Open Grave

Nineteen

The uneasiness gave way as he dug. At nine he took a break, put the spade into the ground and sat down on a rickety garden chair that he leaned up against the wall. He had coffee, ate a sandwich, and enjoyed the October sun that had just found its way onto Lundquist’s lot.

In front of him was his work, the hole he had excavated. A new grave. To avoid removing the excavated clay soil, he had used it to form a little bow-shaped ridge at the one edge. He had previously carted in lighter, more humus-filled soil, which he tipped into a neat pile on the lawn alongside the excavation.

In the hole he would plant a magnolia, which stood in a garbage bag against the wall. Alongside were three sacks of compost. As ground cover he would use wintergreen, an unimaginative choice perhaps, but a safe bet, hardy and invasive as it was. And he appreciated its blue flowers. The magnolia was a Wada’s Memory, one of the best white-blooming varieties. It would all be complemented with a few Himalayan windflowers and, as a companion to the magnolia, the witch alder from the neighbor. He would also dig down a few yellow stars-of-Bethlehem. Spring dominance with an element of sparkling autumn fire, that was the intention.

What a joy it was just to be able to look at his work, and actually be able to touch it. A bus driver had every reason to be proud of his job, his trips, but purely physically there wasn’t much to show afterward. A teacher might feel satisfaction when her pupils understood what she was talking about, but there was nothing tangible that testified to her exertions.

A landscaper on the other hand could return to his workplace five, ten, or fifty years later and see that the result of his work was there, a stair, a wall, a horse chestnut, or whatever it was, and many times more magnificent than the design. A stone worn by feet, rain, and wind became lovelier with the years, a striped maple’s full beauty did not appear until after a couple of decades.

Whether the magnolia would be alive in fifty years was uncertain, but it would bloom splendidly every spring in any event as long as he himself was alive and certainly many years after.

He thought he heard pounding from the professor’s house. A window opened and he saw the elderly woman, whom he assumed was domestic help, hook it fast. She must have a lot to do now, he thought, and let his eyes sweep across the façade with all its windows, eighteen in all and those on only the back side of the house.

His mother had written about how laborious it was to clean all the windows in the house, even if there were several who helped out. Three times a year the ritual had to be gone through. Now it was probably less often, he assumed. They looked gray and shabby.

The thoughts of his mother and thereby the Ohler clan made him uneasy. With a little effort he got on his feet, he was getting more and more stiff. He stared at the massive house, tried to imagine his mother there. In her diaries she had laconically yet vividly described the routines, her coworkers, and the gentry. There was also an element of sensationalism when she described the intrigues and gossip that always arose in a big household. But Karsten did not think that was strange, she had been young and inexperienced.

The notes from the first few months were filled with wonder at the life in Carl von Ohler’s home. She described the toilets as if they were marvels and the number of exclamation points when she told how many sheets, crystal glasses, and table settings there were in the house testified to her excitement.

But soon the exclamation points in the diaries would have a different connotation.

Karsten Heller was seized by a desire to see the house from inside. He wanted to walk on the stairs where his mother had walked, see the gigantic bookcases in the library that she so solemnly described, and take a look in the kitchen. But that was impossible. He would never be let in, whatever pretext he resorted to.

He could in principle force his way in, or sneak in. He smiled to himself. Break in but without intention to steal. What could that be classified as? Breaking and entering perhaps?

The woman in the window reminded him of his mother’s fate and also made him aware of the continuity. Even today women served at Ohler’s, exactly like sixty or seventy years ago, and he wondered how many had come and gone over the years. How many there were who had had experiences similar to his mother.

He had not followed the political squabbling about domestic services and maid’s deduction very closely, but after finding his mother’s diaries the debate had a different connotation for him. The books were a unique testimony by a woman in the most subordinate position you can imagine and the feeling that he was the one who had to make the text known was growing ever stronger. It would be a contrasting image to the national Nobel Prize frenzy and bombastic tributes. He readily admitted that there was a large measure of desire for revenge in this wish to expose the Ohler family.

He was returned to reality by a signal from his cell phone. It was Roffe from the nursery he usually used who reported that two flats of wintergreen were now ready for pick up. Would twenty-eight plants be enough? He cast a glance across the surface. Since he made the order he had expanded the flower bed by a couple of square meters. Sure, he thought, I’ll spread them out, they’ll quickly grow together.

It fell into place: the magnolia, perennials, and then the witch alder. He picked up an Ingrid Marie apple and chewed meditatively. He decided to wait for twilight before he went to work.