The Father: Made in Sweden Part I

by Anton Svensson

  She looked at him, his eyes close to hers. She had met someone who shone and had fallen in love with his light. Now that light was gone.

  ‘I know you took care of them. But a brother shouldn’t be a father to his own siblings.’

  She kissed him, and he looked at her. And maybe he glowed; it had been a long time, but he did, at least a bit, she was sure of it.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Anneli?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you think you could drive the getaway car?’

  She thought she hadn’t heard right at first.

  ‘Can you do it?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You.’

  She’d helped them into their disguises and dropped them off at a robbery. Then she was always supposed to leave, go home, wait without participating.

  Now he wanted her to be a part of it, for real.

  She’d be driving the getaway car, like Felix.

  She kissed him.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes. You. I’m serious. You’re a damn good driver.’

  She snuggled into his arms, skin to skin, laughed, kissed him.

  79

  IT WAS EARLY morning, still dark, the streetlamps spilling light onto the pavements, which found its way between Bagarmossen’s 1950s three-storey apartment buildings. After three hours asleep in Anneli’s arms, Leo felt thoroughly rested again. He had deliberately parked some distance away and walked now through leafless bushes across a deserted playground on his way to the rear of the building. He didn’t want Jasper to see him, and he knew how he peered through the kitchen window every time a car parked out front, ready to flee if the cops got close.

  Leo keyed the four-digit access code into the back door and hoped that it hadn’t changed. A muffled click and he stepped into the stairwell, holding the door as it closed again.

  Jasper had planned his escape in detail, Leo knew. Opposite the house, across the car park, stood the Nacka Reserve national forest, and just inside, between two large rocks, Jasper had buried a plastic container that held clothes, a knife, cash, passport and a pistol – a Beretta he’d bought in the United States three years earlier and sent home in pieces. But he wasn’t going to be allowed to escape now, nor arm himself and hide. Both remembered the blow so hard it had knocked Jasper to the floor, leaving him staring upwards with hatred, disappointment, confusion, sadness.

  The stairwell walls were painted a suffocating green colour. Leo made his way cautiously to the door and rang the bell.

  He didn’t hear a thing, but he was sure that the door’s peephole darkened.

  He knocked. Continuously. The flap of the letterbox swung upwards.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘To talk.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Open the door, for fuck’s sake.’

  It was quiet for a long time. Finally, the door slid open until the chain was fully extended.

  ‘Hold out your hands.’

  Jasper’s eyes loomed in the gap between door and frame, and they weren’t jumpy so much as uncertain. Leo held out two open palms. Then the chain rattled as the door opened completely.

  Jasper was wearing a pair of creased brown trousers and a beige shirt. He was freshly shaven and his hair had been trimmed. It was six thirty in the morning; at this time Jasper used to look like an unmade bed, and that’s what Leo had expected – more than that, perhaps, someone who was broken and lost – not a face that had colour in its cheeks.

  But the uncertainty remained. And he kept his right hand angled back, as if wanting to make it clear that he was hiding something along his forearm.

  Prepared to expose his throat. Ready to strike.

  Leo stepped inside and Jasper simultaneously stepped back, careful to maintain the same distance between them – close enough to be able to attack and far enough away to avoid being attacked.

  ‘There’s no need to be scared of me.’

  A shake of the head was Jasper’s only response.

  ‘Jasper – put away that crap behind your arm.’

  ‘Put it away? Leo, you and me …’

  Jasper swallowed saliva down a dry throat.

  ‘… know way too much about each other.’

  ‘But you don’t need to be afraid of me.’

  ‘No? An armoury? Nine bank robberies? Central Station?’

  A step forward. And like before, Jasper took an equally long step back.

  ‘Maybe you’re here to … do some cleaning up. Perhaps you and your brothers have decided to close down the whole operation. Don’t you think I realise I could just … go up in smoke in that case? Like a pair of boots.’

  Leo was about to take another step when Jasper held up his left arm.

  ‘No closer.’

  ‘You don’t need that knife – put it away.’

  ‘Take off your jacket.’

  They stood there, both of them maintaining the same distance. Leo took off his leather jacket and held it up, turned it back to front and back again to show there was nothing there, nothing hidden.

  ‘And the shoes.’

  Leo bent down and untied them, held them up, put them on the shoe rack next to a pair of glistening black boots that looked new. Combat boots. Just like the ones he had burned – but this year’s model.

  ‘Can I have a cup of coffee now?’

  ‘After you roll up your trousers.’

  He did so, and threw his arms wide.

  ‘Look, just socks and hairy shins. And the coffee? Now?’

  The uncertainty remained. Jasper looked at him, silently, as if he couldn’t quite decide what to do.

  ‘Fucking hell, Jasper … if I wanted to get rid of you, I sure as hell wouldn’t do it in your flat. Right?’

  A short pause. Then Jasper nodded, bared his right arm, revealing a long, sharp kitchen knife.

  They walked down the short hallway to the kitchen, Leo quickly glancing into the living room. The altar was gone. The green beret. The photo of Jasper in uniform at the Norrland Rangers final manoeuvres. The course literature. The bayonet. Everything that had been so important, taken away. Only the table stood there still, but on it was a vase that held no flowers and a candlestick with no candle.

  In the kitchen Jasper put coffee into a filter, while Leo sat down.

  ‘OK. Why are you here?’

  ‘Just wanted to see how you were doing.’

  ‘How I’m doing?’

  Jasper smiled, or rather smirked. And that was when Leo saw it for the first time. On the other side of the table. Hanging over a chair. The same brown material as the trousers. And with a badge on the right sleeve half-covered by a fold.

  ‘What are you wearing? What the hell’s that hanging there?’

  Leo nodded towards the back of the chair and a uniform jacket on which the first three letters of a company’s name were visible. SEC. He already knew what the rest of it said, the letters that had disappeared into a fold, but he didn’t understand why that jacket was hanging on Jasper’s kitchen chair.

  ‘It’s mine.’

  Leo looked first at the jacket, then at Jasper.

  ‘Yours?’

  ‘Yes. I got fired from my last job, right?’

  ‘OK … well, in that case … what do you do there?’

  ‘OK … well in that case … what are you doing here?’

  Jasper turned his back to him while doing something with the coffee, which hissed and bubbled. He wasn’t so unsure any more.

  ‘I’m here because I need you,’ said Leo.

  He turned round, a little too fast.

  ‘Need me?’

  ‘Yes. We’re going to do the tenth robbery.’

  Jasper’s body relaxed completely. The threat which had existed earlier was gone. And with it the hostility and suspicion.

  Seven months of longing. And here they were. Together.

  ‘The tenth?’

  ‘The tenth.’

  ‘I thought you’d never ask,’ said
Jasper, smiling broadly.

  He poured two cups of strong coffee.

  Leo unfolded the uniform jacket. All the letters were visible now: SECURITAS. Sweden’s largest security company.

  ‘What the hell are you doing there?’ he asked.

  ‘Turning off alarms when they go off, checking out broken windows at schools or storage units that have been burgled, driving around industrial estates … that kind of thing.’

  Jasper opened the refrigerator and took out a carton of milk, pouring a splash into Leo’s cup.

  ‘They talk about us all the time at the office,’ said Jasper, his smile still filled with longing. ‘The Military League. What will they hit next? A bank? A security van? A depot? And there I sit, listening.’

  He looked proud. It was easy to imagine him in that staff room, about to burst from not being able to tell anyone.

  ‘In a few months I’ll be driving a security van myself. I thought about it, what would I do if I was robbed?’

  He fingered the uniform jacket slung over the chair next to him.

  ‘There are two options. One – I do as I’m told if I see that the robbers know what the hell they’re doing. Two – if they’re amateurs … I’ll overpower them. Leo, I could stop a couple of robbers, be the hero in the papers, and nobody would ever know that it was me behind that mask!’

  ‘There is a third option.’

  ‘OK?’

  ‘What would you do if you realised it was me?’

  ‘You?’

  ‘If I was the one robbing the security van?’

  ‘I would … hell, I’d take off my clothes. Lie down. And you could do what you wanted. I’d do exactly what you said.’

  A laugh. But it was also grounded in truth.

  ‘But it’s too early, I need to gain their confidence, work my way up, get into the system. Then I’ll be driving a security van.’

  Leo emptied his cup; he’d never done that before at Jasper’s.

  ‘Good. The tenth first. Then we’ll plan this. You and me.’

  Just a few hours ago he’d been sitting alone in his armoury. Now he had a driver, and someone capable of following him into a bank.

  ‘And your brothers? What do they have to say about all this?’

  ‘They don’t have anything to say. They’re not part of this.’

  ‘So it’s … just you and me?’

  ‘No. There’s a driver too.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘We’ll discuss that later.’

  ‘Just three?’

  ‘There’s one more.’

  80

  THEY PARTED AS friends with a common goal. First a small robbery over the holiday season to fund the coming year’s activities, then the planning of a much larger robbery next Christmas. Target – the main branch of the Central Bank. Loot – the forty to fifty million brought in each day from Christmas shopping and then sent back out again to fill the ATMs. The beating heart of commerce would be hit by a cardiac arrest. With Jasper on the inside, the impossible had suddenly become possible. And if they were talking about those kinds of sums, and about finishing it, maybe he’d be able to convince his brothers to join in one last time.

  The biggest Swedish robbery ever. And then disband for ever.

  Leo stopped the car in front of the gate. There had been piles of leaves in the garden last time, now there were no leaves left. The frozen grass crunched under his shoes and ice crystals stuck to his cheeks, swirled around him, flashing in the morning sun. He nodded to a man holding a newspaper under his arm while kneeling in the snow by the fence, apparently examining it.

  ‘Is my father inside?’

  ‘Leo?’

  The man, Steve, stood up and took off his glasses.

  ‘Leo – it’s been a while. You don’t visit your dad very often.’

  Steve was the owner of the house and lived in the slightly larger apartment upstairs. They greeted each other, and now he could see what Steve had been looking at. Several of the green pickets were broken in half.

  ‘Is he in?’

  ‘I think so. His car’s parked over there.’

  Same yellow Saab estate, now in even worse shape. It stood in the same place it had been in last time, but was parked at more of an angle. Steve shook his head, scratched his neck.

  ‘He drove straight into it.’

  Steve glanced meaningfully at Ivan’s car, sighed, then looked at the fence, sighed again, and pointed to the tyre tracks in the grass right next to the broken planks.

  ‘Straight into the fence.’

  ‘But he’s in now?’

  ‘He’s there, but he won’t open the door when I knock.’

  ‘Then I’ll make sure he knows it’s me knocking instead.’

  Steve wasn’t listening, he was busy jiggling one of the boards as if it were a loose tooth.

  ‘Your father can be rather … difficult at times. But never this bad. Just sitting there and shutting himself in. And he’s always paid the rent on time. Now he doesn’t even do that.’

  He pulled up the board a little more, then with a jerk it came off.

  ‘And besides, he borrowed money from me.’

  Leo peered towards the ground floor of the house, all the windows covered from the inside, quilts and blankets over curtain poles. Like a wartime blackout.

  ‘When did you last see him?’

  ‘Yesterday, when he came home from the off-licence. I tried to talk to him, but he just slammed the door shut in my face. He’s been drink-driving … I did try to talk to him.’

  ‘He hasn’t, well, said anything that seems … odd?’

  ‘Odd?’

  ‘Something important, that might be weighing on him. You usually chat, don’t you?’

  Steve shrugged.

  ‘No. Nothing. He hasn’t said a thing. At least, the only thing he said to me was he thought I should … and this is a direct quote … “go fuck a cactus”. And if I didn’t, and I’m quoting again, he would “push a handsaw up my arse”. I have a spare key, but I don’t dare enter. Don’t misunderstand me, I like Ivan, he can be difficult and he has a hell of a temper but he’s also smart and funny and … Leo, right now, I don’t recognise him. Honestly, I’m really worried and a little scared. He’s intimidating, he hasn’t been like that before, not to me anyway. I don’t understand what’s happened.’

  Leo nodded. His father had solved his problems in the same way he always did. He’d been drinking and fighting, but not talking. And the anxiety that had crept up on him now sneaked away again.

  ‘I’ll take care of it. How much does he owe you?’

  Steve’s whole posture finally relaxed just a little.

  ‘Rent. Plus his debt. Eight thousand altogether.’

  Leo took his wallet out of his back pocket, and counted out six thousand kronor in 500-kronor bills.

  ‘You’ll get the other two later this week. And I’ll fix the fence. OK?’

  Steve was just about to take the money when Leo pulled it away.

  ‘But I want the spare key, too.’

  Leo put the key in the lock and turned it. Darkness. And then the stench of prolonged confinement, in the midst of which was the smell of his father. He turned on the lights. On the floor were heaps of cut-up newspapers. The table was covered with wrinkled Keno tickets, crumpled wrappers and raw onions, which always took over a room when they were peeled, plus a pair of scissors, articles cut out of newspapers, a glue stick and a lot of wine bottles, all empty. And there, on the sofa, was something black in the blackness – a thick black binder sunk into the worn leather. He sat down and leafed through it. Page after page, clip after clip – articles about the Military League. Pictures of broken glass and his own masked face and eight bullet holes in a cashier’s window.

  A fucking cuttings file.

  His father had done his research. He wasn’t guessing, he’d known. A father collecting everything that was written about his sons, so he could read it again. As if he were … proud.

&n
bsp; He wasn’t sure if his father had ever felt that way before. And Leo felt the discomfort all the way down into his stomach. He slammed the folder shut and proceeded to one of the two closed doors.

  Ivan Dûvnjac lay perfectly still in the darkness. Leo hurried over to the edge of the bed, put a finger to his mouth until he felt something faintly like breath, then moved his whole hand over both nose and mouth. The cautious creak in his father’s throat turned into an angry snoring, he grunted and threw his arm like a stray sledgehammer.

  ‘Pappa.’

  Leo grabbed his shoulder, shook it slightly.

  ‘Pappa!’

  The big body turned over slowly, never opening his eyes.

  ‘Look at me! Dad!’

  Ivan opened his eyes, at least halfway.

  ‘Leo …?’

  He grabbed hold of Leo’s outstretched arm and heaved himself up with difficulty, until his bare feet were on the floor.

  ‘How the hell did you get in here?’

  ‘What are you up to, Dad? Fighting with your landlord, driving drunk into his fence, telling him to go to hell, threatening him. What if he’d called the police? What if the fucking cops came in? You’re lying in here like a knocked-out walrus, while Steve gives out the spare key, and they come in here, look around this pigsty and find … this.’

  He threw the black folder into Ivan’s lap.

  ‘The path from you to me isn’t very far, is it? If they found this, don’t you … here, in the home of a father with three sons! “Let’s check them out.”’

  Ivan looked at the folder of cuttings, but he didn’t throw it, he carefully put it on the bed.

  ‘You’d be handing over your own sons! Your fucking boozing would ruin everything again!’

  He pulled down the blankets and forced apart the curtains. More light. Ivan ducked, as if trying to get away from it.

  ‘Look at me, Dad, and listen. Because I’m here to offer you a job.’

  ‘I have a job.’

  ‘Bullshit. I’ve just given six thousand kronor to Steve out there. And he said you owe him even more.’

  He waited while the tired eyes stopped blinking and the daylight sank in.

  ‘A job offer. Because I’m a man short.’

  Ivan was still squinting as he got up and silently left the room, with some difficulty.