The Fire Dance (18 page)

The stairs creaked loudly beneath each step she took. On the second floor, she decided to go ahead and take a quick look around. The staircase opened up into a light, airy hallway. The only piece of furniture she saw there was an unusually long sofa placed against one wall that gave the hallway the look of a desolate waiting room in an abandoned train station. Across from the stairway, there was a balcony door between large windows.

There were six closed doors in the hallway. Irene opened the closest one on her left and saw that she’d ended up in Ernst Malmborg’s studio. A huge control board with regulators and buttons, microphones, tape recorders and all kinds of instruments sat there untouched. If it hadn’t been for the thick layer of dust over everything, one could imagine that the musicians had just stepped out for coffee and would be back soon.

The room next to it was smaller, but it held just one grand piano with its bench. The room was also extremely cold. There were no curtains on the windows or pictures on the walls. Perhaps Ernst thought it would disturb his concentration while composing.

She closed this door carefully and opened the door beside it. A large double bed with a faded pink cover dominated the room. Probably Ernst’s bedroom. On one wall, there was a huge oil painting.

Irene took a few quick steps into the room to take a closer look and saw that it was a portrait of Anna-Greta Lidman in her glory days. The actress’s long blonde hair cascaded down
her shoulders with a lock of hair reaching down to one of her breasts. The painting ended just above where her nipples would be, and her upper body was nude. Her blue eyes glittered, hinting at the joy of life, and an elusive smile played on her sensual lips.

Alcohol, depression, pills and natural aging had broken her. Irene felt a strong sense of sympathy for the woman in the painting. No one can win the battle against age. It was lost from day one.

Irene nodded slightly both at the woman in the painting and at her own thoughts.

A voice from behind made her jump.

“I thought you were coming up to see me.”

Irene whirled around and had difficultly hiding how startled she’d been.

“Did I scare you?” asked Frej, raising one of his eyebrows.

He was not able to conceal the pleased tone in his voice. Irene couldn’t help but smile at him.

“I thought I’d take a look around as long as I was here. Then I wouldn’t have to come back,” she said.

“Okay. Have you looked at Marcelo’s room yet?”

“No, I haven’t.”

He gestured for her to follow him. They walked across the hall. Frej pointed to the room beside the staircase and said, “Toilet’s over there. Has a bathtub, too. The next room is a guest room, but, like, no one has stayed there in the past twenty years or so.”

He continued to the door nearest the balcony and opened it. He swept his arm in an exaggerated gesture of welcome. Irene stayed put.

“Marcelo’s not home, is he?”

“Who cares? He’s almost never here.” Frej gave Irene’s back a slight nudge.

“Hello? Marcelo?” Irene called out to be on the safe side.

There was no answer, so as long as she had the chance, Irene decided to do a quick look through Marcelo’s digs.

They stood in a large room functioning as a combination kitchen and living room. On the other side of the room, a door was half open.

The kitchen contained a three-in-one with two cabinets, a refrigerator and two stove plates. Irene recognized the setup since the police break room had one just like it. A small kitchen table and two chairs were set against the wall. The table was covered by a worn wax cloth with blue checks. Irene thought again of her mother. If Gerd could see this tablecloth, she’d immediately grab a dishcloth and a spray bottle.

The minimal countertop was covered in dirty cups and saucers, and crumbs crackled underfoot as they walked across the floor. Obviously, Sophie and Marcelo shared the same approach to house cleaning.

Next to the window were a sofa and two mismatched chairs around a coffee table. The table had no cloth to hide its scratched and worn surface. A candle stub had been jammed into a wine bottle there, and melted wax and water rings had permanently destroyed the finish. A number of cigarette burns marred the arms of both the sofa and the chairs.

“Does Marcelo smoke?” asked Irene. She pointed at the burns.

“Smoke? No, why? Oh, the holes. He didn’t make them. That was Ernst’s first wife. The one you saw in the painting. My mom said she used to forget she was smoking when she was drunk. Dangerous, of course. It could, like, set the house on fire …”

He stopped in the middle of his sentence and gave Irene a look from the corner of his eye, before he turned around and pushed the door open all the way.

“His bedroom,” he said shortly.

The blinds had been pulled down to keep the room in darkness. Irene reached for the light switch. The faint light from a rice-paper lamp barely illuminated the room. The only furniture was the bed, the same kind Sophie had, a worn pine chair and a small dresser. As Irene expected, the bed wasn’t made. A strong scent of aftershave hung in the room. Frej opened a wallpapered door to reveal a surprisingly large closet. All of Marcelo’s clothes were hanging there. Shoes and random items were scattered on the floor. In the middle of the mess was a large cardboard box. Irene peered inside and saw miscellaneous papers and photographs. She would have liked to go through the box, but couldn’t with Frej hanging over her shoulder.

As they were about to leave, some photographs pinned to the wall above Marcelo’s bed caught Irene’s attention. She stopped abruptly and Frej bumped into her back.

“What the hell?” he asked, surprised.

“Those pictures,” Irene said. She strode toward the bed and carefully removed them from the wall.

Three photographs. All in color and all showing a large fire.

“What’s this, Frej?” she asked in a sharper tone than she’d intended.

“What’s what? Oh. Those. Pictures of the bonfires on Walpurgis Night. Sophie wanted some photos with fire blazing. For, like, inspiration.”

“Inspiration?”

“For her dance.
The Fire Dance
. Marcelo had been helping her with those parts where the two of us dance … capoeira, you know.”

“You’re the one who took them, right?”

“Of course.”

Irene looked more closely at the photographs. It could well be that these were from a Walpurgis Night bonfire. The pictures emphasized the flames shooting up, but on one of the pictures the silhouette of someone’s head loomed in the foreground. Frej smiled at her as he said, “If you see
The Fire Dance
, you’ll understand. The fire is the most important part of the entire dance.”

Irene nodded as she stuffed the pictures into one of her jacket pockets. “I want to take a closer look at these. Let Marcelo know that he’ll get them back.”

“Okay, though he really doesn’t need them any longer. We’ve finished choreographing the dance. And I have copies in case he does need them.”

Frej walked out of Marcelo’s bedroom and through the filthy main room to hold open the door chivalrously for Irene. Darkness had fallen and the hallway no longer looked at all welcoming—just deserted.

Frej moved to the stairs and hit a switch. Irene felt relieved when the darkness was chased away. This old house made her irrationally fearful of ghosts. Ridiculous. She’d never been afraid of the supernatural before. It was probably just the realization that Anna-Greta Lidman had lived here during the last years of her life and had also died in the house. This house was filled with her tragic fate.

“This way,” Frej said, as he opened the last door in the hallway.

A small attic staircase was hiding behind it. It was steep, but there were railings on both sides.

They went up into a narrow hallway with three doors. Frej pointed at the one of the left and said, “My darkroom.” Then he pointed at the one straight ahead. “My bathroom. And here’s the door to my apartment.”

With a smile of pride, he opened the last door.

They entered a short hall with wardrobes on both sides. Then they stepped into a large living room with a slanted ceiling. A large window and a balcony door were across the room.

“Faces west,” Frej said, gesturing to the balcony.

“What a delightful apartment!” Irene couldn’t help exclaiming.

“The kitchen is to the right and the sleeping alcove to the left,” Frej said, not concealing his pride.

Although the ceiling slanted down on both sides, there was enough room to stand upright almost all the way to the walls. In the kitchen, there was the same three-in-one combination as in Marcelo’s apartment, but there was a small kitchen counter with drawers beside it. The entire floor in the apartment had been recently sanded and painted a light color. The windows had no curtains, and there were no plants on the windowsills. The walls were a light lavender blue and all the furniture was black, including the bed in the alcove. Even the bedclothes were black, Irene noticed. The small sofa and the low armchairs had been draped with black covers and he’d lacquered the coffee table in shining black. Black and white photographs were on the walls, and in the sleeping alcove hung an enlarged color photograph of the Walpurgis Night bonfire.

“Did you fix it up all by yourself?” asked Irene.

“Yep. The walls and the furniture,” he said.

“Even the floor?”

“Well … Felipe and his cousin Mats helped me there. Mats is a carpenter. He fixed up the kitchen benches, too.”

The effect was aesthetically pleasing and functional in a strict and slightly cool manner. What Irene noticed above all was how clean it was. She didn’t mention that, but asked instead, “Did you carve out this apartment from the attic?”

“Nah. It’s been here since the house was built. For, like, the servants. Sophie and her dad had some kind of housekeeper living here until the old man died.”

“I’ve heard something about her … Mrs. Larsson, I believe her name was. Do you know where she moved?”

“No idea.” He sounded completely uninterested.

“Was it her furniture that you fixed up?”

“Nah, she took her stuff with her. Sophie and I put whatever she left behind in the basement.”

“Oh, the basement. I wanted to take a look at it. The bulb over the stairs was out. Do you have another bulb?”

Frej shrugged. “I imagine there’s a flashlight in Sophie’s kitchen,” he said.

Irene suddenly remembered the strange pictures Sophie had set up in her room. She asked Frej if he knew what they were. He smiled crookedly as he replied, “Ask my mom. I can hear her coming now.”

Irene listened and also heard the quick steps heading up the creaking stairs.

Without knocking, Angelika pushed the door open and breezed into her son’s apartment.

“Frej, whose car is …?” She stopped when she caught sight of Irene. “Oh, it’s you,” she said.

“Hello. I had to check Sophie’s apartment one last time, and Frej was kind enough to give me a tour of the house,” Irene said, trying to look as friendly as possible.

If you don’t have a search warrant, you don’t have one
, she thought.

Angelika didn’t say anything in response, but instead looked at Frej, who wouldn’t meet her gaze. His face had closed up, and he had a morose look to his mouth. Was he angry with his mother?

Angelika frowned and looked sharply at Irene. “Good thing you came today. The workmen will be here soon to rip
out the entire interior. Not Frej’s apartment, but the rest of the house.”

“Are you moving in here?” Irene asked in surprise.

“I’m coming back into my
own
house,” Angelika answered.

By the look she gave Frej, Irene realized her comment was meant for him. Probably Frej was not at all enthusiastic about his mother moving into the house.
But the house does belong to her now
, Irene reminded herself,
even if the estate isn’t fully settled yet
.

Angelika smiled her pale smile as she said to Irene, “Staffan and I were considering moving in together anyway. We’ve been living apart for quite some time now. The Änggården mansion fits our needs, and he would enjoy helping me renovate this fine old building. His brother is a master carpenter and …”

BOOM!
Irene jumped as the door slammed behind her back. She hadn’t noticed Frej leaving.

Angelika sighed loudly and gave Irene one of those between-us-mothers look, “Frej thinks he’s going to lose some freedom, but I’ve explained to him over and over again …” She paused a moment. “I’ve also promised Marcelo he can take over my apartment on Distansgatan. It’s a great two-bedroom. However, if Frej doesn’t like my arrangements, he can move there, and we’ll let Marcelo stay here.”

She gestured to include the space around them. Irene could understand Frej. He’d put his heart and soul into renovating this apartment. The thought that he would have to leave it must be unbearable.

“As long as you’re here, could you explain what those signs are on the paper Sophie put on the wall in her bedroom?” Irene asked.

“It’s called Benesh notation. It’s a way to make choreography notes. The notations are then written below the score
so that the music and the dance movements can be read simultaneously.

“So it’s a way to write down dance steps?”

“You could say that. I never use Benesh in my work, myself. I use a video camera or I write down stick figures.”

“Do you know if Sophie always used this kind of notation?”

“I would imagine. It fit her … mindset.”

In the silence that followed, they could hear a car drive up on the gravel outside. Angelika lit up.

“Oh, Staffan’s here!” she exclaimed happily.

She turned on her heel and held the door open for Irene, who couldn’t think of any reason to stay. They walked down the stairs together and reached the ground floor just as the doorbell rang. Angelika rushed to the door with light steps. With a whoop of joy, she flung her arms around the neck of the man standing outside. They kissed and embraced for a long time. The man laughed as he finally loosened himself from Angelika’s arms and came into the house.