The Darkest Day

by Håkan Nesser

  Ludicrous, she thought. Good God, what ludicrous creatures we humans are. Why expend all this time and effort on contemplating ourselves and our supposed lives? Our self-obsessed course towards the grave.

  I should find religion, she suddenly thought. At least start cultivating an interest in something. Whales or Afghan women or other oppressed species. My husband and my son? Surely that’s the least that can be asked of me?

  Maybe Robert, too. She knew she’d find it hard to forgive herself if he really did go off and kill himself.

  But Jakob?

  How could she induce herself?

  He had flattered her from the word go. Said her manuscript really stood out amongst the twenty-four submissions, giving her feminine vanity a good old polish. He had promptly hired her, and although she was twenty-seven she had fallen like a teenager yearning for affirmation.

  That was May 2001, in August they made love for the first time, and about ten minutes before they started he told her he was married and had twin fifteen-year-old daughters.

  She fell for that frankness, too. And when he filed for divorce less than six months later, her friend Karen’s gloomy predictions were disproved. (They’ll never get divorced! How the hell can you be so stupid, haven’t you ever read a psychology book? Amoebas like you should be sterilized!) It was only when she was pregnant, and their own marriage imminent, that she found out that Annica, the twins’ mother, had been a year ahead of him in the new-partner game. It wasn’t Jakob who revealed this but Liza, one of the two panther-like daughters. (Just so you don’t think you cut our mum out of the picture in any way. She was waiting for someone like you to turn up!)

  Under the leadership of the new alpha male, Jakob’s former family moved to London around the time little Kelvin came into the world, and the memory of them seemed to fade like old photographs in bright sunlight. It was all very strange in fact, and something must have been seriously awry, but why go digging around in the compost of the past?

  The house in Old Enskede cost a fortune. But Jakob Willnius had the money and the position; he was a senior commissioning editor, and also a sort of golden boy at the depersonalized, all-digital television centre, having outlived two notoriously difficult female bosses in a way no mere mortal had ever achieved. (Yes, there’s something awfully special about him, I agree, Karen had admitted, but whether it’s for the good in the long run, I couldn’t possibly say.) He’s acquired a woman twelve years his junior, Kristina thought in her more cynical moments. I’m his winning ticket in life and he’ll never leave me of his own accord for as long as I let him fuck me twice a week. If I die of starvation one of these days, I’ve only myself to blame.

  But the implacable gnawing of her everyday dissatisfaction had increased in recent months, it was undeniable. Her need to . . . well, what? She mulled it over as she left the bathroom. To punish him? That, too, was ludicrous, because what on earth did she have to gain from punishing Jakob? What were these treacherous words, lending themselves out to her thoughts?

  But thought and feeling refused to align themselves with each other. They stabbed each other in the throat, and this was where it lay, she knew. The problem. This was its precise location.

  I’m primitive, she thought as she slipped back into the double bed at a reassuring distance from him. But it’s good that I understand my own motives. And there really is no more to life than this. Bonjour tristesse.

  So what the hell shall I do? was her next thought. Or rather: What do I want to do?

  What is it about my life that has suddenly become pretty much unbearable to me?

  But before she had had time to try to straighten out those stubborn question marks, sleep finally claimed her. High time too, because in all likelihood she had less than three hours before Kelvin started making demands on her, in his understated way.

  When the scandal was no more than a day old, her mother had phoned to ask whether Jakob could conceivably have had a finger in the pie when Robert was selected for that programme.

  Kristina had dismissed the idea as absurd, but couldn’t stop herself asking him about it that evening.

  This, unusually, caused him to display signs of something reminiscent of anger. ‘Kristina, what kind of insinuation is that? Christ, you know better than that. And you know what I think of Lindmanner and Krantze.’

  ‘Sorry, it was my mother who asked. They seem pretty shaken at home, you know.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ Jakob observed. ‘To be honest, I’m glad it happened. They’re going to find it pretty hard to justify investments like that in the future.’

  ‘So you think Robert’s contribution could achieve something positive in the long run?’

  ‘Why not? If people want more of that kind of thing, all they’ve got to do is climb a couple of steps down the scale and watch the porn channels. Don’t you think?’

  He was right, of course. But the scale itself annoyed her. One could see it – above the porn channels – in crude terms of three quality levels in the production industry of television entertainment. At the bottom were the reality TV formats, with Fucking Island as a kind of All-Time Low. In the middle were the soaps and the quiz shows. The TV sofas, the debates and ostensible social analysis. But enthroned at the top was revered old Drama – which admittedly didn’t really exist any longer, or at any rate went by other titles these days, and basically rested to quite some extent on its laurels from the seventies and eighties – and this was Jakob’s territory, where the top responsibilities were his. Not even viewing figures mattered very much there. Only quality and international prizes.

  But anyway, though the scales could be discussed and modified from one point in time to another, it was indisputable that Robert Hermansson, her brother, was right at the very bottom. Hopefully it would be short-lived notoriety, but two million viewers were more than Jakob Willnius had achieved in his last half dozen productions.

  Not counting yet another ‘last film’ about the hermit of Fårö island, Ingmar Bergman. There was no way round it and the show must go on.

  When she was on maternity leave, she had been quite certain she would not go back to the Factory, but when it came to the crunch she had no choice. One more year, she’d thought, I’ll give it one more year.

  The year had elapsed on the first of November. Now it was almost Christmas and she was still coming up with new ideas and writing scripts for a potential sequel to a much-disparaged drama series about a prime minister and a country in crisis. Plus a few other things of roughly the same calibre. From 20 January, she had two weeks booked in the Maldives; all right then, she thought, compromising, I’ll give it till after that, and then call a halt. I’ve got to start something new in February.

  ‘You’re driving too fast,’ Jakob said. ‘We’re not in any kind of hurry, are we?’

  She slowed to 100 kilometres an hour. ‘Do you want to stop for something to eat?’

  He glanced at Kelvin. ‘Wouldn’t it be better to wait until our little crown prince wakes up?’

  ‘OK. What are you thinking about, sitting there?’

  His answer was a few seconds in coming. ‘Your family, as a matter of fact. They’d make good material for a script.’

  ‘Go to hell—’

  ‘No, I’m serious. A sort of reality TV documentary; there have been plenty made in the States, but no one’s tried it here. About what it does to a family when it happens—’

  ‘Stop it, Jakob. If you say another word about it, I shall drive into the first rock face I can find.’

  He put his hand on her arm for a moment and seemed to be thinking. ‘Sorry,’ he said eventually. ‘I only meant that you’re an interesting collection of people . . . and maybe a fairly typical one, too.’

  ‘Typical of what?’ she asked.

  ‘Of our time,’ he said. She waited for more, but nothing came. He carried on browsing through the evening paper. An interesting collection of people, she thought. Fine for him to say. An only child from an upper-cla
ss home in a posh suburb of Stockholm. His parents had died of cancer, different kinds and in different parts of the body, but within less than ten months of each other. That had been seven years ago. The only branches of Jakob’s living family tree all grew upwards, and comprised him and the increasingly fading twins in Hampstead. Plus Kelvin. An old uncle had been on his deathbed in Gilleleje in Denmark for the past decade and was due to leave a considerable inheritance behind him when he finally departed this life. There was definitely every reason to question what lay behind his choice of the word typical. And our time.

  ‘You’re so right,’ she said. ‘I can see, when I think about it, that we offer pretty good entertainment value.’

  This time he chose to notice the subtext. ‘You don’t even like any of them,’ he retorted. ‘I just don’t get why you persist in defending them to me. I find it a bit childish.’

  ‘It isn’t entirely easy simply to amputate the body parts you happen not to like,’ she explained patiently. ‘Even though Jesus of Nazareth claims that one should. And anyway, I’ve never had anything against Robert . . . not until now, at any rate.’

  He paused for thought again, folding up his newspaper and regarding her sideways.

  ‘You’ve been furious with me for days now. Can’t you just come out with whatever it is and give me a chance?’

  But before she could answer, Kelvin woke with a hiccup and a little sob, and that was the end of the discussion.

  5

  The television programme Prisoners of Koh Fuk was the brainchild of two project-worker creatives at the top of their game – Torsten ‘Bengal’ Lindmanner and Rickard Krantze – and it was one of the country’s production companies specializing in reality TV that actually made the wretched thing. The fundamental idea, if that wasn’t a total misnomer in this context, was presumably to go the whole hog. To broadcast, over a number of weeks in the autumn, a series of reality TV shows so transparently awful that there need be no pretence of decency whatsoever. No more noble aim than showing people from the sleaziest, booziest and most naked angle.

  The starting point was simple. Two groups – or teams – one male, the other female. Someone, or possibly a couple of people, would win a big pot of money. Initially, over the first two or three weeks, the teams would be kept apart, but only to the degree that left the television viewer, experienced in the ways of the world, in little doubt that transgressions were occurring. What was at stake – the point of the whole bloody shebang, as Krantze put it at the first and only press conference before they set off for the island in September – was to complete a very special assignment, but the form and content of that assignment were initially to be kept secret from participants and television viewers alike.

  The five women were all attractive, with ages ranging between twenty-five and thirty-five. The common denominator was that they were all single and heterosexual, and that they had all at some point in their lives won a beauty contest of some kind. At the very least, they had been chosen for the leading role in the Saint Lucia celebrations at regional or city level. The island, Koh Fuk, lay a good hour away by long-tail boat from Trang in southern Thailand. The women’s first task on the island was to acquire as becoming an all-over tan as they could; footage of their intensive sunbathing in bare flesh, silicon and string panties was transmitted each day to the male camp, which likewise contained five singles, aged twenty-six to thirty-eight. These gentlemen voted every evening on the best suntan, and awarded points for seven other feminine variables using a system devised by Lindmanner and Krantze, who also drew on expertise at one of the leading tabloids. The gentlemen, meanwhile, spent their days on a variety of trials of strength, including rope-climbing, long jump, handstands and arm wrestling, all conducted in the most basic attire: sunglasses and luridly coloured penis sheaths. Then every evening, in the company of the setting sun and a glass or two of champagne, the ladies, too, awarded points and made comments on the gentlemen’s prowess, based on an equivalent system of variables.

  The male team consisted – or was originally intended to consist – of a handful of celebrated, guaranteed-heterosexual elite sportsmen. The participants ultimately signed up by the production team heads had rather less star quality than the creators had hoped for, but what the heck? That was the line Krantze took in the aforementioned press conference. Life is a meatball.

  The five were: an ice hockey player, veteran of sixteen years in the Swedish men’s national hockey team and half a season in the Canadian National Hockey League; a wrestler who took bronze in the European Championships and two golds in the nationals; a skier with four medals in the relay and a third place in the big cross-country Vasaloppet race; a rower who’d reached an Olympic final and won a bronze at the Europeans; and Robert Hermansson, steeplechaser with two fourth places in successive Finland–Sweden athletics internationals.

  The last of these, Robert, was unquestionably the least impressive of the pretty unimpressive collection, and got his place at the last minute as a substitute for a very famous footballer, who had unfortunately gone and got a girlfriend and cold feet just weeks before the group departure for Koh Fuk at the end of September.

  After a little over a week (and in programme three), the scantily clad and becomingly tanned males and females were brought together for a beach party at which the alcohol flowed with positively Dionysian generosity, while a new phase of the contest began: tug of war, wife carrying, wrestling and leapfrog. Though the contestants and the television viewers (but not the tabloid press pack) were unaware of it, extra spice was provided by spiking the drinks with a mild dose of amphetamines, to heighten desire. After the competitions and the partying, the contestants were allowed to socialize freely on the beach under cover of darkness. With the aid of infrared techniques, no fewer than two full-on sexual encounters were filmed for the viewers’ delectation. It was, however, impossible to make out who the participants were, leaving the field open for enjoyable speculation. Even at this early stage – the third programme – viewing figures were up to 1,223,650, a not unimportant total, because converted into kronor it constituted the first part of the promised prize money.

  In programme four, two things were to be revealed: the final prize money (the 1,223,650 plus that evening’s viewer figure, which amounted to a whacking 1,880,112, combining to make the grand total well over three million kronor); and the fundamental goal and purpose of Prisoners of Koh Fuk. And it was in the revelation of the latter that the true creative genius of Lindmanner–Krantze came to light.

  The aim was impregnation. Nothing more and nothing less.

  For some reason, the tabloids took Koh Fuk – or Fucking Island, as it almost instantly became known – to their hearts from the word go, each sending a permanent reporter plus photographer (with infrared technology) after the first programme. Maybe interest was piqued by a semi-verified story that two of the female beauty queens had both, at different times, kept company with a nationally notorious bank robber, which was considered to generate good synergy; maybe it was because the other reality TV series that autumn proved to be pretty mediocre offerings featuring rehashed conflicts, near-nudity and dull predictability; or maybe it was something else entirely. At any event, it soon became obvious that Fucking Island was the big TV hit of the season.

  And almost everyone touchingly agreed that the central idea was a stroke of genius. Begetting a child.

  And getting a million and a half for their trouble, too. Three million if they decided to stick together as a family. For the women, the crucial thing was to be first to have your pregnancy confirmed by the accompanying medical team. For the men: to be the one who had fertilized that woman’s egg and to prove it by a DNA analysis of a sample taken from the amniotic fluid.

  No more tugs of war. No more handstands or wife carrying. Very little competitive sunbathing.

  In their place: indolence, dips in the sea, alcohol, and unlimited copulation wherever and whenever the opportunity presented itself.

  A
nd interviews. And lies. And breakdowns. And psychological counselling, copious mudslinging and yet more alcohol.

  An avalanche of viewer reaction. Moral outrage. No fewer than three government ministers expressing their reservations on morning TV.

  And nearly two million viewers for programme five, in which it was too early to confirm any pregnancies (naturally, and it was a masterful call in the clever art of deferred pleasure) – but in which it was possible to get odds on all five men and five women, individually or as couples. Amongst the women, a majorly silicon-enhanced, big-bosomed, brown-eyed girl from Skåne, who had been caught on film with two or possibly three of the men, had the lowest odds ratio – around 2.4 – while the virile rower was the bookies’ favourite amongst the gents, offering the prospect of tripling your stake. Robert Hermansson languished somewhere between 15/1 and 25/1, and never came anywhere near the second least favourite, who was the skier and generally ranked somewhere between 8/1 and 12/1.

  After the sixth programme, broadcast on 5 November, a double bet on Robert and a distinctly aggressive, semi-naked Saint Lucia queen from out in the sticks would have won you 158 times your stake, after a stinging slap round the face and some violent expletives from the latter, to the effect that if Robert so much as came near her she would bite off his balls.

  Thus it was that in the next, and penultimate, programme (1,980,457 viewers) Miss Hälsingland 1995 was confirmed to be up the duff, with odds of 4.82. And it was in the same programme that former steeplechaser Robert Hermansson was revealed in all his drunken and pitiful frustration, howling at the moon and masturbating vigorously at the water’s edge. The TV columnist of Norrlandstidning dubbed it a visual milestone.