The Sandman

  “I know,” he says, “I know I’d kill myself.”

  * * *

  —

  Reidar Frost has Barely left Södermalm hospital since Mikael was admitted. He’s been renting a room at the hospital, on the same floor as Mikael, so he can be with his son.

  Even though Reidar knows it wouldn’t do any good, it’s all he can do to stop himself from running out to join the search for Felicia. He’s paid for notices in the national newspapers every day, pleading for information and promising a reward. He’s employed a team of the country’s best private detectives to look for her. Her absence is tearing at him, preventing him from sleeping, and forcing him to roam the corridors hour after hour.

  The only thing that calms him is watching Mikael get stronger with each passing day. Inspector Joona Linna said that it would be a huge help for the investigation if Reidar stayed with his son, letting him talk at his own pace, listening and writing down every memory, every detail.

  When Reidar reaches the entrance, Veronica is already waiting for him inside the glass doors that lead to the snow-covered parking lot.

  “Isn’t it a bit early to be sending Micke home?” she asks, handing over the bags.

  “They say it’s fine.” Reidar smiles.

  “I bought a pair of jeans, and sweatpants, shirts, T-shirts, a thick sweater, and a few other—”

  “How are things at home?” Reidar asks.

  “Lots of snow,” says Veronica, laughing. She tells him that the last few guests have finally left.

  “Even my cavaliers?” Reidar asks.

  “No, they’re still there….You’ll see.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Veronica just shakes her head and smiles. “I told Berzelius that they’re not allowed to come here, but they’re very keen to meet Mikael,” she replies.

  “Are you coming up?” Reidar asks, smiling and adjusting her collar.

  “Another time,” Veronica replies, looking him in the eye.

  94

  As Reidar drives, Mikael sits there in his new clothes, changing stations on the radio. Suddenly he stops. Satie’s ballet music fills the car like warm summer rain.

  “Dad, I can’t remember this landscape,” Mikael says.

  “You’ve never been here. I had to move.”

  “But my room? And Felicia’s?”

  “I’ve kept all your stuff.”

  Reidar bought the run-down estate because he could no longer stand the nosy neighbors in Tyresö.

  Snow-covered fields spread out before them. They turn into the long driveway, where Reidar’s three friends have lit torches up to the house. When they stop and get out of the car, Wille Strandberg, Berzelius, and David Sylwan appear on the steps.

  Berzelius takes a step forward and hesitates, as if he doesn’t know whether to embrace or shake hands with the young man. Then he hugs Mikael hard.

  Wille wipes tears away behind his glasses.

  “You’re all grown up, Micke,” he says. “I’ve—”

  “Let’s go inside,” Reidar interrupts, coming to his son’s rescue. “We need to eat.”

  David blushes and shrugs apologetically: “We’ve organized a backward party.”

  “What’s that?” Reidar asks.

  “You start with dessert and conclude with the starter.” Sylwan smiles, slightly embarrassed.

  Mikael is the first one through the imposing doorway. He stops and leans one hand against the wall, as if he’s about to faint. The broad oak tiles in the hallway smell as if they’ve recently been scrubbed.

  There are balloons hanging from the ceiling of the dining room, and on the table is a large cake decorated with a figure of Spider-Man made out of colored marzipan.

  “We know you’re grown up, but you used to like Spider-Man and love cake, so we thought…”

  “We got it wrong,” Wille concludes.

  “I’d love to try some,” Mikael says, and lowers his eyes.

  “That’s the spirit!” David laughs.

  “Then there’s pizza, and alphabet soup to finish up with,” Berzelius says.

  They sit down at the huge oval table.

  “I remember this one time when you said you would keep an eye on the cake in the kitchen until the guests arrived,” Berzelius says, cutting Mikael a large slice. “It was completely hollow by the time we came to light the candles.”

  Reidar excuses himself and leaves the table. He tries to smile with the others, but his heart is pounding with angst. He misses his daughter so much it hurts, enough to make him want to scream. Seeing Mikael sitting there with that childish cake, pale and trembling as if resurrected from the dead. Reidar takes a few deep breaths and goes out into the hall, remembering the day he buried the children’s empty caskets next to Roseanna’s ashes. Then he went home. Invited everyone to a party, and was never properly sober again.

  He stands in the hall, looking back into the dining room, where Mikael forces himself to eat while Reidar’s friends try to make conversation with the lost boy. Reidar knows he shouldn’t keep doing this, but he gets out his phone and calls Joona.

  “It’s Reidar,” he says. A faint pressure is building in his chest.

  “I heard that Mikael was discharged,” the detective says.

  “But Felicia. I have to know. She’s, she’s so…”

  “I know, Reidar,” Joona says gently.

  “You’re doing what you can,” Reidar whispers. He has to sit down.

  He hears the detective ask something, but he ends the call in the middle of a sentence.

  95

  Reidar leans against the wall and feels the texture of the wallpaper under his hand. He notices some dead flies on the dusty base of the lamp.

  Mikael had said that Felicia didn’t think he’d look for her, that she was sure he didn’t care about her going missing.

  The pressure in Reidar’s chest rises. He glances toward the corridor, where he threw off his coat with the little nitroglycerin spray. He tries to breathe deeply, takes a few steps, and stops. He was an unfair father. He knows that.

  Felicia had turned eight that January.

  Mikael was always so sharp and aware. He would listen to you attentively and do whatever was expected of him.

  Felicia was different.

  Reidar was full of his own importance back then. He would write all day, answering letters from his readers, give interviews, sit for photo shoots, and travel internationally for book launches. He never felt he had enough time, and he hated it when people kept him waiting.

  Felicia was always late.

  That day—when the unimaginable happened, when Reidar was abandoned by whatever god might be out there—began with a perfectly ordinary morning. The sun was shining.

  Felicia was always slow and unfocused. Roseanna had already put clothes out for her that morning, but it was Reidar’s job to make sure that the children got to school on time. Roseanna had to leave early to drive into Stockholm before the rush-hour traffic made the commute interminable.

  Mikael was ready to go by the time Felicia sat down at the kitchen table. Reidar buttered toast for her, poured her some cereal, and set out the chocolate powder, milk, and a glass. She sat and read the back of a cereal box, tore off the corner of her toast, and rolled it into a buttery lump.

  “We’re in a bit of a hurry,” Reidar said in a measured tone.

  She spooned some chocolate powder from the packet without moving it closer to the glass and managed to spill most of it on the table. Leaning forward on her elbows, she started to draw in the spilled powder with her fingers. Reidar told her to wipe the table, but she didn’t answer, just licked the finger covered in chocolate powder.

  “You know we have to be out the door by ten past eight if we’re going to get there on time?”

  “Yeah,” she muttered, then got up from the table.

  “Brush your teeth,” Reidar said. “Mom’s laid your clothes out in your room.”

  He decided against telling her off
for not putting her glass away or wiping the table.

  * * *

  —

  Reidar’s chest feels tight. Pain courses down his arm and he struggles to breathe. Mikael and David Sylwan are suddenly there beside him. He tries to tell them that he’s fine. Berzelius runs over with his coat, and they hunt through the pockets for his medication.

  He takes the bottle, sprays under his tongue, and then drops it on the floor as the pressure in his chest eases. He hears them discussing whether they should call an ambulance. Reidar shakes his head and notices that the nitroglycerin spray has triggered a growing headache.

  “Go and eat,” he tells them. “I’m all right. I just—I need to be alone for a while.”

  96

  Reidar is sitting on the floor with his back against the wall. He wipes his mouth with a trembling hand and forces himself to confront the memory again. It was eight o’clock when he went into Felicia’s room. She was sitting on the floor, reading. Her hair was a mess, and she had chocolate smeared around her mouth and across one cheek. She had crumpled up her freshly ironed blouse and skirt to form a cushion to sit on. She had one leg in her woolly tights and was still sucking her sticky fingers.

  “You need to be on your bike in nine minutes,” he told her. “Your teacher warned us that you can’t be late any more this semester.”

  “I know,” she said in a monotone, without looking up from her book.

  “And wash your face. It’s filthy.”

  “Leave me alone,” she muttered.

  “I don’t want to nag,” he tried to say. “I just don’t want you to be late. Can’t you understand that?”

  “You’re nagging so much it’s making me sick,” she said to the book.

  He’d had enough. He grabbed her arm and dragged her into the bathroom. He turned the tap on and scrubbed her face roughly.

  “What’s wrong with you, Felicia? Why can’t you ever do anything right?” he yelled. “Your brother’s ready. He’s waiting for you, and he’s going to be late because of you. But you don’t care. You’re just a little brat. You don’t deserve to be in a nice, tidy home like this.”

  She started to cry, which only made him angrier.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he went on.

  He started tugging at her hair with a brush, his hands rough with rage. She screamed and swore at him, and he stopped.

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing,” she muttered.

  “It sounded like something.”

  “Maybe there’s something wrong with your ears,” she whispered.

  He dragged her out of the bathroom, opened the front door, and shoved her out so hard that she fell over.

  Mikael was standing by the garage door, waiting with both bicycles. He had refused to ride off without his sister.

  * * *

  —

  Reidar holds his head in his hands. Felicia had been a child, and had been acting like a child. Being late and having messy hair hadn’t really mattered to her.

  He remembers the way Felicia had stood in the driveway in her underwear. Her right knee was bleeding, her eyes were red, and she still had some chocolate powder on her neck. Reidar was shaking with anger. He went back inside and got her blouse, skirt, and jacket, and threw them on the ground in front of her.

  “What did I do?” she sobbed.

  “You’re ruining this family,” he said.

  “But I—”

  “Say you’re sorry. Say you’re sorry this instant.”

  “Sorry,” she said as she wept. “I’m sorry.”

  She looked at him with tears streaming down her cheeks.

  “Get dressed,” he replied.

  He watched her get dressed, shoulders heaving as she cried. He watched as she wiped the tears from her cheeks and climbed onto her bicycle, blouse half tucked in and coat open. He stood there as his rage subsided and heard his little daughter cry as she rode her bicycle off to school.

  He was able to put the argument behind him. He wrote all day and felt pleased with his progress. He hadn’t bothered to get dressed, just sat in front of the computer in his robe. He hadn’t brushed his teeth or shaved. He hadn’t even made the beds or cleared the dining table. He thought he’d say all this to Felicia, and explain that he was just like her, but he never got the chance.

  He was out late, having dinner with his German publisher, and by the time he got home that evening, the children were already asleep. He and Roseanna discovered their empty beds the following morning. There’s nothing in his life that he regrets more than the way he treated Felicia.

  It’s unbearable to think of her lying there alone in that terrible room.

  97

  Saga wakes up the next morning when the light in the ceiling comes on. Her head feels heavy, and she can’t focus. Under the blanket, she feels for the microphone with her numb fingertips.

  The woman with the pierced cheeks is standing outside the door, shouting that it’s time for breakfast. Saga gets up, takes the narrow tray through the hatch, and sits down on the bed. She forces herself to eat the sandwiches.

  The situation is already becoming intolerable. She won’t be able to handle this much longer.

  She touches the microphone cautiously, and wonders if she should ask to break off the mission.

  She goes over to the sink on unsteady legs, brushes her teeth, and washes her face with ice-cold water.

  I can’t abandon Felicia, she thinks.

  Saga sits on the bed and stares at the door until the lock to the dayroom clicks open. She counts to five, stands up, and drinks water from the tap. She can’t look too eager. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, then walks out into the dayroom.

  She’s the first one there, but the television is on behind the reinforced glass as if it’s never been switched off. She can hear angry shouting from Bernie Larsson’s room. It sounds as if he’s trying to destroy his table. She hears his breakfast tray hit the floor. He’s screaming as he throws the plastic chair at the wall.

  Saga gets on the treadmill, switches it on, takes a few steps, then pauses it and sits down on the edge, close to the palm. She pulls off one shoe, pretending there’s something wrong with the inner sole. Her hands are still cold and slightly numb. She knows she has to hurry, but she must be careful not to move too quickly. She blocks the camera’s view with her body and tugs the microphone from her pants with trembling fingers.

  “Fucking whores!” Bernie shouts.

  Saga removes the protective wrapping from the microphone. The little object slips from her hand, but she catches it against her thigh. She hears footsteps as she presses the microphone to the underside of the bottom leaf. She holds it for a few extra seconds before letting go.

  Bernie pulls open his door and comes into the dayroom. The palm leaf is still swaying from her touch, but the microphone is finally in position.

  “Obrahiim,” he whispers, and stops in his tracks when he sees her.

  Saga remains seated, tugs at her sock, smoothing out a crease, then puts her shoe back on.

  “Fucking hell,” he says, coughing.

  She stands up and gets back on the treadmill. Her legs are weak beneath her, and her heart is racing.

  “They took my pictures,” Bernie says, panting as he sits down on the sofa. “I hate those fucking…”

  Saga’s whole body feels oddly exhausted. Sweat is trickling down her back, and her pulse is throbbing in her ears. It must be because of the medication. She slows the pace of the treadmill but still has trouble keeping up.

  Bernie lies back with his eyes closed, bouncing his leg restlessly.

  “Shit!” he exclaims.

  He sways toward the treadmill and stands directly in front of Saga.

  “I was top of the class,” he says, spraying spit in Saga’s face. “My teacher used to feed me raisins during breaks.”

  “Bernie Larsson, step back,” a voice says over the loudspeaker.

  He stumbles to the side and tak
es a step back, straight into the palm.

  98

  Bernie almost falls over the palm. Instead, he kicks it, walks around the treadmill, and approaches Saga again.

  “They’re so fucking terrified of me that they pump me full of Suprefact. Because I’m a real fucking machine, a big fucking stud.”

  Saga looks up at the camera. She was right. Its view is blocked by the glass case around the television. There’s a narrow blind strip that the camera can’t reach, no more than a meter at most.

  Bernie is breathing close behind her, but she ignores him and continues walking.

  “Snow White, you’re sweating between your butt cheeks,” he says. “Your cunt’s probably pretty sweaty now. I can get you some tissues.”

  On the television, a man dressed as a chef is talking animatedly as he arranges crabs on a barbecue.

  The far door opens, and Jurek comes into the dayroom. Saga catches a glimpse of his furrowed face and immediately lowers her eyes and stops the machine. She steps down, panting from the exertion, and walks toward the sofa. Jurek shows no sign of having noticed. He gets on the treadmill and switches it on. His heavy steps drown out the sound of the television.

  Saga looks at the chef, who is frying red onion rings in a pan. Bernie comes closer, wiping sweat from his neck.

  “You can keep your cunt when you’re my skeleton slave,” he says, moving behind her. “I’ll cut off all the rest of your flesh and—”

  “Quiet,” Jurek says.

  Bernie stops speaking and looks at her, forming the word “whore” with his mouth, then licking his fingers and grabbing her breast. She reacts instantly, seizing his hand and pulling him into the camera’s blind spot. She punches him hard on the nose. The cartilage cracks, and she can hear his nose break. She spins around, gaining momentum from the movement, and hits Bernie over the ear with a lightning-fast right hook. He’s about to lurch into the range of the camera, but she stops him with her left hand. He stares at her through his crooked glasses. Blood pours through his mustache and over his mouth.