Girl Who Played with Fire, The - Stieg Larsson [52]
“Lisbeth, I can’t afford it.”
“It’s a housing association apartment and it’s all paid off. The rent is 1,480 a month, which must be less than you’re paying for the shoebox. And the rent has been paid for a year.”
“But are you thinking of selling it? I mean, it must be worth quite a bit.”
“About one and a half million, if you can believe the estate agents’ ads.”
“I can’t afford that.”
“I’m not selling. You could move in here tonight, you can live here as long as you like, and you won’t have to pay anything for a year. I’m not allowed to rent it out, but I can write you into my agreement as my roommate. That way you won’t have any hassle with the housing association.”
“But Lisbeth—are you proposing to me?” Mimmi laughed.
“I’m not using the apartment and I don’t want to sell it.”
“You mean I could live there for free, girl? Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“As long as you like. Are you interested?”
“Of course I am. I don’t get offered a free apartment in the middle of Söder every day of the week.”
“There’s a catch.”
“I thought as much.”
“You can live here as long as you like, but I’ll still be listed as resident and I’ll get my mail here. All you have to do is take in the mail and let me know if anything interesting turns up.”
“Lisbeth, you’re the freakiest. Where are you going to live?”
“We’ll talk about that later,” Salander said.
They agreed to meet that afternoon so that Mimmi could have a proper look at the apartment. Salander was already in a much better mood. She walked down to Handelsbanken on Hornsgatan, where she took a number and waited her turn.
She showed her ID and explained that she had been abroad for some time and wanted to know the balance of her savings account. The sum was 82,670 kronor. The account had been dormant for more than a year, and one deposit of 9,312 kronor had been made the previous autumn. That was the inheritance from her mother.
Salander withdrew 9,312 kronor. She wanted to spend the money on something that would have made her mother happy. She walked to the post office on Rosenlundsgatan and sent an anonymous deposit to one of Stockholm’s crisis centres for women.
It was 8:00 on Friday evening when Berger shut down her computer and stretched. She had spent nine hours solid putting the finishing touches on the March issue of Millennium, and since Eriksson was working full-time on Svensson’s themed issue she had had to do a good part of the editing herself. Cortez and Karim had helped out, but they were primarily writers and researchers, and not used to editing.
So she was tired and her back ached, but she was satisfied both with the day and with life in general. The accountant’s graphs were pointing in the right direction, articles were coming in on time, or at least not unmanageably late, and the staff was happy. After more than a year, they were still on a high from the adrenaline rush of the Wennerström affair.
After trying for a while to massage her neck, Berger decided she needed a shower and thought about using the one in the office bathroom. But she felt too lazy and put her feet up on the desk instead. She was going to turn forty-five in three months, and that famous future she had longed for was starting to be a thing of the past. She had developed a network of tiny wrinkles and lines around her eyes and mouth, but she knew that she still looked good. She worked out at the gym twice a week, but she had noticed it was getting more difficult to climb the mast during her long sailing trips. And she was the one who always had to do the climbing—her husband had terrible vertigo.
Berger reflected that her first forty-five years, despite a number of ups and downs, had been by and large successful. She had money, status, a home which gave her great pleasure, and a job she enjoyed. She had a tenderhearted husband who loved her and with whom she was still in love after fifteen years of marriage. And on the side she had a pleasant and seemingly inexhaustible lover, who might not satisfy her soul but who did satisfy her body when