Frozen Moment (47 page)

    Sebastian
was grateful that Dr Snell had decided to avoid any accusations, but he was
also upset on his mother's behalf because the doctors were treating her like
someone who was a bit simple. As if she really believed they would allow the
technology used to keep someone alive to be knocked out by some bloody power
cut.

    It
was also perfectly clear that Solveig knew it was Sebastian who had nudged Maya
across the threshold into the kingdom of the dead. He still hadn't found the
courage to meet her eyes.

    In
the company of other people - for example during the laboured conversations
with the family counsellor - she chose to lower her eyelids when she was forced
to turn to her son. Sebastian was well aware of the rage burning beneath the
smooth surface. He only had to glance at her for the exposed skin on his face
to be seared as if by a flame. They had both chosen not to be alone together
since Maya had stopped living.

    Now
he was taking things one day at a time. Amina, with her doe like eyes, came for
two hours a day to help him 'structure his everyday life', as she had put it
when they sat at the kitchen table to plan their 'joint project'. What she
actually did was take care of his laundry, clean up the messes he made, do the
shopping and cook for him. It was as if he had gone from being a teenager to
being an old man in one enormous stride.

    He
also noticed that the aim was for her to try to establish some kind of rapport
with him. He had been there before - often enough to recognise the tentative
questions from an anxious adult with a sense of responsibility. He could live
with that; he was whatever he chose to show them. That applied to both Amina
and the social worker. As usual he navigated through their statements and
questions with playful ease. They could come into his home and do whatever they
had to do to make themselves feel better, ask their questions and believe his
answers, but the person he was deep inside had nothing to do with them. It
never had done. He wasn't like Maya.
Or Solveig.
They
opened themselves up time after time.

    Still,
Amina was very pleasant to look at. And the mask he wore was impressive, as
usual. It was enough to be calm and collected, and to throw in a few episodes
of teenage angst from time to time, with tear- filled eyes. That satisfied
their inflated egos.

    Amina
tried to give the impression that she knew how teenagers thought and felt. She
must have been a teenager herself not that long ago, but she spoke using her
professional experience as her starting point - not that she could have had
much of that. It didn't particularly bother Sebastian. He couldn't help
innocently asking her how long she had been working, just to see her ears go
red when she confessed that she wasn't yet qualified.

    In
order to ease her discomfort he confided in her that he was dreading the day
Solveig came home from hospital. He didn't want to be alone on that day. Amina
immediately promised to keep in touch with Solveig's doctor and agreed to be there
to hold his hand when his mother was discharged. He could see her making a note
in her internal diary:
Established rapport.
If there was one thing
Sebastian had learned, it was that people, in general, were entirely
predictable.

    'You're
a strong person, Sebastian,' she had said in the
embarrassed
tone of someone who wasn't used to making such pronouncements about strangers.
But they got used to it, social workers. Soon she too would have no problem
poking her nose into everything. So it was Amina who told Sebastian that his
mother was emerging from the mists. Suddenly Solveig had sat bolt upright in
bed - as if she had temporarily broken free from the chains of her medication -
and stated that she was no longer in touch with either her sorrow or her joy.
For some time her mind had been dulled by strong tranquillisers, but no more.

    Of
course the main aim of the medication had been to spare her the experience of a
grief that was clearly too much to bear. The medical team felt it was still
early days, but she maintained she was ready to confront her demons. That was
how she put it.

    Amina
sounded as if she thought this was a good thing.

    Sebastian
did his best to look relieved, which of course was the normal thing to do.
Relieved that his mother was leaving her apparent insanity behind.

    'She
wants to come home straight away,' said Amina.
'To you,
Sebastian.
I think it was the thought of you that made her decide to
fight, instead of giving up. And of course I'm here during the period of
transition. You know that. If you want to talk, I'm here for you.'

    The
first thing Solveig did when she got home was change the locks, as if she
wanted to shut out the creature with the glassy eyes and the grey hair in a
messy clump at the back of her head. That same morning she went to the
hairdresser for a subtle ash-blonde tint, her hair cut into a pageboy style
which was much more appropriate to her age. When she arrived home she was
wearing a green corduroy dress he had never seen before, and glasses, which
meant that the characteristic peering was gone. She really did look much
better.

    'Well,
look at this,' she said, casting a critical eye over the spotless hallway.
'Thank you, you can go now.'

    Amina,
feeling slightly confused, was politely but firmly ushered out on to the
landing, and the door was shut in her face.

    Once
her hesitant footsteps had died away down the stairs, the atmosphere in the
hallway was so thick you could have cut it with a knife. Solveig dusted off her
hands.

    
'Dear me, Sebastian.
Right, now I'm going to start on the
housework. Then you can go shopping. And I'll make dinner. Then we can settle
down in front of the TV.'

    'Mum…'

    She
immediately started frenetically cleaning the kitchen.

    
'Mum's home again.
I'm not going to say a word about how
quickly I was
replaced,
and by a younger model too -
much easier on the eye.'

    She
was still avoiding direct eye contact. She
laughed,
a
brief, introverted laugh, then started emptying the kitchen cupboards and
wiping her absence out of every single corner.

    'It
isn't your fault, Sebastian. You're getting to that age now. You're cast in the
same mould as every other man: more banal with every passing day.
Disloyal.
Faithless.
Fixated on superficial things… physical desires.'

    'Mum,
this business with Maya-' Sebastian began, but stopped dead as she spun around
and exposed him to her burning eyes.

    'Not
one word, Sebastian. We are not going to say one single word about that.'

    A
couple of weeks later, with Dr Snell's encouragement, they reported the
hospital and the doctors for the professional negligence that had allowed life
to slip through Maya's fingers.

    2007    

    Fifteen
years ago he had been thirty, and they had thought he was ancient. Seja hadn't
expected him to have an insight into the secret world of the visitors' books
and their coded chronicles. And even if the man now sitting opposite her had
flicked through the books from time to time, it was likely that he had
dismissed the love poems as rubbish, the implied suicide threats as an
exaggeration on the part of narcissistic adolescents desperate for attention,
and the overblown political discussions as being copied straight out of a basic
course in sociology for year 11 students.

    It
was possible that he and his companions might have appreciated the skilfully
executed drawings in ink or pencil; they might even have been able to guess
which of the perpetrators would later apply to the various art colleges in the
city. They were usually pictures of other customers in the cafe: a young woman
with dreadlocks hunched over a glass of tea, a gang of boys all wearing the
same uniform - a black suit bought at Myrorna, a long black coat and a hat just
like the one Tom Waits always wore.

    The
owners of the cafe at the Northern Station had presumably had

    
no
idea what a cult they were starting when they bought the
first A4 hardcover notebook on an impulse and placed it in one of the deep
window recesses. And indeed the man opposite expressed both suspicion and
surprise when he heard what they wanted.

    'I
thought you were looking for a job,' he explained, running a hand through his
hair, which appeared to be rigid with wax. 'We've got an advert out - for a
waitress. I don't suppose you'd be interested?'

    Seja
and Hanna shook their heads politely.

    'Have
you still got the books? Or does anyone else who was working here at that
time?'

    He
leaned back in the leather armchair.

    'You
all went through a hell of a lot of those books. I think we ended up having to
buy a new one every other week for several years. I'm sure you must realise we
haven't kept them all; in fact I don't know why we ever kept any of them, but…'

    He
beamed and looked at Seja as if she had won the lottery.

    'You're
in luck. I happen to know that Cirka saved a pile of them, for sentimental
reasons. It was a part of what we did in those days. They were kind of in tune
with the people who came in, all those kids with their artistic ambitions. I
mean, I'm no psychologist or anything, but it has to be a good thing for kids
to be able to express themselves, doesn't it? And some of them had real talent,
you could see that.'

    He
gazed intently at Seja for a few seconds,
then
made
his decision.

    'I
knew it. I definitely recognise you. How old were you back then?'

    
'Sixteen, seventeen.'

    Seja
squirmed. It was many years since she had stopped feeling comfortable about
spilling her innermost thoughts in front of people she hardly knew. She
searched her memory in vain for some idea of the contributions she might have
left in those books. But she had used an alias, and she doubted if the man
opposite her was sufficiently well informed to know what it was.

    To
her relief he turned to Hanna.

    'What
was your name? Hanna? Not Hanna Andersson?'

    
'Aronsson.'

    'That's
it. I definitely remember you - you were… I think you were at some of the gigs
I put on.
Velvet?
Magasin 12?
And you were with my mate Mange for a while, if I remember rightly.'

    Hanna
looked as if she didn't quite know whether to feel positive or uncomfortable.
'I don't really remember. You know how it was - there
was
all kinds of stuff going on. The memories are a bit vague.'

    He
sniggered and rubbed his hand over his stubble.

    
'Too right.
And you kids were pretty wild, as far as I
remember.'

    'Cirka,'
Seja reminded him; she'd had just about enough of this. She folded her arms to
show that he could skip the small talk.

    'You
can go over to her place if you want, she lives quite close. I can give her a
ring and tell her you're coming. Or I can ask her to bring the books when she
comes over in a couple of hours - if she's still got them, that is.'

    While
they had been talking to the bar owner the sun had found its way through the
clouds. Its rays were reflected in the chrome tables out on the pavement, and
shimmered against the window of the cafe opposite. Outside a group of girls sat
stoically sipping hot drinks in tall glasses wrapped in paper napkins. They
were shivering in spite of the woollen blankets around their shoulders.

    Seja
and Hanna toyed with the idea of having a quick coffee - indoors - but decided
instead to have something to eat once they had picked up the notebooks from
Cirka.

    The
map the bar owner quickly scrawled on a napkin led them to an address on
Kungshojd, just a stone's throw from the bar, as he had said. They followed
narrow alleyways and flights of steps from Kungsgatan to a stone building high
above the sea that looked as though it had been built some time around 1900.
They admired the view of the city and the harbour before ringing the doorbell.

    'I've
turned the whole room upside down.'