The Cruel Stars of the Night - Kjell Eriksson [67]
These debates were very much to Ulrik Hindersten’s taste. Laura remembered how she had admired his ability to find arguments in the hour-long disputes.
Now Livius and Petrarch were destroyed in her own bonfire, and they burned well, the new dissertations as well as the old volumes, bound in calfskin and representing centuries of learning.
She followed the black flakes with her gaze and noted with satisfaction that many of them were blowing in the professor’s direction. She bent over and picked up a slim volume of Capablanca and tossed it onto the fire. The pages flipped nervously in the wind before they were caught by the flames and were transformed into sooty confirmations of Laura’s decree.
With tense anticipation she stared into the fire as if against the black paper there would appear the glimmer of a message about what her new life was going to look like. Laura crouched down, leaned forward, the heat brought tears to her eyes, and she was gripped by a feeling of solemnity as if at a graduation or funeral. She was so moved that she did not hear the car that parked on the street, nor the light steps across the mossy lawn.
“Excuse me, are you Laura Hindersten?”
Laura had to steady herself with a hand against the ground in order not to fall into the dwindling fire, and she turned toward the woman who was standing a few meters away.
“I’m sorry if I startled you. My name is Ann Lindell and I’m with the police.”
Laura looked at her sooty hand and then gazed at Ann. Clearly, Laura could see her but it was as if her unsteady gaze could not bear to bring her into focus. Several seconds went by before she answered.
“Yes, my name is Laura Hindersten. What is this about?”
The voice was pleasing, completely devoid of concern or surprise. Ann saw how the woman in front of her changed from emotionality to coldness, as she stood up calmly and smiled.
“It’s about your father, as perhaps you’ve guessed.”
Åsa had forewarned her. Laura Hindersten was snobby and treated the police as if they were idiots and therefore Lindell unconsciously wore a stern expression.
“Because of some other cases we are checking on the individuals who have gone missing recently, and your father disappeared in September.”
Laura Hindersten looked watchful. Lindell discovered that there was something mocking about her smile and had the thought that her father had returned. What if this woman was pulling something over on her? Was Ulrik Hindersten having a cup of coffee in the kitchen?
“Have you heard from him at all?”
Laura shook her head.
“What are you burning?”
“Old junk.”
Ann Lindell bent down, picked up a book, and read the title on the spine.
“That’s Livius’s first book,” Laura said.
Lindell hesitated in the middle of dropping the book back onto the ground. Laura took it out of her hand.
“Who was Livius?”
“A Roman.”
Lindell was satisfied with the answer. Laura threw the book onto the fire, which was giving off a pleasant heat. Fires invite reflection and neither of the two women felt it was strange that they stood silently for a while side by side and watched Livius’s words go up in flames.
“That was that,” Laura said.
“Is it a series?”
“Series,” Laura giggled, “Ulrik should have heard that. Yes, there’s maybe some hundred and fifty books.”
“And you’re burning them all?”
“No, most of them have disappeared and there are only a few that have been translated into Swedish.”
Lindell looked at the woman next to her. She hadn’t noticed any of the heralded snootiness; instead Laura seemed to have more of a thoughtful, almost meditative aspect. Laura met her gaze and smiled introspectively
Lindell wished she was a smoker. Then she would have taken out a cigarette, lit it, and then smoked it in peace and quiet while the fire so eagerly licked up the rests of Livius and all the others.
“Sometimes I think Ulrik is here,” Laura said quietly.
“Do you think he’s alive?”
Laura shrugged.
“Do you know anyone