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His coat had been tucked away into a plastic bag under the stretcher.

Thirty-five

Even though it was many years ago she was sure she would find it. In her inner image, or rather, a rhapsody of many different images, she saw the houses, the fields, and the narrow, curving gravel road.

It ran through a sunny landscape. From what Laura remembered it was always beautiful weather when she and Alice traveled those thirty, forty kilometers north.

Once they had stopped in a clearing in the forest and picked wild strawberries.

“This is the landscape of my childhood,” Alice said and smiled. “Of course I know where the wild strawberries are.”

She used words like that, like “landscape,” and dialect words for things such as pastures, paddocks, hay-cutting, and hay-drying racks. The landscape of childhood.

For Alice, the word “landscape” took on a magical meaning. It wasn’t simply the word used to refer to districts like Uppland, Västmanland, Dalarna, and the other brightly colored patches in the school atlas, no, landscape became something completely different, a scent, a few words uttered in passing, a smile, and some wild strawberries threaded on a stalk of grass.

The road followed the same course as before but had been widened. The forest had changed, as had the houses. It looked deserted. Alice’s landscape had grown more naked and cold. In part this must be due to the time of year but Laura had the impression that an illness had befallen the area. A slow-working virus that turned even the young spruce trees brown, and that bent the smoke from the chimneys, spilling a milky haze over the gardens and yards.

There seemed to be fewer people now, and they looked smaller, more afraid, barely looking up when Laura went past. It was as if they no longer cared. Back then they would straighten up, meet her gaze with curiosity, and hold up a hand.

She couldn’t find the clearing with wild strawberries and suspected it had been planted with trees.

The old school was still there but it had been converted into a private residence. A jeep was parked in front of the entrance. The old schoolyard had been replaced by a gravel display area for Entreprenad machines.

Alice often talked about her teacher Miss Olsson, a woman from the Dalarna district who taught Laura how to prune fruit trees, plant and thin vegetable beds, and how to make heaped rows of earth for potatoes.

“That’s its Latin name,” was something Alice would say, “and that’s what it’s called in Uppland dialect, and Dalarna dialect.” “Trifolium” became “bee bread” and “red clover.” “Genum” became “ three-flowered aven” and “prairie smoke.”

All manner of thought-provoking names of herbs flew from her tongue like beautiful butterflies.

For each kilometer that Laura clocked, new memories returned to her. It was like opening an old photo album and making a trip back in time. She drove slower and slower with a feeling of solemnity and grandeur, aware of the fact that this was probably the last time she’d be seeing her mother’s landscape.

Lars-Erik Jonsson came toward her with a wry, but nonetheless welcoming smile. Laura stifled an impulse to hug him. It was not a good idea. He wiped his hands off on his work clothes.

“After so many years,” she said, suddenly embarrassed at his inquisitive gaze, “you still recognize me.”

“You look the same,” her cousin replied and held her hand in a firm grip.

Lars-Erik was five, six years older than Laura. She thought he looked worn. The skin in his face was loose and gray and when he walked across the yard, he limped.

“Do you have aches?”

“Yes, but nothing to worry about,” Lars-Erik said. “It’s my joints.”

Laura knew that Agnes, her aunt and mother to Lars-Erik, had suffered greatly from rheumatism. Her aunt had died young, thirty-one years old, and Laura had no memories of her. She had only seen pictures of a woman who reminded her of Alice.

Lars-Erik had grown up with his father Mårten and two brothers. Alice