Madeleine cried almost constantly, whenever she wasn’t complaining. She whined about the cold, blisters on her feet, and various other pains, but mostly she just leaked quiet tears wherever they went. Sofia suspected Madeleine was experiencing some sort of mental breakdown and brought it up with Benny in the stable one day. She suggested they let the other woman rest up in an empty stable, but Benny wouldn’t hear of it.
‘She’s been going on like this for a week, Benny. It’s not normal.’
‘Well, she’s just going to have to pull herself together, damn it. Go show her how to muck out stalls and get her moving.’
‘Maybe it would be good for her to get outside for some fresh air. I saw some weeds in the flowerbeds.’
That was as far as she got, because Benny’s eyes, which typically roved every which way, were suddenly nailed to something over her head. When she turned around, she saw Oswald coming briskly down the centre aisle. He stopped right next to her. Her skin still seemed to tingle when he stood so close. But he hadn’t come to see her.
‘Where’s Simon?’
Simon peered out from one of the stalls, shovel in hand.
‘I’m here, sir.’
‘My cook says there are no vegetables in the greenhouse anymore.’ He was clearly furious; his voice was rough and hoarse, but he was keeping himself in check.
‘I don’t know, sir. I haven’t been there in months.’
‘So you think I should eat frozen peas from the store?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Then you’re going back to the greenhouse, effective immediately. You have one week to get things growing in there again.’
Simon put down his shovel, shot Sofia an apologetic look, and walked down the aisle and out of the stable. Oswald, too, turned to leave. Sofia noticed he had manure stuck to his shoe and muffled a giggle.
‘Is something funny, Sofia?’
‘No, I’m sorry, I thought I was going to sneeze.’
‘I thought maybe there was something you wanted to say to me.’
‘No, I mean, yes, I’m sorry for my betrayal and all that.’
He observed her for a long time.
‘I’ll think about that.’
A jolt of loss flowed through her when she realized that Simon wouldn’t be returning. One thing was certain: life would remain miserable if Madeleine didn’t stop crying. She thought maybe there was something Madeleine didn’t dare to say while Benny was around, so she decided to talk to her once they’d crawled into their sleeping bags for the night. Benny slept in a stall near the door in case they tried to escape. But he was out of earshot if they spoke in whispers.
‘Hey, we’ve been working together for almost two years and I don’t know a thing about you,’ Sofia began.
‘Oh, there’s nothing to know.’
‘But what did you do before you came here?’
‘I was a secretary, like I am now, or was before everything went to shit . . .’ Madeleine began to blubber again but soon got herself back under control. ‘I mean, I worked for one of the directors of a pretty big IT company in Stockholm.’
‘But why did you come here?’
‘I went to a lecture Oswald gave. He came up to me afterwards and said he’d been looking for someone like me for a long time. He took me out for dinner. That was before we had the manor.’
Her voice had taken on a dreamlike tone.
‘It seemed like he already knew all about me. He understood me like no one ever had. I knew right away that I was meant for ViaTerra.’
He hand-picked us, Sofia thought, and he knows just how to do it. This insight was followed by a quick series of thoughts, almost flickering by, and yet they were fully formed. All the staff members were white and looked ‘typically Nordic.’ Aside from Abayomi in the kitchen, of course, who Oswald called ‘the blackhead’ and ‘big lips’ and complained it would take a year to learn to pronounce his name. Oswald said all this in such a mild and joking tone that no one challenged him. He had even said once that Abayomi just ‘sneaked in’ under his nose.
Then Sofia’s thoughts turned to the guy on the farm who turned out to be gay — Oswald had sent him back to the mainland before anyone had time to react. One day he was just gone, never to be heard from again. Out of these thoughts was born a suspicion: Oswald was trying to create the ideal worker. Their Nordic appearances were the template and the slavery and humiliation the tools.
Madeleine hadn’t realized that Sofia’s thoughts were wandering, so she blathered on. She seemed to come to life when she spoke about Oswald.
‘It’s like he’s above everything. His vision, that is. It’s greater than we can understand.’
She’s fucking in love with him, head over heels.
‘But then what happened? You seem totally wrecked!’
It was like turning on a faucet. Sofia wondered how it was even possible to cry so much. How could there be so many tears in a such a tiny body?’
‘Come on, tell me. I’m listening.’
‘Shit, Sofia. I don’t know what to say. I hate myself. This is the second time I betrayed him. I feel awful. And everyone else just keeps messing up. It’s like the whole staff is working against him. The punishments don’t make any difference. Where will it all end?’
Now Sofia was all ears. ‘What punishments?’
‘Well, Tom, you know, his personal chef, served him frozen peas from the grocery store. Can you believe that? What a jerk. It goes against absolutely everything we stand for. But he paid for what he did. Franz made him eat an entire package of frozen peas. But then Tom still couldn’t fix things so Franz could be given truly local food.’
‘A whole package of peas? Seriously?’
‘Yeah, what did you think? Franz sat him down in the middle of the staff office where everyone could see him and it took such a long time. And that horrible sound when he chewed.’
‘What else has been going on?’
‘Well, Anna hadn’t emptied the trash cans in the dining room for probably a whole week, and it smelled like rotten fruit in there. She had to stand in a trash can with a sign that said pig around her neck. Bosse and his crew poured water on her now and then so she wouldn’t doze off. How hard it is to empty a few trash cans? To clean up after yourself? What is Franz supposed to do? Empty them himself?’
‘How long did Anna have to stand there?’
‘Oh, it was like three or four hours. In the end Franz asked what she’d learned and she said something, I don’t remember what, but he let her go.’
Sofia tried to make out Madeleine’s face in the darkness to see if she even understood how insane this all sounded, but it was too dark. But she deduced from Madeleine’s monotonous voice that she had no clue.
‘And then there was Bosse himself. He didn’t get a damn thing done so he had to clean out a blocked drain with his bare hands.’
‘Oh, damn.’
‘Right.’
‘No, I mean damn, that’s disgusting! It’s revolting!’
‘You don’t understand, Sofia. Franz tries to put his foot down, but it doesn’t help, and it’s so darn frustrating.’
‘What about you? How did you end up here?’
‘I screwed up too. I spilled coffee on his desk while he was reading the paper. I don’t understand why we’re all so clumsy, why we can’t get anything done. We’re working more and sleeping less, and still nothing gets done.’
So it had gotten worse. And just when Sofia had thought it had reached rock bottom. She was disgusted to picture Anna in a trash can and Bosse cleaning out drains, but the peas were what made her see red. As if his goddamn peas were the most important thing on earth. She didn’t know which was worse: everything Madeleine had just told her, or Madeleine’s attitude toward what was going on. She wondered how many of the staff had become as brainless as Madeleine and who still had a few brain cells left. Maybe she and Simon were the only ones.
*
Their workday began at six in the morning, an hour before everyone else got up. They usually started with a lap around the manor to warm up, and then they mucked stalls and fed the animals. That gave Eskil, the animal caretaker, a break in his otherwise long day.
The morning after her conversation with Madeleine, the sun peeked out. The sky was pale pink and yellow. The snow had melted and it smelled like spring.
Sofia noticed a light glowing over in the greenhouse. So Simon was up too. She missed him. His calm breathing as they worked. Their friendly conversations.
The manor house was still dark, aside from a light in the attic window. She imagined Oswald must be up there and wondered why. It wasn’t like him to get up so early in the morning. The night’s conversation with Madeleine returned to her.
At least I’ve learned something new, she thought. It can always get worse.
A figure approached briskly from the gate. It was Sten, the guard who had the morning shift.
‘Did you turn off your pager?’ he asked Benny, irritated. ‘I tried to reach you like a hundred times.’
Sten went on before Benny could answer.
‘Message from Bosse for Sofia and Madeleine. You have to remain in the courtyard after eight. I think Franz wants to talk to one of you.’
It could be about any number of things. Oswald might have spotted them walking instead of running. Maybe he wanted Madeleine back, or maybe he was angry about the manure on his shoe. But deep down, she knew what was going on. She had understood back in the stable when he looked at her like she was an object he’d forgotten and suddenly rediscovered. She didn’t even know if she wanted to go back, but it didn’t matter — her body still buzzed with anticipation. After all, it would be a victory of sorts. And the world outside would be closer. She thought about what she would say to him when he spoke to them at the courtyard later, practising different sentences in her mind. She ran through the conversation several times, until she found she was mumbling out loud.
*
He came at eleven. They were pulling weeds in the sunshine. Or, rather, they were pottering around because there weren’t all that many weeds yet. He came up on his motorcycle and braked hard in front of her. She hurried to stand up and brush the dirt from her coat. As usual, he looked well-rested. His hair was still damp from his morning shower. The scent of his aftershave floated on the air. She fixed her eyes on his hands, which were resting on the handlebars, because she didn’t want to look him in the eye until he had addressed her.
‘Have you come to any realizations, Sofia?’
‘Yes, sir. I was only trying to run away from myself. My transgressions made me feel like a burden to the group. That’s why I wanted to leave.’
‘That’s true, but you were a burden to me. You understand that, don’t you?’
‘Good. You can go to Bosse. He’ll make sure you’re brought up to date on everything that’s happened while you were gone.’
Madeleine cleared her throat and was about to open her mouth.
‘It’s best for you to keep your trap shut,’ he said to her. ‘Not a single word out of your lying mouth.’
He turned to Benny.
‘Madeleine shouldn’t be weeding flowerbeds. She should be doing the worst of the hard labour. Back-breaking, dirty work. That’s the only thing that can get through to her type.’ Oswald turned back to Sofia.
‘What are you waiting for? Run and find Bosse now, before I change my mind!’
*
Bosse wasn’t in the staff office, so she had to run around looking for him.
Her body was singing. She felt almost free, and she couldn’t keep from stopping by the greenhouse.
Simon was crouching down to plant things, and he gave her such a warm smile when he noticed her.
‘It was all destroyed,’ he said. ‘I had to start over from scratch.’
‘He’s putting me back in the office!’
‘Oh? How do you feel about that?’
‘Like it’s probably the only way out.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
He didn’t stop digging through the dirt.
‘Please, Simon, come with me if I find a way to escape.’
He responded without hesitation.
‘No, I’ll stay here until the walls fall. But good luck. I’m sure you’ll make it out. Come by and visit again sometime.’
She finally found Bosse in one of the annexes, where he was talking to Mona. Both looked embarrassed when they spotted her, as if she were barging in on a delicate conversation. Mona quickly stood up and looked at her tentatively, unsure whether Sofia was still in disgrace.
‘I’ll be going now,’ she whispered.
Bosse gestured at Sofia to take a seat. He looked at her dirty hands and stained winter coat.
‘You can’t get rid of me that easily, Bosse.’
‘So I see. Franz said you were coming back. Some things have happened while you were away. Pretty major things, actually.’
‘All right.’
‘I don’t know where to start. Oh, the lodging situation. There was too much trouble with couples living together, so Franz got fed up. Everyone lives in the dormitories now. Guys with guys, girls with girls, of course.’
‘Even married couples?’
‘Yes, everyone. I mean, a couple of girls got knocked up. Katarina and Corinne. It’s been taken care of now, but that was the end of that.’
‘“Taken care of?”’
‘Yes, obviously we can’t have kids running around here. But I didn’t think you’d care, after what happened with Benjamin.’
‘No, I don’t care, but it sounds like they didn’t have a choice.’
‘What do you think? Is there a choice between ViaTerra and a screaming baby? Of course they had abortions. We didn’t even discuss it with them.’
She swallowed the remark on her tongue. It simply wasn’t the right time or place to have a talk with Bosse.
‘But you’ll be back in number seven. Your belongings are already there,’ he said.
‘Okay, anything else?’
‘You won’t be getting your laptop and phone back, but I’m sure you knew that.’
‘Of course, but how is everything going, Bosse? Will guests be coming this spring?’
‘Nothing has changed, Sofia. Franz still has to do all the work. He’s totally worn out.’
She was about to say that he’d looked to be in fine form that morning, but instead she just nodded.
‘Staff rules are extremely tough. No email or phone calls. We run everywhere. Lunch and dinner have been shortened to fifteen minutes. But we mostly only get rice and beans. The greenhouse went to hell after Simon —’
‘I heard.’
‘Well, there you have it. Not much has changed.’
‘And there will be guests this spring?’
‘Yes, dammit. That’s what everyone’s working on. Trying to get everything ready. The annexes have to be in tip-top shape, the menus, planting, we’ve been full up. We have a project that Franz has written up. There are several copies on your desk. And Franz is working on something else too. New theses. But I’m sure he’ll want to tell you about that himself, so I won’t say too much.’
She was just about to stand up and leave.
‘Shit, I almost forgot. Until the greenhouse is up and running, Franz’s food is being flown in from some place in Italy. It arrives at the airport on the mainland. Organic food. The very best. Benjamin picks it up every day. You have to warm up the food and serve it, because Tom screwed up and is in Penance.’
Bosse looked exhausted. His hair was greasy and uncombed, his eyes were red, and his tie was loose under his dirty collar. He seemed glad to have her back, as if she would bring a ray of hope into his misery.
‘Anything else?’
‘No, that’s all. Your uniform is probably in your room, but I don’t know if Benjamin had time for the dry cleaning.’
‘It’s fine, Bosse. I’ll manage.’
The door to her old room, number seven, was ajar. Bosse must have sent someone over, because it was so neat and tidy it almost looked unnatural. She peeked into the wardrobe and drawers. All her clothes and belongings were there, even the diary. She sincerely hoped no one had read it. Her uniform was hanging in the wardrobe.
She took off her dirty clothes and put them in the hamper, then went to the bathroom. She suddenly recalled that there was a camera in the shower and started to look for it. She found it almost immediately, mounted over the stall. A tiny eye staring down at her naked body. She left the room and found a black marker in the dresser, then got back in the shower and blacked out the eye until it would no longer be able to see anything.
When she was finished in the shower, she sat on her old bed and looked around. That was when she noticed that there were no sheets on Elvira’s bed. She opened the girl’s wardrobe.
It was empty.
‘Fredrik, I want to speak with you.’
For once, there is authority in her voice. I know exactly what this is about; I’ve been looking forward to it.
We walk into her office and she sits down, biting at her lower lip.
‘This is serious, Fredrik. The rector at Sara’s school just called. He said Sara stabbed a classmate. Our Sara. I don’t know what to do.’ She starts to cry.
I put on an expression of surprise.
‘Are you serious? Surely you don’t believe it.’
‘No, I mean, Sara isn’t an aggressive person, is she?’
‘She would never harm a fly,’ I say firmly.
‘But this is serious. And he said she was helped by a masked man.’ I laugh.
‘That sounds ridiculous. What a story!’
‘Yes, it sounds preposterous, but what am I supposed to say?’
‘You should say that it’s the dumbest thing you ever heard. That the guy was obviously in a knife fight and is looking for a scapegoat.’
She stops her sniffling and collects herself.
‘Of course, that must be it.’
‘Definitely. And then say if they don’t convince this guy to withdraw his accusations you’ll pull Sara out of the school and that will be the end of all the charity work you do for them.’
Her face lights up. She chuckles.
‘Fredrik, darling. I don’t know what I would do without you.’
Yes, one really does wonder, I think.