She remembered exactly when that photo was taken. They’d been sitting in the hammock in the yard at their house in Fjelie. Her mom was cropped out; only her shoulder was visible. Sofia hadn’t wanted to have her picture taken, but her dad had pestered her until she agreed to look into the lens. There was a trace of a smile in her eyes. It was a decent shot, true to life somehow, and therefore stood in stark contrast to the article that followed.
YOUNG WOMAN MISSING
A twenty-two-year old woman has been reported missing from the organization ViaTerra on West Fog Island off the coast of Bohuslän. Sofia Bauman, originally from Lund, has worked for ViaTerra for two years but failed to show up to work on Tuesday. It is unknown whether she is still on the island or has come to the mainland, because she was not seen on the ferry that crosses the sound.
In addition, according to police, there was a theft just prior to Bauman’s disappearance. Among the missing items are the first draft of a novel by the organization’s leader, Franz Oswald. Bauman, who has studied literature in Lund, has hopes of becoming an author and is suspected of being involved in the theft. According to sources at ViaTerra, she is also mentally unstable as the result of a breakdown earlier this year. The police are searching for Bauman and encourage the public to contact them if Bauman is seen or heard from.
She stood up so fast the coffee cup fell over, but it was empty.
That bastard!
Mentally unstable? Breakdown?
It sounded like Oswald had written that drivel himself and sent it to Östling, who forwarded it to the paper. How else could he have the police looking for her after such a short time?
She read the article again; she had become stuck on the word ‘novel.’ He hadn’t been working on any novel. The thought was absurd. He was so sure he had the answer to life’s every mystery. A nonfiction book about it, but a novel? It had to be a misunderstanding. Her thoughts turned to the Dictaphone in her backpack. She couldn’t believe she’d forgotten to listen to it in the hotel, but it must be the dizzying feeling of freedom causing her absent-mindedness. She had to listen to what he had recorded. But not now — right now, she had to hurry.
She slung the backpack over her shoulder and hurried to the reception desk. A new, male receptionist was there, and she sent up a quick prayer that he hadn’t read the morning paper. As she checked out, she turned away, letting her gaze wander, pretending to be interested in a painting on the wall. But the receptionist only invited her to come back soon and handed her a receipt.
They would surely be looking for her at the station, but probably not this early in the morning. There was an ATM across the road; she only took out five hundred kronor at first so she could check her balance. She had just over eight thousand left, so she drained the account and stuck the cash in one of the pockets on her backpack.
There. She had cleaned up the last of her trail. From now on she would be untraceable and invisible — but where on earth could she go?
A patrol car came zooming down the opposite side of the street, then stopped and turned toward downtown. Her heart pounded against her ribcage as panic gripped her again. The certainty that she was wanted caught up with her.
Go to the police, you little idiot! said a voice in the back of her head. Give Oswald’s belongings back. It’s not smart to be running around like this.
But her mind hit the brakes when she thought of the consequences. She pictured herself in a straitjacket, locked up in a mental hospital.
There on the sidewalk, she crouched down, desperate and exhausted. And then the image came to her. It had been there all along, but it was such a part of her that it had become invisible. It was an image of her grandmother’s summer cottage on the island of Seskarö outside Haparanda — way up north, on the border with Finland. It was her most loved and hated place on earth. Loved, because she had been so happy there. Hated, because her grandmother had died in that cottage, alone and unable to call for help when she’d had a stroke almost seven years ago. Since that time, no one in the family had wanted to visit or even think about selling the cottage. Her aunt, who lived in Umeå, had promised to check on the place now and then, but Sofia doubted she went very often. Who would look for her there, way up in Norrland, in a place her family didn’t even want to admit existed?
She hurried across the street to the station. The morning commuters had begun to stream in, so she pulled up her hood and stuffed her hair inside and stared at the ground as she walked to the ticket machine. She searched for the next train to Luleå but found that it didn’t leave until 12:23. But the trip required her to change trains in Stockholm anyway, so she might as well take the first train there and wait for the train to Luleå and later, the bus to Haparanda. That was that. Everything seemed easy enough until it was time to pay — she took her card from her pocket, remembered that she had just taken out all the money, and besides, she didn’t want to be traced.
There was no ticket counter at the station.
She looked around the waiting room. Most of the travellers were in motion, but there was one old woman reading a book on a bench. Sofia approached her cautiously and cleared her throat.
The woman glanced up at her and put her book down in her lap, mildly irritated to be interrupted in her reading.
‘Excuse me, I wonder if you could do me a huge favour?’
‘What is it?’
‘Well, I left my debit card at home and I have to take the train to Stockholm that leaves in fifteen minutes. I wonder if I could give you cash . . .’
‘Sure, I can buy the ticket for you.’
‘Oh, thank you!’
‘No problem. I was just sitting here waiting for my train anyway.’
When the woman handed Sofia the ticket and took the cash, there was a glimmer in her eyes.
‘You look familiar. Aren’t you on some TV show?’
‘No, but people are always confusing me with, you know, that woman . . .’
‘Right. Well, good luck with your trip!’
‘Thanks, you too.’
She ran to the platform. The train was already there, so she hopped on and quickly found her seat, which was on the aisle. A man in a suit was sitting in the window seat, typing frantically on his laptop. He didn’t even seem to notice her. She didn’t think he looked like the type to read the local Lund paper.
Six hours to Stockholm, she thought. Six hours I have to make pass quickly, or I’ll lose my mind. She picked up her backpack and set it in her lap, digging among shirts, jeans, and underwear to find the diary.
She decided to use the time to write down everything that had happened on the island, to resume where she’d left off so long ago.
Going back in time, she recalled more. Insults and degrading games. Nicknames he’d given to staff. She wrote and wrote and wasn’t even aware when the train began to roll.
When she needed to use the bathroom, she took the opportunity to walk through the whole train and make sure Benny and Sten weren’t on it. Most of the passengers paid no attention to her. Everything seemed calm and a little idle, as if the danger were only in her mind.
The trip went smoothly. She found a spot where she could sit alone and kept writing, looking up now and then to observe the other passengers in her car. She wondered what they would think if they knew what had gone on out on Fog Island.
When they reached Stockholm, almost the whole diary was full of writing.
At Central Station in Stockholm, she bought a crime novel and read half of it as she waited for the train to Luleå. Before she got on the night train, she went to McDonald’s and had a Big Mac with extra toppings.
It was still light outside, and the forest grew taller and thicker the farther north they got. The sun found her face now and then through the thick branches, flickering like a glimmer of hope. She kept reading and paused to gaze out the window between chapters. Her eyelids grew heavy and the words flowed together — at last she put the book down.
Soon this will all be over, she thought before she dozed off.
She only woke up once that night, but knew where she was right away and fell asleep again.
*
In Luleå, the sun was shining.
It was six-thirty in the morning, and the platform was empty, but the air was fresh and smelled deliciously like fresh-baked bread.
The only other people on the bus were a couple of men in their thirties. They had crew cuts and wore jeans and sneakers and spoke in oddly loud voices. As if they were half deaf. She found them annoying — so much so, in the end, that she let their conversation turn into a dull hum. Maybe life out here in the real world wasn’t always that much better after all. Yes, people had more freedom, but they mostly wasted it on stupid stuff.
*
Haparanda is the very edge of the world, she thought when she stepped off the bus. She remembered the town as a single, long street where the raggare gangs drove back and forth in their flashy cars, tossing beer bottles out the window now and then. But then she recalled the bright nights. The darkness could never quite get a full grip on the sky. She and her dad had spent nights down by the river, watching the blood-orange sun sink, only to rise again soon after.
She wasn’t sure where to catch the bus to Seskarö, if there was even still a bus service there. But she knew the way there, because she had often biked from the cottage to Haparanda in the summer.
There wasn’t a soul in sight. The whole city was asleep under a golden blanket of streaming sunshine.
Then she saw the bike. It was an old ladies’ model with a basket, and it had been left leaning against a lamppost. She walked over and picked it up, finding it unlocked. There were some spider webs on the back wheel; she tested the tyres and there was still some air inside.
It was waiting for me, she thought. No one will miss this old bike. Hell, this isn’t even theft.
She tossed her backpack in the basket, jumped on, and pedalled onto the road. There was a small shop on the way to the island; she would stop there and buy enough food to survive in the cottage for a while.
Gravel crunched under the tyres and the morning air was gentle and cool. It was as if this place had more air than Lund did. The sky seemed larger, wider, more open.
The shop was still there, but it wouldn’t open for two more hours. She was just about to keep going and buy food on the island instead, when a man walked up carrying a huge pile of newspapers. He was tall and stocky and had a beard and moustache; he seemed familiar. Someone she must have met during her summers on the island.
‘Are you opening now?’ she asked.
‘No, not yet, just bringing in the papers — but do you need something?’
His voice was rough and he had a Finnish accent.
‘I need to buy a bunch of food.’
‘I’m sure that can be arranged. I have to go inside anyway.’
She leaned the bike against the wall and hurried to help him with the door, then grabbed a basket and started tossing food in as fast as she could — anything that looked cheap and easy to make. Noodles, frozen pizza, eggs and potatoes, milk, cereal, bottles of water, and coffee. She noticed that he sold pay-as-you-go phone cards and took one, so her phone wouldn’t be traceable.
‘That’s a big shop,’ said the man, who was standing at the register.
‘Yes, and I just need a few newspapers as well, and I’ll be done.’
‘No rush.’
She was just about to place a few morning papers in the basket when she noticed Aftonbladet on the same shelf. At first she thought she was seeing things, that she was so focused on Oswald that her mind was showing her images of him.
But the picture on the front page was perfectly real: a large photo of Oswald at a lecture, his hands high in the air. Like an all-powerful prophet.