The Cruel Stars of the Night

Forty-nine

Ann Lindell leaned forward with her healthy hand on one knee and rested for a few seconds. The fire thundered overhead. It occurred to her there might be water in the basement. She had seen an old washing machine and stainless steel rinsing tubs in one of the areas but realized it was too late to make her way there. And what could a thin stream of water do against a raging inferno?

She took out another bottle of wine and did the same thing as before. This time it was red wine. It helped for the moment but the heat was starting to get so unbearable that soon no wine in the world would help her. She would be poached in wine.

She drew farther back into the wine cellar. The floor, walls, and ceiling were lined with brick. She guessed that Ulrik Hindersten had had the area reinforced in order to maintain the right temperature for the wine. This played to her advantage in the short term but she knew it was only a matter of time before the bricks started to rain down.

She turned the bathtub upside down and put some bottles of wine on the floor. She wet a rag with wine and draped it around her face, lifted the side of the tub, and crawled in under it. Now it was dark again. If she had felt the basement was bad the tub was a veritable prison cell by comparison. She lay on her left side with her legs pulled up. There was hardly enough room for her. Her arm ached and the effort of moving the tub had brought her close to fainting. Even so Ann experienced a measure of calm. When they found her they would know she had done what she could. She had not given up. Ottosson, Sammy, or perhaps Bea would tell this to Erik one day when he was old enough to understand.

She sucked a little on the rag. The taste of wine reminded her of all the evenings she had spent at home on the couch. Would she have been able to live differently? The thoughts hooked one into the other, memories from her childhood in Ödeshög mingled with love nights with Edvard in Gräsö.

“Water,” she mumbled and thought about the late nights they had rowed out into the bay. Edvard loved to fish and became childishly happy every time he caught something. What was he doing now? Her sadness about how her life had developed and her longing for the only man she had ever loved made her tremble with sobs. She could still clearly recall the image of his face although it was said that an absent loved one’s features became more blurred with time. That wasn’t the case. The pictures of Edvard and Erik were there, every wrinkle, expression, and glint in their eyes were clearer than ever. The same went for their voices, laughter, and variations in pitch.

Her head sank down to the brick floor that still felt cool. The smell of wine took on an increasingly smoky note.

She muttered words of love and was slowly rocked into unconsciousness.