The Resting Place, page 21
“I could never do that to Vivianne. She won’t get better in a place like that. She’ll only waste away,” he said.
She’s already wasting away, I thought. She’s disappearing, bit by bit. Day by day. Soon there’ll be nothing of her left.
It’s impossible for me to get my head around how somebody like her could have shrunk so much. When I came here she seemed so strong. I was so afraid of her, and so jealous of her, and so dazzled by her. She seemed to be drawn with sharper contours than everyone else, seemed to take up more space than any of those garish, twittering women who passed through their homes and lives.
She’s a ghost now. No more than a ghost.
A shiver ran through me at the thought.
Sir looked up at me.
“I’m glad you’re here, Annika,” he said. “I’ve wanted to say—ever since that night, I’ve wanted to apologize. I’m sorry. It was inappropriate. I shouldn’t have done that. It won’t happen again, I promise.”
I just shook my head. I couldn’t find the words, because if I spoke I would risk him hearing the shameful sting of disappointment I felt within me.
“I don’t know what got into me,” he went on. “I’ve been so confused these past few months, and you’ve been such good company. I don’t know what I would have done without you here.” He smiled, but there was no joy to it.
“Pretty sad, huh? That I have no one else to talk to?”
“No,” I said. “I like talking to you, Evert.” Realizing my mistake, I shook my head and added:
“Sir, I mean. Sorry.”
“You can call me Evert, Annika,” he said. This time that little smile looked a touch more genuine.
Neither of us said anything for a few seconds. Then he said:
“If I have dinner in the dining room, would you join me?”
He said it hesitantly, as though he knew it was wrong.
How I wish I had hesitated. I should have thought of Mats, who I kissed on the lips yesterday—a quick peck that turned his face bright red.
I should have thought of Ma’am, asleep upstairs.
I should have done so much.
But I didn’t think at all. I answered, far too quickly:
“Yes. I would love to.”
ELEANOR
We carry Rickard upstairs, then lock the doors and check all the windows. I pull the heavy, black, iron key out of the lock in the kitchen door and place it on the counter.
The house is as shut and sealed as it can be.
When I walk back into the living room, Sebastian is standing in front of the bookcase. He is looking at a leather-bound book, turning it and flipping it in a way that suggests he isn’t really looking at it at all.
He puts it back on the shelf.
“I’ve checked the kitchen,” I say. “Everything’s locked.”
Sebastian just nods.
My stomach is tied up in knots. I want to say something, but I don’t know what. I want to fix this, but I don’t have the words.
You can’t go taking responsibility for every little feeling the men in your life have, Victoria, I hear Vivianne’s voice in my head. It’s just the way they are, you know. Overemotional. They think they’re so strong, but we’re the ones who have to keep them in check.
I wish, just this once, that I could listen to her.
“He doesn’t want any water,” Sebastian says. He still isn’t looking at me.
“Maybe he just needs to rest,” I try. I can hear the grating neediness in my voice.
Look at me, I think inwardly. Please. Take my hand. Hold me. Tell me I’m doing the right thing.
But I can’t ask that of him, and I know he wouldn’t do it. There’s a cleft between us.
“Sebastian…,” I start, but he takes a step back.
“I’ll go check on Rickard,” he says.
Once he’s gone I sink down onto the couch and press my hands against my eyes.
I don’t want to cry. I have no right to cry.
If I had just checked that Rickard was who he said he was, we wouldn’t be here. If I had just called the firm, or googled him.
But I wanted to come here. Truth is, I wanted to see Solhöga.
I wanted to see what Vivianne had hidden from me.
I wanted to know the secrets she had taken to the grave.
Well, in that case you got what you wanted, didn’t you, Victoria?
When I open my eyes, they land on the coffee table. The diary is still lying where I left it. “Couldn’t you have kept a diary, Vivianne?” I say to no one.
I open the diary and flick through the pages. I have translated more than half of it, but without Google Translate I can’t understand what I’m reading. Still, there is the odd sentence in Swedish—presumably quoting what someone has said.
I give a start.
Her name has caught my eye.
Vivianne.
All I want is for Vivianne to be happy, it says.
The handwriting is neat but faded, and I have to squint a little at the words. Even so, I can read what’s written below it without any issues.
If my wife needs to believe that I believe she’s the daughter of a wealthy Swede who grew up in France, then I’ll let her believe it. If my wife wants to maintain that our maid, who looks just like her, is just some poor kid without family or prospects who turned up on our doorstep, then I’ll let it be true so long as that’s what she needs.
I look for a name but find nothing.
Still, surely it must have been Evert who said it? It can’t have been anyone else. It must have been my grandfather.
So Evert knew.
He knew Vivianne wasn’t who she said she was.
I carry on flicking through the diary. Here and there the pages are too water damaged to be decipherable, and toward the end of the diary the text is less clear, the handwriting less neat. It’s jerkier, looks stressed and fitful, dotted with exclamation points and marks that look like the remnants of droplets of water. Like tears.
It was an accident. A terrible, terrible accident.
Was it really an accident, Vivianne? Or did it have something to do with Grandfather Evert’s death? And with Mats’?
And with yours?
On the penultimate page I can make out something else. It’s the last entry in the diary.
The pen has leaked, leaving streaks of blue ink across the page, but the text is still legible.
Did she see us? Goddammit, did she see us?
Then, something a few lines below it. It’s written in Polish, so I can’t read it all.
But I do recognize one of the words from the translations I did yesterday.
Zabić.
To kill.
Then suddenly all of the lights around me go out, and I’m plunged into darkness.
ANUSHKA
AUGUST 2, 1966
It happened again.
This time I was the one who leaned in.
I hadn’t even had anything to drink, but I still feel drunk from the touch of his lips.
This time I didn’t run. I stayed, and I looked him in the eye. There was no regret.
I know it’ll happen again tomorrow.
I have to stop. I should leave this place. Tonight, before this goes any further than it already has. Before I do anything more, anything worse; anything I can never take back.
I can still smell his aftershave in my nose.
I won’t stop.
I hate myself.
ELEANOR
I jump up from the couch, my heart pounding in my chest, and try to listen as closely as I can. All I can hear is silence. There isn’t a sound in the house.
I put the diary down on the couch—quietly, so no one will hear—and turn on the flashlight on my phone. The meagre light is enough for me to see where I’m going, but it’s not enough to light up the corners.
I walk slowly into the hallway, look around me.
“Hello?” I call up the stairs.
“Eleanor?” I hear Veronika reply. “Why are you shouting? Some of us are trying to sleep.”
She sounds more angry than scared, which does a lot to calm my nerves. The doors are locked. We have nothing to worry about.
“The power’s out,” I say. “It must be the blizzard. Or the fuse box. I’m sure it’s old. Nothing weird there.”
Try to believe what I’m saying.
Try not to imagine a dark figure cutting cables to shroud us all in darkness.
The doors are locked. We’re safe here.
Once upstairs, I head for Rickard’s room. I point my flashlight through the doorway but am surprised to find Rickard alone.
I walk over to the bed and lean over him, taking care not to point the flashlight at his eyes or wake him up. I’m not even sure I could wake him up if I tried. He looks so lifeless that I check for a pulse. When I find it, it doesn’t really set my mind at ease; it’s so weak it barely feels like a fluttering under his skin.
He groans faintly but doesn’t wake up. I pull away and turn around.
I shine the light through the next doorway.
“Where’s Sebastian?” I ask Veronika.
Veronika grimaces and closes her eyes at the bright light.
“I don’t know,” she says. “He’s not here. I was asleep—I only woke up when you called.”
“Do you have any painkillers or anything that we can give Rickard?” I ask Veronika.
She shakes her head.
“I don’t think he can feel so much now, anyway,” she says, with a tone of voice that makes me gulp.
“Just a few days,” I say. “He just has to hang in there till Sunday.”
Veronika shakes her head.
“There’s no better option,” I snap, forgetting to keep my voice down. “What else can we do? There’s no way out of here; the road is blocked. We can’t walk in this blizzard.”
“I’m not saying it’s the wrong decision,” says Veronika, her face unexpectedly stiff. “But I want you to be prepared that he might not make it.”
The words pile up in my throat until I can’t hold them in anymore. All my anxiety, my rage and fear, splutters out of me:
“Fuck you, Veronika!”
I turn and walk out of the room, the light dancing along the walls and the floor from my tightly clenched hand.
I stop on the landing. I don’t know why I’m expecting her to call after me. It’s not like Vivianne ever did. In her view, if the other person stormed out it meant Vivianne had won the discussion.
Come to think of it, she thought she had won it if she stormed out, too.
I turn off the flashlight on my phone.
For one second I stand completely still in the darkness.
Listening.
I hear a movement that must be Veronika back in the bedroom. The whistle of the wind outside. The sound of the floorboards creaking under me as I shift weight.
The rest of the house is silent.
The power cut out in the storm, I say to myself. Nothing weird there. It would be weirder if it didn’t cut out. It’s an old house.
I hear Sebastian’s words echoing in my head.
I think bad things have happened in that house.
I can’t deny it. Not to myself. It feels like there’s something embedded within these walls, something lurking between the floorboards, watching me.
I know it isn’t true. In spite of everything, it’s just a house. No matter what happened here, it’s just a house.
A person did this. A person attacked Veronika and Rickard, and killed Vivianne. A person. Not a house.
But why? Is all of this really related to Evert’s death? Would anyone in his family really be so desperate for the truth, after all this time, that they would be willing to kill for it?
Would I be desperate enough to kill to find out what’s really going on here? Or who killed Vivianne?
I want to say no. I want to believe I wouldn’t be capable of that.
But I’m not so sure if it’s true.
I still can’t stop thinking about that red car. I have seen it before; I’m sure of it. Not a car like it, not the same color: that car.
And those tissues in the glove compartment. A small, green, half-empty packet, a pharmacy brand. Nothing special there. Nothing special about the car either.
Except for the fact that together they ring a bell so loud I can’t get it out of my head.
There—a sound. Just a faint little creak, but it’s unmistakable. A footstep, coming from the master bedroom.
I turn the flashlight back on, walk up to the door, and pull it open.
Sebastian is sitting on the bed. He gives a start and raises his hand to block the sudden light.
“Hi,” I say. It comes out quieter than intended.
“Hi.”
I hesitate before I take another step into the room.
“Power cut,” I say, and he nods.
“I noticed. The storm must have taken down the power lines.”
See? I reproach myself internally. Even Sebastian knows it’s just the storm. Not even he’s worried.
“We can light a fire.” I walk over and sit down next to him on the bed.
“It could be the fuse box.” Sebastian is holding something, studies it in the dim light of my phone. “The fuses always used to blow in our summer house when there was a lot of wind. There the fuse box is outside the house. It’s probably outside here, too.”
“Could be,” I say.
I look at what he’s holding. It looks like a photograph.
“What’s that?” I ask.
“It was on the bed.”
I lean in to take a better look, but then he starts talking again, and this time his voice is louder, kind of shrill.
“I never liked Vivianne,” he says. “You know that. Not because she didn’t like me—she would have hated anyone you brought home so long as they made you happy; you and I both know she couldn’t stand to see you happy—but because of what she did to you. I hated her for that. I really did.”
The photograph creases slightly in his hand.
“I don’t care if she came here as a maid or whatever, and worked her way up, or if she was unhappy, OK? It’s her fault we’re here. If it turns out she killed your grandfather it wouldn’t surprise me. I…”
Now he’s clenching the picture so hard his hand is shaking.
“I hate her for bringing us here,” he says. “Eleanor, why couldn’t you just let go of her?”
The realization hits me so hard it almost feels audible: something muffled, fleshy.
“You aren’t angry at Vivianne,” I say. “Just say it. You’re angry at me. You’re angry at me for bringing you here. It’s my fault we’re here. You said that maybe we should just leave the lawyer to it, but I refused and here we are.”
Sebastian stares at me for a few seconds. Something vibrates between us.
Then he looks away and shakes his head.
Something breaks.
I feel it just as clearly as I feel my own heartbeats.
The hand holding the photograph drops down to his lap. I so dearly want to put my hand on his, but I’m scared he’ll just pull away.
So instead we sit in silence, all the words I want to say stinging in my windpipe.
I clear my throat.
“What’s that photo?” I ask eventually, when I can’t take the silence anymore.
He laughs bitterly and hands me the photo.
“Vivianne. She’s inescapable.”
I pick up the photo and look at it in the light of Sebastian’s phone but raise my eyebrows when I recognize it. It’s the picture I found in the red dress, the one of the two young women in black-and-white maids’ outfits, and the little girl with the blond curls.
“No. it isn’t,” I say. “That’s the girl who wrote the diary. Annika. And someone else called Märit, who worked here, too. She’s mentioned in the diary. And that’s Märit’s daughter, Kicki.”
Sebastian shakes his head.
“No,” he says, “that’s definitely Vivianne.”
“But it says ‘Annika’ on the back of the photo,” I say. “And why would Vivianne be wearing a maid’s uniform?”
“I don’t know why, but the woman in the photo is definitely your grandmother,” he says. “She looks exactly like the painting, only without the makeup and with her hair tied back. Look, she even has that little scar on her chin.”
I look at the photo, and see the familiar scar he is pointing at.
“But that…,” I begin, then shake my head again.
“Do you mind if I take the photo downstairs and compare?” I say. “It has to be a coincidence.”
Sebastian looks away.
“Do whatever you want,” he says wearily.
I hang back a second, the lump in my belly weighing my whole body down.
“I’ll see if I can find a fuse box,” I say. “Maybe we can get the power going again.”
“Sounds good,” says Sebastian, his eyes still on his lap. “I’ll ask Veronika to help me move Rickard in here, and we can try to get the masonry heater going. We’ll need a little heat in one of the rooms to get us through the night.”
I pause on the top step, almost thinking I can hear something.
But I push it aside. I’m tired of hearing things. No one knows better than me that my senses can’t be trusted.
Instead I go downstairs to the hallway.
ANUSHKA
AUGUST 9, 1966
Märit can tell that something has changed. This morning she asked me how things are going with Mats. She asked the question in the same conspiratorial way as usual, with a nudge and a smile, but there was something watchful in her eyes. As though she knew more than I wanted her to.
“It’s going well,” I said. “He’s a nice guy.”
“Nice guys are always the best option,” said Märit. “Nice guys become good men. That’s the sort of man you want. They step up when they need to.”
I noticed that she glanced at Kicki as she said it. This was after lunch and Kicki always gets sleepy after she eats, so she was lying with her little blond head on her arm.
“I just don’t want you to make the same mistakes I did, Annika,” Märit added. “Kicki’s father promised me the world, but in the end that meant nothing. I knew what he was like, deep down, but he was so good-looking and exciting I didn’t care. You’re smart, Annika, but you’re young. It’s easy to do stupid things when you’re young and in love. Don’t make the same mistakes I did.”
