Before the Frost

“It is hard. Life should be hard. What did you want to know?”

“I’m looking for Anna. She’s my friend, and I want to make sure nothing has happened to her. I haven’t heard from her for a while, and that’s not like her.”

“And what can I do for you?”

“You can tell me when you last saw her.”

Margareta’s answer was caustic.

“I don’t like her. I try to have as little to do with her as possible.”

Linda had never heard that before — someone not liking Anna. She thought back to their school days. Linda had often fought with her fellow students, but she couldn’t remember Anna doing so.

“Why?”

“I think she’s stuck-up. I can generally tolerate that in others since I’m just as bad. But not in her case. There’s something about her that drives me up the wall.”

She got up and rinsed her teacup.

“It probably bothers you to hear me say this about your friend.”

“Everyone has a right to their opinion.”

Margareta sat down again.

“Then there’s another thing. Or two, more precisely. She’s stingy and she doesn’t tell the truth. You can’t trust her. Either what she says or that she won’t use all your milk.”

“That doesn’t sound like Anna.”

“Maybe the Anna who lives here is a different person. All I’m saying is I don’t like her, she doesn’t like me. We cope. I don’t eat when she’s eating and there are two bathrooms. We rarely bump into each other.”

Margareta’s cell phone rang. She answered and then left the kitchen. Linda thought about what she had just been told. More and more she was starting to realize that the Anna she had become reacquainted with was not the same Anna she had grown up with. Even though Margareta — or Johanna — didn’t make the best impression, Linda instinctively felt that she had been telling the truth. I have nothing more to do here, she thought. Anna is choosing to stay away. She has some reason for it, just as there will turn out to be a reason why she and Birgitta Medberg were in contact.

Linda got up to leave as Margareta came back into the kitchen.

“Are you angry?”

“Why would I be angry?”

“Because I’ve told you unflattering things about your friend.”

“I’m not angry.”

“Then maybe you’d like to hear more?”

They sat down at the table again. Linda felt tense.

“Do you know what she studies?”

“Medicine.”

“That’s what I thought too; we all did. But then someone told me she had been expelled from the medical school. There were rumors about plagiarism — I don’t know if that was true or not. Maybe she simply gave up. But she never said anything to us about it. She pretends that she’s still studying medicine, but she’s not.”

“What does she do?”

“She prays.”

“Prays?”

“You heard me,” Margareta said. “Prays. What you do when you go to church.”

Linda lost her temper.

“Of course I know what it is. Anna prays, you say. But where? When? How? Why?”

Margareta did not react to her outburst. Linda was grudgingly impressed by this display of self-control of a kind that she herself lacked.

“I think it’s genuine. She’s searching for something. I can understand her in a way. Personally, I’m on a quest for material wealth; other people are looking for the spiritual equivalent.”

“How do you know all of this if you don’t even talk to her?”

Margareta leaned over the table.

“I snoop, and I eavesdrop. I’m the person who hides behind curtains and hears and sees everything that goes on. I’m not kidding.”

“So she has a confidante?”

“That’s a strange word, isn’t it? ‘Confidante’ — what does it really mean? I don’t have one, and I doubt if Anna Westin does either. To be completely honest, I think she’s unusually dim-witted. God forbid I would ever be diagnosed and treated by a physician like her. Anna Westin talks to anyone who will listen. I think all of us here find her conversation a series of naïve and worthless sermons. She’s always lecturing us on moral topics. It’s enough to drive anyone insane, except perhaps our dear chess-player. He cherishes vain hopes about getting her into bed.”

“Any chance?”

“Zilch.”

“What do her lectures consist of?”

“She talks about the poverty of our daily existence. That we don’t nurture our inner selves. I don’t know exactly what she believes in, other than that she’s Christian. I tried to discuss Islam with her one time and she went ballistic. She’s a conservative Christian. More than that I don’t know. But there’s something genuine about her when she talks about her religious views. And sometimes I hear her when she’s in her room. It sounds real. That’s the only time she isn’t lying or stealing. She’s being herself. Beyond that, I can’t say.”