Suddenly he shut the album and watched the woman in front of him. It seemed to take much too long. He was impatient. He wanted what he had come here to find. He was on the verge of rising before she had died but remained seated. Finally her body went limp. He watched her and waited for his reaction.
For the darkness.
It didn’t come.
Nothing happened inside him.
He poked lightly at the white cotton thread at the corner of her mouth. It hung slack and immobile. Everything was as it should be, but even so it was all wrong.
He remained sitting in his chair for several minutes, close to despair.
He had a feeling.
Suddenly he rose and threw the photo album across the floor. His heart beat unnaturally hard.
He kicked his chair aside and rushed out from the kitchen.
In the stairwell he felt his throat constrict in a cramp.
He left the house without giving a thought to remaining unseen. It meant nothing any longer. He tore off his heavy coat and started to run. It was still dark and he chose the nearest way. He noticed that he met a few nightly walkers; a couple of cars had to swerve. He continued straight ahead. He knew what was happening and he wanted it to happen where there was no one else. He had to make it back to his crypt.
He began screaming long before he had reached the door to his building.
Now his heart had calmed down, the scream had gone silent, his body had slowed down. He stood leaning against one of the walls of his room. He knew it to be the calm before pain. He had experienced it before, how everything went still for a little while before it began in earnest.
As if there was compassion.
He looked around his room to remember it, the couch, the table, the wooden model; his eyes caught at the wooden door in the wall. Inside it was a wardrobe. He knew that there were clothes in the wardrobe that weren’t his. He didn’t know whose they were, but that didn’t matter to him.
Particularly not now.
He started by taking the picture down from the wall, the one with the funnel and the melon. He folded it, carefully, and put it under his pillow.
If he returned he would know where to find it.
He went over and opened the window. The window ledge was empty. He brushed his hand over it. He would miss the charred hands, those that never touched him.
Suddenly he heard the singing, the blackbird, far away out in the darkness. He tried to see it without succeeding. He pursed his lips to whistle but refrained from doing it. He didn’t want to disturb the past.
He stood at the window for a long time.
When he closed it he felt tiny, rolling movements across his cheeks. He went to the mirror, bent down and saw a face.
Is that how I look?
He regarded the face in the mirror. He recognized it. He recognized certain features, those particular cheekbones, those arched eyebrows, the mouth he had never seen before. He leaned against the mirror and let his mouth touch the mirror mouth. Then he brushed away the things trickling down his cheeks and felt that it was time.
He lay down on top of the bed.
His time had run out, for this turn, it was pointless to try to fight it.
The first few times he had done that, tried to remain in who he was.
It never worked. He screamed and cut his own body not to lose touch with it. In vain; whenever he began slipping in the wrong direction there was no return.
Nowadays he just slipped along.
He lay stretched out on his bed, his hands clutching the blanket tight; his whole body began shaking. He knew what would follow. He knew that there were a few seconds, sometimes ten or fifteen, when he was right in the middle of the interface, inside the zone, on his way from who he was to something he couldn’t even imagine.
Or someone.
A few seconds that brought an unbearable physical pain.
The first time it happened he was unprepared. He slipped into the zone and didn’t know what would come, not until he saw the executioner. A shadow with no face and with a long object in its hands. He stared at the shadow and never had time to react; the glowing scythe cut through the base of his skull, down through his body and through his groin.
There everything ended.
Now he was going there again, into the zone, slipping, just at the verge of letting go when he heard it.
Or them.
The knock, on his door.
The one he knew would come.
He stopped himself.
Would he walk to the door or slide away? If he slid away they would never find him as who he was now. What they would find he didn’t know. Perhaps a dead blackbird on his pillow. Or two charred hands under his blanket. He ought to stand up.
He ought to rinse his hands in the freezing water and walk to the door.
But he didn’t do what he ought to do.
When the knock sounded again he closed his eyes, hid his tongue at the back of his mouth cavity, let go and slipped away.
Into the zone.
Rolf Börjlind, born in 1943, and his wife, Cecilia Börjlind, born in 1961, cowrite film scripts and crime novels. On his own, Rolf Börjlind was Sweden’s most notable satirist, famous for once having been sued by one of the country’s prime ministers for a faked interview published in Aftonbladet, Sweden’s bestselling daily tabloid, where he also published other faked interviews with, among others, tennis player Björn Borg. The prime minister lost in court. Rolf Börjlind is also a poet, an actor, a film director, and the president of the Writers Guild of Sweden, the national organization for Swedish playwrights and screenwriters. In addition, he and his wife are Sweden’s most experienced script writers, having written almost fifty full-length movie scripts, including twenty-six Martin Beck movies inspired by the Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö novels, as well as several based on novels by Henning Mankell and Arne Dahl, and several original crime TV serials. Their first cowritten crime novel, Springfloden (Spring Tide), was published in 2012 and was one of that year’s most impressive debuts. Their second, Den tredje rösten (The Third Voice), published in late 2013, is a novel perfectly utilizing and parodying the conventions of the Swedish crime genre.
The Börjlinds live in Storängen, a neighborhood of single-family homes built at the beginning of the twentieth century and part of suburban Nacka, which is just north of Stockholm.
NEVER IN REAL LIFE
ÅKE EDWARDSON
Most of Åke Edwardson’s books are novels in his popular and critically acclaimed series featuring Gothenburg Chief Inspector Erik Winter, very consciously conceived as a policeman different from those featured in other Swedish police novels. At the time when Åke Edwardson wrote his first Winter story, the typical Swedish fictional policeman was a combination of Martin Beck (in the novels by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö) and Kurt Wallander (in the novels by Henning Mankell): middle-aged, shabbily dressed, a bit overweight, depressed, with a difficult if any family life, and haunted by sleeplessness and a conviction that both life and society are going down the drain. In contrast, Erik Winter—in the early novels—is young, vital, optimistic, elegant, socially and romantically active, and optimistic.
Edwardson has also written several books outside of his Winter series. Apart from juvenile novels, his other work comprises a stand-alone crime novel, a psychological thriller, character studies set in the bleak landscapes of a depopulated Swedish countryside, and, not least, short stories.
Throughout his career, Åke Edwardson has been praised for his stylistic perfection as well as for his psychological insights and his strong sense of drama. This story is an excellent example of his low-key, powerful storytelling, where the reader is only gradually led into full understanding.
SHE LISTENED TO THE WEATHER FORECAST AND HE CONCENTRATED on driving. He was chasing the tracks of the sun. A brief flash was enough, or a shadow. He was prepared to turn any number of degrees. U-turns had become his specialty.
She read the map. She was actually good
at it. They drove farther and farther away from civilization, but she never missed a turn.
“It’s as if you grew up around here,” he said.
She didn’t reply, just kept her eyes on the map covering her knees.
“There’s a tree-road junction in about half a mile,” she said, raising her eyes.
“Uh-n.”
“Go left there.”
“Will that get us to the sun?” he said.
“It’s supposed to be better in the western part of the county,” she said. “The local station just said so.”
“So a better chance to find the sun,” he said.
He could see a crack opening in the slate-gray sky far to the northwest, as if someone had stuck an iron lever into the clouds. Maybe it’s God, he thought. Maybe we’ll finally get some use out of him.
“There’s the junction,” she said.
When they drove through the town, the sky was incomprehensibly blue.
“So that’s what it looks like when the sun is out,” he said, pulling out his sunglasses. “Maybe there is a God after all.”
“Do you believe he’s thinking about us?” she said.
“Maybe he even believes in us,” he said.
“That’s verging on blasphemy,” she said.
“I don’t think he cares. He’s got his hands full building up air pressure.”
“How do you know it’s a he?” she said quietly, but he heard.
“And don’t talk too much about God to people around here,” she added. “This is a religious community.”
“Isn’t that where you’re supposed to talk about God?” he said.
“There are different ways of talking.”
“Aren’t you suddenly the expert. On both people and God.”
He didn’t reply.
“In any case, we’ll stop here,” he said. “When we’ve been chasing the sun this long we sure won’t leave when we’ve found it.”
He turned right in the center of town, at another tree-street junction. A small church stood on a hill. It was plastered white and a thousand years old. Most people around here belonged to some nonconformist religion, but even so they took good care of their ancient state churches. Though maybe that had nothing to do with religion.
A man in a peaked cap was mowing his way down the hill on a riding mower. The engine sound was soft, almost like the buzz of a bumblebee. The grass was thick and succulent; no sun had burned it. Perhaps they’ve waited for weeks to mow the grass here, he thought. A couple of days more and they would have had to use a scythe. Go get the guy with the scythe, he thought, smiling.
The man in the cap raised his eyes as the car passed, then looked back down, without any greeting.
“Maybe there’s some small place where you can swim around here,” she said.
“If there is, we’ll make camp,” he said.
They were alone by the lake. Or the pond, or whatever it was. The creek ran past here and the townspeople had dammed the stream, creating their own small lake. He saw the dike on the opposite side of it, only some three hundred feet away.
The swimming nook had a table with two benches and two changing rooms, one for men and one for women.
“I haven’t seen any of those since I was a kid,” he said, nodding at one of the two red sheds. He stood in the middle of the grass. The water glittered in the sunlight. Suddenly the air was very warm. It was like suddenly being in another country.
This is where I belong, he thought. I hope nobody else finds their way here.
Close to the swimming pond was the campground, or whatever it might be called. At any rate there was a small wooden bench for washing and doing dishes, with two water faucets, an outhouse built from the same kind of wood, room for car and tent. What more could anyone wish for?
She looked up from their luggage.
“We have to go shop somewhere. All that’s left in the cooler is some bottled water.”
“I know, I know,” he replied. “But we’ll put up the tent first.”
The closest town was less than twelve miles away, if it could be called a town: a closed railway station, closed shops with empty display windows, an empty main street directly beneath the sun. If a display window no longer displays anything you really can’t call it a display window, can you? he thought.
But there was a cooperative store and a state liquor store.
What more do you need on a vacation? he thought.
“I’ll do the liquor store if you do the Co-op,” he said.
“Can’t we shop together?” she said. “We’re not in any hurry.”
He didn’t answer.
“It’s what you’re supposed to do on vacations,” she went on. “Take your time.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said.
The inside of the store was cool, verging on chilly. As far as he could see they were alone in there, apart from the girl at the cash register whom he glimpsed at the far end. Not a single customer. He had seen nobody in the streets as they drove through the town. Perhaps everyone had escaped before the sun finally arrived. This district was more or less midway between the east and the west coasts of Sweden. In the end people had lost their patience and went off to chase the sun in the west or in the east. He had done the opposite and it had paid off. The sun was up there to stay. Once high pressure had settled over the interior of the country, nothing could budge it.
“The chops look great,” she said.
In the endless dusk he enjoyed himself. The sun just didn’t want to sink beyond the treetops, now that it was finally allowed to show itself. He had drunk a small glass of whiskey while preparing the marinade and the chops, then another small glass while he assembled the grill. Life was wonderful. Look at him: Dressed in only a pair of shorts in the eighty degrees heat of the evening, the wonderful scent of the forest and another wonderful scent from the water and a wonderful scent from the whiskey and soon a wonderful scent from the grill!
He lit the grill and sipped another small one.
“Are you sure you don’t want one?” he asked and held up his glass. A sun ray hit the liquor and there was a flash of amber. A lovely color.
“No, the wine is enough for me,” she said, nodding toward the bottle of wine that waited uncorked in the shade beyond the camping table where she was mixing a salad.
He had wanted to uncork two bottles directly, but she had felt that they could open them one at a time. And they both agreed not to buy box wine since they were on vacation, not even in this out-of-the-way spot. He had always thought that box wine lacked style. And you must always have style, no matter what. People who drank wine from a box might as well use a paper cup to drink it. And eat their food from paper plates with plastic cutlery. And generally go to hell, he thought, smiling, and emptied his glass. The whiskey was great. Everyone could go to hell. This is my vacation and my sun and my lake and my camping ground. At least there’s something good about this fucking country. You can put your tent up wherever you like without some fucking farm yokel shooting your head off.
Maybe I ought to run up to the road crossing and take down the sign advertising the lake, he thought. This is our place. I do have my box spanner. Suddenly the idea struck him as brilliant, but he also realized that the whiskey was pushing it. Some damned hick might pass by on his hay cart and wonder what he was doing and that would be no good, just lose him a lot of time unnecessarily.
He held his hand over the grill to feel the heat.
“I’ll put the chops on now,” he said.
Later on he sat in what might be called darkness during some other season, but not now. The sun was just down, waiting beyond the horizon of firs. The water was still. He could see the outlines on the other side. It was like a jungle, a jungle three hundred feet away.
Suddenly he saw a light.
“What was that?”
He turned to her, pointing across the water’s surface. She had said that she would go to bed, but she was still sitting there. Typical. Said one th
ing, did the opposite. He would have loved sitting here alone for one last hour. Enjoying the silence, the peace. Now it seemed as if she was watching him. Yes. Watching him. He had felt that continuously more often lately. As if she studied him.
But now she was staring across the lake, as if she was doing it just because he did.
There was the light again, like a flashlight.
It blinked. One-two-three short blinks.
“There it is again!”
“Where,” she said.
“But don’t you see it?”
“Was there something blinking?”
“You bet your ass there was!”
“Maybe I saw something,” she said.
“Maybe? It was someone with a flashlight.”
“But couldn’t it be some reflection?”
“Reflection?” he said. “Where would that come from?”
She shrugged.
“The sun won’t be up for a couple of hours.” He tried to see something moving within the contours of jungle, but now everything was still. “There was someone over there.”
“Maybe someone out for a walk.”
“Mh-m.”
“No, I’m off to bed now.”
“You sure aren’t worried,” he said. “Back home you hardly dare sleep with the lights off.”
“It’s different here,” she said.
In the morning all the vague contours were gone. Everything was sharp and brilliant under the sun. He went directly out into the water, amazed at how clear it was, and how cold. He threw himself forward and felt the cold envelop him and when he returned to the surface he had rid himself of his hangover even before he had noticed it.
This was vacation!
He saw her walk out of the tent, stretch, yawn, screw up her eyes and peer at the sun, peer at him.
“Aren’t you going to jump in?” he said, splashing his hand down on the surface of the water.
“In a while,” she said and walked off to the outhouse.
“Didn’t they have a bakery in that hole-in-the-wall town?” he called to her.
She turned around.
“Yes, I think so.”
A Darker Shade of Sweden Page 6