The only way to keep her mouth producing saliva is to lick the tape covering her mouth. The bitter taste of the glue makes her feel sick, but she still licks the inside of her lips and along the edges of the tape at regular intervals.
If only she could produce enough saliva, it might come free altogether. But the worst thing that could happen would be to throw up, because then she would suffocate.
Even though she’s seriously dehydrated, she feels as if she needs to empty her bladder. But she can’t do it. Her body won’t obey her, and no matter how hard she tries, she can’t squeeze out a single drop. It only works if she gives up and stops trying. Then the warmth spreads over her crotch and thighs.
It’s a hot, itchy feeling.
She soon notices the cloying smell. She doesn’t know if she’s imagining it, but it feels like her urine makes the air a bit more moist, and she takes long, deep breaths through her nose.
She knows it’s possible to survive for quite a long time without food. Several months, she seems to recall. But how long can you survive without water?
Her chances of survival ought to be better if she moves as little as possible, lying still and not burning up so many fluids. Minimising her physical exertions. And not crying.
Ulrika Wendin’s eyes are dry as they look at the shades of grey-black above her, and her tongue sticks to the roof of her mouth as she slips into unconsciousness again.
In her dream she’s drifting in space and looking down on herself.
In the distance she imagines she can hear a sound of something breaking, and she realises that it must be the centre of the galaxy exploding.
Baltic Sea – MS Cinderella
ONE DAY YOU find out that your life has been the blink of an eye, Madeleine thinks, as she looks in the mirror in the tiny bathroom of her cabin. Life is an almost imperceptible yawn, and then it ends so abruptly that you’ve hardly had time to notice it’s started.
The ship rolls, and she holds on to the door frame and sits down on the bunk. On the table is a glass of ice cubes next to an open bottle of champagne, and she pours a second glassful into the toothbrush mug.
One day you’re standing there with a stupid smile on your lips, reading in your mental diary about all the hopes and dreams you once had, she thinks, raising the mug to her lips and taking a sip of champagne. The bubbles tickle the roof of her mouth. It tastes of mature fruit, with hints of minerals, herbs and roasted coffee.
Her internal diary is full of uneventful pages that are largely empty. Days that have passed without making any memorable impression. Aeons of existence that have been nothing but waiting. Yes, she’s waited so long that time and waiting have become the same thing.
Then there are other days. The terrible moments that made her who she is. The years she spent growing up in Denmark are like a pair of red knickers in a machine full of white wash.
Madeleine puts her headphones on and plugs them into her phone. She lies back on the bunk and listens.
Joy Division. First the drums, then a pumping bass, a simple hook, and finally Ian Curtis’s monotonous voice.
The ship’s irregular rolling and swaying relaxes her and the drunk people making a noise outside her door feel comforting in their unpredictability. The unexpected doesn’t scare her. It’s security that makes her feel anxious.
The rain is lashing the cabin window, and it feels like Ian Curtis is singing just for her in his slurred voice.
Confusion in her eyes that says it all. She’s lost control.
The singer, just twenty-four years old and suffering from epilepsy, committed suicide by hanging himself. But she’s not going to commit suicide. That would mean losing, and letting them win.
And she gave away the secrets of her past, and said I’ve lost control again.
She thinks about the fact that the woman who once called herself her mother sometimes used to say she’d rather be called by her first name, seeing as she wasn’t actually Madeleine’s real mother. On other occasions it most definitely had to not get out that Madeleine was the family’s foster-daughter. It was just as arbitrary as it was humiliating.
But that’s not why she has to die.
If you stand in silence and look on while grown men abuse a young girl, you very quickly lose any claim to mercy for yourself. And if you take pleasure in watching naked, drugged young boys fighting in a pigpen, and don’t care when one of the boys dies, you deserve no forgiveness. Everyone who was involved has realised that, one way or another, she thinks, seeing their dead bodies in front of her.
Fury is growing inside her, and she rubs her temples hard. She knows it’s crazy of her to compare herself to Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, but that’s the self-image she has nurtured her whole life. A girl who arrives at school one day together with her tame lion. Someone to be frightened of, and someone you have to respect.
A few hours later, and halfway to Mariehamn, in the ?land Islands, she goes down the corridor towards the nightclub at the front of the ship. She mustn’t be too late, or too early.
Everything will soon be over, and she can move on and shape her own future without having the voices of the past screaming in her ear.
The bar is full of people, and Madeleine has to push her way through the tables. The music is loud, and on a small stage two women are performing in front of a karaoke machine. They’re singing badly out of tune, but the audience likes their provocative dancing and there’s a lot of whistling and clapping.
You’re like tame livestock, she thinks.
Charlotte is sitting alone at one of the tables by the big panoramic window.
The woman she never called her mother is dressed primly in a dark jacket, a black skirt and a pair of grey tights, and Madeleine thinks it looks like she’s dressed for a funeral.
Charlotte stares straight at her, and their eyes meet for the first time in a very long while.
‘So … We meet again after all these years,’ Charlotte says, screwing her eyes up. Studying her.
I hate you, I hate you, I hate you …
‘I was foolish enough to think that we were finished with each other,’ she goes on. ‘But when I found P-O I had a feeling that you might be back.’
Madeleine sits down opposite Charlotte and looks directly into the woman’s eyes without saying anything. She feels that she’d like to smile, but can’t get her lips to obey. She wants to reply, but doesn’t know what to say, and although she has spent years formulating her accusation speech, she is suddenly struck dumb.
Like a machine that’s run down.