The Swede (7 page)

Finally one evening, Ben asked: “Are you ready?”

Grip understood perfectly. There had been no contract between them. Even after his daily rhythm had been restored, and Benjamin Hayden became Ben, Grip had still desired other men. Lust was lust. As Ben himself said of him, “With that accent and those bulging arms.” It wasn’t complicated, firefighting that had nothing to do with Ben.

Are you ready?

To swear an oath, even if the fine print hadn’t yet dried. There and then, at the kind of crossroads in life where at most you get a second to think. Yet he lived for the spirit of that, for the few moments in life when everything hangs in the balance. Grip nodded.

“Say it,” said Ben.

Perhaps the realization came just then. “Now I am,” said Grip. It sounded defiant, even if he didn’t mean it that way. Something trembled in Ben. It disappeared. He laughed briefly and said, “You think you are, but warn me beforehand. For God’s sake, warn me.”

But Grip would never have to do that. Because Ben wasn’t the type to need constant reassurance—when Ben touched him, he did it in a most natural and obvious way. Grip had never experienced that before. Someone whose presence made him feel calm. Nothing more, just that. It changed everything, and a different kind of life began.

White shirts and a tan can hide a lot. Age was one thing—Ben turned out to be almost ten years older. The other was the virus. That Ben’s fragility could be contagious, Grip wasn’t at all
concerned about; instead Ben was the one careful about certain details. He was, after all, the person busy keeping death at bay. His bathroom cabinet was filled with pill bottles, and too often he clung to articles about new findings, and to rumors. There was a certain vanity in it, given that his prognosis was hopeless. Being forced to use condoms, and not kissing, those were trivial, under the circumstances.

For several years Ben had been the manager of a gallery on the outskirts of the Flatiron District. The owner had made a fortune in industrial properties in Jersey, and his third wife convinced him to open their own gallery. But his wife soon lost interest, and the owner wasn’t around, so it was Ben who ran the place. He had pretty much lost interest too, but it kept him afloat. The gallery survived mostly on its annual show by a Jewish artist from Massachusetts. He was best known for his unsavory insects made from parts of real bugs, for his huge ball made from thousands of pieces of chewed gum, and for once having carved a bust of himself in an aspirin tablet. Some noted collectors had invested, and then David Bowie bought a piece; after that prices had only gone up. The artist himself was said to spend his money on high-stakes poker; for the gallery and Ben, it meant they kept going, no better.

“Security police,” said Ben, thoughtfully rubbing his beard-stubble when Grip told him about himself. By then, Grip had moved in with him in Chelsea, and there were only two weeks left before he had to leave New York.

“Security police—I thought only Bulgaria and banana republics had them. Security police, that’s what they say on the news when some human rights activist has been beaten or people have disappeared, that the security police have been on the move.” He gazed at Grip and crossed his thin arms. “In the real world, they’re
always three letters: GRU, CIA, MI5. Am I right?” Ben was originally from Houston and could never shake the fact that he was a devout Republican.

“You a good shot?” he wondered. “Two bullets from thirty yards, and both within an inch of each other, in the chest?”

Grip shrugged.

Ben liked it. Also Miles Davis, of course, though he never admitted it, and an occasional Hopper painting would be all right too.

G
rip went back to Stockholm. Farewell was no farewell; between their two cups of coffee that morning, they both knew that something had just begun. After breakfast Ben picked up clean shirts from the Chinese laundry on his way to the gallery, while Grip took a taxi to JFK.

In Stockholm, Grip went to see the doctor again, this time at least getting to take off his shirt. And with that, he was back for real. The first thing he did on the job was submit an application for transfer. He wanted to join the bodyguard detachment, not least for the overtime. When they worked, they worked round the clock, and afterward were off accordingly. His old boss was furious, called it a hell of a waste. But Grip had performed enough unholy services under his direction. “I’ll still need you sometimes.” Grip nodded, and with that, the man who would always be the Boss had signed his consent. Then Human Resources did their usual thing: checked his loans and bank accounts, asked him to fill out some routine papers about his family. Dad was dead and Mom senile, no problem. And really, what would they ever find out by asking people to tick boxes? If something happened, a real scandal, a juicy revelation, at least they could pick up their sheet and say, We did our best to
screen out people with black marks in their past. Ticks in the box. Everybody happy.

Grip got his royal family assignment and bought two new suits with room for a bulletproof vest underneath. Then it was business as usual: some official state visits, strolling down the cobblestone streets of a market town, subduing drunks, Solliden Palace in summertime, then a trip to the Riviera. He trained in rapid firing on the shooting range and listened to the latest concoctions from the threat analysts. Like everything else, these went in cycles, sometimes fixated on the stone-throwing Left, sometimes just blurry pictures of bearded Palestinians. They never talked about the lone crazies, the outliers, the ones they never could get to anyway. And so Grip gazed out over the public gatherings, over the people with their outstretched hands, looking for the ones in the background who just stood quietly, staring, preparing to leap.

He got to knee two German paparazzi, that was all. Autumn came.

The bodyguard detachment was the security police’s refuge for the divorced, newly divorced, and never married. Their stories were mostly of compassionate lies and failures. Life without the earphone was life on a different planet; for many, their civilian time was a wasteland. In any event, everyone minded their own business. Their mountain of overtime compensation was the captain’s biggest problem, and what his staff did when he could find gaps to send them away, nobody cared about. “Lundgren, von Hoffsten, Grip, take ten days—now!” Lockers were slammed, cell phones turned off. Maybe they took the time to have a beer, usually not. A few brief nods. And so each headed out on his own.

Grip didn’t even pack—he already had what he needed in New York. He usually landed sometime after lunch and then headed to
the gallery. It took no more than a glance and a smile over Ben’s shoulder as he stood talking with a customer. Certainly they missed each other, but there was no jealousy or worry. The state of affairs was completely clear. Till death do us part. In the fall they went up to Cape Cod for a long weekend. Stayed at a small hotel with a yellow facade that Hopper had once painted, walked between the lighthouses under the clouds.

One night they sat in one of the few restaurants that hadn’t yet closed for the season. Ben had downed a couple of martinis before dinner, and they were on their second bottle of red. Ben squinted so it stretched even the corner of his mouth when he poured the last in Grip’s glass.

“You’re security police,” he said, waving the bottle to the girl at the bar. “Most art is just stuff. Dead things.” He took a big gulp from his glass and cleared his throat. “I appraise art, you know. All kinds of fools want to hear what a man like me thinks.” He rubbed his mouth drunkenly. “Their eyes shine when they find out what it’s worth. Then if you can find some new thing for their walls or their pedestals, they’ll pay anything. It has to cost them, that’s the thing.” He let the knife spin on the tablecloth.

“Jean Arp,” he said then, “what do you know about Arp?”

Grip was only half listening to what Ben was saying. “Nothing,” he replied.

“Sculptures,” said Ben, and raised his hand dismissively. “There are people who”—he paused, drank of the wine—“people who need help.”

Now Grip knew it would be about money. That was the dark side, the eclipse—until death do us part. They needed money, lots of money, to postpone the prophecies that faced them. Sums that caused them to sit up at night staring at each other. Until the moment
nearly twenty years ago when the nurse handed him a slip that said “positive,” Ben had been living like an immortal. He couldn’t afford anything else anyhow: as a freelance art writer, at best money meant paying the rent on time. He knew better, knew damn well he needed to do better, but health insurance, he’d get to that later. Later, later, later, until he sat with that slip in his hand. He tried to fix it, but it turned into a gauntlet of pitying glances. Sooner or later a remark about the disease always came up, and the insurance agent would shoot the application forms a little too far to the side. He had to take out a loan, he had to have care. In those days, the doctors in their white coats offered a lot, but nothing that would help. He arranged creditors, endorsements by others wandering in the same desert. They signed for each other. Almost every one of them was dead now. And then the probates ended the pyramid game against the banks. Ben came to dread phone calls from lawyers more than the notes saying that another emaciated friend had given up the ghost, among addicts and homeless people in some county hospital. While the insurance agents had at least been sympathetic, the faces of the bankers and the lawyers they hired were cold.

To save himself, falsity became second nature: to throw out mail, to lie under oath, to question the authenticity of his own old signatures. To hunt for medical certificates that said he was dying and therefore not available. Everything was about procrastination. It was a decades-long war of broken promises and betrayed confidences. Everyone and no one was the enemy. Or—the banks and lawyers were the enemy. Always.

And it had worked, it had just barely worked. These days Grip took care of the most pressing bills, the overdue fees that keep Ben from being sued by his own lawyers. But more than that he could not manage, and Ben needed doctors more than ever. His lungs rattled,
and now and then the shortness of breath forced him down on his knees with blue lips. But the doctors who could treat him only took cold cash.

“. . . people that need a bit of help,” said Ben. “They pay well.” Drinking deep drafts of the wine again, Grip lowered his eyes from the deserted street outside the restaurant.

“Help?” he said. They had both agreed that Grip would never get mixed up in the paper war over money, that his name or signature would never show up in those battles. There were many reasons for that.

“Help, with Jean Arp,” said Ben, putting the glass down. “I will certify its authenticity.”

“The sculptures are fake?”

“No, everything indicates that they are genuine.”

“Wait—to certify the authenticity of something authentic, does that pay much?”

“It depends on the context.” Ben’s eyes grew clearer.

This was about more than money and perjury. Out of habit, Grip looked over his shoulder. No one was near them.

“First, they must get their hands on them, the Arp sculptures,” said Ben.

“Theft,” said Grip, giving it its proper name. He weighed the word like a tool in his hand.

“A person with a lot of money pays so that someone else, just as wealthy as he, will in turn lose them. In the process, I examine the sculptures and say that they are what they are.”

“Should make a couple of thousand,” murmured Grip.

“Usually something like that,” replied Ben with a shrug.

That’s how it was; Ben earned extra money by appraising stolen goods. And of course it was something Ben never talked about.
But now he wanted more. A few thousand dollars at a time, under the circumstances, was like collecting bottle deposits to pay for a space flight. Grip shifted in his chair, uncertain about where they were going. At the same time, he knew that Ben was so drunk he’d drowned any reluctance to say what was on his mind.

“Now they need help, planning a few details for the next bust.” Ben’s hand seemed to lie on the table, but in fact it hovered a few millimeters above. Apologies already prepared, and a thousand phrases that said “Forget it” as soon as he’d laid out what he needed to. But Grip was sitting perfectly still. He understood. Understood perfectly. The idea was to bring him in next time. With him being part of the planning, they could pay off a lot more bills.

“A robbery,” Grip said then. Not even a question. Not even a flinch.

Ben wasn’t sure. “Of the wealthy, they have—”

Grip struck his palm on the table: “Don’t ask!” The girl behind the bar looked up, but couldn’t hear the rest. Grip stopped a second and then said in a low voice: “I’m not a child and I’m not a toy. If we are something, you and I, then we don’t pretend. We talk about how it is. I know what a robbery is, and I know exactly what’s at stake.”

Ben’s hand kept hovering. His splayed fingers trembled. Not even three martinis and two bottles of wine could keep away his fear of death.

They went back to the hotel that Edward Hopper painted. Complete silence between them. Not war, just silence. It was the third and final night in the same room, and what over a weekend had become familiar now seemed completely foreign. Decorations, light, furniture.

It was five o’clock in the morning when Grip woke Ben up, a hand shaking his shoulder.

“What have you told them?”

“Nothing,” replied Ben after a few seconds, coming back to the surface, “only that I know someone.”

“Security police?”

“No.” Ben slowly turned around. “I met them, understood that they need people, I said I knew someone.”

“Is that all?”

“A Swede, I said. You know, Europeans always arouse interest in those types.”

“And the connection between us?”

“They have no idea. I said you could be reached through an intermediary.”

“But Swedish, you said?”

“Your accent, you would meet . . . It was hardly a revelation.”

A car’s headlights shone through the gaps of the blinds. Nothing more was said.