Box 21

by Anders Roslund

  The green man showed, and he crossed the road and started walking northwards. He needed to get away, deep into the summer night. At the Wenner-Gren Centre he turned towards Haga Park.

  Lydia Grajauskas was dead. Bengt Nordwall was dead.

  Ewert had put it succinctly. A case with no perpetrator and no plaintiff.

  He had always liked Haga Park, so near the city centre and yet so silent. A man was shouting despairingly for his dog, a black Alsatian. A couple were lying on the grass, holding each other tight. No one else was in sight. The green space was as empty as all city places are during the few summer weeks when life happens elsewhere.

  No one was going to speak for the dead, not now and not ever. He was breathing heavily. What if he testified against the best policeman he knew? What good would that do? Would it matter? Should he demand answers from those who were still alive? What was better, Ewert Grens working with the City Police, or Ewert Grens lost in that silent home of his?

  The water’s edge. He had reached the lakeside and saw the evening sun reflected in it, as it always was.

  Sven Sundkvist was still carrying his case. A small VCR, some papers, two videotapes. He opened it and picked up the tape he had taken from box 21 at Central Station. The label with Cyrillic script was still there. He let the cassette fall to the ground and stamped on it until the plastic casing was in pieces. Then he ripped the tape out, metre after metre of curling ribbon, as if for a birthday present.

  The Brunnsviken water was almost perfectly still, a rare kind of absolute calm.

  He took a few steps closer, twisted the twirling ribbon round the remains of the cassette, lifted his arm and threw it as far as he could.

  He felt both heavy and light. There might have been tears in his eyes, maybe he felt some of Lydia Grajauskas’s sadness. As he observed the scene from afar, he realised that he had done exactly what he had just condemned.

  He had stolen from her the right to be heard.

  Ĺgestam would never know what Sljusareva had really said.

  He felt ashamed.

  THREE YEARS EARLIER

  The flat is small, just two rooms and a kitchen.

  There are five of them. Mum and Grandma. Her older brother and little sister. And herself, of course. She has never really thought about it before. It has always been like that.

  She is seventeen years old now.

  Her name is Lydia Grajauskas.

  She longs to be somewhere else.

  She wants a room of her own and a life of her own. This place, this life is so cramped. She is a woman now, or almost. Soon she will be a woman, grown up and needing space.

  She misses him.

  She often thinks of him. Dad, who was always there for her and always understood her.

  She has asked, many times, but nothing can make her understand why he had to die.

  She misses their walks together most of all. He would take her hand in his as they walked, lost in plans about the day they would leave Klaipeda.

  They used to walk to the edge of town, just as she and Vladi do now. Then they would turn round to look back at the town, really take in what it looked like. Dad often sang for her, songs he had learnt as a child, which she had never heard anyone else sing. Their heads would be filled with longing. That was what they did; they longed together.

  This flat. Too small, too crowded! Always someone underfoot. Always someone.

  She remembers last night, the two men who came to the café. She had never seen them before. They shook hands with Vladi and they seemed nice.

  Her Vladi, who has been her friend for ever, who had been next to her on the sofa when the military police burst in, shouting Zatknis! and pinning Dad to the floor.

  The two men smiled at her and chatted while they ordered coffees and sandwiches. They spoke Russian, but one of them, the older man, didn’t look Russian, more like people from Sweden or Denmark.

  They had stayed for quite a long time. She refilled their cups twice. Then Vladi had left and she talked to them for a bit. They wanted to know what she was called and how long she had worked in the café and how much she earned. They seemed interested, nice and polite, not slimy at all. They didn’t try anything on, didn’t flirt, nothing like that. She sat down at their table later. She wasn’t allowed to, but the place was almost empty right then and there was nothing much to do.

  They talked about a lot of things. She enjoyed the talk, she really did. It was weird, she thought, to be with men who were so pleasant and easy. She laughed a lot and that was new too. There wasn’t much laughter at home.

  They came back.

  Late today, just as she was getting ready to close, they both came back.

  She knows now that their names are Dimitri and Bengt. Dimitri comes from Vilnius and Bengt is from Sweden. Bengt is a policeman, in Klaipeda to work on an investigation.

  They seem to know each other well. They met many years ago. Although she isn’t sure, she guesses that Dimitri must be part of the Lithuanian police force.

  They were just as nice to her and asked again about her job. They seemed shocked when she told them what she earns waitressing at the café. Bengt told her what she could earn in Sweden for doing just the same thing. It is almost twenty times as much. Every month. It seems incredible, but they insisted. Twenty times as much!

  She told them about her dreams. Told them about the small, cramped flat that is her home, about her walks with Vladi, about wanting to leave Klaipeda, which somehow doesn’t offer her enough any more.

  They ordered more sandwiches and invited her to sit down at their table.

  They talked and laughed, which was lovely. Laughter clears the air.

  They come back for the third day running.

  She almost expects them now and before they order she has laid their table for coffee and sandwiches.

  Yesterday they offered to help her, said that they could fix the paperwork, work permits and that kind of thing, if she was keen to work in Sweden. Just imagine, getting twenty times what she could earn here.

  She laughed and told them it was crazy, she couldn’t.

  Today she brings the subject up herself, asks them what has to be done.

  She needs a passport, but one which says she is older than she is. They can arrange it. It will cost a fair bit, of course, but they’re happy to lend her the money until she gets paid in Sweden.

  They have actually done this for other Lithuanian girls. When she asks who they are, they give her some names, but Lydia doesn’t recognise them.

  They tell her that they have a female contact in Sweden who makes the girls feel really welcome.

  She says the coffee is on her and they sit about for quite a while.

  She mustn’t make up her mind until she’s quite, quite sure, they tell her. It’s important that she thinks about it. If she really wants to stop just dreaming about other places and break free, she has to let them know soon. The next ferry, which they’re travelling on themselves, leaves two days from now, and they assure her they can fix the passport in time.

  It’s warm when she gets to the harbour. The pouring rain has stopped, the sun is shining and there is hardly any wind. Vladi holds her hand and says he’s happy for her. Her things are packed in one suitcase, mostly clothes and as many toiletries as she dared to take. A handful of photographs, her diary.

  She hasn’t told anyone. Mum wouldn’t understand. She doesn’t long to get away.

  But she will phone as soon as she gets there. From her new workplace. She will tell them how much she is earning and how much money she will send home every month. Then Mum will realise what it’s all about. Her new, different life.

  They agreed to meet at the entrance to the ferry terminal.

  She spots them easily. Dimitri, the dark-haired one, is wearing a grey suit. Bengt has got almost blond hair and is a little shorter than Dimitri. His eyes are so kind. He gives Vladi an envelope. Vladi looks very pleased, but doesn’t meet her eyes afterwards, just gives her a hug and hurries away. A
young woman, about her own age, comes and joins them. She has dark hair and looks pretty and friendly.

  They say hello and introduce themselves. Her name is Alena. She too has brought just one suitcase and also has a false passport.

  The ferry is so impressive. Lydia has never been on board such a large ship. Quite a few of the other passengers are Swedish, some are Lithuanian and some she can’t place. She smiles as she steps on board and leaves her past behind.

  She and Alena share a cabin.

  They get on really well. Alena is easy to make friends with; she’s the sort who seems to invite you in, curious and eager to listen. She laughs a lot and it’s easy to laugh with her. Lydia has a special feeling all over, now that she’s on her way.

  Soon it will be time to go for a meal.

  First, they have to go up to meet Bengt and Dimitri in their cabin, which is just upstairs. Then they will go to the dining room, all four of them together.

  They knock on the door to the cabin.

  They wait. Just a little while.

  Bengt opens the door with a smile, and gestures with his hand to invite them in. They exchange glances and feel a little shy. Stepping inside the men’s cabin doesn’t feel quite right.

  Then everything falls apart.

  One single breath.

  That’s all it takes.

  The two men raise their hands and slap them hard in the face.

  They keep hitting until the girls collapse.

  They tear at their best frocks, rip the fabric to pieces and push balls of cloth into the girls’ mouths.

  They force open their legs and push deep inside them.

  Lydia will never forget the sound of his panting in her face.

  That night she doesn’t sleep. She lies in her bed clutching a pillow.

  They shouted at her. They hit her. They held the cold metal of a gun’s muzzle to her head and told her that she could choose now to shut up or die.

  She cannot grasp what has happened.

  All she wants is to go home.

  Alena is lying in the lower bunk. She doesn’t cry quite so much. She says nothing, makes hardly any noise at all.

  Lydia looks at her case. It’s on the floor, next to the basin. The case she packed without telling anyone. She left home less than twenty-four hours ago.

  She hears the noise of the waves hitting the ship’s metal sides. She hears it through the window, which can be opened, but is too small to climb out through.

  The journey ends in the morning.

  She is still in bed.

  She hasn’t dared to move.

  She tries to ignore them when they bang on the cabin door and shout that it’s time to leave, they have to go ashore.

  Dimitri walks just ahead of her, Bengt is behind her. They walk towards the exit and through passport control.

  She wants to scream.

  She doesn’t dare.

  She remembers the blows to her face and the pain when they penetrated her. She begged them to stop, but they didn’t.

  It’s a large place, much larger than the terminal in Klaipeda. People meet and hug each other, delighted to be together again.

  She feels nothing.

  Only shame.

  She doesn’t know why.

  She hands her passport to the uniformed official. Shut up. He leafs through it, looks at her, nods her through. Or die. She walks away. Alena is next.

  Outside the gate, Dimitri turns to Lydia and tells her that he will take the passport. She owes him for it and he wants his money back, so now she has to work.

  She doesn’t really hear what he says.

  The large hall empties slowly as the people around her leave. They wait at a newsagent’s kiosk, a small distance from passport control.

  Then she comes, the woman they are waiting for, who works with Dimitri and Bengt.

  She is wearing a grey tracksuit. The top has a hood and she wears it pulled down over her face. She is quite young. The woman smiles at Dimitri, gives him a peck on the cheek, then smiles at Bengt and kisses him on the lips, as if they belong together. She turns to Lydia and Alena, still smiling, and says something they don’t understand, presumably in Swedish.

  ‘Well, hello there. So you are our two new little Baltic pussies.’

  She kisses their cheeks, first Lydia, then Alena. She smiles and they try to smile back at her.

  They don’t notice when Bengt Nordwall leans close to the woman and whispers to her, his hand gently pushing back the edge of the hood.

  ‘Lena, I’ve missed you so.’

  But they hear what she says next, still turned towards them and smiling. She has switched to Russian.

  ‘Welcome to Sweden. I hope you’ll enjoy your stay.’

  A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHORS

  Anders Roslund is the founder and former head of Kulturnyheterna (Culture News) on Sveriges Television, and for many years worked as the head of news at Aktuellt (Channel 1) and as a prize-winning investigative reporter at Rapport (Channel 2), the Swedish equivalents of CNN and the BBC.

  Börge Hellström is an ex-criminal who helps to rehabilitate young offenders and drug addicts. He is also one of the founders of KRIS (Criminals’ Return into Society) – a nonprofit association that assists released prisoners during their first period of freedom.