Karin Alvtegen - Shadow

Seconds passed; everything was swimming around. He straightened up.

‘How old was she, did you say?’

‘The sister?’

‘No, Gerda Persson.’

He heard her leafing through some papers.

‘She was born in 1914, so ninety-two.’

He grabbed a pen. There was something that didn’t add up. Ninety-two minus thirty-four was fifty-eight.

‘A woman couldn’t have a child at that age, could she?’

There was silence on the other end. Kristoffer realised to his dismay that all this dizziness had made him think out loud.

‘What?’

‘No, nothing.’

‘At the age of ninety-two? No, I don’t think so, even if science is discovering the most astounding things.’

Kristoffer cursed his clumsiness. She couldn’t find out, nobody must find out! Not before everything was cleared up and it was possible to excuse what they had done.

‘What happens next?’

‘You mean with regard to the inheritance itself?’

He had actually been thinking of something more important. How he could find out more about Gerda Persson and how she knew about his existence.

‘Yes.’

‘It’s not complicated. We can make an appointment to meet so that you can get some information about the estate, and then it’s up to you what you want to do. I can tell you about various alternatives, but first I have to arrange everything for the funeral. The flat and the rest will have to wait until afterwards. Perhaps you’d like to come?’

Four weeks left till his deadline. The play suddenly felt very far away.

‘Yes, maybe, thanks.’

‘We’ll talk more about things after the funeral. I’ve been in touch with the family who employed her as a housekeeper during her working life, and they’ve promised to help out with the funeral arrangements. It’s the Ragnerfeldt family, by the way. If you like, I can give you the phone number of the son in the family, Jan-Erik; he’s the one I talked to. If you’d like to ring him and ask a few questions, I mean. I did ask them if they knew of you. They said no, but at least you might be able to find out some more about Gerda Persson.’

He sat up in his chair. All the information was whirling past, seeking a foothold. He had an inheritance from Gerda Persson, and had finally found Mamma, but then hadn’t after all. Instead, he had inherited from Gerda Persson, whom he didn’t know and who was not his mother but who was probably the one who had been sending him money and knew that he existed, and then on the periphery there was Axel Ragnerfeldt. The greatest of the great. A man who almost didn’t seem real, he was so brilliant.

He jotted down the phone number for Jan-Erik Ragnerfeldt, and they said goodbye. But to ring up the world-famous author’s son seemed inconceivable.

Because what would he say?

His confusion was still there. Even more questions than before had taken shape. But a possibility had also arisen. The gate to his hidden world was standing ajar, a little gap had been opened. He just wasn’t sure whether he actually dared go inside.

There was only one thing he was sure that he wanted.

To find an explanation that would bless him with the ability to forgive.

‘What the hell is this?’

Alice put down the crossword puzzle she was working on and looked at the piece of paper in Jan-Erik’s outstretched hand. Without ringing the bell he had let himself in with his own key. She had managed to feel glad that he had come. The feeling had lasted until he appeared in the doorway and she saw the expression on his face. With shoes and coat on he was now standing on the other side of the living room table. There was something threatening about him, a rage she had never seen before. His unusual behaviour made her nervous. She reached for the paper and he stood there looking at her, as if wanting to observe her reaction. With unwilling fingers she unfolded the paper. It took only a second for her to see what it was.

She closed her eyes. Lowered her hand with the awful report and cursed Axel, who hadn’t had the sense to throw out something that could only cause pain.

‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me about this?’

What could she say? Nothing. What had happened had happened, but the lie they had chosen. Perhaps to be able to endure. A barrier had slammed down at first then all these strange feelings had surfaced to keep the pain away. What could not be admitted under any circumstances without allowing madness to take over.

‘Answer me!’

‘I’m trying.’

She had done all she could to forget. Made an effort to take long detours around details when the memory came too close. Spent aeons of time trying to suppress the remorse about not having understood how serious things were. But certain voices are never silent. They’re still there, far away in the din. Nobody was ever whole after losing a child, especially not if the child died by her own hand. What could not be acknowledged at first had taken years to arrive. The conversation with her daughter that had never managed to get started, but which would now remain lost for ever. The thought of all the tiny, tiny steps that had been taken. The certainty that all the choices she had made, none of which was especially reprehensible, had added up and led to what could never be changed for all eternity.

She took off her reading glasses and placed them on the arm of the sofa.

‘We don’t know why.’

Jan-Erik shifted position, waiting impatiently for her to continue.

‘What happened? Did she leave a note?’

Alice shook her head, rubbing her hand over her face. No, she hadn’t left a note. Only a message clearer than any words could ever have expressed.

‘But you must have noticed something before, surely? Something must have happened, or why did she do it? She couldn’t have simply decided to hang herself from one day to the next without something happening, could she?’

‘Don’t you think I’ve asked myself that question? That I’ve cursed myself because I didn’t understand how bad things were?’

‘How bad were they?’

She sighed and put the paper down on the table. Took one of the embroidered sofa cushions and put it on her lap. Involuntarily her finger began tracing the intricate pattern.

‘We never got a real answer. It came out of the blue, she was suddenly changed beyond recognition. She’d been acting the same as always, but one morning she simply refused to get out of bed.’

Alice tried to remember. Gather up all the bits that she had so conscientiously banished. All at once she realised that it was all intact, that the details were still there as if they had only been in a deep freeze.

It had been a beautiful morning. She’d been in an unusually good mood, sitting in the kitchen drinking her coffee. The garden had been bejewelled with glittering new snow, and the sheaves of grain that Gerda had set out were full of little birds. She had thought that Axel’s gesture might be a turning point. That even he had finally realised that everything was untenable. She had viewed his initiative as a sign that he was making an effort.

‘We were in the city the evening before and went to the cinema, Axel and I. You know how he would never do anything like that. It was even his suggestion.’

They had seen Face to Face by Ingmar Bergman. It was so rare they did anything together, shared any experience at all. Whenever he left the house it was on literary business: readings and banquets as guest of honour, and she went along only because it would attract attention if she didn’t. Those occasions were merely reminders of her own failure. At home Axel was hardly ever seen, locked in behind the door to his office. But that evening he had suddenly suggested the cinema, despite the fact that there was only an hour to go before the show began.