“I’m afraid so.”
“Can it be fixed?”
“I’m afraid not.”
Something glints in the smoke-tinted mirror on the wardrobe door. Joona sees in the reflection that the man is holding a large kitchen knife behind his back.
He says calmly, “I need to see what’s in your garage.”
“The only thing there is my car.”
“Put the knife on the bed and take me to your garage.”
The man moves the knife and looks at it. It has a stained wooden shaft, and the blade has been worn down by sharpening.
“I don’t have time to wait,” Joona says.
“You shouldn’t have broken my—”
Joona hears bare feet moving in his direction. He moves slightly to the side while keeping his eyes on the knife. A shadow is heading for his back. Joona turns his body and puts his energy into lifting his elbow to meet the rushing shadow.
Joona’s gun is still aimed at the man with the knife as his elbow hits a boy in the middle of his chest, knocking the wind out of him. The boy tries to stay upright, but he falls to the floor, gasping for breath. He pulls himself into a fetal position on his side, the rag rug rucked up beneath him.
“They’re from Afghanistan,” the man says. “They needed help.”
“I am going to shoot you in the leg if you don’t throw the knife on the bed right now,” Joona says.
The man glances down at the knife in his hand then throws it on the bed.
Two small children appear at the door. Transfixed, they stare at Joona.
“You’re hiding refugees?” Joona asks. “How much do they pay you?”
“You think I can change them?” the man says indignantly.
“Do you?”
“No, I don’t.”
Joona looks at the dark-eyed boy. He asks in English, “Do you pay him?”
The boy shakes his head.
“No human being is illegal,” the man says in Swedish.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” Joona says to the boy, still in English.
“I promise I will help you. Are you being abused?”
“Dennis is a good man,” the boy whispers.
“I’m happy to hear that,” Joona says. He looks the man in the eye then leaves the room.
He walks down the stairs and out the back door. He heads to the garage. He stands there looking through the window at a dusty old Saab inside. He’s thinking that Vicky and the boy, Dante, are still missing and there are not many more places to look.
33
Flora Hansen is mopping the floor in the hall of Ewa and Hans-Gunnar’s second-floor apartment. Her left cheek is still burning from the blow and her ear is ringing. The shine was rubbed off the vinyl long ago, but the water makes it glisten again for a short time.
Flora has beaten all the rugs and mopped the living room, the narrow kitchen, and Hans-Gunnar’s room, but she’s waiting to do Ewa’s until Solsidan starts. Both Ewa and Hans-Gunnar are fans of the show and never miss an episode.
Flora shoves the mop into every crevice and corner. Walking backward, she bumps against a picture she made at nursery school more than thirty years ago. All the children glued pasta to a wooden board and then sprayed their pictures with gold paint. She hears the theme music of the TV show start. Now is her chance.
Her back twinges as she lifts the bucket and carries it into Ewa’s room. She closes the door behind her and blocks it with the bucket so that no one can fling the door open. Her heart starts to pound as she dips the mop into the bucket, presses out the excess water, and glances at the wedding photo on the nightstand. Ewa has hooked the key to her desk on the back of the photograph.
Flora does all the housework in exchange for a place to stay. She’d had no choice but to return to Ewa and Hans-Gunnar after she lost her job as an assistant nurse at Saint Göran’s Hospital and her unemployment ran out. She lives in the maid’s room.
As a child, Flora used to dream that her birth parents would find her and take her away, but apparently they were drug addicts, and Hans-Gunnar and Ewa say they know nothing about them. Flora came to their house when she was five and doesn’t remember anything about her earlier life. Hans-Gunnar always treated Flora like a burden, and ever since she was a young teenager, Flora has longed to escape. When she was nineteen, she’d gotten the job as an assistant nurse and moved to her own apartment in Kallhäll that same month.
The mop drips as she carries it over to the window. Beneath the radiator, the vinyl is black from old leaks. The venetian blind hangs crookedly in the window. There’s a Dala horse from Rättvik between the geraniums on the windowsill.
Flora moves slowly toward the nightstand. She stops and listens. She can hear the television.
Hans-Gunnar and Ewa are young in their wedding photo. She’s wearing a white dress and he’s in a tuxedo with a silver tie. The sky behind them is white. On a hill beside the church, there’s a black bell tower with an onion dome. The tower sticks up behind Hans-Gunnar’s head like a strange hat. Flora doesn’t know why, but she finds the picture unpleasant.
She tries to breathe evenly.
Silently, she leans the shaft of the mop against the wall. She waits until she hears her foster mother’s laughter before she picks up the photo and unhooks the ornate bronze key hanging behind it. Her hands shake so much she drops the key, which hits the floor and bounces beneath the bed. Flora has to support herself on the nightstand as she bends down to retrieve it. The blood beats in her temples and the floor outside creaks, but then goes silent again.
The key has landed by the dust-covered electrical cords that run along the wall. Flora can just reach it. She stands back up and waits a moment before she goes to the secretary desk and unlocks it. She lowers the heavy lid and slides open one of the tiny drawers inside. Beneath two postcards from Majorca and Paris, there’s an envelope where Ewa keeps cash for immediate expenses. Flora opens the envelope for next month’s bills and takes half. She stuffs the bills into one of her pockets and puts the envelope back. She tries to shut the tiny drawer, but it sticks.
“Flora!” Ewa calls.
Flora opens the drawer and doesn’t see anything strange about it, so she tries to shut it again, but she’s shaking so hard that she can’t. She can hear footsteps head down the hall. She shoves the drawer, and it jerks in, although it is crooked now. She lifts the desk lid back into place, but doesn’t have time to lock it.
The door is pushed open and water from the bucket sloshes out.
“Flora?”
Flora grabs the mop and moves the bucket as she starts cleaning up the spilled water.
“I can’t find my hand cream,” Ewa says.
Ewa’s eyes are tense, her lips pursed. She’s barefoot in sagging yellow sweatpants, and her white T-shirt strains over her stomach and voluminous breasts.
“It’s next to the shampoo in the bathroom cabinet,” Flora says as she twists the mop.
There’s a commercial break—the sound is louder and a shrill voice is talking about foot fungus. Ewa keeps standing inside the doorway, looking at Flora.
“Hans-Gunnar did not like his coffee,” she says.
“I’m sorry.”
Flora squeezes out the excess water.
“He says that you’re putting cheaper coffee into the expensive packet.”
“Why would I—”
“Don’t lie to me!”
“Well, I don’t,” mutters Flora.
“Go get his cup now, right now, and brew him a new one, a decent one.”
Flora leans the mop against the wall. She asks forgiveness as she walks out and heads for the living room. She can feel the key and the bills in her pocket. Hans-Gunnar does not even look at her as she takes his coffee cup from the tray.
“Ewa, get the hell back here!” he yells. “The show’s starting again!”
Flora jumps at his voice and hurries away. She meets Ewa in the hallway and catches her eye.
“Do you remember th
at I’ll be gone this evening for a job-search class?”
“Like you would ever find a job.”
“But I have to go, those are the rules. I’m making new coffee now and then I’ll finish the floors. Maybe I can do the curtains tomorrow instead.”
34
Flora hands over the cash to a man in a gray coat. His umbrella drips water on her face as he gives her the key and tells her that, as usual, she should drop it in the antique dealer’s mail slot when she’s finished. Flora thanks him and hurries down the sidewalk. The seams in her old coat are beginning to rip open. She is forty, but her face is childlike. It radiates loneliness.
The first block on Upplandsgatan after Odenplan in Stockholm is filled with antique and curiosity shops. Crystal chandeliers and display cases, old toys made of painted tin, porcelain dolls, medals, and mantel clocks clutter the shop windows.
Next to the barred windows of Carlén Antiques there’s a narrow door. Flora tapes a piece of white cardboard onto the door’s thick glass window. On it she’s written “Spiritualist Evening.”
A steep staircase leads to the basement. There are two rooms here: a small pantry and a larger meeting room. The pipes in the walls roar whenever anyone in the upper floors flushes the toilet or turns on the faucets. Flora has hired the larger room for seven séances. Four to six people usually attend, which barely covers the rent. She’s written letters to a number of newspapers to inform them of her ability to contact the dead, but nobody has replied. She’s put an advertisement in the New Age magazine Fenomen for this evening’s séance.
She only has a few minutes before the participants will arrive, but she knows what to do. She quickly pushes the excess furniture to one side and takes twelve chairs and puts them in a circle around a table. In the center of the table she places the porcelain figurines of a man and a woman wearing clothes from the nineteenth century. She believes that they will help evoke a feeling of the past. As soon as the séance is over, she’ll return them to their place in an oak cabinet because she’s not fond of them. She arranges twelve tea lights around the figurines after pressing a little strontium salt into one of the candles with the end of a match and covering the hole.
Then she goes to the cabinet and sets an ancient alarm clock to ring. She first tried this trick four weeks ago. The bell is gone, so the only thing that can be heard is a chattering sound inside the cabinet. Before she can wind up the clock, however, she hears the door upstairs open. The first guests have arrived. She hears people shake their umbrellas and start walking down the stairs.
Flora catches a glimpse of herself in the square mirror. She stops, takes a deep breath, and presses her hand along the front of the gray dress she bought at the Salvation Army store. She smiles at her reflection. She appears calm. She lights some incense and smiles kindly as Dina and Asker Sibelius enter the room. They hang up their coats, talking quietly to each other.
The outer door opens again, and more people come down the stairs. This time, it’s an elderly couple that she hasn’t met before. The participants of Flora’s séances tend to be old people near the end of their lives. They can’t accept the fact that many of their loved ones are gone and that death is final.
Flora greets the new couple in her usual, quiet manner and starts to turn away. Then she stops and studies the man as if she’s seen something particular about him, and she makes as if to shake off that feeling as she motions for them to take a seat. The door opens again. A few more guests have arrived.
At ten past seven, Flora realizes that no one else is coming. There are nine people seated around the table. It’s the highest number yet, but not enough to pay back the money she’s taken from Ewa. Her legs are shaking as she pulls out a chair and sits down. The conversation stops and everyone looks at her.
35
Flora lights the candles on the tray and then lets her gaze wander over the participants. She’s met five of them before. The others are new. Directly across from her, there’s a man who looks barely thirty. His face is open and handsome in a boyish way.
“Welcome,” she begins. “Welcome to our séance. I believe we should get started right away.”
“Yes, indeed,” old Asker says.
“Take each other’s hands and close the circle,” Flora commands in a warm, friendly way.
The young man is looking directly at her. He’s smiling and obviously curious. A feeling of excitement and expectation begins to flutter in Flora’s stomach. For several minutes, there is only silence. It feels powerful and dark. Ten people have made a circle and they can sense the dead arriving behind their backs.
“Don’t break the circle,” Flora cautions the group. “No matter what happens, don’t break the circle. Our visitors might not find their way back to the other side.”
Her guests are so old that most of their relatives and friends have already died. Death is a country with many well-known faces.
“Never ask the date of your own death,” Flora continues. “And never ask about the Devil.”
“Why not?” asks the young man, smiling.
“Not every spirit is good, and the circle is just a gateway to the other side.”
The young man’s black eyes shine.
“Demons?” he asks.
“I don’t believe in demons,” Dina Sibelius says. She sounds nervous.
“I keep watch on the gate as best as I can,” Flora says. “But all the spirits feel our warmth, see our lights.”
Everyone is silent again. There’s a noise in the pipes—an odd, busy buzzing as if a fly is caught in a spiderweb.
“Are you ready?” Flora asks gently.
The participants all nod, and Flora is pleased by how serious they seem. She thinks she can hear their hearts beating and their blood pulsing through the circle.
“Now I’m going into a trance.”
Flora holds her breath and presses Asker Sibelius’s hand as well as the hand of one of the new women. She keeps her eyes closed and waits as long as she can, fighting the impulse to breathe until she starts to shake. Then she takes a deep breath and fills her lungs.
“We have many visitors from the other side tonight,” Flora says after a few moments.
The participants who have been here before hum in agreement.
Flora senses the young man is looking at her. She feels his watchful, interested gaze on her cheeks, her hair, her neck.
She lowers her face and thinks she should begin with Violet so that the young man will be convinced. Flora knows Violet’s history but up to now has let her wait. Violet Larsen is a terribly lonely person. She lost her only son fifty years ago when he became ill with meningitis and no hospital would admit him for fear of infection. Violet’s husband had driven the boy from hospital to hospital the entire night. When dawn came, the boy died in his arms. Violet’s husband broke down in grief and died a few years later. One terrible night had eliminated the woman’s happiness for the rest of her life.
Flora opens her eyes.
“Violet,” she whispers.
The old woman turns hungrily toward Flora.
“Yes?”
“I have a child here, a child who is holding the hand of a grown man.”
“What are their names?” Violet asks. Her voice trembles.
“Their names are … The boy says you used to call him Jusse.”
Violet gasps. “It’s my little Jusse,” she whispers.
“The man, he says that you know who he is. You are his beautiful flower.”
Violet nods and smiles. “That’s my Albert.”
“They have a message for you, Violet,” Flora continues. “They say that they follow you day and night so that you are never alone.”
A large tear runs down Violet’s cheek.
“The boy asks you not to be sad. Mamma, he is saying, Mamma, I am fine. Pappa is with me all the time.”
“I miss you so much,” Violet says.
“I can see the boy,” Flora whispers. “He is standing next to you. He is touc
hing your cheek.”
Violet is crying quietly and the room is silent. Flora is waiting for the tea light to ignite the strontium salts, but it’s taking its time.
She mumbles to herself and wonders which person she should choose next. She closes her eyes and sways her upper body.
“So many here. So many here,” she mutters. “They’re crowding at the small gate. I feel their presence. They are longing to talk to you.”
She falls silent as the candle begins to sparkle.
“Don’t crowd at the gate,” she says.
The candle suddenly flashes a red flame and someone in the room screams.
“You are not invited,” Flora says sternly. She waits until the flame dies down. “Now I would like to speak with the man wearing glasses. Yes, please come closer. What is your name?”
She appears to listen inwardly. “You are telling me that you want things to be as they were.” Flora looks at her guests. “He says he wants things as they always were. Skinless sausage and boiled potatoes.”
“It’s my Stig!” says the woman holding Flora’s hand.
“It’s hard to hear what he is saying,” Flora continues. “There are so many people here. They keep interrupting him.”
“Stig,” the woman whispers.
“He says forgive me. He wants you to forgive him.”
Flora feels the woman shaking.
“I have already forgiven you,” she whispers.
36
After the séance, Flora sends her guests off with a brief farewell. She knows that people like to be alone with their fantasies and memories.
She walks around the room slowly, blowing out the candles and returning the chairs to their original positions. She is pleased that everything has gone so well. Then she goes to the entryway, where she’s placed a box for contributions, and counts the money inside. Next week is her final spiritual evening and her last chance to recover the money she’s taken from Ewa. Too few people came in spite of her ad in Fenomen. She’s started to lie awake at night and stare into the darkness dry-eyed, wondering what she’s going to do. When Ewa pays her bills at the end of the month, she’s going to realize that the money is missing.