He slammed a thick pile of papers down in front of her so hard that the legs of the small desk trembled.
‘These are the new theses, or rather, propositions. They will complement the original theses.’
She looked at the stack and hoped he would explain what she was expected to do with it.
‘They’re the lectures I gave for the staff during autumn and winter. Madeleine transcribed them all, but there are some problems with them and that’s where you come in.’
He pointed at the top sheet. A sentence was underlined in red pen. ‘Read this!’
She read silently to herself: ‘ . . . but I suppose this is beyond your ability to draw conclusions.’
‘That has nothing to do with the proposition, does it?’ said Oswald. ‘It’s just a comment on the group’s collective level of intelligence, understand?’
She nodded.
‘There’s a little of that sort of thing here and there. The lectures simply need to be cleaned up. They’ll be issued as supplements to read after thesis number four. Our new guests will be totally pumped when they read it.’
He wants me to get rid of his curses and derogatory comments about the staff, plain and simple, she thought. Seems like there will be a lot of them.
‘Each lecture will become one proposition,’ he went on. ‘It’s as simple as that. But you have to be able to tell when I’m theorizing and when I’m just chatting with someone.’
He turned to another page, where he’d marked red lines in the margin alongside a paragraph of the text. In this section, he was picking on someone because their uniform was dirty.
‘This isn’t part of the reasoning, as I’m sure you understand.’
She nodded.
‘So your job is simply to bring out the true propositions from all this.’
‘And how does this relate to the fifth thesis, the one that hasn’t been released yet?’
‘This is the fifth thesis, you moron! I’ve just expanded on it. Turned it into a number of propositions. Like you can do with a piece of music. Do you understand?’
Sofia nodded and accepted the instructions with a deep, inward sigh, but then she had an idea. She could save what she removed from the texts and create a folder of all the degrading things he’d said about the staff in his lectures. It was risky, but she could always say she’d done it to be on the safe side, in case he wanted to keep any of what she’d edited out.
‘Did you hear what I said, Sofia?’
‘Of course, sir, every word.’
‘Then you understand what you’re supposed to do?’
‘Definitely.’
‘Show me when you’re done with the first proposition, and then we’ll go from there.’
She fiddled with the first text until lunchtime. Oswald had said he would be in his room and was gone for the rest of the morning. As she worked, she glanced out at the sea now and then. There was a streak of glittering sunshine way off at the horizon, but otherwise the water was grey and still. She felt antsy; she wanted to stretch out her legs and go for a walk on the island. She couldn’t seem to focus her attention on the words in the document and her eyes began to wander aimlessly; time and again she had to force them back to the task in front of her.
Oswald returned just before lunch and nodded, pleased, when she showed him what she’d accomplished. ‘Right, so you understand how I want it to be. It sounds really good, doesn’t it?’
‘Very good, sir.’
He was startled. A sudden flash of suspicion passed over his eyes.
‘You’ve been so pleasant ever since you came back. Almost excessively obliging. I hope everything is as it should be with you.’
‘I feel fine, sir.’
*
It was strange to eat in the dining room again. For the past few months, Benny had brought food for them to eat in the stable. Most of the time, it was already cold. She took the seat beside Mona, who was looking lonely. They chatted about the library for a bit.
‘I’m trying to keep it in order,’ Mona said. ‘But no one visits anymore. We don’t have any guests and the staff are so busy. So mostly I’ve been working on other projects.’
‘But doesn’t the library have to be perfect if guests will be here soon?’
‘Yes, but I guess some things are more important.’
Sofia decided to change the subject. She didn’t want to know how much the library had suffered; it would only ruin her pleasant day.
‘Did Elvira move to a different room?’
Mona looked surprised. ‘So you don’t know?’
‘No, I hardly know anything about what’s been going on while I was gone.’
‘She’s on the mainland, finishing school. Franz sent her. She had to go sometime, of course, so now it’s finally happening.’
‘That’s great. But why aren’t you there with her? Is Anders there?’
‘No, she’s living with my sister in Lund.’
Sofia would have expected Mona to look relieved, but instead she seemed troubled.
She’s lying. There’s something she isn’t telling me.
They ate the rest of their rice and beans without a word. A sudden, painful silence hung in the air in the wake of Mona’s lie.
*
Oswald was still away after lunch. She continued to clean up the documents. The lectures he’d given while she was gone rang with a completely new tone. Now he was talking about reincarnation and how the body was a home for the soul, but it was also constantly wandering. She thought it sounded forced and pious, not at all like his original, down-to-earth lectures. The folder in which she saved his curses, abuse, and nagging began to grow. She took a break and walked around the office. She was feeling restless again and wanted to be out on the property. Her pager buzzed in her pocket.
Taking the five o’clock ferry. Back tomorrow.
She knew Oswald hadn’t left ViaTerra for a long time. He’d said he would stay until everything was ready for the guests. And yet here he was, leaving. On her first day back on the job. That had to mean something. A sign for her to take advantage of this opportunity.
At four o’clock she stood by the window and watched until she saw his car drive through the gate. She’d already turned off the computer and straightened her desk. She forced herself to linger for a moment and then headed downstairs and out to the yard. She didn’t even know where she was going; she just wanted to stretch her legs and get some fresh air.
Then she decided to stop by the mailroom and see if she had received a letter from her parents. She could always pretend that she was picking up Oswald’s mail.
The small room was behind the annexes; it was really just a storeroom where mail was sorted into plastic boxes and handed out to staff and guests. After careful inspection by the ethics unit, of course. The door wasn’t locked. It was dark, draughty, and cold inside. The radiators weren’t even on.
After some fumbling, she found the light switch. The fluorescent tubes flickered and bathed the room in an unpleasant, greenish light. The whole room was full of boxes stuffed with mail. She crouched down and began to sort through a random box. It contained outgoing mail from the staff. Hundreds of items. The letters hadn’t been sealed, so the ethics staff could read them before they were sent out.
She sifted through them, checking the dates. They went back as far as January — right after her escape attempt. She searched on and at last she found them: her letters to her parents. She couldn’t even remember how many she’d written, but all at once she knew they were all there in the box. Rage overtook her so quickly that she couldn’t help herself. She stood up and kicked the box until she stubbed her toe and cried out in pain.
As she began to root around in the other boxes, she found that they were labelled. ‘Outgoing staff mail,’ ‘incoming staff mail,’ ‘outgoing staff packages,’ ‘incoming staff packages.’ And then the final box, the only one that was empty: ‘Franz Oswald.’
She sat down on the cold concrete floor and searched once more through incoming staff letters. There was only one addressed to her, from Karin Johansson. She stuffed it in her pocket. Among the packages was one large box from her mother.
She took her pager from her pocket and sent a message to Bosse.
Mailroom, stat.
He was there within minutes.
‘What on earth is all of this, Bosse?’
‘Mail.’
She walked up until she was right next to him, so close she could smell his breath. It was sour, as if he hadn’t slept or brushed his teeth in a long time.
‘I’m already furious, and if you make it any worse I’ll tell Franz about this.’
A look of alarm passed over Bosse’s face.
‘It started in January when Franz sent you to Penance and we went through your computer. We found the emails you sent your parents and friends. He flew off the handle and said not even letters were allowed anymore. If we thought a particular letter was necessary, we could run it by him. But obviously we didn’t want to send staff letters up to his office, not with everything he had going on. So they . . . well, they’ve just been lying here.’
‘What were you planning to tell the staff?’
‘I hadn’t gotten that far.’
‘Jesus, Bosse. This is awful.’
‘Not as awful as all the shit we make Franz deal with.’
‘No, it’s worse. This is insane. And it’s illegal. I don’t think Franz knows all this mail is here. I’ll check with him.’
‘No, don’t,’ Bosse whined. ‘What are we going to do?’
‘You’ll have to send them. That’s better than keeping them here. People might complain when they notice the dates, but that can’t be helped. If you want to read them before you send them out, you’ll have to do it now. Franz is coming home tomorrow, so you’d better get them on the morning ferry.’
Bosse nodded, but a shadow fell over his face. He certainly didn’t look like he was happy about another night with too little sleep.
‘Hand out the packages today. So it doesn’t look like belated Christmas when Franz gets home tomorrow. And I’m taking this,’ she said, holding up her package.
‘Wait! You know I have to check the contents.’
‘So open it. But hurry.’
Bosse gently removed the brown wrapper. Inside was a package wrapped in Christmas paper. Something wasn’t right — she had already received a Christmas present from her mother. In October. That’s the sort of person her mom was. She had all her presents ready to go in November. But Sofia didn’t let on as Bosse removed the paper. Inside was a white box. He opened the lid and the two of them gazed down at cute black boots. How odd. Her mother never bought clothes for her, much less a sexy pair of boots. But there they were.
‘Are you satisfied?’ she asked.
Bosse nodded and handed her the box. She closed it, put it under her arm, and marched out of the room, still angry, but triumphant.
She remembered the letter in her pocket as she hung her jacket on her office chair. It was a thick envelope addressed in an ornate hand and bearing a ton of stamps. She opened it and removed the contents. The letter itself was brief: ‘Here’s some material for your book. Hope to see you this summer. Karin.’ There was also a small, yellowed booklet.
The Tragic Fate of the von Bärenstens: Fact and Fiction, it read over a blurry, black-and-white picture of the manor house. She pored through the booklet and found herself so captivated that she completely lost track of time. The man who had written the booklet was a professor of history and had a summer cottage on the island. He’d become fascinated by the history of the manor. His words about the family’s life were laboured but exciting. Love affairs, children born out of wedlock, accidents, illnesses, and other miserable events — they were all there. Her desire to write a book about them returned.
She wrote a short response to Karin by hand, then stamped and sealed the envelope.
There was a knock at the door. She rushed to shove the letter and booklet in the top drawer of her desk.
‘Come in!’
Benjamin’s face, full of shame, peered in.
‘Go away!’ she snapped.
‘Listen . . .’
He looked so unhappy that she took pity on him.
‘I’ll only speak to you if it’s absolutely necessary.’
‘It is necessary. I have to deliver food.’
‘How the hell could you?’
He took a hesitant step into the room and tried to gather himself. He had grown thinner and his face more hollow. The carefree charm that had once radiated from him had vanished. She suddenly longed to see him the way he had once been. Her heart ached.
‘It’s not what you think, Sofia, not at all.’
‘You can leave the food here each day. And anything else you have to deliver. But don’t expect any small talk from me.’
‘That’s fine. I just wanted you to know how sorry I am.’ He hesitated, searching for words. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’
‘You could have thought of that before.’
‘I know. See you.’
She had trouble concentrating once he’d left. But at last it was ten o’clock. She straightened up the office and turned off the computers. When she looked out the window she could see that the lights were on in the little mailroom. Bosse had taken her at her word.
She carried her package to her room and placed it on the bed. Then she returned to the mailroom. Bosse’s whole gang was reading letters and hardly noticed her when she stepped in. There was a large plastic box next to the door; she crouched down and inspected its contents. It was full of sealed envelopes from the staff, ready to be sent out to friends and family. She felt warm inside and placed the letter to Karin in the pile; no one noticed.
‘How’s it going?’ she asked Bosse.
‘Good — we’ll have all the letters on the morning ferry, and we’ve handed out the packages.’
‘Did you find anything suspicious?’
‘No, it’s all fine. So far.’
It would be a long night for a bunch of guys who were already suffering from lack of sleep, but it couldn’t be helped.
When she returned to her dormitory, she sat down on the bed and took the boots from their box. They had high heels and smelled good — of leather. What on earth had gotten into her mother? Never had she bought anything like this for Sofia. She mostly sent books, gift cards, and money these days. She pulled on the first boot, which slid smoothly over her leg, but as she put the second one on she felt something hard in the bottom.
She removed her foot and fished out a tiny package.
It was a cell phone.
With a charger and everything.
The dew has begun to settle on the ground, which is too bad because it will put a dampener on the fire.
We’ve come to the chicken coop. It’s off to the side, a few hundred metres from the farmhouse. I’ve chosen this place with great care.
A dog starts barking over by the house.
I make Sara sit down. We crouch before the coop, perfectly silent for a moment.
The rooster struts up and peers at us with one eye. The other is covered by his drooping comb.
‘Look at his eye!’ I say. ‘See how empty it is?’
She nods.
‘There’s no life in there. Most animals are like that. Like robots. It’s the same with people. You can tell how much life they have by their eyes.’
She’s entranced.
‘Some people have those empty fish eyes. They have almost no life at all. Which means they’re totally worthless.’
She nods eagerly.
‘Like Dad — sometimes,’ I hurry to add.
I can tell she’s considering this as we prepare.
We drench the coop and the stupid, cackling hens in petrol, which we’ve brought in soda bottles.
The idiotic birds flap their wings and squall.
Then we dribble a line of petrol over to a tree. Mostly for effect’s sake.
The dog has stopped barking.
I hand her the matchbox.
‘It’s time!’
She hesitates for a moment; a veil falls over her eyes.
‘They’re stupid, soulless animals, Sara. There’s no life in them.’
So she lights a match and drops it with a dramatic gesture.
The flames flare up right away and lick the sky with their greedy tongues. They spread to the coop, and suddenly the chickens are burning. Flapping and screeching, throwing themselves against the walls.
Sara laughs out loud.
The tree is in flames by now too.
The dog is barking again, restless and full of alarm. We can hear doors slamming in the farmhouse.
‘Let’s get out of here!’
We run as fast as our legs can carry us. Into the woods. She can’t stop laughing.