… and then just standing there one day with my hands tied behind my back while everyone else’s hands were free to do whatever they liked, even if I didn’t want to. Didn’t want to cry when they weren’t crying because that could have been really embarrassing, especially when they’d come such a long way to sleep with me and not their wives. They probably thought it was nice not to have to pay the bill for being at home and pottering about all day instead of getting their arms and legs scratched from all the dragging …
She felt confused, tired and reluctant. A physical tiredness, as if she’d been exercising.
The noise of the television. The rain against the window.
And then that relentless voice. Should she stop listening?
… the old guys wanted to go off in the morning of course and then come back to food that was always good and nutritious and filling even if it tasted of sex and wasn’t spiced …
Sofia could hear Victoria start to cry, and thought it odd that she herself had no memory of it happening.
When no one was looking of course you could let your mouth drip over the saucepans and fill them up with things you really ought to flush away. And then I got left with Grandma and Grandad. That was nice because I got away from all the arguments with Dad and without him it got easier to sleep without the wine or pills that you could have a go at if you wanted to get a nice feeling in your head. Just getting that voice to shut up, and stop going on and on, asking if today was going to be the day when you were going to dare …
Sofia woke up in front of the computer at half past midnight, feeling very uncomfortable.
She closed the document and went out into the kitchen to get a glass of water, but changed her mind and went back into the hall to get the packet of cigarettes from her coat pocket.
As she smoked under the exhaust fan she thought about Victoria’s story.
Everything fitted together, more or less, and even though it seemed incoherent to start with, there weren’t actually any gaps. It was one long, single story. An hour stretched out to a lifetime like a piece of chewing gum.
How far could it stretch before it broke? she thought, putting the burning cigarette down in the ashtray.
She went back into the study and got her notes. They said: SAUNA, BABY BIRDS, CLOTH DOG, GRANDMA, RUN, TAPE, VOICE, COPENHAGEN. The words were written in her handwriting, even if it was scruffier and more jagged than usual.
Interesting, she thought, taking the pocket tape recorder back to the kitchen. She pulled a chair up against the stove.
While she rewound the tape she picked the cigarette out of the ashtray. She stopped the tape halfway and pressed play. The first thing she heard was her own voice.
‘Where did you go when you went far away like that?’
She could see in her mind’s eye how Victoria changed position, adjusting the skirt that had ridden up around her thighs.
‘Well, I wasn’t very old then, of course, but I think we used to go up to Dorotea and Vilhelmina in southern Lapland. But we might have gone even further. I got to sit in the front for the first time, and I felt like a grown-up. He told me loads of things, then tested me to see if I remembered them. Once he had an encyclopedia on the steering wheel and tested me on all the world’s capital cities. In the book it said that Quezon City was the capital of the Philippines, but I said it was actually Manila, and nothing else. He got cross and we took bets on a pair of new slalom boots. When it later turned out that I was right I got a second-hand pair made of leather that he’d bought from a flea market and that I never used.’
‘How long were you away? And did your mum go with you?’
She heard Victoria laugh.
‘God, no, she never came along.’
They sat in silence for almost a minute before she heard herself point out that Victoria had said something about a voice.
‘What sort of voice was it? Do you often hear voices?’
Sofia was annoyed at her repetition.
‘Yes, sometimes when I was little,’ Victoria replied. ‘But to start with it was more like an intense noise that gradually increased in volume and tone. Sort of like a constantly rising hum.’
‘Do you still hear it?’
‘No, that was a long time ago. But when I was sixteen, seventeen, the monotonous noise turned into a voice.’
‘And what did the voice say?’
‘Most of the time it wondered if I was going to dare today. Dare you? Dare you? Dare you, today? Yes, it was pretty annoying sometimes.’
‘What do you think the voice meant about daring?’
‘Easy – daring to kill myself! Christ, if you only knew how I’ve struggled with that voice. So when I finally did it, it stopped.’
‘You mean you tried to commit suicide?’
‘Yes, when I was seventeen and had been off travelling with some friends. We were coming back from somewhere in France, I think, and when I got to Copenhagen I was completely wrecked, and tried to hang myself in the hotel room.’
‘You tried to hang yourself?’
When she heard her own voice she thought it sounded unsteady.
‘Yes … I woke up on the bathroom floor with the belt around my neck. The hook in the ceiling had come loose and I’d hit my mouth and nose on the tiles. There was blood everywhere, and I’d chipped one of my front teeth.’
She had opened her mouth to show Sofia a crown on her right front tooth. It was a slightly different colour from the one on the left.
‘And that’s when the voice stopped?’
‘Yes, seems like it. I’d proved that I dared, so I don’t suppose there was any point in it carrying on nagging.’
Victoria laughed.
Sofia heard them sit there in silence, just breathing, for what must have been a couple of minutes. Then the sound of Victoria pushing her chair back, picking up her coat and leaving.
Sofia stubbed out her third cigarette, switched off the fan and went to bed. It was almost three in the morning, and it had stopped raining.
What had happened that had made Victoria stop their sessions? They were finally getting somewhere.
She realised that she missed her conversations with Victoria Bergman.
The road
MEANDERING ACROSS SVARTSJ?LANDET was empty for a long time, but eventually she found a boy.
Alone at the side of the road with a broken bicycle.
In need of a lift.
Trusting everyone.
Had never learned to recognise people who have been let down.
The room was lit up by a bulb in the ceiling, and she watched the performance from a chair in one corner.
In the wall opposite the hidden door to the living room she had mounted a sturdy iron boathook.
They had undressed the boy, put a choker chain around his neck, and tied him to the hook using a two-metre-long chain.
He had four square metres to move around in, but had no chance of reaching her.
On the floor beside her lay the electric cable, and in her lap she had the taser that, if necessary, could fire two metal projectiles. When they hit the boy, fifty thousand volts would pulse through his body for five seconds. His muscles would cramp and he would be rendered completely harmless.
She gave Gao the signal that the performance could begin.
He had used the morning to purify himself and, through hour after hour of meditation, to minimise his thought processes. There must be no logic left to distract him from doing what he had been trained to do.