Red Wolf_ A Novel - Liza Marklund [38]
The television flickered into life, and Anne stiffened.
‘Mehmet’s new monogamous fuck is a news editor there,’ she said.
Annika nodded without taking her eyes from the screen. ‘So you said,’ she said. ‘Hang on a moment.’
She turned up the volume. Over the beat of the theme-music the newsreader read out the headlines in verbless soundbites: ‘Suspected murder of a journalist in Luleå; four thousand laid off at Ericsson; new library proposals from the Ministry of Culture. Good evening, but first the Middle East, where a suicide bomber has this evening killed nine young people outside a café in Tel Aviv . . . ’
Annika lowered the volume to a murmur.
‘Do you think it’s serious, then, Mehmet and this one?’
Anne took a gulp of wine, swallowing audibly.
‘She’s started picking Miranda up from nursery,’ she said, her voice flat and peculiar.
Annika thought for a moment, trying to imagine how that would feel.
‘I couldn’t handle that,’ she said, ‘another woman looking after my children.’
Anne pulled a face. ‘I haven’t got much choice, have I?’
‘Do you want more children?’
Annika heard the loaded subtext of her question, as if she had been working up to asking it. Anne looked up in surprise, and shook her head.
‘I want to be an individual,’ she said. ‘Not a function.’
Annika raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s the whole point,’ she said. ‘Becoming part of something bigger, something more important. Voluntarily giving up your freedom for someone else; that never happens anywhere else in our culture.’
‘I’ve never thought of it like that,’ Anne said, taking another drink. ‘But when you put it like that, that was one of the reasons why I didn’t want to live with Mehmet. Being alone with my thoughts is vital; otherwise I’d go mad again.’
Annika knew that Anne thought she had never understood the way she and her husband had lived, had never seen how well it worked until it suddenly collapsed.
‘But being an egotist doesn’t necessarily make you any truer to yourself,’ Annika said, then realized how harsh her words sounded. ‘I mean, we have to deal with any number of things every day. Not just kids, but jobs, sports, anything. How many people get to go around being individuals in their jobs? How much could I be Annika Bengtzon if I was in the national ice-hockey team?’
‘I knew there was a reason why I hate sports journalists,’ Anne muttered.
‘But seriously,’ Annika said, leaning forward, ‘being part of a context is vital, having a function that’s bigger than us individually. Why else would people be attracted to sects and other groups of nutters if there wasn’t something really appealing about it?’
‘I don’t like sects either,’ Anne said, taking another gulp of wine.
An image of Svartöstaden filled the screen behind the newsreader, and Annika turned the sound up again.
‘Police have confirmed that the death of journalist Benny Ekland is being treated as suspected murder, and that he was killed by a stolen Volvo V70.’
‘They haven’t come up with anything new,’ Annika said, lowering the volume again.
‘He was murdered by a Volvo?’ Anne asked, putting her hands down again.
‘Didn’t you read my article?’
Anne smiled briefly in apology.
‘Do you want some water?’
‘No, I’d like some more wine,’ Anne called after her.
The passageway to the kitchen was dark and full of silent sound. In the kitchen the subdued lighting of the extraction unit looked like a campfire from a distance. The water sloshed in the dishwasher, sending cascades up against its stainless-steel walls.
She poured two large glasses of water, even though Anne didn’t want any.
When she came back her friend was still sitting in the sofa with her empty wineglass in her hand. The alcohol had made her face relax. Her eyes were drawn to the silent television, and Annika followed her gaze and suddenly saw the broad, dark figure of the Minister of Culture fill the screen. She turned up the sound.
‘From July first, every council district will be obliged to have at least one public library,’ Karina Björnlund, the Minister of