Room No. 10 (13 page)

“We often ask the same question several times.”

Sometimes because we’re stupid, Djanali thought, and sometimes because we get different answers each time.

Lorrinder lifted her cup without taking a drink. She set it down again. She looked over at the door, as though Paula would step in. She moved her gaze to Djanali, as though Paula were sitting there.

She began to cry.

The cup trembled in her hand.

“Let’s go someplace else,” said Djanali.

•   •   •

At a French café far south on the street, Djanali repeated the question.

“About an hour.”

“What time was it when you said good-bye?”

“About ten.”

“Was that outside the pub?”

“I followed her up to Grönsakstorget. She was going to take a streetcar from there. The number one.” Lorrinder jumped as a streetcar clattered by outside. The door was open to the street. It was a warm evening, an Indian summer evening. “But you know that.”

“Did you wait until she got on?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“My own streetcar showed up. The three.”

“Why didn’t you get on at the stop at Domkyrkan?”

“Oh . . . I guess we wanted to walk a little.”

“So you got on the three while Paula waited for the one?”

“Yes.” Lorrinder looked very pale in the light inside the café. The light in there was a pale mix of electricity and autumn sun.

“Was that wrong of me?”

Djanali saw the tears in her eyes.

“Should I have stayed?” Lorrinder rubbed her eyes. When she took her hand away, her eyes had a film of tears. She sniffled. “I’ve been thinking about it. Almost all the time. If I hadn’t left, maybe it wouldn’t have happened.” She looked at Djanali with her transparent eyes. “Do you understand? If only I had stayed.”

“You can’t blame yourself for any of this,” said Djanali.

“How could I have known? How could anyone have known?”

Djanali lifted her cup and drank her new tea. Right now, she was wishing for a glass of wine, or a whiskey. Lorrinder looked like she
could use a whiskey. They could go to a bar in a little bit. It could be her treat. She had forced herself into Lorrinder’s sorrow.

“None of us could have known,” said Djanali.

“How could it happen?” Lorrinder looked at Djanali as though she could give her an answer. “Why?”

“That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

“Can you?” Lorrinder threw out a hand. It was like a reflex. “How can you find an answer to something like this?”

How should she answer? There were thousands of answers, but maybe none of them was the right one. There were thousands of questions.

“Among other things, by talking to everyone she knew,” Djanali answered at last. “What we’re doing now. You and I.”

“She didn’t know that many people,” said Lorrinder.

Djanali didn’t say anything, waited.

“She wasn’t exactly the . . . how should I put it . . . the superficial type.” Lorrinder made that motion again, as though it went along with her voice. “Paula mostly wanted to withdraw a bit. Do you know what I mean? She didn’t want to be in big groups of people. She didn’t want to be the center of attention, or anything.”

“What did she want to do, then? What did she want to do most of all?”

“I . . . don’t know.”

“Didn’t you ever talk about it?”

Lorrinder didn’t answer at first. Djanali let her think; it looked like she was thinking.

“She wanted to be someplace else,” Lorrinder said at last.

“Where did she want to go?”

“Where? Where did she want to go? If you mean a place or something, a country, she never said.”

“But you know she wanted to get away?”

“Yes . . . it’s hard to explain . . . it was like she
was
somewhere else sometimes. She wasn’t
here
. Do you know what I mean? She was here
but at the same time she was somewhere else, where she most wanted to be.”

“And she never talked about this place? Where she most wanted to be?”

“I don’t even know if it was a place,” Lorrinder said. “I don’t even know if she knew, herself.”

A young woman came into the café from the white street outside. She looked around for a table. There were several free. She saved the table closest to the wall with her long scarf and went back out and held the door open for a young man who pushed a stroller in and put it beside the saved table next to the window. A two-year-old child was sleeping in the stroller. The man sat down and took off his dark glasses. He blinked a few times in the weaker light inside the room.

“Did she talk about anyone else?” Djanali asked, leaning over the table. “Was there a man in Paula’s life? Or a woman, for that matter.”

Lorrinder gave a start.

“That is one of the questions that has to be asked,” said Djanali. “It’s part of the routine, or whatever it’s called.”

“Do you call it routine?” Lorrinder said, looking straight at Djanali. “How can you call it routine?”

“It’s not a good word. I’m with you there.”

“Do you do this kind of thing every day? Are people mur . . . murdered every day?”

“No, no.”

“What a job,” said Lorrinder.

Djanali didn’t answer.

Lorrinder turned her gaze toward the table over by the wall where the woman was coming back with a tray. She placed it on the table. The man spread it out. The woman sat down. The child was sleeping.

“She wasn’t a lesbian, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Lorrinder said, her gaze still on the young family. “And I’m not, either.”

“I’m not thinking anything,” said Djanali. “Right now I’m not allowed to be thinking anything at all.”

“That’s part of the routine, right?”

Lorrinder had looked back. Djanali tried to find a smile in her face, somewhere, but there was no smile.

“Are you tired of this now?” Djanali asked. “Should we stop?”

“There was a guy,” said Lorrinder.

She looked at the couple again. The child had woken up and the mom was lifting it up right now. It looked like a boy. The coverall was blue. The mom gave him a kiss. The dad poured water into a glass.

“Did Paula have a boyfriend?” Djanali asked.

“Not now.” Lorrinder returned her gaze again. “Not that I know of, anyway. But there was probably someone a while ago.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t meet him?”

“No.”

“How do you know about him, then?”

“Paula said something.”

“What did she say?”

“She didn’t
say
that she had a boyfriend. It was like, that wasn’t
her
 . . . to even tell me wouldn’t have been her. But it was like I knew. Do you know what I mean? The kind of things you notice. As a friend. There’s something that’s suddenly a little different. We didn’t see each other as much as before, for example. She did something else on the weekends sometimes, when usually we would have seen each other. She went somewhere.”

“Went somewhere?”

“Yeah, for example.”

“Is it just an example? Or did she really go somewhere? That you know of?”

“Do you mean abroad, or what?”

“I mean anywhere.”

“I don’t actually know. But I know that I tried to reach her a few times one week and she didn’t seem to be home.”

“When was that?”

“It was . . . a few months ago. Three, maybe.” Lorrinder made that motion with her arm again, like a vague spasm. “Does that mean something?”

“I don’t know,” said Djanali. “You never know. But I want you to try to remember when this was, as precisely as possible.”

“I’ll try.”

“Was it unusual?” Djanali asked. “For Paula to travel out of the city?”

“Well, I don’t know that she did. That time. But from what I know of her, I guess it was . . . unusual.”

“You never talked about it.”

“No. It didn’t really come up.”

“You never went on a trip together?”

“Abroad?”

“Anywhere.”

“No. As long as you don’t mean on the streetcar.”

“Not right now,” said Djanali.

“We stayed here, in the city. But on the other hand we didn’t get together very often. It wasn’t even every week.”

“How did you meet?” Djanali asked.

Lorrinder nodded over toward the window. Djanali followed her gaze, past the young family. Djanali saw the street outside, a streetcar passing, people walking by. The facade of Domkyrkan, the cathedral.

“We met at church,” Lorrinder said, nodding toward the window again.

“Church?” said Djanali. “Do you mean at Domkyrkan over there?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me.”

“There’s not much to tell. I went there sometimes . . . just to sit a little and . . . and think. An evening service or two. Well . . .” Her eyes were still on the church. The facade was nearly hidden behind the branches around the church square. “I still go there sometimes.” She
moved her eyes to Djanali. “It feels safe, somehow. Oh, I don’t know how to explain it.”

“It makes you feel good,” said Djanali.

“Yes.”

“And so you met Paula there.”

“Yes.”

“How did it happen?”

It almost looked as though Lorrinder was smiling. “Well, maybe a church isn’t a place you meet new friends. And I guess it was more like outside. I guess we had noticed each other a few times, and then I guess we decided to go out for coffee afterward. I guess that’s what happened, one time. I don’t really remember, actually.”

“When was this?” Djanali asked.

“When we went out for coffee?”

“When you talked to each other for the first time.”

“Well . . . it was probably a few years ago.”

“Was Paula alone?”

“Yes.”

“Always?”

Lorrinder nodded. Djanali could see in her eyes that she had been alone, too. That she was alone. You don’t go to church with a big group. The sense of community you were looking for might be there. Djanali turned her gaze toward the window again. The branches swayed around the church, like a circle.

The little boy at the table had taken off his coverall. He was wearing a T-shirt that had something on it that Djanali couldn’t read from where she was sitting. He squirmed around on his dad’s lap, back and forth, here, there, as though he wanted to get away, out into the sunshine again. The dad stood up and lifted him toward the ceiling and he laughed. The laughter sounded loud inside the café, bright and clear, like the day outside. It had been like night in here, Djanali thought. The boy changed that, for a little bit.

“Did she ever talk about Italy?” Djanali asked.

Lorrinder had also been watching the gymnastics over at the table.
Djanali had seen the small smile on her face. It had been hard not to smile. She had smiled, too.

“Italy? No. Why do you ask?”

“She didn’t talk about her dad? That he came from Italy? Sicily? Or that she’d been there?”

“She’d been to Sicily?”

“We don’t know. It’s possible.”

“When?”

“Ten years ago.”

“No. She never said anything about that.”

“Did she talk about her dad?”

“That he was from there, you mean?”

“In general.”

“Oh . . . she probably did once or twice. But it wasn’t really anything specific.”

Lorrinder’s gaze was outside again, by the church. Djanali couldn’t remember that she herself had ever looked at Domkyrkan for such a long time.

“What kind of relationship did Paula have with her father?”

“I assume it was okay.”

“Just okay?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

“We always try to find out about the relationships in the family.”

That was no good. It was awkwardly put. Everything like this was very difficult.

“The routine, you mean?”

“Did she see her parents often?”

“I don’t actually know.”

“Did she talk about them often?”

“Haven’t I answered that?”

“Did she talk about her mom?”

“I guess she did. Sometimes.”

“But you didn’t notice any signs that they might have a . . . that there could be some problems?”

“Problems?”

“Between them. Between the parents. Or between Paula and one of her parents.”

Lorrinder shook her head.

 . . . if I’ve made you angry at me I want to ask for your forgiveness . . .

Paula’s last words in writing. It was about guilt, and about forgiveness. Djanali felt herself shudder every time she read Paula’s letter to her parents; it was more than a shudder, it was like a cold wind overtaking a warm day.

W
inter walked from room to room, opening windows. The apartment was warm, warmer than it had been in months, and the dust in it had turned into air. There was a word for it: stuffy. It would be hours before any cool air would come in from outside; the evenings were also the warmest they’d been in months, but he opened the windows anyway. At least there was a bit of a breeze. The late afternoon had a scent. The Indian summer contained a few autumn smells, and that was enough to mask a little of the exhaust perfume that rose from the traffic. Not that he had a problem with it. He had smelled it his entire adult life; he moved through it every day and if it became annoying, he lit a Corps.

He lit a Corps now. It was the most expensive cigar in Europe, but it was an old habit. It tasted good. It was hygienic. The smoker had to peel the protective wrapper off the long, thin cigars himself. Winter had had to special-order Corps from Brussels for several years, because apparently he was the only person in the city of Gothenburg who smoked that brand. That gave it an exclusivity that it didn’t really deserve.

He stood on the balcony and inhaled smoke, blew out, let the scent of the cigar blend with the other smells. An SUV down there was circling around, on the hunt for a parking spot, or two, really. Winter could see blond hair in the front seat. A woman was looking for a spot. She stuck her head out through the rolled-down window. The Chrysler looked like a tank. Tractor wheels. Just what a family needs, he thought. Just what this city needs. SUVs.

The telephone rang inside. He placed the half-smoked cigar in the ashtray on the balcony table and went in to answer it.