Some Kind of Peace (14 page)

The very same day we got the results from the second ultrasound at Stockholm South Hospital. The doctor was a middle-aged Arab. He seemed tired and worn-out but was very friendly and took time to fully explain the situation to us in accented Swedish.

“The fetus’s brain is not normally developed,” he said matter-of-factly. His gaze did not waver before our dismay and shock. We just sat there for a long time and let the words sink in.

“It’s called anencephaly. The primary defect is actually absence of skull bone, which leads to the cerebral cortex not developing normally. With the ultrasound we can see the lack of a cranium and both hemispheres of the cerebrum.”

Neither Stefan nor I could utter a word. We sat silently while the doctor carefully explained the significance of what he had just said.

“With this type of defect, the fetus cannot develop normally, and even if it were to survive until birth, the child would die soon thereafter. I am truly sorry, but I recommend that you terminate the pregnancy as soon as possible. You can schedule an appointment this week.”

I was confused. The whole situation was absurd. The terminology the doctor used felt as though it was created to serve as a buffer between us and the truth. The child I was carrying was a
fetus
. He did not want us to kill it, but
the pregnancy should be terminated
. After that, a
normalization of my hormones would allow for a new conception within one to two months
.

That evening, Stefan and I quarreled for the first time in a long while.

“But what if he’s wrong?” I cried. “What if the baby isn’t injured and we killed it?”

“It’s not a baby, and you make it sound like a murder. We are terminating a pregnancy that can’t lead anywhere.” Stefan’s face was red with anger and something else.

Something much more frightening.

“But what if they are wrong? We have to… have to ask someone else to do an ultrasound. That’s the least you can ask before they kill—”

“Shut up! No one is going to…
kill
anyone, okay? And… I saw it myself on the ultrasound.”

“You’re an orthopedist, damn it. What
the hell
do you know about
fetal diagnostics? Everything that’s not broken or twisted is… too…
advanced
for you.”

“Even I could see that it didn’t have a
brain
. Don’t you get that, Siri?
It doesn’t have a brain!
” Stefan sank exhausted on the couch and buried his head in his hands. His breathing had gotten heavier and I could hear subdued, drawn-out sobs.

I sat silently beside him, struck mute by my understanding at last of the term “anencephaly”: no brain.

We requested another ultrasound before the abortion and got it without any questions. The previous diagnosis was confirmed by yet another understanding, amiable, but helpless doctor. “
There’s nothing we can do in this kind of situation. You will be able to have a healthy baby later
.” He was wrong, of course.

Three days later the child was removed.

Aina is in my arms, alive to the highest possible degree. Her hair tickles my cheek. Her scent in my nose is sweet like honey. Above us, the blinking broken fluorescent light continues to throb. I hold her hard, almost desperately, like a life buoy.

“
Aina…”
My voice is a sob.

“What is going on with you? Are you okay?” Aina inspects me in a way I don’t recognize; there’s something dark in her gaze, a hint of irritation. I press her to me without saying anything, while tears run down my cheeks.

“What actually happened?” Aina asks, raising her eyebrows and squinting slightly.

“I thought you were dying,” I squeak, taking hold of her arms, perhaps a trifle too brusquely because she backs off, pushes me away, friendly but determined.

“Listen, the police told me. But… I didn’t have an accident. I was at yoga. I… really… don’t understand any of this.”

“But they called…” My voice breaks.

“Who called? Siri.
Who?
”

Then I understand. Carefully, I try to formulate what I think I know.

“Aina, someone lured me here. Someone is following me. Someone…”

I don’t know what kind of reaction I had expected from her, but she just closes her eyes completely. As if to shut out the whole scene. She backs off a couple of steps and places her arms across her chest, indicating her distance.

“
Listen, Siri, you have to pull yourself together!
I completely understand your making up a story for the police. But… don’t involve me in your drunken lies.”

She pulls the door closed behind her and leaves.

Leaves me alone with the shame.

•  •  •

As I sit abandoned in the bare cell, I begin to understand what must have happened. Someone was watching me outside my house. Someone was there a long time, sitting on the rocks, looking through my windows, watching me as I went swimming in the bay.

He saw me looking for Ziggy in the woods, recognized my vulnerability. My drunkenness. Then this someone called, to lure me to the city. He knew I was going to take my car. Tipped off the police. And, most important of all, he must also be the one who sent me the photo and turned off the power. Maybe he also moved my flashlight that night. Now I am convinced that it’s not just a matter of isolated, innocent incidents.

Someone out there in the darkness wishes me harm.

It is an oppressive, dusty late-summer afternoon as I jog down the stairs from the office to make one of my mandatory visits to Systembolaget in Söderhallarna. It has become a bit of a ritual; Fridays mean wine shopping. I never buy more than one box at a time. Sometimes I supplement it with a few bottles of good wine, in case I need to treat myself during the coming week. You see, the bottles are a reward. What the box is I don’t really know. Calling it consolation would probably be a bit much; rather, it serves as a kind of cement, the very mortar that gets the days to stick together, regardless of how sharp and edgy they have been. It’s like everything is evened out, flows together. Nothing sticks out. Life itself becomes smooth, level, and easier to navigate.

I would rather not think about the visit to the Värmdö jail. Not now. Instead, I think about the responsible use of alcohol, namely that it’s okay to have a glass of wine with dinner on a Saturday evening. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s completely adult behavior that I intend to adopt. Soon. Maybe this weekend.

The liquor store is full of people stocking up for the weekend. Young guys maneuvering shopping carts full of beer cases out of the store. Old ladies packing Rositan or Marinellan liquor with endless care in their wheeled shopping trolleys. Self-assured middle-aged men who leave the store with bags heavy with Amarone or Bordeaux.

I find a box of cheap French wine. Presumably sour and oxidized before I even open it, but at this price it’s still quite a steal.

Then I freeze. Sure, it’s cramped in the store, but the hand that I feel on my right thigh can scarcely have ended up there by chance. Since my arms are full of wine and my way forward is blocked by an elderly couple, I turn around to confront the person who thinks he knows me well enough to put his hand on me.

Matted red hair.

A beard that brings to mind pictures of my dad in the seventies.

A faded T-shirt and a guitar across his shoulder. He is standing so close I can smell his body odor: sun-warmed skin and sweat.

It’s Robert. Aina’s Robert. Although, not anymore—because as far as I know it’s over between them.

I am so taken aback that the impertinence I had prepared got stuck in my throat. I just stare and back up a couple of steps instead. I don’t want to get too close to him.

“Hey there!”

He looks happy and doesn’t seem to realize that he just violated my personal space, that he isn’t someone who can touch me like that.

“Hi.”

“Thanks for the party! It was fun. Exciting colleagues you have,” Robert says, grinning so broadly that had I wanted to, I could count all his fillings.

“Were you thinking of someone in particular, or are you just being generally disparaging?”

I’m not laughing. There’s nothing funny in his comment. I don’t understand the logic either: Does he think he’ll win me over so that we can have a contemptible conversation at the expense of my colleagues?

“Listen, I was just trying… to be funny.”

“I don’t think you’re funny,” I say, and hear at once how hard the words sound. They fly out of me. Impossible to take back once they’ve been let loose. It wasn’t my idea really to respond so harshly, but the fact is he frightened me when he snuck up behind me without saying anything.

He purses his lips and nods slowly, as if he just understood something important.

“Well, okay, then. I won’t disturb you anymore.”

I don’t say anything, just watch him as he lumbers out of the place with the guitar over his shoulder. Slouching. Offended.

Only afterward does it strike me: How long had he been standing behind me? And how close? Close enough to hear my breathing?

Close enough to smell my scent?

I lay her gently down into the water with all the self-control I can muster. An indescribable sorrow fills me, as unexpected as it is sudden. I wouldn’t have believed I would feel anything. I didn’t think I could feel anything anymore. Not for real. I thought my emotions were dead. Now I know that maybe something inside me is still alive, despite everything. I don’t know if that’s good or bad
.

Slowly, I let go of the cold, smooth body. It slips between my fingers like a water animal in flight, sinks slowly but then floats upward again and remains hovering a few inches below the surface
.

Weightless like a spacecraft hovering in the middle of nothing
.

Sorrow is still heavy in my chest and now I know why: Justice is done, but I can never get my life back
.

Once upon a time my life was perfect, like the pictures in the glossy, heavy pages of a homemaking magazine. Little things were important: snow tires, espresso machines, sunscreen, tax assessment notices, recorder lessons, vaccinations
.

Then she took everything from me
.