The White City

A Novel

Karolina Ramqvist, Saskia Vogel

• Publisher: Black Cat
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780802189875
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Swedish Literature
• Index: Literature

An award-winning Scandinavian novel of one woman's struggle to pull herself and her daughter from the grasp of a criminal past. "A literary tour de force" ( Mystery Scene ). A celebrated bestseller in Sweden, and the winner of the prestigious Per Olov Enquist Literary Prize, The White City is an arresting story of betrayal and empowerment as a criminal's girlfriend is left behind to pick up the pieces of her imploded existence. Karin knew what she was getting herself into when she fell for John, a high-flying wheeler-dealer. But she never imagined things would turn out like this: John is gone and the coke-filled parties, seemingly endless flow of money, and high social status have been replaced by cut telephone lines, cut heat, and cut cash. All that remains of Karin's former life is the mansion he bought for her—and his daughter, the child Karin once swore she would never bring into their dangerous world. Now she is on her own with baby Dream. As the authorities zero in on organized crime, John's shady legacy is catching up with her. Over the course of a few days, Karin is forced to take drastic measures to claim what she considers rightfully hers... "The ghostly Scandinavian setting and [protagonist] Karin's closely narrated sense of impending doom... make Swedish star Ramqvist's English-language debut an atmospheric and suspenseful read." — Booklist

It was the end of winter. Under the sky that had always been there, now dark, the house still looked almost new. It had a sort of shine to it and was surrounded by nothing but silence and snow. Snow framed the large frosted windows and rose from the shadows, piling in high drifts against the walls of the house. Not a shovel had been lifted.

The wind-whipped snow had formed a small drift on the front steps. A frozen wave revealing that no one had come or gone for several days.

The door was bolted shut and secured with several locks from within, and just inside stood a torn paper bag overflowing with white and brown envelopes. Bills and unopened letters. The cold floor was mottled with meltwater and mud splatter, as was the bag.

The hall was dark, as if it weren’t morning at all. A dirty mirror hung askew. Karin, barefoot and naked, stood before it, while propping open the door to the bathroom so its light would fall across her body. Her skin was goose-pimpled from the cold, pale and bluish. Her stomach sagged and her breasts were heavy and unshapely. The left one had swelled during the night, and the skin was stretched so thin a web of veins showed through.

She pulled the skin on her belly until it was smooth and leaned forward to study the stretch marks rising in glossy relief from groin to navel. During her last flight to New York, she’d been woken by the pilot’s voice on the speakers, suggesting they take in the view over Iceland. She’d sat up and gazed down at the island, which was almost entirely covered by glaciers, and had noticed streaks in the ice. Black rivers spreading out like a giant’s mane, thousands of strands running across the frozen ground.

The traces pregnancy had left on her stomach looked just like that. Seeing these marks now, she felt as far away from them as she’d felt from the ice, flying thirty thousand feet above it.

During her pregnancy, she’d convinced herself that if she worried enough about getting stretch marks, she wouldn’t get any.

Now she knew that wasn’t how it worked.

Fear can’t be used like an incantation; it’s an unease that wells up when you know what’s at stake. It’s not true that what you worry about the most isn’t going to happen. Rather, it’s highly likely that it will.

Outside on the lake, plates of ice moved toward each other, in anticipation of freezing into a solid mass. The gray water churned around them in rippling waves. The dark forest rose above the white speckled cliffs on the far shore and the faint outline of a dock could be made out at the bottom of the property, where reeds and brittle blades of grass jutted from mounds of rumpled snow.

The weather had been changeable over the past days, or had it been weeks now? It had grown milder and had even begun to thaw. From her spot on the barstool at the kitchen island—his spot—she’d watched the lake open up like a gray, gaping mouth. Then the chill returned, a kind of paralysis, but the wind blew with such force that the lake couldn’t freeze over.

In the bathroom, the fan was switched off, and as soon as she turned the water on, the mirrors fogged, turning the same whitish hue as the ice. Her back was cloaked in steam when she stepped out of the shower, the water still running, and hurried into the hall to check on the baby. She loathed the feeling of the cold, grimy floor against her bare feet. At this time of day, the house was at its most biting.

Dream sat on the living room floor in her diaper, facing away from her, playing with a white iPhone charger. She never seemed to tire of the whipping sound made by the thin metal tip hitting the parquet floor, or of the realization that she was in control: her hand was making a fist and she was moving the cable.

She stopped to watch the child amusing herself, unaware of the forces that shaped their existence. Their existence, which seemed so hushed, so spent. She hadn’t yet been able to grasp that this moment in time was also the start of another person’s life.

She took in the chubby body and its irregular, jerky movements. Dream was still something of a mystery to her. Those large, close-set eyes were unfamiliar in a way that made her ill at ease. A lock of hair jutted from the crown of the baby’s head. In the middle of each of her puffy cheeks was a chapped, ruddy patch, which she assumed was from the cold, dry air. Through the baby’s soft flesh, a perfect spine could be glimpsed.

She knew the child would one day become the most precious thing she had, but until then, it was pure luck that Dream was so calm. Perhaps you didn’t get the child you deserved; you got the one you could handle.

She finished her shower with the bathroom door open onto the hall so she could keep an eye on Dream. When she was done, she peered out and saw the little one still sitting there in the living room with her cable. She dried off and slipped into his robe, the only one left after she sold all of her kimonos.

It weighed down her shoulders; it was far too big.

His body had always been red and hot when he’d put it on.

She knotted the belt around her waist, pulled it tight, and leaned against the sink, drinking in the scent of him, which lingered deep in the thick terry cloth. Toothpaste and deodorant and wet, warm male skin.

The promise that everything was going to be okay.

She wished the damp heat wouldn’t dissipate so quickly, but it did. And when she stepped out of the bathroom, it was even colder than she’d expected. She’d shut off the under...