ever find a job.”
“But I have to go, those are the rules. I’m making new coffee now and then I’ll finish the floors. Maybe I can do the curtains tomorrow instead.”
34
Flora hands over the cash to a man in a gray coat. His umbrella drips water on her face as he gives her the key and tells her that, as usual, she should drop it in the antique dealer’s mail slot when she’s finished. Flora thanks him and hurries down the sidewalk. The seams in her old coat are beginning to rip open. She is forty, but her face is childlike. It radiates loneliness.
The first block on Upplandsgatan after Odenplan in Stockholm is filled with antique and curiosity shops. Crystal chandeliers and display cases, old toys made of painted tin, porcelain dolls, medals, and mantel clocks clutter the shop windows.
Next to the barred windows of Carlén Antiques there’s a narrow door. Flora tapes a piece of white cardboard onto the door’s thick glass window. On it she’s written “Spiritualist Evening.”
A steep staircase leads to the basement. There are two rooms here: a small pantry and a larger meeting room. The pipes in the walls roar whenever anyone in the upper floors flushes the toilet or turns on the faucets. Flora has hired the larger room for seven séances. Four to six people usually attend, which barely covers the rent. She’s written letters to a number of newspapers to inform them of her ability to contact the dead, but nobody has replied. She’s put an advertisement in the New Age magazine Fenomen for this evening’s séance.
She only has a few minutes before the participants will arrive, but she knows what to do. She quickly pushes the excess furniture to one side and takes twelve chairs and puts them in a circle around a table. In the center of the table she places the porcelain figurines of a man and a woman wearing clothes from the nineteenth century. She believes that they will help evoke a feeling of the past. As soon as the séance is over, she’ll return them to their place in an oak cabinet because she’s not fond of them. She arranges twelve tea lights around the figurines after pressing a little strontium salt into one of the candles with the end of a match and covering the hole.
Then she goes to the cabinet and sets an ancient alarm clock to ring. She first tried this trick four weeks ago. The bell is gone, so the only thing that can be heard is a chattering sound inside the cabinet. Before she can wind up the clock, however, she hears the door upstairs open. The first guests have arrived. She hears people shake their umbrellas and start walking down the stairs.
Flora catches a glimpse of herself in the square mirror. She stops, takes a deep breath, and presses her hand along the front of the gray dress she bought at the Salvation Army store. She smiles at her reflection. She appears calm. She lights some incense and smiles kindly as Dina and Asker Sibelius enter the room. They hang up their coats, talking quietly to each other.
The outer door opens again, and more people come down the stairs. This time, it’s an elderly couple that she hasn’t met before. The participants of Flora’s séances tend to be old people near the end of their lives. They can’t accept the fact that many of their loved ones are gone and that death is final.
Flora greets the new couple in her usual, quiet manner and starts to turn away. Then she stops and studies the man as if she’s seen something particular about him, and she makes as if to shake off that feeling as she motions for them to take a seat. The door opens again. A few more guests have arrived.
At ten past seven, Flora realizes that no one else is coming. There are nine people seated around the table. It’s the highest number yet, but not enough to pay back the money she’s taken from Ewa. Her legs are shaking as she pulls out a chair and sits down. The conversation stops and everyone looks at her.
35
Flora lights the candles on the tray and then lets her gaze wander over the participants. She’s met five of them before. The others are new. Directly across from her, there’s a man who looks barely thirty. His face is open and handsome in a boyish way.
“Welcome,” she begins. “Welcome to our séance. I believe we should get started right away.”
“Yes, indeed,” old Asker says.
“Take each other’s hands and close the circle,” Flora commands in a warm, friendly way.
The young man is looking directly at her. He’s smiling and obviously curious. A feeling of excitement and expectation begins to flutter in Flora’s stomach. For several minutes, there is only silence. It feels powerful and dark. Ten people have made a circle and they can sense the dead arriving behind their backs.