Before the Frost Read online

  “It took me several hours to get from the station to the hotel where I had seen him. When I walked into the hotel lobby a fat lady was half-sleeping in the chair I had been sitting in. I became furious; she had taken my place! No one had the right to sit in the holy chair where I had seen my father and he had seen me. I walked up to her and shook her arm. I told her she had to move because the furniture was going to be replaced. She did as I asked, although I still don’t understand how she could think I was part of the hotel staff in my raincoat and with wet hair stuck to my cheeks. I sat down in the chair when she had left. There was no one outside. But I thought if I just stayed there long enough he would return.”

  Anna stopped talking and left to go to the bathroom. Thunder rumbled in the distance. She came back and continued:

  “I sat in the chair until the receptionists started looking at me suspiciously. I booked a room, but tried to spend as little time as possible there. To conceal my true purpose I pretended to be reading and taking notes. On the second day the fat lady came back. She must have been spying on me and felt that she had found me out because she said ‘You thief—you stole my seat!’ She was so worked up I thought she was going to hyperventilate. I thought to myself that no one would make up a lie about sitting in a chair in hopes of catching a glimpse of a father they hadn’t seen in twenty years. So I told her the truth and she believed me. She sat down in the chair next to me and said she’d be happy to keep me company while I waited. It was crazy. She talked nonstop, mainly about her husband, who was attending a conference in men’s hatwear. You can laugh—I didn’t, of course—but it was true. She told me all about it in excruciating detail, about the rows of somber men in airless conference rooms meeting to decide which kinds of hats to order for the new season. She talked and talked until I was ready to strangle her. But then her husband appeared. He was as fat as she was, and was wearing a broad-brimmed and probably very expensive hat. She and I had never actually introduced ourselves. As she was about to leave with her husband, she said to him, ‘This young lady is waiting for her father. She’s been waiting a long time for him.’ And the man asked, ‘How long?’ while he tipped his elegant hat. ‘Almost twenty-five years,’ she told him. And he looked at me, thoughtfully but also with great respect. And the entire hotel lobby, with its polished, sterile surfaces and strong smell of commercial-grade cleaning agents, was transformed into a church. He said, ‘One can never wait too long.’ Then he put his hat back on, and I watched them leave the hotel. The whole situation was absurd, almost unbelievably so, but that’s what made it so real.

  “I stayed in that chair for close to two days before I realized that my father was not going to reappear. I decided to go out and look for him, though I kept the room. There was no master plan to my search. I walked through the parks, along the canals and the various harbors. My father had left me and Henrietta because he sought a freedom he couldn’t have while he was with us. Therefore I looked for him in the open spaces. There were times when I thought I had found him. I would get so dizzy I’d have to lean against a wall or a tree, but it was never him. All the longing I had been bottling up for so long finally turned to rage. There I was, still looking for him, still wanting so badly to find him, and he had simply chosen to humiliate me by showing himself to me once and then disappearing again. Naturally I started to doubt myself. How could I be sure that it had been him? Everything spoke against it. The last night I was there, I ended up in Pildamm Park. It was three o’clock in the morning and I called out into the darkness: ‘Daddy, where are you?’ But no one answered. I stayed in the park until dawn, and then I suddenly felt as though I had been through the final trial in my relationship with him, as though I had been wandering in a fog of delusion, thinking he was going to show himself to me, and when at last I emerged into the light I accepted that he didn’t exist. Well, maybe he does exist, maybe he’s not actually dead. But for me, from that point on, he was just going to be a mirage, a dream, that I could evoke from time to time at will, nothing more. All of those years I had always believed deep down that he was out there somewhere. Now, at the very moment that I believed he had finally returned, I realized he was never coming back at all. Now that I could no longer hold on to the idea of him as a living, breathing person, to be mad at, to keep waiting for, he was finally gone for real.”

  The storm clouds had moved on to the west. Anna stopped talking and looked down at her hands. Linda almost had the impression she was making sure none of her fingers were missing. She tried to imagine what it would be like if her own father had disappeared when she was a child. It was an impossible thought. He had always been there, a big enveloping shadow, sometimes warm, sometimes cold, circling her and keeping his eye on her. Linda suddenly wondered if following in his footsteps and becoming a police officer was going to be the greatest mistake of her life. Why did I do it? she asked herself. He’s going to crush me with all the kindness, understanding—even jealousy—he should really be giving to another woman and not to his own daughter.

  She pushed her thoughts away. She was being unfair, to him as well as to herself.

  Anna looked up from her hands.

  “It’s over,” she said. “It was no more than a reflection in the glass. I can return to my studies. Let’s not talk about it anymore. I’m sorry I worried you so much.”

  Linda wondered if she had heard about the death of Birgitta Medberg. That was still an unanswered question—what connection was there between her and Anna? And what about Vigsten in Copenhagen? Was the name Torgeir Langaas in any of her journals? I should have plowed through them while I had the chance, Linda thought callously. Reading one page or a thousand makes no difference once you’ve crossed the line.

  Somewhere inside her the sliver of anxiety was still there, gnawing away at her. But she decided that her questions would have to wait until later.

  “I went to see your mother,” Linda said. “She didn’t seem particularly worried. I took that as a sign that she knew where you were. But she didn’t seem to want to tell me anything.”

  “I didn’t tell her I thought I saw my dad.”

  Linda thought about what Henrietta had claimed, that Anna regularly reported sightings of her father. Who is lying, or not telling the whole truth? Linda decided it wasn’t important for the moment.

  “I went to see my mother yesterday,” Linda said. “I was going to surprise her, which in fact I did.”

  “Was she happy?”

  “Not particularly. I found her in the kitchen, stark naked, drinking vodka.”

  “Is she an alcoholic?”

  “That remains to be seen. I guess anyone can have a bad day.”

  “You’re right,” Anna said. “Well, I need to get some sleep. Do you want me to make up the couch for you?”

  “No, I’m going home,” Linda said. “Now that I know you’re back I can sleep in my own bed, even though I’ll probably have another fight with my dad first thing tomorrow morning.”

  Linda got up and walked out into the hall. Anna remained in the doorway to the living room. The storm had passed.

  “I didn’t tell you what happened at the end of my trip,” Anna said. “I saw someone I wasn’t expecting. This morning I was having a cup of coffee at the train station while I waited. Suddenly someone came over to my table. You’ll never guess who it was.”

  “Since I’ll never guess, it must have been the fat lady.”

  “Right. Her husband was standing guard over one of those huge old-fashioned trunks. It must have been full of wonderful hats all set to become the latest fashion. The fat lady was sweating and her cheeks were flushed. She leaned over to me and asked me if I had seen him. I didn’t want to disappoint her, so I said yes, I had seen him. Everything had gone well. Her eyes filled with tears, then she said, ‘May I tell my husband? We are returning to Halmstad now, and meeting a young woman who has been reunited with her father is a memory to cherish for life.’ ”

  “I’ll come by tomorrow,” Linda said. �
��Let’s go out like we were planning a week ago.”

  They agreed to meet around noon. Linda gave Anna the car keys.

  “I borrowed your car when I was looking for you. I’ll fill it up for you tomorrow.”

  “There’s no need to do that. You shouldn’t have to pay for being worried about me.”

  Linda walked home. The storm clouds were gone but there was a light rain. The wind had died down. Linda stopped and drew in the smell of asphalt and damp earth. Everything is all right, she thought. I was wrong. Nothing has happened.

  But the niggling splinter of anxiety remained. She kept thinking about what Anna had said: I saw someone I wasn’t expecting.

  33

  Linda woke up with a start. Her curtains were askew, letting in a ray of sunlight that reflected off the roof of a building across the street. She stretched her arm out into the light. When does the day start? she wondered. Every morning she had the feeling that she had a dream right before waking up that told her it was time: the day is about to begin.

  She sat up. Anna was back. Linda held her breath for a moment to rule out the suspicion that it had all been a dream. But Anna had really been there in that funny robe with the sleeves cut off. Linda lolled back onto the bed and put her hand back in the ray of sun. Summer will be over soon, she thought. I start work in five days. Then I get a new apartment and my father and I won’t rub each other raw anymore. Soon it will be fall, and one morning there will be frost on the ground. She looked at her arm bathed in sunlight. We’re still in the time before the frost.

  She got up when she heard her father rattling around in the bathroom. She couldn’t help laughing—no one else was able to make such a racket in a bathroom. It was as if he were engaged in a fierce battle with the soaps, faucets, and towels. She put on her robe and walked out into the kitchen. It was seven. Her father appeared, drying his hair.

  “I’m sorry about last night,” he said.

  Without waiting for an answer he walked over to her and bent his head.

  “Can you tell if I’m losing my hair?”

  She flicked through his wet hair.

  “There’s a little spot right here.”

  “Damn it. I don’t want to go bald.”

  “Grandpa didn’t have much hair either. It must run in the family. You’d look like an American army officer if you cut it all off.”

  “I don’t want to look like an American army officer.”

  “Anna’s back.”

  Wallander stopped in the middle of filling a pot of water.

  “Anna Westin?”

  “She’s the only Anna I know who’s been missing. Yesterday when I left I went over to her place to sleep. And there she was, just standing in her hall.”

  “What had happened?”

  “She had gone to Malmö and stayed in a hotel. She was looking for her dad.”

  “Did she find him?”

  “No. Finally she realized she had imagined the whole thing. Then she came back. That was yesterday.”

  Wallander sat down.

  “She spends a few days in Malmö looking for her father. She checks into a hotel and tells no one—not a friend nor her mother—where she is. Is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you have any reason to doubt her word?”

  “Not really.”

  “What does that mean? Yes or no?”

  “No.”

  Wallander filled the rest of the pot.

  “So I was right. Nothing had happened.”

  “Birgitta Medberg’s name was in her journal. As is Vigsten’s. I don’t know how much Lindman told you during your gossip session yesterday.”

  “It was no gossip session. He was very thorough—I think he’s going to be the new Martinsson when it comes to making clear, concise reports. I’m going to have Anna come down to the station so she can answer a few questions for us. You can tell her that, but don’t mention Medberg, and no more independent investigating from your side, understood?”

  “Now you’re starting to sound like a patronizing chief inspector,” Linda said.

  He looked surprised.

  “I am an inspector,” he said. “In case you didn’t know. But I don’t think I’ve ever been accused of being patronizing.”

  They ate their breakfast in silence, each with a section of the Ystad Allehanda. At half past seven Wallander got up to leave, but he changed his mind and sat down again.

  “You said something the other day,” he said tentatively.

  Linda immediately knew what he was thinking of. It amused her to see him so embarrassed.

  “You mean what I said about you needing a little action?”

  “What did you really mean by that?”

  “What do you think? Isn’t it self-explanatory?”

  “My sex life is my business.”

  “You don’t have a sex life.”

  “It’s still my business.”

  “Even if it’s nonexistent? Anyway, I don’t think it’s good for you to be alone. For every week that passes, you just gain more weight. All those extra pounds scream out how lonely you are—you might as well hang a sign around your neck saying ‘I need to get laid.’”

  “You don’t have to raise your voice.”

  “Who could possibly hear us?”

  Wallander got up, quickly.

  “Forget it,” he said. “I’m going.”

  She watched him as he rinsed out his coffee cup. Am I too hard on him? she thought. But if I don’t do it, who will?

  Linda called Anna at around ten o’clock.

  “I just want to make sure I didn’t dream the whole thing.”

  “And I realize now how much I worried you. But I called Zeba, so she knows I’m back.”

  “And Henrietta?”

  “I’ll talk to her later. Are you still coming over at noon?”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Linda didn’t put the receiver down right away after they ended the conversation.

  That little sliver of anxiety was still inside her somewhere. It’s a message, she thought. My body is trying to tell me something, like dreams where everything leads back to you even though it may seem like you’re dreaming about someone else. Anna has returned. She’s unhurt and everything seems normal, but I keep wondering about two names that appeared in her journal: Birgitta Medberg and Vigsten. And then there’s a third person, a Norwegian by the name of Torgeir Langaas. I won’t be able to shut the door on these thoughts until I get some answers.

  She went out and sat on the balcony. The air was cool and fresh after the previous night’s thunderstorm. The paper had said the rain had caused sewers to overflow in Rydsgård. A dead butterfly lay on the balcony floor. That’s another question I need answered, Linda thought. The blue butterfly on the wall.

  She put her legs up on the balcony railing. Only five more days, she thought. Then I’ll no longer be in limbo.

  Linda didn’t know where the thought had come from, but she went inside and called information. The hotel was run by the Scandic Corporation. She was put through, and a cheerful man’s voice picked up. She sensed the trace of a Danish accent.

  “I’d like to speak to one of your guests, Anna Westin.”

  “One moment.”

  The first lie is easy, she thought. Then it gets harder.

  The cheerful voice returned.

  “I have no one registered under that name.”

  “Perhaps she’s already checked out. I know she was staying at your hotel.”

  “Anna Westin, you said? Is that W-e-s-t-i-n?”

  “Yes.”

  “One moment.”

  This time he returned almost immediately.

  “There’s been no guest by that name in the last two weeks, at least. Are you sure you have the right spelling of the name?”

  “She definitely spells it with a ‘W.’”

  “We’ve had a Wagner, Werner, Wiktor with a ‘W,’ Williamsson, Wallander ...”

  Linda squee
zed the receiver.

  “Excuse me. What was the last name?”

  “Williamsson?”

  “No, Wallander.”

  The cheerful voice took on a steely edge.

  “I thought you said you were looking for someone by the name of Westin.”

  “But her husband’s name is Wallander. Perhaps she had booked them under his name?”

  “Please hold the line for a moment.”

  It can’t be, she thought. This isn’t happening.

  “I’m afraid that isn’t right either. The only Wallander we’ve had was a woman who was staying in a single room.”

  Linda couldn’t speak.

  “Hello? Are you still there?”

  “Was her first name Linda, by any chance?”

  “Yes, it was, actually. I’m sorry I can’t do anything more for you. Perhaps your friend was staying elsewhere. We also have a wonderful establishment outside Lund.”

  “Thank you.”

  Linda almost slammed the phone down. At first she had felt surprise, but now it was anger. She knew she should speak to her father and not keep working on her own. Right now this is the only question that matters to me, she thought. Why would Anna go to Malmö to look for her father and book a room under my name?

  She tore a piece of paper from a pad lying out on the kitchen table and crossed out the word “asparagus” already written on it. He doesn’t even eat asparagus, she thought irritably. By the time she was ready to start jotting down all of the names and events associated with Anna’s disappearance, she no longer knew where she should begin. Eventually she drew the outline of a butterfly and started filling it in with blue. Then the pen ran out and she got another. One of the wings was blue, the other black. This is a butterfly that doesn’t exist anywhere but in the realm of imagination, she thought. Just like Anna’s dad. Reality is full of other things, such as burning swans, a butchered body in the forest, a mugger in Copenhagen.