Free B0031RSBSM EBOK by Mari Jungstedt Page A

contractions tore at her, trying to pull her along with them. She had to use all her strength not to give in.
    “Don’t push,” she heard the midwife urging her.
    In a haze she noticed the obstetrician come in and sit beside the midwife, down there somewhere between her white legs, spread wide apart. A sheet covered her, so at least she didn’t have to look at all the misery. She had intended to stand up to give birth, or at least to squat down. How shameful this was. She had absolutely no strength left in her legs.
    Every now and then, in her groggy state, she was aware of Johan next to her, his hand holding hers.
    She lost all sense of time and space as she listened to her own hysterical breathing—it was the only thing that could stop her from pushing.
    Suddenly Emma heard a voice that she had heard before. Another midwife had come into the room. She recognized the woman’s Danish accent from one of her previous births.
    “All right, here’s what we’re going to do.”
    Emma no longer cared about what was happening around her; she had slipped into a vacuum in which she felt no pain. It didn’t matter whether she died right here and now. There was something liberating about that thought.
    A woman is never so close to death as when she gives life
, thought Emma.

 
    Night arrived with unusually high temperatures. The air was oppressive, and the ventilation in the building, which was more than a hundred years old, was all but nonexistent. Warfsholm’s youth hostel resembled a merchant’s villa from the nineteenth century, but it had originally been built as a public bathhouse. It stood off by itself, right near the water, as an annex to the main building, which housed the hotel and dining room and was several hundred yards farther out on the promontory.
    In front of the youth hostel was a neatly mown lawn with some garden furniture, a small parking lot, and an area with juniper shrubs nearly six feet high that grew in a labyrinth before giving way to tall reeds and the water. Behind the hostel was a wooden footbridge that extended three hundred yards out over the water and led to the harbor and the road to the town of Klintehamn.
    At this time of day it was tranquil and quiet.
    The guests had sat outside for a long time, enjoying the warm night, but now they had all gone off to bed. Outdoor lamps lit up the building. Not that it was needed—the nights at this time of year were very bright. It never really got completely dark.
    The hallway on the ground floor was deserted. The doors to the rooms had been decorated with hand-painted signs: GRÖTLINGBO, HABLINGBO, HAVDHEM . Each of them had been named for a parish on Gotland. The doors were closed, and not a sound penetrated through the solid walls.
    Martina Flochten was sweating on her bed. She wore only a pair of panties. She had pulled the duvet out of its cover and tossed it aside. The window was wide open, but it made little difference. Eva seemed to be sleeping soundly on the other side of the room.
    Something had made Martina wake up. Maybe it was the heat. She lay motionless, listening to her friend’s steady breathing. If only she could sleep like that. Martina was thirsty and had to pee. Finally she gave up trying to go back to sleep. With a sigh she got out of bed, pulled a T-shirt over her head, and looked out the window. A dark haze covered the foliage on the trees, the lawn, and the reeds farther away at the edge of the water. The sun had sunk below the horizon, but the light was still holding on.
    Silence reigned. Not even a seagull could be heard at this late hour. A glance at the digital clock on the table told her that it was ten minutes past two.
    Martina went to use the bathroom that was halfway down the hall and then padded up the narrow spiral staircase to the kitchen and got herself a glass of water. She opened the freezer and took out a few ice cubes, dropping them into her glass with a discreet plop. She opened all the windows and left them