The Sons: Made in Sweden, Part 2

by Anton Svensson

  He looked around the barn floor. There, under the workbench, was a grooved piece of iron that had once been an essential part of something. He pried the door handle free easily and carried his little brother out of the barn in his arms.

  Vincent’s skin was warm, his fingers moist and sticky.

  Leo laid him carefully down on the grass, checked for signs of life, and saw that his neck was charred and soft, as if it had been cooked.

  And then he heard the powerful bang.

  The thermite had eaten its way down to the gas tank. The explosion’s glow was less severe now and the fire less intense, but the sound grew and practically threw itself out of the barn.

  That was why he didn’t notice the footsteps until, in the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a hand raised somewhere behind him.

  John Broncks’s hand. And it held a pistol.

  The butt of the pistol struck the back of his head.

  He felt nothing.

  From blazing fire to subdued darkness in an instant.

  Golden Thread

  THE SCHOOL’S CORRIDORS remind him of the hospital’s corridors, the ones leading to Mama’s ward and her steel bed. He had never thought of that before. The cold lights, the polished linoleum floors. How the sound travels around when you walk, in front of your face and without losing strength. It’s flying back and forth right now, mostly from the shoes of the director of studies, hard heels casting their presence around. The Monk, as he’s called, and he serves part-time as director of studies and part-time as a woodworking teacher. Hard as nails and strict. Gray bangs around the monk’s tonsure. But Leo has always regarded him as decent—without being certain whether that is connected to being one of the few given the highest marks in woodworking at the end of the term. In that and in English. At their individual conferences, the Monk described a student who was both handy and good at solving problems, and the student very much liked hearing that. He’s the only teacher Leo doesn’t want to disappoint, but that teacher will soon be disappointed—in a big way. That was why the Monk had recently knocked on the classroom door when the physics lesson was in progress and explained that Leo Dûvnjac must leave the classroom a moment and that he should follow him so he could meet someone. He knows. He knows that one of his best students was handy and solved problems when he broke into the school cafeteria with a hammer and chisel and stole all of Friday’s profits.

  Every time a foot is put down anew, clap is followed by thud, as they approach the cafeteria—the sound is stark since they are both silent, and besides, it’s very quiet as it always is in a school when everyone is in class.

  He is going to meet “someone.”

  The police.

  Leo already saw them in the morning, two cops in uniform standing at the cafeteria’s vent window and investigating. Then at lunchtime he walked by when the janitor was changing the lock on the door to the pantry and replacing a cracked window frame with a metal one that wouldn’t be possible to pry open again. And he had already understood that the notice Leisure-time Lena taped up at the counter announced that the café was closed today because of a break-in.

  How the hell can they know it was me?

  “Someone” is sitting at one of the cafeteria’s oblong tables, the one furthest away. A man in a gray suit wearing a blue tie, with an open brown briefcase on his knee. No uniform. Leo has met this type before, like the ones who investigated the fire and sent his father to prison—superintendent or inspector.

  Felix. It was him. The goddamn snitch.

  “I spoke with Agnetha.”

  The suit extended a scrawny hand.

  “She explained that I could find you here, in school, even though all three of you are on leave. My name is Per Lindh, and I’m a lawyer.”

  A lawyer? Do I need that too?

  “I can’t afford that.”

  “Sorry?”

  “A lawyer.”

  “You don’t need to worry about that. The public pays my salary for representing your papa.”

  Papa’s lawyer? Not mine?

  So Felix had kept his mouth shut.

  “Then I’ll leave you here, Leo. With Per. So you two can speak undisturbed. And then I think you should go home to your younger brothers. You don’t need to be in school after what happened. Not this week. Okay?”

  Leo nods and the Monk clumps away, clap thud, clap thud.

  “Your papa asked me to come and find you.”

  They are alone in the large cafeteria, on either side of the table, where he’s usually one of the many students who play cards during breaks. Chicago. They started playing that in Year 7. And it feels almost more deserted now than it did during the night when the cafeteria’s cupboards were still full.

  “Your papa wants to see you all.”

  “Us? All three?”

  “Yes. He asked me to convey that to you, so you can arrange it.”

  “It won’t work. Felix will never come along. And Vincent has no real idea of what happened.”

  “And you, Leo?”

  The wig and the ciggie, in a bag under the sink.

  “What do you want to do? Do you want to visit him?”

  And they will stay there. I promised Felix.

  “I sincerely think, Leo, that it’s you he wants to see. He wants to tell you why he did what he did.”

  “It’s not necessary. I saw what he did because I was there.”

  The lawyer Per Lindh nods and roots around in his briefcase as if he is searching for something important and finds it after a while. A box of chewing gum.

  “Want some?”

  Leo shakes his head as the lawyer takes out two pieces and begins to chew.

  “Your papa has described in detail what happened when he came to you all. When he entered the apartment. It was a good thing you were home, Leo.”

  “I got between them.”

  “And I think that’s what he wants to tell you, so that you know that too.”

  “I saved her life.”

  “And if you want to hear him say that to you, Leo, there isn’t much time. Because your papa will be moved soon to a different detention center, in a different city.”

  THE POLICE STATION in Falun is shaped like half of a black horseshoe on the outside; inside it reminds you of the hospital, and of the school, since all public buildings seem to be an extension of one another. They look alike, sound alike, and smell alike. They even have the same temperature and the same air pressure. Worthless knowledge you can’t get the highest marks in—but Leo is learning it these days.

  Long, shiny corridors. Dismal doors that lead somewhere.

  But the employees’ clothes, the hospital’s long white gowns and the school’s suit jackets and blouses, are at least exchanged here for different uniforms. Black ones. After having been escorted through the whole building to reach the detention area, Leo realizes that it’s absolutely quiet. Not a sound is heard from within the corridor, and the cells in a row there. And the visitors’ room, which a friendly detective ushers him into, is soundproof.

  He really likes these kinds of small locked spaces where he can hide himself and shut the world out. But there’s a difference here. Someone else has done the locking, from the outside. He even has to press a red button if he needs to pee. The correctional system inspector stressed that before she turned the key. Others make the conditions that govern the closed room, not him.

  A claustrophobic room only becomes claustrophobic the minute it’s not your choice.

  Leo has waited in locked visitors’ rooms before. Twice, before the long sentence for the firebomb, his father was in prison for aggravated assault of people outside the family. Leo visited both times—but never in the detention area. He knows that because the difference is striking. The section he’s in now is darker, more confined. Prisons are surrounded by a high, thick gray wall, but daylight is encountered everywhere. This room is too small, the paint on the walls is too shabby, and the fluorescent light on the ceiling lacks a plastic cover. That�
�s probably why it feels different. Unless . . . maybe, maybe the difference instead lies in the fact that here no one has been sentenced yet? That people have more hope? And they are more frustrated when they long to be out? That could be what creates the ugly, claustrophobic impression. In prison, it’s clear that it’s about adapting and holding out while the time passes.

  The room has two plastic chairs, a wooden table, and the door with its large pane of glass so that the staff can see in. A built-in window that can’t be smashed. They can look in and he can look out at the blue shirts going by. Correctional system personnel. But he doesn’t hear them—the sound has also been locked out—so he doesn’t hear the footsteps he knows so well either, Papa’s footsteps, right in front of the guard’s.

  Newly shaved. A gaze as clear as water. That was how he sometimes looked long ago, when everything was fine and he had promised Mama not to drink or fight.

  And he smelled of soap.

  But grief is hidden in that clear gaze. Papa can look sorrowful without becoming smaller. Most people shrink. Now he is standing there and observing his son, who is already sitting. He watches and smiles. And it seems wrong. It does not belong in the cramped space.

  “Where is Vincent?”

  Papa is wearing blue pants, a white T-shirt with sleeves that are too long, and some kind of slippers on his feet, which Leo has never seen in anything other than brown dress shoes.

  “Leo—where is your youngest brother?”

  Even though Leo arranged with the lawyer to come alone, he had hoped to avoid this—and had made a last attempt to lure his two little brothers into coming. Vincent didn’t even respond and just lay on the bed, staring at the wall.

  “He didn’t want to come along.”

  “And Felix?”

  Felix, surprisingly, calmly explained how he had gladly visited Mama no matter how many bloodshot eyes she had, and he would come along to the hospital anytime, but he would never visit Papa. Leo hadn’t nagged. He understood.

  “He . . . well, you know how Felix is sometimes.”

  Papa looks away, off somewhere. As if he is still there, at home.

  “I never saw him, when I came in, I mean . . . I never saw Vincent.”

  “He was standing behind me. Then, when I got in between, he ran off with Mama’s nurse’s bag.”

  “Nurse’s bag? What do you mean?”

  “He locked himself in his room with it.”

  The shame. Now the clear gaze is filled with grief. It’s the shame Papa always exhibits when he has struck someone and realizes it afterward. And it’s as if the room is shrinking even further. They don’t have space anymore, him and Papa and the shame. It’s not possible to breathe. The metal door is closed and tightly sealed. He has never been locked together with Papa in a room that lacks air. He will remember how it feels right now, and make sure that he never ends up with him like this again.

  “Is there . . . well, another room we can meet in? A little bigger? It’s so . . .”

  “I haven’t had any other visits. So I don’t know. And my own cell, sixteen square feet, doesn’t even have a window.”

  Suddenly Papa leans forward and lays a rough hand on his son’s shoulder.

  Leo flinches, without knowing why.

  But Papa notices, regrets it, and takes his hand away immediately. And Leo regrets it too; he didn’t mean to flinch.

  “Being confined isn’t so bad, Leo . . . but to be confined in here.”

  His father presses his hand against his chest.

  “No one wants that. So I was forced to do what I did. Do you understand that? Why I came home to you and your brothers and . . . your mama?”

  “No. I don’t understand. I saw that you came in to beat her to death.”

  Papa’s instinct is to rage and attack. Leo is sure of that. Even though he is sober, he sticks out his chin and stares at him with lowered eyes that pierce through him when they make eye contact.

  “I thought that was why you wanted me to come here, Papa. At least that’s what the lawyer said.”

  Papa doesn’t attack him. Just as quickly as he was ready to do so, he relaxes, he draws his fingers like a comb through his Elvis hair, and his expression softens.

  “So you don’t understand it? That I had to do it?”

  He gets up from the rickety chair, which is groaning under his weight, and walks to the glass on the door and studies the blue shirts going by. And for a moment it seems as if he’s choosing between breaking the windowpane and pushing the red button to call the guard to say the visit is over.

  “It’s like this, Leo.”

  He doesn’t smash the unsmashable glass and he doesn’t push the button.

  “Do you know how you weave an absolutely authentic rug, my son? Not that factory shit you buy at Ikea—a real one, made by hand.”

  He waves his arms at an invisible loom.

  “You place one thread in at a time and press it against the other threads.”

  A rug? What is he talking about? And he’s not even drunk.

  “Every day, Leo . . . is a new thread. Which you weave into your rug.”

  Now he turns back toward the table and sits down again.

  “Three hundred and sixty-five threads, day in and day out, year in and year out.”

  He illustrates with sweeping arm movements. He slips in the pretend thread and presses the pretend beam of the loom.

  “Often the thread is gray and dull, and not a thing is happening. You eat, shit, and sleep. But sometimes, Leo, it’s red or green, when you are doing something you like. And sometimes, like when I came home to you all, the thread is as black as a fucking Bible.”

  Leo is observing a father who so often spoke like this, taking up so much space not only in his voice but also in words. As far back as Leo remembers, his father tried to explain what solidarity was, forming a clan of their own together—about wild geese who fly away and repent and instead land among their family; about Cossacks who dance the Bear Dance and defeat great armies; and about thin sticks that can’t be broken if they are laid tightly together in a row—and he had learned how to look interested without listening. That isn’t working now. Right now, his father is sober and his voice doesn’t slur. It ensnares.

  “But occasionally you also add a golden thread. Genuine gold as you sit weaving your life! And right before you die, you see your entire rug, the pattern of different colored threads. Imagine Hitler’s rug, Leo—pitch black! And Mother Teresa’s—gold, gold, gold. Her rug is gleaming! Other rugs are like ours. Mostly gray, a little green and red and Bible black—and here and there a little gold thread.”

  His hand is against his chest again and he hits it.

  “You know, life can be hard to live.”

  Leo has been sitting, leaning back ostentatiously, at the greatest possible distance, especially since the hand on the shoulder. Now he leans forward without being aware of it.

  “But . . . some days, Papa, can there be two different threads next to each other? Or what if they are entwined to make one?” As he continues speaking, he puts both elbows on the table, like Papa. “Because, well, your thread is black. What you did to Mama. But my thread, at the same time, maybe had gold in it. When I . . . you know, they said it . . . if I hadn’t been home, she would have been dead.”

  The strange smile that he doesn’t understand. That doesn’t belong in this room.

  “Leo?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t mix our rugs together now.”

  Leo recoils. It wasn’t a good idea to sit so close. And the room shrinks a little more.

  “If I had wanted to kill your mother, I would have done it.”

  Because if he stayed where he was, it would have been like with his mother’s face.

  “Do you get it, Leo? I had to do what I did—but I did it under control.”

  Each word feels like a blow.

  “Do you seriously think, Leo, that I would kill your mother right before your eyes? Have you not l
istened to anything I said?”

  Yes. I’ve listened. And I don’t care about your fucking rug. And your fucking threads. I hung on to your fucking shoulders so that you couldn’t hit her anymore.

  “The other night,” starts Leo.

  Black as a Bible. So is that how you want it?

  “Felix and I were at school. With a big trash bag. We filled it. We took a strongbox with money.”

  Now he’s the one striking. And the strange smile is gone.

  “I broke it apart when we got home. Full of coins. And a lot of banknotes.”

  Mama was angry. But Papa shows no sign and doesn’t say anything. He just walks to the unsmashable window and looks out.

  “Full of coins, do you say? And a lot of banknotes?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was there . . . uh, anyone who saw you?”

  “What do you think? I have control.”

  Papa reaches his hand out to the red button on the wall and presses it.

  “You should go home to your brothers.”

  “But Mama thinks I should return it all. All of it, Papa.”

  The metal door is opened by two guards in blue shirts. As Papa starts to walk between them, the soft slippers glide over the stone floor.

  It’s silent again.

  Until he stops and turns around.

  “Leo?”

  “Yeah?”

  “If no one saw you, then no one knows about it.”

  HE HAS BEEN to only one funeral in his life, and when he left the church it felt exactly as it does now, leaving the semi-curved building of the police station. He draws deep breaths and is dizzy, alive, the opposite of coffins and black threads.

  If I had wanted to kill your mother, I would have done it.

  What did the old man mean? Did it not mean anything that he got in between them and made him stop beating her?

  If no one saw you, then no one knows about it.

  Was it good that he opened the window and door and cupboard and strongbox with a screwdriver, chisel, and hammer? It was as if his father first took something from him but then regretted it and gave back something else.