The Truth Behind the Lie

by Sara Lövestam

  The third man didn’t say anything at all, at least not to her. But he used English when he talked to the other two. She recognized the words yes, no, and fuck. He has hair in his ears and his nose looks like an enormous potato. She doesn’t like any of them, but if she could choose which one she hated the most, she’d choose him.

  * * *

  The first man is the one who said he was her real father. He’s coming in the room now as she is standing with her head out the window.

  “You can’t open the window,” he says.

  He says this like it’s a recommendation, but she knows it’s an order. Maybe even a threat. She quietly shuts the window and latches it properly.

  “That’s better.”

  He sits down on the bed without sheets. She’s slept in it for at least five nights and in a way it’s hers and she doesn’t like his rump on it.

  “You’re not my father,” she whispers so silently that nobody should be able to hear it. She hasn’t even really moved her lips. But he hears it.

  “Stop making a fool out of yourself,” he says. “You’re a big girl now. You should get used to the situation.”

  She’s curious, almost against her will. She knows he’s lying. She just knows. But if he wasn’t …

  “I’ve talked to your mother. Come here!”

  He pats the bed next to him, but she remains standing by the window. He probably didn’t talk to her mother. Definitely not.

  “I don’t know if she ever told you that you were too much for her to handle.”

  He furrows his forehead as if he cares, as if he knows about her mother. Her insides turn cold. She doesn’t want to remember that her mother had actually used almost those same words.

  “So we decided that I’d have you from now on. She’s had you for so long. It’s difficult to have a child like you for such a long time. Aren’t you going to come and sit down?”

  He pats the bed again. She shakes her head and he forces a laugh.

  “There you go. You don’t do what people tell you to do. I can see why she doesn’t want you anymore.”

  She mumbles a reply. She wants to keep it behind her lips, inside her mouth. But he hears everything.

  “Speak up! What did you say?”

  She has to open her mouth and give him the words she wants to keep.

  “My mother loves me.”

  He nods sadly as he looks right at her.

  “Yes, she used to love you, yes. But now she doesn’t want you anymore. Stop arguing and come and sit down. I don’t bite.”

  His voice is as hard as a monster’s and it forces her. She lets go of the windowsill and walks over the floor to sit on the very edge of the bed.

  “Now we understand each other,” he says. “Next time you will do as I say immediately. So that I also don’t get tired of having you around.”

  He puts a heavy hand on her shoulder, tries to pet her back in a fatherly way. Her back hates him through her sweater.

  “Say, ‘Yes, father.’”

  All he does is tell lies, this man who says he’s her real father. Everything he says is the opposite of the truth, so her answers can also be the opposite of the truth. He pinches her neck when she doesn’t answer right away.

  No, not-father.

  “Yes, father.”

  CHAPTER 25

  Kouplan feels he’s missed something.

  He thought he’d be so good at this. All he’d need was a case and he’d be the best brain in the world again, the person he was before he fled, the person his brother had made him feel he was. But his life is clouding his brain and although it’s good sometimes to focus on something else, his total concentration makes him fear for his life. Just one second of distraction at the wrong time would be all that’s needed. There’s barbed wire around his reasoning and he can’t figure it out. It’s like Pernilla said: “It’s as if my brain doesn’t want to answer.”

  He’s back in Akalla. Not because his clues have led him there, but because he can’t think of anything else to do. He’s already combed through Hökarängen and it would be a complete waste of time to hope for some luck there. He has no reason to visit Pernilla’s ex-husband a second time and Thor has already come as close to breaking his professional confidentiality as he could. I could question him again, Kouplan thinks. I could keep poking at him to see what might show through Thor’s silences. Just then the Sibeliusgången door opens and the enormous Chavez steps out.

  Chavez is carrying his gym bag and heads straight for the gym. Kouplan follows at a safe distance and stops about fifty meters away when Chavez walks into the building. Then it’s hard—all this standing around. If it were the middle of summer, it wouldn’t be so bad. You can casually sit on a bench for hours, but at the end of October, that wouldn’t seem normal at all. Kouplan leans against a wall and tries to look like a druggie waiting for his dealer. He squats but immediately thinks he looks like a homeless illegal immigrant, so he quickly stands back up. Finally, he takes out his phone, head down, as if he’s in the middle of reading something extremely interesting. He moves his finger over his Ericsson T610 as if it could pick up the newspaper app, play Angry Birds, and check his mail. If someone walks past, he’d look like he was doing just that. The screen shines at him with the absolutely latest color circa 2003, say Tele2/Comviq with 128×160 pixels.

  Fifty-five minutes later, Chavez comes out, now without his bag. Without looking, he crosses the street, heading in the direction of the subway station, as he shakes a plastic water bottle and then drinks as he heads to the subway station. He pulls out his card and walks underground. It’s easy to shadow him here. Chavez is only nervously alert in the city. Kouplan reminds himself: You’re more vulnerable when you feel secure.

  They ride to Maria Square, the two of them, which necessitates changing trains. Twice Kouplan has to get out of a car at the same time as Chavez and both times he has to look as insignificant and unconcerned as he possibly can. Luckily, he’s had some practice in this art.

  Maria Square is probably the most unpleasant corner of Stockholm. Small cafés and shops for sewing supplies edge Hornsgatan. The cafés pull in young people, huddled in winter parkas and eager for coffee. As the street goes farther north, the shops transform into boutiques and the side streets become more spruced up. At the summit of the hill, the view is magnificent. But next to the subway, by Thorkell Knutssonsgatan, there is a police station.

  It’s probable Chavez feels the same way about the police station as Kouplan does, because he picks the farthest exit and then detours around before going on to his real goal. At the entrance, he looks around quickly, and Kouplan glances away into one of the side streets. When he dares to look back, Chavez is gone. But he’s sure that he’s gone into the building.

  The street is about twenty feet wide. There’s an apothecary and a gallery along one side. If he stands in front of them and looks up at the windows, he’ll be too visible, but if he goes inside, he’ll be unable to keep watch. Chavez could exit the building at any time and spot the young man from the elevator. At any time, a policeman could come by and ask Kouplan for his identification. And there are only two directions to run. He walks by the entrances as a normal person and then he stops and pulls out his phone as if he’s just gotten a text message. Quickly glances at the windows, but sees nothing moving. Keeps walking, like an everyday citizen, and steps into the apothecary to warm up a bit. Most detective work these days goes on over the Internet, he’d read during his first days as a detective, but he hadn’t been doing much of that.

  * * *

  Chavez buys snuff. He spits as he crosses the street. He spits on the sidewalk. He almost spits on a dog. Do anabolic steroids affect saliva production? Chavez makes phone calls. First to his barber to get an appointment and then to a colleague or friend—hard to tell. Kouplan hears snatches of the conversation: “What you up to?” and “Saw the boss just now, it…” and “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” Kouplan scribbles everything down. The appointment could be code. T
he boss. That may be significant. That’s all he catches.

  Chavez spits on another crosswalk and looks back over his shoulder. Kouplan shivers as he judges the ratio between their respective muscle masses, three to one. He slips into a hole-in-the-wall convenience store, which is an absolutely stupid thing to do. He hears his brother: Never go in anywhere unless you’re positive there’s a back door. He’s hoping that Chavez will keep going past the Italian restaurant and the electronics shop, but no, Chavez doesn’t. He turns around. Kouplan sees this between the plastic letters on the shop door and he can read the guarded expression on Chavez’s face. He’s walking back slowly to this shop without a back door. Think quickly! Think like the time at the border!

  The bell jingles and Chavez fills up the doorway as if the sun had suddenly suffered a total eclipse. Now three people are filling a space of less than ten square feet. Lottery ticket machines line the walls. Through sheer willpower, Kouplan faces the counter. His back and thin neck are turned on Chavez, much softer than anything Chavez could pound at the gym.

  “Is that raspberry flavor?” Kouplan says in the highest voice he can manage while pointing at a display of lollipops.

  The girl behind the counter glances first at Kouplan and then at Chavez. Even a stone could feel the tension in the room. She shakes her head slowly.

  “Sorry, it’s cherry.”

  “Oh, I hate cherry. Well, I’ll take one of those instead.” He points to the raspberry vines. Behind him is three hundred pounds of criminal steroids and here he is, buying candy.

  “And a pack of cigarettes for my dad,” he says, giving the girl a testing look.

  It works.

  “Do you have an ID?” she asks.

  “It’s not for me—it’s for my dad.”

  “Well, then he has to come and buy them himself.”

  The shadow behind him eases away and cold autumn air swirls in as Chavez heads out the door. The girl behind the counter gives Kouplan a meaningful look.

  “That’s one huge guy,” she says.

  Kouplan shrugs his shoulders and tries to look like the cheeky twelve-year-old he’s playing. His soprano voice cheeps:

  “What guy?”

  * * *

  His brother would be proud of him. First of all, because he’s still alive. Second, he has survived by using one of his weak points. Not everyone has a voice that can sound like a middle-grader’s. Not everyone looks like Darin’s younger brother. You can get angry at your genetics or you can use them to your advantage.

  His intelligence has let him figure out something else. The boss. He flips back to the address. He can keep following Chavez and count how often he spits, sure. But most detective work is done on the Internet.

  * * *

  Back in his room, he turns on his computer. It starts as slowly as a reluctant steam locomotive. It takes a few minutes before the Windows logo appears.

  Somebody knocks at Kouplan’s door. If Regina wants something, she usually waits until he comes into the kitchen and also this knocking is weak, about hip high. He gets up and opens his door.

  “Hello, Liam.”

  Liam looks up at him. He has long, pale eyelashes and something important to say. But he can’t get it out.

  Kouplan says, “Do you want something?”

  “Yeah, do you know what day it is tomorrow?”

  Kouplan knows. Tomorrow is exactly one month and one year until he is allowed to ask for asylum again. If the rules don’t change in the meantime.

  “It’s the first of November.”

  “But do you know what day it is?”

  Apparently not.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “It’s my birthday!”

  Liam breaks out in the kind of smile that only a child can give the day before a birthday.

  “Oh!” Kouplan adds, “That’s great.”

  “I thought you’d want to know,” Liam says as he kicks at the floor. “So you don’t see everyone else with presents but you don’t have one for me.”

  “That would be embarrassing,” Kouplan agrees with a smile.

  Liam isn’t listening. He’s already running back to the living room, singing a little song he’s making up about his birthday. “November first, it’s the best!”

  That Kouplan recognizes this lightheartedness means that he’d once experienced it, too.

  * * *

  He thinks about Julia when he opens the browser. She’s six and Liam is turning six. And although he’s never met Julia, he realizes something: The energy is different. Julia is so quiet that even a librarian doesn’t notice her. She goes to church and she sits at home and—what does she do at home? Watch TV? He scribbles his question in his notebook and keeps thinking. Can you frighten a child into being constantly quiet?

  He looks for the address. At the apartment entrance where Chavez went in, twelve families are listed. Nine of them have typical Swedish son names. There’s one von name; that sounds German. And there’s a man called Morgan Björk. Kouplan’s heart skips a beat. M.B.—perhaps common Swedish initials.

  And one more name—a name right from Kouplan’s childhood.

  CHAPTER 26

  That name had been on a class list, two names before his own, a million years ago. That’s why he wakes up from dreams of social studies and reading—he’s eight years old and the world’s most competitive student—until he opens his eyes to find himself in a foreign country. A second later, fear as two eyes stare down at him. He screams and can’t stop himself. His scream makes Liam start screaming, too. For a second, there’s nothing but two screaming boys until Regina comes rushing into the room.

  “Liam! You’re not supposed to be in here! You know that!”

  Kouplan calms his body down, the body that didn’t know whether to fight or flee. False alarm, dear body.

  Liam’s lower lip is trembling. “But it’s my birthday and everything!”

  Regina strokes Liam’s head and smiles apologetically at Kouplan. She explains to Liam that although it’s his birthday, it doesn’t change the rules about going into a tenant’s bedroom.

  “If you have a present for me, bring it to the kitchen table,” Liam informs Kouplan and Regina laughs nervously.

  “Kouplan doesn’t need to give you a present. You’ll be getting lots of presents anyway.”

  Kouplan lies immobile under the blanket as if chained there. If Liam, in his six-year-old enthusiasm had pulled off his blanket, he’d be half-naked. He keeps holding down the blanket as he says, “I’ll be there soon.”

  * * *

  He owns almost nothing. Three changes of clothes. One computer from the Stone Age. Two pens. One lighter. The money from Pernilla has gone to two months’ rent, buying some meat, and setting aside for next month’s transit card. Birthday presents had not been part of his budget. Nevertheless, he does have some money that can’t buy anything.

  At the breakfast table, he’s invited to toast and soda pop.

  “We only have soda pop when there’s a birthday,” Liam says as he eats a sandwich with bread still steaming hot from the toaster. His little sister is licking the butter from her toast.

  Kouplan hands Liam his present. It’s small and wrapped in a bag from the newspaper stand. While his bread is being toasted, he watches the child rip open the bag with such eagerness that his glass of soda pop almost gets knocked over. Liam’s jaw drops.

  “It’s money!”

  Regina leans over and looks at the coins.

  “Wow, look, Iranian money!”

  Liam holds them up, one at a time.

  “That one is five hundred,” Kouplan explains. “And that one is one hundred and so is that one. So it’s seven hundred rial all together!”

  Liam, now six years old and the proud possessor of seven hundred rial, can’t sit still from excitement. Julia would also be acting like that, instead of … of whatever she’s doing. Whether she’s been kidnapped or just picked up … Kouplan thinks about what Pernilla has said about her m
emory. It almost seemed as if she’s forgotten something extremely important.

  Regina whispers as he walks past her to put his plate in the dishwasher.

  “I hope you haven’t given away too much money.”

  Kouplan smiles and shakes his head.

  “Not enough to buy a pack of gum,” he says.

  * * *

  Kouplan has been fitting fragments together in his mind. Julia being picked up by the authorities was one possibility. First, there’s Pernilla’s admitted memory lapse. Then, there’s her choice of words when she said she’d felt that Julia was dead. That she had to let her go. So Social Services could have picked her up and Pernilla could have repressed the memory. It’s a completely logical explanation, although you’d have to have a psychiatric illness to forget something like that. Kouplan’s mother is a psychologist and Kouplan knows that such illnesses exist. And Pernilla, by her own admission, had been a patient at a mental hospital. She has scars from the cuttings on her arms and flight in her eyes. He could call Social Services, but they wouldn’t tell him anything. They also have professional confidentiality about everything.

  And then there’s the theory about a father. Who is the child’s father? It’s been in his notebook for a long time and he still has no clear answer. Pernilla was angry when he first brought it up. When he asked about Thor, she’d laughed and said no. Then she had that look of flight in her eyes. Do her eyes always signal her need to flee?