The Swede: A Novel

by Robert Karjel

  GZ: We can come back to that later.

  RK: No, no, the doctors have specifically pointed out my need for structure. The brain damage, the slurring, the memory—after so many operations, structure is the sole path to rehabilitation. Before I am strapped down for the final injection, that is. Given this, we must finish what we started. I believe I was born in Peshawar, because that is what is written in my passport. Can anyone have a reason to question that? And my answer should be consistent with all my other answers to this question. I thought you had given up long ago, Gordon?

  SF: It was I who asked Gordon to ask you again.

  RK: He could have given you the answer.

  SF: We have not been able to trace any members of your family.

  RK: No, you say that, and I do not remember them. Now what was your second question, Shauna?

  GZ: Ms. Friedman is the proper form of address, Reza.

  RK: [An angry scream.] Half my brain is gone, and you give me this shit!

  GZ: Sit down, Reza.

  RK: You heard the doctors, we have gotten sidetracked. Focus! I need to focus.

  SF: I’m wondering about the others you were with, do you remember them?

  RK: [Breathless.] Right, the others. You have not worked very much with those who have investigated this, right, Shauna? With Gordon here and all the others. [Silence.] My memories of the past few years are like scattered pieces of a puzzle—I cannot tell them apart and many are missing. I can speak perfectly well, except for the slur, but I hardly know who I am. Certainly, I remember many different people, and Gordon and others from the FBI have patiently tried to sort out those that are of particular interest. They are certainly noted in the reports.

  SF: I’ve read some of them.

  RK: I think they are interested in a tall man with large glasses, and also someone with an animal tattoo. Perhaps a monkey, perhaps a dog, perhaps the tattoo is located on the back. Then there is Adderloy, the only name I remember, Bill Adderloy. He is an older man with a beard, a very unpleasant man with a beard. He sometimes carries a cane. It has a handle carved like an animal skull. You would only need to hear his voice, the kind of voice that persuades people to do almost anything. Adderloy is as dangerous as the devil himself. [Silence.] Certainly there are one or two other people, but we have not had much luck with them, right? Also, two or three in the group spoke English with an accent. That should make four including me, perhaps.

  SF: Is that all?

  RK: There were also two brothers dressed in white. But they turned out to be the owners of the restaurant across from the house where I was arrested. I cannot help it, my mind. Blame it on the damn police officer, he said he was aiming at the legs but shot me in the head.

  [Silence.]

  RK: Does it surprise you that I am cooperating? I feel no guilt for the crimes I am convicted of, I do not remember them. I am just convinced that a few of these people are very dangerous, certainly Adderloy. That is the only feeling I carry with me from what happened, that they would be capable of killing any number of people.

  SF: What about pictures?

  RK: You mean of people. Are there any?

  SF: What do you think about this one?

  RK: Oh, I recognize him.

  SF: Is he one of them?

  RK: He might well be. He might also be a taxi driver I encountered at some point, or a movie star, or a former neighbor.

  SF: It’s not a movie star. We think he was with you. Do you know his name?

  RK: No idea.

  SF: Do you remember where you met him?

  RK: No idea.

  [Silence.]

  RK: However, I think that he is Swedish.

  CHAPTER 14

  February 7, 2005

  DURING THE POLICE INVESTIGATION THAT followed, it became clear that the Weejay group did not meet up again until they’d reached Toronto. An itemized credit card receipt from a hotel bar showed: Scotch, mojito, Bloody Mary, and a Coca-Cola.

  Vladislav had, as usual, turned the drink menu inside out, and then asked the waitress, “What’s in style?”

  “Now?” It was morning. “A Bloody Mary, I guess.”

  “Is it colored?”

  She didn’t know what to say. “It has tomato in it.”

  “As in, food?”

  N. sighed and raised his hand as a stop sign. “It’ll be fine, he’ll have one.” He waved off the waitress. N. had left last and traveled farthest, via Tokyo and Vancouver, and he was wrestling with his jet lag.

  When the drinks arrived, Vladislav took out the celery stalk, which baffled him, and emptied half his glass. Mary wanted only water. N. sipped his Scotch and then sat motionless, leaning his head against the corner. He opened his eyes when someone spoke, sucking on an ice cube.

  Adderloy had picked the route each would take to Toronto. Since it was his money, no one had questioned him. “Getting to Canada, that’s the way into America” was all he said. They’d been separated, fanned out, each with a stack of tickets, reunited a little more than a week later.

  Adderloy got to the bar first, was already on his second drink. He smiled and told little stories about his trip. But every time he drank from the tall glass, he looked around nervously. Reza was still missing.

  Vladislav was busy again with the waitress, trying to order a meal. Said he wanted something with fruit or fries. He’d made it to Toronto via a longer stop in South Africa. His stubble was several days old—he seemed to be growing a beard.

  Another of Adderloy’s instructions had been to buy new clothes. “Get whatever you need,” he’d said before they left, handing them enough dollars to cover it. By then, Vladislav was down to ragged shorts and an undershirt. Now he sat in a shiny brown leather jacket so new that it squeaked. Paisley shirt, black pants. No trace of the tourist, bohemian, or whatever he’d been at Weejay’s. Mary was more familiar, even if her smoky eye shadow was neater. A new black dress, thin sandals with straps up the calves. Didn’t fit the season, but it suited Mary.

  Every time N. opened his eyes, he looked at her. They’d nearly tripped over each other an hour before in a hotel hallway. For a moment, they stood like strangers. He wasn’t expecting to see her, and she looked at him as if he were dead. As if she wasn’t expecting to see him again—ever. But then, he’d been the one who’d hesitated the most over Adderloy’s scheme. The awkwardness had lasted only a second, then they made polite conversation. She’d asked to see his arms, how the scars had healed.

  Now she slowly rocked the glass of water between her fingers, with her usual nonchalance. She smiled at him, but only with her mouth.

  Vladislav was served one plate with a sliced orange, another with what appeared to be hunks of fried fish.

  Reza appeared. Looked around disoriented, as if the fact that everyone in the bar immediately noticed him had made him incapable of recognizing people. Blood-red Converses, white jeans. A black jacket with thin white stripes and oversize lapels. Inspired by the centerfold of some fashion magazine no one was supposed to take seriously. The jacket obviously expensive, the sunglasses too.

  Vladislav laughed—that was how Reza found them. N. waited for Adderloy’s reaction, surprised that all he said was “Welcome!” His expression made N. realize Reza was the one Adderloy most wanted to see again.

  Reza sat down, looked around the room. Vladislav reached out to feel his short, newly bleached hair. Reza gave him an annoyed look, looked at the others around the table, and took off his sunglasses.

  “What?” he said. No one answered. “Airport security fucked with me as usual, otherwise it was no problem. None.”

  “A Coke,” he told the waitress, who was heading over. She turned around. “I’ve been here three days,” he added, taking a fried piece from Vladislav’s plate. “Toronto makes me nervous, it is too perfect.” He took a bite. “When do we leave?”

  “Soon enough,” replied Adderloy, “maybe in a few days.”

  “Soon enough,” repeated Reza low, as if he had already
forgotten his own question.

  N. saw that his eyes were bloodshot.

  There was silence for a moment. Reza’s Coke arrived.

  “Look,” said Adderloy, taking out newspapers from a briefcase that he’d left on the floor. There were papers from Kansas City, Wichita, and other cities in the Midwest, one from Dallas, and also the New York Times. Adderloy flipped through the pages and showed them articles from the past weeks. Photos from where the tsunami had hit, but also images from inside a church, where the minister who made N. flinch stood smiling among the pews. He beamed with self-satisfaction. “We have saved Sodom and Gomorrah, driven out Satan’s demons.” It was unclear whether the newspapers took a stand for or against. The only critical voice was an opinion piece clipped from the New York Times. There was also a picture of a desperate Asian woman—reportedly, she had lost all her children. “Another two million dollars,” said the newspapers that interviewed the minister at his church, “that’s all it takes to find final salvation.”

  “Turnbull’s minions collect the money,” explained Adderloy, “and organize demonstrations, make flyers, and take care of everything else that’s going on right now.”

  “Those bastards will stop at nothing,” said N.

  “Why would they?” replied Adderloy. “It’s not in their nature.”

  “Then we will behave the same,” said Reza.

  Adderloy started picking up the newspapers. “But let’s not talk about that now. It’s time to start making plans.”

  He pointed to a real estate ad in one of the newspapers: “It looks like Charles-Ray hasn’t been doing so hot—forced to sell off all the land he owned outside of Topeka. The pockets of the crazy minister and his Westhill Baptist Church will soon be empty. But we—we are going to rob a bank for them.”

  There was silence around the table. The words, now that they were out, seemed to echo. Vladislav was the first to regain speech.

  “What about weapons?” he said, without looking up from the orange slice he’d just bitten off.

  Mary looked around, but no one else seemed to have heard him. N. felt hot, uneasy.

  “We’re all here now, that’s the important thing,” said Adderloy.

  N. sucked up another piece of ice. The whisky had made him nauseous.

  “Ideally MP5s,” said Vladislav, picking a seed from his mouth.

  N. sat, closed his eyes again, and winced when Vladislav nudged him, pointing to the bowl of sugar packets.

  “MP5s?” asked Reza.

  “Submachine guns,” replied Adderloy, eyeing someone who walked past their table. Vladislav tore the corner off a bag and sprinkled an untouched slice of orange.

  Another four days in Toronto. They ate well, but always separately. Didn’t socialize, stayed at different hotels, while Adderloy prepared something. N. rarely left his room, surfed cable channels, ordered room service for breakfast and lunch, and forced himself to get dinner at some tavern he’d found in the yellow pages. Left most of it on the plate, before he took a taxi back through the night. He was surprised by his emptiness; it was only when he flipped past a TV evangelist that he felt something, a moment of confused rage.

  He would get revenge for his girls, under Adderloy’s scheme. After that, whatever miserable scrap remained of his life wouldn’t matter.

  On television, the same news over and over: shattered cars, bodies, women screaming. Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan. The weather never seemed to change: cloudy in Singapore, a hundred and four degrees in Cairo, risk of thunderstorms in Topeka. N. went to sleep, woke up, noticed the time passing only from the television’s red digital numbers.

  They met in the garage of Adderloy’s hotel. Three cars, still wet from the rental agency. Adderloy handed out keys, maps, new cell phones. They piled in and headed out into the daylight. Mary had to travel alone—three adults in a car might look unusual, demand an explanation.

  Border crossing, half an hour between each car. They decided to blend in with the stream of tourists and commuters crossing the Rainbow Bridge at Niagara Falls. At border control, traffic was bumper-to-bumper, but they kept slowly advancing, like cars on an assembly line. Beyond the concrete and guardrails, mist rose up from the cauldron of the falls. Sign after sign listed the border control rules. Vladislav sat and smoked beside N. in the car. Uniformed people everywhere: creased shirts over body armor, sunglasses, weapons—a short greeting, a few questions. Then a row of poles with the star-spangled banner, and the cars in front of them took off and disappeared one by one. Nothing more, it was that quick. They’d made it. Then back on the highway, south again toward Buffalo. Vladislav both drove and handled the cell, sending text messages, receiving answers. “Even Reza is through,” he said, snapping a new butt out the side window. Half an hour later they’d reached the ring road around the city and made it to the airport. A pimply Mexican complained about the smell of smoke when they returned the rental car. Vladislav pushed him a few smooth notes.

  Check-in, boarding passes, a quick coffee on the go, coins in the plastic bowl, belts off before the X-rays and metal detectors. They still traveled two and two, with Mary ahead and by herself. Buffalo—Chicago—Kansas City. The last flight was delayed, and Vladislav and N. landed at dusk. They got another rental for the last stretch to Topeka. It started pouring rain as soon as they got out of the parking lot, and for sixty miles on the Kansas Turnpike, the wipers barely kept up. Evening lights shone around them in the watery darkness.

  The cell phone rang. Vladislav answered and said they were on their way. At an Exxon gas station the rain stopped suddenly, leaving a silence that was almost uncomfortable. Plains extending either side. The total emptiness between Kansas City and Topeka.

  To find the address in Topeka, they’d been given a hand-drawn map. It wasn’t hard to follow; Mary had written down all the details. The street they were on was the right one, but it didn’t feel like a place where anyone would live. Old brick buildings stood tall and black in the dark, along a street of uneven cobblestones with patches of asphalt. They passed facades with rows of windows, but without seeing a light in any of them. Low steel doors with thick layers of paint, sometimes a shiny new padlock. It was hard to tell where one building ended and another began; everywhere there were alleys, courtyards, exterior staircases, overhanging structures. High above, steel beams jutted out like cranes; silhouettes suggested outmoded machinery in a courtyard. Not many lights, only random ones above facades and in elevated windows. Still, there were a few parked cars, and on a side street a beer sign shone outside a small pizzeria or maybe a store.

  “Number forty-four,” said N., and pointed.

  The entire first floor was glass, hundreds of windows divided into small panes—unmistakably an old factory. None of the panes were broken, and somewhere inside they could see diffuse light. Vladislav and N., carrying their bags, looked for the entrance and found the door that would be open, among a long row of doors.

  Inside, the building had a pleasant echo. Factory halls led off in both directions, with badly worn wood floors. Red-painted steel beams formed regular columns between floor and ceiling. A few lights shone like beacons from thick wire cages. The halls were clean, and the place was completely empty.

  Vladislav and N. found the staircase noted in their directions and groped along the walls for a button. Fluorescent tubes flickered on, and, squinting in the harsh light, they started climbing. Three floors up, through a heavy metal door, then down a stale-smelling hallway with a curling, threadbare carpet. The hallway ended at a gray door with a small tempered-glass window at eye level. Where the mail slot would normally be was a piece of paper that read “Mary.”

  “Welcome.” It was Mary herself who opened. “You turned off the light in the staircase?”

  N. nodded.

  They stood in a large open space, everything around them suggesting an old factory of some kind. It smelled strange.

  “There was a soap factory here once,” said Mary. “The stuff seeped into the f
loors.”

  The floorboards were dark, with an oily shine. At the bottom of a short stairway stood Adderloy, leafing through a magazine. Around him was furniture, scattered along the walls. It looked like a stage set, with wide gaps between the pieces. A single gas stove without a counter beside it, a blue couch that broke up the monotony of the worn brown brick walls, a few odd bookshelves, some equally odd chairs around a table. There, where Vladislav and N. had entered, the ceiling was low, while above Adderloy it rose as high as in a church. In the other direction from the door stretched a long, wide corridor. There the light was dimmer, and one could see no end to the row of plain doors.

  Mary made a gesture with her hand. “Your bedrooms are down that way, as many as you want.” She moved hesitantly, as if she herself did not quite feel at home yet.

  “Is this your house?” asked Vladislav, looking quizzically at the ceiling, which was a jumble of dusty pipes.

  “No,” she replied. “The guy who owns it just wants someone in the building. It costs me nothing.”

  “Nothing?”

  “No, as long as I keep out of sight when the authorities come here to inspect.”

  “They can’t find their way up here, can they?” said N.

  They went down the little stairway. At the bottom Reza got up from a chair they hadn’t been able to see from above.

  “What happened—why did they keep you?” he asked.

  “Nobody kept anybody,” said Vladislav. “The flight was just delayed.”

  Reza sat down again. He looked tired, and seemed to be annoyed by something. “You are also foreigners,” he said.

  “Did they mess with you?”

  “It is only in New York that nobody stares.”

  “I’m Czech, you’re Pakistani,” said Vladislav. “What the hell do you expect?”

  “I mean”—Reza pulled at his shirt as if he was too hot—“it is the only place in the world where no one stares at anyone.”

  “Is that supposed to be a good thing?”

  Adderloy was still reading his newspaper. N. sat down on the couch and looked absentmindedly at a mounted fish head, placed on the table for decoration. Hundreds of tiny barbed hooks spilling out of its mouth.