He sank down on the bed and stared unseeing at a film. A woman ran up a gentle slope, paused at a tree, melodramatically surveyed a valley, and then started a languishing song. Sven-Arne gathered that she had run away from her husband and was now looking for the man she had loved from early youth. Always the same story, he thought, convinced that she or her beloved would die before the film came to an end.
He pressed the remote and came to the local news channel. There was a picture of the Swedish king in the background, as well as Taj West End hotel, one of the more luxurious in the city.
Sven-Arne chuckled. The events of the afternoon and evening were such an unlikely chain of events that it was almost a parody. First the memories of his childhood streets, then the meeting with the Swedish couple in MG Road, then Jan Svensk at Koshy’s, and now the Swedish head of state on the television screen. Maybe Jan Svensk was in town for the Swedish activities that the news anchor was talking about? The Swedish Trade Council was opening an office in Bangalore and had invited King Carl Gustaf for the event.
The streets were probably crawling with Swedes. He had to be careful. It was completely possible that there were others among the accompanying Swedes, beyond Jan Svensk, who would recognise him as the missing politician.
Sven-Arne Persson fell asleep very late. The last conscious thought in his head was centred on the children of St Mary’s school. How would they react if he simply disappeared from town, as much as he had always lectured them on the importance of punctuality?
SIX
It was just before two o’clock. The sound from the street had abated in intensity but a car or motorcycle would occasionally drive down the monsoon-ravaged street. It had been one of the rainiest Bangalore Octobers in memory and this had left its mark. The streets were ruined, large potholes created dangerous traps, the water had turned the surface to washing boards, and whole pavements had collapsed, so undermined had they become.
And still it rained. More sporadically in the interior and not as violently as two, three weeks ago, but as recently as the past few days hundreds of people had died. Weddings had been rendered impossible because brides and bridegrooms had not been able to be brought together. School instruction had been suspended and everyone talked of ‘the great depression.’ Jan Svensk finally understood that this referred to a powerful low pressure weather system out at sea.
In addition, it was unexpectedly cold. The newspaper, which appeared tucked into the door handle every morning, indicated that it was time to get out one’s winter clothes, as the temperature the day before had sunk to the record low of fifty-six degrees.
The hospitals had been deluged by those seeking assistance, suffering coughs and fevers, and even Svensk had been stricken by ‘the big depression.’ He could not sleep, and it was not the rain that was keeping him awake, nor – as in the first few days – the jet lag; it was his thoughts of Sven-Arne Persson, and by extension Uppsala and his own life. Anxiety caused him to writhe on his bed, turn on the reading lamp, open a book for a while only to lay it aside, turn out the light, and try once again to fall asleep.
Now he had given up. He glanced at the telephone. Should he call home to Elise? It was only half past nine in the evening in Uppsala. But he abandoned the thought. They had spoken recently and she would wonder why he was calling so soon after they last talked. A conversation that contained the usual phrases but lacked all warmth. Jan Svensk had replaced the receiver with sadness, well aware that something was missing, and he grew increasingly morose as he recalled how joyless their exchange had been. No words of love, nothing of longing or desire, only the routine talk of everyday, if there had been exciting mail, if someone had called, how the weather had been, how the children were. He had talked about Bangalore in an uninspired way, the weather, the masses of people, his ongoing work.
Everything was fine. No one had called. No, mostly bills and some of his magazines. The children were well. No, they were with friends. It was snowing.
It’s raining here, he thought, and looked at the brick tiles that covered the hotel entryway. Many of the tiles were chipped, which he found irritating. Suddenly he caught a motion on the wall above the entrance. A squirrel scampering along a thirty-centimetre-wide ledge running under the windows on the third floor. It was running back and forth in an anxious manner. Clearly it wanted to get down. But how had it ended up there? At one end of the ledge there was only a ninety-degree corner to a smooth concrete wall and the other end looked equally unpromising. But there was also a tree – it looked to be a rubber plant – admittedly a couple of metres out from the wall, but it was also the only thing that could offer a way out of the nervous back and forth. It was clear that the squirrel had also come to this conclusion, because it started pausing for longer and longer stretches at this corner, leaning forward daringly and examining the leaves shiny with rain, before leaving once more for the other end.
And so it went on. Jan Svensk followed it with his gaze, increasingly sympathetic to the miserable creature. No, don’t stay there, he thought, as the squirrel calculated the distance to the tree. Jump! You can do it. You’re a squirrel.
A final check, a quick shake of his body, stillness and concentration for a couple of seconds, and then came the jump.
The squirrel disappeared into the dark interior of the tree. Jan Svensk remained standing at the window for a little longer. A moped sputtered along on the street. The rain fell.
The distraction offered by the moments when he had been so absorbed by the squirrel’s actions had somewhat lightened his mood.
It occurred to him that he could call home and talk about the unlikely chance encounter with Sven-Arne Persson, but put this out of his mind. If he was going to call anyone about this, it would be his parents. They had been acquainted with Persson. He should call them anyway; they always received his calls with genuine warmth and gave expression to an embarrassing mixture of pride and worry. But he decided he would put this off for one more day; he needed to think the whole thing through.
He crawled into bed, turned off the light, and rearranged his pillows in a way that he thought would facilitate sleep.
He woke up at half past four, awakened by the signal from some kind of service phone on the wall of the corridor outside.
The call was over after a brief but loud discussion. Jan Svensk then heard the lift mechanism start up and in his half sleeping and dazed state he associated it with a war film he had seen in his youth. There it was the mechanism to a giant piece of artillery that regulated the sight of a cannon – a contraption that set its sights on the intended target with no apparent human intervention. The machinery was composed of well-oiled cogs and pins that coldly and unhesitatingly brought the deadly things into firing mode.
For a second, there was a cut to the triumphant face of the commander, and thereafter the flames from the fire against the backdrop of the night sky. The mighty thunder and high-pitched whine of the projectiles were amplified by the speakers of the cinema.
Jan Svensk could no longer remember what the target was, but most likely it was a ship making its way through the Atlantic night, whose crew was secure in the belief that they were at a safe distance from the enemy coastline and firepower.
How wrong they were, Jan Svensk thought, and shortly returned to sleep.
SEVEN
He was number sixteen. An inquisitive fellow from Trollhättan had once asked if he could name his fifteen predecessors. No one knows, not even the man asking the question – who was quickly escorted out – what the answer would have been.
Jan Svensk had heard about this incident and came to think of it as he watched the Swedish regent enter the ballroom at Taj West End hotel. All of the other guests turned their heads in unison as if they were watching a tennis match, but without the return volleys. Their heads and eyes were locked on the king.
‘How short he is,’ someone was heard to remark.
He was relatively casually dressed, no medal-weighted uniform, but he mo
ved jerkily, perhaps because he was not in control of where he was going. An experienced aide-de-camp in a white uniform led him around.
The noise level resumed after a while and the approximately three hundred returned to the gossip and easy chatter so characteristic of an event such as this. Sometimes, however, faces lit up with a genuine joy, old friends reunited.
A handful of photographers circulated in the crowd, but mostly around the king and those who had managed to capture his attention. It was obvious that the goal for many was to be photographed with the famous guest.
‘A spectacle,’ Jan Svensk commented to a co-worker.
‘And we get bread,’ the latter said, skillfully snatching a toothpick-pierced morsel from a passing plate.
A number of people from the Swedish Trade Council were gathered in a circle like a flock of schoolboys, one peal of laughter ringing out after another.
It was a relaxed atmosphere. Young and old jostled at the bar, Indians and Swedes, like gnus at the watering hole.
The king was led around, a strained, somewhat uncertain smile on his lips.
‘Poor man,’ someone said.
‘He probably would like nothing better than to have a drink and take it easy,’ said a young woman, whom Jan Svensk had noticed already when she arrived.
He approached the group she belonged to, and looked to see if he could spot anyone in her midst that he recognised.
An Indian man, dressed in what appeared to be a down jacket and a long kurta, and his friend, with a narrow face, thin moustache, and kind eyes, were introduced to the king. Jan Svensk drew closer in order to listen in. They turned out to be theatre people from Mysore.
A man with a blond crew cut, wearing a Nehru jacket, was explaining their work to the king.
‘Ah, children’s theatre,’ the regent said finally.
The men nodded and smiled.
‘Very good,’ the king said, and then that audience was over.
Jan Svensk drew back, mingled, but mostly longed for the buffet. An old acquaintance, whom Svensk had got to know when they worked together at Arcore but had not seen since then, came over and thumped him on the back.
‘It wasn’t exactly yesterday,’ he said.
Svensk examined his former colleague. He was one of the ones who had sold in time. It was rumoured that his profit was close to 70 million kronor. He was the same, the same smile and boyish appearance. But Svensk would never again allow himself to be taken in by such appearances. He had lost some of those kronor.
‘Feeding at the trough, I see,’ Svensk said.
‘Of course,’ his former colleague replied. ‘What are you up to these days?’
Svensk suddenly felt that he had no desire to discuss what he had done since they last met, not what he was up to, nor what he was doing in Bangalore, not anything actually that had to do with work.
‘Various things,’ he said.
‘Good stuff,’ his former colleague said, and sailed off. The message had gone through.
Elise, he thought, you should be here. An unexpected longing for her made him withdraw, back up for a party crossing his path, and set his sights on the buffet that had not yet been opened up. Then he went around and read from the small labels what was hiding under the well-polished lids.
‘Hungry?’ he heard a woman say behind his back, and he was taken with the thought that it was the young woman he had spied earlier and he turned expectantly.
Before him stood a woman in her sixties. She was wearing a light blue sari folded around her generous body.
‘Well, well,’ he said.
‘I don’t recognise you,’ she went on.
He pulled out the same old story again, for God knows which time, who he was and why he had come to Bangalore.
‘Gunlög Billström,’ she said, introducing herself. ‘I belong to the residents. I was “bangalored” long before most of the others.’
‘How long have you lived here?’
‘In India almost eighteen years, in Bangalore fourteen.’
‘Then you know most of the Swedes in the city?’
‘It is my area,’ she said with a smile. ‘I am the one who keeps tabs on the colonials.’
‘Sven-Arne Persson?’ he said.
The woman shook her head and her large earrings rattled.
‘From Uppsala. Around sixty, tall, fairly thin …’
A new shake.
‘He may have been here ten years.’
‘Strange,’ she said.
‘I thought you kept tabs on everyone,’ Svensk teased.
His comment had the desired effect. He saw her make an effort to play out the role she had laid claim to.
‘What does he do?’
‘I’ve no idea. He disappeared from Uppsala some ten, twelve years ago. I think it was 1993. Without a trace. And now I saw him here yesterday.’
‘That sounds exciting. A man who disappears.’
‘He was a county commissioner in Uppsala.’
The woman took a step closer. ‘Where did you see him?’
‘At Koshy’s.’
‘Strange,’ she repeated.
Then the lids to the food came off and the human wave that welled forth came between them. He saw her grab hold of a plate and be carried off by the race to the dishes that caused the ravenous masses to stream over to Svensk’s side of the festively lit ballroom. In the background, the Adolf Fredrik Boys’ Choir was singing ‘Uti Vår Hage’. The sound of talking in the room had died down. The focus was now on the food. Jan Svensk lingered in the background for a while observing the action, although he was very hungry. He exchanged a glance with the kitchen staff and they smiled at each other.
When the worst of the rush was over, he took a plate and helped himself to the delicacies.
When the time was approaching eleven, the crowd had thinned considerably. The king had retired. A couple of Svensk’s colleagues were standing around the bar, but he did not feel like joining them. It was enough with work during the day.
Gunlög Billström had also stayed behind. She was talking with the Swedish ambassador and the general consul of Chennai. Their gazes met and it made Svensk think of something important.
He approached the trio of women.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, and it was only the wine that allowed him to be so forward.
He introduced himself, told the ambassador and consul that he was looking for a Swedish man, missing for many years, and then turned to Gunlög Billström.
‘There was a piece of information I forgot to give you. Sven-Arne Persson is wall-eyed.’
‘Wall-eyed?’
‘Cross-eyed, only his eyes go in different directions,’ Svensk clarified.
‘Oh, then I know!’ Billström exclaimed. ‘I have seen him. It was at Lal Bagh. An extraordinary thing.’
She grabbed his arm, looking from the ambassador to the consul, and nodded enthusiastically, clearly satisfied to be someone who knew what was going on, before she turned her attention back to Svensk.
The ambassador and consul took the opportunity to slip away.
‘You see, it was perhaps three years ago. I was walking in Lal Bagh …’
‘What is Lal Bagh?’ Svensk interrupted.
‘The botanical gardens. I was there with a couple of girlfriends and then we see a man who is standing in some kind of thicket. Maybe it was bamboo, I don’t know. In the middle of that mess, with a big knife in his hand, or perhaps a saw, hacking wildly around him. It looked very funny. Suddenly, just as we were walking past, he called out. In Swedish! As you can guess, I was flabbergasted. A worker at Lal Bagh who speaks Swedish, can you imagine?’
‘What did he say?’
Gunlög Billström lowered her voice. ‘He said “Fucking hell.” He had cut his arm, not anything serious from what I understood, but there was some blood. We stopped and one of my friends asked him if he was all right.’
‘In Swedish?’
‘No, no, she is Indian. She was speaking
English, not fluently of course, but fully comprehensible English. He was very polite, thanked her for her concern, and explained that it was a minor laceration. He actually used the Swedish word “a minor blessyr”.’
‘Did you talk to him?’
‘No, I did not want to embarrass him by speaking Swedish.’
Jan Svensk sensed that it was she who had felt embarrassed by a fellow countryman doing simple gardening.
‘What did he look like?’
‘He was cockeyed. We commented on it afterwards. My friends said they were convinced he must have some kind of special task, perhaps something to do with research.’
‘Because he was cockeyed, or because he was a Westerner?’
‘Oh, something like that.’
‘Can you describe him?’
‘Fifty or sixty, quite tall and lanky. He was stuck in all that greenery so it is hard to say. He was barefoot but his sandals were placed next to the bushes. I thought that would have been strange if he was a researcher. Surely they don’t work in bare feet?’
‘No,’ Svensk agreed, ‘I wouldn’t think that would be usual. You haven’t seen him on any other occasions?’
‘No, strangely enough. I have been to Lal Bagh many times since, but have never bumped into him again. I have not wanted to ask for him, either. It seemed intrusive.’
Jan Svensk asked where the garden was located.
‘It is so pleasant to walk there, in Cubbon Park also for that matter. But especially in the morning. Of course, I don’t like all the doves.’
Jan Svensk laughed.
‘But,’ Gunlög Billström resumed, while she carefully but deliberately placed her arm around Jan Svensk’s back and guided him to a calmer part of the room where they sank down into armchairs, ‘is there something mysterious about him? I mean, is he a fugitive from justice?’
‘Not that I know. He just disappeared.’
‘Was it love?’
The Hand that Trembles Page 5