The Double Silence (Andas Knutas 7)

of the fields and meadows. The parsonage consisted of a main building with a wing on either side. One was used for visitors and the other served as the pastor’s office. Mamma and Pappa had been here many times after Emilia’s death. I still could barely comprehend that my sister had actually killed herself. That she no longer wanted to live. It was hard to accept. And we never talked about it at home. But it seemed so empty at the dinner table and in front of the TV in the evening. Emilia had left behind a terrible void. I don’t remember what my thoughts were right after it happened. I felt like I was on automatic, eating the food put in front of me, going to school, doing my homework. The school counsellor had tried to talk to me, but I wasn’t interested. It felt as if she wanted me to say a lot of things that I had no intention of saying. As if I were sitting there for her sake, so that she could feel that she’d done her job. Mamma just lay in bed with the blinds drawn. Pappa had been forced to move out of the room. She refused to let anyone in. I longed for her to hug me, comfort me, but she couldn’t. She was too immersed in her own sorrow. People came over to visit. They sat at the kitchen table and drank coffee, fidgeting becausethey didn’t know what to say. People talked about a ‘cry for help’. A cry for help that nobody had heard. That made it even worse. As if it was our fault that Emilia had taken her own life. Take care of your mother, they told me. Pappa sought refuge in his farm work. Nobody cared about me. I closed off my grief; my defence mechanisms set in and made me able to get through the days.
    As I cycled up to the parsonage on that day, I saw that our car was parked at the side of the building. Pappa was here. I could hear low voices coming from the pastor’s office. Someone was crying, and I assumed it was Pappa. It was a hot day, the air was stifling, and the window stood open. Instinctively I pricked up my ears and hesitantly crossed the gravel forecourt so as not to draw attention. I stopped next to the wall of the house, so no one could see me from the window, and listened intently. Now I could clearly hear Pappa sobbing inside the room.
    ‘It was my fault,’ he said. ‘All my fault. I’ve killed my own daughter.’ At first I was filled with tenderness. Poor Pappa. He shouldn’t shoulder all the blame for Emilia’s death. She’d been suffering from depression, and it was worse and more serious than anyone could have imagined. It was no one’s fault. I heard the pastor murmur something, and then Pappa spoke again.
    ‘It’s my fault. But I couldn’t help myself.’
    I was stunned and felt an icy shiver race through my body at the implication of Pappa’s words.
    ‘Now, now. Now, now,’ said the pastor.
    Pappa went on, whimpering pitifully: ‘You know what I mean. I told you about it from the very beginning. I should have realized when she stopped talking. In my heart I knew it was an intolerable situation, but I couldn’t help myself. I felt like sick demons were egging me on. I’m just a man after all, and Margareta never wanted to do it.’
    ‘We talked about that,’ said the pastor sternly. ‘What you did is a sin and perverse and I told you so many times that you needed to stop. You can’t blame your assaults on male urges.’
    The words echoed inside my head. It was impossible to take them in, impossible to understand. Had Pappa …? I was breathing hard, myhead started to spin, and I dropped the pie plate on the ground. Suddenly everything was crystal clear.
    The nausea came without warning. I threw up in the rose bushes. From far away I could still hear Pappa’s churning, whining voice. It had been going on for several years. And our good friend, the pastor, had known what was happening the whole time but had never said anything. Not a single person had said a word about what was happening to Emilia.
    I managed to get back on my bicycle and then left the parsonage behind.
    I was never going back there again.

THE BLOCKS OF flats, plastered a dirty grey, stood in a row in the rundown residential district on the outskirts of Visby. In the car park was a mangy-looking caravan as well as several rusty old bangers that looked as if they were at least twenty years old.
    Jacobsson turned off the engine and pulled on the handbrake.
    ‘OK, how shall we do this?’
    Wittberg took a piece of paper out of his jacket pocket.
    ‘He lives at Jungmansgatan