Britt-Marie Was Here (36 page)

Britt-Marie usually cleans the ring until it gleams, so he won’t be able to avoid noticing it when he gets out of bed the next morning.

This is the first time she has cleaned her own ring. The first time she has not worn it on her finger. She whispers, without looking at the rat:

“Kent needs me. A person needs to be needed, you have to understand.”

She doesn’t know if rats sit awake in their kitchens at night, thinking about how they are going about their lives. Or who they are going about their lives with.

“Sami told me I’m not the type to clear off, but you have to understand that that is most certainly exactly what I am. Whichever way I turn, I’m leaving someone behind. So the only thing that’s right must be to blasted well stay where you belong. In your normal life.”

Britt-Marie tries to sound sure of herself. The rat licks its feet. Makes a little semi-loop on the napkin. Then dashes out of the door.

Britt-Marie doesn’t know if it thinks she talks too much. Doesn’t know why it keeps coming here. The supply of Snickers, obviously, but she hopes there’s something more to it. She takes the plate and puts plastic wrap over the remains of the peanut butter and Nutella, then puts everything in the fridge out of an old habit, because she’s not one to throw away food. She wipes her wedding ring carefully
and folds it in a piece of paper towel before tucking it into her jacket pocket. It’ll be nice to take off the bandage and put the ring back on her finger. Like getting into her own bed after a long journey.

A normal life—she has never wanted anything but a normal life. She could have made other choices, she tells herself, but she chose Kent. A human being may not choose her circumstances, but she does choose her actions, she insists quietly to herself. Sami was right. She’s not the kind that clears off. So she must go home, where she is needed.

She sits on the stool in the kitchen, staring at the wall and waiting for a black car. It does not come. She wonders if Sami thinks about how one should live one’s life, if he has ever had that luxury. A human being can’t choose his circumstances, admittedly, but in Sami’s life there have been more circumstances than events. She asks herself if choices or circumstances make us the sort of people we become—or what it was that made Sami the sort of person who steps in. She wonders what takes the most out of a person: to be the kind that jumps, or the kind that doesn’t?

She wonders how much space a person has left in her soul to change herself, once she gets older. What people does she still have to meet, what will they see in her, and what will they make her see in herself?

Sami went to town to protect someone who doesn’t deserve it, and Britt-Marie is getting ready to go home for the same reason. Because if we don’t forgive those we love, then what is left? What is love if it’s not loving our lovers even when they don’t deserve it?

The headlights from the road give off a sudden gleam, slowly reach out of the darkness like arms in the water, passing the “Welcome to Borg” sign.

They slow down by the bus stop. Turn off into the graveled parking area. Britt-Marie is already standing in the doorway.

Later, when people speak of it, it will be said that a few young men found Magnus in the early hours of morning, standing outside a bar. One of them was holding a knife. Another man stepped in between them. He was the kind that always steps in.

The car stops gently on the gravel. Makes a little warm sigh as the engine is turned off. The headlights are switched off at the same time as the pizzeria lights are turned on. In certain types of communities people always know what it means when cars stop outside their windows before dawn. People know it is never because something good has happened. Somebody comes rolling onto the porch; her wheelchair stops at once when she sees the police uniform.

Sven stands with his cap in both hands and his bottom lip full of teeth marks, caused by his attempt to hold it all in. Despair, which has run down his cheeks and caused red lines, speaks volumes about just how futile his attempt has been.

Britt-Marie yells out. Falls to the ground. And lies there under the weight of another human being, who no longer exists.

T
his is no slow grief. It does not emerge at the tail end of denial, anger, negotiation, depression, or acceptance. It flares up at once, like an all-consuming fire within her, a fire that takes all the oxygen from the air until she’s lying on the ground, lashing at the gravel and panting for air. Her body tries to twist into itself, as if there’s no spine, as if it is desperately trying to quench the flames inside.

Death is the ultimate state of powerlessness. Powerlessness is the ultimate despair.

Britt-Marie doesn’t know how she gets back on her feet. How Sven gets her into the car. He must have carried her. They find Vega halfway between the flat and the recreation center, and she’s lying in the gravel. Her hair is plastered to her skin, her words come out in stuttered gurgles, as if tears have filled her lungs. As if the girl is drowning from the inside.

“Omar. We have to find Omar. He’ll kill them.”

Britt-Marie doesn’t know if, sitting there in the backseat, she’s holding Vega so tightly herself, or if, in fact, it’s the other way around.

Around them, the dawn gently wakes Borg like someone breathing into the ear of someone they love. With sun and promises.
Tickling light falls over warm duvets, like the smell of freshly brewed coffee and toasted bread. It shouldn’t be doing this. It’s the wrong day to be beautiful, but the dawn doesn’t care.

The police car hurtles along in these first few moments of morning, the only thing moving on the road. Sven’s fingers are curled so hard around the steering wheel it must surely be hurting him. As if he has to keep the pain in some place. He speeds up when he sees the other car. The only car that has any reason to leave Borg at this time of morning. The only brother left for Vega to save.

Every death is unjust. Everyone who mourns seeks someone to blame. Our fury is almost always met by the merciless insight that no one bears responsibility for death. But what if someone was responsible? And what if you knew who had snatched away the person you love? What would you do? Which car would you be sitting in, and what would you be holding in your hands?

The police car roars past and cuts off the other car. Sven’s feet hit the asphalt before any of them have even come to a stop. For an eternity he stands there in the road, alone, his face streaked with red lines and his lip buckled with bite marks. Finally a car door opens and Omar steps out. A man’s eyes in the body of a boy. Is this the end of a childhood?

It’s the sort of night that can’t be undone in a person.

“What, Sven? What are you going to tell me? That I have too much to lose? What the fuck do I have to lose?”

Sven holds out his palms. His eyes flicker towards what Omar is holding in his hands. His voice hardly makes itself heard.

“Tell me where it ends, Omar. When you’ve killed them, and they’ve killed you. Tell me where it ends after that.”

Omar just stands there dumbly, as if he also has to focus his pain somewhere. Two young men in the back of the car open the doors,
but they don’t get out, merely sit there waiting for Omar to make a choice. Britt-Marie recognizes them. They play soccer with Sami and Magnus in the glare of headlights from Sami’s black car . . . how long ago did they last play? Days? Weeks? A whole lifetime ago. They are almost boys.

Death is powerlessness. Powerlessness is desperation. Desperate people choose desperate measures. Britt-Marie’s hair moves in the draft when the door of the police car opens and Vega steps out. She looks at her brother. He’s on his knees now. She keeps his head pressed against her throat and whispers:

“Where would Sami have stood?”

When he doesn’t immediately answer she repeats:

“Where. Would. Sami. Have stood?”

“Between us,” he pants.

The two young men give Sven one last look. At another time, perhaps, they could have been stopped. One day it may be possible to stop them again. But not tonight.

The car leaves Britt-Marie, Sven, and two children in the road.

Dawn rises over them.

The police car slowly drives back through Borg, exits on the other side, continues down a gravel track. Keeps driving forever, until Britt-Marie no longer knows if she has fallen asleep or just gone numb. They stop by a lake.

Britt-Marie wraps the pistol in every handkerchief she’s got in her bag, she doesn’t know why, perhaps mainly because she doesn’t want the girl to get dirty. Vega insists she’s got to be the one that does it. She gets out and throws it as hard as she can into the lake.

Britt-Marie doesn’t know how the hours turn into days, or how many of them pass by. By night, she sleeps between the children in
Sami’s bed. The beating of their hearts in her hands. She stays there for several nights. It is not something she plans, no decision has been made, she just stays there. One dawn after another seems to merge with dusk. Looking back, she has a vague memory of having spoken to Kent on the telephone, but she can’t remember what was said. She thinks she may have asked him to arrange some practical things, possibly she asks him to make some telephone calls, he’s good at those things. Everyone says Kent is good at those things.

One afternoon, she’s unsure when it is, Sven comes to the apartment. He has brought a young woman with him from the social services. She is warm and pleasant. Sven’s neck doesn’t seem capable of holding up all his thoughts any longer. The woman sits with them all at the kitchen table, speaking slowly and softly, but no one is able to concentrate. Britt-Marie’s eyes keep straying out of the window, one of the children is looking up at the ceiling, and the other is looking down at the floor.

The following night, Britt-Marie is woken by a sound of slamming in the flat. She gets up and fumbles for the light switch. The wind is blowing in through the balcony door. Vega moves maniacally back and forth in the kitchen. Tidying up. Cleaning everything she finds. Her hands scrub frenetically at the dish rack and frying pans.

Again and again. As if they were magic lamps that could give her everything back. Britt-Marie’s hands hesitate in the air behind her shaking shoulders.