The Little Old Lady Who Broke All the Rules

by Catharina Ingelman-Sundberg

  ‘Everything green is good for you,’ she claimed, and flashed one of her winning smiles while her eyes glowed. Sneaking out of the retirement home when nobody was watching had turned into a game for Martha, and she was always in a buoyant mood when she returned. Sometimes she would even give them an encouraging little pat on the cheek. If Rake had been a little boy and had fallen off his bike, he probably would have let her give him a hug to make it feel better.

  ‘We’ll soon have something to show for all this hard training,’ Martha went on. ‘A few vitamins and some carbohydrates on top, and then, my friends, we can conquer the world.’

  ‘You can go conquer it,’ Rake muttered as his pessimism took over once more. There was something a little bit fishy about all this. Martha sounded so very purposeful. His gut feeling told him that she was planning something, something bigger than he could even imagine.

  ‘Right, that’s enough for today,’ she called out. ‘And don’t forget to wipe the floor and dry off all the apparatus. Let’s meet in my room in half an hour.’

  A little later, when they had showered and freshened up a bit, they gathered together in Martha’s room. She had put out a basket with particularly nourishing bread and some fruit, while Brains had got out some bottles of energy drink. She had a new tablecloth, one with red and white flowers.

  ‘One more month of training and we ought to be in good enough condition,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, and by early March the snow will have melted. Then we can set sail!’ Martha filled in.

  ‘Set sail!’ Rake exclaimed. ‘We’re not out at sea, are we? Anyway, where would we go? For God’s sake, tell us what you’re cooking up!’

  ‘I want to make you all happier and livelier, and when the day comes that you are in good condition, then …’

  ‘Then what …?’

  ‘Then, and not before, you’ll be told the Big Secret,’ Martha answered. It was important that, for now, the plans were only known by herself and Brains. She didn’t want things getting out of control, and as her mother always said, too many cooks spoiled the broth. Besides, she quite liked having a secret that only she and Brains were privy to. It was nice for them both to have a reason to spend time together without the others. Brains wasn’t exactly the most conventionally attractive man she had ever met, but Martha had started to admit to herself that sometimes brains really were worth more than beauty.

  Nurse Barbara put the dumb-bells aside and adjusted her sweatband. It was strange how the gym had a faint smell of smoke. She went over to the treadmill and pressed the button to start it up. In fact, it was just here and in the cupboard with the weights that the smell was strongest. She stepped up onto the treadmill and started to jog. There were no windows in the gym, so the smell could hardly come from outside, unless the ventilation system was faulty.

  She didn’t really care for all this gym stuff, but she wanted to make an impression on Director Mattson. He had said that she had a beautiful body, and she wanted to live up to that. If she was going to reel him in, then she must look pretty and have firm thighs. Everything had gone all right so far, although there had been rather a lot of secret meetings lately. Most of the time they had to meet at work, because he had his family. But sooner or later he would leave his wife, Barbara was certain of that. After all, he had told her that his marriage was finished and that he and his wife were married in name only. ‘Since I met you, my darling, I am happy for the first time in my life,’ he had said to her. Nurse Barbara smiled. Director Mattson, or Ingmar, as she called him in their more intimate moments, had told her that they belonged together. She could just imagine what it would be like if they could go off on holiday again, or, even better, if she could live with him. She might even become a partner in his business. For the time being, she would have to make do with those stolen moments at work and the conference trips that they went on together. But if she could make Diamond House even more profitable than it already was, he might see her worth, and get divorced quicker. She stretched out on the mat and wished that he was lying there beside her. She and Ingmar. An official couple. She must make sure it happened soon.

  When she got up from the floor, she caught sight of something. A white hair? Weird. None of the staff had white hair, nor did any of the cleaners. And nobody else used the gym, did they? Barbara almost puzzled over the matter, but instead went back to her dreams of life with Director Mattson.

  Seven

  The next day the friends went across to Martha’s room to have one of their alloted daily coffees. It was easier for them to sneak around now that Diamond House only had three staff members. On arrival, they found the TV turned on. When they had got their cups of coffee and had sat down on the sofa, Brains turned up the TV.

  ‘You simply must see this program,’ he said. ‘It’s a documentary about Swedish prisons.’ He drew the curtains.

  ‘Usch, no,’ complained Anna-Greta. This really wasn’t her sort of program.

  The five friends drank their coffee with the usual dash of cloudberry liqueur, and had seen little more than the introduction when the atmosphere in the room became charged with anger.

  ‘It’s incredible that such things can go on,’ exclaimed Christina, waving her nail file. ‘Just look—the criminals are better off than us!’

  ‘And besides, it’s our taxes that pay for them,’ Anna-Greta snorted.

  ‘Now, now, some of the tax money pays for the care of the elderly too,’ Brains pointed out.

  ‘Oh no, not much. Local councils would much rather build sports halls than retirement homes,’ Anna-Greta countered.

  ‘Politicians ought to end up in prison,’ said Martha as she dropped a stitch. She found it hard to knit and watch TV at the same time.

  ‘Prison? But that’s where we’re going,’ exclaimed Brains, and Martha had to give him a quick kick on the shin. They had agreed not to proceed with too much haste. If they did, they would never get the others to go along with them. But during the entire program, sharp comments could be heard and finally Anna-Greta couldn’t keep silent. She rearranged the bun on her neck, put her hands on her knees and looked around her with a stern expression.

  ‘But if prisoners are better off than us, why on earth are we sitting here?’

  A deathly silence ensued. Martha looked at her in amazement, but soon adapted to the situation.

  ‘Exactly. Why don’t we do a little burglary tour and end up in prison?’

  ‘No, you are joking, aren’t you?’ Anna-Greta answered, giggling strangely. It didn’t sound like her usual horse-like neigh.

  ‘Burglary tour? Over my dead body!’ exclaimed Christina, her Free Church upbringing having left its mark. ‘Thou shalt not steal, amen, and that’s that!’

  ‘But just think. Why not?’ said Martha, getting up and turning the TV off. ‘What have we actually got to lose?’

  ‘You’re crazy. First you make us all do physical exercise, and now you want us to become criminals. Is there no end to this folly?’ said Rake.

  ‘I just wanted to see your reaction,’ Martha lied.

  A collective sigh of relief could be heard all round, and soon the conversation moved in other directions. But when the others had left, Brains stayed behind a few moments with Martha.

  ‘I think that gave them something to ponder,’ he said. ‘Now they’ve seen another world outside the retirement home.’

  ‘Yes, this was the first step. Now we leave the dough to rise,’ Martha replied.

  ‘You know what, we’ll soon be on the run from here.’

  ‘Yes, we will,’ said Martha.

  A week went by without anybody mentioning the TV program. It was as if the subject frightened them, and nobody really dared bring it up again. But while Martha read her new crime novel, Murder in the Retirement Home, Brains was busy with preparations. He had made reflector arms to attach to their walkers so that they wouldn’t get run over in town—and he was also adding the final touches to his invention of the week.

  ‘H
ave a look at this, Martha,’ he said, handing her a red cap with five small holes at the front. ‘Press the peak and then you’ll see.’

  Martha took the cap and pressed, and a bright ray of light shone across the room.

  ‘Better than a headlamp. Caps with LED lights are just what you need for robberies.’

  Martha burst out laughing.

  ‘You are clever,’ she said, not without some tenderness in her voice.

  ‘But now we need some more LED lights.’

  ‘Well, if I can buy fruits and vegetables in the corner shop, then I’m sure I can sneak round to the hardware store too. But really, it is crazy that we have to do our shopping in secret,’ she said. ‘Do you remember the advertisement for the retirement home? A gilt-edged life after seventy.’

  ‘If everything goes according to plan, then we’ll do better than that,’ said Brains as he put his cap back on again. ‘And in prison they’ll certainly be nice to us because we are so old!’

  ‘It does sound exciting to become a thief, doesn’t it? First you have to plan and carry out the crime, which is a thrill in itself, and then there will be all the new experiences in prison.’

  ‘Exactly. We aren’t fit enough to do parachute jumps or to travel around the world, but with this we will make things happen anyway.’ Brains looked out of the window with a dreamy look on his face.

  ‘But we must find an innocent crime that doesn’t hurt anybody,’ Martha went on.

  ‘Economic crime is serious enough to warrant a prison sentence, and then we’d probably get the others to go along with it,’ said Brains. ‘Ideally, we ought to steal from people who are extremely wealthy.’

  ‘That will increase our personal funds,’ Martha mused. ‘We won’t touch nice rich people, the kind who donate money to research and charity. But we’ll target those who don’t pay tax and always want more. We can steal from them.’

  ‘The capitalist predators, the extortionists and …?’

  ‘Yes, those greedy money-grabbing types. Have you thought about how wealthy people always compare themselves to others who are even richer? And then they want more. If they don’t understand how to share, then we can help them. Quite simply, we’d be doing them a service.’

  ‘They might not see it like that,’ Brains answered, ‘but you are right, of course.’ He had had very little money when he was young, a fate shared by many of his childhood friends in Sundbyberg. His father had worked at the Marabou factory, and Brains had earned some extra money as an errand boy. The factory had, in fact, been well managed. It had a park where the workers and their families could relax. Brains thought that was great, and he had felt considerable respect for the old men in their bowler hats. They had understood how to share with others. In fact, he had liked it so much in Sundbyberg that he had stayed there despite offers of jobs and a place to live in Stockholm after he had graduated as an engineer. At first he had worked for a firm of electricians, but after his parents had died he had opened his own workshop on the ground floor of the building where the family lived. His first major move in life had been to Diamond House.

  ‘Everything we steal will go into the Robbery Fund,’ Martha went on. She picked up the knitting that was in her lap, untangled the ball of wool on the sofa and started knitting the back panel of a cardigan.

  ‘Robbery Fund?’ Brains wondered.

  ‘We can collect the money and dole it out to culture, care of the elderly and everything else that the state neglects. That will work well, don’t you think?’

  Brains agreed, and as the evening wore on they aired many different ideas between them. When it was finally time to go to bed, they had decided to target the place in the country where the very richest people were to be found. They had planned a real robbery—of the type that they had only ever seen at the cinema before.

  Eight

  A light snowfall had just begun when Martha and her friends from Diamond House stepped out of their taxis outside the Grand Hotel in the very centre of Stockholm. As they did so, Martha realized that perhaps they didn’t really blend into the crowd. Brains was wearing his red cap and, thanks to him, they all had bright reflector arms sticking out from their walkers. ‘I don’t want you to get hurt while we are in such a big city,’ Brains had said. His walker looked rather chunky. The steel tubing on the sides looked wider than Martha’s. She must remember to ask him what he had done.

  ‘People who go to the Grand Hotel usually give a tip,’ one of the taxi drivers informed them.

  ‘My good man,’ Martha interrupted him, ‘we’re not going to the Grand Hotel; we’re going to the island ferries from the quay here.’

  ‘Why are you lying?’ Anna-Greta whispered.

  ‘You must realize that every proper criminal leaves a false trail,’ Martha whispered back.

  ‘Soon you’ll get the biggest tip imaginable,’ Rake chipped in, and was immediately poked in the ribs by Brains.

  ‘Shush! Be a bit more discreet.’

  ‘Listen to you in that cap! You could at least turn the lights off.’

  Brains quickly pressed the peak and the LED lights went out. Martha folded the reflector arm back into the walker and made a sign to Brains to do the same. Better to be on the safe side. Witnesses always noticed odd details.

  ‘And now the great adventure starts,’ said Martha when the taxi drivers had got their tips and driven off. She looked up at the Grand Hotel and nodded at Brains. What they had at first just talked about as a joke was in the process of becoming reality, even though it had been quite an effort to get there. It had taken them several weeks to persuade the others, and deep down Martha was afraid that one of them might bail out of the adventure. She so very much wanted to enjoy life before they ended up behind bars. She had had nightmares about one of the others dropping out at the last minute, or, even worse, giving them away before they had even managed to stage the first raid by the League of Pensioners.

  It had been Christina’s idea to have a group name and they all thought that the League of Pensioners fit their purpose perfectly. It sounded like an important and mysterious code name too. Outlaw Oldies, which Martha had proposed, had been voted out because the others thought it sounded far too criminal.

  Thanks to Nurse Barbara, the step from helpless geriatric to prospective criminal had been quicker than expected. Martha had gone to the hardware store to buy some parts for Brains, but his handwriting was so bad that neither she nor the shop assistant could read what he had written.

  ‘We’ll have to phone your good friend,’ said the assistant, and, without thinking, Martha gave him Brains’s number. When she realized that all private conversations went through the Diamond House main line, it was too late.

  ‘There is an elderly lady here with a walker who wants to buy something, but I don’t know what it is,’ the assistant explained to the woman on the other end of the line. In vain Martha had tried to put a stop to the conversation but Nurse Barbara had already understood that somebody from the home had sneaked out without her permission. A week later the locks on the front door of Diamond House were changed and Martha cried against Brains’s shoulder and said that now everything was lost.

  ‘But Martha dear, don’t be sad. Our new life as criminals is about to start at last. We must get out of here before they put a new lock on the cellar door.’

  And then he sat down in front of his computer.

  ‘We were going to find out where the rich people are. Well, this is it!’ He smiled as he opened the home page of the Grand Hotel in Stockholm. ‘Now we’ll book some rooms for ourselves.’

  ‘The Grand Hotel?’ Martha swallowed. From a little country farmhouse outside Brantevik, via a two-room flat in the southern part of Stockholm to … the swankiest of swanky hotels? Her parents had always said that you should be satisfied with what you have. But this was to be her next stage in life, so ignoring her nervousness, she took the plunge. ‘Yes, of course. The Grand Hotel, the obvious choice.’

  ‘We can order th
e celebration special—flowers, champagne and fruit so that everybody will be in a good mood.’

  ‘And fresh strawberries?’

  ‘But of course,’ Brains went on enthusiastically, but then suddenly came to a halt. ‘What if Christina and Anna-Greta have too good a time at the hotel? They might not want to go to prison afterwards …’

  ‘That’s a risk we must take,’ said Martha. ‘But in the long run it can become boring to live amidst too much luxury, or so I’ve heard.’

  Brains scrolled down the screen and after a while he had booked the most expensive hotel suites for them and ordered five celebration specials. Martha felt a pleasant thrill run through her body.

  ‘We’ve got exactly forty-eight hours to do this,’ said Brains as he turned off the computer. ‘On Monday the locksmith will be coming, and by then we must be out of here.’

  On the Sunday evening, the five of them sneaked out of the retirement home with their walking sticks and walkers. It was early March and there were still grey skies and snow in the air, but that didn’t bother them. Now a new phase in their lives awaited them. The adventure era. Martha closed the cellar door and locked it after them. Then she pinched her lips together and brandished her clenched fist at Diamond House.

  ‘Rogues! That’s what you are! You went too far when you took away our Christmas tree decorations! Do you hear me?’

  ‘What did you say?’ Anna-Greta asked, being rather hard of hearing.

  ‘What scrimping makes, the devil takes.’

  ‘Oh, I see, him,’ said Anna-Greta.

  Half an hour later they were at the Grand Hotel. When they had paid their taxi drivers and were approaching the hotel entrance, Martha stopped. Devoutly she looked up at the traditional old hotel.

  ‘What an exquisite building,’ she exclaimed. ‘Pity they don’t build them like this any more.’