“You have to trust me.”
“But…”
Her knees were trembling. Her dry lower lip hung toward her chin like a flap of skin.
“Both you and Stella were there when Christopher Olsen died, right?”
“Yes.”
“Here in Sweden the burden of proof is high,” I said, even as I tried to figure out where I was going with this line of reasoning. “If there are two potential perpetrators at the scene when a murder is committed, the prosecutor must be able to prove either that one of them was without a doubt the killer, or that they committed the murder together.”
The strong beats of Amina’s pulse spread through my palm and turned my body into a single throbbing thing.
“What are you saying? Should I tell the police that Stella and I were both there?”
“Oh, I don’t know.”
Maybe I was a raving madwoman. The idea had sprung from sheer desperation; I had formed it without examining it deeply. What would it involve? Could I save both Stella and Amina? And was I prepared to subject them to everything it would take?
“Presumably that wouldn’t work,” I said. “If you tell the police, they will do everything in their power to convict you both. For this to work, you have to wait until the trial.”
“Why?”
“It has to come as a surprise to the prosecutor. Suddenly the possibility of a second perpetrator appears, and the court cannot deny that there is reasonable doubt. And once there has been an acquittal, a great deal of new evidence is required for the prosecutor to bring a new indictment in a case. No prosecutor wants to lose the same case twice.”
Amina stared at me, her mouth open.
“A trial? Doesn’t that take a long time? Do we have to let Stella…？”
No, of course, we couldn’t do that. We couldn’t allow Stella to remain behind bars.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“It’s better if I just confess.”
“But your education, Amina. Your entire future…”
At the same time, I was picturing Stella in a shabby jail cell. What kind of mother even considers letting her child stay locked up? It might take weeks, even months, for the indictment to come.
“We have to make sure Stella doesn’t say anything,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“We can’t tell her. You know Stella. We have to get her to keep quiet. At the same time, we can’t reveal too much.”
“Are you nuts? We’re going to let Stella stay in jail without saying anything?”
“There’s no other way, if you’re both going to walk free. I know Stella’s attorney. He’ll help us.”
“No, we can’t,” Amina said.
I took her hand.
“We love Stella, and she knows that. She’ll know it more than ever once this is over.”
Amina gave a sob.
“This is all my fault.”
I wondered if this was really true. If it’s ever true. Is there any sort of situation where you can say with certainty that a single person is responsible for what happens? Everything in life is dependent on so many different factors that interact in so many different ways.
Whose fault is it that our family turned out the way it did?
Sometimes I wish I could believe in a god, a higher power of some sort. Perhaps it would be simpler to have something to blame. On the other hand, not even the most dogmatic fundamentalists seem inclined to blame their omnipotent gods for the misery that strikes us all sooner or later. To be born human is to carry blame.
“What do you think Stella would want us to do?” I asked. “Let’s let her decide.”
Amina looked at me in despair. I was holding both of her hands now, like a bond, a promise.
There is no justice. All that exists of justice is what we create together.
“Stella would convince us to do it,” Amina said.
She went out to the entryway to get a plastic bag. I knew immediately what it contained.
106
Amina buries her face in her hands and all that remains are the shaking shoulders of a little girl.
“Would you like us to take a break?” G?ran Leijon asks.
Michael nods at the suggestion. Both he and Leijon seem seriously shaken by the story they’ve just been forced to listen to.
After Stella was raped, she and I were finally able to be closer to one another, in a way that had previously been impossible. I was the one she came to in the middle of the night when she was sure she would never wake up again if she fell asleep. I was the one who sat on the edge of her bed, wiping tears from her face with my fingertips. And as she slowly opened up to me, I became aware of how much we shared once you dug under the surface. Our shared fear of showing weakness. The constant worry that we weren’t good enough. And not least, the paralyzing feeling of being incapable of connecting—either to our own emotions or to other people.