Later on, she decided she must have had a guardian angel. Someone must have spoken through her, because the answer had just fallen from her lips.
‘Sir, it was supposed to be a surprise.’
He stepped through the door and approached the desk. A bolt of panic ran through her, but she stood perfectly still.
‘A surprise?’
‘Yes, I finished the propositions.’
The computer dinged.
Success — the files had finished copying. She pulled out the thumb drive and stuck it in her blazer pocket.
‘I was just transferring them to your computer from my thumb drive, because I thought you would want them there. I printed them out too, of course.’
She pointed at the stacks of paper.
He didn’t move as he considered what she had said. His eyes reflected his thoughts: first doubt, then relief, and then he was back to normal. Arrogant and superior.
‘I thought you were coming back on the five o’clock ferry. I wanted everything to be ready when you got here.’
‘A friend was sailing over in the nice weather,’ he muttered. ‘I caught a ride with him. As if it’s any of your business.’
She moved away from his computer and sat back down at her own desk.
He was still standing in the centre of the room.
‘I don’t like you messing with my computer, Sofia.’
‘But I didn’t. I just thought you would want to have the propositions on it.’
He grunted and sat down at his desk, then opened the file with the propositions and glanced through it.
‘Sure enough, it seems like we’re done. You can be sure everyone at my lectures can’t wait to read the propositions. Everyone who was there today will be coming here this summer.’
‘Wonderful!’
‘Yes, it is.’
He leafed through the piles of documents on the desk.
‘Listen, we need to take good care of these. Tomorrow I want you to print them out on archival paper and place them in individual sheet protectors. Frisk had some of those in his little shed by the annexe. I’m sure there are more boxes left. Put them all in a binder. Can you manage that?’
‘Of course. I’ll start today.’
‘You do that.’
It seemed like he had forgotten about the computer incident for the moment. He spent the time before dinner surfing the internet and making a few calls. Enar, who had taken over the transport unit after Benjamin, brought his dinner at five thirty, and Sofia warmed the food and served it with mineral water. Oswald put on some Indian sitar music and gazed at the sea for a while.
‘Well, I’m going to go have dinner,’ she said.
He didn’t respond. She cursed herself for continuing to ask his permission to eat, and during dinner she worried about whether he would notice she had fiddled with his computer. She decided there was no way — he was pretty clueless when it came to technology; he was always asking for her help.
By the time she returned to the office, Oswald had read through all the propositions. He was nearly euphoric.
‘Jesus, this is incredible! The whole staff must read them. They can study outside of working hours; there’s going to be a lot to do before the guests arrive. I’ll talk to them at noon assembly tomorrow. And you and I have to inspect the property and make sure everything is perfect.’
He muffled a sudden yawn, as if the burst of emotion had been too much.
‘Listen, I think I’m going to head to bed.’
At seven o’clock?
She could only nod. His jacket was on the back of his chair, so she helped him into it and watched as he disappeared out the door. His steps echoed down the corridor.
She had an idea where he was going, but she waited for a long time, knowing that what she ought to do was go down to Benjamin’s old shed and get the sheet protectors. But there could only be one thing Oswald might long for at seven in the evening when he was so excited. And it wasn’t sleep.
After charging her phone for a moment and straightening the office, she turned off the computer but left the light on so it would look like she planned to return. She tiptoed past the staff room, but no one seemed to notice her. The lights were out in the stairwell but came on automatically when they sensed her presence.
She hurried to his room, wondering if he was there. Frantically, she attempted to think of some plausible lie as she opened the door, but the room was empty.
At first she locked the door from the inside but changed her mind and unlocked it again. If he comes, I’ll jump out the window, she thought. I’ll hear him coming, and I can do it before he can open the door.
She opened the window and left it ajar. A look down at the yard and she was sure it would work. All she would have to do was hide in the bushes alongside the house and blame the household unit. She could say they must have been airing out the room but forgot to close the window.
She turned on the TV and scrambled to press 666 on the remote. Just as she’d expected, Oswald was there. He was fully dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed. Elvira was just lying there and staring at him. Oswald sank both hands into her golden mess of curls.
‘Have you been waiting for me?’
Elvira nodded. Her shoulders were bare, but the covers were drawn up. Oswald let go of her hair and pulled down the blanket. Her skinny body looked like a child’s, with her small breasts and narrow hips.
‘I feel cooped up,’ Elvira said hesitantly. ‘I think I need some fresh air.’
‘Of course,’ he said, standing up and cracking a window. ‘Better?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘I’m going to show you something. It’s part of your preparation.’
He fumbled with his trousers, yanking at something.
What the hell is he doing?
He had pulled his belt from its loops and held it up before Elvira.
‘If you put this around your neck and tighten it, it decreases the oxygen in your brain and it feels fantastic,’ he said. ‘Like you’re floating on a cloud.’
Elvira looked confused.
‘And that will bring us closer, spiritually. It’s an incredible experience.’
Have to record this, have to get it on film.
She turned on her phone camera and propped it against a vase on the coffee table so it could capture what was happening on the screen.
Elvira caught her breath and looked up at him beseechingly.
‘You don’t have to worry,’ he said. ‘We’re only going to practise a little today. I’ll show you.’
She nodded, but she still looked frightened.
Sofia wanted to shake Elvira, shout at her to wake up from her trance.
Why is she so goddamn stupid? I know her. We shared gum while we were doing renovations, and laughed at all the people who kept screeching at everyone to work faster. What happened to her?
Oswald bent forward to place the belt around Elvira’s neck. He rested his hand on her forehead for a moment, as if to calm her. Then he took hold of the belt with both hands and pulled. It happened so quickly that Elvira cried out, gasped for breath, and stared at him in astonishment. He loosened the belt a bit and let her catch her breath. But then he tightened it again and Elvira almost lost it — she tried to scream. He silenced her by pulling harder, and her face went beet red.
He’s going to kill her!
Suddenly, Oswald let go of the belt and let Elvira draw in air. He gave her an unctuous smile Sofia had never seen before.
‘You’ll come to like it,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll go slowly. We’ll only practise until you’re used to it. It’s going to be great. Really great.’
A sticky layer of sweat had settled on Sofia’s body. She hadn’t even noticed any perspiration, but now she realized she was shaking too. The room began to sway and her stomach turned inside out.
I can’t throw up in here, I can’t —
She ran to his bathroom, fell to her knees, and grabbed the toilet seat. The vomit gushed into the bowl. Then more. Bile, or whatever it was. She stayed there for a moment with tears in her eyes, but then she worried that he might be done and was on his way back. She wiped her mouth, stood up, adjusted her clothing, and flushed. It still smelled like vomit, so she took the bottle of expensive aftershave and poured some into the toilet. She hurried back to the room and looked at the screen. Now he was chatting with Elvira.
Sofia turned off her phone, put it in her pocket, and turned off the whole system.
As she closed the window, she noticed that her legs were still trembling. She made sure that her phone really was in her pocket and hurried into the corridor, where she remembered she had left the light on in the office. She ran up the stairs with her heart in her throat, turned off the light, and locked up. She thought she heard his footsteps upstairs as she ran toward her dormitory. At the last second, she changed her mind.
Have to talk to someone, got to find Simon.
When she reached the yard she felt a sharp chill on the back of her neck, like an icy cold draught. She turned around and saw Oswald’s face pressed against the windowpane upstairs, but thought it must be all in her head. She must be so shaken that she was seeing things. She ran for the farm, where Simon was bumping along with a wheelbarrow. She ran up to him and grabbed his arms.
‘Listen to me! For God’s sake, listen!’
‘Sofia, I’m listening!’
The words came at a frightening speed and he had to stop her now and then to keep up.
‘We have to call the police,’ she said when she had finished her story.
Simon scratched his head and thought for a moment — for so long that Sofia began to stamp her feet anxiously.
‘Don’t do it,’ he said at last.
‘What? Are you crazy? Jesus, he’s raping a minor!’
‘Did you see him rape her? Did she resist?’
‘No, but what does that matter? She’s fourteen!’
‘Think about it, Sofia. Think about what will happen if you make the call. The police will come, and the first stop is the gate. No cop gets through that gate without Oswald’s permission, I can promise you that. He’ll suck up to them and say he’s got this girl who’s a little nuts — that is, you. And if that doesn’t help, he’ll call Östling. And anyway, the attic is locked and he’ll assure them that it’s completely unusable. Then he’ll chuckle and offer them coffee and by the time the cops leave they’ll be best friends. I don’t think I have to tell you what happens to you after that. You have to learn to think like him.’
This was the longest speech Sofia had ever heard from Simon.
‘What about Elvira?’
‘Did it seem like he was going to kill her?’
‘No, not exactly. More like it was the start of a whole ton of perverted things he plans to do to her.’
‘Right. That’s why it’s so urgent for you to escape.’
He had made her feel a shred more relaxed. Her thoughts cleared. Getting out was what mattered. There were no solutions inside the walls; there was no refuge, no justice. Get out or be ruined. Those were the options.
‘I’m terrified,’ she said at last.
‘I’ll help you,’ he said, squeezing her wrist in his large gardening glove.
*
When she got to her dormitory, it was only a little past eight. The room was silent. She sank down on her bed, turned on her phone, and played the video from the attic. The image flickered a bit, but she could plainly see and hear what was going on.
She opened the wardrobe and took out her backpack to dump out its contents: a few napkins, silverware, a blanket, and a thermos. She filled the thermos with water from the bathroom tap and stuck it back in the backpack. The thumb drive from Oswald’s computer went into a pocket.
For a moment she wondered if she should take the SIM card out of her phone and put it there too, but she decided she still needed the phone. A pair of jeans, underwear, and a few sweaters went in the backpack, which she stashed under the bed. Way back, where no one would see it. She sat back down on the back and realized that her blouse was damp with sweat.
It’s time, she thought. I have everything I need. All I have to do is plan my escape. She thought of Elvira, and then of Benjamin, who God hadn’t saved even though she’d prayed He would.
Please God, save Elvira at least. Don’t let him kill her.
Her phone rang. It was so loud in the quiet room that she jumped. Private number, said the screen. She let it ring a few more times, but her curiosity got the best of her.
‘Sofia? Is this Sofia Bauman?’
‘Yes . . .’ she said cautiously.
‘This is Vanja. Vanja Frisk.’
I stand in the front drive for a long time.
The burning house is strangely beautiful. It’s not like an inferno, more like sparking fireworks.
The whole second floor is in flames by now. It smells sharp and scorching, but also of cedar and pine, like their furniture.
Then I walk down to the sentry box and make sure that the cameras really are turned off. And the fire alarm, of course.
What an idiot, the guard who forgot all about those . . .
I sit down in his chair.
It’s time for my transformation, a complete metamorphosis. I work myself up into a state of panic and desperation. I imagine how it must feel, plunging into the emotions — emotions I can create, but don’t have.
I dial the number and bawl when they answer.
‘You have to come! Jesus, shit, it’s on fire! The whole house is on fire!’
Words, shouted and slurring. I give them the address.
I leave the sentry box and walk through the gate to the car I parked there.
The Mercedes. I’m glad I’ve saved it from the fire. Shit, I love this car.
Headlights appear down the gravel path. A neighbour has spotted the flames.
He dashes from his car to where I’m sobbing on the hood of the car.
‘Where is everyone?’ he shouts. ‘Your family!’
I don’t respond, just press myself to the car, sobbing and sniffling.
I point at the house.
‘Inside. I couldn’t . . . I got here too late. I’m sorry!’
He grabs my shoulders and tries to calm me.
Then come the sirens and the flashing lights.
I did a good job, I think.
The firemen unroll their hoses. Someone runs to me from an ambulance. I take a deep breath and make my heart beat faster.