Free Open Grave: A Mystery by Kjell Eriksson

meal.”
    Perhaps it was simply the excitement and a general worry about standing in the limelight that created this irritation and desire for isolation? She wanted to believe that, but the nagging sensation that there was something else refused to go away.
    She had forgotten to ask if Gregor was invited. He had seemed strange when they met on the street. The associate professor was perhaps not a cheerful fellow, but she had always gotten along well with him. Now he had stared at her as if she were a ghost, and then rushed off like a frightened animal.
    She breathed on the window and in the mist that was formed she wrote her name. A scraping sound from the top floor brought her back to reality and she decided to call home and say that she would be staying a few more hours. Regardless of what Agnes maintained, two persons surely would be needed to wait on a number of professors.
    Liisa would not be happy, she had always had difficulties with Bertram and between them there was a kind of childish competition for Birgitta’s favor. It could take on quite silly expressions, primarily from her father’s side.
    *   *   *
    “I meant to ask you, is Gregor, Associate Professor Johansson, invited to the dinner?”
    “No,” Agnes answered, standing by the kitchen door. In one hand she had a basket and in the other an umbrella.
    “I see you’ve made coffee. I’ll have a cup.”
    Agnes nodded toward the coffeemaker and opened the door. A gust of rain-soaked autumn wind came into the kitchen. Agnes opened the umbrella and went out into the garden. A stab of melancholy and fear made Birgitta immediately rush over to the window.
    It’s like forty years ago, it struck Birgitta, I’m a child who is standing in the kitchen and sees Agnes go out to pick fruit or berries in the garden. I have become a middle-aged women while she is unchanging.
    She observed how Agnes carefully selected the apples. Sometimes she used the umbrella to knock down fruit. Birgitta made an attempt to leave her spectator’s position, perhaps to help out, but it was too late: Agnes already had the basket full, and was immediately back in the kitchen.
    She had a pleased look, an expression that Birgitta knew well. In her way of resolutely shaking off the umbrella, closing the door after her, and placing the basket of fruit on the little table under the window—surprisingly exact and nimble movements coming from an elderly woman—she demonstrated an efficiency and sovereignty that Birgitta had always admired. No one performed their tasks as energy-efficiently.
    “The rain doesn’t want to give up,” Agnes noted.
    Gone was the harshness in her voice.
    “Shall I peel the apples?”
    Agnes stopped for a moment, then filled a plastic tub with water which she placed on the table, took out a peeler, and pulled out the kitchen chair.
    “Not too small pieces,” she said.
    “What kind is this?”
    “Cox Pomona.”
    They worked in silence. Birgitta sat at the table and peeled and cut up the fruit while Agnes cut up onions and root vegetables at the counter.
    “You know, Agnes, when I was little I thought you would disappear every time you left the house, even if you were just going to pick a few currants or go down to the store and buy a liter of milk.”
    Agnes gave her a quick look, but did not say anything.
    “That was a horrible time, wasn’t it? That I put up with all those quarrels”—Birgitta took another apple out of the basket—“but I had to, I was only a child.”
    “Your mother drank,” said Agnes.
    Birgitta’s peeling knife stopped in mid-motion.
    “Your mother was unhappy.”
    Birgitta stared at the housekeeper’s hunched back. Only the sound of the knife against the cutting board was heard.
    “What do you mean?”
    Agnes turned around with the knife in her hand. The smell of onion struck Birgitta.
    “Exactly what I’m saying—your mother was unhappy and drank.”
    “My mother was sick.”
    “She got sick, yes.”
    Birgitta