More Bitter Than Death (35 page)

“Sirkka?”

“Yeah, she actually admitted to us that she basically killed her husband. And that she doesn’t feel any guilt about it.”

Aina brushes away several damp, blond strands of hair and then turns toward the wind so her hair blows back off her face.

“I guess I haven’t really thought about it. She didn’t call for help, that’s all. And then he died.”

Aina smiles wryly. “Come on, now you’re being naïve, Siri. She knew exactly what she was doing. She killed him and she doesn’t feel any guilt over it. Doesn’t that bother you?”

I shrug, unsure what to say. “What are you getting at?”

“I’m just wondering. If a person does something like that once, does that mean they’d be capable of doing it again?”

I have no response. Aina turns around and gazes at my little cottage huddled between the rocky shore and the pine trees.

“Should we head back in?” she asks, and I nod.

Slowly we follow the little path back to the house. I’m carrying the big flashlight in my hand, lighting our way so we don’t stumble over any tree roots or slip into one of the small hollows filled with wet leaves.

*   *   *

It’s warm in the cottage. The woodstove in the living room is crackling, and the faint but unmistakable scent of smoke permeates the air.

“Would you like some tea?” I ask.

“I want wine,” she says without looking at me, flopping onto the couch, pulling her legs up toward her body, and wrapping her arms around her knees. I head into the kitchen to see what we have. Not that long ago it would have been unheard-of for me not to have any wine in the house, but to my surprise I determine that we are currently actually totally wineless. The cupboard where I keep the wine is empty.

“Uh,” I call from the kitchen, “we’re out of wine.”

“Do you have any liquor?”

“Liquor? Are you serious?” I ask her.

“I have never been more serious.”

I shake my head at her from the doorway and return to the kitchen to look. Liquor has never been my thing, but maybe Markus brought a few bottles over? I find a blue bottle of gin under the kitchen sink.

“I have gin. What do you want with it? I don’t have any tonic.”

“Nothing.”

Aina is obviously a little off right now, I think, as I pour her a half glass of the clear liquid. The alcohol fumes make my stomach tighten, and right away there’s that familiar feeling of nausea. I support myself on the edge of the sink and turn my face to the side to escape the smell.

Aina whispers a thank you and downs half of it in one gulp.

“Carl-Johan is married,” she blurts out, then looks at me. Suddenly I understand why she’s here, why she’s been so sullen, why she needs the gin.

“Married, can you believe it? That’s really the last thing I would have expected. I was so focused on whether or not I could commit emotionally to just one guy. I totally assumed he wanted to be with me. They always do. I’m the one who leaves them. You know?”

“Yeah, I know,” I say. Because over the years as man after man has paraded through Aina’s life, it’s always ended the same way. She always leaves them.

“And now that I . . . the first time I’ve ever felt like I was ready to—”

She can’t say the word, but I nod quietly at her. Her jaw is clenched and a deep wrinkle has appeared between her eyebrows.

“How did you find out?” I ask her.

“She called. His goddamn wife just up and called me.”

“His wife? How did she get your number?”

“Oh, Siri, it’s so simple I can hardly stand to tell you. She went through his text messages and found my messages. Evidently he hadn’t had the sense to erase them. Then she called me.”

“Oh my God. What did she say?”

Aina wipes a tear from her cheek. “She was totally calm, like she was calling to order a taxi, or food from a restaurant, or something. She said it wasn’t the first time, that he’d done this before, that he’s an addict . . . a sex addict. That he used her. And me. She said I shouldn’t be sad, that I’d get over it, and that I could call her if I wanted to talk. The whole thing was very . . . civilized, in a weird way. I didn’t believe her at first, so I called Carl-Johan. And he admitted it just like that. They have two kids. And a house in Mälarhöjden.”

I contemplate Aina’s news in silence. I think about how love isn’t always a beautiful, light feeling; sometimes it’s a vicious beast: eternally on the prowl, always hungry, lurking at the edge of our existence, ready to take us down.

No love without suffering. One person always wants more. One is always disappointed. There is always this pain, I think.

There is never balance.

*   *   *

That night Aina sleeps in my bed and Markus sleeps on the couch.

I can tell from her troubled breathing that she’s not sleeping. Outside, the autumn wind chases leaves around the house. Rain drums on the roof.

I take her hand in the darkness and squeeze it. It’s damp and cold. She squeezes back.

When I wake up Aina is gone. Her side of the bed is empty.

It’s pitch-dark and the sweet, harsh smell of wood smoke fills my little bedroom. Outside I hear the wind, which seems to have picked up, howling hungrily at our little cluster of buildings. I can hear the sea too, the waves agitatedly crashing against the rocks outside.

Soft voices from the living room. I roll over to face the nightstand and fumble for the alarm clock. Five thirty. What is Markus doing up so early?

When I stand up, the nausea washes over me, my stomach contracts, and I instinctively raise my hand to my mouth. Somewhere behind my temples a headache looms, a weak but perceptible throbbing, like a fresh hangover.

This constant nausea, which does not seem to want to go away as all the books say it will, the sensitivity to smells, the fatigue, the crushing fatigue, seeping from every cell in my body, not to mention what I had to give up. Right now the craving takes over with terrible force. Just one glass of wine, just one little glass. The sound of the cork popping out of the bottle, the glug of the liquid pouring into the glass. The ritualized tasting that distinguishes a well-raised person enjoying a glass of wine from a pathetic drunk who couldn’t resist the whisper and call of the bottle.

As soon as I sit up, I feel how cold the room is. I put on my slippers and bathrobe, which—thankfully—still fits.

*   *   *

He is sitting in the dimly lit living room with his back to me. His laptop is sitting in front of him on the dining table, which is covered with crumbs and grease stains from yesterday’s dinner. He’s nursing a half-full cup of coffee.

I sneak up behind him and put my hands on his shoulders. Without saying anything he raises his right hand and rests it on top of mine, gives my fingers a squeeze.

There’s a young guy in a T-shirt and cap on his screen. He’s sitting at a
big table, leaning back, almost like he’s collapsed. Someone is sitting across from him, but it’s not clear who, since the camera is aimed at the guy. And suddenly it hits me that he reminds me of someone, but I can’t think who. There’s something about his skinny body, his obstinate expression, his gravelly voice.

“I never touched her. Why would I have?” the guy in the cap says.

“She reported you twice. I have the report right here,” the other, anonymous voice says. Now I can tell that it’s a woman’s voice, also gravelly, androgynous, raspy like sandpaper, as if she’s smoked tens of thousands of cigarettes and spent her lifetime screaming at naughty children.

The guy in the cap shrugs and appears unmoved, sinks even further into his chair.

“Like I said, she’s lying.”

“She lied, you mean?”

He shrugs again, this time without saying anything.

The female voice sighs, and a tapping sound can be heard as if someone were drumming on the table with a pen.

“Do you even care that she’s dead?” the woman asks.

The guy’s skinny body jerks. “Are you nuts? Of course I care. She was my mother, you know.”

Markus moves his left hand over to the keyboard and pauses the playback just as the guy in the cap stands up so abruptly that his chair tips backward against the wall. Now that the picture is suddenly frozen, the moment captured on Markus’s screen, I study the familiar face again.

Markus says, “You shouldn’t be looking at this, it’s confidential. But . . . what the hell.”

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“Working. I couldn’t sleep. Sonja asked me to review a few interviews.”

“Where’s Aina?” I wonder.

“She left half an hour ago. Wanted me to tell you good-bye.”

“Who is he, that guy? I recognize him.”

“I doubt that. That’s the son of Susanne, the woman who was murdered.”

“Oh, that’s right, she had an older son too. One of the girls in the support group mentioned that.”

Markus nods and looks up at me for the first time. His eyes look bleary and red from fatigue.

“Susanne had him when she was just a teenager. There were problems from
day one, at daycare, at school. He’s a drug addict who lives in a group home. Susanne had reported him for drug use before. They used to argue about money and stuff.”

“A drug addict? But how old is he? He looks really young,” I say.

“Sixteen.”

“Sixteen?”

“Yup.”

“Shit.”

“Exactly.” Markus’s bloodshot eyes look down. He closes his computer and sighs deeply, because he’s tired, or maybe for some other reason. “You said you recognized him?”

I slowly shake my head, not sure how to word what I want to say. “He reminds me of someone. Do you remember that night in Medborgarplatsen, when Henrik jumped out at me? There was another guy there. Before. Oh, it doesn’t matter.”

“No, tell me. Was it him?” Markus asks.

I rub my temples, trying to remember. My headache is raging. I sink down onto the chair next to Markus, lean over and kiss his prickly cheek, inhale the familiar scent of his warm skin.

“No, I don’t think it was him, but they’re really similar. That guy was also on drugs and awfully young, just like this kid. Is he a suspect?”

Markus tousles my short hair. “I assume so. Although he actually has an alibi. He was at the group home.”

“And they keep tabs on all those kids every single second?”

Markus shrugs. “You’ll have to ask someone else about that. I’m just helping Sonja review a few things.”

I look at him again, sense the dejection behind his lowered eyes, and am suddenly filled with tenderness for him. This completely perfect man sitting here next to me, the father of my child, this man whom I often forget to fully appreciate. In a world populated by sixteen-year-old drug addicts, a world filled with loneliness and sorrow, at least we have each other.

“Come on,” I say, taking his hand.

He looks confused. “What—?”

“Let’s go back to bed. It’s not even six yet.”

He gives me a shy smile. I haven’t been particularly amorous lately and I assume my invitation makes him uncertain. But he gets up anyway and follows me into the bedroom with his hands on my shoulders, as if he’s marking
that I belong to him. And I discover that I actually like it, that it feels pretty good.

Being his.

*   *   *

We pull the heavy down comforter over our heads, trying to escape from this world. His kisses taste like cheese sandwiches and coffee and I laugh as he pulls off my underwear and settles on top of me. And for a second everything is perfect. Markus caressing my breasts and kissing my throat, the baby, the embodiment of our love, resting somewhere in the dark within me. Still invisible, motionless, more imaginary than real, like a faint memory from a dream.

And I let myself think the thought, that this is probably what it feels like . . .

To be happy.