The Crow Girl (49 page)

She wants to leave every ego behind, to be stripped down to her bare bones.

Sofia realises that she can never be integrated with Victoria as long as she doesn’t accept what she’s done. She has to understand, and she has to regard Victoria’s actions as her own.

‘And they were also mutilated. Their genitals had been cut off.’

Sofia feels an urge to escape into simplicity, to shut the door on Victoria, lock her away deep inside and hope that she’ll slowly wither away.

Now she must pretend like an actress reading a script, and let her character come from within.

And that’s going to take more than empathy.

It’s about
becoming
the other person.

‘One of the boys was completely desiccated, but another had been preserved in an almost professional way. His blood had been removed and replaced with formaldehyde.’

They sit without saying anything for a while. Sofia can feel how sweaty her hands are. She wipes them against her leg before she speaks.

The words come by themselves. The lies come automatically.

‘I need to study the information you’ve given me, but for the time being I think we’re talking about a man between thirty and forty years old. Access to anaesthetic suggests that he works in the health sector. Maybe a doctor, nurse, vet, something like that. But, like I said, I need to analyse this more closely. I’ll have to get back to you.’

Jeanette gives her a look of gratitude.

SOFIA IS SITTING
at the desk in her office eating lunch. The day’s schedule is tight after Jeanette persuaded her to see Ulrika Wendin.

As she pushes the remnants of the fast food into the bin, her laptop chimes.

A new email.

The sender brings her up short.

Annette Lundström?

She opens the email and reads it.

Interesting, she thinks, looking at the time. Five to one. Ulrika will be there soon, but she still picks up her phone and dials the number.

Ulrika sits down and crosses her legs, leans her elbows on the armrests, and clasps her hands together in her lap. Sofia does the same.

It’s all about mirroring, copying physical signals such as body movement and facial expressions. Ulrika Wendin needs to recognise herself in Sofia, and feel that she’s dealing with someone who’s on her side. If it succeeds, Ulrika will start to mirror Sofia, and then she can use tiny, scarcely noticeable changes in her own body language to get the girl to feel more relaxed.

Right now her arms and legs are closed, and her elbows are jutting out into the room like thorns.

Her whole body radiates insecurity.

You can’t be more defensive than this, Sofia thinks, lifting one leg from the other before leaning forward.

‘Hello, Ulrika,’ she begins. ‘Thanks for coming.’

The first meeting is all about establishing trust. And Ulrika needs to feel that trust immediately. She lets Ulrika direct the conversation wherever she feels comfortable.

Sofia listens, leaning back with interest.

Ulrika explains that she hardly ever meets other people.

She might miss interaction, but whenever she ends up in a social situation she is gripped by panic. She once took an adult education course. On the first day she went along, hoping to make new friends and gain new skills, but her body stopped abruptly at the entrance to the college.

She never managed to go inside.

‘I don’t understand how I dared come here,’ Ulrika says with a nervous giggle.

Sofia realises that the girl is giggling to hide the seriousness of what she just said. ‘Do you remember what was going through your mind when you opened the door?’

Ulrika takes the question seriously and thinks about it.

‘“Let’s do this,” I think,’ she says in surprise. ‘But that sounds really weird – why would I be thinking that?’

‘Only you can know the answer to that,’ Sofia says with a smile.

She realises that she’s dealing with a girl who’s made up her mind.

One who doesn’t want to be a victim any more.

From what Ulrika tells her, Sofia understands that she’s suffering from numerous problems. Nightmares, compulsive behaviour, panic attacks, stiffness, insomnia and feelings of disgust towards both eating and drinking.

Ulrika says the only thing she can get down without difficulty is beer.

Sofia realises that the girl needs consistent support, and a strong hand to hold.

Someone has to open her eyes and show her that another life is possible, and that it’s right in front of her.

Ideally Sofia would like to see her twice a week.

If there’s too long between sessions there’s a risk that she’ll start to question and doubt things, which would make the process much harder.

But Ulrika doesn’t want to.

No matter how Sofia tries, she can’t persuade Ulrika to agree to more than one session every two weeks, even when she says she won’t charge.

As Ulrika leaves, she says something that worries Sofia.

‘There is one thing …’

Sofia looks up from her notes. ‘Yes?’

Ulrika looks so small. ‘I don’t know … Sometimes I have trouble … knowing what actually happened.’

Sofia tells her to shut the door and come and sit down again.

‘Tell me more,’ she says, as gently as she can.

‘I … sometimes I think I invited them to humiliate me and rape me. Of course I know that isn’t true, but some mornings when I wake up I’m convinced that I did. I’m so ashamed … and then I realise that it wasn’t like that.’

Sofia looks hard at Ulrika. ‘It’s good that you’re telling me this. Feelings like that are normal when you’ve been through the things you have. You take on some of the guilt. I appreciate that it doesn’t feel any less unpleasant because I say it’s normal, but you’re going to have to trust me. Above all, you’re going to have to trust me when I say that you didn’t do anything wrong.’

Sofia waits for Ulrika’s reaction, but she just sits in the chair, nodding apathetically.

‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to come back next week?’ Sofia tries again. ‘I’ve got two appointments available, one on Wednesday and one on Thursday.’

Ulrika stands up. She looks forlornly down at the floor, as if she’s made a fool of herself. ‘No, I don’t think so. I have to go now.’

Sofia resists the urge to get up and grab her arm to make her see how serious this is. It’s too soon for that sort of gesture. Instead she takes a deep breath and composes herself. ‘OK. Call me if you change your mind. I’ll keep those appointments free just in case.’

‘Bye,’ Ulrika says, opening the door. ‘And thanks.’

Ulrika disappears out the door, and Sofia remains behind her desk as she hears her get into the lift.

The way Ulrika thanked her lingers as a sign that she actually got through to her. From that single word Sofia deduces that Ulrika isn’t used to being seen for who she really is.

Sofia makes up her mind to call Ulrika the next day to see if she’s reconsidered and is ready to come back the following week. And if that doesn’t work, she’ll suggest that Jeanette go and see Ulrika during the week. She mustn’t let go of her.

She wants to help a new life to rise from the ashes.

Sofia wraps her arms around herself and feels the irregular scars on her back.

Victoria’s scars.

SHE GRABBED HOLD
of the boy’s hair, so hard that she tore out a big clump. In her hand the roots looked like little threads.

She hit him in the head, the face and the body and she hit him for a long time. Dazed, she stood up, left the jetty and fetched a large stone down by the shore.

It isn’t me, she said, letting the boy’s body sink into the water. Now you must swim …

The girl immediately begins to thrash her arms and legs, but swallows a lot of water and sinks.

Victoria pulls away a metre or so and looks on.

Twice the girl comes up to the surface, coughing, only to sink again when she tries unsuccessfully to reach the edge. But Victoria swims calmly over to her, grabs her under the arms and pulls her up. The girl’s legs won’t carry her, and she collapses on the terrace beside the pool. She rolls onto her side and throws up violently. First comes the chlorinated water, then the sticky grey strings of the porridge she ate for breakfast.

After a couple of minutes the girl calms down and Victoria rocks her in her arms. ‘You see,’ Victoria says, ‘you managed to kick me, and I was nearly knocked out.’

The girl is sobbing, and after a while she sniffs a silent apology.

‘Never mind,’ Victoria says, hugging her. ‘But we probably shouldn’t tell anyone about this.’

The girl shakes her head. ‘Sorry,’ she repeats, and Victoria no longer hates her.

Ten minutes later she’s rinsing off the terrace with the garden hose. The girl is dressed again, and is sitting on the sunlounger under the umbrella on the veranda. Her short hair is already dry, and when she smiles at Victoria it looks like she’s embarrassed. A regretful smile at having done something stupid.

Alternate between caressing and hitting, first protecting and then destroying, Victoria thinks. He’s taught me that.

The voices from the living room have fallen silent, the windows are closed, and Victoria hopes that no one heard anything. The front door opens, and four men get into the big black Mercedes that’s parked in the drive. Her dad stands on the steps and watches the car disappear through the gates. Then, with his head bowed and his hands in his pockets, he walks down the steps and round onto the path that leads towards the pool. Victoria can see that he’s disappointed.

The girl looks away when he takes off his pants and changes into his swimming trunks. Victoria can’t help giggling at the tight, flowery-patterned relics from the seventies that he refuses to replace.

Suddenly he turns and takes two steps towards her.

She can see in his eyes what’s going to happen.

He tried to hit her once before, but on that occasion she grabbed a saucepan and hit him over the head with it. Since then he’s never tried again. Until now.

No, not my face, Victoria thinks before everything turns red and she falls backwards against the veranda wall.

Another blow hits her forehead, then one in the stomach. Her eyes flare and she bends double.

Lying on the stones she hears the sound of the hose, then there is a burning sensation across her back and she screams out loud. He remains standing behind her and she dare not open her eyes. The heat spreads across her face and over her back.

She hears his heavy footsteps as he walks past her, down to the pool. He’s always been too cowardly to dive in, and uses the steps before gliding out into the water. She knows he will swim ten lengths as usual, no more, no less. When he’s done he gets out and comes back to her. ‘Look at me,’ he sighs, running his hand down her back.

She can feel that the nozzle of the hose has torn a large cut below her left shoulder blade.

‘You look bloody awful.’ He gets up and holds his hand out to her. ‘Come inside and we’ll get you patched up.’

When he’s taken care of her wounds, she sits on the sofa wrapped in a towel, hiding her smile behind it. Hit, caress, protect, destroy, she repeats soundlessly as he explains that their negotiations have hit problems and that they’ll therefore have to go back home soon.

She takes pleasure in the fact that the Freetown project has evidently turned into a fiasco.

Nothing has worked.

He explains that the agency’s failed irrigation project in the north of the country has had consequences. He says the money disappears, people disappear, and the slogans about constructive nationalism and a new order are about as empty as the government’s coffers.

Thirty people have died from poisoning, and there’s talk of sabotage and curses. The project’s been stopped, and they’ll be going home four months early.

When he leaves the room she sits there and looks at his collection of fetish figures.

He’s managed to get hold of twenty wooden sculptures of female figures, and they’re lined up on the desk, ready to be packed away.

Colonialist, Victoria thinks. Here to collect trophies.

There’s also a life-sized face mask. An ancestral mask from the Tenme tribe that reminds her of their servant girl.

As she runs her fingers over the rough wooden sculpture, she imagines that the face is alive. She strokes its eyes, nose and mouth. The surface begins to feel warm under her fingertips, and the wooden fibres become real skin under her touch.

She no longer dislikes the servant girl, because she has realised that there isn’t any rivalry between them.

She realised that down by the pool.

She is more important to him, their servant girl is merely a toy, a wooden doll, a trophy.

He’s going to take the mask home.

Hang it up somewhere, maybe in the living room.

Something exotic to show to dinner guests.

But for Victoria the wooden mask will be more than an ornament. With her hands she can give it a life, a soul.

If he takes the mask home with him, then she can take the girl. She has no rights, she’s almost a slave. No one will miss her, because not only does she have no rights, she also has no parents.

The girl has told Victoria that her mother died in childbirth, and that her father was executed when he was found guilty of stealing a chicken. An ancient way of testing guilt known as trial by red water.

His empty stomach was filled with dry rice, then he was forced to drink half a barrel of water mixed with bark from the cola tree. Vomiting red water is a sign of innocence, but he couldn’t vomit. He just swelled up with the rice and was beaten to death with a spade.

She has no one here to take care of her, Victoria thinks. She can come back to Sweden, and her name will be Solace.