Mattias Berg - The Carrier

At that precise moment the sun rose above the hill opposite us, at an angle which allowed the lowest of its rays to fall just where the people were all gathered. From where I was, suddenly alone at the bottom of the lift—which was still running but was now not being used by anybody—I saw the faces in the crowd all turned toward the light, gazing at the pale disc of the sun. I could not help thinking about our early nuclear weapons tests. How the spectators had been sitting in rows, some with sunglasses, some without, admiring the ball of fire as it hovered half up in the sky, before the throng here raised their bottles and shouted “Skål!” to each other and to the now so distant star.

Then the music began to boom through enormous speakers at the base area, while people who seemed to be total strangers hugged and kissed, as if on New Year’s Eve. I looked at my watch: 11.21.

So this was the sun ritual—which instantly made the security situation much more fluid, so much harder to calculate. Ingrid was now almost the only person still skiing, and she had a clear view to both sides of the slope. But to navigate the crowd of people in the middle of the piste she needed to carve a sharp turn far out to the right, about where Jesús María seemed to have hidden herself away in the trees. Then she descended, carving giant turns around the lift pylons.

Only one other person could be seen on the piste. The solitary giant of a man, who became, in an instant, so recognizable. That terrifying pattern of movement, conspicuous even on skis.

When he took the lift up again just three seats ahead of Ingrid, who was gesticulating at me with her index finger to indicate that she wanted only one more descent, I started running up the hill as fast as I could with the hybrid on my back and her pack on my front. I noticed the amorous couple to the right of the festive crowd, just near to the point where Ingrid would be passing in a minute or two, but I was still too far away to be able to shout a warning—even if she were able to hear anything at all through the music and the buzz of the throng.

So Ingrid would soon be caught in their ingenious trap, with me as nothing more than spectator.

When the young man from the rental store looked at the clock and began the countdown—from sixty, second by second, as “The Final Countdown” blasted from the loudspeakers—I managed to get a reasonably clear line of sight through all the people as they stood there with eyes screwed tight shut against the disappearing sun, shouting out the numbers in unison. Was able, as I struggled to make my way through them, to follow what was happening behind their backs.

I watched as the pair of lovers, that is to say Zafirah and Kurt-or-John, first swept up Ingrid in what from a distance looked like an awkward embrace. And how something—or rather someone—then derailed their entire plan.

The binding on one of Kurt-or-John’s skis released as Jesús María threw herself at him—and in so doing set Ingrid free to ski downhill at speed. Zafirah melted into the crowd as if her presence had been an illusion, the passing of a shadow, while the other one of Kurt-or-John let himself be carried within the shifting mass of people, beyond reach.

Only Ingrid can have seen the rest of the events unfold, while the numbers approached zero and the volume of “The Final Countdown” continued to rise, drowning out the primal roar which must have followed.

I was too far away to be able to get involved. Just watched, like Ingrid, who had swung in among the trees on the other side of the piste, as Jesús María grabbed the ski which Kurt-or-John had lost, and with it hit him across the face. He staggered, fell backward from the force of all the pent-up rage, while the blood started to gush from his forehead, nose and mouth, effectively blinding him.

Jesús María raised the ski again. Held it like a giant scalpel, standing over Kurt-or-John’s prone figure.

The steel edge of the ski was drawn straight across his abdomen, slicing it with as much fury as precision. Yet Kurt-or-John did not come apart—since there was still bone there, the skeleton itself.

The rapidly growing pool of blood glistened, as it pumped out of the body rhythmically and the year’s last rays of sunshine was reflected in it, before it began to be absorbed into the snow. I gazed at the red on the white, that remarkably beautiful contrast. And the human remains lying there, Kurt-or-John like a slaughtered animal, steadily drained of blood, or a reindeer dragged down by a wolf on the hillside. Mused for a moment over the rate at which a human body can empty.

The countdown was completed. As the crowd yelled “THREE… TWO… ONE… ZERO—goodbye, thank you for another year!” I had to turn around quickly to see the sun sink behind the hill and leave a thin yellow-red line on the horizon. I checked my wrist-watch: 11.45, just as the young man had said. Saw the crowd start skiing down to the base so as not to miss the start of Polar Night après-ski, still not noticing anything of what had happened right behind their backs.

When the sight up the slope was clear, I stared at the last of the blood, not gushing but slowly seeping over the snow—before Jesús María dragged what was left of Kurt-or-John into the trees.

Back at the hotel, Ingrid took a quick shower while Jesús María disappeared off to the service area, down to the Girls. Probably to say her goodbyes. Bettan had laid out a magnificent farewell lunch, but had not herself appeared for it. None of us ate very much, either. Not even Ingrid.

Jesús María eventually appeared at the table.

“You were a godsend,” Ingrid said. “It seems they knew a bit too much about us: someone must have been indiscreet. That was a close call. Thank you.”

“ Igualmente ,” was Jesús María’s answer.

Before I had time to ask any questions, trying once again to understand the relationship between these women, not least that last reply, Bettan came into the dining room.

“He’s here now,” she said.

I noticed that Ingrid did not give Bettan a farewell hug before we vanished into the Kiruna afternoon, by now pitch-dark. Small snowflakes whirled in the air, stars could no longer be seen in the sky, the wind whistled through the low birches.

The man in the snowmobile suit gave Ingrid a clumsy embrace, before reaching out his mighty right glove, first toward me and then to Jesús María.

“Niklas. ‘The Magnificent’. Was it you who ordered the sightseeing?”

“Yes, thank you, my love. I’m so grateful. Bob and Mercedes will love it,” Ingrid said, back to her playful self with incredible speed after the incident on the slope. Jesús María sat in complete silence. Did not react at all, seemed still to be up there on the mountain, with Kurt-or-John’s remains fresh in her mind. I held back too. Tried to work out what role I should be playing now.

“No problem, Inko. But I have to admit I had no damned clue that you had cousins over there.”

“I’m glad I’ve managed to keep some secrets from you. And I suddenly had the idea of showing my only American relatives our little world. Before it’s too late—and the whole lot sinks into the deep.”

“Mmm, I know: like Atlantis.”

As he steered his pick-up truck out of the neighborhood, surprisingly slowly, Ingrid turned to us in the back seat.

“Niklas will always be very close to my heart. And not only because he was my first tragic love. He and I also took care of a large construction venture in the old days, massively complex, before I decided to try my luck in the U.S. using the project as an example of my work. That’s when we began to call him ‘The Magnificent’.”

“I think you were probably alone in that, Inko. But thanks anyway.”