No, only Lena could stop her husband. Should he contact her? If it reached Give’s ears, it was equivalent to a death sentence. He didn’t know her well enough to assess the risk that she would immediately tattle.
Now in any event he would get a real weapon. He should have gotten it sooner, before he came to the forest cabin. An AK-5 was a good choice. Late in the winter he had test fired it in Dalarna, when he and some patriots from the Svealand division were there for discipline and training. How much ammo would he get? A magazine held thirty bullets, he already knew that. Nyström had been their instructor, he knew about the gun since Afghanistan. Erland had wanted to impress the war veteran. He was ashamed of that now, after he saw how nutty Nyström really was.
It must have been then, after the visit to Ludvika, they decided that he would be involved in the action against the mullahs on the square. Who made the decisions? He didn’t know, and really didn’t want to know. Now it was too late to back out.
A wind passed through the spruce plantation, reached the three apple trees and the little farmyard where Erland had been standing. It was a strangely warm gust. He longed for a little more rain to freshen up the air. There had actually been a cloud of dust behind the car as he drove on the forest road. He longed for so much. Not least Li’l Erland, and maybe Mirjam a little. When would he get to see them again?
* * *
He could not say that he was surprised, it was as if the wind had forewarned that he would get a visitor. The man came walking on the road, and he must have noticed Erland by the house. He was casually dressed, that was the phrase that popped up in Erland’s head. Boots, green pants with pockets on the thigh, jacket of the same color and style, and with a cap on his head. He had a backpack. In his hand he was carrying an oblong case, which Erland thought at first concealed a rifle, but then realized must be fishing gear.
He walked without hesitation toward the house and called out a “Hello there” already from a distance. They shook hands, the man introduced himself as Lasse, he himself mumbled Patrik, the name they had agreed that he should use.
“I see, are you staying in the cabin?”
“Temporarily,” Erland said.
“I’ve walked past many times, but never saw anyone here.”
It appeared as if he was waiting for an answer, an explanation, but Erland remained silent.
“But the house looks reasonably well-kept. Nice location here in the forest.”
“Yes, it’s good,” said Erland. He did not want to be drawn into a conversation with a stranger for anything in the world, but felt compelled anyway to let loose a little information.
“I’m staying here temporarily, a week, maybe two. I’m going to rest up. They told me to.”
The man nodded in sympathy, as if he supported that idea completely.
“I was in an accident…” Erland continued, sticking to the script. “I’m not feeling too well, but here it’s good, if you understand.”
If you encounter anyone it’s better to act a little crazy, Frank Give had said.
“I see, accident…”
“I’d rather not talk about it. But it’s good here. Not so much noise.”
“I can agree on that,” said Lasse, who still looked sympathetic. “We’ll probably have to form a club, because I’m on medical leave too, but today is the last day.”
“Do you live in the area?”
“I have a summer cabin on the other side of the forest. I like to fish here, in the tarn without a name, as I call it. Have you been there? It’s no more than ten minutes away.”
Erland shook his head.
“I park on the forest road and walk through the spruce here. I could drive around, if it wasn’t for that gate.”
“The last day,” said Erland.
“There are crayfish too, but perhaps I shouldn’t say that out loud.”
In another life perhaps Erland would have kept on chatting, he liked to fish, but now he just wanted to be rid of the intruder.
“I’m a little tired,” said Erland. “They say that it’s good if I sleep a lot.”
“Yes, of course. You have to rest up sometimes … sleep well then,” the man said, firing off his good-natured smile again.
He started to leave, but stopped after a few steps and turned around. “The fish are free, if you want to try, I mean.”
Erland kept silent. That was what you did when you wanted to play a tired and confused lunatic. It was easier than he could have imagined.
“Five hundred meters, if that,” the man said and pointed with his arm outstretched.
It did not feel good to have a person so close. Erland Edman felt that he was in the process of losing control, not because the man showed up, he was certainly inoffensive, but instead for his friendliness and smile. That was a life Erland had left behind. It was only in his contact with Li’l Erland that he could feel the old life, the thought of optimism and a kind of trust between people. When did life change appearance? He looked after the man, how he marched away between the trees with his rod and his fishing gear.
Suddenly his stay in the macabre forest felt unbearable. He was seized by the impulse to run after the fisherman, either to implore him to stay or put a bullet in his head, and out of pure reflex he took a few steps before he came to his senses. The pressure over his chest that he had felt the past few days forced him to take deep breaths, and the sweat broke out on his hairline. He leaned forward and rested his head on his knees. The image of the little boy’s bicycle on the square in Hökarängen flashed past in his mind.
Tomorrow he would retrieve the weapon outside Rimbo. He looked forward to feeling the weight of the carbine and firing it. He peered after the good-natured man, but he was swallowed up by the spruce trees.
Forty-Three
Omid was a young man, considerably taller than Sammy had pictured him. Sammy’s first impression was that he moved self-confidently, but was also prepared to take a step to the side, back off.
His first words were: “That man saved my life.” He meant Sam Rothe.
“I know,” said Sammy.
“If he’s done wrong, I’m the one you should arrest.”
“He’s from the police!” Rothe shouted.
“Shall we talk?” said Sammy, who up to now had not moved at all. Despite the tension—this was a breakthrough—he tried to keep his voice collected and calm.
Omid nodded. “It’s been a long time since I talked with a policeman, and then it didn’t go too well,” he said. He has a sense of humor, Sammy thought, that makes it easier.
They sat down right next to the abandoned duck pond. Rothe had arranged a couple of chairs and a cracked bench under a flapping canopy of green fabric. There was also a round metal table with a bush-hammered top, what Angelika would call a smoking table. On the ground there were raffia rugs that had started to get moldy. Sammy got the feeling of being in a degenerate Bedouin environment. The shriek of the donkey, which seemed to sense the unease in the air, reinforced that image.
Rothe stood apprehensively a short distance away, and that was good. Sammy wanted to have Omid to himself. He started with his sympathy for his cousin’s death. The Hazara made no comment.
“Tell me what happened. I’m thinking about the fire. What did you see?”
“I saw the ones who set it,” said Omid.
“Would you be able to point them out?”
“One is dead. The one in the fire. Sam showed me a picture in the newspaper.”
“Daniel Mattsson,” Sammy stated. “Two others.”
“I don’t know their names.”
“Would you be able to recognize them if you saw pictures?”
“I think so. It was dark, but it had started to burn. I saw them in the window, back side of the building. They were laughing.”
“Why have you been hiding? You should have talked with us right away.”
“No one believes a Hazara.”
For Omid that was a truth, just as much as that the ea
rth is round. It was there in his tone of voice, but it was not an accusation hurled out, simply a statement.
“Tell me what happened after the fire.”
“I ran,” Omid began. “I ran from Hamid.” He looked at Sammy as if to underscore, imprint, his words. “Every day I see it, I’m running, it’s cold. It’s dark. I ran from Hamid. He is dead.”
“But you didn’t know…”
“No, I didn’t know that he … but if I’d stopped … Why in a car?”
How many times must he have asked himself that question.
“You ran to Sam’s house, right?”
Omid explained how he’d made his way in. The cellar door was unlocked. He found a sack of old clothes that he used for bedding, and even what Sammy assumed was a roll of insulation that he spread out on the floor. He curled up there. The next day Sam came to the house. He saw the tracks in the snow that led down to the cellar, and there found an exhausted Omid frozen stiff.
“He didn’t ask anything. He helped me.”
“Why, do you think?”
Omid looked over toward Sam Rothe, who was crouching by the pond, like an emaciated smallholder in a foreign country, a man who had just lost his harvest. It looked like he was considering drowning himself. Whether he heard what they were talking about was impossible to say.
“Where I lived with Hamid was a man, Hazara. One foot was missing, but he had a wooden one. He sold tea and small cakes with nuts, others with no nuts. They were cheaper. His sister baked. He poured tea in small cups. People drank and paid, he moved on. Every morning he poured a cup for a man with no money, gave him a cake with nuts. Not to everyone, there were so many poor people, but every day one man, one poor man. It can be cold in the morning.”
“Was that in Afghanistan?”
“Iran,” said Omid. “We had fled there.”
“You can weld now,” said Sammy.
Omid smiled. “Bertil taught me. He is like a book. He knows so much. He wanted me to try different things, in order to understand my hands. He bought airplanes and boats I should build. Small, small things, with glue.”
Sammy understood that Omid meant models to put together.
“Patience, he said. I learned that word.”
“Those two who are still alive, do you want the police to take them?”
Omid nodded.
“Do you want to look at the photos?” The binder with the pictures he had shown Rothe earlier was in the car. He retrieved them. Omid studied each photo carefully, as if he wanted to imprint the appearances. Without a word, without changing expression, he went through the binder, before he shut it again.
“Two,” he said and without hesitation opened to the picture that was marked “3” and which depicted Daniel Mattsson, and went further to the last of the dozen that were in the binder. It depicted Stefan Sanberg.
“One is missing,” said Sammy.
“Not there.”
Sammy felt relieved in a way. Sebastian Ottosson was not pointed out. “Number three and twelve,” he said. “Look one more time.” Omid shook his head and handed back the binder.
“Did you set fire to the smithy, the building at the farm?”
Sam Rothe let out a sound that could have been made by one of the animals he sold or set free. Omid rested his laced fingers on his lap, mumbled something inaudible. Sammy got the idea that he was invoking a god. But Muslims don’t pray that way, do they? Omid was probably a Muslim, Sammy assumed. He ought to ask.
A minute passed, a long minute, where the second hand hesitated before every movement. Perhaps I’ll never get an answer, thought Sammy, and without a confession the Hazara could never be convicted. There were no witnesses, no technical evidence. There was motive, as well as opportunity, but that would not go far in a trial. Assumptions would be an attorney’s obvious objection, and a court would agree.
“It may be number seven,” Omid said at last.
Sammy opened the binder. The picture depicted Rasmus Rönn.
“Put them in prison,” said Omid, and Sammy understood that it was a prerequisite for Omid to speak openly and honestly about the night when the smithy burned.
* * *
When Sammy Nilsson opened the car door for Omid, a flock of doves flew over the farm. They came in a beautiful long curve from the forest, describing an arc before they landed gently on the roof of the old barn.
“Coming home again,” said Omid. Sam Rothe stood as if paralyzed, still by the pond, still silent. He had not said a word about the fact that Omid would be transported to Uppsala. The doves celebrated their newly won freedom by observing the abandoned aviaries. They strolled across the tile roof, amused themselves, socialized awhile, before as if at a given sign they lifted again and disappeared behind the jagged outline of the forest.
* * *
Sammy jumped into the car, locked the doors in childproof position. Omid met his gaze in the rearview mirror. Sammy said a silent prayer that the transport would go well, that Omid would not get any ideas. He should have called for backup, but did not want to subject Omid to that. This was perhaps the last time the Hazara could travel with a feeling that he was doing so voluntarily.
“I trust you,” he said, putting the car in gear. “We’ll take the back roads. It will be a little longer, but you won’t have to see the village.”
Forty-Four
Say what you will about Frank Give, but he was effective. That was what Erland “Smulan” Edman thought as he stood in front of the cache. There were several, spread out around Mälaren Valley, but the one in the forests north of Rimbo was used the most. In an old root cellar by an abandoned croft a hole had been excavated, and a plastic case put down there. It was covered with a layer of dirt, gravel, and stone.
Erland Edman had been there and retrieved something previously. He had no idea who made the delivery, but guessed it was the man they called “Olsson.” With an army spade with a short shaft he shoveled away the gravel. A black beetle rushed away in terror. He immediately bumped against the treasure chest. He took off the cover and there she was, black, glistening with grease. He picked up the carbine. There was something extremely secure in holding such an efficient weapon. A pistol or revolver was not the same thing at all. There was weight in the AK-5. Firepower.
Erland put the gun in a plastic sack and placed it in an old backpack, restored the hiding place as if it were a revered family grave, and returned at a rapid pace to the car. He could have driven all the way up to the deserted cabin, but he had followed instructions and parked the car a ten-minute walk away. Maybe Olsson was lying in the bushes keeping an eye on how and when the retrieval happened? It wouldn’t be surprising. The suspicion in the group, and between the different battle groups, had increased. Maybe it was due to the media’s rising interest, maybe because the level of ambition had been raised, more was at stake. Now it was no longer a game, now it was war, against the state, against the Jewish scum, against the blackened mob that had invaded the country, against the mullahs, against the newspapers that only spread lies, against the traitors to the people.
He left the area heading north, toward Rånäs. He had picked mushrooms with his parents in that area. He drove at the speed limit but slowed down anyway, felt he recognized a rest stop, or rather a glade, where they used to stop and have coffee. Now the glade continued into a logged area, like a sharp wide incision many hundred meters in, where mushrooms had grown before. A few seed pines were still left. Mossy stones wallowed in despair, exposed as they were to the tormenting sun. He increased speed and after a few kilometers turned straight east toward Almunge. It occurred to Erland that it was near there that Rönn had swiped the Austrogel.
It became an odyssey through a landscape he knew well. His mother was born in the area around Stora Väsby and his father on a smallholding in the middle of the spruce forest. Erland did not really remember where, and that pained him now. It was years since he’d visited the small villages, driven on the gravel roads through a landscape poor i
n arable land but all the richer in bogs, expansive forests, and isolated cabins. As he approached Tuna the landscape opened up, and he relaxed somewhat, drove up to Route 288 and turned northeast.
It felt good to think for a while about what had been. There was something inside him that gnawed and moaned, a sense of loss. He was often good at suppressing what he’d never fully understood and what was for that reason hard to combat. If you had a headache you took a pill, but what did you do with a sick feeling that concerned life? He was actually doing well! Mirjam was fine, the boy was healthy and growing as he should, they lived reasonably well in Sävja, even if there were starting to be quite a few darkies. The fact that he lacked a job at the moment meant nothing, he could get one tomorrow.
Sometimes he felt like kicking and hitting, even killing, like when he kicked at the young woman outside the ICA store in Nåntuna, the one who sat there month after month, no doubt a Gypsy, not because she was in the way, simply because it occurred to him. She’d shrieked, perhaps mostly from surprise, but no more than that. Maybe she was used to getting beaten by her clan. Next time he passed, then with the boy in tow, she had tensed her body, prepared for another kick.
“She’s hungry,” Li’l Erland had said and lingered by the entry, staring at her.
Why did he think about the Romanian bitch? If anyone were to kick at Mirjam he would kill that person. Now he had the chance to kill, and efficiently at that. The automatic weapon, with the three magazines, was in the trunk. He smiled to himself. Just so I don’t get like Give, or as disturbed as Olsson seems to be. I’m not like those nutcases. But I wouldn’t hesitate to kill a policeman, he thought. I want to kill a policeman. It’s my right.
At three o’clock he was back at the Cape. The first thing he did was to check the thread across the road and then all the other security arrangements, small sticks and threads he set out in front of the door or mounted in the windows. Nothing had been moved. He placed the backpack with the carbine in a closet, he filled the coffee maker and watched the water gurgle out through the holder and down into the carafe. He sat down at the table in the little kitchen with the cup. “On Saturday it will explode,” he said, out loud and firmly, as if to state it once and for all. He didn’t want that, but knew that it was impossible to change. Frank Give wanted to move ahead hard, he understood that, ramp up the struggle, make the resistance clearer. Spreading flyers and marching around book fairs was not his thing. He wanted to create terror, it was that simple, and then victims were necessary, that was easy to understand. Give often returned to Italy in his reasoning about strategy and tactics. Their friends there had broken down society through terror. The leftist idiots had been crushed in the offensive that the police and military had initiated. The bombs that had been placed by the Fascists, sometimes disguised as left-wing activists, had been the pretext. Italy capsized, demands for law and order were heard more and more often. Now the left was crushed, hate against the immigrants so great that they were murdered in broad daylight by true patriots, and the people’s trust in a democratic state and a functioning legal system was equal to zero. Out of this, Fascism could once again grow strong, Give thought, and Erland was prepared to say he was right.
The Night of the Fire Page 29