‘Sofia, come look at this!’
She was at her desk, waiting to go to bed, exhausted as usual. But Oswald was watching the surveillance screens again.
‘Just look at what the staff gets up to while I’m working my ass off.’ He pointed at one screen: Katarina was lying in bed and reading a book.
‘She’s lying there reading some trashy novel like she’s on vacation.’
He switched the picture to show a couple of girls sitting on the floor and chatting in a dormitory room. Oswald zoomed in on Corinne from the household unit; she was eating a sandwich.
‘Look at this fucking feast! She stole that from the kitchen, of course.’
Sofia couldn’t quite grasp the gravity of all this, and Oswald noticed her hesitation.
‘Don’t you get it? I work like a dog day and night. Trying to handle the media. Repairing our image. And the staff just laze around. As if everything’s just fine.’
‘Of course, sir. It’s totally wrong.’
But he was wound up and didn’t feel validated at all by her comment.
‘No, it’s not wrong. It’s all gone to shit. This is treason. Are you that slow today? Do you think this fatty understands how important it is for us to spread ViaTerra’s message? No, she’s just sitting there enjoying her sandwich.’
Sofia knew nothing she said would make any difference, so she just nodded and tried to look concerned. Sometimes when he got really angry his eyes grew cloudy and his rage transformed into tiny arrows that flew through the air to strike her. There was no defending herself. She just had to sit there and take it.
‘Go get Bosse and his crew of idiots. Benny, Sten, and the new guards. All of them. Make it quick!’
She ran down the stairs and found Bosse and his henchmen straight off, in the staff office. They were sitting around a table covered with cell phones.
‘What are you doing?’
Bosse looked up at her, preoccupied.
‘Going through the staff’s phones to look for suspicious texts. That’s how we’ll find the mole.’
Shit. She thought of all the forbidden texts she’d sent out.
‘Franz wants to see all of you. Now!’
She put a little extra authority and strength in her voice. Bosse was startled and stood up.
‘Of course. We’ll get back to this later, guys.’
They didn’t even notice when Sofia hung back in the room. When the last man was out of sight, she searched the pile and found her own iPhone. It had a little post-it note with her name on it. She sent up a silent prayer that it still had some battery and breathed a sigh of relief when the screen lit up. Then she deleted every text on it, put it back in the pile, and ran as fast as she could to the office. The men were lined up before Oswald’s desk.
‘Where have you been?’ he asked, irritated.
‘Someone had left some personnel folders out. I took care of it. Sorry to make you wait.’
‘Good thing you handled it,’ Oswald said, content with the explanation.
Bosse shot her a look of alarm, but she just raised her eyebrows.
‘Men, we need to get a handle on all the laziness and indolence in this group,’ Oswald said. ‘Right now, I am the only one getting anything done — and maybe Sofia too. Everyone else is walking around like zombies when they’re not sitting around daydreaming. Understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I want you to bring me suggestions of punishments to be used when someone messes up. We don’t have to call them punishments . . . consequences, maybe. After all, there should be consequences when people don’t perform their jobs properly, shouldn’t there?’
‘Are you thinking of someone in particular who’s messed up?’ Bosse asked, curious.
Oswald shook his head angrily.
‘You don’t get it. Half the staff is walking around in a daze. Not a single one of those bastards has any motivation. We have the solutions to all the world’s problems, but why should they care? You should just see what they get up to at night.’
Bosse swallowed and nodded.
‘I want your suggestions before you go to bed.’
He turned to Sofia.
‘I want you to find out what book Katarina was reading.’
‘Now?’
‘Yes, now!’
She went to the second floor and knocked at Katarina’s door. A moment went by before the door opened, but Katarina didn’t look at all tired. She probably couldn’t tear herself away from her book, Sofia thought in irritation.
‘Katarina, I have to make sure all the windows are closed and secured. Franz asked me to.’
‘The windows? Why?’
‘No idea. Is Bengt asleep?’
Bengt was Katarina’s husband, and indeed he was asleep, splayed out on his back with his mouth open, snoring gently. The book was on Katarina’s side of the bed, but it was too dark in the room to make out the title.
Sofia approached the window and pretended to check it.
‘What are you reading?’
Katarina immediately looked ashamed. Before she could respond, Sofia went to the bed and picked up the book. It was a Harlequin romance, The Elasticity of Love by Myra Loft. The cover showed a woman gazing out at the sea, her long hair waving in the breeze.
‘There are better love stories in the library,’ Sofia said. ‘If you’re interested, I mean.’
Katarina flushed. ‘Okay, I’ll check it out sometime. I just grabbed this one in the village when I was buying plants.’
*
Oswald looked at her expectantly when she returned.
‘You were right. It was a Harlequin romance.’
‘Like I said! She didn’t get it from the library, did she?’
‘Definitely not. We don’t have that sort of book there. She said she bought it in the village while she was shopping.’
‘Well, there you go! I thought Benjamin was going to take care of all the shopping, and I haven’t given her permission to leave the property. This just gets worse and worse. It’s insane, it’s like we’re running a nursery! No wonder we’re treading water around here.’ Just then, Bosse and his gang returned, looking eager and a little self-important. Bosse proudly handed a piece of paper to Oswald.
‘Here are the Consequences.’
Oswald gazed at the document for a long time. That wrinkle of annoyance appeared on his forehead. Then he looked out the window for a moment, shaking his head.
‘Fantastic. Really terrific, Bosse. You’ve outdone yourself.’
Then he read aloud, imitating Bosse’s southern-Swedish accent.
“One: Reprimand. If a staff member is found to be uneffective or makes repeated mistakes, he or she will be given a warning. Two: After three warnings, the staff member in question will forfeit a week’s pay.”
Oswald laughed.
‘Uneffective? That’s not even a word. Help, I’m shaking in my boots! I can only mess up three times or I’ll be out five hundred kronor! Ohhh, it burns!’
He ripped the paper into little strips and turned on his Dictaphone. He spoke into it clearly and with no hesitation. He paused between each point to stare at Bosse, who by now looked like a scolded puppy.
‘One. Laziness and lack of productivity: the guilty party shall complete a compensatory project that requires at least ten hours of extra work, beyond the usual working hours.
‘Two. Repeated failure: rice and beans for two weeks, with no access to the kiosk; meal breaks shortened to fifteen minutes.
‘Three. Treachery, disloyalty, betrayal, and lying: the guilty party shall jump from Devil’s Rock in front of the entire staff, in the hope that he or she will realize the consequences of his or her behaviour. If this has no impact on behaviour, he or she will be dismissed and sent back to the mainland.
‘Four. In special cases, when the person in question shows remorse and regret, he or she may be allowed to undergo Penance.’
He thought for a moment. It was dead silent in the room; the only sound was his fingertips drumming against the desk. Then he spoke again.
‘Jumping from Devil’s Rock will occur in full uniform, and the head of ethics will recite the following to the guilty party before he or she jumps: “May you leave your betrayal in the depths and rise to the surface pure and full of devotion.”’
He turned off the Dictaphone and nodded in satisfaction.
Benny was the first to speak. He typically remained silent during meetings and assemblies, but something was weighing so heavily on him now that he dared to open his mouth.
‘Sir, I thought people could die jumping from Devil’s Rock.’
Oswald burst out laughing.
‘Have you been listening to the old gossips in the village? I can’t believe my ears. No, it really isn’t dangerous. As long as you can swim.’
Then came another peal of laughter. He almost seems a little crazy, Sofia thought. The thought was unwelcome; she knew he was doing all of this for the good of the group. That glow in his eyes had to be devotion, not madness.
Maybe I need to do some soul-searching, she thought. Come up with things I’ve done that go against the group. She thought of her laptop and cell phone, and it was as if the mouldy smell from the basement floated by as she stood there. But then Oswald’s voice brought her back to the office.
‘I believe I’ve found our first candidate for Devil’s Rock. Katarina. She’s lying around reading trashy books this minute, while we work. And as if that isn’t enough, she buys them in the village during working hours. No wonder the yard looks like shit.’
Bosse gasped and Sten let out a horrified moan.
‘She will jump tomorrow morning, after assembly. The whole staff must be there, except for those who serve breakfast for the guests. I’ll be there, believe me. I don’t want to miss this.’
*
They walked across the heath in two straight lines. Katarina and Bosse were in the lead; Oswald was off to the side a little way. The fog was thick and the ground was so dewy that shoes and trouser legs were soaked through. They walked slowly, as if on a death march. Everyone was looking toward the sea, serious and solemn.
The whole coast was wrapped up in fog. There was no horizon, only the blanket of fog and the black water.
Katarina’s face was tight and grim. She was scared; Sofia could see and feel her fright.
When they arrived at the grassy slope that abutted Devil’s Rock, Bosse and Katarina took off their shoes before climbing down to the rock cliff. They stood at the edge and waited for a signal from Oswald.
Katarina’s head was drooping like a wilted flower. Sofia could tell she was crying; her back was trembling. Bosse grabbed her shoulders and straightened her up.
Oswald nodded at Bosse, and everyone listened breathlessly as Bosse read from the notes he had taken from his pocket: ‘May you leave your betrayal in the depths and rise to the surface pure and full of devotion.’
Katarina nodded. She hesitated, gazing down at the dark water that was as still as a black mirror below the cliff. Then she jumped, her back straight and her hands at her sides. The splash when her body hit the surface was muted by the fog and died out so quickly that it hardly reached their ears.
All eyes were drawn to the rings on the water where she had gone under. Then she popped up, sucked in air, and gasped for breath with wide eyes.
She swam to the rocks and pulled herself up. Her wet uniform hung heavy on her body. Little rivulets dripped from her clothing and onto the rocks.
Slowly she made her way back up to the grassy area with everyone else.
Bosse was holding a large towel and was just about to hand it to Katarina when something happened. She turned away from him, her hands grasping her belly. A gurgling, bestial sound came from her throat and she threw up on the grass.
No one spoke. All they could hear was the screeching of a few gulls and the sound of a motorboat way out in the bay. They looked at each other in shock, and then at Oswald.
‘Well, damn,’ he said at last, shaking his head. ‘Guess she swallowed some water.’
Katarina looked up and her eyes met Sofia’s. They were black with hatred.
*
There it was again, that bitter gaze coming from the far side of the dining room. It had been going on for a week now. Katarina seemed to seek out Sofia wherever she was so she could nail her with hostile glares, whispering and tittering with other staff members.
Sofia didn’t dislike Katarina. She wasn’t even sure if she thought the punishment had been just, but it didn’t matter — right now, all she wanted to do was walk up and smack her. What had she expected? That Sofia would lie to Oswald? Tell him that Katarina had been reading War and Peace?
This just could not go on. Dealing with Oswald’s moodiness and outbursts of rage was one thing, but doing so while the rest of the staff actively worked against her was completely different. Katarina had to disappear for a while — perhaps even for her own good.
She rose from the table, scraped her barely-touched food into the compost bucket, and placed her plate and cutlery into the dish tub. She looked at her watch: fifteen minutes before she had to be back at work, and fifteen minutes would be enough.
Bosse was bent over a big stack of papers in his office, just as she’d hoped. Oswald had instituted a system in which the staff were encouraged to write a report whenever they saw something unethical. She herself had handed out piles of report forms to the staff. ‘Declaration,’ read the top of the sheet, which was otherwise empty. Once you had finished writing, you sent the report to the ethics unit, which was expected to deal with whatever you had written. Oswald had called it ‘peer pressure’, but Sofia had read a few of the reports and thought they mostly consisted of whining.
‘Have you gotten any reports in about Katarina?’ she asked Bosse.
Bosse seemed completely overwhelmed by the large pile.
‘I asked if you’ve gotten any reports on Katarina.’
‘Oh, does Franz want to know?’
‘What does that matter? Could you answer me now?’
‘I don’t actually know,’ he said, staring down at his papers.
‘Let’s find out,’ she said, dividing the stack in two and starting to read through the reports. It wasn’t difficult — the names of the people being tattled on were written in capital letters at the top of the sheet.
In the end they found three reports on Katarina. One said that she had complained about the food, another that she had borrowed someone’s soap without permission, and a third claimed she had whined about jumping from Devil’s Rock.
The last report had been written by Elvira. Sofia thanked her silently as she read.
‘I knew it! Katarina hasn’t changed a bit since she jumped. Now she’s complaining about Franz. Look at this — she belongs in Penance.’
Bosse read it and shook his head.
‘Dammit, you’re right. I’ll bring it up with Franz.’
Sofia wasn’t there when Bosse spoke to Oswald, but the conversation must have happened because two days later she saw Katarina in the barn with Madeleine, sporting a red cap. They were feeding the pigs, the most recent newcomers to the property. It wasn’t easy for Sofia to contain her laughter.
Great, now you can glare at the sows instead of at me, she thought, feeling a little ashamed at her schadenfreude.
She realized that Katarina had noticed her, but she shrank from Sofia’s gaze, turning her eyes to the ground.
An eternity passes before he arrives.
But then I see a shadow moving across the yard. Quickly, jerkily. I can feel his irritation even from here.
He thinks it’s a mistake, a bad joke, a mix-up, anything but the truth. I have disturbed him and he just wants to get it over and done with. Confirm what he already knows. That it’s not me. He wants to go back to whatever he was doing that was so important.
But he did come out here.
All at once, I know he received my letter.
He knows who I am. But he doesn’t know what I have in my backpack.
The light from the sentry box illuminates his face. He looks older now than when I last saw him. His face is furrowed and his eyes are heavy, like an alcoholic’s. He’s tanned, but tired and worn out.
At that moment, I feel nothing.
Neither hate nor love.
Neither contempt nor admiration.
He stops and looks at me for a moment, from a distance. The iron gate still separates us.
Then he comes closer and grips the iron bar.
Stares at me as though I’m a ghost.
‘But you’re dead!’ he says.
His first words to me.
My father.