Page 71 of The Living and the Dead

“Sten never liked Dad. I don’t know why. But I’m pretty sure Sten would love for terrible things to happen to us. And now they have. Wouldn’t you say?”

Siri considered this. Two sets of rivals, Sten and Karl-Henrik; Killian and Mikael.

That was how it seemed to her now, in light of the past few days.

“Besides,” Filip continued, when no one else spoke, “Sten came around our place on Christmas. He was poking around the basement. I saw him.”

In the ensuing silence, Siri leaned closer. “Can you tell us more about that?”

“He wanted to talk to Dad. I guess you’ll have to ask Sten if you want to know more. Or Dad.” Filip gave a laugh. “If you even can. He’s probably still too drunk.”

“We’ll do that, Filip. But,” Siri added, “doesn’t this all make you pretty mad? It would be no wonder. You know, Helén, right outside, she—”

“How about you just find the guy who killed my brother? Oh,oops, that’s right, you can’t, because he crashed his car before you got your head out of your asses and arrested him.” Filip suddenly stood up. “I’m done now.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am!” he bellowed, as though it were his turn to detonate. “I’m finished with you.”

Siri was shaken by his outburst. She struggled not to let it show.

“Filip,” she said calmly. “Why are you so angry?”

“Why the fuck do you think?” he shouted.

Eyes blazing, he looked at the door as Helén from social services hurried in, alarm all over her face, and that was the end of the interview.

53

One Sunday, years ago, Isidor Enoksson had stood before everyone in the chapel and described existence in all its plainness: how the world, as it truly is, is immense. “Close,” that’s what we can reach out and touch. That’s all we mean by the wordclose.

But even the parts we cannot reach are created with wisdom and intelligence. The Earth is full of natural laws, and everything has its place. The grass grows for the creatures and the grain for man, so that the farmers can work until night falls. People are reliant on—or maybe he said at the mercy of—one another, just as birds are to the air. Peace and order sprout from the soil and flow over man like rain.

Sander had, as usual, been dragged to church by his parents. It was a duty he had to suffer during the year of his confirmation. But after Isidor’s sermon, he, too, felt a strange warmth in his body. Whatever awaited him, it would be suffused with meaning.

Close,Sander thought now,is what we can reach out and touch.He was only a body now, a body that had given what it could.

On the way to the hospital, Sander saw the newspapers. They featured a new young face today, a teenager who had vanished over the Christmas holiday. It didn’t even have to do with the landslide. An intense search was under way. Killian had been supplanted by yet another tragedy, and Sander felt robbed, somehow.

He went through the main entrance and to the reception desk, hesitation seeping through his bones.

When he spoke, he heard the hollowness in his voice. “I’m here to visit Felicia Grenberg.”

The receptionist consulted the clock on the wall behind her, then looked at her computer. She typed inGrenbergwith her index fingers.

“All right.” She pointed at a long corridor. “Take a right at the end of this hallway. Then it will be the first door on your left.”

The hospital windows looked onto a dark sky. December was the strangest month; soon it would be over, and with it an entire millennium, but it didn’t feel that way.

Sander had heard from Felicia’s mother that she was still in the hospital. On the morning she was supposed to be discharged, they had discovered an infection and she had to stay.

He walked to the end of the corridor. Nurses and doctors passed him, glancing discreetly his way. He found the room and peered inside. Felicia was lying on her back in bed, dressed and under a blanket. A TV droned at low volume.

When she saw him, she reached for the remote and muted the show.

Next to the bed was a chair. Sander tentatively sat down.

“Hi. How are you feeling?”