The Missing

42

I fall asleep and dream that Mama and my former psychologist are sitting across from me, at either end of the sofa, talking. And that, every once in a while, Mama leans forward to feel my forehead or straighten the pillow she has slipped under my head. In my dream, I hear the psychologist say: So your friend was in love with your husband? Was that why she told him about the slap? To make him leave you?

“Or else they were already having an affair,” I hear my mother say, and then I realize that I’m awake. “Maybe she felt rejected since he was continuing to see other women. Who knows?”

There is no bitterness or hatred in her voice when she talks about Ruth. It sounds more like she’s tired. At first I find this surprising. Then I think it’s strange I would have this reaction. Because what is the basis for my perception of my mother’s feelings or her view of what happened? I have never—never ever—curled up on the sofa beside her to discuss these things. Neither of us has ever made any serious attempt to initiate that kind of conversation. Mama may have tried when I was a teenager, but I brushed all her efforts aside. Then I moved away from home and withdrew even more, keeping my distance. And now we’ve ended up here.

They think I’m still asleep, and I let them, lying still and opening my eyes only a little bit. In the center of my field of vision, right in front of me, is a pair of slender legs. Not Mama’s. The sunlight streaming into the room falls in such a way that I can clearly see the unshaven hair on her calves. One foot is bobbing up and down, wearing a loose-fitting sandal. I see the peeling nail polish, some sort of hopeless pastel color. She’s sitting so close that I could reach out my hand and touch her. Caress her leg. Or scratch it.

“I have to ask… Afterward… Wasn’t there anyone who… I mean…”

The fact that she’s having such trouble saying the words makes me realize what she wants to know. Mama understands too. Of course.

“It was declared an accident. The neighbors in the apartments above and below had heard a man bellowing a while earlier and thought it must be the same man who came home late, making a lot of noise in the stairwell. The people who lived across the street told the police they’d seen the man smoking in the open window lots of times. They’d wondered how he dared, since he lived on such a high floor. The autopsy found alcohol in his blood, quite a lot. I think they even found pieces of the glass he’d been holding—”

I move abruptly, kicking out my leg so they can’t miss seeing it. Mama stops at once. Her face peers down at me from the sofa.

“Hello there. You fell asleep, and I decided not to wake you. Thought you could use a rest. I would have moved you, but… Well, you’re a little bigger now than the last time I carried you to bed.”

We look at each other. For a long moment. Until Mama blushes. She really does. She blushes, though only briefly. Then she hurries to regain control of the situation.

“How are you feeling?”

Even though I’ve been awake for several minutes, it’s only when I hear her question that I take stock. My head is no longer pounding fiercely. The headache is still there, but not as sharp. My shoulder still feels stiff and swollen, but the fever must have subsided. The nap seems to have done me good. How long did I sleep? A familiar, and yet peculiar, feeling starts up in my stomach.

“Hungry,” I say. “I’m hungry.”

I go out to the kitchen, walking with my mother’s arm around me for support, and there I eat several pieces of toast. I wonder what happened to the ax. I wonder what Mama has done with it, but I don’t ask. Smilla’s baby doll is lying facedown on the floor under the table. Her polka-dot dress has slid up so that the doll’s shiny plastic bottom peeks out. Slowly but deliberately, I reach for the doll, straighten her clothes, and set her on the chair next to me.

The effort prompts my bad shoulder to throb with pain. The lower part of my face and my neck hurt. I’m still exhausted, both from the fever and from the havoc of the past few days. Anxiously, I run my fingertips over the skin around my navel. Are you still in there? Deep inside, I feel something flutter. Something that’s fighting. Something that wants to live. Something or someone. It’s going to be fine. It has to be.

With my newly awakened appetite, I set about filling the gaping hole in my stomach while my mother rummages around in the bedroom and bathroom, packing up all my things. She works efficiently, in silence, moving with confidence, as if she’s never done anything other than rescue me from absurd situations. I’m guessing that her plan is to finish up as soon as possible and then drive me to the hospital. I wonder what she’s going to tell the doctors. It’s probably best not to ask, best for me to keep quiet and let Mama do the talking.

The psychologist stays out of our way, but I know she hasn’t left the cabin. Her presence is palpable. I assume she’s still in the living room. Pondering her next step, pondering her life? What do I know? The only thing I know is that if Mama trusts her, then I trust her too.

I’ve finally eaten my fill. Mama has wiped off the kitchen counter and carried out my suitcase.

“The car is parked outside,” she says, motioning toward the front door.

Then she helps me up, and we start walking, her arm around my waist, my arm around her neck. Our bodies pressed together from shoulder to hip. We haven’t stood this close in a long time.

We’re already out on the front steps when I hear a sound from the hall. Mama turns her head, her eyes fixed on something right behind us.

“I have one last question. Was it worth it?”

Mama hesitates. She looks from the psychologist to me, her gaze lingering on me for a moment. I don’t turn around. I don’t meet my mother’s eye. I’m waiting.

“No,” says Mama. “It wasn’t.”

She steers me toward her car and helps me into the passenger seat. Through the window, I see my own car. I half listen as Mama tells me she’s going to have it towed from here as soon as possible. She’ll figure it out. I shouldn’t worry. I won’t need to come back here. Ever. She’ll see to that.

She walks around the car and gets into the driver’s seat, closing the door and fastening her seatbelt. Then she sits there without turning the key. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t say anything.

“Mama?”

For a long time, she stares straight ahead.

“That man… Alex,” she finally says. “The way he treats her… Does he treat you like that too?”

What should I say? Should I tell her about the silk tie? Mama is chewing her lip. I try to sound reassuring, convincing.

“I left him. I told him never to come near me again.”

She thinks about this for a moment.

“What about the child?” she says then. “Your child. What are you planning to do?”

I wait, forcing her to turn toward me and read the answer in my eyes. Slowly, she nods. She reaches out her hand and cups my unbruised cheek.

“If he ever contacts you—you or the baby—if he in any way…”

Sooner or later, Alex is going to find out that I got away, that his wife let me go. How will he react? I don’t want to even try imagining that. But no matter how strong his reaction, he’ll probably think twice before contacting me again. There are certain advantages to being a mystery. There are certain advantages to not telling Alex the whole truth about Papa.

I think about what he said to me at the end of our latest—our last—phone conversation. And about what I let him believe. That I was the one who delivered the fatal shove on that night an eternity ago. What I’m capable of.

I raise my hand to place it over my mother’s hand on my cheek. I hope she’ll know what I’m trying to say. I hope she can feel the strength of who I am. My mother’s daughter.

“If he does, I’ll deal with it.”

Mama listens, lets the words sink in. Then she removes her hand and smiles. That smile tells me that everything is as it should be.

“Wait here a minute,” she says. “I forgot something inside.”

She unbuckles her seatbelt and resolutely walks around the hedge that encloses the cabin we’re about to leave.

I lean back and take several deep breaths. Leaving this place. At last. I think about how good it will be to go home. I decide to look for a new apartment as soon as possible. Somewhere he’s never been. Maybe I’ll even move to a different town. But the very first thing I’m going to do, as soon as I’ve gotten patched up and I’m feeling better, is call Katinka. And ask her if she’d like to meet for coffee.

At that moment, I see her. She’s approaching hesitantly from the other side of the road. Black, shapeless clothes, her long hair hanging loose. I open the car door, and she comes over, stopping a few feet away. She stares at me mutely, her eyes shifting from the cuts on my face to the big bruise.

“My mom talked to the police,” she says at last. “They said something about a woman with an ax. I wanted… I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

“I’m okay. What about you?”

She brushes her hair out of her face and stares down at the ground. A worried mother whose daughter was purportedly threatened with a knife by her boyfriend. That’s what the police officer had said.

“Your mother reported him?”

The girl named Greta looks at the ground, at the road, everywhere but at me.

“So fucking stupid,” she finally mutters. “She has no idea what she’s talking about.”

I have a sinking feeling in my chest. So she’s taking Jorma’s side? Even though he tried to attack her? I want to shake her, protest, ask her if she heard anything I said when we met in the forest clearing. But then I glimpse my mother coming around the hedge. When she catches sight of Greta, she walks faster. Quickly, I reach out my hand and hear the words of the policewoman echoing from my own lips.

“There’s help available.”

The girl looks at my hand held out toward her. For a moment, she doesn’t move. Then she raises her own hand and her fingers brush mine. They’re ice cold.

“Hello there. Who are you? And what are you doing here?”

Mama’s voice is loud and commanding. The girl yanks her hand away. She looks into my eyes one last time. My voice is barely more than a whisper.

“Take care of yourself, okay?”

Without another word, she runs off. I feel my own hand fall away. Mama opens the car door, gets in, and fastens her seatbelt. When she asks me about the girl, I shrug. She doesn’t persist.

“Sweetheart,” she says instead, “there’s something I was thinking about.”

I close the car door and look in the mirror. I see a small, thin figure disappearing. Soon, she’s no more than a line in the distance. Then she’s swallowed up by the earth. By Marhem. Mama turns the key, and the engine starts up.

“I hope you know that I’d do anything for you. Anything at all, Greta.”

I nod. I do know.

“You’re going to need a lot of help. It’s no easy thing to be pregnant. And later, after the baby arrives, it won’t exactly get easier. As a single mother, you’ll need all the support you can get. I want you to know that I…”

She comes to a halt. I fumble for her hand resting on the gearshift.

“Mama. Thank you.”

She turns to look at me and smiles. That special smile of hers.

Then we drive off.