The Truth Behind the Lie

by Sara Lövestam

  The Grin shakes his head, and his grin disappears.

  “Nah, damn. Sorry, don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  * * *

  He has 260 crowns in his pocket and he feels rich. He stops at Lidl and buys three packages of oatmeal and five cans of crushed tomatoes for ninety-eight crowns. Then he asks where he can find the nearest secondhand store. It’s the only place he’d ever find a decent jacket for under five hundred crowns.

  The problem is that it has to fit and it has to be the right kind. Especially not too big. If it’s too big, he might as well just keep using the one he already has. Finally he finds one that fits and makes him look like a normal guy in the wintertime. It costs 350 crowns.

  He holds on to it for a while, keeping it under his arm as he pretends to look at other things. A copper kettle, porcelain dishes with lids. Finally, he studies the cashier and the two people who are walking around putting things away, folding and rehanging clothes that people tried on. The cashier is someone he can’t ask. She looks irritated and the way she holds herself signals she is responsible for the economics of the shop. The other girl seems young, not over eighteen, and probably can’t make any independent decisions. So the third one looks promising. Especially when considering her pierced lip.

  “Excuse me.”

  She looks up, gazing intently. She’s cut her hair short on one side and has light-colored dreadlocks on the other side of her head.

  “This jacket,” he says and looks her right in the eyes. “It says three hundred and fifty crowns and I only have one hundred and thirty-eight.”

  She nods. “Then I guess you have to choose another one.”

  She smiles in a friendly way and turns back to hanging up clothes.

  “But I need this one,” Kouplan says. “I can’t tell you why, exactly … but this is the one I need. And when I say I only have one hundred and thirty-eight crowns, I really mean that’s all I have.”

  The girl turns back to him. Looks at the torn summer jacket he’s wearing. It looks like he found it in a garbage can. Actually he had found it in a garbage can. He opens his plastic bag.

  “See? This is all the food I have. I don’t have any money, really, but I need this jacket. Please…”

  His ex once told him Swedes don’t like pleading, but he was desperate.

  “Well, this jacket,” the girl with her dreadlocks and lip piercing says, “this one has been priced wrong. It should be fifty crowns. I’ll re-tag it and bring it to the counter for you.”

  At that exact moment, she is the most beautiful person he’s ever met.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Grin with his beer cans sticks with Kouplan all night long. He dreams that the old alcoholic stacks cans one on top of the other, then starts climbing them so he can touch the clouds. Who are the people who know where missing people are? he says, slurring his words. His beer-drenched breath turns into Carlsberg-green dragons that swim out into the atmosphere and fall back to earth. He wakes up at five. Who are the people who know where the missing people are?

  * * *

  The people who know the answer to that won’t be at that fast food place before ten in the morning, so Kouplan spends his morning searching the Internet. 5:46 a.m., he writes into his notebook. Research on human smuggling. On the web, a human smuggler is defined as an individual who helps foreigners enter Sweden, the EU, Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland illegally. They keep mentioning Amir Heidari. On the English web pages, there’s nothing on either Sweden or Switzerland. But they say there’s a difference between human smuggling and human trafficking. Smugglers work with the people they sneak in, but not trafficking. He changes his search words.

  06:12 a.m. Research on human trafficking.

  First and foremost, women and children are affected, he reads. He makes a note of this. Women and children are lured from poor countries to rich ones, from the countryside to the city, in order to work in households or factories. He writes down main points in his notebook. He underlines the most important phrases.

  Half of trafficked people are children. Children are kidnapped for adoption. Seven reports of sexual human trafficking in 2010 were cases concerning children. Prostitution, trade in human organs, child soldiers, forced labor.

  Kouplan thinks that forced service as a child soldier would be an unlikely outcome for six-year-old girls. Adoption or prostitution would be the most logical choices. He puts his hand out over the floor, estimates in the air about how tall she would be. Then he regrets doing it. He doesn’t want to think of her as a child.

  * * *

  When he gets to the grill, he feels ill. He’s been training his stomach like he’s been training his heart: just focus on digesting the breakfast oatmeal. Nobody remembers me here. They forgot to look me in the eye.

  He sits down at the table closest to the kitchen entrance and orders a kebab with bread, even though his stomach is doing somersaults with the oatmeal. Azad looks at him emptily, looks through him, and asks, “Anything else?”

  Kouplan doesn’t say, Hey, it’s me, remember? Instead, he says, “No onions, please.”

  This way, Azad will remember that it was some Swede in his restaurant at ten in the morning, should anyone ask. Swedes never put onions on their kebabs.

  Ismet cuts the kebab from the slab of meat hanging next to the wall. Azad asks a few girls in cloth jackets if they want anything on their falafel. “No onions, please,” they say as Kouplan sticks out his foot. The swinging door opens and Rashid is standing inside.

  “Rashid!”

  He whispers at first, but realizes it’s better to yell. The girls at the counter are busy wondering whether or not they want to add hummus.

  “Rashid!”

  Rashid jumps. Is that how frightened he used to look when he didn’t expect people to call out his name? He has to realize he’s taking a big risk.

  “Negaran nabash,” Kouplan says. Don’t worry.

  Rashid wrinkles his brow. Studies Kouplan, comes closer to look at him better.

  “Nes…”

  “Shhh!”

  “Is it really you?”

  Kouplan shakes his head. “No, it’s not me.”

  He smiles and Rashid laughs out loud. Actually, it’s really good to see him again.

  “I’ve got to work.”

  “I have cigarettes.”

  “Give me two minutes and go round the back.”

  * * *

  The backside of the restaurant smells like frying oil and something rotten. The odor is as strong as a childhood memory, from that time when he was the one who cleaned the oily grill on the other side of the wall. Rashid laughs again when he sees Kouplan through a crack in the door. He has a warm look, still, but his laugh is short as if he has to save it.

  “Nice to have visitors,” he says.

  “I wonder if you can check something for me,” Kouplan says as he hands over the cigarette pack, which quickly disappears into Rashid’s pocket. “Just ask around for me.”

  The good thing with Rashid is that you don’t have to explain things to him. He just repeats what Kouplan tells him.

  “Six years old,” he says. “I’ll ask the people I live with.”

  Kouplan doesn’t explain why he came to Rashid. Rashid knows. People who know where missing people might be happen to be people who have disappeared themselves.

  “Don’t say a word about meeting me,” Kouplan says again, just to make sure.

  More like a statement. He has an inspiration and pulls a fifty-crown bill from his pocket. He’ll be getting four hundred Swedish crowns from Pernilla for the time he spent at the grill.

  Rashid takes the money without blinking.

  Kouplan starts missing him as soon as Rashid shuts the door.

  * * *

  He remembers an Iranian proverb after he’s left the grill. Cho istadei, daste oftade gir vibrates through him like a song he can’t stop listening to. As long as you are standing, hold out a hand to those who have fallen. Since h
e’s standing and Rashid has fallen, it feels good to give him some money. Cho istadei, daste oftade gir. The proverb reminds him who he’d been. Someone who doesn’t collect bottles.

  * * *

  Pernilla is sitting with Julia’s pajamas in her hand. It’s Sunday. Julia disappeared last Monday. Janus is walking around her, wagging his tail. He puts his head protectively on her lap. The weight of his head makes the pair of pajamas seem even emptier.

  “She’s not here, Janus.”

  Where is she? Janus’s eyes are asking.

  “I don’t know. Nobody knows.”

  He scratches, crawls up onto her lap. He’s a family dog, he can figure out when a person is feeling low. Brought to the pound because of an allergy. He smells the pajamas, puts his head right on top of them. His warm body is trying to tell her something, but she can’t take it in. She can’t cry now.

  “I’m going to call Kouplan.”

  * * *

  His high voice is like a teenager’s, but it still helps her calm down. There’s something comforting in him, something that comes from parents who cared and from an experienced soul. Pernilla has nothing like it, and she knows something basic in her is missing, because that’s what she’s been told. Still, she tries to be a good person, and she was a good mother. Is a good mother. Kouplan is telling her that he’s talked to a few colleagues to get tips and has also gone to see Patrick. Patrick? Why would he have seen Patrick?

  “I told you he had nothing to do with it,” she reminds him with irritation.

  “I’m using established methods,” Kouplan says in his mature teenaged voice. “I have to eliminate close relatives to make progress in … the case.”

  She thinks she’s heard the same thing on Criminal Case, so he’s probably doing the right thing. Or perhaps he heard the same thing on Criminal Case. At any rate, Kouplan had gone to Patrick’s.

  “So, how’s he doing?” she asks in the most disinterested way she can.

  “Well…”

  “Remember, I’m the one paying you,” she says with a smile she hopes can be heard through the connection.

  “It seems he’s doing well, from what I saw.”

  “Is he still living in Bromma?”

  “No, he moved to Sundbyberg with a girl. Or maybe a guy, who knows. There were two names on the mailbox at any rate. They own a Volvo.”

  She hesitates asking, as it gives her a lump in her throat. But the question comes anyway:

  “Any children?”

  “Nope.”

  A cushion, like a cloud, lightens her heart.

  She is so relieved that she wants to sing, despite her current desperate situation. She’d always wondered if he’d gone on to have children with someone else. Maybe many children. She’d dreamed he had, and those had been nightmares.

  “He didn’t like children,” she says. “So it’s probably for the best.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “What?”

  “What do you mean, he didn’t like children? Did he do something to Julia?”

  “You mean hurt her?”

  She had to think. She and Julia had lived with the emptiness of a father who had left; they’d both cried through the night. Sometimes together.

  “He didn’t give a damn about me or her from day one. Besides that, no.”

  Kouplan is silent, but he is present. She can hear his presence through the connection. She is also silent.

  “I’m going to see another old colleague,” he says. “And tomorrow I’m going back to the Globe Arena. But there’s something I need.”

  “What is it?”

  “Can you send me a photo? It’s kind of hard to search for someone when you don’t know what the person looks like.”

  Pernilla had been careful with pictures. She’d been careful with everything. Facebook, Eniro, and all the other places where people look for children, and she’s not even sure she has a picture of her child, but that would be hard to explain on the phone.

  “I’ll look for one.”

  “That would be good.”

  His voice. As warm as the dog on her lap.

  “Come by tomorrow,” she listens to her own voice say out loud. “I’m going crazy just sitting and waiting. We can talk.”

  “All right. Have you eaten today?”

  A strange question from a detective. But it’s relevant, she realizes. As she gets up, she’s dizzy and the pajamas fall to the floor. Janus picks them up with his teeth and as she stumbles into the kitchen, he follows her. The pajamas hang from his muzzle like a lifeless, extremely thin child.

  CHAPTER 7

  Mondays are the worst. All the apartment doors open to let people out; the dam bursts throughout the city. For every person, there are twice as many eyes; for every eye, a hundred million strokes of a keyboard that can take him in, analyze him, and then run right to their phones to report him, and that’s what it looks like when he lets his thoughts go where they will. I’m just one of them, he thinks, and he lets his blood circulate more slowly through this body. Be calm my heart; don’t use up all your beats before I turn thirty.

  He gets off the subway at Gullmarsplan and walks the last bit to the Globe Arena, just as Pernilla and Julia had done exactly one week ago. Mondays are the worst, but in this case it’s the best day he has. People with normal lives have normal routines. Those who were here last Monday are probably here today.

  * * *

  The girl at Subway recognizes him. This means she has a good memory for faces, and also that she’d be a good witness, able to identify him if anyone asks. The police had been in the shop.

  “I wanted to help,” she says as panic spreads into all of Kouplan’s limbs.

  He can’t hear what she says next, because he’s doing all he can to keep his body under control. Calm down, my heart; stay still, my legs and feet—but be ready.

  “They had no idea what I was talking about,” she said, shaking her head. “Or maybe they were on their break and didn’t want to work.”

  “Their break?”

  “Yeah, they came to buy sandwiches. They didn’t know anything about it at any rate.”

  His fear diminishes, slowly but surely.

  “So you didn’t go to the police.”

  She looked at him as if he were an idiot.

  “No, they were here. Soccer, you know, Hammarby against Djurgården…”

  He almost had to laugh and tell her that riot police are hardly involved with kidnapping cases. But he shrugs instead.

  “As I said, there’s no point in bringing the police into it. It’s a custody issue and they don’t prioritize them.”

  “Have you found the father yet?”

  “Not yet. Thought I’d ask you if you remembered anything. If you saw anyone.”

  She shakes her head and asks him if he wants to buy a sub. He thinks back to the turkey sandwich Pernilla had given him. Someday he will go to Subway, order a Spicy Italian with extra pepperoni, nonchalantly slap down a hundred-crown bill and say, “Keep the change.”

  “No, thanks.”

  At the Greek restaurant, there are four people working. One of them thinks he has time to talk to Kouplan. He takes a drag on a cigarette and the ends of his mouth turn down in a way that lets Kouplan know he is a real Greek.

  “No,” he says. “No idea. Yes, lots of kids come through here, especially yesterday when it was AIK against Bajen. Oh, the girl at Subway said Djurgården? There were some guys who wanted to fight, and I’d never take my kids to matches like that. Last Monday? How do you think I would remember anybody who came in here last Monday? Are you out of your mind?”

  He doesn’t remember any pink raincoat.

  “Efharisto,” Kouplan says, and the man’s blank look reveals he’s probably not from Greece after all. Efharisto is thank you in Greek. “Thank you, anyway.”

  The office of the real estate agent on the other side of the street had windows so squeaky clean that Kouplan didn’t want to go in. He also skips a Nor
dea bank.

  At the Thai restaurant, they hadn’t seen a little girl that morning.

  “What about last week?”

  “It go fine.”

  “What?”

  “Bring girl, we have child menu.”

  The waitress points at a menu. And Kouplan doesn’t speak Thai. He tries to wave his hand to indicate last week, not next week.

  “Ah!” the woman says, as if she’s thought of something.

  “Did you see her?”

  The waitress shakes her head.

  “No, sorry.”

  * * *

  Arenagången is the broad pedestrian walkway separating the realtor’s office and the Thai restaurant from the Subway and the Greeks. Small trees surrounded by stone walls divide it in two.

  If he were going to kidnap a little girl, he’d hide behind one of the stone walls. So he does. It’s now 10:23. Julia was kidnapped at ten thirty.

  The people walking toward him can be seen easily, even though he’s standing behind a tree. If he were taller, the leaves would cover his view, so he sits down on one of the stone walls and glances toward Gullmarsplan subway station. You can sit here and look like a perfectly normal person. Would he appear as normal if it were raining?

  He’s hit by a thought and he takes out his notebook.

  Line of Inquiry 1: Somebody who needs a child.

  Line of Inquiry 2: Somebody who knows Julia.

  Somebody who wants a child would find a good place and wait. He or she would need a crowd, or a number of people around at the very least. Several good escape routes and a smart way to force or tempt a child to be quiet. The kidnapper could have hidden in one of the restaurants, but not at the bank or at the realtor’s. Or perhaps come walking from the opposite direction, from the Globe Arena Center. Escape routes … Kouplan looks around. Subway station entrances in three places, but no place to drive a car. At least two hundred meters to each of the station entrances. A stolen child might try to scream or kick. Perhaps the kidnapper drugged her.