‘He would have been thirty. We were supposed to go out to eat for once, I arranged for a babysitter months ago, it was going to be a surprise.’
Monika clenched her fists and pressed her nails into her palms. It was a relief when it hurt somewhere she could pinpoint.
Pernilla picked up her fork again and let it return to the chanterelle.
‘They rang from the funeral home this morning; he was cremated yesterday. Well, what they managed to scrape up of him, although they didn’t say that. So now he isn’t merely dead, now he’s been annihilated as well, only a little ash in an urn down there at the funeral home waiting to be picked up.’
Monika wondered how hot the oven should be for the blueberry pie she had bought for dessert. She had forgotten to check before she threw out the package. Two hundred degrees Celsius should do it. If she put a little foil on top it wouldn’t burn.
‘I picked a white one. They had a whole catalogue with caskets and urns in different colours and shapes and price ranges, but I took the one that was cheapest because I knew he’d think it was crazy to waste money on an expensive urn.’
And she had to whip the vanilla sauce too, she’d forgotten about that. She wondered whether they had an electric mixer, because she hadn’t seen one when she’d made dinner, but maybe there was one in a cupboard she hadn’t looked in.
‘I’m not going to have a burial. I know he wouldn’t want to be buried somewhere, he’ll be scattered at sea, he loved the sea. I know how much he missed diving and that in his heart he wanted to start again, it was only because of me that he didn’t.’
Imagine, Sofia Magdalena was engaged to Gustav III when she was just five years old. It said in the books that she had led a melancholy life, she had been shy and withdrawn and subjected to a strict upbringing. She came to Sweden at nineteen and had a hard time adjusting to life at the Swedish court.
‘Why couldn’t he have lived long enough to dive one more time? Just one more time!’
How loud she was talking. She was going to wake Daniella if she didn’t pipe down soon.
‘Why wasn’t he allowed to do it? Why? Just one last time!’
Monika gave a start when Pernilla suddenly stood up and went into the bedroom. It was clear that the wine had affected her legs too. Monika searched the kitchen for the whisk she needed but found none. Then Pernilla reappeared and now she had Mattias’s woollen jumper in her arms, holding it close to her as if in an embrace. She sank down on the chair and her face was contorted with anguish and now she was shrieking more than talking.
‘I want him to be here! Here with me! Why can’t he be here with me?’
Keep moving. Keeping herself in constant motion made it possible to stay out of all this. It was when she stopped that everything hurt.
Doctor Monika Lundvall stood up. Mattias Andersson’s widow sat across the table and was sobbing so hard she was shaking. The poor woman wrapped her arms round herself and rocked back and forth. Doctor Lundvall had seen this so many times. Loved ones had died and the relatives were left behind in inconsolable despair. And they could never be comforted. People in the midst of grief were in a world of their own. No matter how many years a person studied medicine or stood right next to them, they were still in a different place. There was nothing you could say to cheer them up, nothing you could do to make them feel better. All you could do was to be there and listen to their unbearable sorrow. Endure it even though their distress raged all around them that everything was meaningless, that life was so ruthless it was no use even trying. You might as well give up at once. What was the point when it could all end an hour from now? Why make an effort when everything was steadily moving towards the same inexorable end? And it was impossible to avoid. People in grief were one big reminder. Why try at all? Why?
‘Pernilla, come, let’s put you to bed. Come on now.’
Doctor Lundvall went round the table and put a hand on her shoulder.
The woman kept on rocking back and forth.
‘Come on.’
Doctor Lundvall took hold of Pernilla’s shoulders and helped her up from the chair. With an arm round her shoulders she led the woman into the bedroom. Like a child Pernilla let herself be led and did as she was told, lying down obediently in the bed. Doctor Lundvall pulled up the covers from the empty side of the double bed and tucked them around her. Then she sat down on the edge of the bed and stroked Pernilla’s forehead. Gentle, calm movements that made her breathe more easily. She stayed there. The red numbers on the clock radio changed and returned in new combinations. Pernilla was now sound asleep, and Doctor Lundvall went back to the subject of her leave of absence.
Now only Monika was left.
‘Forgive me.’
One big reminder.
‘Forgive me. Forgive me because I wasn’t braver.’
She stroked away a lock of hair from her brow.
‘I would do anything to make him come back to life.’
Pernilla took in a shuddery breath. And Monika felt that she wanted to say it out loud. Even if Pernilla didn’t hear. To confess.
‘It was my fault, I was the one who betrayed him. I left him there even though I could have saved him. Forgive me, Pernilla, for not being braver. I would do anything at all, anything, if only I could give you Lasse back again.’
22
‘Why didn’t you say something?’
Four days had passed since the bathroom incident, and nobody from the agency had shown up. Now Ellinor was suddenly standing in the hall, and she flung out the question before she even managed to close the front door. The words echoed from the stairwell. Maj-Britt was standing near the living-room window and was so surprised by her own reaction that she didn’t even register that she had just been asked a question.
How she had detested that voice. It had plagued her like an ingenious torture instrument with its inexhaustible flow of words, but now she had a feeling of gratitude. She had come back. In spite of what had happened last time.
Ellinor had come back.
Maj-Britt remained by the living-room window. What she felt was so unfamiliar that she completely lost her bearings, she no longer remembered how you were supposed to act in situations like this, when you actually experienced something that might easily be mistaken for a mild form of happiness.
She didn’t have much chance to think about it because the next moment Ellinor came storming into the room, and it was quite obvious that she wasn’t expecting to be welcomed with delight. Because she was furious. Really fuming. She stared at Maj-Britt and completely ignored Saba, who stood wagging her tail obsequiously at her feet.
‘You have pain in your back, don’t you, where you usually put your hand? Admit it!’
The question was so unexpected that Maj-Britt totally forgot her gratitude and retreated at once to her usual defensive position. She saw that Ellinor had a folded piece of paper in her hand. A piece of lined paper torn from a notebook.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Why didn’t you say something?’
‘Are you aware that it’s been four days since the last time you were here? I could have starved to death.’
‘That’s right. Or you could have gone out to the shop.’
Her voice was just as fierce as her gaze, and Maj-Britt realised that something had happened during those four days Ellinor had stayed away. Maj-Britt sensed that it had to do with that piece of paper she was holding. It was so similar to other pieces of paper which had intruded into her flat a while back, and which she was sorry she had ever read. Ellinor must have seen her expression, because now she unfolded the sheet of paper and held it out to her.
‘This was why you thought I knew Vanja Tyrén, right? Because she wrote that you had pain somewhere, so you thought I was the one who told her, right?’