The Crow Girl (30 page)

‘I don’t know …’

‘There’s a lot going on at work …’

‘Now isn’t a good time, but soon …’

In one single, slow moment, he’s taken everything away from her.

Everything that just a few days ago was true and tangible has turned out to be an illusion, a conjuring trick.

Is she supposed to look on passively while her life is dismantled?

A lorry goes past, blowing its horn, with scarcely any room to spare. She switches on the car’s hazard lights. If she’s going to die, it’s going to happen in style, not in some shitty ditch on an industrial estate in Västberga.

Victoria Bergman, her new patient, would never put up with being treated like something you can throw away when you get tired of it, she thinks.

Even though they haven’t seen each other particularly often yet, Sofia has realised that Victoria possesses a strength that she can only dream of. In spite of everything, Victoria has survived and transformed her experiences into awareness.

Acting on a sudden impulse, Sofia decides to call Victoria. Then she sees that she’s missed a text from Lasse. ‘Darling. I’m getting the plane home. We need to talk.’ She clicks the message away and dials Victoria’s number, then waits for the phone to ring. To her disappointment she gets the busy signal. Then she laughs when she realises what she was about to do. Victoria Bergman? Victoria’s the one coming to her for treatment, and not vice versa.

She thinks about Lasse’s message. Home? What’s that? And getting the plane? He’ll be driving in from Saltsjöbaden, nothing more. But perhaps he’s starting to suspect that she knows. Something must have made him want to leave his real family all of a sudden like that. After all, it is New Year’s Eve.

Without warning she feels sick again, and only just manages to get the car door open in time to throw up on the grey slush.

She starts the car, turns up the heater and drives towards Årsta, down into the tunnel and on towards Hammarby Sjöstad.

She stops at the Statoil garage to fill up, and when she’s done she goes into the shop. She wanders around the shelves, wondering where to go, and curses the fact that she’s allowed herself to become so isolated that she’s now so pathetically alone.

When she goes up to the counter she looks down in her basket and discovers that she’s picked up a pair of windscreen-wiper blades, an air freshener and six packets of Ballerina biscuits.

She pays and is walking towards the exit when she passes a display of cheap reading glasses. Mechanically she tries a few with the weakest lenses available. Finally she finds a pair with a black frame that makes her look thinner, stricter and a bit older. Sofia sees that the cashier has his back to her and quickly puts them in her pocket. What’s going on? She’s never stolen anything before.

When she’s back in the car she takes out her mobile phone, brings up Lasse’s last message and clicks reply.

‘OK. See you at home. Wait for me if I’m not there.’

Then she drives into the city centre and parks the car in the multi-storey on Olof Palmes gata. She uses her credit card to get a ticket covering the next twenty-four hours.

That will be more than enough.

However, she doesn’t leave the ticket on the dashboard, but puts it in her purse instead.

The time is now half past five on New Year’s morning. When she reaches Central Station she goes into the departure hall and stands in front of the large screen announcing the next trains. Västerås, Gothenburg, Sundsvall, Uppsala, and so on. She goes up to one of the automated ticket machines, takes out her credit card again, and buys a return ticket to Gothenburg, leaving at eight o’clock.

She buys two packs of cigarettes from the newsagent’s before settling down at a cafe to wait for the train.

Gothenburg? she thinks.

Suddenly, she realises what she is about to do.

SUNDAY MORNING WAS
gloriously beautiful, and Jeanette woke up early. For the first time in a very long time, she felt properly rested.

The weekend had passed without any significant trials. Åke’s parents had come to visit, and even that had gone surprisingly painlessly, even if his mum had thought the pork was a little dry and that you really weren’t supposed to buy potato salad from ICA.

Apart from that they had had a nice time. Watching television and playing games.

Her parents-in-law would be leaving on the morning train, giving her the rest of the day to herself. She lay in bed, planning what to do with the time.

Definitely no work.

Pottering about, a bit of reading, maybe a long walk.

She heard Åke wake up. He took several deep breaths and squirmed in the bed.

‘Is everyone else up?’ He sounded tired as he pulled the covers over his head.

‘I don’t think so. It’s only half past seven, so we can lie here a bit longer. We’ll hear when your mum starts banging around in the kitchen.’

Åke got up and began to get dressed.

Oh, just go, there’s nothing left here anyway, she thought, and saw Sofia’s pale face in front of her.

‘When does their train leave?’

‘Just before midday. Do you want me to give them a lift?’ Jeanette said, trying to sound disinterested.

‘We can do it together, can’t we?’ he replied, in an obvious attempt to sound friendly.

Half an hour later she went down to the kitchen and had breakfast with the others. When they were finished and the table was cleared, she took a mug of coffee out into the garden.

In spite of everything, she was feeling pretty happy.

Her meeting with Sofia had developed into something utterly different to what she had been expecting, and she hoped that it was the same for Sofia. For the first time she had felt something for a woman that she had previously only felt with men.

Perhaps sexuality doesn’t actually have to be connected to gender? she wondered, feeling confused. Maybe the banal truth is that it’s the person who matters. Man or woman really doesn’t make any difference.

How simple everything could be. And simultaneously how complicated.

When it was time to head off to Central Station, Jeanette carried the suitcases out to the car because she didn’t want to be in the way when her in-laws gathered the last of their things and said an emotional goodbye to Johan.

Jeanette parked between two taxis in front of the station. They got the luggage out together, then waved goodbye on the platform after another tear-soaked farewell. Jeanette suddenly found it easier to breathe. She took Åke’s hand and walked back to the car.

The troubling thoughts she had had during the day seemed to have blown away. She belonged with Åke, in spite of everything, and he with her.

What could Sofia offer her that she couldn’t get from Åke? she thought.

Excitement and curiosity aren’t everything.

Grit your teeth and bear it.

On the way home they stopped at a kiosk and bought a copy of
Dagens Nyheter
. It was supposed to contain a review of Åke’s exhibition. He would rather have got hold of a copy before breakfast, but had held off because he didn’t want his parents reading a review that slaughtered him.

Once they were home they sat down together at the kitchen table and spread the paper out in front of them. Jeanette could see he was more nervous than she had ever seen him.

He was laughing and pretending to be unconcerned.

‘Here it is,’ he said, folding the paper and putting it in between them.

They sat and read in silence. When Jeanette realised she was reading about her Åke, she started to feel dizzy.

The male reviewer was utterly lyrical. According to him, Åke’s paintings were the most important thing that had happened in the Swedish art world in the past decade, and he predicted a brilliant future for Åke. There was no doubt that he was going to be the next great Swedish cultural export, and in comparison artists such as Ernst Billgren and Max Book looked like pale imitations.

‘I have to call Alex.’ Åke got up and went into the hall to fetch his mobile. ‘Then I have to go into the city. Can you give me a lift?’

Jeanette sat where she was, not sure how she should feel.

‘Sure,’ she replied, understanding that from now on nothing was going to stay the same.

THE FAMILIAR STRAINS
of accordion music were drowning out the noisy traffic on Dalslandsgatan. ‘The Ballad of the Brig Blue Bird of Hull’ was blasting out of an open window, and Sofia Zetterlund stopped to listen before carrying on towards Mariatorget.

A few other passers-by stopped and smiled, and a woman began to sing along with the mournful lyrics about the ship’s lad who was lashed to the mast and forgotten when the ship sank. The music created an unexpected spiritual space, and functioned as a verbal catalyst in a country where no one talks to anyone else without good reason. Everyone knows their Evert Taube, as they’re given him along with herring and mother’s milk.

When she came to Allhelgonagatan she stopped, took the little tape machine from her bag and put the earphones in. On the cassette case she read that the recording had been made four months earlier.

Sofia pressed play and carried on walking.

… so I got the ferry to Denmark with Hannah and Jessica, that pair of hypocritical cows I got to know in Sigtuna, and obviously they had to go to the Roskilde Festival and left me alone in the tent with those four awful German guys who kept at it all night, fiddling and rubbing and pushing and grunting, while I could hear Sonic Youth and Iggy Pop in the distance, and couldn’t move because they took turns holding me down …

Completely cut off, she wandered into a dreamlike state where she neither saw nor heard anyone around her.

… knew that my so-called friends were right at the front by the stage and didn’t give a shit about the fact that I was lying there knocked out by their sweet dessert wine getting raped and then didn’t want to tell them why I was so upset and just wanted to get away from there …

Magnus Ladulåsgatan. Her body was moving automatically.

Timmermansgatan. The words became images she had never seen before, yet were still familiar.

… and continue on to Berlin where I emptied their backpacks and lied and said we’d been robbed while I was lying there asleep when they were out buying even more wine as if we hadn’t drunk enough already. But they were making the most of it because their parents weren’t there, and were back home in Danderyd working to earn the money they sent down to Germany so we could keep interrailing …

Then she realises what Victoria Bergman is talking about and remembers that she’s actually listened to this particular tape several times before. She must have heard the story of Victoria’s journey through Europe at least ten times.

How could she have forgotten?

… to Greece and got stuck at the border and sniffer dogs checked our luggage and we had full-body searches by randy old men in uniforms who stared at our breasts as if they’d never seen breasts before, and thought it was a good idea to use plastic gloves when they stuck their fingers in you. Then the bad stuff passed as we drank vodka and ended up with a big memory gap covering pretty much all of Italy and France and woke up somewhere in Holland. Then those two cows had had enough and said they were going home and I left them and ended up with a guy in Amsterdam and he couldn’t keep his fingers to himself either and that’s why he got a flowerpot on his head. It was only right to steal his wallet and the money was more than enough for a hotel room in Copenhagen, where everything was supposed to end and the voice fell silent when I finally showed that I dared to do it. But the belt snapped and I fell to the floor and my tooth broke and …

Suddenly she feels someone grab hold of her and she jerks awake.

She stumbles, takes a step to the side.

Someone pulls out the earphones, and for a moment everything is completely silent.

She ceases to exist and becomes calm.

It’s like being in water, and coming back up to the surface after diving too deep, and finally being able to fill your lungs with fresh air.

Then she hears the cars and the shouting and looks around, dazed.

‘Are you OK?’

She turns round and stares into a wall of people on the pavement and realises that she is standing in the middle of Hornsgatan.

Eyes watching her, inspecting her critically. Beside her a car. The driver is blowing his horn angrily, shaking his fist and revving the engine.

‘Do you need help?’

She hears the voice but can’t work out who in the crowd it belongs to.

It’s hard to focus.

She walks quickly back to the pavement and on towards Mariatorget.

She pulls out the cassette player to remove the tape and put it in its case. She presses eject.

Astonished, she stares at the empty space where the cassette should be.

MAMBAA MANYANI … MAMANI
manyimi …

Sofia Zetterlund wakes up with a throbbing headache.

She was dreaming that she was hiking in the mountains with an older man. They were looking for something, but she can’t remember what. The man had shown her an insignificant little flower and told her to dig it up. The ground was stony and hurt her hands. When she finally manages to get the whole plant out the man told her to smell the roots.

It had smelled like an entire bouquet of roses.

Roseroot, she thinks, and goes out into the kitchen.

She’s been getting headaches sporadically recently, but they usually pass after an hour or so. This time she feels it’s here to stay.

It’s part of her.

While the coffee machine hisses Sofia leafs through the pad of notes from her conversations with Victoria Bergman.

She reads: SAUNA, BABY BIRDS, CLOTH DOG, GRANDMA, RUN, TAPE, VOICE, COPENHAGEN, PADJELANTA, ROSEROOT.

Why has she written down those particular words?