The Invoice (2 page)

Pretty much exactly a month later, a reminder arrived. With a surcharge for late payment. The amount had risen to 5,700,150 kronor. I looked at the sheet of paper more closely. There was no question that it was my name and my address on it. And there was no missing decimal point. There was no doubt about the amount. This time the invoice was from a payment clearance company, SweEx.

We cannot enter into correspondence
, it stated clearly in the middle of the page.
All appeals should be directed to our client
. Then a telephone number.

I called the number that was printed at the bottom of the page and found myself listening to an automated voice that welcomed me and said: “Please describe the reason for your call in your own words.”

I made an attempt to explain why I was ringing, but before I had finished the automated voice interrupted me and said I would be put through to an operator.

“You are currently number thirty-six in the queue. Waiting time is estimated to be two hours and twenty-five minutes.”

When I had been waiting quarter of an hour, the automated voice declared that the waiting time was now estimated to be two hours and forty minutes. I smiled at the absurdity of a waiting time that just kept growing, and seeing as the whole thing was really all a mistake I decided to let them work it out for themselves while I went out and bought myself an ice cream.

It was a gloriously sunny day. Not a cloud in the sky, and the temperature was approaching thirty degrees in the shade. Down by the kiosk people were crowded into the shadow of the projecting roof, as if taking cover from rain. I stood and waited out in the square for a while, but fairly quickly felt the sun burning my scalp and neck, so I too pushed my way in under the little roof. People were chatting about all sorts of subjects, then suddenly I heard an older woman say to a young man of seventeen or eighteen: “How much was yours?”

I didn't hear his reply, but her reaction was clear enough: “Oh, well, you were lucky, then.”

The young man muttered again. It was impossible to make out what he was saying because his mouth was full of ice cream, and he also had his back to me.

The woman went on: “Yes, but compared to a lot of other people you've gotten off pretty lightly.”

I wondered what they were talking about, but it was difficult to draw any conclusions when I could only hear her side of the conversation. “That's because you haven't been around long enough to get very old yet,” the woman suddenly declared. “It's supposed to be worst for people around forty or so.”

The young man mumbled something, short and unintelligible.

“I know,” the woman went on, “because they've just carried on regardless, not expecting this at all. They thought everything was going to last forever and that the state was going to pay for the whole thing. Imagine! Well, it'll only take you four or five years, then you'll have caught up. But for them…well…!”

She was holding her jacket over one arm, and was facing in my direction as she waited for her son, or grandson, or whatever he was, to finish his ice cream. The young man went on muttering in a hopelessly low voice. I tried to move closer so I could hear better, but it was practically impossible to make out a single word. “Still a lot of money,” I thought it sounded like.

Eventually it was my turn. As usual I went for a small tub with two scoops. Mint chocolate and raspberry. My two favorites.

On my way back up in the lift, I couldn't help overhearing a girl with several different necklaces on as she talked on her phone. She seemed very stressed. She pulled out a big leatherbound diary from her handbag, then leafed through it aimlessly, back and forth, making her necklaces jangle against each other, and even though her hair was tied up she kept brushing a loose strand from her face as she talked.

“Okay, could I borrow half the amount then?…No, I realize that…Okay, but what about half the amount?…Yes. Right. Yes. I've checked with my bank, and they've promised ten, but that's still…Yes.”

She made a small note in her diary.

“But if I could borrow half the amount from you, then…Yes. The invoice comes to—”

She caught my eye and suddenly fell silent. As if she had only just noticed that I was standing there. The person at the other end went on talking as the girl murmured in reply.

For some reason these two overheard conversations left me feeling uneasy. It was as though they were talking about something that ought to concern me, something I'd missed. A bit like when you've been away and come back to find everyone talking about a celebrity who's said something funny, or humming an infectious summer hit that everyone else has heard but you've got no idea about.

By the time I got back to my apartment there was hardly any ice cream left. I scraped out the last drips and managed to spill some on the payment reminder that was still lying there. It struck me that if you don't pay companies like that you end up with a black mark on your credit record—the sort of thing that can be hard to get rid of, even if it later turns out to have been a mistake.

The next time I called the queue was only an hour. But after a while the wait was recalculated once more, and had soon risen to two hours and seven minutes. At one point I got down to half an hour, and at worst it was up at six hours. I switched to speakerphone, put my phone down on the coffee table, and left it there as the call went on. I plugged the charger into the wall while I played
Fallout: New Vegas
and listened to the Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Afternoon turned to evening, and evening turned to night, and eventually I slid into my gloomiest mood. A state that could easily last for hours. Sometimes I would put on particularly mournful music, melancholic songs by Jeff Buckley or Bon Iver, preferably some tormented young man singing about his broken heart and crushed dreams, so I could really wallow in pain and sadness. Just sit there and sink deeper into longing and misery. It had its own quite specific feeling of satisfaction. A bit like when you pick at an old wound, a scab—you just can't help it. But after a while I got fed up and dug out a couple of old magazines to reread. I managed to doze off on the sofa in the middle of a long article about projectors and wireless media players.

It was eight o'clock the following morning when I finally got through. A high-pitched, slightly hoarse female voice answered. I started by asking what the hell was wrong with their queuing system.

“It's completely insane,” I said. “First it's an hour, then all of a sudden it's twice that. Then it halves again, but before you know it the waiting time's gone up to three hours.”

She apologized and said that the system was still under development.

“There are still a few teething problems,” she said. “The idea was to develop a more dynamic, customer-centered queuing service. At the moment it takes the length of the current call and adjusts the estimated waiting time from that. But sometimes it can be a little misleading…”

“No kidding,” I said.

“Well,” she said, “what can I do for you?”

I said I'd received an invoice, and that there must be some mistake, and would she mind correcting it? She listened carefully, then explained that everything was in order. There was no mistake, and no, I wasn't the first person to call. I said I hadn't ordered anything, or requested any services, but she maintained that the invoice was still correct. When I wondered what this was all about, she sighed and asked if I never read the papers, watched television, or listened to the radio? I had to admit that I didn't really keep up with the news.

“Well,” she said, and I got the impression that she could have been smiling at the other end of the line. “It's time to pay up now.”

Small strands of heat clouds were appearing in the sky through the window. It had to be the hottest day of the year so far. It looked like everything out there was quivering. Some children were running about on the pavement below, squirting each other with water pistols. I could hear their delighted cries when they were hit by the sprays of cool water. On the balcony opposite a woman was shaking a rug. The sound of a spluttering moped echoed off the walls of the buildings. It died away, then came back. It sounded like someone was going from one address to the other, looking for something.

“Have you got Beta or Link?” the woman said on the phone.

“What did you say?” I said.

“Which payment system have you signed up with?”

“No idea,” I said. “I don't think I got one at all.”

“No?” she said.

“No.”

“But you do have a plan?”

“A plan?”

“You've got a payment plan, linked to your E.H. account?”

I waited a moment.

“I don't think so,” I said.

“You haven't registered?” she said.

“No,” I said. “Should I have?”

She didn't say anything for a while, so I repeated the question.

“Is that something I should have done?”

She cleared her throat.

“Well, let me put it like this: yes.”

I felt a sudden urge to sit down.

“But what…what am I supposed to be paying for?” I said.

“What?” she said.

“Yes?”

“Everything,” she said.

“What do you mean, everything?” I asked.

I was sitting on the floor, with my back against the kitchen wall and my legs pulled up to my chest. The knees of my jeans were starting to look a bit threadbare. It wouldn't be long before I had a hole there, whether I liked it or not. And even though I realized it probably wasn't fashionable anymore, I still thought it would look a bit cool.

She hesitated a moment before answering, but even though she was silent, I could hear the weariness in her breathing.

“Where are you calling from?” she asked.

“I'm at home,” I said.

“At home. Okay. Look around you. What can you see?”

I raised my eyes from the floor and looked around the room.

“I see my kitchen,” I said.

“So, what can you see there?”

“Er…the sink. Some dirty dishes…a table.”

“Look out of the window.”

“Okay.”

I stood up and went over to the kitchen window, which was open slightly. I'd left it open all night. Maybe a few days. I couldn't remember. The heat had more or less erased the boundary between outside and in. The other day I had a bird in the kitchen for what must have been half an hour. I don't know what sort it was, but it was very pretty. It fluttered to and fro between the kitchen cupboards, then sat on the kitchen table for a while before flying out again.

“What can you see outside?” the woman on the phone asked.

“Buildings,” I said. “And a few trees…”

“What else?”

“More buildings, and the street, a few cars…”

“What else?”

“I can see a blue sky, the sun, a few clouds, people, children playing on the pavement, adults, shops, cafés…People out together…”

“Exactly. Can you smell anything?”

“Er…yes.”

I breathed in the smell of the street. It was sweet and warm with summer scents. Flowers, a shrub of some sort? Some old food? A faint smell of something slightly rotten, and petrol. Typical summer smells. Almost a bit Mediterranean. I could hear the moped again now.

“You can feel something, can't you?” the woman continued. “You're feeling feelings, thinking of different things, friends and acquaintances. And I presume you have dreams?”

She was no longer bothering to wait for me to reply.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“Do you dream at night?” she went on.

“Sometimes.”

“Hmm. Do you imagine all that is free?”

I didn't say anything for a while.

“Well, I suppose I thought…”

“Is that really what you thought?” she said.

I tried to come up with a reply, but my thoughts were going round in circles without formulating themselves into any sort of order. The woman on the phone went on, giving a long explanation of the division of costs, resolutions, single payments, and deduction systems. It sounded almost as if she knew it by heart.

“But how can it amount to so much?” I said, when I could speak again.

“Well,” she said, “being alive costs.”

I said nothing for a while, because I didn't know what to say.

“But,” I eventually said, “I had no idea it was so expensive…”