Mattias Berg - The Carrier

“And I’m aware that you know her from before, Erasmus. Better than most of us, apart from myself perhaps. That you think you’re pretty well acquainted with her.

“But what really troubles me is that however much you know about her, or you may think you know, she will always know more about you . Which means that she’s going to exert a strong influence over you. Very strong.

“Since we also know about Oskarsson’s plans, which presuppose your own participation because of our rigorous security measures—the impossibility from a pure technical point of view of doing anything like that on one’s own—I’d advise you to call me as soon as you hear this. Help us to render this woman harmless.”

The first message ended. I played the second.

“I’ve already tried to call you a number of times, Erasmus, now that we’ve received definite confirmation of what we previously only suspected. Maybe you’re still asleep. But as soon as you wake up, I would ask you from the bottom of my heart, with all of your and my care for the world—everything we’ve fought so hard for together—to get back in touch with me. We do not have a minute to lose.”

He must have exerted himself to get out the last bit, before he would have had to drink, rest, breathe.

“Because I can guarantee you that a nuclear explosion of the sort Oskarsson is planning would not only extinguish all life in those parts of the globe where the bases lie. The consequences would also be that the ozone layer disappears for ever, for all time, in the same way as over Mars once upon a time; permanent drops in temperature of twenty to thirty degrees worldwide, before the U.V. rays burn up the entire surface of the earth once and for all. Only a fully fledged apocalypticist would do something like that.

“But you know all of this—at least in theory. So call me, Erasmus, my dear friend, that’s all I’m asking. A brief moment of cool, calm reflection: I’m giving you ten hours with effect from now.”

When the message ended, I just sat there with the cell phone in my hand and my head between my knees in an effort to get some blood back to my brain. Then I filled the basin with cold water and dunked my head, as if I were being waterboarded, five times up and down. Then I dried my face and hair with their pink towel and sat down on the toilet lid again, steeled myself. Opened the little envelope on the cell-phone display.

It was not an S.M.S., as I had thought, but a media message. I did not even know it was possible to receive something like an image on such an old cell phone. The picture was also hard to make out, due to the low resolution. The only thing I could see was a large white surface in the foreground, some sort of long stick with a darker top and a blurry figure in the background.

The image was incomprehensible—until I suddenly realized what it must have represented.

Although my head was still cold from the water, I felt the heat rise up over my hair as if I were already in flames. The content of the picture was simple, almost stylized, like the message. A plastic jerry can in the foreground, a matchbox beside it. And Zafirah in the background. She who was always sent into the thick of things.

I clicked on the timing information. The picture, the almost over-explicit message saying, “WE ALL BURN SO FAST AND FOR SUCH A SHORT TIME”, was received at 17.33—when Edelweiss’ ultimatum of ten hours from the day before, when he recorded the messages, ran out. And immediately after, he had tried to call me four times: as I was making my way through the secret hatch under the floor drain up to the hallway.

Without even having to check, I also knew that his first call and the picture message must have been sent at precisely the times of sunrise and sunset in Sweden at this time of year. That Edelweiss, like Ingrid, favored symbolic time , as he called it.

I checked the actual time: my watch showed 18.16. Only then did I hear sounds from the hallway. The three women coming out of the bathroom opposite, Ingrid chatting away as she moved toward the living room—“Now just knock back the whole glass, Aina, you really need it!”—and Jesús María saying nothing. They had been taking their time in there too.

I managed to get to my feet, my body seemingly moving on its own. As soon as I came into the living room, Sixten forced a champagne glass into my hand.

“At long last, Erasmus. I have to admit I was wondering what on earth you were all up to in there, in your various bathrooms. But it’ll have been worth waiting for…”

Aina interrupted, her smile even broader than Sixten’s if that were possible.

“Long hair really suits you, Erasmus.”

“Yes, you should have seen him when he was a student, in his first year…” Ingrid said—before she and Aina started giggling like schoolgirls.

I was trying to get a grip on the situation, my expression giving nothing away. The champagne must have gone straight to Aina’s head. She who never drank a drop.

While I took a careful mouthful of the alcohol, I let my eyes travel across the walls, the marine paintings, the mustard-yellow curtain arrangement: all this intense normality. Trying to find the ways which Zafirah and perhaps Kurt-or-John would get in. As well as the hidden emergency exits through which we would soon have to escape.

Sixten emptied the champagne bottle into our glasses, cleared his throat and began his speech.

“O.K., everybody, it’s time. The moment I never thought would arrive. When Aina at last becomes older than me!”

Small roses flushed Aina’s cheeks, Ingrid gave her a sisterly hug. I looked around for the potted plant, had to stay sober. Sixten cleared his throat again before going on.

“Be all that as it may… as it may…”

When he looked down at the floor, a little too long for it to have been merely for effect, I thought I could see tears in his eyes.

“…for our many long years together, my darling Aina… for the fact that Providence brought us together. Skål to you—and to us!”

“Amen to that!” Jesús María said.

An awkward silence followed: this may well have been the Nurse’s first utterance in this group. I noted that she too had emptied her glass. Everyone except Jesús María then turned their gaze toward me. It was my turn next.

“To Aina!” I said.

Ingrid awaited her turn, a practiced speaker. Then she too raised her glass and caught everyone’s attention. Let her look slowly and theatrically move between Sixten, Aina and me.

“ Für Elise! ” she said at last.

I jumped as if hit by a shock wave, could not stop myself. Ingrid’s two small words had confirmed my hypothesis. It was Beethoven’s best known piano sonata, the one which Lise Meitner used to play as a four-handed piece with her nephew and fellow researcher Otto Robert Frisch. Maybe not least because Lise’s real first name was none other than Elise.

Besides which, the first letters in the name of the sonata were the same as on the key Sixten had given me: “F.E.”

My thoughts swirled chaotically. What I simply could not understand was what Aina could have to do with any of this. Until Ingrid addressed the birthday girl, now all of a sudden pale.

“It was in many ways Lise, or Elise, who shaped even your destiny. Made my and Sixten’s relationship impossible—and at the same time allowed you two to live your wonderful lives together. In one magical instant. Almost exactly forty-five years ago, on October 25, 1968, just after 4.00 p.m.”

The silence became like a vacuum: we were all gasping for breath.

“And not even I, with my galloping imagination, thought that I would ever get to see either of you again.”

A new artificial pause, and I stole a look at Jesús María. Even she was staring at her feet.