Caroline Åberg - Stockholm Noir

Once at the top of the hill, I could see out, over the encrusted surface of the water, the bridges, and the skyline with its glittering windows on the far side of the ice. The massive buildings on the horizon stood close to each other and seemed to exist in another time, a science-fiction future that appeared unreal and far removed from the garden colony — this special realm of small cottages painted in bright colors and their small yards with benches, tiny gazebos of glass, and other dreams embodied on their sloping plots. In the summertime, the whole effect is beyond idyllic, but now it seemed full of some fateful magic, as if a powerful winter sorcerer had bewitched it with frosting.

I’m describing all this because it all belongs. In the movies, characters never suspect that something unusual is afoot, but I felt it then. Everything was a premonition, a forewarning, but of something beautiful. As if something was calling to me. A crystal-clear, silent song vibrating in everything. Or am I reconstructing this after the fact? No, that I doubt.

The day had been sunny and clear, but the blue sky was beginning to darken as twilight approached; everything was breathtaking. The only thing that troubled me was the fear that the harsh weather might damage my cottage. This beloved small building, just one of the numerous playhouses for adults on the hillside, was my oasis during spring, summer, and fall. Mine was light blue like old-fashioned baby clothes for boys. The weather vane is less cute; it’s a rusty vulture. In addition, there’s a ceramic Poe raven nailed to the lowest branch of the apple tree.

I like to write in my little house, my refuge, now frozen solid. The snow lay heavy on its roof, the window panes were covered in strange, blossoming frost patterns. The ceramic raven watched me stolidly from the apple tree. I had to use a shovel to hack at the ice along the little door to open it.

An unpleasant smell struck my nostrils. Dead rat , I thought, but in this cold nothing dead should be able to give off such a stench.

With a bit of shock, I realized that someone had been in here. Nothing was damaged, but I was sure someone had been rummaging around.

No. That premonition I’d had on the way over had not been hinting at something beautiful. What I saw made me catch my breath. The instinct to vomit choked my throat. I saw a shape on the other side of the room — the thick plastic mat had been pulled up to cover something shoved right against the little bench, with its view over the spirea bushes, where I typically sat in the summer to drink my coffee.

Call someone. The words flew through my mind. Get out of here. Don’t check this out all by yourself.

But yet, a moment later, I still stood there, looking at the figure under the mat. The girl , this word came to me, as if she were all the girls in the world, as if there were no living girls, happy girls, girls eating ice cream in the sunshine.

She was curled in a fetal position. Her skin was bluish white, her limbs oddly thin. The body, frozen almost solid, wore nothing but a thin, dirty summer dress which had, perhaps, once been white. That the dress was trimmed in romantic, innocent lace made the sight especially creepy.

I couldn’t see her face. Her long dark hair curled over her features as if she herself wanted to hide them as a last gesture to spare any future gawkers. Or perhaps the killer had done this, covered her face, her stare. Trafficking , I thought. Crime scene, police. I felt so faint I had to sit down, powerless, but still unable to look away from the little naked foot. Repugnance and horror ran through me as well as wild tenderness, sorrow, and anger — as if I should be able to hug her and comfort her! Yes, that’s what it was like, what it was actually like.

The light in the cottage shifted into a darker blue, as if it emanated from her, oozed out of her. I was entirely alone in this cottage on the frosted hillside during twilight with the frozen body of a girl. A nightmare, said the voice in my head. And then I noticed a dead rat beside her body. A number of dead rats, actually. Had they chewed off her face? Don’t even think about that. A dark, trapped cry throbbed in my head, my throat, my chest. It carried no coherent thoughts with it; both the ability to think and the ability to act had fled.

Then a quick movement. Unexpected, incomprehensible. A rustle, an exhalation, and she sat up. I was so shocked I didn’t have time to be afraid, but I felt I had been thrown into another dimension, a kind of dream state, where this could happen.

I saw a tiny heart-shaped face. Her eyes were totally black, like bullet holes, with no whites. Her features shone gray-white, haloed by her black hair. Her lips were moving slightly, an almost silent sound reached my ears, but I could not make out what she was saying — was she speaking a foreign language?

Then came something resembling a laugh behind a closed mouth, and she said, “Welcome!”

Perhaps she’d already hypnotized me. At any rate, she seemed to be, in some inexplicable way, already familiar.

“Don’t be afraid,” she said. “My name’s Alma. I’m just sleeping here. It’s good that it’s winter. The days are short. And I never freeze.”

I had nothing to say to that.

“You realize what I am, don’t you?”

When I silently shook my head, she smiled briefly and I could see her sharp teeth, white as pearls and glistening. Yes, I must have been hypnotized. I didn’t even shudder.

“I’ve been finding places to sleep here and there,” she said. “Ever since it happened.” Her black, eternal gaze bored into me as she cocked her head. “You’re a kind person, aren’t you?”

Well, what was I supposed to reply to that? I shrugged and forced a smile.

She said, “I don’t kill people.” She fluffed her hair the way girls do. “I’ve been sleeping in different cottages until I came to yours. Yours was the right one. You’re a writer. I love books. Rather, I love to disappear into them. Brontë. Oates. Atwood. And, of course, Poe. I love your raven, by the way! I thought I would just wait here until you showed up. And now here you are.”

“Can I help you in some way?” I managed to say. I really hoped I would not have to help her die. I didn’t want to deal with a cross and a stake or old black blood. I didn’t want to hear her pleas for eternal rest.

“Sure, you can help me,” she replied. “I’ve been praying for you to come! You want to use words to scare people, so let me inspire you. You’ll hear my story, you’ll give me a few nights of your time, and I’ll be your Scheherazade. Yes, you will be the one to write my winter tale. You will make it beautiful. You will write it so that whoever reads it will want to weep. Their tears will become diamonds in the cold; they will be stars and shine forever in my memory. And what you will do for me, you will do out of love.”

I was sixteen years old then. You think I might have been younger, but I had just turned sixteen, I am sixteen, I will be sixteen. How long has it been? I think it’s been three years now, but five hundred years from now, I will still be sixteen.

My mother and I had argued. We often argued. She’d throw me out of the house, and then she’d call me on my cell phone and apologize: Come back, Alma, I didn’t mean it! I didn’t mean to say that, I didn’t really think that, just come back and everything will be good. I’ll stop drinking and bringing home stupid men. I’ll become an angel, the moon is made of cheese, there’s peace on earth, the climate issue is resolved, the world is all candy fluff, just come home.