Before the Frost
- Автор: Манкелль Хеннинг
- Серия: Linda Wallander #1
- Год: 2004
- Язык: английский
- Год: The Harvill Press
- ISBN: 978-1-84343-113-8
- Переводчик: Ebba Segerberg
- Жанр: Полицейские детективы
Электронная книга - «Before the Frost». Краткое содержание книги:
Linda drove toward Malmö. Just before the turnoff to Jägersro and the Öresund Bridge she decided to make an unexpected visit. She pulled up outside the house in Limhamn, parked, and walked in through the gate. A car was pulled into the driveway. She stopped herself as she was about to ring the doorbell; why, she couldn’t say. Instead she walked around to the back of the house to the glassed-in porch. The garden was well-tended. The gravel path was even raked. The door to the porch was slightly ajar. She pushed it open farther and listened. It was quiet, but she was sure that someone was home. These people spent far too much time locking doors and checking their alarm system. She walked into the living room, looking at the painting over the sofa. It was a picture she had often looked at as a child, fascinated and disturbed by the brown bear shot through with flames and about to explode. She still found it disturbing. Her dad had won it in a lottery and given it to her mother as a birthday present.
Linda heard a noise in the kitchen and walked to the door. Her “hello” stuck in her throat. Mona was standing at the kitchen counter. She was naked and drinking vodka straight from the bottle.
27
Afterward Linda would think that it had been like staring at an image from her past. An image that reached beyond the reality of her mother standing there naked with a bottle of vodka, to something else, an impression, a memory she only managed to grasp when she drew a deep breath. She had experienced the same thing herself once.
She had been only fourteen years old, in the midst of those terrible teenage years when nothing seems possible or comprehensible, but where everything is also straightforward, easy to see through. All parts of the body vibrate with a new hunger. It had happened during a brief period in her life when not only her father but even her mother disappeared off to work all day, having pulled herself out of an unfulfilling stay-at-home existence to work for a shipping company. This finally enabled Linda to be alone for a few hours after school, or to bring friends home with her. She was happy.
That was the time Torbjörn came into her life. He was her first real boyfriend, one whom Linda imagined looked much like Clint Eastwood would have looked at fifteen. Torbjörn Rackestad was half-Danish, a quarter Swedish, and a quarter Native American, a fact that not only gave him a beautiful face but a tinge of exoticism.
It was with him that Linda started a serious investigation into all that went under the rubric of love. They were slowly approaching the moment of truth, although Linda equivocated. One day, when they were sprawled half-naked on her bed, the door opened. It was Mona. She had had a fight with her boss and left work early. Linda still broke out into a sweat when she remembered the shock she had felt. At the time she had started laughing hysterically. Since she had buried her face in her hands she didn’t know exactly how Torbjörn had reacted, but he must have pulled his clothes on and left the apartment soon afterward.
Mona hadn’t lingered in the doorway. She had simply shot her a look that Linda could never quite describe. There had been everything in that look from despair to a kind of smug triumph in finally having her worst fears about her daughter’s nature confirmed. When Linda eventually went out into the living room, they had had a shouting match. Linda could still recall Mona’s repeated war cry: I don’t give a shit what you do as long as you don’t get pregnant. Linda could also hear echoes of her own shouts — their sound, not the words. She remembered the embarrassment, the fury, and the sense of humiliation.
All these thoughts ran through her head as she stared at the nude older woman by the refrigerator. It also occurred to her that she hadn’t seen her mother naked since she was a little girl. Mona had gained a lot of weight, the extra flesh spilling out in unappealing bulges. Linda’s face registered disgust, a brief unconscious expression but distinct enough for Mona to see it and snap out of her initial shock. She slammed the bottle down on the counter and pulled the refrigerator door open as a kind of shield for her body. Linda couldn’t help giggling at the sight of her mother’s head sticking up over the door.
“What do you mean by sneaking in like this? Why can’t you ring the doorbell?”
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“But you can’t just barge into a person’s house!”
“How else would I find out that my mother spends her days getting pissed?”
Mona slammed the refrigerator door shut.
“I am not a drunk!” she screamed.
“You were swigging vodka straight from the bottle, Mom.”
“It’s water. I chill it before I drink it.”
They both lunged for the bottle at the same time, Mona to hide the truth, Linda to uncover it. Linda got there first and sniffed it.
“This is pure, undiluted vodka. Go and put something on. Have you taken a look at yourself recently? Soon you’ll be as big as Dad. But you’re all blubber, he’s just heavy.”
Mona grabbed the bottle out of her hands. Linda didn’t fight her. She turned her back to Mona.
“Mom, put your clothes on.”
“I can be naked in my own house if I want to.”
“It’s not yours, it’s the banker’s house.”
“His name is Olof and he happens to be my husband. We own this house together.”
“You do not. You have a prenuptial agreement. If you get divorced he keeps the house.”
“Who told you that?”
“Grandpa.”
“That old bastard. What did he know?”
Linda turned and slapped her in the face.
“Don’t say that about him.”
Mona took a step back, unbalanced more by the alcohol than the slap.
“You’re just like your dad. He hit me too.”
“Put some clothes on, for God’s sake.”
Linda watched as her naked mother took one more long swallow from the bottle. This isn’t happening, she thought. Why did I stop by? Why didn’t I go straight to Copenhagen?
Mona tripped and fell. Linda wanted to help her up but got pushed aside. Mona finally pulled herself up into a chair.
Linda went into the bathroom and got a robe, but Mona refused to put it on. Linda started to feel sick to her stomach.
“Can’t you put anything on?”
“All my clothes feel too tight.”
“Then I’m leaving.”
“Can’t you at least stay for a cup of coffee?”
“Only if you put something on.”
“Olof likes to see me naked. We always walk around naked in the house.”
Now I’m becoming a mother to my mother, Linda thought, firmly guiding her mother into the robe. Mona put up no resistance. When she reached for the bottle, Linda moved it away. Then she started to make coffee. Mona followed her movements with dull eyes.
“How is Kurt?”
“He’s fine.”
“That man has never been fine in his entire life.”
“Right now he is. He’s never been better.”
“Then it must be because he’s rid of his old man — who hated him.”
Linda held her hand up as if to strike and Mona shut up. She lifted her palms in apology.
“You have no idea how much he misses him. No idea,” Linda said.
Mona got up from the chair, swaying but staying on her feet. She disappeared into the bathroom. Linda pressed her ear against the door. She heard a faucet running, but no bottles being taken from a secret stash.