Mom used to talk about the Sandman’s daughter, the mechanical girl, Olimpia. She creeps into children’s rooms once they’re asleep and pulls the covers up over their shoulders so they don’t freeze.
Mikael leans against the wall, feels the furrows in the concrete.
The thin sand floats like fog. It’s hard to breathe.
He coughs and licks his lips. They’re dry and already feel numb.
His eyelids are getting heavy.
Now the whole family is swinging in the hammock. The summer light shines through the leaves of the lilac bower. The rusty screws creak.
Mikael is smiling broadly.
They’re swinging high, and Mom’s trying to slow them down, but Dad keeps them going. They bump the table in front of them, and the glasses of strawberry juice tremble.
The hammock swings backward, and Dad laughs and holds up his hands like he’s on a roller coaster.
Mikael’s head nods, and he opens his eyes in the darkness, stumbles sideways, and leans his hand against the cool wall. He has turned toward the mattress, thinking that he should lie down before he passes out, when his knees suddenly give way.
He falls and hits the floor, trapping his arm beneath him, feeling the pain from his wrist and shoulder.
He rolls heavily onto his stomach and tries to crawl but doesn’t have the energy. He lies there panting, with his cheek against the concrete floor. He tries to say something but has no voice left.
As he slips into oblivion, he hears the Sandman pad into the room, creeping on his dusty feet straight up the walls to the ceiling. He stops and reaches down with his arms, trying to catch Mikael with his porcelain fingertips.
Everything is black.
* * *
—
When Mikael wakes up, his mouth is dry and his head aches. His eyes are grimy with sleep. He’s so tired that he closes his eyes, but a sliver of his consciousness registers that something is different.
Adrenaline hits him like a gust of hot air.
He’s wide awake now.
He sits up in the darkness and can hear from the acoustics that he’s in a different room, a larger room.
He’s no longer in the capsule.
He’s completely alone.
He crawls cautiously across the floor and reaches a wall. His mind is racing. He can’t remember how long it’s been since he last thought of escape.
His body is still heavy from its long sleep. He gets up on shaky legs and follows the wall to a corner, then walks along the other wall and reaches a sheet of metal. He feels along its edges and realizes that it’s a door, then runs his hands over its surface and finds a handle.
His hands are shaking.
Carefully, he pushes the handle down, and is so prepared to meet resistance that he almost falls over when the door opens.
He takes a step into a bright room and has to shut his eyes.
It feels like a dream.
Just let me get out, he thinks.
His head is throbbing.
He squints and sees that he is in a corridor, and moves forward on weak legs. His heart is beating so fast he can hardly breathe.
He’s trying to be quiet but is still whimpering to himself with fear.
The Sandman will soon be back—he never forgets his children.
Mikael can’t open his eyes properly, but heads toward the fuzzy glow in front of him.
Maybe it’s a trap, he thinks. Maybe he’s being lured like an insect toward a bright light.
But he keeps on walking, running his hand along the wall for support.
He knocks into some big rolls of insulation, lurches sideways, and hits the other wall with his shoulder, but he manages to keep his balance.
He stops and coughs as quietly as he can.
The glow in front of him is coming from a pane of glass in a door.
He stumbles toward it and pushes the handle down, but the door is locked.
No, no, no…
He tugs at the handle, shoves the door, tries again. He feels like slumping to the floor in despair. Suddenly he hears soft footsteps behind him, but he doesn’t dare turn around.
8
Reidar Frost drains his wineglass, puts it down on the dining table, and closes his eyes. One of the guests is clapping. Veronica is standing in her blue dress, facing the corner with her hands over her eyes, and she starts to count.
The guests take off in different directions, and the sounds of footsteps and laughter spread through the many rooms of the manor house.
The rule is that they have to stick to the ground floor, but Reidar gets slowly to his feet, goes over to the hidden door, and creeps into the service passageway. Carefully, he climbs the narrow back stairs, opens the secret door in the wall, and emerges into the private part of the house.
He knows it’s dangerous when he’s alone, but walks through the rooms anyway.
At every stage he closes the doors behind him, until he reaches the gallery at the far end.
Along one wall stand the boxes containing the children’s clothes and toys. One box is open, revealing a pale-green space gun.
He hears Veronica call out, muffled by the floor and walls: “One hundred! Coming, ready or not!”
Through the windows, he looks out over the fields and paddocks. In the distance, he can see the birch-lined avenue that leads from his estate, Råcksta Manor, to the road.
Reidar pulls an armchair across the floor and hangs his jacket on it. He can feel how drunk he is as he bends down to pick up a rope that he brought in from an old tire swing.
Dust drifts through the air.
He sits down and looks up at the beam along the ceiling.
Muted laughter and cries can be heard from the party below, and for a few moments Reidar closes his eyes and thinks of the children, their little faces, wonderful faces, their shoulders and thin arms.
He can hear their high-pitched voices and quick feet running across the floor whenever he listens; the memory is like a summer breeze in his soul, but when it’s gone it leaves him cold and desolate again.
Happy birthday, Mikael, he thinks.
His hands are shaking so much that he can’t tie a noose. He sits still, tries to breathe more calmly, then starts again, just as there’s a knock on one of the doors.
He waits a few seconds, then lets go of the rope, gets up from the chair, and picks up his jacket.
“Reidar?” a woman’s voice calls softly.
It’s Veronica. She must have been peeking while she was counting and saw him disappear into the passageway. She’s opening the doors to the various rooms, and her voice gets clearer the closer she comes.
Reidar turns the lights off and leaves the nursery, opening the door to the next room and stopping there.
Veronica comes toward him with a glass of champagne in her hand. There is a warm glow in her dark, intoxicated eyes.
She’s tall and thin, and her black hair is cut in a boyish style that suits her.
Veronica Klimt is Reidar’s literary agent. He may not have written a word in the past thirteen years, but the three books he wrote before that are still generating a sizable income for them both.
Now they can hear music from the dining room below. Reidar stops at the sofa and runs his hand through his silvery hair.
“You’re saving some champagne for me, I hope?” he asks, sitting down on the sofa.
“No,” Veronica says, passing him her half-full glass.
“Your husband called me,” Reidar says. “He thinks it’s time for you to go home.”
“I don’t want to. I want to divorce him and—”
“You can’t,” he interrupts.
“Why do you say things like that?”
“Because I don’t want you to think we have a future,” he replies.
“I don’t.”
He empties the glass, closes his eyes, and feels the giddiness of being drunk.
“You looked sad, and I got worried.”
“I’ve never
felt better.”
There’s laughter now, and the music has been turned up so high it can be felt through the floor.
“Your guests are probably starting to wonder where you are.”
“Then let’s go and turn the place upside down,” he says with a weary smile.
For the past seven years, Reidar has made sure to have people around him almost twenty-four hours a day. He has a vast circle of acquaintances. Sometimes he holds big parties at the house, sometimes more intimate dinners. It’s especially difficult on certain days, like the children’s birthdays. He knows that, without people around him, he could easily succumb to the grief.
9
Reidar and Veronica open the doors to the dining room, and the throbbing music hits them. There’s a crowd of people dancing around the table in the darkness. Some of them are still eating the dinner laid out on the table—venison and roasted vegetables.
The actor Wille Strandberg has unbuttoned his shirt. It’s impossible to hear what he’s saying as he dances his way through the crowd toward Reidar and Veronica.
“Take it off!” Veronica cries.
Wille laughs and pulls off his shirt, throws it at her, and dances in front of her with his hands behind his neck. His bulging, middle-aged stomach bounces in time with his quick movements.
Reidar empties another glass of wine, then dances up to Wille with his hips rolling.
The music goes into a quieter, gentler phase, and Reidar’s old publisher, David Sylwan, takes hold of his arm and gasps something, his face sweaty and happy.
“What?”
“There’s been no contest today,” David repeats.
“Shooting?” Reidar asks. “Wrestling?”
“Shooting!” several people cry.
“Get the pistol and a few bottles of champagne,” Reidar says with a smile.
The thudding beat returns, drowning out any further conversation. Reidar gets an oil painting down from the wall and carries it out through the door. It’s a portrait of him, painted by Peter Dahl.
“I like that picture,” Veronica says, trying to stop him.
Reidar shakes her hand from his arm. Almost all of the guests follow him outside, into the ice-cold park. Fresh snow has settled into a smooth expanse on the ground. There are still flakes swirling beneath the dark sky.
Reidar strides through the snow and hangs the portrait on an apple tree, its branches laden with snow. Wille Strandberg follows, carrying a flare he found in a box in the mudroom. He tears the plastic cover off and pulls the string. There’s a pop, and the flare starts to burn, giving off an intense light. Laughing, he stumbles over and puts the flare in the snow beneath the tree. The white light makes the trunk and naked branches glow.
Now they can all see the painting of Reidar holding a silvery pen in his hand.
Berzelius, a translator, has brought out three bottles of champagne, and David Sylwan holds up Reidar’s old Colt with a grin.
“This isn’t funny,” Veronica says in a serious voice.
David stands next to Reidar, the Colt in his hand. He feeds six bullets into the chamber and spins the cylinder.
Wille Strandberg is still shirtless, but he’s so drunk he doesn’t feel the cold.
“If you win, you can choose a horse from the stables,” Reidar mumbles, taking the revolver from David.
“Please, be careful,” Veronica says.
Reidar moves aside, raises his arm, and fires but hits nothing, the blast echoing between the buildings.
A few guests applaud politely, as if he were playing golf.
“My turn,” David says with a laugh.
Veronica stands in the snow, shivering. Her feet are burning with cold in her thin sandals.
“I like that portrait,” she says again.
“Me, too,” Reidar says, firing another shot.
The bullet hits the top corner of the canvas. There’s a puff of dust as the gold frame gets dislodged and hangs askew.
David pulls the revolver from his hand with a chuckle, stumbles and falls, and fires a shot up at the sky, then another as he tries to stand up.
A couple of guests clap, and others laugh and raise their glasses in a toast.
Reidar takes the revolver back and brushes the snow off it.
“It’s all down to the last shot,” he says.
Veronica goes over and kisses him on the lips.
“How are you doing?”
“Fine,” he says.
Veronica looks at him and brushes the hair from his forehead. The group on the stone steps whistle and laugh.
“I found a better target,” cries a red-haired woman whose name he can’t remember.
She’s dragging a huge Spider-Man doll through the snow. Suddenly she loses her grip on the doll and falls to her knees, then gets back on her feet. Her leopard-skin-print dress is flecked with damp.
“I saw it yesterday; it was under a dirty tarp in the garage,” she exclaims jubilantly.
Berzelius hurries over to help her carry it. The doll is solid plastic and has been painted to look like Spider-Man. It’s as tall as Berzelius.
“Well done, Marie!” David cries.
“Shoot Spider-Man,” one of the women behind them calls.
Reidar looks up, sees the big doll, and lets the gun fall to the snow.
“I need to sleep,” he says abruptly.
He pushes aside the glass of champagne Wille is holding out to him and walks back to the house on unsteady legs.
10
Veronica follows Marie as she searches the house for Reidar. They walk through rooms and halls. His jacket is lying on the stairs to the second floor, and they go up. It’s dark, but they can see flickering firelight farther off. In a large room, they find Reidar sitting on a sofa in front of the fireplace. His cuff links are gone, and his sleeves are dangling over his hands. On the low bookcase beside him are four bottles of Château Cheval Blanc.
“I just wanted to say sorry,” Marie says, leaning against the door.
“Oh, don’t mind me,” Reidar mutters, still gazing into the fire.
“It was stupid of me to drag the doll out without asking first,” Marie continues.
“As far as I’m concerned, you can burn all the old shit,” he replies.
Veronica goes over to him, kneels down, and looks up at his face with a smile.
“Have you been introduced to Marie?” she asks. “She’s David’s friend. I think.”
Reidar raises his glass toward the red-haired woman, then takes a big gulp. Veronica takes the glass from him, tastes the wine, and sits down on the other end of the sofa.
She pushes her shoes off, leans back, and rests her bare feet in his lap.
Gently, he caresses her calf, the bruise from the new stirrup on her leather saddle, then up the inside of her thigh toward her groin. She lets it happen, not bothered by the fact that Marie is still in the room.
The flames are rising high in the huge fireplace. The heat is pulsating, and her face feels so hot it’s almost burning.
Marie comes cautiously closer. Reidar looks at her. Her red hair has started to curl in the heat of the room. Her leopard-print dress is creased and stained.
“An admirer,” Veronica says, holding the glass away from Reidar when he tries to reach it.
“I love your books,” Marie says.
“Which books?” he asks brusquely.
He gets up and fetches a fresh glass from the dresser and pours some wine. Marie misunderstands the gesture and holds out her hand to take it.
“I presume you go to the bathroom by yourself,” Reidar says, drinking the wine.
“There’s no need—”
“If you want wine, then have some fucking wine,” he interrupts.
Marie blushes and takes a deep breath. With her hand trembling, she takes the bottle and pours herself a glass. Reidar sighs deeply, then apologizes and says, in a gentler tone of voice, “I think this vintage is one of the better years.”
Taking the bo
ttle with him, he goes back to his seat.
Smiling, he watches as Marie sits down between him and Veronica on the sofa, swirls the wine in her glass and tastes it.
Reidar refills her glass, looks her in the eye, then turns serious and kisses her on the lips.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
Reidar kisses Marie softly again. She moves her head away but can’t help smiling. She drinks some wine, then leans over and kisses him.
He strokes the nape of her neck, under her hair, and moves his hand over her right shoulder; he can feel how the narrow strap of her dress has sunk into her skin.
She puts her glass down, kisses him again, and thinks that she must be mad as she lets him caress one of her breasts.
Reidar’s throat hurts as he suppresses the urge to burst into tears. He strokes her thigh under her dress, feeling her nicotine patch, and moves his hand around to her backside.
Marie pats his hand away when he tries to pull her underwear down, then stands up and wipes her mouth.
“Maybe we should go back down and join the party again,” she says, trying to sound neutral.
“Yes,” he says.
Veronica is sitting motionless on the sofa and doesn’t meet her inquiring gaze.
“Are you both coming?”
Reidar shakes his head.
“Okay,” Marie whispers and walks toward the door.
Her dress shimmers as she leaves the room. Reidar stares through the open doorway. The darkness looks like dirty velvet.
Veronica gets up, takes her glass from the table, and drinks. She has sweat patches under the arms of her dress.
“You’re a bastard,” she says.
“If it’s any consolation, I hate myself, too,” he says quietly.
He catches her hand and presses it to his cheek, looking into her sad eyes as he holds it there.
11
The fire has gone out and the room is freezing cold when Reidar wakes up on the sofa. His eyes are stinging, and he thinks of his wife’s story about the Sandman. The man who throws sand in children’s eyes so that they fall asleep and stay asleep through the night.
“Shit,” Reidar mutters, and sits up.