Ghost Music (11 page)

“Of course I trust you. Is there any reason why I shouldn't? It's just that this is all so goddamned
weird
. You giving me the Westerlunds' keys like that. Flying here separately. Elsa and Felicia.
Two
Elsas, for Christ's sake, and
two
Felicias. And I was talking to Axel, too, and he kept saying stuff about children, and how you had to make sacrifices to keep them safe. And then he was staring into the corner, all through supper, didn't you notice that? It was like he could see a ghost standing there.”

I paused, and gestured toward the door. “And then Axel and
Tilda arguing like that. I mean, for Christ's sake, Kate, what's really going down here?”

“We're here to help,” she told me. “That's all I can tell you.”

“We're here to help? How? If you ask me, this family needs therapy.”

“That's a good way of putting it, as a matter of fact. Therapy brings healing, doesn't it? Or closure. Or an acceptance that things aren't going to get any better, no matter what.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning that I'm asking you to wait and see. Before you understand, you have to
know
.”

“But come on, Kate. How the hell can you expect me to
know
, unless you tell me?”

“Because you have eyes, Gideon, and you have ears, and unlike most people you're very aware of everything that goes on around you. But you have much more than that. You have a very rare gift.”

“Oh, really?” I asked her, suspiciously. “What kind of a very rare gift?”

She kissed me, on my cheek, and then my lips.

“You have music in your whole being. You don't even realize how much. You don't just write music, you
live
music. You
are
music. There are so few people like you. I'll tell you one very famous one: Mel Tormé. He could hear a plate dropping in a restaurant kitchen and tell you precisely what key it was.”

“I still don't understand what you're saying.”

“Since you and I have been together, don't you think that you've been writing better?”

I nodded. “Yes, I have. Yes. I mean, I don't like to boast, but eat your heart out, Mozart.”

“And can you think why?”

“I don't know. I put it down to being happier, I guess.”

She kissed me again. “I'm pleased. But it's more than that. You
can
feel
me. You can feel the emotions inside of me—my grief, and my affection, and my hope, in just the same way that you can hear music. Like Elsa and Felicia. You can feel
their
resonance, too. What they were, what they wanted to be. What they are now.

“When you see them, when you touch them, they come to life. They appear because you're here.”

I looked at her narrowly. I was gradually beginning to get some germ of what she was talking about. I was gradually beginning to realize that I could only understand what was happening to me if I understood myself, and what I was capable of. And according to Kate, I was capable of much more than I had ever dreamed.

“It's not just your music that's blossoming,” she added, with a smile. “It's
you
.”

“Oh, yes? How, exactly?”

“Take me to bed, and I'll show you.”

* * *

I was woken by the sound of somebody running past our bedroom. Somebody with bare feet, running very fast. I sat up but it was so dark that I couldn't see anything at all. Nothing, just total blackness.

I heard the runner again, and then another one. It sounded like children, both running in the same direction, from the bedrooms toward the hallway.

“Kate?” I whispered, and shook her shoulder.
“Kate!”

But Kate continued to breathe deeply and steadily and didn't stir. I reached out toward my nightstand, trying to locate my wristwatch, but I knocked over my glass of water and I heard it pouring onto the carpet.

More running, and then bumping noises, too, as if the children were colliding with the sides of the corridor.

“Kate!”
I said, and shook her again.

She stirred, and said, “
Wha . . . ?
What is it?”

“Listen! It sounds like the girls are running all around the apartment!”

“What?”

I found the lamp beside my bed and switched it on. My wristwatch said it was 3:11
AM
. Kate was blinking at me as if she had never seen me before in her life.

“What's happening?” she said.

“It's the girls. They keep running up and down.”

“What?”

“Listen—there they go again. And they're bumping into the walls, too!”

I started to get out of bed but Kate took hold of my arm. “Gideon—leave them. Whatever they're doing, it's no concern of ours.”

“Come on—what if something's wrong? Supposing there's a fire or something?”

“There isn't a fire. You don't smell smoke, do you?”

“So what are they doing? Sleepwalking? Or sleep
sprinting
, more like.”

We heard bare feet rushing up the corridor yet again, and this time one of the runners banged right into our door. There was a wail of pain, and then a high voice shrilled out,
“Inte röra jag! LÃ¥ta jag gÃ¥!”

This was followed by more running and more bumping.

I swung off the bed and went across the room to the door. “Gideon—” said Kate, reached out her hand toward me, but then she lowered it again, as if she were accepting that I was going to take a look outside, no matter what. Which I was.

I opened the door. The corridor itself was in darkness, but the hallway at the far end of it was illuminated by cold white moonlight, shining in through the window that overlooked the harbor. There must have been clouds passing across the moon, and passing quite quickly, because the light faded and brightened
every few seconds. One second brilliant and blurry, the next second nothing but shadows.

Standing in the hallway in a white nightdress, her arms outspread, was Elsa. Her hair was no longer braided, but waving loose. I thought at first that the window was open, because her hair kept rippling, as if the wind were blowing it. One moment I could see her staring at me, and the next her face was completely obscured. But her eyes when I could see them were like milky glass marbles, pale blue, rather than eyes, and her mouth was tightly closed, as if she were trying to prevent somebody from force-feeding her.

“Elsa?” I called out. “Elsa—are you okay?”

I started to walk toward her. As I did so, she began to shake her head from side to side. She did it slowly at first, but as I approached her she shook it faster and faster.

“Elsa—listen—you're sleepwalking. You need to get yourself back to bed.”

I held out my hand to calm her. Abruptly, she stopped shaking her head, and stared at me with those colorless eyes, as if she couldn't understand who or even
what
I was. But now that I was really close to her I realized that she was just as tall as I was, if not taller. Not only that, she was much
bigger
than she had been before.

I began to feel distinctly unnerved. But I thought to myself, this is some kind of optical illusion, that's all. Perspective playing tricks on you. You know how small this girl is really. Maybe it's something to do with the window or the sight lines in the corridor. Maybe
I'm
the one who's still asleep.

“Elsa?” I said.

She came closer, so that she was almost touching me, but she appeared to do it without actually taking a step. I saw then that she was soaking wet. There were drops of water clinging to her eyelashes, her hair was bedraggled, and her nightdress was drenched, so that it clung to her.

“Elsa, what's wrong? How did you get wet like that?”

She paused for a moment, and it seemed as if she were swaying slightly.

“Hjälpa mig,”
she said, in a high, thick whisper.

“What? I'm sorry, I don't understand.”

“Hjälpa mig! Jag kan icke andas! Jag er drunkna!”

“You're drunk? Is that it? Listen, sweetheart, I need to wake up your parents. You just hold on here for a moment. Kate? Kate, are you there?”

I turned around to see if Kate was following me. As I did so, both Elsa and Felicia came running toward me along the corridor, both wearing nightdresses, both barefoot, both panic-stricken. They stumbled and collided with the walls, as if somebody were pushing them, and Felicia ran into a tall three-legged display stand, so that the bronze statuette on top of it went flying across the floor.

They scrambled past me. I shouted, “Stop, Felicia! Stop!” but she didn't seem to hear me. I snatched at her nightdress, but she spun around and twisted herself free. For a split second, though, I saw the look on her face, and she was wide-eyed and white with terror.

“LÃ¥ta jag gÃ¥! LÃ¥ta jag gÃ¥! De nöd till mord oss!”

She went running into the shadows and disappeared. Vanished, as if the darkness were an open door. But it was what happened to Elsa that stunned me the most. She ran headlong into the Elsa who was standing in the hallway, and it was like watching somebody run headlong into a mirror. The two Elsas shattered into a thousand glittering fragments of light, and then they were gone.

I stayed where I was for a few seconds. I could actually hear my heart beating. Then I slowly hunkered down and ran my fingertips across the rug to feel for any broken pieces of glass. Nothing at all. The two Elsas may have looked like mirror images, but they
had been nothing more than mirages. No glass, no silver backing. Only reflections.

I picked up the bronze statuette that had bounced across the floor, and replaced it on its stand. It was a slender woman in a flowing robe, with one breast bare, carrying a spear.

At that moment Kate came up to me. Her face was very serious. She reached up and adjusted the statuette to straighten it. “Freya,” she said. “Goddess of Love and Beauty. They named Friday after her.”

“What's happening, Kate?” I asked her. I thought that my voice sounded oddly muffled. “Is this a dream? It's not a dream, is it?”

Kate took hold of my hand. “You should come back to bed.”

“What the hell happened here, Kate? I saw
two
Elsas . . . I saw Felicia disappear! She went straight into those shadows and she was gone. I'm not asleep, Kate! I'm not dreaming any of this—this is
real
!”

“Come back to bed, Gideon, please.”

The Westerlunds' bedroom door suddenly opened and Axel appeared in the corridor, wearing a black silk Japanese-style bathrobe. He tugged the belt tighter as he approached us. His calves were white and hairy, but very muscular, like a cyclist's.

“I heard noise! Is everything all right? What are you doing out here?”

“I'm sorry,” I said, “but it was the girls.”

“The girls?” He looked around him in bewilderment.

“They were running along the corridor. They were frightened of something but I couldn't understand what they were saying.”

“Running?”

“Yes . . . both of them. They knocked over this statue.”

Axel shook his head. “No, Gideon. I think you will find that the girls are both asleep.”

Tilda came out, wearing pale green pajamas. “Axel? Is anything wrong?”

“Gideon must have had a nightmare,” said Axel.

“I'm sorry,” I told him, “but I saw what I saw. And Kate saw it, too.”

“Well . . .” said Kate. “I have to admit that I really didn't see anything.”

“Oh, come on, Kate. Even if you didn't see them, you
heard
them.”

“I did hear
something
, yes. But I'm not really sure what it was.”

“Kate—”

“Let us clear up this matter, shall we?” said Axel. He went along the corridor to Elsa's bedroom and quietly opened the door. He looked inside, and then he beckoned. I hesitated, and then I followed him and looked inside, too. Elsa was in bed, fast asleep, wearing a cotton nightcap with pink ribbons around it.

Axel closed the door and went along to Felicia's room.

“Okay,” I said. “That really won't be necessary. It seems like I've made some kind of mistake, that's all.”

Tilda laid a gentle hand on my shoulder and said, “
Du drömde
, Gideon . . . you were dreaming.”

“En mardröm,”
added Axel, quite angrily. I guessed
mardröm
meant “nightmare.”

* * *

We all returned to our bedrooms. Kate leaned over me and kissed me on the ear and said, “Are you okay?”

“No, I'm not. I just saw something totally impossible. I don't know why
you
didn't.”

“I did.”

“You did? You saw what I saw—Elsa and Felicia, running along the corridor? Why didn't you say so?”

“Because I didn't want to upset Axel and Tilda for no reason. For them, it didn't happen. Not in the way we saw it, anyhow.”

“Now I'm really baffled.”

“I know. But you're very tired. Let's talk about it in the morning.”

I dragged the comforter up to my neck. The central heating was on, but the air in the bedroom still felt chilly. If it hadn't been so dark, I was sure that I could have seen my breath smoking.

“These old apartments,” said Kate. “They have so many memories in them. So much resonance.”

“So I'm not going bananas? I
feel
like I'm going bananas.”

She snuggled up very close to me. “Of course not. And anyhow, what if you are? I like bananas. Especially yours.”

I lay in the darkness for a while, stroking the nape of her neck. “Do you know much Swedish?” I asked her.

“Only a little. Why?”

“Do you know what
drunkna
means?”

“Yes. It means ‘drown' or ‘drowning.' Why? Where did you hear that?”