After the Monsoon

by Robert Karjel

  Then silence. It was the same thing every week: for about an hour, no one kept an eye on the family. But escape wasn’t much of a temptation, not with the landscape around them shimmering in the heat. It was the time of day when Jenny had the hardest time resisting the urge to drink all the water in the bucket, and when Sebastian mostly lay gasping.

  Later on Friday afternoons, there was always a shift in the mood, and the guards found excuses for being with the family. There was expectation in the air. They searched for things supposedly hidden or tried to make jokes. It had started the same way, this Friday. Shortly after the discussion about the negotiator, a couple of guards came in, but they hadn’t just poked around. The look in their khat-high eyes, as they stared at Alexandra’s body, cut Jenny like a knife. A hand reached out tentatively to Alexandra’s arm, pulling her to him. When she resisted, the man pulled harder, making the Kalashnikov on his back smack against him. And Carl-Adam pretended not to see.

  “Be a man!” Jenny hissed at him, the second time they’d come inside, when a hand caressed her daughter’s hair.

  “She’s a child,” he said, defending himself by adding, “they know that.”

  “They don’t see her as a child!”

  And then, that shrug from Carl-Adam again.

  Eventually, darkness would fall. At least two jeeps would show up, with several pirates joining in. Darwiish would also be there; he always came on Fridays. Darwiish, holding court over his kingdom of chaos, with all the liquor he brought. Khat and cheap gin all night. Panting, their mouths reeking of liquor. Jenny would wake up in the middle of the night to see Darwiish standing and swaying in the doorway, before he’d either shout something or stumble in to give Carl-Adam a kick.

  This time dusk fell, but no jeeps came; there was some kind of delay. She heard the guards’ excited conversation in the dark outside, felt the energy building. Their loud laughter, in anticipation.

  They came in again. Jenny couldn’t stand it, so she slapped one of them when he tried to get Alexandra to sit on his lap, hitting his arm as hard as she could. He winced and let go, giving Jenny a brief glance before he snorted, as if to say it was just a bad joke that caught him by surprise.

  Eventually, the cars arrived, and with them the shouts of welcome, the clinking, and sounds of partying getting started. When Jenny heard steps in the outer room, she thought it was the new bucket of water being delivered. This was always associated with the jeeps’ arrival, and she’d just made sure that Alexandra and Sebastian drank what was left. But Darwiish was never the one who replaced an empty bucket, and now he stood there, with another man close behind.

  “We need help,” he demanded, while pulling at his red beard as if considering something. Jenny could already smell the gin on his breath.

  She hesitated for a moment, before saying, “I’ll do it.”

  But Darwiish was already looking in the other direction. “The girl will serve us.”

  “Carl!” Jenny yelled.

  Alexandra understood nothing at first, but the guard behind Darwiish pulled her to standing from the mattress.

  “No!”

  There was a brief struggle: Alexandra fought back, Jenny tried to get to her, but finally her knees buckled when they dragged her daughter out.

  Self-hatred, loneliness, and Carl-Adam’s empty platitudes. Jenny didn’t say a word, listening to every sound through the walls. The rest of the evening and throughout the night: the men firing their guns into the shadows, piling onto each other in drunken wrestling matches, playing at being violent, or fighting for real, so that eventually someone had to break them up. Jenny yelled Alexandra’s name a few times. She winced at the sound of shots, and tried to distinguish voices, moods, and movements in what was happening on the other side. She tried to avoid imagining everything that sounded like evil, or crying.

  It was dark when Alexandra returned and impossible to tell what time it was. She came in alone, without a word. Sebastian slept, and as to what Carl-Adam was doing, Jenny didn’t care. She moved toward the rustling sound on Alexandra’s mattress. In the pitch dark, she perceived only her daughter’s breathing and realized she was already lying down. She knelt and lowered her hand with infinite gentleness, afraid of what she would find. Feeling her daughter’s hip, Alexandra didn’t shrink from the touch as she lay on her side. Perfectly still. Jenny embraced her and then slowly touched every part of her with her hands. In the darkness, she was like a blind man who, after many years of its being lost, has found his prized possession. Her movements were restrained, as when someone fears the worst. But there were no tears, no sudden movements, just very still breathing. Later, in the glimmer of dawn light, she saw that despite one rip, the dress was still mostly intact. Jenny tried to solve the riddle of the dirt stains on it, but hadn’t they been there before? They’d all been filthy for weeks.

  The next day, when Carl-Adam tried to sit next to Alexandra, she immediately moved away from him. As if she could no longer bear being next to her own father. No one said anything, and no one asked anything. She did her math, but she didn’t read her book. They heard voices outside but didn’t see guards the whole day. Only once when the new water bucket was brought in.

  They drank. The bottle floated high in the bucket.

  “Do you want to wash yourself?” Jenny asked. Alexandra nodded.

  29

  Simon Stark, bloodstained and pale, sat leaning forward on a bed in only his underwear, aboard the HMS Sveaborg.

  “You know, we’d been planning to head out to sea tomorrow,” said the old surgeon, as he sewed up his back. Grip was also there, in the ship’s small operating room. “You’re lucky, in other words,” continued the doctor. Stark said nothing; it was Grip who carried on the conversation. And he had no idea what the lucky part was—that the ship would remain in port, or that although Stark had a long slash across his back, it wasn’t deep enough to damage a vital organ.

  “You know, a small delegation has arrived from Stockholm to review trash sorting on board,” continued the doctor, as he stitched. “There are always a few of these types at every port of call, examining something: kitchen hygiene, the Band-Aid inventory here in sick bay, or the onboard lighting. They get a trip down to the sun, play at being officials for a few days, and then go home and say that they’ve been there, done that. War tourists.” He snipped. “This time it was a matter of examining the compost, I think. They’re keeping us in port for that. The truth is, no matter how we sort our garbage, it just ends up in the same mess, in a truck going God-knows-where . . .” The doctor looked up at Grip through the magnifying glasses on the tip of his nose. “I guess they have to draw a line somewhere, between Sweden and Africa.”

  He seemed to be waiting for something from Grip. “In any case, it seems that for trash, the pier marks that line.”

  It was Grip who’d found Stark at the market after the stabbing and driven him to the Sveaborg. The trip had been chaotic and bloody, and Stark didn’t speak much because of the pain, but Grip had understood enough. When the doctor cut open Stark’s shirt and washed out the wounds, he’d begun to ask questions and thought they should notify the police. Grip was reluctant, to say the least. “I am the police, aren’t I?” He’d tried to change the subject, and then said, “Just a failed attempt at a robbery,” dismissing the whole thing. Clearly, the old surgeon didn’t buy it, blinking like an owl, nor did Simon Stark. Thirty-three stitches, so far.

  Afterward, Stark avoided looking Grip in the eye. His cut-up clothes lay in a dirty, bloody heap on the floor. The bundle of notes he’d had in his breast pocket had disappeared, but he still had his phone, which now lay in a kidney-shaped dish made of stainless steel, along with the knife that the perpetrator had dropped. Grip had spotted it when he picked up Stark. It was a switchblade, a mean little black one.

  When they’d reached the Sveaborg’s gangway, both men were covered in blood. Grip yelled for the watch officer and helped Stark out of the backseat, where he’d been lying
down. If they gave off anything, it wasn’t a sense of control.

  The doctor picked up something from the tray that held his instruments and looked at Grip over his glasses again. His calm was contagious, like a grandma who’d keep embroidering through any kind of crisis. Ernst Grip didn’t want it to end; he would have been happy if there’d been a hundred stitches, if only he could stay.

  Of course everyone was talking about it now, on the ship and throughout the whole Swedish contingent. The watch officer and others on deck had not only seen them but helped them get aboard. Now they were swabbing up the blood and talking. “Just a robbery,” Grip had told them, as they helped Stark up the gangway, while someone ran ahead to alert the medical staff. Stark hadn’t said a word about a robbery when he was in the backseat of the car, moaning and trying to explain what happened. On the contrary. But Grip had stooped to denying the obvious, to the people who’d seen them. “A mugger ran up from behind—no way to see what was coming.” He’d made it up. He’d stooped that low.

  Everyone knew that he and Stark had flown in to find out who had fired the shot at the shooting range, and by now nearly everyone knew that Radovanović had done it. The captain and his cohorts had pasted up a convenient answer for all to see. But Radovanović wasn’t exactly the type who’d hire a local man with a knife to take on a two-hundred-pound white security agent. Something had happened, someone had gotten angry, and Grip had been publicly challenged. An investigation that ended in a crappy stray bullet wasn’t good enough, not as long as Grip and Stark were still operating in Djibouti. There was something else going on, something they’d gotten too close to. And now Grip bore the weight of that. He’d tried to whitewash it on the gangway, and now the doctor revealed that Grip was fucked. Whoever was behind the knife in the kidney-shaped dish would soon learn that he’d backed down. That the fierce and fearless Ernst Grip could be humiliated.

  “Just a robbery.” And now it was Stark who looked away, with equal parts of surprise and disgust.

  The surgeon began washing out the smaller cut. The knee wound was a minor thing, needing just five stitches; the fabric of the pants had gotten the worst of it.

  “May I ask something,” he said as he put a compress over the wound. “Slunga’s body and the shot angle, how did that turn out?”

  “Led to speculation, nothing more,” Grip said.

  The old owl looked at him. “Like the trash sorting, then. People do the right thing, up to a point.”

  Stark bent and stretched his patched-up knee. The surgeon continued. “They say it was the young Yugoslav who did it.”

  “You mean Milan Radovanović?” Grip asked.

  “Milan, right. Imagine having to live with the guilt for something like that.”

  “All you can do is offer your condolences,” Grip replied, without looking at the doctor.

  It was time to go home.

  30

  TRANSCRIPT OF RECORDED PHONE CALL, TS 233:9865

  Recording requestor: Bureau Director Thor Didricksen

  * * *

  TOP SECRET UNDER CHAPTER 2, SECTION 2 OF THE SECRECY ACT (1980:100)

  OF HIGHEST IMPORTANCE TO NATIONAL SECURITY

  * * *

  Persons present: Thor Didricksen (TD) and police officer Ernst Grip (EG)

  EG: Good evening, Boss.

  TD: I was just about to call you, when Eva said you were trying to reach me. Do you want someone sprung from jail again?

  EG: Not exactly.

  TD: From what I gather, you don’t have any trouble detaining suspects yourself.

  EG: What do you mean?

  TD: The legal office at HQ is making a stink over a soldier. Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it. I just wanted to know, are the rumors true?

  EG: In essence, the phrasing can be . . .

  TD: Leave the phrasing to me. But what about the soldier in question?

  EG: He confessed to firing the fatal shot.

  TD: Intentionally?

  EG: No, an accidental discharge.

  TD: Well, that’s what we call a happy ending. I’m sure the captain down there is delighted. Say what you will about the military, but when someone accidentally kills themselves or others, that’s business as usual.

  EG: The soldier isn’t doing too well.

  TD: That’s a completely different issue. We take no responsibility for individuals, only for the whole.

  EG: I’ll try to keep that in mind.

  TD: So you’ve wrapped up your investigation, but I hear the hesitation in your voice. Is something else going on?

  EG: No, nothing. Just small things along the way. I wanted to talk to you, because I see no reason to stay down here. If the Boss doesn’t mind . . . Simon Stark and I can be in Stockholm tomorrow.

  TD: What about the Sveaborg, the helicopters, and all the personnel they have down there? Don’t they capture pirates?

  EG: Excuse me, what?

  TD: Have they taken any?

  EG: I don’t really know. The foreign minister’s visit and trash sorting seem to be the priorities right now. Air France has a flight tomorrow afternoon, through Paris to Stockholm.

  TD: Let’s stick to pirates for a moment. Booking plane tickets isn’t our biggest challenge. A principal called the police in Kungsholmen last week.

  EG: A principal?

  TD: Yes, she runs a school here in town, some kind of international program, using online classrooms. You know, a manager at ABB wants to flex some muscle, so they send him to a factory in Uruguay for a few years. But they’re afraid the kids won’t have read Pippi Longstocking when they get back, or be able to calculate the area of a circle. So Mom becomes the teacher, and the school sends assignments over the Internet for the kids to complete and send back. Very ambitious, international diplomas, the whole thing. Now, one of their students hasn’t been heard from in nearly a month. She’s never turned assignments in late before.

  EG: This family isn’t in Uruguay, is it?

  TD: No, on a sailboat. One of our investigators called around a bit. It turns out that their family friends haven’t heard from them in a while. They haven’t answered their email, and their last blog entry was outside the Horn of Africa. Think about that for a moment. No one in their whole circle of friends and acquaintances reported a thing. You wouldn’t believe this, Grip, what I was just reading: “We didn’t think it was our responsibility to notify anyone. They’ve always valued their independence.” I happened to see their addresses, Lidingö and Djursholm, some of these people are even sailing types. No one has heard a peep from a boat in the Indian Ocean, in over a month . . .

  Anyway, had it ended there, I wouldn’t have gotten involved. But three days ago, a strange call was made to a private equity firm here in town. The contact followed up with pictures. Mom, Dad, kids, they look miserable, and they seem to be in a place they absolutely shouldn’t be. Apparently, the family is named Bergenskjöld. It seems someone Googled the father, who used to work for Scandinavian Capital. So now there’s a, let’s say, very insistent voice, demanding ten million dollars or those two children will never read Pippi again. It’s a real shit show. Any day now, the media will get wind of it and the cameras will start flashing. The government is already saying they won’t negotiate to pay the ransom, and the Foreign Ministry is, as usual, trying to point in another direction. Who knows where this is all heading. In any case, I think we should keep a joker in this game.

  EG: We?

  TD: Let me worry about the wording—didn’t we mention that we’d hit a little snag with the generals and their legal staff?

  EG: I appreciate you sweeping up the pieces I might be leaving behind, but I really thought, isn’t it . . .

  TD: I know exactly what that hotel room you’re staying in costs per day. Take advantage of it. Indulge, by all means. No one is closer to the Horn of Africa, or more familiar with the lay of the land, than you.

  EG: But what do you want me for?

  TD: I’m sure you will find ways to pass
the time. Just be available.

  EG: As the joker?

  TD: In case something comes up.

  EG: And Simon Stark?

  TD: Him you can send home. [Three seconds gap.]

  TD: You went quiet, Ernst. I told you to send him home.

  EG: I think I’d rather keep him here, if that’s all right by you.

  TD: Well, you have your reasons.

  EG: Yes, Boss. I do.

  TD: That’s good enough for me. I’ll be in touch. By way of apology, let’s say that once this is all sewn up and you’re heading home, it will be Air France, first class.

  EG: I’d be happy with a cheap seat, leaving tomorrow.

  TD: I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. Good night.

  31

  “You’re staying, then?” Mickels couldn’t hide his disappointment, talking to Grip on the phone.

  “A formality,” Grip said. It sounded hollow, but he couldn’t think of anything better. Sure, that hijacked family was the reason, but he wasn’t involved and didn’t want to advertise any kind of connection. He’d been put on retainer by the Boss, no more and no less. Nothing to be proud of, so he’d call it—a formality.

  “For how long?”

  Grip avoided the question. As soon as he’d hung up, Grip sensed the ripples starting to spread in Djibouti. People would whisper: the security police officers are staying. What’s Ernst Grip really up to? People would ask the question. Wasn’t it enough that his sidekick got knifed across the back? Everyone knew Simon Stark had been stabbed, but no one had brought it up, not Mickels, not the captain, no one. It would all quiet down now, that was the wordless agreement. Grip had been cornered, and Stark got the worst of it; when something like this happens, it’s time to go home. He was down for the count. If they weren’t leaving, then they’d have to sell people on a whole new concept, and Grip needed something up his sleeve. Something powerful, so he’d be able to move without fearing another knife in the crowd. Some kind of no-holds-barred provision that said Ernst Grip could get to them, as easily as they could get to him. Not an amateur move, but one that would stop them from even thinking about sending out more knives, because they’d know the consequences.