THE MYTH OF Oedipus is one of the oldest stories of revenge.
When Oedipus came to Pythia as a child, she foresaw that he would kill his father, the king of Thebes, and then marry his mother. To escape this fate the boy’s parents decided to have him killed. But the man who was charged with carrying out the murder took pity on the child and chose instead to raise him as his own son. Unaware of the prophecy, Oedipus went on to kill his father and marry his mother, the dowager queen.
Murder. Betrayal. Revenge.
Everything is cyclical.
The Bergman family is a snake swallowing its own tail, and Madeleine doesn’t want to be part of this vicious circle any more.
At Gr?na Lund, Madeleine had found Victoria Bergman by chance, and because she believed that the boy holding her mother’s hand was her half-brother, she had acted on impulse, too hastily.
This time she has found her by the Skanstull Bridge, where Viggo had seen her before, but couldn’t bring herself to go up to her.
Now Madeleine is standing at the Klippgatan stairs, having followed the little blue car deeper into S?dermalm.
She looks at the woman who is her mother on the other side of the street.
Victoria Bergman.
She’s huddled up, and looks like she’s freezing.
Madeleine gets out of the car, hurries across the road, and is just ten metres behind her when she reaches the pavement. She feels inside her jacket pocket. The revolver is cold, metallic.
Loaded with six bullets. Implacable and merciless, with one crystal-clear purpose.
The key to her freedom.
A man closes the boot of his car and Victoria Bergman jumps, clearly frightened by the noise. Then the door of the shop on the corner opens. An old woman comes out and stops outside the door, fumbles with her bag, then sets off towards the steps leading up to the church.
The woman who is her mother follows the old woman.
Tragicomic.
Everyone is following everyone else, and Madeleine realises that she herself has always walked behind someone, been a few steps after them, living each moment too late. She has always found herself staring at someone else’s back, but when she catches up with them and kills them she still hasn’t been able to leave them behind. They are never behind her, they are always in front of her, or on the periphery, like hazy, disturbing faces without meaning.
Madeleine can see that Victoria Bergman is suffering from chafed heels, just like her.
She’s limping as if she were walking on glass, and Madeleine gets a glimpse of how she herself is going to look in twenty years. Her body thin and brittle. Never relaxed. Restless, aimless wandering through life.
What if they hadn’t taken me away from you? Madeleine thinks. What would have happened then?
No P-O. No Charlotte.
Would she have had a better life?
The woman who is her mother says something to the old woman, who is now halfway up the flight of steps. But Madeleine can’t hear any words, just her own memories.
Charlotte lying to the psychiatrist at University Hospital in Copenhagen, and then shouting at her in the hospital car park.
Charlotte snapping that she’s a horrible, unwanted child and that Charlotte’s life was ruined the day she came to them.
Charlotte catching Madeleine by surprise when she’s watching the video her foster-parents have hidden.
Three girls, one eating excrement.
Around them people in pig masks.
Just like in the pigpen at Viggo’s farm.
As a punishment for watching the film she is grounded and P-O visits her every night.
What would her memories of childhood have looked like if she had grown up with her real mother?
Madeleine isn’t prepared for the emotions flooding over her. She hasn’t got words for them. Her emotions have long been dormant. So long that only the memory of them is stored in her body, not linked to any particular event.
These emotions manifest themselves in a tear running down her cheek.
A solitary, heavy tear of longing for something that never existed.
The old woman walks up the second flight of steps and disappears into the darkness.
Victoria Bergman stays where she is, leaning against the railing. Behind her the silhouette of Sofia Church looks like a vast beacon raised against the sky.
Madeleine approaches. Stops at the bottom of the steps and looks at the bowed back from behind.
Then she sees it slowly straighten up. Victoria raises her head, and her pale hand takes a firm grip of the handrail.
Death is rich in comparison to life, Madeleine thinks, putting her hand in her pocket and taking hold of the revolver.
Life is monotonous, and fairly easy to learn. A journey from scream to scream where your hopes are limited and words of explanation vanishingly few.
Victoria turns round, and for a brief moment they look at each other.
Memories she’s never possessed come to her, growing like a wave about to hit a stony beach.
A single tear for a stolen past, and she feels cold and tired as she realises that she has reached the bottom and only the journey back remains. She wants to get away from the cold, to thaw out.
Her head fills with images.
Memories she wishes she had had wash over snapshots of her past. A swell forcing its way with a gentle hiss between algae-covered rocks, only to subside and slowly withdraw to the sea.
A mother with her daughter in her arms. The comforting warmth of a soft breast. A hand caressing her chin and stroking her hair.
A daughter doing a drawing for her mother. A smiling sun in a blue sky, and a girl playing with a dog in a green field.
A mother carefully removing a splinter from her daughter’s finger. She gets a plaster, although there’s really no need. And hot chocolate and cheese sandwiches.
A daughter coming home from school with an apron she’s sewn for her mother. Blue, with red hearts on it. The seams are a little crooked, but it doesn’t matter. The mother is proud of her daughter.
The tear stiffens on Madeleine’s cheek. A single tear of longing, absorbed by her skin and leaving a pale, almost invisible trace of salt.
They could have loved each other.
Could have.
But were denied the chance.
Victoria’s gaze is distant, hidden behind a veil of madness. She can’t see me, Madeleine thinks. I’m invisible.
She loosens her grip on the revolver.
Mum, she thinks. I feel sorry for you, and it’s enough of a punishment to let you live. You’re like me. No past, and no future. Like the first empty page in an unwritten book.
Victoria Bergman starts to climb upward. Slowly at first, but soon with quicker, more determined steps. She reaches the top of the first flight, then the second.
Then she too is gone.
Madeleine realises that she’s done the right thing.
There’s nothing more to do and her body slumps, in a fraction of a second of relief.