Easy Money (22 page)

Nothing.

“What do you have to say about that?”

“I don’t know anything more than that. I guess it’s the way Jan said.”

JW followed her with his gaze.

“Susanne, you know something. Why did Jan give Camilla all A’s even though you guys never went to class?”

Susanne folded a pair of jeans. Refused to answer. JW could see plainly: She was blushing.

“What the fuck, Susanne, answer me.”

She held up another pair of jeans, tenderly. Fake wear on the knees and thighs. She put one leg on top of the other. Folded the pants in three steps. The back pocket and the label symmetrically aligned. The
Divided
logo in the customer’s eye.

Loud background music playing in the store: Robbie Williams.

“You haven’t figured it out by now? Didn’t you know your sister, or what? Don’t you know in what way she was talented? Ask Jan ‘Horndog’ Brunéus the next time you see him. You think Camilla got top grades in other subjects, or what? No. Just from him. Do you know how she used to come dressed for his classes?”

JW didn’t get it. What was she talking about?

“Don’t you get it? For an entire semester, Camilla was Jan’s plaything. Good grades for sex. That pig fucked her.”

The train passed Sundsvall. The conductor called out, “Tickets, please.” JW opened his eyes. Conscious again. It had been two months since Susanne Petterson’d almost shrieked out her explanation for Camilla’s good grades.

Who was his sister, really? Or, who’d she been? Was she, like he was, a treasure hunter, but one who’d ended up with the wrong crowd? Who hadn’t been able to take the pressure and skipped town. Or had someone else made sure she was erased from the picture? And if so, why?

JW was hungry but didn’t want to eat. In an hour and a half, he would be sitting at his parents’ dinner table, and it was important that he not lose his appetite by then. That he not be too full.

He got up. Walked toward the dining car. Not because he planned on buying anything, but because he was so antsy. The restlessness’d been creeping up on him more and more over the past few months. When he’d sit down to study, during lectures, while waiting for Fahdi or someone else to meet him and load him up with coke. He’d had to move. Direct his concentration on something. He’d learned to deal. Be prepared. Always kept his Sony player in his breast pocket, often took a paperback with him, downloaded sweet games on his phone. The margins of his college notebooks were filled with doodles.

Now he felt he had to move. Cell phone games wouldn’t help. Had to do a few laps. The question that worried him: Was it his new snort habits or the Camilla thing that was making him jittery?

He eyed the people in the train car. Tedious, tired people. Sven squared. JW wore common camouflage: Acne jeans, Superlative Conspiracy sweatshirt, and semi-ratty Adidas running shoes. He blended in. Suitable for his parental reunion.

He’d made up his mind after the conversation with Susanne. Playing private eye wasn’t his thing anymore. Even so, it’d felt strange to call the police, to talk to the investigator who’d been in charge of the case. He’d explained what he’d found out: that Jan Brunéus’d had some kind of relationship with Camilla Westlund in the time before her disappearance. That Susanne Petterson was aware of this and had told JW. That Jan’d given Camilla top grades despite her lack of attendance.

The investigator’d promised to look into the info more closely. JW assumed that he meant that Jan Brunéus would be called in for questioning.

That JW’d been in touch with the police was a contradiction. Abdulkarim couldn’t know.

But it’d felt like a relief—he’d let go of the burden. Was letting the police do their job.

He’d drifted back into denial. Focused on C, school, and Sophie. Prepared the London trip. Discussed strategies with Jorge. Sold. Dealt. Counted cash.

He’d made up his mind: He wouldn’t tell his parents what he’d told the police.

He was arriving in Robertfors within five minutes. His stomach was growling violently. Was it worry or hunger?

In truth, he knew he was worried about seeing Mom and Dad.

It was almost six months since he’d last bid them good-bye and studied his mother’s worn face and his father’s tight jawline. Would they be feeling better now? JW couldn’t stand being reminded of the tragic plodding of their lives. His goal had been to get away, start over. Be accepted as something different. Something better. Bigger than his parents’ whole-milk lifestyle with its accompanying angst over a lost child. He’d wanted to forget.

The train pulled into the station. People were waiting for arrivals and to depart themselves. The brakes screeched loudly. His car stopped right in front of his waiting parents. JW saw that they weren’t talking to each other. As usual.

Tried to calm down. Look happy and relaxed. As he ought.

He stepped down onto the platform. They didn’t see him at first. He walked toward them.

JW knew that Margareta was trying to call out. But for some reason, she’d been unable to raise her voice ever since the Camilla thing. Instead, she greeted him with a tense smile.

Hugs.

“Hi, Johan, let us take your bags.”

“Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad.” JW handed one of his bags to Bengt.

They walked toward the parking lot together in silence. Bengt still hadn’t said a word to his son.

They were sitting at home, in the kitchen. Wood paneling along the walls and stainless-steel counters. A white Electrolux stove, linoleum on the floor, and a shiny wooden table from IKEA. The chairs were Carl Malmsten copies. There was a copy of a PH-lamp in the ceiling that cast a warm purplish glow. Above the sink hung green pots with words painted on them:
Sugar, Salt, Pepper, Garlic, Basil.

The food was on the table. Thin strips of beef with a blue-cheese sauce. A bottle of red wine, Rioja. A carafe with water. A glass bowl with salad.

JW didn’t have much of an appetite. The food was good; that wasn’t the problem. It was really good. Mom’d always been a good cook. It was something else—the look of the place, the topics of conversation, and that Bengt talked with his mouth full. Margareta’s clothes were all wrong. JW felt like a stranger. The combination bothered him—contempt mingled with a sense of security.

Margareta reached for the salad. “Tell us more, Johan. How are things?”

A few seconds of silence. Her real question was: How are things in Stockholm? The city where our daughter disappeared. Who are you spending time with? You don’t run with a bad crowd, do you? Questions she would never pose directly. The fear of being reminded. The fear of coming too close to the dark scream of reality.

“I’m doing really well, Mom. Passing my exams. The latest one was on macroeconomics. There are over three hundred students in the class. There’s only one lecture hall that’s big enough.”

“Wow. There are so many of you. Does the lecturer use a microphone?”

Bengt, with a chewed gray beef mass in his mouth: “Of course they do, Mother.”

“Yes, they do. It’s kind of funny, ’cause they draw all these graphs and curves. You know, in a perfect market, the price is where the demand curve meets the supply curve. All the students copy every single graph into their notebooks, and since there are so many different curves, everyone’s got those four-colored Bics—you know, the pens with four different colors of ink in them—so they can tell the curves apart. When the lecturer draws a new curve, three hundred students switch colors at the same time. A little clicking sound for each one. It’s like a symphony of clicks in the lecture hall.”

Bengt grinned.

Margareta laughed.

Contact.

They kept talking. JW asked about his old school friends from Robertsfors. Six of the girls were moms. One of the guys was a dad. JW knew that Margareta was wondering if he had a girlfriend. He didn’t bother to share. The truth was, he didn’t even know the answer.

A sort of calm washed over him. Warm, safe grief.

After dinner, Bengt asked JW if he wanted to watch sports with him. JW knew that was his attempt at intimacy. Even so, he declined. Preferred to talk to Mom. Bengt went into the living room by himself. Settled into the La-Z-Boy. JW could see him from the kitchen. He stayed where he was and talked to Margareta.

Camilla’d still not been mentioned. JW didn’t care if the topic was taboo. For him, his parents were the only people with whom he’d ever consider really talking about her.

“Have you heard anything?”

Margareta understood what he was talking about.

“No, nothing new. Do you think the case is still open?”

JW knew that it should be now at least. But he hadn’t heard anything, either.

“I don’t know, Mom. Have you changed anything in Camilla’s room?”

“No, everything is just like it was. We don’t go in there. Dad says he thinks it gives Camilla peace that we don’t intrude.” Margareta smiled.

Bengt and Camilla’d fought furiously the year before Camilla moved to Stockholm. Now JW looked back on it with nostalgia: doors slamming, crying from the bathroom, screaming from Camilla’s room, Bengt on the porch with a cigarette between his fingers—those were the only times he smoked. Maybe Margareta felt the same way. The ominous fights were their last memories of Camilla.

JW helped himself to another slice of blueberry pie. Gazed out at his father in the living room.

“Should we join Dad?”

They watched a movie on TV together:
Much Ado About Nothing.
Modern interpretation of Shakespeare, using the original language. Difficult to understand. JW almost fell asleep during the first half. During the second half, he calculated the kind of money he was missing out on making this weekend. Shit, the alternative costs for spending time with his parents were high.

Bengt fell asleep.

Margareta woke him up.

They bid JW good night. Went to their room.

JW remained seated, alone. Prepared himself mentally. Soon he’d go up to the room. Her room.

He flipped through the channels. Lingered on MTV for five minutes. A Snoop Doggy Dogg video was playing. Asses shook in time to the song.

He turned it off.

Climbed into the La-Z-Boy.

Settled in.

He felt empty. Scared. But, strangely, not restless.

He turned out the lights.

Sat back down.

The silence was so much deeper than by Tessin Park.

He got up.

Tried to walk silently up the stairs. Remembered almost step by step which stairs creaked and what strategies to employ to avoid them. Foot on the thick inner edge, foot in the middle, step over an entire stair, step on the edge, on the narrow section, and so on—all the way up.

Another two steps’d become creaky since he’d moved away from home.

Maybe he wasn’t waking Bengt. He was definitely waking Margareta.

The door to Camilla’s room was closed.

He waited. Thought Mom might fall back asleep. Pulled the door while simultaneously pushing slowly down on the handle. It didn’t make a sound.

When he flipped the light on, the first thing he saw were the three baseball hats Camilla’d hung on the opposite wall: a dark blue Yankees hat, a Red Sox hat, and a hat from her junior high graduation. The text on it:
We rocked and rolled
in black lettering on a white background. Camilla liked baseball hats like a fat kid likes cake. Uncomplicated. If there was one, she wanted it.

The untouched room of a seventeen-year-old. To JW, it was almost more childish than that.

There was a window in the middle of one of the room’s short ends. The bed was opposite the window. Camilla’d begged for a whole year to get a double bed to replace her twin. Pink coverlet with flouncy edges. Different-colored throw pillows, some with hearts on them, were spread at the foot of the bed. Margareta’d sewn them. Camilla used to kick the pillows to the floor before going to bed.

A young girl’s room.

Every object was a memory.

Every item a chip in JW’s armor.

More baseball hats were arranged in a bookcase. On top of the bookcase were framed photographs: the family on a ski vacation, JW as a baby, three friends from school—wearking makeup, smiling, full of expectation.

The rest of the shelves were filled with baseball hats.

Above the bed was pinned a poster of Madonna. A strong, successful woman with a mind of her own. Camilla’d been given it by a guy she’d dated in eighth grade. He was four years older, a secret she kept from Mom and Dad.

JW’d thought about how after the disappearance, when he was still living at home, he’d never gone into the room. It’d been empty for so many years, and the effect of the stored and reinforced memories hit him like a punch in the face.

Camilla at her junior high graduation. Hair in an up do. White dress. Later that night: wearing a camo-colored baseball hat. The stories JW’d heard about her behavior at the graduation party. Next memory: Camilla and JW in a fight over the last glob of Nutella. JW: pulled into the room and beaten up, smeared with his own sandwich—with an extra-thick layer of Nutella. Later: Camilla next to JW on the bed, when they were friends again. She showed him her CDs: Madonna, Alanis Morissette, Robyn.

Read the text on the inserts. Said she was definitely going to leave, go to Stockholm.

Enjoyed hanging out together.

There was a built-in bookshelf and two mirrored closet doors on the left wall.

Unread YA books and CDs were lined up on the shelves, but only the ones she hadn’t taken with her to Stockholm. A Sony stereo—a gift on the day of her confirmation. Camilla liked music better than reading.

JW opened the closet doors.

Clothes: skinny jeans, miniskirts, pastel-colored midriff baring tops, a jean jacket. A black corduroy coat. JW remembered when Camilla’d brought it home. She’d bought it herself at H&M in Robertsfors for 490 kronor. Too expensive, Mom thought.

Next to the folded tops was a storage box with reinforced metal corners. JW’d never seen it before. Stiff gray cardboard. JW recognized the type; he’d seen similar ones at container stores in Stockholm.

He pulled the box out and set it down on the bed. It was filled with postcards.