The Princess of Burundi

Thirty-three

Ann Lindell had just finished nursing Erik. She had gone about her morning routine in an apathetic way. Fat headlines in the morning paper had announced Jan-Erik Hollman’s murder. Stunned, she had read about yesterday’s events. She remembered him as one of the nice guys, a northerner, good at badminton and apparently a father of two.

Ann lingered at the kitchen window, ignoring the pot on the stove. Her mother had offered to cook the ham but Ann had refused. A faint scent of spices and broth rose from the pot. Her father was fond of dipping bread in the broth so she had to remember to buy the traditional herb bread.

She spread out the first page of the paper again. It carried a photograph of the dark pool of blood on Svartbäcksgatan, which reminded her of pictures that often accompanied articles about the murder of Prime Minister Olaf Palme. The same image of spilled blood in the street.

The sight of the large ham she was cooking made her feel sick. That gray-white flesh and then the fat that rose to the surface. She skimmed some away with a ladle. This was the first ham she had cooked in a long time. Meaningless, she thought. The thought of her parents with their gestures of concern and worried expressions depressed her. A guilty conscience mixed with anger.

The meat thermometer showed barely forty degrees Celsius. At least an hour left, she thought. She turned the heat up but then immediately turned it back down. You couldn’t hurry a ham.

Ola had called but she hadn’t answered the phone. Maybe he wanted to talk about Hollman’s murder, maybe their brief interaction. An imperceptible shudder ran through her lower body. She felt desire for him and her self-disgust grew. Her attraction to him was so unexpected, so confusing. She hadn’t desired any man since Edvard. Well, maybe, but not in the same way. Ola was married. She would never allow herself to take another step in that direction. At first she had toyed with the idea that maybe they could flirt a little more, even start a secret and shameless affair. But then she had pushed these thoughts away, reproaching herself by focusing on the unrealistic and immoral aspects of such a relationship. How low had she sunk? Not only was he a married man, a father, he was a colleague she saw on an almost daily basis.

Berit Jonsson called at half past nine to say that Justus had disappeared. After breakfast he had packed his school backpack-full of she didn’t know exactly what, but it was an ample bag-and left. He hadn’t told her where he was going, but he rarely did.

It wasn’t the fact that he hadn’t said much that concerned her; it was his expression. He had eaten his yogurt and cereal grimly, cleaned up after himself, walked into his room, and emerged fifteen minutes later with his bag on his back, said good-bye, and left the apartment. It had been shortly after eight.

“He’s been sitting in there keeping to himself for days,” Berit said. “Then he suddenly takes off likes this. Something’s wrong.”

“Does he like to do any sports?” Lindell asked. “Maybe he had sports gear in the bag?”

“No.”

“He’ll turn up soon, you’ll see.”

“He didn’t feed the fish. He didn’t even look in their direction.”

“Has Lennart been in touch again?”

“No, thank goodness. If he tries I’ll throw him out on his ear.”

“Justus will turn up again. Try not to worry.”

Berit agreed to call her if Justus didn’t come home in the next few hours. Justus had the cell phone with him but didn’t pick up when Berit called.

Ann’s parents were coming in a few hours. The temperature of the ham had inched up to forty-eight degrees. Ann stared dully into the broth and watched a few peppercorns swirl around in circles, like the planets in their unchanging orbits.

She walked away from the stove, suddenly nauseated, reminded of the sensations she had felt when she first discovered she was pregnant. Katrin at the health clinic had told her the most likely reason for her pregnancy: she had been taking Saint-John’s-wort and this had neutralized the effect of the pill.

Why this feeling of self-contempt? Was it because she was cooking a ham solely for the benefit of her parents? She wouldn’t have bothered with Christmas otherwise, not hung any decorations. Her desire to see them again was deflated by this sense of duty to perform the role of good daughter and mother.

She feared her mother’s gaze and comments. Ann couldn’t remember her mother being this way while she was growing up. It was her father’s ill health and passivity that had set off a process where controlling her daughter became her dominating focus. Ann had been judged an unsatisfactory mother. It was as if she were fully incapable of taking care of Erik. And perhaps I really can’t do it, she thought. Maybe I’m not fit to raise a son by myself.

“Because I’m destined to stay single,” she said aloud.

She went into Erik’s room, stood by his bed, and looked at him. He was healthy and developmentally on track. Why was she a worse mother than anyone else? Ann knew it was her own insecurity and low self-esteem that was the source of all this self-doubt.

The phone buzzed. She had turned the ringer off so as not to disturb Erik. It was Berit.

“He’s cut up some of the fish,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“He’s taken up some of the fish out of the tank and cut their heads off.”

Berit drew air into her lungs as if to stop a scream from escaping.

“This morning?”

“Yes. I thought he had ignored them and not fed them, which is true. But he took out all the Princesses and beheaded them. I don’t get it.”

“The Princesses?”

“That’s the name of the fish. The Princess of Burundi. The other ones are untouched.”

“Why these particular fish, do you think?”

Berit burst out into loud sobs that developed into desperate wails. Lindell tried to regain contact with her but had the impression that Berit had walked away from the phone, perhaps collapsing into a chair or onto the floor. Her crying became more distant.

“I’ll be right over,” Lindell said and hung up.

She looked at the time, ran into Erik’s room, put a cap on his head and wrapped him up in a blanket, and left the apartment.

The meat thermometer rose to sixty degrees.