by Koppel, Hans
‘Out?’
‘Get some fresh air, whatever.’
She walked past him out into the hall.
‘Do you want me to come with you?’’
‘I’m quite happy to go on my own.’
She put on her coat and discreetly took her mobile phone out of her bag.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I just feel grumpy and fed up.’
I’m not interested in the car.
The message had been sent at five to eight. The cheeky bastard, wasn’t afraid of anything. Did he seriously believe that Anna would leave her family and start a new life with him? Surely he couldn’t think that? No, he was entertaining himself at her expense, trying to frighten her. Punish her for wounding his male pride.
Anna walked down to the water and phoned her mother. As usual, Kathrine didn’t let herself get agitated.
‘But don’t you get it?’ Anna said. ‘He’s just getting at me.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘Do you really think he was looking for a new car?’
‘I don’t understand why that’s so unbelievable. How would he find the advert otherwise?’
‘Because Magnus put his name underneath. Don’t you understand? He sits at home googling us. And now he’s met Hedda as well.’
‘Calm down, dear.’
‘Mum, don’t tell me to calm down.’
‘Okay, I’m sorry. All I’m saying is, don’t always think the worst. He hasn’t been aggressive, has he?’
‘No.’
‘And he hasn’t threatened you?’
‘No.’
Kathrine didn’t say anything. Anna recognised the technique from her childhood. Her mother had always let her draw her own conclusions, never rubbed her nose in it.
‘Go to see him,’ she said, eventually. ‘Talk to him.’
‘I don’t trust him. He’s weird.’
‘He won’t be any less weird if you keep pushing him away.’
‘He’s just so…’
She searched for the right word.
‘He’s got no boundaries,’ she said in the end.
‘Yes, that’s a very popular expression in amateur psychology these days,’ Kathrine said.
‘I called you,’ Magnus said, and gave her an accusing look. ‘It was engaged.’
Anna still had the cold wrapped around her. She took off her coat and hung it up.
‘I was talking to Mum,’ she said.
‘About what?’
Anna looked at her husband.
‘Why?’
He gave an exaggerated shrug.
‘That’s enough. I went out because I couldn’t bear to just sit here evening after evening watching rubbish.’
She shook her head and pushed past him. It wasn’t until they were in bed that he mustered the courage to ask a direct question.
‘Are you getting tired of me?’
Anna had just managed to read a page in the book that had been lying on her bedside table for over a week.
‘Am I what?’
She stared at him, he looked grey and miserable.
‘No, no, never,’ she said. ‘How can you ask such a silly question?’
‘I don’t know, the thought just struck me and then everything went black. The ground disappeared from underneath me.’
‘Oh, my love.’
She put her book down and rolled over on to her side, held him close and stroked his hair, with her chin nestled on his shoulder.
The ground disappeared? Again?
Men should read more books, expand their vocabulary.
29
Anna held the bell in, pure provocation in a country where unity and compliance are deemed to be national virtues.
‘Take it easy, I’m coming.’
Erik Månsson opened the door and Anna stepped past him into the flat. She stopped in the hall and turned around. Her eyes were black. She was charged, had been stewing in her anger all day.
‘What are you playing at?’
There was not a trace of the conciliatory tone her mother had advised.
‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,’ Erik said, amused.
‘What do you think you’re doing, contacting my husband, pretending to be interested in buying our car? You have got nothing to do with us. I don’t want you in my world. How bloody hard is that to understand?’
‘Tea?’
Anna stared, not sure that she’d heard correctly.
‘I was just about to make a cup,’ Erik said, and went out into the kitchen.
Anna followed him, at a distance.
‘Erik, are you listening to me?’
He filled the kettle and switched it on.
‘Hard not to, given that you’re shouting,’ he said, tersely.
Anna slammed her hand against the wall.
‘Erik, you listen to me and you listen well, do you hear?’
She held her finger up in the air in warning.
‘If you come anywhere near my family again I will kill you, do you understand?’
‘You’re threatening me,’ he concluded, nodding. ‘Exciting.’
Anna was shaking.
‘What do you want? What have you got on me? I’m not interested, I’ve told you. Have I wounded your male pride? Tell me what I’ve done.’
Erik cast her a glance before he opened the cupboard above the fridge and took out a box of teabags.
‘Are you sure you don’t want any?’
‘Erik, I don’t want anything to do with you. In any way.’
‘And yet you’re still here,’ he said.
Anna regulated her breath.
‘Erik, I came here to sort everything out. I’m here for closure. I don’t want you to call, email me or contact me or anyone in my family in any way, understand?’
The kettle started to boil. Anna had a horrible feeling that Erik might at any moment get it into his head to throw the boiling water in her face. She took half a step back towards the hall and changed her tactic and tone of voice, from confrontational to conciliatory.
‘Erik, I come with an open mind. I don’t want to argue. Tell me what I can do to make you happy. Tell me what I’ve done to hurt you so much. Please, tell me, and I promise I’ll do everything I can to rectify it. If you only leave me in peace.’
He moved over to the kitchen window, looked down on to the street.
‘I can’t stand this any more,’ Anna said. ‘It was a fantastic night at Mölle, it really was. And our meetings here too. But I’m married, happily married. We’ve got a daughter. You and I are something else, you should be able to see that. Please, Erik, I’m begging you. Leave me alone.’
The kettle clicked off. Erik went to the sink and poured some water in a cup. He dipped the teabag up and down, smiling as if he were enjoying the situation.
‘Erik, what are you doing?’ she said, trying hard to stay calm.
‘Right now, I’m making tea.’
‘Stop it, please.’
‘Please?’
‘My life is complicated enough as it is. I really am so sorry that I’ve hurt you in some way, truly I am.’
‘“Truly”?’ Erik parroted and smiled at her.
‘Please, I can’t bear this any more.’
‘Come,’ he said, and went out into the sitting room-cum-bedroom.
Anna followed him reluctantly but stopped in the doorway.
‘Erik, please, talk to me. Tell me what I can do.’
He put the tea down on the windowsill next to the only plant in the flat, which was half-dead, then went over to the bookshelves.
‘Come over here.’
‘No, Erik. I’m not coming over there. I’m not interested.’
‘Stop saying my name, like some sort of salesman. I want to show you something.’
‘I’m not coming into that room again.’
‘Why ever not? Don’t you trust yourself to withstand temptation? Is that why you’re here? You’re hoping that I’ll fuck yo
u again?’
‘If you so much as touch me, I’ll report you,’ she snapped.
Erik reached out and picked up a T-shirt that had been slung on to a bookshelf.
‘This is a web camera.’
He took the cup from the windowsill and went over to the desk. He opened his laptop, clicked a couple times and turned the screen towards Anna. She heard herself, saw herself. Swaying breasts and loud lovemaking. Erik sipped his tea and closed the laptop.
‘You were there, so that was nothing new to you,’ he said.
Anna stood with her arms hanging by her sides. Her face was beetroot.
‘You, you…’
‘I know, the sound isn’t great. But the picture is surprisingly good.’
‘I’m going to report you, I am. This is too much. No more. You’re going down, you are going fucking down.’
She darted across to the desk, but Erik was in the way.
‘Get out of the way,’ Anna said. ‘I’m taking that computer, I’m confiscating that computer.’
She was shaking with rage.
‘You have no right to film me on the sly like that,’ she carried on, stabbing her finger into Erik’s chest.
‘To the contrary,’ he said. ‘I’ve got every right to record both sound and picture if I’m an active participant. However, I don’t have the right to distribute it.’
‘I want you to delete that video immediately. That’s harassment, sexual harassment.’
Erik lifted the cup to his lips and took a sip.
‘Delete it now,’ Anna said again. ‘Did you hear what I said? I’m going to report you for rape.’
‘Might be difficult,’ he said. ‘You can hear a lot of yeses on the clip, but not a single no.’
‘You… you’re sick, that’s what you are. I came here wanting to sort things out, so we wouldn’t part on bad terms. Consider yourself reported.’
Erik put down the cup.
‘The end is the best,’ he said. ‘When you focus on my, what shall I say, natural talent? I don’t know why, but I almost get the feeling that you’re comparing me with someone who doesn’t quite fulfil your needs.’
Anna shook her head. She was breathless, but unable to breathe. It was as if she had forgotten how to fill her lungs with oxygen. Her head rocked aimlessly like some dashboard doll.
30
The man who was half-lying on the swivel chair bore the title Chief Inspector, but had introduced himself as Karlsson. He didn’t use his first name. He spoke with a drawling Helsingborg dialect that gave the impression that he was a man of the world and not easily impressed, certainly not by anything that might be found outside the county boundary.
‘So what you’re saying is that there’s nothing I can do?’ Anna concluded. ‘I’ve got no rights?’
‘Weeell,’ Karlsson drew it out, ‘if the bloke you’re talking about decided to distribute the material, that would be a different story. But from what I understand he recorded the video for his own pleasure.’
‘And you think that’s all right?’
‘In purely legal terms, it’s permissible as long as he himself is a participant. If, however, you had both been unaware of it and filmed in secret by a third party, it would be another matter.’
Anna shook her head.
‘But that’s crazy.’
Karlsson shrugged.
‘New legislation in the area is being discussed. But it’s bloody chaos because tabloids are screaming censorship. And as you know, the discussion is really only about one thing…’
Anna didn’t know what he was talking about. When she realised that he expected a prompt, she tilted her head questioningly instead.
‘That they can write and claim whatever they like without having to think about the consequences,’ Karlsson stated.
‘Well, I’m actually a journalist, and I’m not entirely sure that I agree.’
Karlsson sat up.
‘What I meant is that… a lot of journalists…’
‘I work for Family Journal. We don’t really cover traditional news.’
Karlsson nodded.
‘Family Journal, that’s a fine old magazine. My mother…’
Anna waved her hand. She wanted to return to the subject.
‘So there really is nothing I can do?’
‘As long as he doesn’t distribute or threaten to distribute the video, no.’
‘Why would he record it otherwise?’
Detective Inspector Karlsson scratched his neck.
‘Well, I guess he sits there roughing up the suspect like all the other masturbators.’
Anna didn’t feel comfortable with the image the jolly policeman gave her.
‘But what if he posts it on the internet?’ she said. ‘He could pretend that someone has hacked into his computer or say that it was stolen.’
Karlsson leaned forwards, folded his hands on the table.
‘You’re not the first person to get caught up in something like this. My personal advice is to let the whole thing die down. If you start making a noise, the video is guaranteed to end up on some website. And then you’ll never be able to get rid of it, no matter how many courts you appeal to.’
‘What about the rest then?’ Anna asked. ‘The fact that he calls me and emails me and appears all over the place?’
‘You can always report him for stalking. But then it would be official and public.’
‘What should I do?’
‘Hard to say, really. Is the bloke a nutter or just unhappy?’
‘I don’t know. Both, it would seem.’
‘Could you talk to him? Do you have any men you could use?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A brother or someone who might help the lad to understand that you’re serious.’
‘You mean frighten him? No.’
‘Sorry, stupid idea. I can’t just sit here and recommend vigilantism, can I? What I mean is that blokes like that, if he is one, are often cowards. They’re all macho in front of women, but not quite so beefed up with other men.’
Karlsson looked at the desperate woman on the other side of his desk.
‘You know what,’ he said. ‘I know what we can do. I’ll have a word with him tomorrow morning, see if that can make the idiot see sense. Shall we do that?’
31
‘But what if he puts the video on the internet?’ Anna howled. ‘What will I do then?’
She stared straight ahead. For once her mother had neither sage advice nor comforting words to offer.
‘He can’t,’ Kathrine said. ‘He simply can’t. It’s a crime. So?’
‘I don’t think Magnus could deal with it,’ Anna said, as if she were talking to herself. ‘I really don’t think he could. And it would affect Hedda. Every child at school would know about it.’
She looked up at her mother.
‘We’ll have to move,’ she said. ‘We can’t stay here.’
‘Of course you can.’
‘And it doesn’t matter where,’ Anna carried on, as if in a trance, ‘it still won’t be far enough. Someone there will always be able to find it.’
‘Calm down. He hasn’t posted anything yet, and if he was to do it, there must be ways to remove it. And who on earth watches things like that? It would say more about them than about you.’
They sat in silence.
‘Perhaps it’s just as well if you talk about it,’ Kathrine said, finally. ‘To Magnus, that is. So that he hears it from you.’
‘He would demand to see the video.’
‘The boy’s bosses,’ Kathrine started. ‘Didn’t you meet them at Mölle? Couldn’t you talk to them?’
‘He doesn’t work for them any more. He either resigned or got the sack. And in his world, it’s because of me. The video exists, Mum, and it will always exist. It doesn’t matter what I do, it exists somewhere and will eventually be shown and people will see it.’
Kathrine moved her chair closer, put her arms round her daughter.
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br /> ‘Sweetheart, oh, my darling.’
‘Magnus would never be able to deal with it,’ Anna snuffled. ‘I don’t sound like that with him, you see.’
Kathrine let her cry.
‘I’m horrible,’ Anna said, drying her cheeks. ‘A worthless mother and a terrible wife.’
‘You’re a fantastic mother and wonderful wife.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Of course you are. Stop being silly.’
Anna laughed, embarrassed.
‘Do you remember when I was little, do you remember Alexander?’
‘Ugh, that one.’
The love of Anna’s life from junior high had made a career as a celebrity lawyer in adult life. And that, in Kathrine’s eyes, was one of civilisation’s lowest life forms.
‘Do you remember when I bit him?’ Anna giggled. ‘We were doing a slow dance and I was so happy that I didn’t know what to do.’
‘So you took a bite of him. Yes, I remember.’
It had been a huge drama. The teacher had switched on the lights and turned off the music. The other girls fought to comfort Alexander and to blame Anna, and it wasn’t clear which was actually higher on their wish list.
When Kathrine came to pick up her daughter, the heinous crime was reported to her. The teacher’s witness account had an underlying accusation: there was something wrong with the girl.
‘Do you remember what you said when we got home?’ Anna said and looked up at her mother.
It was more than thirty years since the great event.
‘No.’
‘You said that one day I would make a man very happy.’
‘And I was right. You do make him happy. Every day.’
Anna’s chin started to tremble, her mother opened her arms.
‘Oh, my darling.’
Anna didn’t know what to do. There was no answer. The world carried on and would continue to do so, no matter what.
Hedda was irritable when she came home from school. She muttered like a prepubescent, kicked off her shoes in the hall and walked into her room on hard heels.
Normally, Anna would have showered her daughter with love, peppered her with loaded questions. But now she stayed in the kitchen, looking out at the street. She saw a certain beauty in the situation. Her daughter was an independent individual who was, for the moment, in a bad mood. Maybe she’d had an argument with a friend, or been given a ticking off at school, justified or not, or maybe she had a bad conscience about something or was in a hurry or whatever. It was what it was and would quickly pass. Anna was just glad to be able to witness it. In all of Hedda’s ten-year life, Anna had never been away from her for more than two nights in a row. They had lived under the same roof, eaten at the same table and generally laughed at the same things. Anna didn’t know how much longer that would last.