Sacrifice by Karin Alvtegen Read Free Book Online Page B

her fists and felt her nails pressing into her palms.
    â€˜When you introduce yourselves, if there’s anyone who wants to tell the rest of us what they were thinking about, you’re more than welcome to do so. But I can’t force you, of course, and above all I can’t check that you’re telling the truth.’
    Scattered smiles, even laughter from some of them.
    â€˜Who wants to start?’
    No one volunteered. Monika tried to make herself invisible by sitting utterly still and looking at her lap. She had come here voluntarily. At this moment that was impossible to comprehend. Then she sensed a movement to her right and saw to her horror that the man next to her was raising his hand.
    â€˜I’ll start.’
    â€˜Fine.’
    The smiling woman moved closer to read his name tag.
    â€˜Mattias, go ahead.’
    Monika was having heart palpitations. By raising his hand he had instigated a natural starting sequence and suddenly it would be her turn next. She had to think up something to say.
    Something different.
    â€˜Okay, well, I’ll do as I’ve been told, like theobedient student I am, and skip all the formalities and such and get straight to the important stuff.’
    Monika turned her head and stole a glance at him. Just over thirty. Jeans and a polo shirt. He looked around the circle as a means of greeting everyone, and for a second their eyes met. His whole being radiated self-confidence without being full of arrogance. Merely a healthy sense of self that made the others relax. But it didn’t help her.
    He scratched the back of his neck for a moment.
    â€˜For me it wasn’t a specific event I thought of, but a process that continued for several years. But I didn’t need to do this exercise to know that the most important moment in my life was when my wife took her first hesitant steps again.’
    He paused, picked at something on the arm of his chair and cleared his throat.
    â€˜It was a little more than five years ago now. We were quite advanced scuba divers in those days. Pernilla, that’s my wife, and I, were out with four friends diving in a shipwreck when the accident happened.’
    It was evident that he had told this story many times. The words came loosely and easily and nothing was hard to admit.
    â€˜There was nothing particularly special about that day, we had made dives like this hundreds of times before. I don’t know how many of you know anything about scuba diving, but for those who don’t know you always dive in pairs. Even if you’re in a group, you always have a buddy to watch out for during the dive.’
    A man in a suit on the other side of the circlenodded, as if to show that he also knew about diving rules.
    Mattias smiled and nodded back before he went on.
    â€˜This time Pernilla was diving with another friend. My buddy and I had probably been down for three-quarters of an hour, and we were the first ones up. I remember that I took off my gear and that we talked a little about what we had seen down there, but by then too much time had passed and the only ones who hadn’t come up were Pernilla and Anna.’
    Now something changed in his tone. Maybe a person could talk about a really difficult experience as many times as he liked without it getting any easier. Monika didn’t know. How would she know?
    â€˜I hadn’t been at the surface long enough to go back down, and the others tried to stop me, you know how it is with nitrogen uptake and all that, but the hell with it, I decided to go down again. It was as if I sensed that something was wrong.’
    He paused, took a deep breath, and smiled apologetically.
    â€˜Please excuse me, I’ve told this many times but …’
    Monika couldn’t see who was sitting to the right of him, but she could see a woman’s hand. The hand was placed over his in a gesture of sympathy and then vanished from view. Mattias showed with a nod that he