The Cruel Stars of the Night - Kjell Eriksson [50]
There would never be a house in Arguà, never any day trips to Venice, never walks among olive trees. She knew this in the moment her mother got up from the table without a word of comfort. Not even when Laura picked up the china figurine and dropped it on the ground did her mother turn around. She walked into the kitchen. It was almost dinnertime.
Laura got up on stiff legs. Her body felt foreign to her. Her face flamed and grew hot, her limbs felt prickly, and she felt slightly dizzy. It wasn’t just the lack of sleep and food; it felt like the time she had taken a medication that did not agree with her. It had given her nightmares and she had vomited violently in the morning.
She put a hand on her crotch, which still ached. Stig would return, he had said this several times. She smiled suddenly. He loved her, she knew that now. And only Jessica stood in their way, the only thing that prevented him from coming back to her forever.
“Ulrik!” she yelled, as if to convince herself that her father was not there.
She dragged in the grocery bags from the terrace. A jar of honey fell out of a bag but she left it there. The exertion made her sweat. She unpacked the items in a trance-like state. The kitchen was one big mess. Masses of unwashed dishes were piled up on the counter, as well as glasses, teacups, and pots. On the kitchen table there were newspapers and unopened mail.
She ended up standing in front of the refrigerator. Inside it some shriveled vegetables, containers of margarine without lids, and dried heels of cheese were living their own life. Several slices of salami were covered in a green film of mold.
“Mrs. Simonsson,” she called out helplessly, but in an attack of will she pulled a garbage bag out of the pantry and filled it with all the leftover food.
Before replacing them with the newly bought items she had to sit down and rest.
She read the headline in the newspaper that was lying on top of the pile. The preamble talked about the “country butcher” who had struck again.
Laura unfolded the paper. The photograph on the front page made her wince. She felt that swinging sensation from her childhood. The stale air in the kitchen was replaced with the smell of freshly cut grass.
She put her hand over the picture and looked out through the window, and the longing for a diffuse sense of something, a possibility, missed many years ago, blocked her thoughts for a few moments as if a temporary electric error had created a short circuit in her brain.
Fifteen
Someone had laid flowers by one of the fence posts by the entrance to Petrus Blomgren’s house. Ann Lindell slowed down and stopped. There were fresias and something green. They looked frozen. A note was attached to the bouquet. “All the good ones die. Thank you for your solicitude.” No signature. Ann reread the two sentences. “Solicitude” was such a beautiful word. Had Blomgren been a caring person? Many things suggested this, not least Dorotea Svahn’s testimony.
The house already looked abandoned, as if it had aged a great deal in only a few days. The foundation appeared to have settled and sunk several inches and the roof tiles appeared to have taken on a darker shade, or so Ann imagined, and she had the feeling that the whole place was going to be transformed over the course of the winter into a gray, moss-clad boulder that rested in an increasingly wild terrain, that the vegetation was going to take over and erase all traces of settlement and human life.
She did not really find it that remarkable. The farmer Petrus Blomgren no longer existed so why should his house remain? Lindell stepped out of the car, struck by the thought that the house should not be touched, that no one should be allowed to step through a murdered person’s door, taking control of the hall, kitchen, and room. Never ever. Everything should be allowed to deteriorate as dictated by nature.
She smiled at her own thoughts and realized