She could not have cared less about him or any of the others at military high command. All she wanted was to be able to process the full implications of what she had heard, and maybe also to understand why she had not suspected anything earlier. There had been no shortage of signs, that much was clear to her now. For example, the crisis Johannes had gone through at Base Camp afterwards. She had cried tears of relief that he was alive, and safe—despite the tragedy that had befallen the others—and she could barely take in the enormity of his achievement. But he had not wanted to talk about it. All the snippets that had not meant anything at the time but which could now be pieced together to form a new whole. Like that evening in October almost three years ago, when the boys had gone to sleep and Johannes had just been appointed Minister of Defence. They were sitting on the sofa at home in Stocksund, and he mentioned Klara Engelman in a new, disturbing tone of voice.
“I keep wondering what she was thinking,” he said.
“When?”
“When she was abandoned.”
She answered that in all likelihood Klara was not thinking at all—that she was probably already dead. But now, in the night, Rebecka understood what Johannes had meant, and it was more than she could bear.
CHAPTER 28
May 13, 2008
Klara Engelman was not thinking anything the first time she was abandoned. Her body temperature had dropped to eighty-two degrees and her heartbeat was by then slow and irregular. She heard neither the disappearing footsteps nor the howling storm.
She was deeply unconscious, not aware that she had put an arm around Viktor or even that the body she was holding on to was his. Her organs were shutting down as a last form of defence, and she would soon be dead. By then there was no doubt, and that was perhaps, in a way, what she had wanted.
Her husband, Stan, made no secret of his contempt and cheated on her quite openly, their twelve-year-old, Juliette, was going through a crisis too, and Klara had run away from it all, taken herself off to Everest and put on a cheerful face, just as she always did. She was, in fact, suffering from severe depression, and it was only in the last week that she had found a reason to live again. It was not just her love for Viktor. She had also begun to hope that she could bring Stan down, once and for all.
She was feeling strong again, even as she headed towards the summit, and she had drunk plenty of that blueberry soup which she had heard was so good for one. But before long her body began to feel strangely heavy and her eyelids kept closing, and she felt colder and colder until finally she collapsed. She slipped away and was oblivious to the storm which now came raging in from the north, endangering the whole expedition. For her, the hours simply vanished into darkness, and silence, and she heard nothing until an ice axe started picking away at her face.
Not that she really grasped what was going on. There was just this hacking right by her, close to her and yet still remote, as if in another world. But then…her airways had become freer and the footsteps had disappeared, and she opened her eyes. It was a miracle, in a way. Klara, who had been given up for dead, looked around and had no idea what was going on. Except that she found herself in some sort of hell. But little by little things came back to her, and she looked at her legs and her boots and then at an arm, without quite being able to understand whose arm it was. It was frozen stiff above her hip in the air. Then she realized it was hers, and tried to move it. But it would not budge. Her body was frozen. Then something happened which got her to her feet.
She saw her daughter in front of her. She saw her as clearly as if she could reach out and touch her, and after four or five attempts she stood up and began to stumble downhill, like a sleepwalker with hands stretched in front of her, and even though she barely knew which was left and which was right, she was guided by howls, inhuman screams which seemed to be showing her the way. It was a long time before she realized that the screams were her own.
* * *
—
Nima Rita was in a landscape he had always believed to be inhabited by spirits and ghosts, so he took no notice of the screams. Go on, he thought, scream as much as you like. Why on earth had he come back up here? He could not believe it himself. He had seen her and said his goodbyes. All hope was lost. But he also knew that he had listened too much to the others and had left behind the one person he should not have abandoned. Maybe he no longer cared whether he too went under or not. All that mattered was for him to show that he had not given up. If he died, he would die with dignity.
His exhaustion had taken him beyond all reason, he had frostbite and he could hardly see. He heard only the blizzard and the howling in the snowy fog. But he did not for even a second connect them to Mamsahib, and he was about to pause for a breath when the sound of creaking footsteps in the snow came ever closer.
Then he saw a ghost with its arms held out, as if beseeching the living to give it something, a piece of bread, some comfort, a prayer, and he approached the ghost. The next moment the figure fell into his arms with a surprising weight. They collapsed in the snow and rolled over, and he banged his head.
“Help me, help me, I have to get to my daughter,” the figure said, and then he knew.
He did not understand, it dawned on him gradually and in some confusion, and then a stab of joy shot through his exhausted body. It was her. It really was her, and that could only be because the mountain goddess was smiling on him. She must have seen how he had struggled, and with what pain. It would all be all right, he thought, so he gathered his remaining strength and put his arms around her waist and got her back onto her feet, and then they stumbled down together while she screamed and he increasingly lost his grip on reality.
* * *
—
His face was so strangely stiff. It was as if he were in another world, yet he was holding her up, wasn’t he? And he was battling. It was clear from the sound of his breathing that he was fighting furiously. She prayed to God that she would be allowed to go home to her daughter, and all the time she promised herself not to give up, not to collapse. Not now and not later. It would all work out, she thought.
With every step she took she told herself: Once I have come out of this alive, I will be able to cope with anything, and then, further down the mountain, she made out two other figures, and that gave her more hope.
Now I am safe.
Now, at last, I must be safe.
CHAPTER 29
August 28
Catrin Lindås woke at 8:30 in the double bed at Hotel Lydmar and reached over to pull Mikael closer to her. But he was not there, so she called out:
“Bloombells?”
It was a silly nickname she had given him the night before, when he had not listened to a word she was saying—“You’ve got nothing but bluebells in your head, Bloombells” —and at least it had made him smile. Otherwise she found him impenetrable. Which was, after all, understandable. He was going to do an exclusive interview with the Minister of Defence, and it was all very hush-hush with encrypted instructions being sent to her mobile. The only way to get anything out of the man was to discuss his interview, and then he was not quite so remote. And at one point he tried to recruit her to Millennium. Straight after that she managed to undo his shirt buttons, then all the other ones as well, and they made love. Then she must have fallen asleep.