More Bitter Than Death (26 page)

“Well, you’ve done a remarkably good job, if I may say so. I mean, you’re not schoolchildren, I don’t mean to belittle your efforts. You’ve really fought for this. What you need to know is that it is very easy to fall back into the old rut again. If the going gets tough, if you have a falling out, if you’re vulnerable. It can be helpful to keep that in mind, to know it’s not abnormal. What’s important is that together we come up with a plan for how we will sustain your progress.”

“That won’t be a problem,” Mia says calmly. “I feel so strong, did I mention that? I think I can handle anything.”

I glance at Patrik, but he doesn’t say anything, just nods enthusiastically, and tugs at his T-shirt, which says The Smiths.

Friday morning.

A sharp bang wakes me up and I spring upright in bed but don’t hear anything other than the house’s normal sounds, the soft humming of the refrigerator, rain falling on the roof, and the wind howling outside.

The darkness outside my window is so dense that it’s like a big, black animal has wrapped itself around my little cottage to sleep.

I get up, put on my frayed bathrobe, sneak out into the living room, and feel a cold draft sweeping over the floorboards. I shiver and glance at the clock: six thirty, almost time to get up.

Everything in the living room seems calm, but I notice right away that something is wrong with the center window. A long crack runs all the way across it, as if someone hit the pane with a heavy object.

I stand at the window for a long time looking out at the darkness. Everything is black and I can’t make anything out, just the faint gleam of the bay below the rocks. The wind must have picked up overnight, because now I hear pine branches whipping against the sides of the house. Yet another branch must have fallen and hit the window. It happened once before, but the window didn’t break that time.

It’s still pitch-black outside when I creep down through the leafless rosebushes to the outhouse. Icy wind blows in under the T-shirt I wear as a nightshirt.

Markus is at a disaster preparedness course in Västerås and I didn’t sleep well, woke up several times with my heart racing, swimming in sweat. I don’t remember any dreams, just a vague but insistent feeling of panic and anxiety, and the feeling that it’s all too late, that the damage is already done, that an event that can’t be stopped has already been set in motion.

The muddy little path isn’t frozen stiff, but almost. Quiet and firm, the ground only gives way a few millimeters beneath my rubber boots. In my hand I’m holding the big flashlight, the one I always carry. The beam of light searches its way across my waterlogged lawn to the rocks beyond. There was a
time when I was truly afraid of the dark; now I only feel a little anxious when the blackness surrounds me, like a sort of dizziness maybe, hardly a handicap, but uncomfortable.

Just as my hand closes around the door handle to the outhouse, I hear a sound behind me. At first I think it’s an injured animal, because it’s a shuffling, dragging sound.

I turn around and aim the oversized flashlight at the house, lighting up the door and the flaking paint on the wood siding. I let the beam of light sweep over the ground: yellowish-brown clumps of grass, scraggly pine tree branches that the fall storms have brought down, frost-tinged needles in drifts around the foundation. I don’t see anything out of place. And all I hear is the rhythmic sound of waves hitting the rocks.

“Markus, is that you?” I ask, but no one answers me.

I decide it’s an animal and nothing else.

Again I think we should move into the city. It’s impractical in many ways to live out here, but something keeps me here.

Stefan?

It’s as if I thought leaving the house would increase the distance between us.

Our house.

Markus is ambivalent about it. He’d prefer to live in an apartment in Södermalm, but since he works in Nacka, the commute is nice and short from here. And he knows how much I want to stay.

The door to the outhouse slides open with a grating sound and I hurry in out of the wind. The little bathroom is bare-bones, and the only decoration is the collage of Bowie pictures on the one wall. I sink down onto the toilet and pee and brush my teeth at the same time, thinking that if I ever do move, I want a proper bathroom, one with tile on the walls, a heated floor, and a bathtub.

A luxury to dream about.

The air feels even colder and rawer, if that’s possible, as I make my way back through the yard to the cottage. The windows gleam like yellow eyes in the darkness as I approach the door. I take one last, big step to avoid the mud puddle that has formed just at the base of the steps. In the distance I hear a boat approaching.

Once I’m safely back in the relative warmth, I shove some wood into the woodstove and get the fire going, then go to the kitchen to put the teakettle on. And it is then, as I stand there holding the retro-trendy pistachio-colored
teakettle my sisters gave me for Christmas, that I hear the sound. It sounds like someone knocking in the living room.

Hesitantly I tiptoe out of the kitchen. The floorboards feel colder than usual, but in the living room the heat from the fire has started to spread and I can hear the crackling of the burning wood.

I don’t see her right away. At first I can only make out the contours of a white face outside the black glass doors. Pale and bleary-eyed, the face seems to inspect me as I stand there in the middle of the room, frozen in fear. Then the face comes closer, presses up against the windowpane, and I see who it is.

Malin.

*   *   *

I open the glass door slightly. She’s not wearing a jacket, just a thin cardigan and sneakers. Her eyes are swollen and red and her skin is white as paper.

“Can I come in?”

“What in the world happened?”

“Please, let me in. You remember how you said we could always get in touch with you if something came up and . . . I couldn’t stand it at home, so I drove out here. I’m sorry I didn’t call first. I should have called, but . . .”

Without saying anything, I open the door, and she slips in like a cat.

“Come in,” I say. “I’m sure you’re freezing.”

She nods at me and rubs her hands together, walks right over to my worn, yellowish-brown couch, and plops down.

I approach her cautiously, wrap the plaid blanket around her shivering, chilled body.

“You’re not even dressed. What happened?” I ask.

“I can’t take it anymore. I just can’t do it,” Malin says, staring vacantly, shoulders tensely pulled up, her wet hair plastered to her head.

I sit down next to her on the couch and take her hand in mine, feel her shivering, from the cold and maybe from something else. Fear?

“Malin, what happened?”

But it’s as if she doesn’t hear me. She’s just shivering under the blanket, staring straight ahead with a vacant look in her eyes. Suddenly I’m worried that she actually has hypothermia, that maybe I need to take her to the hospital.

“Do you want a cup of tea?” I ask.

She nods without looking at me, and I hesitantly return to the kitchen.

“Do you want anything else? A sandwich maybe?”

She shakes her head.

The situation feels uncomfortable. I’m not close to Malin, would never invite her to my home under normal circumstances. Obviously Aina and I urged all the women in the group to call if they wanted to talk, but coming to my house like this, at seven o’clock in the morning? That really isn’t normal. I bring Malin the steaming cup of tea and sit down next to her.

She’s shaking so much that when she raises the cup, hot tea sloshes onto the couch and her hands, but she doesn’t seem to notice.

“You know, for a while I felt like I had everything under control,” she whispers.

“What did you have under control?” I ask.

She looks at me and smiles weakly.

“Myself. After the rape it was like my whole world fell apart. For a while I thought I was going crazy for real, losing my mind. Then . . . I forced myself to be unbelievably disciplined about my training and food, and I totally gave up drinking since I was so afraid of losing control. And you know what? It actually worked. I got my life back, my mind back. It’s just that every once in a while, it all sort of . . . comes back to me. Like when I ran into him, the rapist, downtown. I had the worst panic attack. And I’m scared that I’m losing it again and . . . I don’t want to, because I want to be in control of my life. I don’t want to fall down into that abyss, don’t want to go crazy.”

“I don’t think you’re going crazy, Malin. I think it just feels that way. And the more you run away from your feelings, the more power you’re giving them. It would be better if you got up the courage to tackle your feelings head-on instead of going out running as soon as the fear starts closing in.”

“But now everything is all shot to hell—” She buries her head on her knees, resting it on the plaid blanket. I carefully take the teacup out of her hand and set it on the table.

“What’s happened now that is making you feel like this?” I ask.

“I’m back in that black hole and it feels like I’m going crazy again.”

“You have to tell me about it, Malin. Otherwise I can’t help you.”

“Okay.” She sighs, pulling her head back up out of the blanket to look at me. “That woman who was kicked to death by her boyfriend, Susanne. She was one of the people who gave my rapist an alibi. I didn’t realize that at first. But when Kattis said her name and where she lived, I recognized it right away. I mean, there were a bunch of people who gave him an alibi, five people, so it wasn’t just her fault. But . . . do you know how many hours I’ve spent hating
those people, wishing they would die? And then she did die, and it’s like I don’t know if I should be happy or think it’s awful. On the one hand, I think she deserved to die, on the other hand I totally get how sick that is, and I don’t want to be sick. And then the police came and started asking a bunch of questions about the rape and whether I knew Susanne and what I thought about her. They were trying to see if I was involved in some way, like I haven’t suffered enough. I mean, I told them that I’m the victim. I just want my life to be the way it used to be. Before. But it can’t, because now everything that happened to me is, like, coming back. I can’t sleep anymore, can’t eat, can’t even concentrate for long enough to watch a normal TV show. I feel like I’m losing it now. For real.”

*   *   *

The rain has finally stopped. The heavy clouds have moved on, revealing a pale-blue November sky. The wind has let up and the bay is glossy; only gentle ripples are visible on its surface. A few seabirds bob on the water, periodically diving and then resurfacing.

I don’t know anything about birds. Don’t know what kind they are, what they eat, where they nest. If Markus were here, he could tell me. He’s more of an outdoorsman than I am. He knows the plants and animals. He can start a fire with two sticks, has an uncanny sense of direction.

A real boy scout.

But Markus is still in Västerås and I’m left alone in the cottage. Left to my own thoughts and devices.

Malin has gone home. She slept for several hours on my couch and then left. Mostly she seemed guilty about bothering me. I’m sitting at the computer, working. I decided to work from home since today’s only patient canceled.

I think about Malin’s story, wonder if she might have something to do with what happened to Susanne, try to understand her reaction, how extreme discipline can protect a person from feelings of powerlessness, humiliation, and fear.

No matter how I try, I can’t shake the thought of her. I do a little cleaning, wash the dishes, measure the bedroom yet again to decide if the crib will really fit.

Then twilight falls and yet another day is over.

There are five messages on my cell phone the next morning. Four are from Elin at the office, who wants to change around appointments, but the messages she leaves are so confused that I can’t understand what she means. I make a note in my calendar to call her Monday and clear things up.

The fifth message is from a Roger Johnsson. He introduces himself as a police officer investigating the murder of Henrik’s girlfriend, Susanne Olsson, and says he wants me to call him back as soon as possible.