The Father: Made in Sweden Part I (53 page)

‘In the way?’

‘Yes.’

‘
In the way?
Well in that case … what the hell, go ahead. Go behind my back! Why are you standing here? I bet you have a lot to pack, right? And I have a million more of these to wash.’

A new pile of notes. Fifties and twenties. He didn’t hear them leave.

ANNELI HELD HER
phone in her left hand and a cigarette in her right. It was nice to stand outdoors talking, the sun on her face, and if she leaned against the wall she was protected from the wind completely. And then, the echoing, gnawing hole. Every time he hung up.

She missed him so much.

She inhaled the smoke deep down into her chest and let it stay there, filling a void, then she felt calmer, knew that everything would turn out all right if she could just stand the waiting. Just like on the very first day. At the hospital, the fragile oxygen tube on the wall had fallen apart when the midwife pulled on it, so it was up to the woman to run down the hospital corridors with her son in her arms – not breathing, the water still in his lungs – and for several terrible minutes she was sure that he
was dead. She’d smoked then as well, on the hospital balcony next to a giant ashtray filled with hundreds of cigarette butts.

The midwife had come out on the balcony then. Sebastian had cried for the first time, taken his first breath, the water in the lungs had gone away. In the evening he’d lain next to her in a plastic box filled with oxygen, and she’d looked at him, and she was pretty sure he’d looked at her too.

Sebastian had been everything to her. And she’d abandoned him. Now they talked on the phone three times a week and met every other weekend.

She had met a much younger man, a 21-year-old who was everything Sebastian’s father was not, full of energy, madness, strength, a man who made other people’s dreams come true.

She had been in love. She was still in love. And things would be like they were before, in a year, she and Sebastian together again. When this was over. Then they would be a family, a real one. She just had to be able to stand the waiting.

‘Hello.’

She was blinded by the spring sun. The woman from the house next door was standing at the chain-link fence, looking through it at her. Her baby was on the grass some distance away. They’d never spoken to each other, but she’d often seen this woman from her window, and would watch her rake leaves or throw a big yellow ball with the little one.

Like Anneli and Sebastian. Before.

‘Hello.’

She put out her cigarette with the sole of her shoe, then went over to the woman, who lifted her child and held him in her arms. Anneli would be able to caress his cheek; half her hand could fit through the holes in the fence.

‘My name’s Stina.’

‘Anneli.’

‘I’ve seen you here for a while now, across the yard, and I thought, well, you’re our nearest neighbours, would you like to come over for dinner?’

Sometimes it takes very little to make everything feel different. This was one of those moments. Asphalt and chain-link with barbed wire at the top couldn’t obscure the view. The person on the other side of the fence had an ordinary life, and she wanted to share it with Anneli. Maybe she would become a friend, somebody to talk to about whatever girlfriends
talk about. She didn’t even need smoke in her lungs – the calm came anyway. And then, after just a few moments, she felt like dancing. No one had shut her in here. That wasn’t the case. It had been her own choice to stay in this ugly little house, she’d chosen to be here in order to be close to him, and she was prepared to wait for
their
ordinary lives. But in the meantime, here was something she hadn’t even thought possible!
Hello, what does your husband do, oh, he’s a teacher, my husband robs banks
. But it was possible. Nobody knew. Leo was in the building trade. And she could be an artist. Or unemployed. Or on disability for a bad back. They would have dinner. And then a coffee now and then. Maybe watch her kids for her. An ordinary life.

Anneli hurried inside. She threw open the front door and ran into the kitchen, threw her arms around Leo’s neck, making his coffee splash onto the table, but she didn’t care and hugged him even tighter.

‘We’re going out to dinner!’

He looked at her; he’d been somewhere else.

‘There! The woman there, see, the woman on the lawn, she’s invited us to dinner. On Friday.’

‘Dinner?’

‘Yes.’

‘Anneli … I have no interest in neighbours with buggies and small dogs. I’m here for other reasons and … do you even know their names?’

‘Her name is Stina and her son is Lucas and her husband is—’

‘I don’t care what their names are.’

He knew he was hurting her. But he wanted to finish things, not start them.

‘They invited us. You’re out there in that garage all the time! I need to meet people!’

‘Anneli? Look at me. Stina will understand. When I’m done, when I’ve fixed what I need to – then we can start thinking about whether or not we’ll have dinner with people I don’t care about.’

Anneli let him go.

She looked at this man sitting in the kitchen with his back to her, and wished he was still beside her in a car on their way to Farsta, that they’d never robbed a bank, and she realised that at that moment she’d crossed a line and would now always be on the other side of it.

‘Should I go over there now, do you think? And say what? That we can’t come next Friday because my husband has a little problem he needs
to solve, that his brothers don’t want to rob banks with him any more? Your brothers … your fucking brothers, it’s always about them!’

She’d crossed that line because she thought it was better to be a part of it, to be there and to know. But her fear hadn’t diminished, it had got worse – every time they took a risk and managed to succeed, she knew they’d take another risk.

‘Don’t you understand? I have no friends any more. I don’t socialise with anyone.’

‘Is that really my fault?’

‘I can’t invite anyone here. I can’t … hell, not even my own son.’

He didn’t understand fear, didn’t carry it around like everyone else. Leo was never afraid. Or, he never allowed himself to be. Like the time she’d lost sight of Sebastian – the only time it had happened – in the middle of Sergel’s Torg, Stockholm’s biggest square. Her little son had been next to her and then he suddenly wasn’t. That’s how quickly he had disappeared. That’s how fast you lose control over time and space. She’d trembled, run around and shouted, picturing Sebastian somewhere by himself, or walking into traffic, or next to a stranger holding his hand on the way somewhere else – a single image that meant she’d never see her son again.

‘I do things for you, Leo! All the time! Every day! Things I might not want to do. I do it – for your sake!’

Leo didn’t work that way. Leo had grabbed her there in the middle of the crowd and said
you go that way, I’ll go the other way, we’ll meet here in five minutes and split up again
. He’d transformed fear into action – searching became his ‘now’ instead of letting it take over space and time as it had for her. That’s what he did, every time. And that’s probably why he didn’t really understand the need to have dinner with the neighbours; for him ordinary life was just a façade. He saw the practicality of everyday life but not the need, because he’d simply decided there was no room for it, just like he’d decided that there was no room for fear.

‘I’ve never forced you to do anything.’

‘I want you to do this for my sake!’

‘If you don’t want to do something, Anneli, just tell me. If it’s not convenient – don’t do it. Just like I’m not doing this.’

‘Did you ask me if I wanted to live in this house? I hate it! This ugly stone house and those fucking barracks where you practise robbing banks all day and …’

She didn’t cry often. Now she did. Anger turned to tears.

‘You’d already decided that
you
were going to live here because it suited
you
– not us! The cave in the guest room that reeks of gun oil, and this fucking kitchen where you have more meetings than we have real dinners! The only positive thing about this house,
this fucking house
, is that fence, because on the other side of it lives a normal family that’s invited us over for dinner because they want to get to know me. Us! Don’t you understand that?’

She stood in front of him crying and he ought to comfort her, but he couldn’t. Not now. Felix had moved to Gothenburg. Vincent was on his way. And Jasper was about to come through that gate any moment. He’d comfort her later.

He kissed her on the forehead and walked out. The woman next door was still in her garden. Leo looked up and their eyes met, and he nodded because that’s what neighbours do.

He walked slowly to the garage. He wanted to meet him somewhere he could lock the door.

If I see that fool again …

That was the last thing Felix had said before he left, as if handing his rage to his big brother. They had been out in the yard, Vincent having gone inside to say goodbye to Anneli, and Felix had whispered to Leo something Vincent had forbidden him to tell, about a train journey.

If I see that fool again, I’ll kill him.

Felix had handed Leo his rage and left. Now Leo carried it alone. Soon he would pass it on again.

He fetched the toolbox and there, amidst hammers and screwdrivers, was a piece of aluminium he’d ripped from the camping bed he’d slept on in the forest the night before Ullared. He’d made ten different prototypes, tested each one, and for a long time believed that insulation muffled sound best. Until he simply wrapped a long strip of the aluminium blanket around the barrel. It wasn’t perfect – but it was good enough.

A silencer.

He lay the gun down on the workbench and waited.

A knocking. At first hesitant, then harder.

Leo rolled up the garage door.

Jasper looked tired. Worn down. Then he smiled an apologetic smile, as if not sure what he was apologising for.

‘You wanted to … talk to me?’

‘Come in.’

The uncertain, apologetic smile stayed on his face as he stepped inside, and Leo rolled down the garage door behind him without saying a word.

‘Holy shit, Leo, you’ve got the dye off.’

Jasper came further into the garage and stopped under the clothes lines stretched between the walls. He moved his palms along the floating 500-kronor notes, laughed as if tickled, and the apologetic smile turned into adulation.

‘Leo, you’re a fucking genius, you can—’

‘You took ten thousand. Of the clean money.’

‘Yes. But it was—’

‘Tell me. How is it possible to blow ten thousand in four days?’

It was as if Jasper exhaled. Now he knew why he was here – money.

‘How? Leo, hell, have you forgotten? Well, you invite a girl to a bar, have a drink beforehand, that’s three hundred right there, and then an appetiser and main course and a bottle of wine and … there goes a thousand … then a nightclub. Taxi. And then …’

‘Good. Then you can take some more with you.’

He held an empty plastic bag in his hand – and handed it to Jasper.

‘Take it, damn it! It’s your share.’

Jasper threw up his hands, not so amused any more.

‘When we divide what’s left into four.’

‘But … next time? It costs a lot to plan and …’

He hadn’t been interrupted this time, but he still stopped talking and looked at what Leo now held in his hands.

An AK4. But it wasn’t that. It was what was on the barrel. A rolled-up strip from the camp bed.

‘Fuck … you kept on with that?’

‘It works. If I fire a bullet in here, no one will hear, not even the neighbours out there.’

Leo nodded towards the wooden panel under the clothes line.

‘I’ll show you. One shot. So you know what it sounds like.’

He cocked, aimed, fired. And the sound that should have deafened them was sucked up by the homemade silencer.

‘I know you pulled out the safety ring.’

‘The safety ring?’

‘The bomb, Jasper!’

The apologetic, meaningless smile.

‘No … no, Leo …’

‘I was the one who built it. And like you said – I worked out how to get the dye off the money, worked out the silencer. And the bunker. And the secret room. Do you think I’d build a bomb that wasn’t safe, that could explode at any moment, and then send one of us walking into Central Station with it in their bag! First you lied. Now you insult me.’

Leo lifted the gun slightly, with the barrel down.

‘Leo, listen, I thought … I thought … hell, Leo, you have to understand—’

Jasper stopped short. But Leo nodded, in a way that meant
go on, damn it, I want to hear this
.

‘—and I thought that … we could create more chaos and confusion if we really used what we had. Right? Extreme violence, Leo! You usually …’

‘Is there anything else you want to tell me?’

Jasper glanced at the silenced gun.

‘Something else?’

‘Yes. What happened on the train home from Gothenburg?’

‘Nothing much.’

Leo’s open right hand landed hard on his face, the kind of slap that holds more humiliation than pain. Jasper rolled around, floundering, which is what happens when you don’t understand what’s happening, when someone you trust strikes you.

His arms and shoulders were braced against the wall as he stood up, with unsteady legs that hadn’t yet regained their balance when an open palm hit his other cheek and he fell again, the back of his head hard against the floor.

‘Humiliation, Jasper? Do you think it’s fun? Well?’

Jasper lay there trying not to look up, everything gathering in his face. Confusion. Disappointment. Hate. Grief. An animal considering striking – but with its throat exposed.

Leo waited until Jasper stood up for a second time. That was when he raised his weapon. Turned it. And handed it over. Jasper took it without really understanding. Not even when Leo grabbed the barrel and brought it to his own forehead, pressed it onto the anger oozing through his temples.