Caroline Eriksson - The Missing

“I thought Jorma would calm down after we found it again. No harm done, really. I tried to get him to forget about you, but he… When he gets in that kind of mood, it’s impossible to know what… It’s like there are no limits. Sometimes I even think he might…”

She stops and gives me a furtive glance, obviously uncomfortable. Like she’s said too much.

“I thought if he got your cat, then maybe that would be enough.”

I look at her, shaking my head in resignation.

“I don’t understand. I really don’t get what you’re talking about.”

She studies me skeptically, as if I’ve missed something important. Only after several seconds does it seem to dawn on her that I’m actually as clueless as I look. She takes a deep breath and then exhales noisily. She comes over to the fallen tree trunk and sits down next to me, keeping a small space between us. Even though it’s August, she’s wearing heavy leather shoes. She runs the tips over the ground, sketching some sort of abstract pattern.

“The boat,” she says with a sigh. “It’s about the boat, of course.”

She looks at me to see if I’m following, but I shake my head. I still don’t get it.

“Our boats,” says the girl. “It’s about our boats.”

She’s speaking with confidence, emphasizing the word our . I picture two boats in my mind. A skiff and a dirty white rowboat. I see the bloodstains on board, a red blob in one end. The girl sitting next to me is still talking. Maybe it’s because I haven’t eaten or slept properly for days. Maybe it’s because of the pregnancy and its effect on both my body and soul. Or possibly it’s because during the past twenty-four hours I’ve been desperately searching for two people who have disappeared without a trace. And instead of finding them, I’ve wandered farther into the fog, sinking deeper and deeper into the dunes.

That could be why I’m having a hard time seeing where the girl’s explanation is heading. Or maybe it’s some sort of defense mechanism, a way of resisting an idea that’s brewing. It couldn’t be… It can’t be… I hear only fragments of what she’s saying. The last time. Left there. Disappeared. Found. The other side of the lake. Jorma. It was you. Revenge.

From a distance, I hear a roaring sound. It gets so loud that I have to put my hands over my ears. But it doesn’t stop. The world around me is shaking. It keeps going so long that I finally have to scream. Someone pulls my hands away and cautiously moves them down to my sides. Someone is holding their face close to mine and talking to me. I can’t make out any of the words, but the voice is unexpectedly gentle. Finally, I realize it’s the girl, Greta. She’s intoning soothing words in my ear as she strokes my back. And she keeps at it until I calm down. Until the roaring has faded away, until the screams have left my throat shredded and my body exhausted. After that, we sit in silence for a while, next to each other. Then I turn to face her, and she turns to face me. And when our eyes meet, I start to speak.

By the time I’m done, after everything has poured out of me, the sun has reached the tops of the trees, and it’s getting hot. I pull the anorak over my head and wipe the sweat from my brow. Greta pulls the handle of the ax from her belt and gives it back to me.

“I feel sorry for you,” she says. “I wish there was something I could do.”

“There is,” I tell her. “Leave him. Do it now, this instant, before it’s too late.”

She gives me a wan smile.

“You’re going to be a good mother.”

Then I hear it. The ringing. It’s in one of the anorak pockets. For what seems like the thousandth time in a row, I run my hands over the fabric, inside and out, yanking on the zippers and buttons to get to my phone. But this time, it feels different. Because now I know. Actually, I knew all along.

I press the phone to my ear. This time, what I hear is not just silence on the other end. This time I hear the confident, self-assured voice of a man.

“Hi, Greta. It’s Alex. Did you miss me?”

That evening when we walked down to the boat. Me trailing behind the other two, my eyes fixed on Smilla’s thin legs sticking out from under her pink cotton dress. Legs effervescent with life, containing so much energy that she had to skip, since ordinary walking wasn’t enough. Something about those legs made me think of the movie that Alex had chosen for us to watch a few days earlier. It was the story of a pedophile, the violence of a child killer, a dark, depressing, merciless drama. When the camera finally zoomed in on the girl’s pale, lifeless legs sticking out from under a bush, I could no longer hold back my sobs. I ran to the bathroom and threw up. Again.

Alex was still deeply engrossed in the film when I came back. He hardly glanced up when I sat down stiffly on the very edge of the sofa. I still hadn’t told him about the baby. Part of me had thought it would become obvious, that he would notice I was constantly throwing up and put two and two together. But that didn’t happen. He didn’t find out until after we arrived in Marhem. And not until then was I prepared to tell him the news myself. That was only a few hours before Smilla arrived, a few hours before I would lie awake and make up my mind to keep the baby. And leave Alex.

The next morning, I told him, but he didn’t take me seriously. I should have packed up and left right then, but something held me back. Was I trying to avoid making a scene in front of Smilla? Or was I simply surprised by Alex’s reaction and needed time to pull myself together? Whatever the reason, I stayed that day. After dinner, I followed them down to the lake. Out on the dock, he turned to face me. The evening sun formed a bloodred halo around his head. He smiled.

“Nice to see you’ve changed your mind.”

I was filled with a single, crystal-clear emotion. There was only one reply. As I recall, I didn’t even have to steel myself before uttering the words.

“I haven’t.”

We got into the boat and went out to the island, where he disappeared without a trace. Went underground. I’ve been searching for several days now, trying to make contact, but without success. And all of a sudden Alex is back. His breathing in my ear sounds calm, self-satisfied. Apparently he has me right where he wants me. I press the phone harder against my ear so I won’t drop it. I know he’s waiting for me to say something, but I can’t manage a single word.

“Clearly speechless from longing,” he says at last. “Are you still in Marhem?”

I murmur affirmatively. I’m about to ask him where he is, but then I realize there’s something I have to find out first.

“How is Smilla? She’s not hurt, is she? You didn’t…”

I can’t finish the sentence. Fear and suspicion have plagued me ever since they disappeared. Fear of the unimaginable, the unspeakable. Even though there’s no real reason for such anxiety. At least not based on the little I’ve seen of their interaction. Yet I’ve feared that Alex might hurt Smilla. That, for lack of other targets, he might vent his frustration on her, act out his inclinations on her. I can’t bring myself to voice these concerns out loud. I can hardly bear even to think them. But that’s the reason I stayed here in Marhem after they disappeared. Because I feel a weight on my shoulders, a burden that won’t ease until I know that Smilla is safe. That nothing bad has happened to her.

I think about the elderly man in the brown house, who said he’d seen Alex and Smilla. I remember the words he used to describe Alex. Angry. Or terrified. Hard to tell which it was. Even though I didn’t know how seriously to take the man’s statement, it was his words that finally made me go to the police. For Smilla’s sake. I’ve never seen Alex afraid, can’t even imagine him being terrified. But I’m familiar with his inner fury, and I know all too well the kinds of things he does when driven by rage.