Sofia Zetterlund wakes up with a throbbing headache.
She was dreaming that she was hiking in the mountains with an older man. They were looking for something, but she can’t remember what. The man had shown her an insignificant little flower and told her to dig it up. The ground was stony and hurt her hands. When she finally manages to get the whole plant out the man told her to smell the roots.
It had smelled like an entire bouquet of roses.
Roseroot, she thinks, and goes out into the kitchen.
She’s been getting headaches sporadically recently, but they usually pass after an hour or so. This time she feels it’s here to stay.
It’s part of her.
While the coffee machine hisses Sofia leafs through the pad of notes from her conversations with Victoria Bergman.
She reads: SAUNA, BABY BIRDS, CLOTH DOG, GRANDMA, RUN, TAPE, VOICE, COPENHAGEN, PADJELANTA, ROSEROOT.
Why has she written down those particular words?
Presumably because they were details that she felt were important for Victoria.
She lights a cigarette and leafs a bit further through the pad. On the penultimate page she sees some new notes, written upside down, as if she had started to write in the pad from the other direction: BURN DOWN, WHIP, SEEK GOODNESS IN FLESH …
At first she doesn’t recognise the handwriting. It’s jagged, childish, almost illegible. She takes a pen from her bag and tries writing the words with the wrong hand.
She realises that she wrote the words, but with her left hand.
Burn down? Whip? Seek goodness?
Sofia feels giddy and can hear a faint buzzing inside her head, behind the headache. She wonders about going for a walk. Maybe a bit of fresh air would clear her thoughts.
The buzzing gets louder, and she’s having trouble concentrating.
The sound of children shouting out in the street penetrates the windows, and an acrid smell stings her nose. Her own sweat.
She gets up to switch the coffee machine on, but when she sees that it’s already on she gets a mug out of the cupboard instead. She fills it and goes back to the kitchen table.
There are already four mugs on the table.
One is empty, but the other three are full to the brim.
She can feel that she’s having trouble remembering.
As if she’s repeating herself, and has got caught in a loop. How long has she been awake? she wonders. Did she actually go to bed at all?
She tries to pull herself together, think about it, but it’s as if her memory can be divided into two parts.
First the past, all about Lasse and the trip to New York. But what happened after they got home?
Her memories from Sierra Leone are just as tangible as her conversations with Samuel, but what happened after that?
The noise from out in the street is loud, and Sofia starts to walk anxiously up and down in the kitchen.
The other part of her memory is more like frozen images, impressions. Places she’s been to. People she’s met.
But no broad panoramas, no faces. Just quick excerpts. A moon that looks like a light bulb, unless it was the other way round?
She goes out into the hall and puts her coat on, then looks at herself in the mirror. The bruising caused by Samuel’s hands has started to fade. She loops the scarf around her neck once more to conceal it.
It’s not quite ten o’clock, and the summer outside is hot, but it’s as if it can’t reach her. Her eyes are focused inward as she tries to understand what’s happening to her.
Thoughts she doesn’t recognise are flashing like lightning.
Victoria Bergman’s speech about exposing her body to violence. Her thoughts about who decides when an individual’s fantasies, impulses and desires pass the boundary of social acceptability and become destructive.
Victoria’s talk about good and evil, where evil, like cancer, can live and grow inside an apparently healthy organism. Unless it was Karl Lundstr?m who said that?
When she reaches Bj?rns Tr?dg?rd she sits down on a bench under the trees. The buzzing is now deafening and she doesn’t know if she’s going to be able to make it home.
Victoria’s monotonous voice.
Dare you? Dare you? Dare you today, you weak fucker?
No, she needs to get home and go to bed. Take a pill and get some sleep. She’s probably just been overdoing it at work, and she longs for the solitary darkness of her apartment.
When did she last eat? She can’t remember.
She’s malnourished. Yes, that must be it. Even though she has no appetite she’ll force herself to eat, then do her best to keep it down. She won’t vomit.
Just as she gets up a number of police cars go speeding past, sirens blaring. They’re followed by three big SUVs with dark tinted windows and flashing lights. Sofia realises that something big must have happened.
At the McDonald’s near Medborgarplatsen Sofia buys two bags of food, and understands from the excited chatter of the other customers that there’s been a raid on an armoured car further down Folkungagatan. Someone mentions gunshots, and someone else says several people have been injured.
Sofia takes her food and leaves.
She doesn’t see Samuel Bai when she emerges onto the street and starts to walk home.
But he sees her, and follows.
She passes the police cordon and turns right down ?stg?tagatan, over Kocksgatan, and then left into ?s?gatan.
At the little park Samuel catches up with her and slaps her on the back.
Startled, she turns round.
He darts quickly past her, and she has to turn right round before she sees who it is.
‘Hi! Long time no seen, ma’am!’ Samuel smiles his dazzling smile and takes a step back. ‘Hav’em burgers enuff ’or me? Saw ya goin’ donall for two.’
It’s like she’s stopped breathing.
Calm, she thinks. Calm.
Her hand reaches instinctively to her throat.
Calm.
She recognises Frankly Samuel’s English and realises that he has been watching her for a while.
Smile.
She smiles and says there’s enough food for him too, and suggests that they eat at her place.
He smiles back.
Strangely, her fear vanishes as quickly as it appeared.
Suddenly she knows what to do.
Samuel takes one bag and they walk on, cross Renstiernas gata and turn onto Borgm?stargatan.
She puts the bag of burgers on the living-room table. He asks if he can use the shower to freshen up before they eat, and she gets a clean towel out for him.
He shuts the door behind him.
What’s going on?
Sauna, baby birds, run, tape, voice, Copenhagen, roseroot, burn down, whip.
The pipes rumble.
‘Sofia, Sofia, calm down, Sofia,’ she whispers to herself, and tries to take deep, calm breaths.
Baby birds, run, tape.
She waits a while before going back into the living room. A rancid smell of burnt meat is coming from the hamburgers.
Burn down, whip.
Nausea overwhelms her, and she sits down heavily on the sofa with her face in her hands.
Sauna.