Caroline Eriksson - The Missing

“Go ahead and tell your story,” she says. “Then we’ll see.”

Mama takes a deep breath. She sinks down on the sofa behind me.

“Okay,” she says after a long pause. “I’m going to tell you what really happened on a late September night long ago.”

I can’t see her face from where I’m sitting on the floor. I realize that’s the way she wants it.

Unlike Greta, I remember every detail from that night. Like the fact that I was freezing, but didn’t ask him to close the window. The cigarette in his hand, the reddish glow that flared every time he took a puff. I even remember how the cigarette paper disintegrated. And I remember what he said. Every single word.

What was left of the amber-colored liquid in his glass sloshed back and forth when he lashed out at me. It was his modus operandi, of course. The best defense and all that. That was his motto. Whatever I confronted him with, what I’d seen or heard or realized, was always handled the same way. He neither confessed nor denied. Nor did he apologize or beg forgiveness. Instead, he turned scornful and mocking, launching a counterattack and letting me know what a disgusting person I was. And even more disgusting as a woman. So repulsive that I made his dick shrivel up. Ugly enough to stop a clock. Finicky and complaining. A real cunt.

I used to think I was putting up a good fight. That I was strong. That he needed me even though he didn’t realize it. I convinced myself I was the same person with him as I was at my job, with my friends, out in the world. Someone who refused to be provoked or humiliated. That worked relatively well. Until he knocked my legs out from under me once again. Cunt. I don’t know why that particular term had such an effect on me. I only know that when he hurled it, I lost everything—my voice, my balance, my composure.

It was as if he’d torn off all my clothes to expose my nakedness. As if he’d pried my ribs apart and stuck in his fist and rummaged around until he found the scared little jellylike lump that was the real me. He held up that lump between us, forced me to look at it. Then he forced me to acknowledge what he already knew, what he’d claimed all along: that no matter how hard I tried to fool myself and the rest of the world into thinking that I was smart and special, deep inside I was nothing but a pitiful, colorless, trembling little lump. That’s all.

Outwardly, I did everything in my power to maintain the façade. Not that I was afraid people would find out what he was really like, this man I’d married. No, I was afraid they’d discover me, that jellylike lump, underneath the competent, robust surface. Ruth was the only person who knew, who was allowed to see how fragile I was. I met her through my job. For a while, we worked in the same department, and when the agency reorganized, we stayed friends. By then, Ruth had become not only important but essential for me. With her steady and sensible nature, she was my lifeline. I trusted her implicitly.

But back to that night. Just when I thought the argument was over, as I was about to put on a sweater and go out for a walk in the neighborhood to calm down, something happened that would change everything.

“I know what you did to Greta. Hit your own child? How could you?” he said.

His voice was sharp, his words as cold as the air outside the window. We stared at each other in silence. Out of the corner of my eye, I remember noticing a patch of white in the doorway, but I couldn’t tear my eyes off his face. Shame opened a chasm in the floor beneath my feet, sucking me downward. But I was forced to pull myself together. I had to.

“What did Greta say?”

He took another drag on his cigarette, lifted his chin to blow the smoke high into the air, and then laughed.

“Greta? She didn’t say anything. It’s sick how fucking loyal she is to you.”

“But then how…? Who…?”

The world stood still, and at the same time seemed to be whirling so fast. He stared at me for a long time, one eyebrow raised.

“Well. Who do you think?”

“There’s only one person who knew, and she would never…”

Ruth would never betray me like that. That’s what I meant, even though I didn’t finish the sentence. He shrugged, that sneering smile still on his face. Stubbed out his cigarette. Settled himself more comfortably, with both legs drawn up in the bay window. He downed the rest of his drink, not saying a word, waiting.

I thought about Ruth. The expression on her face when I tried to explain what I’d done in her kitchen, when she listened to my pleas. Ruth, this has to stay between us, okay? You know what would happen if it got out at work. It would get blown out of proportion, turned into something that it’s not. I would be the woman who hits her own child, and nobody would ever…

It’s true that things had seemed more strained than usual between us since that night. But no one at work had found out, I was sure of that. I would have noticed. Ruth hadn’t said anything to them. So why would she have told him? My husband, of all people? Out of concern for Greta? Because she worried I might hit her again? No, Ruth knew me better than that.

“But why?” I managed to say. “Why would she tell you about that?”

Maybe at that point part of me was aware of the little figure off to the side who had started to move and was coming closer. If so, I didn’t really register it. I was no longer receptive to any outside input. Everything was drowned out by the answer he gave, the insinuating tone of his voice.

“Oh, come on. Isn’t it obvious?”

And suddenly it was. My mind created a frame around what had taken place at Ruth’s apartment on that night. A frame that contracted and focused, zeroing in on details I had naively overlooked. The fact that when Ruth opened her door, there was already something different about the way she greeted me. The tense look on her face when I told her about the naked woman in my living room. And the way she immediately got up from the kitchen table, turned her back to me, and began emptying the dishwasher. She said maybe I should have thought about that earlier on. I asked what she meant.

“You have a very charismatic husband,” she said. “You knew what you were getting into when you married him.”

Maybe I should have paid more attention to what she said. It was so unlike Ruth. Maybe I should have had a stronger or different reaction. But at that moment, Greta came into the kitchen, wanting to go home. Everything was chaos inside me. Frustration, despair. And then she flung that word in my face, my own daughter. One thing led to another. My hand flew through the air, landing on my child’s cheek. So fast. Everything happened so fast. Just as it did that night three months later.

I didn’t simply walk over to him, I rushed at him. Holding my palms out in front of me. I slammed them against his chest and the side of his body as hard as I could. I saw the surprise in his eyes, how his face contorted as he plummeted through the open window. He’d never expected anything like that. I’d caught him off guard.

Suddenly, Greta was there, next to me. She reached out through the open window, but it was too late. He’d already been swallowed up by the dark. Maybe their eyes met one last time, father and daughter. Maybe they didn’t.

Afterward, I spent a full night and day lying on the bed alone, with the door closed, cut off from my daughter. People spoke to me, but I had no words to offer in response. At first, all I had were screams and tears, which I’d kept so firmly at bay before. Later, when my body had emptied itself out, silence settled over me. It took twenty-four hours before I could muster enough strength to get out of bed. Twenty-four hours before I could make myself look into the eyes of my eight-year-old daughter. I took her in my arms, feeling how she huddled close as I whispered in her ear. I whispered that it was over now, that we would move on, stay together, and that she could count on me.