Read Online The Cruel Stars of the Night by Kjell Eriksson - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Kjell Eriksson
Tags: Fiction, General, Mystery & Detective, Detective and Mystery Stories, Mystery Fiction, Women Detectives, Police Procedural, Missing Persons, Women detectives - Sweden
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her car. When she was about to drive onto the bridge her car lurched and stalled. Immediately a car behind her honked. In the rearview mirror she saw a middle-aged man, how he waved his hand, how his mouth moved. She put the hand brake on, stepped out, opened the trunk, and took out a lug wrench.
As she smashed the man’s windshield she came to think of her father. Was it all of his repeated lectures about Queen Kristina’s life, above all the procession out of Uppsala, that made her think of her father? He never spoke of her arrival, when she and the whole court went from Stockholm to Uppsala in order to flee the plague. Surely they would have come to Uppsala on the same road, over Flottsund, through that which today is Sunnersta, over the fields by Ultuna with the castle on the hill in sight. No, it was the queen’s sorti that interested him, how she one day in early summer put down her crown and regalia, spoke to the estates of the realm in order to leave the city that same day and begin her long trip to Italy and her father’s beloved Rome.
“Sixteen fifty-four,” she muttered, as she hit the car with the lug wrench one last time. “I remember, I remember all the dates.”
Shaken, she returned to her car, started it, and drove over the bridge. Left behind was the broken Volvo with its shocked driver who only managed to call the police on his cell phone once the crazy woman had disappeared around the bend on the other side of the river.
Laura Hindersten took a left on the old Stockholm Road and drove back into town. She had thought herself south to the region where she and her father once spent a summer in a rented cottage. It was the year after her mother had died. Laura had the impression that her father for the first time experienced the house in Kåbo as the prison it had been for her mother.
It had been a happy summer. Their old Citroën took them twenty kilometers out into the country. Her father read as usual, most often in the garden, leaning over old manuscripts and reciting sonnets, so in this there was no difference to life in the city. But the landscape was different,the kilometer-wide view over fields and meadows that reminded her of the sea, or how Laura thought the sea might look.
The cramped house and garden of the city was far away. Outside the cottage there was space, a sky that Laura always experienced as light, even when it was overcast. On the other side of a little stream there were grazing cows. It seemed to her they were the luckiest creatures on the Earth. She could stand there for hours just looking at them. She was not allowed to crawl under the barbed wire—her father had ingrained that in her—but the cows often lumbered over to her, gawked at her. She fed them grass. Their muzzles and rough tongues, their indolence—as if they were full but still willing to accept another bite of grass since it was being offered—made her warm inside.
Even though they were plant eaters there was something carnivorous about the way they smacked and chomped. They did not eat like humans, who inhaled their food and chewed frenetically in order to swallow quickly and load up on more. The cows ground their fodder, sensually, slowly, and with pleasure, paused from time to time and goggled with dull curiosity.
Green-fingered and with the animals’ dried saliva all the way up her arms, she walked across the slender plank across the stream and then ran home.
Did they themselves eat anything? She had no memory of her father making any food. He simply sat in the garden. Many times she got on the swing in the large pear tree. Her father had put it up. She swung in wide arcs. Sometimes he looked up, occasionally smiling slightly before he returned to his tomes.
In the evenings they played chess in the light from a hurricane lamp. Her father’s hands looked sickly in the sharp, white-yellow light. He moved his pieces with great care, always with commentary. They never played with a timer and Laura was
As she smashed the man’s windshield she came to think of her father. Was it all of his repeated lectures about Queen Kristina’s life, above all the procession out of Uppsala, that made her think of her father? He never spoke of her arrival, when she and the whole court went from Stockholm to Uppsala in order to flee the plague. Surely they would have come to Uppsala on the same road, over Flottsund, through that which today is Sunnersta, over the fields by Ultuna with the castle on the hill in sight. No, it was the queen’s sorti that interested him, how she one day in early summer put down her crown and regalia, spoke to the estates of the realm in order to leave the city that same day and begin her long trip to Italy and her father’s beloved Rome.
“Sixteen fifty-four,” she muttered, as she hit the car with the lug wrench one last time. “I remember, I remember all the dates.”
Shaken, she returned to her car, started it, and drove over the bridge. Left behind was the broken Volvo with its shocked driver who only managed to call the police on his cell phone once the crazy woman had disappeared around the bend on the other side of the river.
Laura Hindersten took a left on the old Stockholm Road and drove back into town. She had thought herself south to the region where she and her father once spent a summer in a rented cottage. It was the year after her mother had died. Laura had the impression that her father for the first time experienced the house in Kåbo as the prison it had been for her mother.
It had been a happy summer. Their old Citroën took them twenty kilometers out into the country. Her father read as usual, most often in the garden, leaning over old manuscripts and reciting sonnets, so in this there was no difference to life in the city. But the landscape was different,the kilometer-wide view over fields and meadows that reminded her of the sea, or how Laura thought the sea might look.
The cramped house and garden of the city was far away. Outside the cottage there was space, a sky that Laura always experienced as light, even when it was overcast. On the other side of a little stream there were grazing cows. It seemed to her they were the luckiest creatures on the Earth. She could stand there for hours just looking at them. She was not allowed to crawl under the barbed wire—her father had ingrained that in her—but the cows often lumbered over to her, gawked at her. She fed them grass. Their muzzles and rough tongues, their indolence—as if they were full but still willing to accept another bite of grass since it was being offered—made her warm inside.
Even though they were plant eaters there was something carnivorous about the way they smacked and chomped. They did not eat like humans, who inhaled their food and chewed frenetically in order to swallow quickly and load up on more. The cows ground their fodder, sensually, slowly, and with pleasure, paused from time to time and goggled with dull curiosity.
Green-fingered and with the animals’ dried saliva all the way up her arms, she walked across the slender plank across the stream and then ran home.
Did they themselves eat anything? She had no memory of her father making any food. He simply sat in the garden. Many times she got on the swing in the large pear tree. Her father had put it up. She swung in wide arcs. Sometimes he looked up, occasionally smiling slightly before he returned to his tomes.
In the evenings they played chess in the light from a hurricane lamp. Her father’s hands looked sickly in the sharp, white-yellow light. He moved his pieces with great care, always with commentary. They never played with a timer and Laura was
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