Mind's Eye by Håkan Nesser Page B

knees drawn up and his hands tucked away, just like a little child. He closed his eyes and the images came floating into his head.
    June 25, a Thursday.
    “Do you know what happened to me today, Janek?” she’d said. “I had a proposal.”
    His blood had stood still. His smile was in cement.
    “Yes, a man I didn’t know came up to me while I was waiting for the bus and asked me to marry him. Some people certainly know how to seize the moment.”
    “What did you say?”
    “That I’d think it over.”
    She had also smiled, but he knew that her womb was wide open and there was blood between her teeth.
    “Let’s get married, Eva.”
    And that was that.
    He pressed his forehead against the wall. It felt good. At any moment he could choose to be completely normal; it was an act of the will, nothing else—to choose the thinnest and most durable and grayest of all the lines of thought and cling to it like a blind priest.
    How did he not miss her?
    In the same way as you don’t miss the unbearable.
    As a young tiger doesn’t miss its own death.
             
    This man.
    Who existed. Who didn’t exist.
    Who kept phoning but replaced the receiver when Mitter answered. Time after time.
    Whom she spoke to when Mitter was not at home.
    Who didn’t exist, and about whom she used to have nightmares. Who made her say, “If I die soon, please forgive me, Janek! Forgive me, forgive me!”
    Whom she renounced over and over again.
    “There is no man. There
is
no man. There’s only you and me, Janek. Believe me, believe me, believe me!”
    It was so damned theatrical that it must be true. For it had to be the blood and the pain and her death that was the truth…not the lie. And when she welcomed him between her legs, that could be nothing but the truth. There were no questions. It must be strength, not weakness. Guilt and punishment and mercy had no place and no name in all this.
    Forget me! Let us forget each other when we’ve gone! Could we ever make love if there were no such thing as death?
    What was your quarrel about?
    What did you talk about out there on the balcony?
    He thumped his head against the wall. Roared with laughter and wept.

16
    “What is your full name, please?”
    “Gudrun Elisabeth Traut.”
    “Occupation?”
    “Teacher of German and English at Bunge High School.”
    “You are a colleague of Janek Mitter and Eva Ringmar, is that correct?”
    “Well…I am a colleague of Mitter’s. I was a colleague of Eva Ringmar’s.”
    “Of course. Are you…were you…closely acquainted with either of them?”
    “No, I wouldn’t say that. I’ve been working at the school for about as long as Mitter, but we teach different subjects. We’ve never had much to do with each other.”
    “And Eva Ringmar?”
    “She joined the staff two years ago, when Mr. Monsen retired. We both worked in the modern languages department.”
    “Were you close?”
    “No, certainly not. We attended the same planning meetings, shared some examinations, stood in for one another when one of us was sick, the usual kind of thing in the languages department.”
    “But you didn’t socialize in your spare time?”
    “With Eva Ringmar?”
    “Yes.”
    “No, never.”
    “Do you know if Eva Ringmar used to meet any of the other teachers—outside working hours, that is?”
    “No, I don’t think anybody did—apart from Mitter, of course.”
    “Naturally. Miss Traut, I’d like you to inform us about an incident you told the police about, that happened on September thirtieth, three days before Eva Ringmar was murdered.”
    “You mean the episode in the staff workroom?”
    “Yes.”
    “By all means. It was after the last lesson of the day. I’d set a test in German for year two, and we’d overrun our time slightly. It was probably around a quarter past four when I got to the languages room, where we have our desks. I thought I’d be the last one there, but to my surprise I saw Eva Ringmar sitting at her desk. It’s not