She freezes in the doorway – obviously entering a cordoned-off apartment was a bad idea, she should have known – and slowly she turns around.
But behind her is no police officer, as she’d expected, but a stately woman in her sixties, wearing a flowing piece of colourful fabric, a kaftan or some kind of dress. She’s tall, a bit heavy. Her hair is short and blonde, her eyes liberally painted, her cheekbones rouged. She has a kitchen knife in her hand.
Klara holds up her hands. The woman doesn’t seem threatening, more eccentric, but a knife is a knife.
‘Who are you?’ the woman asks.
Klara takes a step back into the apartment to get out of the radius of the knife, and swallows, trying to sound as calm as possible. ‘I’m a friend of Gabriella, the woman who lives here,’ she says. ‘I was supposed to stay with her tonight, but…’
She lets the sentence ebb away, holding up Gabriella’s keychain as if to prove something. The woman’s face changes, her aggression or fear gives way to something softer and more open. She lowers the knife slightly, angling it more towards the floor.
‘What’s your name?’ she asks.
‘Klara. Klara Walldéen is my name.’
Now, the last of her suspicion and indignation drains away and is replaced by a crooked and somewhat confused smile. ‘Oh, forgive me. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’ – she looks down at the knife in her hand – ‘I don’t usually run around with knives.’
Klara relaxes and takes a deep breath. The woman takes a step closer to her and into the doorway, glancing back at the staircase. She pulls the door shut behind her again.
‘I know who you are, Klara,’ she whispers. ‘Gabi has told me about you.’ She lowers her voice further. ‘Did something happen to her? Gabriella has seemed to have a lot on her plate lately.’
‘What do you mean?’ Klara says.
‘It doesn’t feel safe here,’ the woman says, shaking her head. ‘Not safe at all. Come with me. We have a lot to talk about, I think.’
*
Klara follows the woman to her apartment, which is twice as big as Gabriella’s and just one floor up. She’s led through a hall with a green marble floor into a large living room that’s dominated by an enormous emerald sofa and a black baby grand piano. Through the windows she can see Gamla Stan and Kungsholmen spread out behind Riddarfjärden in the twilight. The snow is falling more heavily outside, and the snowflakes swirl in front of the French windows. The woman lights a couple of low table lamps before disappearing further inside the apartment. In that warm light, Klara can see the walls are covered with framed posters from the Royal Opera.
Then the woman appears in the doorway with two wine glasses and a bottle of white wine so cold it has condensation on it. Klara has to hide the tiny wave of relief and euphoria that hits her at the sight of it. She’s hardly touched a drop all through the autumn. But now she really wants a glass. No, not wants – she needs a glass.
‘My name’s Maria, by the way,’ the woman says. ‘Maria Wittman. I’d say it’s about time I introduce myself.’
‘Are you an opera singer, ma’am?’ Klara asks, gesturing towards the framed posters.
Why did she say ‘ma’am’? But there’s something about this woman that demands a certain level of respect, so it just popped out.
Maria laughs and invites Klara to sit down on the green couch. ‘You’re not the first to make that assumption,’ she says. ‘I suppose I fit the part. No, my husband played the French horn in the orchestra at the Royal Opera house and liked collecting souvenirs. As for me, I’m afraid I’m quite talentless. I was forced to make do with a job in finance.’
While Klara looks around at the large, tastefully decorated apartment, Maria pours wine into the two glasses.
‘You can’t be completely talentless,’ Klara says. ‘I mean, it’s quite an outstanding apartment.’
Maria shrugs and sits down on the sofa beside her. She takes a little sip of the wine and smiles at her guest. ‘There are various kinds of talents,’ she says. ‘What are yours?’
Klara picks up the glass and has to resist the temptation to down it in one gulp. After all, she’s barely drunk anything for almost four months. But she manages to take a cautious sip instead, feels the warmth and the calm spreading through her body.
‘Always ending up in some kind of trouble,’ she says. ‘I’d say that’s my most outstanding talent.’
‘It’s a talent you certainly shouldn’t take too lightly,’ Maria says. ‘Gabriella seems to share it with you.’
Klara takes another sip, a bit bigger now. The wine is dry and earthy, full of life. It tastes like someone’s glory days.
‘She was arrested this afternoon,’ Klara says. ‘Outside of her office on Skeppsbron, in some sort of terror crackdown. I sat in the car and could only watch while a SWAT team dragged her into a van.’
To Klara’s surprise Maria seems neither shocked nor upset. She just listens quietly, spinning the glass between her fingertips. A single large emerald glitters on one of her ring fingers.
‘She made a lot of people angry this autumn,’ Maria says. ‘A very brave young woman, our Gabi, you have to admit that.’
Our Gabi, Klara thinks. There aren’t many beside Klara who call her Gabi. Why has Gabriella never told her about this Maria if they were so close?
‘I guess you were also mixed up in what happened last summer?’ Maria continues.
Klara nods. ‘You can definitely say that. I’ – she takes another gulp of wine – ‘I wasn’t doing very well.’
Maria just looks at her calmly. ‘A person can’t always be doing well,’ she says. ‘Sometimes you need your friends.’
Klara can feel tears fill her eyes. There’s something so warm and genuinely empathetic about Maria, something that makes her think Maria knows what she’s talking about.
‘Gabi needs me now,’ Klara says quietly. ‘She’s done so much for me. And now she needs me.’
Maria places her wine glass on top of an enormous book about Dutch architecture that lies, along with several other books about design, on the low coffee table. She stands up and walks over to the baby grand. She lifts the lid carefully and sticks her hand inside.
‘Dramatic,’ she says. ‘I know. But I have a gift for drama, as you may have noticed.’
Slowly she pulls out her hand with a small envelope dangling between her fingers.
‘Since Alf passed, nobody plays the piano. A good place to hide mysterious messages, don’t you think?’
Maria puts the envelope on the coffee table. Klara can feel her skin pucker with goosebumps as she takes a deep breath. The envelope is addressed to her.