Stockholm Noir

by Nathan Larson

  Klas listened. He accepted a vegetarian dinner, and watched while she sliced and diced with intense energy as she simultaneously flipped on the TV. Turned out her evening entertainment was cooking programs, and her major passion was root vegetables. Chopped beets, sliced carrots, diced rutabagas.

  Klas thought about the hot pink suitcase and realized he wasn’t in love. She told him her name, but he knew he’d always think of her as the Ditz.

  Still, three weeks later they were a couple. Six weeks later he moved in with her.

  It was the apartment he’d fallen for.

  Not the one in Kallhäll, obviously, but the big one on Strandvägen. Her grandfather’s apartment, which the Ditz was going to inherit. And after two months Klas got to see it himself when the major general invited them to dinner.

  It was magnificent. Five large rooms on the fifth floor with gorgeous stucco work and a wide balcony that looked over the docks and the water. A century-old parade apartment. A bit dark and dusty, but that was easy to fix—just a matter of tossing all the old furniture, polishing up the parquet, and painting the walls white.

  Klas wanted to live there, absolutely. He saw himself walking around the apartment in a Turkish robe, alone (the Ditz was missing from this particular fantasy), saw himself standing out on the balcony with a cappuccino and studying the street life down below. In the center. High above the rest of the world, far away from Kallhäll . . .

  He opened his eyes and studied the Ditz’s grandfather. The major general sat in a wheelchair at the dining table, looking like a tattered crow in a cardigan with a bent neck and a croaking voice. His hand trembled as he lifted a large brandy glass. Now and then he threw a severe glance at the wall clock. Did he want them to leave?

  “No, Grandfather’s just a little time crazy,” the Ditz told him on the train ride back to Kallhäll. “His routine is always the same, year round. At half past eight he rolls out on the balcony to make sure the Swedish flag has been hoisted up on Kastellholmen, so he knows that we aren’t at war. At ten the home help comes and drops off lunch and at twelve he eats. At one he has a glass of brandy. And he listens to the news on the radio all day . . .”

  “Does he ever go out?” Klas asked.

  “Only out onto the stairwell,” the Ditz said. “He rolls out at three thirty to water the fig tree.”

  Klas remembered that tree—it stood in a large limestone pot outside her grandfather’s door. He nodded at the Ditz and pondered.

  * * *

  He decided to become more punctual.

  Every morning, after having met the Ditz’s grandfather, he went into the city earlier than he needed to and headed down to Strandvägen. Just before eight thirty, he stood on Strandvägen in the shelter of some trees and observed the windows of 13B.

  The Ditz was right: her grandfather was like a cuckoo clock. At exactly eight thirty the balcony door opened and the major general rolled out in his wheelchair. Five minutes later the door shut again.

  Like a fucking cuckoo clock. And this suggested that he was equally punctual the rest of the day too.

  With his eyes locked on the apartment’s high window one morning, Klas decided what he was going to do.

  * * *

  It was a Thursday like any other that he took the cap and gloves to work at Sailor Store. Later that afternoon he complained of a sudden migraine and went into the staff room to rest. He carefully locked the door, but didn’t make it onto the couch; the store had a back door and he used it to sneak out.

  Out on the sidewalk he glanced at the clock; it was 3:18. The day was cloudy, but there was no rain in the air.

  He started across the dry asphalt. He didn’t run, but took long strides. Down to Strandvägen.

  Six minutes later he was at the door of 13B. It was locked, but he had memorized the code the Ditz had punched in.

  Half a minute later he stood inside the dark stairwell and pulled on his gloves and cap. He listened anxiously for any sound. Everybody was at work, everything was still. And so was he, after he’d snuck up the wide marble steps.

  At 3:28 Klas reached the second floor and listened again. The stairwell was silent, all the apartment doors were shut.

  A minute later he stood in the dark on the fourth floor. Waiting.

  At exactly 3:30 he heard a door open on the fifth floor. The old man coughed. A soft creaking noise, the sound of rubber wheels rolling across the stone floor.

  Klas clenched his jaw. He summoned the old rattling elevator up from the first floor so that the racket would cover any other noises. Then he started up to the fifth floor.

  Now he could see the wheelchair on the landing right above him; the back of a naked head visible. The Ditz’s grandfather was hunched over in his chair, facing away from Klas.

  The major general mumbled to himself as he fiddled with his fig tree. The chair’s back wheels were only a few inches from the top step.

  The elevator continued to rattle. All the doors were shut. Klas was set.

  Now.

  He stepped up with an outstretched hand, grasped the wheelchair’s steel rim, and quickly jerked it back in one sharp move. The wheels went over the marble edge, the whole chair tipped back. Klas stepped aside and saw the major general’s hands flap like startled birds in the air. He fell down, the back of his head first, his body somersaulting down the stairs, landing with a low thud at the bottom.

  Klas didn’t even glance at the old man. He stopped the wheelchair’s fall so it didn’t make a loud clatter, climbed the stairs, and dragged the heavy stone pot toward him.

  Turning around with the pot in his hands, he saw that the major general was still alive. He’d landed on his back with his head to the side. Klas bent over him, balancing the stone pot on the stair right above the old man’s wrinkled brow.

  The Ditz’s grandfather recognized him; when their eyes met he understood exactly what Klas was about to do; he opened his mouth and let out a terrified breath of cognac. However, no cry for help could escape before Klas let the stone pot fall. The pot’s edge struck its target perfectly, causing the major general to shudder one last time.

  Klas was finished here. He stood and fled. The elevator had since stopped on the fourth floor, but he took the steps in long strides. The stairwell remained empty the whole way down to the bottom floor. No one had heard or seen a thing. He stripped off the cap and gloves on the fly.

  Out through the door, out onto the street. Look relaxed now, not hounded.

  He was back at work five minutes later—it was only 3:43. He entered through Sailor Store’s back door, stepped into the shop, and told the boss that he felt better.

  His boss looked him over. “Are you sure? You seem sweaty.”

  Klas smiled quickly and wiped his forehead. “Just a slight fever.”

  * * *

  At five thirty that evening he headed home to Kallhäll, where the Ditz stood slicing beets.

  Klas closed his eyes and kissed her neck. Then he sat next to the TV, awaiting the vile veggie meal. And, obviously, anxiously waiting for the telephone to ring with a call from Stockholm.

  And so it did late that evening. It was a death report, a tragic fall down the stairwell, an accident that sometimes happens to old men, especially when there is alcohol in their system. The police didn’t suspect any foul play, and Klas wrapped his arms around his sobbing girlfriend and sighed.

  The reading of the will was held eight days later, and the Ditz took the commuter train alone to the lawyer’s office. She had several handkerchiefs with her, she was still grieving.

  Three hours later she arrived back in Kallhäll, her eyes red-rimmed, and immediately began slicing and dicing in the kitchen.

  Klas joined her at the sink and quietly asked: “How did it go, sweetheart?”

  “Good,” she said softly.

  “Did they read the will?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re inheriting . . . ?”

  “Yes . . .”

  Klas closed h
is eyes in the narrow kitchen and felt nearly intoxicated by success; he was tired, he’d slept poorly this last week, but he saw an enormous apartment with a broad balcony before him. Mine, he thought.

  “. . . and my cousins.”

  “What did you say?”

  “My cousins and I are to inherit everything,” said the Ditz. “It was cool to see them again.” Her voice actually sounded a little happier now. The beets were chopped, she began to mash them in a glass bowl.

  “What cousins?” asked Klas.

  “My mother’s brother’s kids,” she replied, smiling.

  He stared at her, didn’t smile back. “You said he was alone. That you were all he had.”

  “Grandfather? Yeah, he was totally alone. I mean, my cousins are only teenagers . . . Obviously, they didn’t come by so often. They were too young for that—”

  “Where do they live?” Klas interrupted. “Here in Stockholm?”

  “Live?”

  “You have to tell me where they live. I want an address.”

  Just teenagers, he thought. Teenagers don’t sit in wheelchairs and they hardly drink cognac, but they can still meet bad ends. Get run over by a car, or pushed from a ferry.

  Klas stepped closer to the Ditz. “I’ll take care of it. We’ll make it out . . .”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He nodded toward the kitchen window, toward the forest beyond. “. . . out of here. We’ll move into the city. You’ll inherit everything, the whole apartment . . . just like I planned for you.”

  The Ditz stared at him, confused. “Grandfather fell,” she said softly.

  “It was no accident,” Klas said. “I was there . . . Don’t you get it, you fucking ditz?”

  She shook her head blankly.

  Finally, Klas snapped. There was no reason to smack her—but suddenly he’d done it, right across her face so that she fell back against the sink. No reason, but it felt good. Klas stepped forward and raised his hand again.

  The Ditz shrieked, lifted her hands protectively, and reached for something. At first Klas didn’t know what it was, but then he saw that it was one of the knives from the counter, the chef’s knife.

  “Drop it!”

  He threw himself at the Ditz, tried to twist the knife from her hand; they danced around the long kitchen sink and knocked over the bowl of beets. Klas slipped on the mash with his arms around the Ditz and hit the floor beneath her—hard.

  He tried to push her off him and get up; the only thought in his brain was: Where the fuck did the chef’s knife go?

  Then he felt an icy weight in his breast and knew the answer.

  * * *

  Anna Nyman couldn’t have been happier in Kallhäll. She loved the forest and the birds and the close proximity to Mälaren. She appreciated the health center and the senior get-togethers at the Munktell Museum and the little square with all the shops. She’d lived on Bondegatan in Stockholm for many years and had moved out here to retire, away from the noise and congestion, and it felt like the powers-that-be in Kallhäll had done all they could to make her comfortable.

  Her only problem was with some of her neighbors. Sometimes they played their music too loud, and some weekends you could hear fighting. Up until now, the young couple in the apartment right next to hers had been quiet; but this evening loud voices came through the wall.

  Then it got worse; Anna heard an insane shriek and the sound of shattering glass. After that it was quiet for a few seconds and then the outer door opened. Heavy steps staggered out into the hallway. Someone summoned the elevator up from the ground floor, but didn’t get in.

  Anna cautiously opened her door. She glimpsed someone in the hallway. It was the young man from the neighboring apartment, slouched against the wall. He stared at her with heavy lids, and then stumbled toward the elevator and slowly lifted his hand, but seemed unable to open the steel door.

  Anna went outside to help and it was only when she’d opened the door fully that she saw the neighbor’s white shirt was shredded. Red splotches were spread across the breast.

  “What happened?” Anna asked.

  Without answering, the man stumbled into the elevator and collapsed onto the floor.

  Anna followed and bent over him. He looked around, slowly opened his mouth: “Where am I?”

  “You’re home,” Anna said. “In Kallhäll.”

  He coughed blood and began to laugh to himself, and almost immediately the floor beneath them shook. The elevator began to descend.

  “There now, stay calm.” Anna took the man’s hand and tried to comfort him, but he closed his eyes like she didn’t exist.

  “Still in Kallhäll . . .” he mumbled, and laughed and coughed blood onto the elevator floor, the entire way down into darkness.

  The Smugglers

  BY MARTIN HOLMÉN

  Rörstrandsgatan

  Translated by Laura A. Wideburg

  Twilight comes on quickly.

  The pub is housed in a small shed in the back courtyard, not far from Rörstrands porcelain factory. The dank premises measure barely thirty square meters. Black smoke is thick on the walls and across from the door a scratched wooden bar runs down the long side of the room. On the far end of the counter, a tiger-striped tomcat with scarred ears sits cleaning his fur with slow strokes of his tongue.

  Behind the counter, there is a man wearing a soiled apron over his protruding stomach. He runs his hand through his enormous walrus mustache. One of his thumbnails is missing.

  The fire crackles in the cast-iron heater in the corner. From the building across the Vikingagatan comes the furious song of the riveting machines from the porcelain factory. Their monotonous clatter is broken by the dull thump of four bronze candlesticks hitting the surface of the bar counter.

  “Light is on the house.”

  The bartender strikes a match and lights the candles. He’s set the candlesticks down between two men sitting at the bar. They both wear blue shirts and the heavy vests of rock blasters. The older man is carrying a trowel in his belt as if it were a weapon. Their wooden clogs are spattered with white mortar. The younger man nods listlessly, his elbow on the counter. He’s holding a three-cornered schnapps glass in one hand. It’s empty.

  The back door creaks, and a girl, her blond hair in a bun, enters. Cobwebs stick to her knitted cardigan. She wears wool socks with her clogs and carries a wicker potato basket filled to the brim with sawdust.

  “Make sure you do a better job than last time! Spread the stuff out all the way to the corners!”

  The bartender shakes out the match and puts it back into its box. The girl nods and with a rustling sound she shakes the sawdust over the floor. She works methodically from one side of the room to the other. She kicks the sawdust under the tables and chairs. The men at the bar follow her movements in silence. The scent of resin and fresh shavings fills the room.

  In the corner, beneath a warped rectangular window, a woman sits at a table and the grease stains on her wide-brimmed hat gleam in the grainy, fading light that comes through the dirty, lead-rimmed panes. She’s darkened her eyebrows with burnt cork and black flecks have fallen onto her eyelashes. Her lips are painted red. She holds a cigarette between her fingers. On the table, there’s a pack of Bridge and a broken white enamel cup holds a number of cigarette butts stained with red lipstick.

  As the girl with the basket of sawdust approaches, the woman shifts her skirt aside and lifts her high-heeled, worn-out, lace-up boots—she’s not wearing stockings. A large bruise shows on her pale calf. The girl looks away as she kicks the last of the sawdust beneath the woman’s chair.

  “Well, what a shrinking violet we have here! Don’t worry, soon she’ll be making a living with her legs in the air too, just wait and see.” Slurred, but loud, the woman’s voice cuts through the clatter of the machines. The men at the bar hold back their laughter, but their shoulders shake. The younger man slaps the older one on the arm. The girl says nothing. She makes her way quickly o
ver the sawdust and sets the basket by the back door. She looks down, smoothing her apron with both hands.

  The front door opens and the leather curtain made of pigskin is pushed aside with a swish. The flames of the candles flicker in the draft. The men at the bar turn around. The tomcat pauses in his cleaning, his tongue halfway out of his mouth.

  The sawdust crunches under heavy soles as the youth walks into the room. He’s wearing a sailor’s cap that seems to be a few sizes too large. He hides his mouth behind his hand as he glances around. Fish scales glisten on the frayed sleeves of his jacket.

  He chooses the table farthest from the door and pulls out a chair. Beneath his slight blond mustache, his upper lip has a cleft that stretches halfway along his nose. The edges are pale pink. His yellowed front teeth show through the gap.

  He sits down with his back to the wall, facing the door. The girl comes to him with a schnapps glass and an unmarked bottle. She shows him the bottle and the youth nods. The girl quietly fills the glass to the rim. The oily surface of the liquid glimmers as she strikes a match and lights the candle on the table. She is already turning away when the youth raises his hand. She stands silently, holding the bottle in the crook of her arm.

  The young man grips the narrow stem of the glass with three fingers and lifts it up a few millimeters before setting it back down on the table. He closes his eyes. His chest heaves twice. Then, in one swift movement, he brings the glass to his lips and drinks it all down. He grins crookedly with his mangled lips. The girl pulls the cork from the bottle with a plop and he nods. She fills it to the brim again before he waves her away.

  The front door opens again; the leather curtain is drawn aside and the breeze makes the flames of the candles dance. One flickers out. A black line of smoke drifts toward the ceiling. The cat jumps softly down onto the sawdust. He lifts one of his forepaws and shakes it slightly before he heads toward the door. He slides between the newcomer’s well-polished leather boots and disappears outside. The constant clatter of machines stops suddenly when the whistle of the factory signals the end of the workday.