to sit and pull her calendar out. She turned the pages ahead to April 28. Nothing was noted there. Perhaps it was Sunday, April 29? Nothing there either. She turned a few more pages and caught sight of the entry for the first of May. A public holiday. ON CALL. And that was the day she had agreed to have dinner with her mother and father. She felt immediate stress. She couldn’t possibly be on call that same day. How had she not seen that? Of course, it was not absolutely necessary to be at her parents’ for dinner, but she didn’t want to disappoint her father by not coming over at all.
I’ll have to swap days with somebody, she thought, as she put her calendar back in her briefcase. She got up and continued walking, wondering with whom she’d be able to swap days. Most likely Per Åström. Per was both a successful public prosecutor and a popular social worker. She respected him as a colleague. During the five years they had known each other, a friendship of sorts had grown up between them.
Per was thirty-three years old and in good shape. He played tennis on Tuesdays and Thursdays. He had blond hair, a little dimple in his chin and eyes that were different colors. He smelled of aftershave. Sometimes he tended to go on a bit, but otherwise a nice guy. Only that; nothing more.
Jana hoped that Per would swap with her. Otherwise she would resort to bribing him with wine. But red or white? She weighed the two choices in time with the sound of her heels on the floor. Red or white. Red or white.
She contemplated taking the stairs down to the garage but chose the elevator instead. When she saw that the defense lawyer Peter Ramstedt was waiting there too, she immediately regretted her decision. She stood back from him at a safe distance.
“Ah, it’s you, Jana,” said Peter when he noted her presence. He rocked back and forth on the soles of his shoes.
“I heard that you had gone to review the autopsy and see the victim’s body at the medical examiner’s.”
“Where did you hear that?”
“One hears a thing or two.”
Peter gave a slight smirk and exposed his whitened teeth.
“So you like corpses?”
“Not particularly. I’m just trying to lead an investigation.”
“I’ve been a lawyer for ten years and I’ve never heard of a prosecutor going to an autopsy.”
“Perhaps that says more about other prosecutors than about me?”
“Don’t you like your colleagues?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Isn’t it simpler in your position to let the police do the legwork?”
“I am not interested in what is simple.”
“You know, as a prosecutor you can complicate an investigation.”
“In what way?”
“By calling attention to yourself.”
Hearing those words, Jana Berzelius decided to take the stairs down to the garage anyway. For every step she cursed Peter Ramstedt.
THE ROCKING HAD STOPPED. They were traveling silently, shut inside the dark container.
“Are we there?” said the girl.
Her mama didn’t answer her. Nor her papa. They seemed tense. Her mother told her to sit up. The girl did as she was told. The others also began to move. There was a feeling of unease. Several others were coughing and the girl felt the warm, stuffy air as it sought its way down into her lungs. Even her papa made a wheezing sound.
“Are we there now?” she said again. “Mama? Mama!”
“Quiet!” said Papa. “You must be completely quiet.”
The girl became grumpy and pushed her knees up toward her chin.
Suddenly the floor shuddered under her. She fell to one side and stretched out an arm to brace herself. Her mother got hold of her and held her close. It was silent a long, long time. Then the container was lifted up.
They all hung on tight in the cramped space. The girl gripped her mama’s waist. But even so, she hit her head when the container landed hard on the ground. At last they were in their new country. In their new life.
Mama got up and pulled her daughter up too. The girl looked at Danilo, who was still sitting with his back to the wall. His eyes were wide open, and just like all the others he was trying to hear sounds outside. It was hard to hear anything through the walls but if you really concentrated then you could perhaps distinguish weak voices. Yes, there were people talking outside. The girl looked at her papa and he smiled at her. That smile was the last thing she saw before the container was opened and daylight poured in.
Outside the container stood three men. They had something in their hands, something big and silvery. The girl had seen such things before, in red plastic that sprayed water.
One man started to shout at the others. Something weird was on his face, an enormous scar. She couldn’t help but stare at it.
The man with the scar came into the container and waved the silvery thing. He was shouting all the time. The girl didn’t understand what he said. Neither did her parents. Nobody understood his words.
The man went up to Ester and pulled at her sweater. She was scared. Ester’s mama was also frightened and didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late. The man pulled Ester and held her in a firm grip around her neck as he backed away, all the time with the silvery thing pointed at Ester’s mama and papa. They didn’t dare do anything; they stood there completely still.
The girl felt somebody take a firm hold of her arm. It was Papa, who quickly pushed her in behind his legs. Her mama spread out her skirt to cover the girl even more.
The girl stood as still as she possibly could. Behind the skirt she couldn’t see what was happening. But she could hear. Hear how the grown-ups started to shout. They were shouting no, no, NO! And then she heard Danilo’s desperate voice.
“Mama,” he shouted. “Mama!”
The girl put her hands over her ears so that she wouldn’t have to hear the other children’s crying and shrieking. The voices of the grown-ups were worse. They were crying and shrieking too, but they were much louder. The girl pressed her hands even harder against her ears. But then after a while, all became silent.
The girl took her hands away and listened. She tried to look out between her papa’s legs, but when she moved he pressed her hard against the wall. It hurt.
The girl heard steps approach and felt her papa press her harder and harder against the steel wall. She could hardly breathe. Just as she was about to open her mouth to complain, she heard a popping sound and her papa fell down on his face on the floor. He lay there unmoving in front of her. When she looked up, the man with the scar was standing in front of her. He smiled.
Her mama threw herself forward and held on to her as best she could. The man just looked at them, then shouted something again and Mama shouted back.
