Some Kind of Peace (13 page)

“Ziggy!”

But no Ziggy appears.

In the corner of my eye I perceive a movement. The sheet farthest to the right flutters and I hear a muted snap. Then another twig snaps, a sturdier one this time. Much too big to have been broken by Ziggy’s dainty, lithe feline body. It’s the kind of twig that breaks only under a heavy weight. Only a large animal or a human being could have broken a branch like that. I know it’s so. My entire body knows it’s so.

My stomach clenches and my grip on the flashlight gets firmer. Suddenly I am aware of how I must look, standing there in only a swimming suit, the gigantic flashlight held out in front of me in my right hand like a crucifix, as if I believe it can keep whatever lies in the dark ahead away from me.

I stay standing stock-still for a moment, then I run back to the house and slam the door behind me. I collapse inside the door and with trembling fingers start picking out the needles from the soles of my feet.

•  •  •

Perhaps what is about to happen is caused by my fruitless search for Ziggy and the persistent feeling that someone was outside my house, someone saw me half naked and shivering as I looked for my cat among the pines, with a flashlight as my only weapon.

I feel depressed, afraid, and alone, and decide to console myself with
the last bottle of rosé in the refrigerator. As it turns out, I drink more glasses than I thought I would, and when the bottle is empty I treat myself to a little red wine as well. I drift off into a restless, dreamless sleep lying on the lumpy, uncomfortable couch under a plaid blanket, with the stereo on way too loud. That’s why I don’t hear the phone ringing at first; it rings many times before I finally wake up and answer. The connection crackles and whistles, and I can hear only with difficulty what the gentle, androgynous voice is saying.

“I’m looking for Siri Bergman.”

“This is she.”

“Hi, I’m calling from the emergency room at Stockholm South Hospital…”

“Yes?”

“A friend of yours was admitted here this evening, Aina Davidsson…”

I can’t seem to formulate a reasonable reaction to this. Is Aina at the hospital?

“…and she would really like you to come. She was run over by a motorcyclist on Folkungagatan.”

“Oh, my God, is she okay?”

The voice hesitates for a moment.

“Well… it’s serious but not critical. She has a head injury that we’re a little concerned about. If everything goes as planned, we will transfer her shortly up to the intensive care unit… So that we can keep an eye on her.”

If everything goes as planned?

“We’re taking good care of her, you don’t need to worry, but as I said, she would really like you to come. Preferably as soon as possible.”

My stomach is knotted with fear and hunger as I lean against the kitchen counter. Images of Aina’s face flicker before my eyes. I pull a cereal box from the shelf and quickly stuff a couple fistfuls of muesli in my mouth and pour myself another glass of wine to wash it down. Two big gulps.

It’s been so long since I last drove my car that I can barely find the car keys. I fumble with the ignition in the dark, and it takes me a while to
turn on the headlights. I feel nauseous and dizzy, and a throbbing pain is growing stronger and stronger beneath my skull and between my eyes. It’s as if an angry animal were desperately trying to escape from my head through my eye sockets. I am forced to hold on to the steering wheel so I don’t fall out when I lean over to shut the car door. I know I shouldn’t be driving, but Aina is my best friend and one thing is clear to me: I could not cope with losing her, too.

The night is dark, and the narrow, curvy road meanders treacherously through the quiet landscape. I am driving very slowly but still manage to end up twice with the front wheel on the grass at the side of the road.

As I approach Värmdö church, I notice a dark car behind me for the first time. It follows me through the city. But I don’t give it any more thought.

Not then.

As I reach Grisslinge, I see blue lights. It is now obvious that the car behind me is the police and that they want something from me, so I pull over and roll down the window. A man approaches from behind, and against the background of flashing blue a young police officer is suddenly standing in front of me.

“Good evening, your driver’s license please.”

I fumble for my purse and realize I didn’t bring it with me. I can see for myself how erratic and uncontrolled my movements are, so I place both hands on the steering wheel, squeeze it hard, take a deep breath, and look up again toward the policeman, who now has a wrinkle between his eyebrows.

“Uh, I’m really sorry, but I’m on my way to see a friend who’s in the emergency room and… I’m afraid that I didn’t… well, that I didn’t bring my things.”

I can hear how lame my excuse sounds, but the policeman’s facial expression is inscrutable. If he is surprised or irritated, his face does not show what he is thinking.

“Okay, we would like you to take a Breathalyzer test. Have you done it before?”

“Yes… sure.”

There’s something about the overly serious expression on the young policeman’s face. I can’t help it; suddenly the whole situation seems so absurd I have to laugh.

I look up at the policeman and hope that my laughter will get him to see the humor in the situation, but he only looks self-consciously toward the police car. For some inexplicable reason this gesture provokes me even more, causing me to laugh even louder. I really try to subdue it, but before I can collect myself I double over in another uncontrollable laugh attack. My whole body cramps up in a convulsion of laughter and tears stream down my cheeks.

The policeman says nothing, only hands me the Breathalyzer and clears his throat.

I exhale red. Once. And once more.

Curtain.

I have to get out and follow the policeman to his car. I hope it’s not too obvious that I am swaying, but when I see the meaningful look the younger policeman gives his partner as we approach his car, my stomach knots up.

There are two of them: a middle-aged, stocky man with reddish hair and a gap between his teeth, and the younger guy who is evidently called Amir. During the drive I desperately try to explain the seriousness of the situation: Aina’s accident, the call from the hospital, the head injury, the intensive care unit. There is something indescribably humiliating about all this, as if I were trying to cover my shameful behavior by presenting a long, drawn-out excuse that is as embarrassing for me as it is for them.

They kindly explain that they can’t release me, or drive me to the hospital, but promise to call the hospital from the station. I give them Aina’s cell phone number, too.

Five minutes later I am overwhelmed with dizziness and nausea. In the meantime my headache has grown into an intense pain that drums under my eyebrows like dull thunder and I can feel cold sweat gathering between my breasts and traveling down toward my belly in small rivulets.

“Please stop…”

My voice is a feeble whisper, but both policemen hear it and from experience stop by the side of the road.

“Are you feeling sick? Do you have to throw up?”

“No, no, of course not,” I say as I empty the contents of my stomach on the passenger seat.

•  •  •

When we arrive at the station, the redheaded policeman goes with me to a room that appears to be down in the basement. If he is upset or disgusted that I soiled his car, he doesn’t show it. He looks like he’s thinking about something completely different: dinner, the hockey game this weekend, or his ex-wife’s new boyfriend. I assume he encounters
my type
several times a week, and that this is not something he is going to think about when his shift is over. A routine case. A drunk broad who decided to drive into the city from Värmdö even though she should have known better. A traffic hazard, perhaps also a human tragedy—but who cares?

I am instructed to blow a few more times into a larger Breathalyzer that is connected to a computer. Automatically, a form comes out with the evidence of my guilt.

They received a tip, he told me. Someone had seen me drink and then get into the car and had called them. And no, he can’t tell me who it was. I wonder for a long time who it might be. There are no neighbors who live close enough to be able to see what I’m doing.

Later, I am left to sit in something that I assume is a cell, a drunk tank. It is a degrading, bare little windowless room with a PVC-coated mattress and a floor drain in one corner. They explained that I have to sober up in jail in accordance with the law on the custody of intoxicated persons. A broken fluorescent ceiling light blinks constantly and contributes to my sense of degradation and humiliation.

Without my being aware of it, tears start running down my cheeks. When did I lose control of my life? Here, at the police station? When I got into the car while intoxicated? When I chose to stay in my isolated
house despite all my friends’ protests? When I started imagining things were happening at night? When Stefan died?

How long have I been sitting here? Twenty minutes? An hour? I’ve lost all sense of time.

Suddenly the door opens and I stand up. When I see who is standing outside I am filled with both joy and confusion. How is this possible?

Aina looks completely healthy—there is no sign that she was just injured. She leans against the doorjamb, tilts her head to one side, and looks at me with an expression of concern.

Stefan and I were married in December. It was a simple ceremony at City Hall, with our closest friends and relatives. Stefan’s mom and dad, my parents and sisters, Peppe and Malin, and their twins. Aina was there, of course, and Hanna, my oldest girlfriend, who lives in New York and works as a graphic designer. I remember that she was very pregnant at the time and constantly drying off the sweat from her red face with a flowery Marimekko scarf. Afterward we all went to the KB restaurant and had Christmas lunch. My off-white sixties-style woolen dress with oversized buttons from the thrift store fit snugly over my belly.

But was it possible?

Could I have been showing already?

I was in my seventeenth week when we got married, and my slender body still concealed the pregnancy well. Only Stefan and I knew.

Two weeks later, Stefan and I went to the maternity clinic in Gamla Stan to meet our midwife, Inger, and to undergo the mandatory ultrasound with one of the doctors.

We expected images of the baby to put up on the refrigerator, nervous minutes until the doctor would declare that everything looked good, information about growth and expected date of delivery. But as I was lying there on the bed with cold jelly spread over my stomach, I could see the doctor’s worried expression. She didn’t say anything, only furrowed her brow a little, put her head to one side, and gave Stefan a quick glance. Did she know he was a doctor?

I lay still and waited for her to find the missing finger, or suddenly see all the chambers of the heart clearly and declare that they looked fine. I let her move the transducer back and forth across my belly without my asking any questions or protesting; perhaps everything would be all right if I kept quiet and cooperated?

“I see…” she began and then fell silent.

“The fetus is normal-sized at this stage,” she continued carefully. “Here is the spine,” she indicated on the screen, and something that looked like a small string of pearls stood out white against the gray-black background. “Here is the pelvis.” She made a gesture toward something that did not resemble a body part, or anything else, for that matter, as she twisted the transducer a little and pressed it hard against the side of my belly.

“Here is the bladder, there is fluid in it, which is normal, here are the kidneys…”

I felt my growing impatience. Couldn’t she just say that everything was fine and spare us this uncertainty?

“Is everything as it should be?” I interrupted her, trying to keep my voice steady and calm.

She looked at me but did not answer immediately.

“Here is the head,” she continued, and I could see a light-gray sphere outlined against the dark background on the screen.

She was silent for a long time and seemed to observe the head from various angles.

“I would like you to go to Stockholm South Hospital and do an extended ultrasound,” she said as she turned toward us, lifting the transducer from my belly and taking a piece of paper from the little steel table beside the bed. With slow movements, she started wiping the cold jelly from my belly with a rough, unbleached paper napkin.

“What’s wrong?” Stefan suddenly sounded angry.

“It’s not certain that there
is
anything wrong, but… there are parts of the brain that I can’t really see with my equipment.”

The brain? I felt my eyes watering up. I don’t cry easily, but the tension during the ultrasound combined with my raging hormones caused the tears to flow down my cheeks in a torrential stream.

The brain? Did our baby have a brain defect? Would it be handicapped? I thought about small children in wheelchairs, special transportation services, special schools, and apartments adapted for the disabled. I clenched my teeth so hard that I almost got a cramp and curled up into a little ball on the green plastic bed. Stefan leaned over me and whispered in my ear that everything would be fine.