Before the Frost

  “When do the others get home?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Linda walked out into the kitchen again. He smiled at her, revealing a row of yellow teeth. She was starting to feel sick and decided to leave.

  “I can show you all the chess moves,” he said.

  She opened the front door and paused on the steps.

  “If I were you I’d spend some much-needed time in the shower,” she said and turned on her heel.

  She heard the door slam shut behind her. What a waste of time, she thought angrily. The only thing she had managed to do was to demonstrate her weaknesses. She kicked open the gate. It hit the mailbox sitting on a fence post. She stopped and turned around. The front door was closed, and she couldn’t see anyone looking out of a window. She opened the mailbox. There were two letters. She picked them up. One was addressed to Margareta Olsson from a travel agency in Gothenburg. The other was addressed by hand, to Anna. Linda hesitated for a moment, then took it with her to the car. First I read her journal, then I open her mail, she thought. But I’m doing it because I’m worried about her. Inside the envelope was a folded piece of paper. She flinched when she opened it; a dried, pressed spider fell out onto her lap.

  The message was short, apparently incomplete, and without a signature.

  We’re in the new house, in Lestarp, behind the church, first road on the left, a red mark on an old oak tree, back there. Let us never underestimate the power of Satan. And yet we await a mighty angel descending from the heavens in a cloud of glory. . . .

  Linda laid the letter on the passenger seat. She thought back to the insight she had had back in the house. It was the one thing she could thank that smelly chess-player for. He had mentioned what everyone who lived in the house studied, as well as their names. But Anna was just Anna. She was studying medicine ostensibly to become a physician. But what had Anna said when she told Linda about seeing her father in Malmö? She had seen a woman who had collapsed in the street, someone who needed help. And she had said that she couldn’t stand the sight of blood. Linda was now struck by the incongruity of this statement coming from someone who professed to want to be a doctor.

  She looked at the letter beside her. What did it mean? We await a mighty angel descending from the heavens in a cloud of glory.

  The sun was strong. It was the beginning of September, but it was one of the warmest days of the summer. She took a map of Skåne out of the glove compartment. Lestarp was between Lund and Sjöbo. Linda pushed down the sun visor. It’s so childish, she thought. This business with the dried spider, the kind that falls out of lamp shades. But Anna is missing. This childishness exists alongside the reality, the reality of a little gingerbread house in the forest. Hands at prayer and a severed head.

  It was as if she only now fully understood what she had seen in the hut that day. And Anna was no longer the person she thought she knew. Maybe she isn’t even studying medicine. Maybe this is the day I realize I know nothing about Anna Westin. She’s dissolving in an unfathomable fog.

  Linda was not aware of formulating a conscious plan as such; she just started driving toward Lestarp. It was almost thirty degrees Celsius in the shade.

  23

  Linda parked outside the church in Lestarp. She could see that it had been recently renovated. The newly painted doors gleamed. A small black-and-gold plaque above them was inscribed 1851. Linda remembered her grandfather saying something about his own grandfather drowning in a storm at sea that very year. She thought about him as she looked for a bathroom in the vestibule. It was located in the crypt. The cool air felt good to her after the heat outside. I only remember important years, her grandfather had said. A year when someone drowns in a terrible accident, or when someone, like you, is born.

  When she had finished, she washed her hands thoroughly as if she were washing off the remains of the chess-playing Zacharias’s limp handshake. She looked at her face in the mirror. It passed muster, she decided. Her mouth was stern as always, her nose a little big, but her eyes were arresting and her teeth were good. She shuddered at the thought of the chess-player trying to kiss her, and hurried back up the stairs. An old man was walking in carrying a box of candles. She held the doors open. He put the box down and then placed his hands on his back.

  “You would think God could spare his devoted servant from the trials of back pain,” he said in a low voice. Linda realized he was keeping his voice down because someone was sitting in the pews. She thought at first it was a man, then saw she was mistaken.

  “Gudrun lost two children,” the old man whispered. “She comes here every single day.”

  “What happened?”

  “They were run over by a train, a terrible tragedy. One of the ambulance drivers who took care of their remains lost his mind.”

  He picked up the box again and continued up the aisle. Linda walked back out into the sun. Death is all around me, she thought, calling out to me and trying to deceive me. I don’t like churches, or the sight of women crying. How does that mesh with wanting to become a police officer? Does it make any more sense than Anna not being able to stand the sight of blood or of people collapsing in the street? Maybe you can want to become a doctor or a police officer for the same reason: to see if you have what it takes.

  Linda wandered into the little cemetery attached to the church. Walking along the row of headstones was like perusing the shelves of a library. Every headstone was like a folder or the cover of a book. Here, for example, lay the householder Johan Ludde and his wife Linnea. They had been buried for ninety-six years, but he was seventy-six when he died, and she was only forty-one. There was a story here, in this poorly tended grave. She kept browsing the headstones, wondering what her own would look like. A headstone that was overgrown caught her eye. She crouched down and cleared moss and earth from its face. SOFIA 1854-1869. Fifteen years old. Had she too teetered on a bridge railing, but with no one to help her?

  She left the car parked where it was and followed the narrow road that led to the back of the church on foot. She came upon the tree with the red mark almost immediately and turned onto a road that led down a small hill. The house was old and worn, the main part whitewashed stone with a slate roof, an addition built of rustic red-painted wood. Linda stopped and looked around. It was absolutely quiet. A rusty, overgrown tractor stood to one side, by some apple trees. Then the front door opened and a woman in white clothes started walking out to greet Linda, who didn’t understand how she had been spotted. She hadn’t seen anyone and she was still partly hidden by the trees. But the woman was making her way briskly straight for her, smiling. She was about Linda’s age.

  “I saw that you needed help,” she said when she was close enough. She spoke a mixture of Danish and English.

  “I’m looking for a friend of mine,” Linda said. “Anna Westin.”

  The woman smiled.

  “We have no use for names here. Come with me. You may find this friend you are looking for.”

  The mildness of her voice made Linda suspicious. Was she walking into a trap? She followed the woman into the cool interior of the main house. It took some time for Linda to see clearly. The slowness of her eyes to adjust from bright outdoor light to dim interiors was one of her few physical weaknesses, one she had discovered during her time at the academy.

  All of the walls on the inside were also whitewashed, with no rugs on the bare, broad planks of the floor. There was no furniture, but a large black wooden cross hung between two arched windows. People sat along the walls, directly on the floor. Many with their arms wrapped around their knees, all silent. They were of all ages and in different styles of dress. One man with short hair was wearing a dark suit and tie; by his side was an older woman in very simple clothes. Linda looked all around but could not pick out Anna among them. The woman who had come out to greet her looked inquiringly at her, but Linda shook her head.

  “There’s one more room,” the woman said.

  Linda followed. The wooden walls of
the next room were also painted white. These windows were far less elaborate. Here too people sat along the walls, but Linda did not see anyone who looked like Anna. What was going on in this house? What had the letter said? A mighty angel in a cloud of glory?

  “Let us go out again,” said the woman.

  She led Linda across the lawn, around the side of the house to a group of stone furniture in the shadow of a beech tree. Linda’s curiosity was now fully engaged. Somehow these people had something to do with Anna. She decided to come clean.

  “The friend I’m looking for is missing. I found a letter in her mailbox that described this place.”

  “Can you tell me what she looks like?”

  I don’t like this, Linda thought. Her smile, her calm. It’s completely disingenuous and makes my skin crawl. Like when I shook that chess-player’s hand.

  Linda gave her Anna’s description. The woman’s smile never wavered.

  “I don’t think I’ve seen her,” she said. “Do you have the letter with you?”

  “I left it in the car.”

  “And where is the car?”

  “I parked it over by the church. It’s a red VW Golf. The letter is lying on the front seat. I left the car unlocked, actually, which I know is careless of me.”

  The woman was silent. Linda felt uncomfortable.

  “What do you do here?”

  “Your friend must have told you. Everyone who is here has the mission of bringing others to our temple.”

  “This is a temple?”

  “What else would it be?”

  Of course, Linda thought sarcastically. What was I thinking? This is clearly a temple and not simply the somewhat dilapidated remains of a humble Swedish farmstead where the owners once struggled to put food on the table.

  “What is the name of your organization?”

  “We don’t use names. Our community comes from within, through the air we share and breathe.”

  “That sounds very deep.”

  “The self-evident is always the most mysterious. The smallest crack in a musical instrument alters its timbre completely. If a whole panel falls out, the music ceases. It is the same with human beings. We cannot fully live without a higher purpose.”

  Linda did not understand the answers she was getting, and didn’t like this feeling. She stopped asking questions.

  “I think I’ll leave now.”

  She walked away quickly without turning around, nor did she stop until she reached the car. Instead of leaving right away, she sat and looked out at the trees. The sun was shining through the leaves and into her eyes. Just as she was about to start the engine she saw a man cross the gravel yard in front of the church.

  At first she only saw his outline, but when he crossed into the shade of the high trees she felt as if she had just taken a gulp of frigid air. She recognized his neck, and not just that. During the seconds before he walked back out into the blinding sun she heard Anna’s voice reverberate inside her head. The voice was very clear, telling her about the man she had seen through the hotel window. I am also sitting by a window, Linda thought. A car window. And suddenly I’m convinced I’ve just seen Anna’s father. It is completely unreasonable. But that’s what I think.

  24

  Is it completely ridiculous to think you can identify a person by his neck? Linda wondered. What had convinced her so completely about something she had no grounds for knowing? You can’t recognize someone you’ve never met, let alone someone you’ve only ever seen in a few snapshots and heard brief descriptions of from a person who in turn hasn’t seen him in twenty-four years.

  She shook off the thought and drove back to Lund. It was early afternoon. The sun was still strong, and the heat hung oppressively over the surroundings. She parked outside the house she had visited just a few hours earlier and prepared herself for another meeting with Zacharias the chess-player. But the door was opened by a girl a few years younger than Linda with blue streaks in her hair and a chain suspended from her nostril to her ear. She was wearing black clothes in a combination of leather and vinyl. One of her shoes was black, the other white.

  “There are no available rooms,” she said brusquely. “If there’s still a notice up at the student union it’s a mistake.”

  “I don’t need a room. I’m looking for Anna Westin. I’m a friend of hers—my name’s Linda.”

  “I don’t think she’s here, but you can take a look.”

  She stepped aside and let Linda pass her. Linda cast a quick glance into the living room. The chess set was still there, but not the player.

  “I was here a few hours ago,” Linda said. “I talked to the guy who plays chess.”

  “You can talk to whomever you like.”

  “Are you Margareta Olsson?”

  “That’s my assumed name.”

  Linda was taken aback. Margareta looked amused.

  “My real name is Johanna von Lööf, but I prefer a simpler name. That’s why I call myself Margareta Olsson. There’s only one Johanna von Lööf in this country, but a couple of thousand Margareta Olssons. Who wants to be unique?”

  “Beats me. You study law, right?”

  “No. Economics.”

  Margareta pointed to the kitchen.

  “Are you going to see if she’s in or not?”

  “You know she isn’t here, don’t you?”

  “Of course I know. But there’s nothing stopping you from checking it out yourself.”

  “Do you have some time to chat?”

  “I have all the time in the world—don’t you?”

  They sat in the kitchen. Margareta was drinking tea but she didn’t offer Linda any.

  “Economics. That sounds hard.”

  Margareta tossed her head with irritation.

  “It is hard. Life should be hard. What did you want to know?”

  “I’m looking for Anna. She’s my friend, and I want to make sure nothing has happened to her. I haven’t heard from her for a while, and that’s not like her.”

  “And what can I do for you?”

  “You can tell me when you last saw her.”

  Margareta’s answer was caustic.

  “I don’t like her. I try to have as little to do with her as possible.”

  Linda had never heard that before—someone not liking Anna. She thought back to their school days. Linda had often fought with her fellow students, but she couldn’t remember Anna doing so.

  “Why?”

  “I think she’s stuck-up. I can generally tolerate that in others since I’m just as bad. But not in her case. There’s something about her that drives me up the wall.”

  She got up and rinsed her teacup.

  “It probably bothers you to hear me say this about your friend.”

  “Everyone has a right to their opinion.”

  Margareta sat down again.

  “Then there’s another thing. Or two, more precisely. She’s stingy and she doesn’t tell the truth. You can’t trust her. Either what she says or that she won’t use all your milk.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Anna.”

  “Maybe the Anna who lives here is a different person. All I’m saying is I don’t like her, she doesn’t like me. We cope. I don’t eat when she’s eating and there are two bathrooms. We rarely bump into each other.”

  Margareta’s cell phone rang. She answered and then left the kitchen. Linda thought about what she had just been told. More and more she was starting to realize that the Anna she had become reacquainted with was not the same Anna she had grown up with. Even though Margareta—or Johanna—didn’t make the best impression, Linda instinctively felt that she had been telling the truth. I have nothing more to do here, she thought. Anna is choosing to stay away. She has some reason for it, just as there will turn out to be a reason why she and Birgitta Medberg were in contact.

  Linda got up to leave as Margareta came back into the kitchen.

  “Are you angry?”

  “Why would I be angry?”

/>   “Because I’ve told you unflattering things about your friend.”

  “I’m not angry.”

  “Then maybe you’d like to hear more?”

  They sat down at the table again. Linda felt tense.

  “Do you know what she studies?”

  “Medicine.”

  “That’s what I thought too; we all did. But then someone told me she had been expelled from the medical school. There were rumors about plagiarism—I don’t know if that was true or not. Maybe she simply gave up. But she never said anything to us about it. She pretends that she’s still studying medicine, but she’s not.”

  “What does she do?”

  “She prays.”

  “Prays?”

  “You heard me,” Margareta said. “Prays. What you do when you go to church.”

  Linda lost her temper.

  “Of course I know what it is. Anna prays, you say. But where? When? How? Why?”

  Margareta did not react to her outburst. Linda was grudgingly impressed by this display of self-control of a kind that she herself lacked.

  “I think it’s genuine. She’s searching for something. I can understand her in a way. Personally, I’m on a quest for material wealth; other people are looking for the spiritual equivalent.”

  “How do you know all of this if you don’t even talk to her?”

  Margareta leaned over the table.

  “I snoop, and I eavesdrop. I’m the person who hides behind curtains and hears and sees everything that goes on. I’m not kidding.”

  “So she has a confidante?”

  “That’s a strange word, isn’t it? ‘Confidante’—what does it really mean? I don’t have one, and I doubt if Anna Westin does either. To be completely honest, I think she’s unusually dim-witted. God forbid I would ever be diagnosed and treated by a physician like her. Anna Westin talks to anyone who will listen. I think all of us here find her conversation a series of naïve and worthless sermons. She’s always lecturing us on moral topics. It’s enough to drive anyone insane, except perhaps our dear chess-player. He cherishes vain hopes about getting her into bed.”