Becoming an adult is a crime against your own childhood and simultaneously a denial of Gnosis. A child has no gender and being genderless is closer to the primitive, the original. Discovering your gender is a criminal act against the original creator.
I am an insect, she thinks, as she listens to the steps behind her. They slow down and stop. I am a centipede, a myriapod, and I cannot be explained. Anyone who understood me would have to be as sick as I am. There is no analysis. Commit me to the moaning earth.
She thinks no more as the bullet drills through her bowed head, but her brain has time to register a bang and the flapping of birds escaping into the night sky.
Then darkness.
Dala-Floda
ONCE SHE HAS dried herself and got dressed, she sits beside the lake for several hours. What had once fitted into a small, enclosed room is now spread over an area of at least a hectare. At first it had looked almost like water lilies, but now there are just a few grey stains in the darkness.
A few of the sheets had drifted back to shore. A few incomprehensible lines from a book, maybe a photograph from a newspaper or a note about Gao Lian or Solace Manuti.
Then spring will come and all these papers will rot into the sand or at the bottom of the lake.
As she drives back through the village it has stopped snowing, and she doesn’t so much as glance at the cottages. She just concentrates on the road winding its way south through the forest.
Soon the snow disappears from the surface of the road; the conifers become mixed forest with birch and maples interspersed with pine and fir. The landscape becomes flatter and the van feels as light as a feather on the tarmac.
The weight she has left behind makes the wheels turn faster. She no longer has any baggage to drag around, and it occurs to her that the van-rental company has branches all over the country, and that she could return the van in Sk?ne if she wants.
She sticks just above the speed limit on main roads, but not because she’s in a hurry to get anywhere. One hundred kilometres an hour is a meditative speed.
She actually has everything she needs with her. In her bag is her purse, driving licence and bank cards, as well as a clean set of underwear. The damp towel is draped over the passenger seat, steaming gently from the seat warmer.
She doesn’t have to worry about money, and the payment to the housing cooperative is through direct debit.
She’s approaching Fagersta. If she continues along Route 66 she’ll be back in Stockholm in a couple of hours, whereas Route 68 heads south towards ?rebro.
She stops in a lay-by a kilometre or so from where the road splits.
Straight ahead is home, back to the past. If she deviates from the planned route it will take her towards something new.
A journey without a goal. She switches the engine off.
During the past few weeks she has effectively shaken off her previous life. She’s torn it down, dismantled it into small pieces, and thrown away those parts that don’t belong to her. False memories have been deconstructed and hidden memories brought out and crystallised. She has reached clarity, a cleansed state.
Catharsis.
She will no longer give names to her characteristics, will not distance herself from her being by inventing other selves. She has freed herself from all the names: Gao Lian, Solace Manuti, the Worker, the Analyst and the Moaning Minnie, the Reptile, the Sleepwalker and Crow Girl.
She will never again hide away from life, letting unknown parts of her deal with things she finds difficult.
Everything that happens from now on happens to Victoria Bergman, no one else.
She looks at her reflection in the rear-view mirror. At last she recognises herself; it’s not the contorted and cowed face she wore when Sofia Zetterlund was the one in charge.
It’s a face that’s still young, and she can see no regret in it, no traces of a life full of painful memories. That must mean that she has finally accepted everything that has happened.
Her childhood and adolescence were what they were. A living hell.
She starts the van and pulls out onto the road again. One kilometre, two kilometres, and then she turns right, towards the south. The last of her doubts leave her and the black forest rushes past outside the windows.
From now on she’s not going to have any plans.
Everything that belongs to the past no longer has anything to do with her life. It has made her who she is today, but her past will never poison her again. Never influence her life choices and future. She has no responsibility for anyone but herself, and she realises that the decision she is making right now is definitive.
A new sign with a new place name, but she continues straight on as she thinks about Jeanette. Are you going to miss me?
Yes, but you’ll get over it. People always do.
I’m going to miss you too, she thinks. I might even love you, but I don’t yet know if it’s for real. So it’s better that I leave.
If it’s genuine love, I’ll come back. If I don’t, then that’s fine. Then we’ll know it wasn’t worth gambling on anyway.
It starts to get light as she’s driving through the forests of V?stmanland. Forest, and more forest, with the occasional break where a patch of woodland has been felled, or for the odd meadow or field. She passes through Riddarhyttan, the only community along this stretch of road, and when the forest takes over again she decides to take things to their natural conclusion. Everything must be removed, everything must go.
She looks at the time. Quarter past eight, which means that Ann-Britt ought to be at work. She takes her mobile out and calls the practice. Ann-Britt answers after a couple of rings. Victoria gets straight to the point and explains what she’s decided to do, and how the practical concerns ought to be dealt with. Slightly curious about Ann-Britt’s reaction, she asks if she has any questions.
‘No, I don’t know what to say,’ the secretary replies after a few moments of silence. ‘It’s all very sudden, of course.’
‘Are you going to miss me?’ Victoria wonders.
Ann-Britt clears her throat. ‘Yes, I am. Can I ask why you’re doing this?’
‘Because I can,’ she replies, and that answer will have to do for the time being.
When they hang up and she’s about to put the phone back she feels the keys in her pocket.
She takes the key ring out and holds it up in front of her. It’s heavy, and contains all her keys. To the practice, and all the ones for the building on Borgm?stargatan. The key to the apartment, the storage compartment, the laundry, as well as another key that she can’t remember the purpose of. The bicycle store, perhaps.
She winds the window down and throws the keys out.
She leaves the window open, and the cold air spreads through the cab.
She hasn’t slept for almost two days, but doesn’t feel remotely tired.
Victoria looks at her phone. What does she really need it for? It only contains a mass of obligations, distracting phone numbers, and a diary with far too many appointments that Ann-Britt is now going to have to cancel. It’s pointless.