The Sons: Made in Sweden, Part 2

by Anton Svensson

  “It’s so you can bring in stretchers with sick people on them. And dead people.”

  “Dead people?”

  “People die in the hospital. Corpses—lying on stretchers. On the way to the morgue.”

  “The . . . morgue?”

  “It’s just a freezing-cold room in the hospital’s cellar for all the dead people. Loads of corpses that are cut up to find out why they died.”

  The elevator doors open and Leo hurries out with big steps. Felix has a hard time keeping up. He can’t let go of the freezing-cold room with cut-up bodies. People are supposed to get well here, not die.

  “But, Leo . . . Mama?”

  “Yeah?”

  “She won’t die, will she?”

  Leo stops halfway across the park and Felix is half a step behind. The park? Felix spins around. He never before understood how far you could walk without thinking what you’re doing. The hospital is several hundred yards away.

  “No, little brother. Mama isn’t dying.”

  It should be nice to hear that. But Leo seems to hesitate and that doesn’t feel good at all. He’s welcome to hesitate about stealing the ICA shop money but not about whether or not Mama is going to die.

  “She won’t die as long as you do what I say.”

  Leo puts his hand on Felix’s shoulder as he often does.

  “Felix—you can’t talk to Mama about what we are doing. Or anyone else.”

  “I can talk if I want to.”

  “We never talk about something that’s within the family. That’s what Papa taught us.”

  “Sorry, but I’ll do it if I want to.”

  “Listen—you can never talk with anyone about this again! Or about the ICA shop and the leather bag! No one can know. Don’t you get what will happen if you do? The social services lady will report us and you’ll end up somewhere up in Norrland, Vincent down in Skåne, and I’ll get thrown into some fucking youth detention facility. Is that what you want?”

  “No.”

  “And Mama will get even worse than she is now. Is that what you want?”

  “No.”

  “So why don’t you keep your mouth shut then! Why are you blabbing about me?”

  “Because Click will catch up with you!”

  Leo takes his hand from Felix’s shoulder and puts both arms around him in a giant hug, the hug Mama couldn’t get.

  “Little brother, shit, is that what you’re going around imagining? I told you—I’m going to trick that Click. If you help me. If we stick together.”

  And then he smiles broadly, as he does when he knows that Felix has nothing more to say in opposition.

  “I’m going to be away a short while. Two hours, tops. Look after Vincent in the meantime. Move that shit away from his mouth when he drinks. Juice is important for the blood sugar.”

  “And where are you going?”

  “Just go home to Vincent. I’ll cook later.”

  It takes a while—then his brother begins to walk slowly home. Leo, on the other hand, goes in the opposite direction, the way to the bus station and to what he needs for Druggie-Lars. He feels quite pleased. He did the right thing. In spite of the disappointment when Felix blabbed, he held the anger in. He has to convince Felix, to get him to change his mind. He needs him. What he understands—what Felix doesn’t understand—is that no mother or police or social services lady in the whole world knows shit about what’s going to happen tomorrow. Everything can collapse in a second. It has before.

  But he won’t do it the way Papa did—Mama is wrong about that.

  Papa is never prepared.

  That’s why his oldest son is taking a detour now to check the parking lot, stretched out between the complex of low-rise apartments and the sort of thick shrubbery you can hide in. Parking meters stand at attention, in a long row in front of each parking space, straight-backed and silent. The remaining part of what he needs.

  He will return when it’s dark. When no one can see him and it’s full of cars.

  It goes smoothly at the bus station—the right bus is standing there and he pays for a return ticket to Borlänge with coins from the cash box that he has already counted out and laid in a special plastic bag, only fifty-öre coins. It’s thirty-eight minutes to the next town, a monotonous journey, mostly conifers and the odd empty picnic place. When he arrives, he starts with the shop that sells perfume and makeup, with shelves of wigs, an anonymous collection of plastic heads with eyeholes. He takes a liking to one that looks just like the guy who came into the pizzeria in Skogås, whose hair Papa cut off. Shoulder length and brunette—darker than his own blond hair and on sale for one hundred and twenty-five kronor. Then he goes to the tobacco shop. It’s better to avoid curious questions and buy cigarettes a dozen miles or so away than at home in Falun. A small pack of John Silver, the same name as the one-legged pirate in Treasure Island. He pays again with the cashbox money. The banknotes don’t require much space, but the coins create a bulging bubble in one jacket pocket—almost all of it is spent. More than ever he needs the parking meters, if he is to complete Druggie-Lars.

  FULL MOON.

  A powerful light outside their window, a glare mixed with the streetlights forcing its way through the rolled down blinds. It’s half an hour to midnight. He has waited for the darkness, and for Felix and Vincent’s snores.

  Gumdrops, bus ticket, wig, cigs. Twenty-four kronor left, not enough. He still needs one hundred and twenty-four to be able to buy the rest.

  He is going to fix that now.

  The chisel and the hammer in his backpack can be used for most things.

  From the hall he peers into Vincent’s room. The snores have turned into regular breathing and he can tell that his youngest little brother is not dreaming. He is sleeping the dreamless sleep, which clearly is the best. The loops of the bandages hanging around his mouth are light brown, like after eating a lot of chocolate balls.

  Leo moves through the dark, illuminated by the full moon, to the shrubbery that surrounds the parking lot. He creeps into it and watches, hidden by the leafy branches, until he is certain he is alone. When he creeps out it’s just as it was during the night at school—only his movements are heard, the soft soles of his sneakers against the asphalt.

  He has wrapped the chisel with duct tape. The hammer has to hit the top of it several times with force. Each meter serves two parking spaces and branches into two metal heads, each with a slot for coins. Ten posts means twenty possible containers to break into.

  He wonders sometimes about these kinds of devices. Candy vending machines and drinks machines and the small red ones that contain plastic balls with meaningless toys. Devices that give you something back if you swap money for it. Each time he puts a coin in a vending machine he wonders how he can get it back again, imagines taking the cover off and trying to see the mechanical play that one krona or a fifty-öre coin sets in motion. But there’s no automatic device that people put more money into than a parking meter. And what do they get for it? Time. A lousy hour per krona.

  He examines one of a parking meter’s metal heads—the green plastic teardrop that turns red when the time is up, the narrow cracks that serve as coin slots, and the very small door that’s opened with a key for emptying. This door distinguishes parking meters from other automatic devices. The rivets that hold it in place are small and brittle.

  They hold the most money and are the easiest to break into.

  Chisel tight in one hand, the hammer in the other, he breathes in, takes aim, and strikes.

  A single blow and the flat head is separated from the body of the rivet.

  He pushes the door to one side and sticks in his right hand. Coins. A lot of them. Two fistfuls. He counts them, only one-krona coins, twenty-two of them.

  The second meter contains twenty-eight and the third, seventeen.

  Focused—that’s what he is, alone in a world of accessible cash registers. That’s why he doesn’t react to the light that precedes the sound. The car’s h
eadlights light up the entire parking lot, followed by the car engine cutting off when the car parks just two spaces away.

  He throws himself down on the asphalt.

  Too late?

  He holds his breath, counts to ten, and then crawls into the shrubbery.

  He lies down, one cheek against the bare ground, and he sees the driver’s foot step out. Black boots. A man closes the car door and searches in his pocket for coins. Three coins. Leo hears them landing in the newly emptied parking meter’s interior.

  His heart is beating against the ground. His upper body rises and sinks in rhythm.

  Because the man is lingering, seems to have seen something. Then he finally decides to go, but not to the building—to the bushes. Toward the person lying there.

  The black boots come closer, and stop a few feet away.

  Shit.

  It would be enough if the man happens to see the backpack, or the chisel and hammer.

  Leo closes his eyes. Holds his breath.

  Until suddenly he almost laughs.

  A stream. Liquid with a clear, acrid odor meeting the leafy branches.

  So fucking close.

  The fourth parking meter contains eight kronor, the next twenty-nine, the next twenty.

  It’s enough to buy the last items. The jacket, the pads, the paint. Then his disguise will be complete.

  A LIGHT SHINES brightly in his eyes. The moon is hanging outside his window. He forgot to lower the blinds and the round ball glows, directing its light toward the Earth. But that wasn’t what woke him. It was the smell. He recognizes it so well.

  Felix sits up in his bed.

  Cigarette smoke. It smells like Papa.

  He tests the floor with a naked foot. It’s cold but there’s no sound. He creeps toward the other light, the light from the kitchen. That’s where Papa used to smoke. They figured out how long he would sleep the next day based on how long he stayed up drinking black wine. Every decapitated cigarette butt in the ashtray meant peace and quiet a little while longer.

  The smell, so strong.

  He breathes in and out three times and then leans into the kitchen.

  It is cigarettes—five of them, and they are lying next to each other on one of Mama’s blue flowered saucers. They are lit and forming a combined cloud of smoke rising up to the ceiling.

  Felix leans farther in.

  Someone is sitting there. He sees a back, a neck.

  But it isn’t Papa. It is someone he has never seen.

  His legs are being pulled in opposite directions. He wants to go into the kitchen but doesn’t dare. He wants to go back to his room and his bed, but he is fastened to the spot.

  He can’t see the face, not even a glimpse of the visitor’s profile. Only the weak light on the kitchen fan is on and it doesn’t reach the kitchen table. Half of the body stays hidden in the shadows.

  Felix tries to stay still, but it’s difficult when the blood is pumping around between his arms and legs, in spite of light breathing that goes unnoticed.

  It is a man, a very tall man. His hair hangs down to his shoulders.

  Then, all of a sudden, he turns around and they look at each other before Felix runs. He dashes through the hall, to the bathroom. He hears the man running after him, but he makes it just in time and locks the door behind him.

  “Felix?”

  The man with long hair pulls hard on the door. The handle jiggles up and down, up and down.

  “Felix? Do you hear me?”

  The man with the long hair even knows his name.

  “It’s just me. Leo.”

  And now he claims that his name is Leo.

  “Come out. It is me.”

  “What did you do to your hair?”

  “Open up and you’ll see.”

  One. Two. Three. Then he does it. He opens the door, and it really is Leo. With long brown hair.

  “Come here, into the kitchen. I’ll show you.”

  A table with five glowing cigarette butts. And next to them—Felix hadn’t seen it before—a pile of coins. A new pile, he is sure of it. It consists only of one-krona coins and there are clearly more than what was in the cash box.

  “Felix—imagine this on my head.”

  His big brother points at the hair that isn’t his, a really ugly wig. It’s obvious now that he’s closer.

  “And a big, dirty jacket with a hood. And then, these.”

  The burning cigarettes, that’s what Leo is referring to.

  “You’ve started smoking?”

  “False leads.”

  “False leads? I don’t understand.”

  “Druggie-Lars. I’m going to throw them on the ground when I’m standing and waiting a little way away from the ICA shop. The police will discover them.”

  “What police?”

  “False leads to trick the cops. Suppose I’m standing there in the square and someone walks by and sees . . .”

  He picks up a cigarette that’s giving off its last bit of smoke and puts it in his mouth. He lets it sit in one corner, just like in the movies. He lowers his forehead and slouches. The straggling hair dangles like vines in front of his eyes. And his voice is rough.

  “Hey, matey, they call me Druggie-Lars.”

  Felix hears in Leo’s voice that he thinks it’s funny, that he is funny. But he isn’t.

  “And watta bout you, you’re Light-Fingered Johnny, yeah? Watcha think, you wanna do this, a little B and E, you ’n’ me?”

  Stupid wig. Stupid voice. Stupid dialect.

  “Leo—the police. They’re going to search for you.”

  Leo straightens out his upper body and his voice sounds normal.

  “No, little brother. They’re going to look for Druggie-Lars. We’ll trick them. We’re smarter. A fourteen-year-old and an eleven-year-old. No one will imagine we did it.”

  He puts his arms around Felix.

  “Well? Druggie-Lars needs his mate. He needs Light-Fingered Johnny to make it work. To pull it off.”

  But Felix moves away.

  “Last night you woke me up for a damn trash bag and a damn cash box. And this fucking money, one-krona coins, where did they come from? And now do you seriously think that we are going to snatch a bag with thousands? Why are you doing this?”

  You have the responsibility from now on.

  Facing each other. That was how he and his father were standing after the beating, after Mama’s escape, about the same place the largest bloodstain spread out. The house smelled like the food Mama was serving and that they did not get to eat, spaghetti and meat sauce, and the food blended with the smell of Mama’s blood.

  Leo had stopped him from beating Mama to death and they were looking at each other.

  You understand, right, Leonard? That you have the responsibility?

  “He said that to me. But you didn’t hear it because you ran and hid.”

  “Did he say that we should steal money? No, he sure as hell didn’t. And I heard something too—what Mama said. But maybe you didn’t.”

  “He said that I should take over. And I’ve done that.”

  The wig doesn’t fit right. It’s easy to take off and Leo puts it on the table and puts out the cigarettes one by one. It’s easier to argue with him when he’s himself again. Felix feels it, how the words pour out of him quickly and take hold of his older brother.

  “Okay—Vincent is a damn mummy. And Mama’s in the hospital. And Papa’s in custody. And now are you going to get arrested and disappear too?”

  “I won’t get arrested.”

  “Everything was fine for four years. Everything was normal. Then they released Papa, and he came straight here and beat up Mama. And now everything is bad again.”

  Then when the words run out, the tears come. He sobs all the more explosively. Felix never cries, not even when Papa was beating Mama up, not once since it all began.

  Now all the tears are coming out at once.

  “I’m not doing it. Do you hear that? I refuse.”
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  “Felix, you know Light-Fingered Johnny always helps Druggie-Lars.”

  “I am not going to do it because . . . it’s not good. It’s that simple.”

  He turns toward the kitchen table and remembers another one in another apartment. When he lay on the floor, hidden at the doorway, and peered in without having been invited. There was a different collection of odd things on that kitchen table. Gasoline, torn pillowcases, empty wine bottles. Papa taught Leo how to make Molotov cocktails, the firebombs that burned down their grandparents’ house. Now a wig is lying on the tabletop between a huge pile of one-krona coins and a saucer with five cigarettes.

  “Strange things on a kitchen table. I don’t care if it was four years ago—I know you remember it, Leo, as well as I do. I know you think you’re deciding but Mama said it, you don’t need to do the same thing.”

  He keeps on crying. The tears come from deep down and they are nearly as big as his cheeks. Until his big brother gathers up the things on the table, fetches an empty plastic bag with the Konsum shop logo, and buries both the wig and the packs of cigarettes.

  “What are you doing?”

  Leo pulls hard on the bag’s handles, ties a knot and pulls again, then puts it next to the bucket under the kitchen sink.

  “You’re right.”

  Felix dries his tears with the palms of his hands.

  “What, Leo?”

  “Let’s forget it.”

  Leo holds his brother, a firm grip around his shoulders.

  “Druggie-Lars doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “Do you promise?”

  And then he hugs him.

  “Yeah, I promise.”

  “If you get my brother involved, I’ll get your brother involved.”

  THE SHOVEL IS heavy in his hand. Perhaps that’s why it sinks so easily and so deeply into the ground. Or perhaps it’s the lack of tangled roots and angular stone. When the steel tip hits the wooden lid, it encounters a porous surface—as happens when time passes and a coffin has been buried a long time.

  He knows exactly what’s in it.

  Papa.

  He wiggles the coffin lid and opens it slowly.