The Cruel Stars of the Night - Kjell Eriksson [71]
She had to turn around, away from her father, and stare out at the hill on the other side of the road where the grapevines tied to supports resembled people hung up on a cross, holding hands in a ring dance on an enormous Golgotha.
She wanted to stay in the village, but when Ulrik shut his car door she got in on the passenger side, gathering up her body into a little package that was going to be transported down the hill toward Fumene. Nothing of the landscape lingered on her retina. It was as if she was traveling through a tunnel. Before her she only saw the woman’s naked skin, her oustretched throat, and the passion that had joined her with the man.
Allegrini welcomed them and Ulrik’s apologies with his usual hospitality. Marilisa Allegrini had opened a bottle of Amarone in advance that she immediately poured into some unusually beautiful glasses. They raised their glasses in a toast and drank. As usual when wine of the best quality was involved, Ulrik was amiable in that chivalrous way that all Italians appreciated, especially from a foreigner.
The somewhat bitter cherry note in the wine reminded Laura of the village and the orchard. She stared down into the dark wine. One of the Allegrini brothers was watching her, their eyes met for a second, and she tried to smile.
“What a spring,” he said.
Laura stood up, took a deep breath, and then walked with heavy steps up the stairs. She lost her balance once and had to steady herself with a hand against the wall. Perhaps it was the wine, perhaps it was the flood of memories that streamed through her, that caused her misstep.
She tried to set Italy aside and instead think about the policewoman who had come to see her. Ann Lindell was not someone who, if you met her on the street, you would react to in any particular way, Laura thought, but the deliberateness with which she practiced her profession appealed to Laura.
She had asked about Petrus Blomgren and Jan-Elis Andersson. Laura smiled to herself. The police could search all they liked, it didn’t matter to her. They didn’t know about Ulrik Hindersten’s life and her own secrets. How could they understand anything about real life?
Twenty-one
Mirabelle was not an ordinary mare. Everyone who saw her jump realized this. The combination of unruffled calm combined with the explosiveness at the obstacles, which never ceased to amaze Carl-Henrik Palmblad, made her one of the most promising three-year-olds that he had ever seen on the track.
When Ellinor rode her he was sometimes worried. Mirabelle was so powerful in her approach and takeoff that Ellinor seemed at the mercy of powers that she had no hope of controlling. But it always went well. It was as if the mare considered her movements so precisely, in the closest coordination with the rider’s qualities, that he never really had to fear that his grandchild would come to any harm.
Mirabelle was very strong and tireless, with a competitive spirit that promised a great deal for the future. Carl-Henrik Palmblad’s greatest source of joy was perhaps not Mirabelle herself but the fact that Ellinor spent so much time in the stables. She came more frequently, and those times he wasn’t able to give her a ride she took the bus from the city. Of course it was the jumping that attracted her and above all the fact that Mirabelle had become her best friend, as she put it, but it had also meant that the two of them, grandfather and grandchild, grew closer.
Ellinor was his darling. He would never have thought that contact with her would mean so much. His time as a father, when Magnus and Ann-Charlotte were young, appeared in hindsight as one big haze. He could not recall many times during their childhood when they actually did things together, but now every day that Ellinor came to the stables was a celebration.
They talked about all manner of things. He was able to take part in her everyday dreams, the conflicts with her parents—where Carl-Henrik almost always took her side—and how things were at school. When she