The Darkest Day

by Håkan Nesser

  Or she could run away to her sister’s in Argentina and hide there for evermore. But she hadn’t spoken to her in more than ten years. Rosemarie and Regina had come to Sweden along with their parents when they were seven and twelve respectively, four years after the war. The family had taken a chance when they left bomb-ravaged Hamburg, and had managed to put down roots in Sweden. First in Malmö, then moving up the country. Växjö, Jönköping, Örebro. But Regina had never really settled; she had left both her home and her country before she turned eighteen, and that was that. When their mother Bärbel died in 1980, they met at the funeral; when it was their father Heinrich’s turn two years later, she didn’t turn up.

  She had been living in Buenos Aires for a decade, and Christmas cards arrived every year. No birthday greetings, just Christmas cards.

  Buenos Aires, thought Rosemarie Wunderlich Hermansson. Could you conceive of anywhere more distant? Could you imagine a better place to hide?

  It struck her that she was in fact following the same furrow that Karl-Erik had ploughed in the red earth of Spain, and she muttered angrily at her own thoughts.

  And noted that she was muttering in German. It was because she’d been thinking about her family, no doubt. She had never formally trained as a language teacher; it was Karl-Erik who suggested she give it a try, when a vacancy arose in the mid-eighties and the school management was unable to attract any qualified applicants. She had been brought up in the language, after all.

  So that was the way it was.

  But not any longer, she reminded herself. They had reached the end of the road three days ago. What was it she had been thinking just now? Something important, wasn’t it, or maybe just . . . ?

  Karl-Erik came into the kitchen to inspect the arrangements.

  ‘Looks good,’ he deigned to say. ‘Where are you going to put the beers?’

  ‘On the kitchen worktop,’ she said. ‘But I assume we want them cold? So I haven’t got them out yet.’

  ‘Quite. I just wanted to know where you were going to put them.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Well, all right then.’

  ‘Yes, fine, that was all I meant,’ agreed her husband, now aged 64 years and 364 days, and went off to the bathroom to tie his tie.

  Ebba arrived first. With her Co-op manager and her teenage boys. Rosemarie felt a sudden embarrassment at the rituals of greeting; the boys seemed so much more grown-up than she expected. But having hugged Ebba, she also hugged Kristoffer, who seemed shyer and more diffident than ever, and eventually Henrik and Leif, too. Henrik had overtaken his father in height, must be over a metre ninety by now. She hadn’t seen the family for how long must it be? Eighteen months? Henrik had his mother’s and Karl-Erik’s eyes and nose, and Rosemarie’s head swam for a moment as it struck her that he looked exactly as Karl-Erik had done when she met him for the first time at that school dance at the Karolinska almost half a century ago. A replay of Karl-Erik Hermansson? Good grief. It was a terrifying thought in so many ways, but fortunately there was no time to dwell on it. Karl-Erik the First was in the living room to receive them all in his turn; no hugs here, just good firm handshakes, as he ran an appraising eye over each member of the Hermansson-Grundt family. At arm’s length, because he was too vain to wear glasses when he didn’t really need to – and with his customary dogged smile. When he got to Kristoffer, Rosemarie could see he was on the point of bursting out ‘Straighten that back, boy!’, but he restrained himself; there is a time for everything, even the absence of pedagogy.

  ‘So that’s that,’ declared Leif Grundt inscrutably. ‘We’re to take our bits and bobs and present ourselves on the top deck, I assume? Nice to have got here. Seven hundred kilometres is seven hundred kilometres, as it says in the Quran.’

  ‘Was it icy?’ Karl-Erik asked.

  ‘Nope,’ Leif replied.

  ‘Much traffic?’ Rosemarie asked.

  ‘Yep,’ Leif replied.

  ‘Busy time on the surgical ward, I expect?’ Karl-Erik said.

  ‘It’s a question of delegation,’ said Ebba.

  ‘Never a truer word spoken,’ Leif Grundt agreed. ‘I’ve delegated getting on for four tons of pig bums this past week, in fact.’

  ‘Pig bums?’ enquired Rosemarie, sensing that he needed someone to.

  ‘Christmas hams,’ Leif Grundt grinned genially.

  ‘Excuse me, I’ve got to go to the bathroom,’ whispered Kristoffer.

  ‘Of course,’ said Rosemarie, stepping in once more. ‘Off to your rooms everybody. We’ve put you in your usual ones. I just hope Henrik hasn’t grown out of his bed, that’s all.’

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ said Henrik with an engaging smile for his grandmother. ‘I do bend in a few places.’

  This elicited a hearty laugh from Karl-Erik, at least.

  Kristina et consortes were next to arrive, about ten minutes later. Little Kelvin instantly turned his back on the assembled attention and clung to his mother’s leg. Kristina was wearing a new, yellow – and very metropolitan-looking – wool coat, but looked tired; Rosemarie immediately made a mental note that she ought to have a little chat to her about anaemia, although she knew she would never get round to it, and didn’t really want to anyway. Heart-to-heart conversations with Kristina had stopped sometime around the girl’s twelfth birthday and perhaps (thought Rosemarie, revising her initial impression) it wasn’t a matter of genuine tiredness. More like utter boredom, and she wondered if it was caused purely by the return visit to her parental home or whether there were other, underlying reasons.

  Jakob Willnius was as skilfully charming as usual and sported a double-breasted overcoat that looked equally out of place in Kymlinge. He had brought his very own gift for the new retiree, too – and was careful to stress that this was not the actual present, which would be handed over tomorrow, of course – in the shape of a bottle of Otium, hah hah, that was to say, a single malt by the name of Laphroaig. Matured in oak casks since just after the birth of Christ. Every drop was the purest gold, and if consumed in moderation it ought to last six months, but if you had a bit too much you could fly, chortle chortle.

  To show very clearly how much he appreciated this wonder from the capital city, Karl-Erik opened the bottle at once and offered it round; he poured a dram for all of them except the grandchildren (of whom the two Grundt boys were still settling into their rooms and Kelvin was sitting under the table, contemplating his right thumb) and they gave knowing ums and aaahs in appreciation of its characteristic smokiness – except Rosemarie, who brought out her usual comment about never really having got the whole whisky thing.

  ‘Women are a mystery,’ smiled Jakob Willnius.

  ‘Isn’t Robert here?’ asked Kristina.

  ‘No,’ said her mother. ‘But he rang yesterday and promised he’d be here around seven.’

  ‘It’s quarter past,’ said Kristina.

  ‘I know that,’ said Rosemarie. ‘Well now, I really must do a few things in the kitchen.’

  ‘Would you like some help?’ asked Ebba.

  ‘No thank you,’ said Rosemarie, and could hear for herself that it sounded more dismissive than she had intended. Was she already letting it get to her? Was she already finding it that hard to endure? It would be bad if her children noticed. ‘But bring the boys down in fifteen minutes, anyway,’ she said in a more conciliatory tone. ‘We can’t hang about getting ravenous just on Robert’s account.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ said Ebba.

  ‘Hrrm,’ said Jakob Willnius. ‘So you’re off to Spain, I hear?’

  ‘Andalusia,’ clarified Karl-Erik, confidingly shifting a few centimetres closer to his son-in-law. ‘I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but there’s an enormous wealth of history in those parts. Granada. Córdoba. Seville . . . not forgetting Ronda. The Moorish and Jewish elements; I actually thought I might go in for a bit of modest research. An inventory of the heritage of . . .’

  The doorbell rang.

  Wanker Rob had
arrived and they were at full strength.

  The brothers lounged on the two beds in their room, a space about twelve square metres. The wallpaper was dark green with thin vertical stripes in a paler shade of the same colour. There was a three-drawer chest, and on it stood two identical little lamps from Smögen, each with the name of the picturesque fishing village in ornate pokerwork on its wooden base. On the door of the fitted wardrobe hung a large 1988 calendar, sold to raise funds for Reimer, the local football team. Green jerseys, green shorts.

  Kristoffer stared up at the ceiling, which was white, and thought about Linda Granberg. Henrik was composing a text message on his mobile phone. Gentle, freshly brewed rain spattered the window, sounding like a whisper from outer space or something.

  ‘Who’re you texting?’ asked Kristoffer.

  ‘A friend,’ said Henrik.

  ‘I get it,’ said Kristoffer.

  He closed his eyes. It was hard not to think of Linda. It was hard to bear altogether. It was hard not to come back to that idea of skipping a few days.

  Two, at this moment, two would do. If it were Wednesday evening instead of Monday evening, he calculated, he’d be back in Sundsvall. Lying in his own bed in his own room instead of in this seedy dump. With Linda a bit closer to hand, living as she did only a couple of hundred metres from their house in Stockrosvägen. He could ring her and arrange to meet up. Why not? Say he wanted to give her a Christmas present.

  Christ yes, why hadn’t he thought of it earlier? Ring Linda, ask her to come to Birger’s burger stand, give her some fucking irresistible present, and then they could have a burger and a walk and a cigarette each. Talk about life and start kissing; as soon as he got home he would damn well fix things with Linda. No doubt about it.

  He cursed himself for having been careless enough to lose his mobile, wondering if he really would get a new one for Christmas – but maybe he could borrow Henrik’s now, and text her?

  ‘Can I borrow your phone when you’ve finished?

  ‘Mhm. What?’

  ‘Can I borrow your mobile?

  ‘You know you’re not allowed.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You know why.’

  ‘Thanks. Who needs enemies when you’ve got brothers?’

  No reply.

  ‘I said “Who needs brothers when you’ve got enemies?”’

  ‘I heard. But don’t you mean the other way round?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said “Who needs brothers when you’ve got enemies?”’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘Yes, you did.’

  ‘Did not.’

  Silence.

  ‘Did not.’

  Silence.

  ‘Did not.’

  ‘Kristoffer, I get so bloody sick of you sometimes. Can’t you just shut up, so I can send this off?’

  ‘Who’re you texting?’

  No reply.

  ‘Who’re you texting? Your girlfriend? Whatshername . . . is it that Jenny?

  ‘Yes, imagine that. Can’t you get a girl, Kristoffer, to give you something useful to do with your time?’

  ‘Thanks for the tip. I’ll think about it. Is she fit?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Is she fit, this Jenny?’

  ‘I don’t want to discuss this with you.’

  ‘Thanks. Brilliant. My only brother goes off to university and gets so cocky he won’t even talk to me any more.’

  ‘Cut it out, Kristoffer. Please just be quiet and let me finish this.’

  ‘Can’t you text and talk at the same time? I can.’

  ‘That’s because you never write anything important. And never say anything important.’

  ‘Thanks again. With enemies like you, who needs brothers?’

  ‘There, you did it again.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Said it the wrong way round.’

  ‘I definitely did not.’

  Silence.

  ‘I definitely did not.’

  Silence.

  This is the most hideous wallpaper I’ve ever seen, thought Kristoffer Grundt. The whole room, in fact. Even I must look good in here.

  Maybe he could charge head first into one of the four walls and knock himself out cold for two days?

  Karl-Erik Hermansson had never in his life consumed alcoholic beverages to excess – but having offered the rest of them a dram of the show-off whisky Jakob Willnius had brought, he was naturally obliged to do the same for Robert when he turned up about twenty past seven. It stuck in his craw, it really did, but in the absence of anything else you had to hold to custom and manners. Talk about the weather, which at the moment was freezing rain that could turn to snow if the temperature sank a degree or two – talk about how the weather had been all autumn in fact, he thought stoically, but he noticed it made his teeth ache to shake his only-begotten son by the hand and bid him welcome. Even if you could fool everybody else, he realized, you could never fool yourself.

  And as he poured Robert the LaFrog or whatever the blessed stuff was called, he was naturally obliged to offer the others some more, as they had had time to drain their glasses. They all accepted, except Rosemarie – who repeated her litany that she had never understood the appeal of that renowned spirit and couldn’t take much of it, anyway – and Kelvin, who was now lying on his tummy under the table, investigating the pattern of the rug.

  And perhaps it was as a consequence of this initial overconsumption of the divine single malt that the evening turned out as it did.

  Or perhaps there were other reasons. Psychologically muddled but mutually immediate and interacting factors, for example, of which none of those present had, or could be expected to have, a complete overview.

  Or – of course – it was a combination of the two.

  7

  ‘One thing that really has surprised me in recent years,’ said Jakob Willnius, ‘is that more people don’t opt to leave this country when they get the opportunity. I mean to say, who wants to wake up on a Tuesday morning in Tranås, when they could equally well be doing it in Seville? I completely understand your decision to go.’

  ‘It takes a sufficient level of broad-mindedness,’ pronounced Karl-Erik, looking as though he had devoted a fair amount of time to the general psychological aspect. ‘Not everybody has that, nor can we expect them to.’

  ‘When are you off?’ asked Leif Grundt.

  ‘We should get the keys on the first of March, or the fifteenth at the latest. The things we don’t take with us are going into storage; we needn’t start thinking about dividing up our estate yet.’

  ‘Good God,’ said Kristina. ‘You can’t think we’d ever—’

  ‘There’s nothing the matter with Spain,’ said Leif Grundt. ‘Forty million Spaniards can’t be wrong.’

  ‘Forty-two, actually,’ said Karl-Erik. ‘As at 1 January 2005. But they’ve got a demographic ageing bulge that almost rivals ours.’

  ‘You moving there won’t exactly help that, though?’ said Kristina.

  ‘I don’t really see what you’re driving at,’ said Karl-Erik, cautiously sniffing his empty glass.

  ‘That wasn’t very nice,’ said Ebba, pointing her fork at her little sister by way of warning. ‘But you never talked about moving before, did you, Dad? I really hope this hasn’t got anything to do with . . . the events of the autumn.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Rosemarie instantly exclaimed. ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Can’t I persuade anyone to have some more quiche? We’ve scarcely started on the second one.’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ said Leif Grundt.

  ‘I think I need another beer,’ said Robert, heaving himself out of his armchair. ‘But I can’t manage any more quiche, if you don’t mind, Mum.’

  ‘Whatever you like, Robert,’ said Rosemarie, and a slight look of melancholy, hard to interpret, came into her eyes.

  ‘Balls,’ said Kelvin, somewhat surprisingly, from down on the floor.

  ‘
We naturally don’t intend to be part of any imbecilic colony of Swedish expats,’ Karl-Erik went on, once he had put down his glass and given his wife a rapid glance. ‘Remember that we only have to scrape the surface of Andalusia very lightly to find history and cultural riches virtually unparalleled in Europe. In the world. There were no Dark Ages there, and everywhere we find traces of a Jewish–Moorish–Christian coexistence that really are unique in time and space . . . yes, hah hah, I have to agree with Jakob. That’s something entirely different from a Tuesday in Tranås.’

  ‘Hrrm, yes,’ said Jakob Willnius.

  ‘Jakob isn’t much of a one for small-town Sweden,’ said Kristina. ‘It’s not just Tranås.’

  ‘I hope the quiche wasn’t too salty,’ said Rosemarie Wunderlich Hermansson.

  ‘The quiche was excellent, Mummy,’ said Ebba Hermansson Grundt.

  ‘Have you been able to sell the house?’ asked Leif Grundt, returning with another heaped plate. ‘It isn’t that bloody easy these days.’

  ‘Leif,’ said Ebba.

  ‘It hasn’t quite gone through yet,’ said Rosemarie. ‘Salt is so complicated these days. There are so many different kinds.’

  ‘We’re signing the contract on Wednesday,’ said her husband.

  ‘Can I really not press anyone to some more ice cream and berries? There’s loads left. Boys, how about you?’

  Rosemarie Wunderlich Hermansson looked at her two grandsons unhappily. Henrik and Kristoffer shook their heads in unison.

  ‘Maybe they’re maturing into men,’ Jakob Willnius suggested. ‘Sooner or later there comes a time in a man’s life when Gummy Raspberries and Bugg are things of the past.’

  ‘Bugg?’ queried Kristoffer, in spite of himself. ‘What’s bugg?’

  ‘A brand of chewing gum,’ explained a well-informed Leif Grundt. ‘Still on the market, you know, though nobody buys it any more. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten “Four Buggs and a Coca-Cola?” Jolly good song.’

  ‘Christ,’ muttered Kristina.

  ‘I know what Coca-Cola is,’ said Kristoffer.