Bad Blood

19

His only protection against the rain a borrowed police umbrella, smartly stamped with abundant police logos, Paul Hjelm wandered through the Norsborg night. The rain seemed here to stay. The pitch-black sky foreboded of the biblical flood, as he thought more and more often.

What was happening to Sweden, that little country in the sticks, up by the Arctic Circle, whose populist movements had once conceived of the first democracy that truly extended down into the ranks of the people, but that had never brought it to fruition? The country had finagled its way out of the horrors of World War II, kept all its skeletons in the closet, and ended up with a fabulous competitive advantage compared with all other European countries. For that reason, it could play the self-righteous world conscience until other countries, or at least those unhampered by intrinsic sluggishness, caught up; and then Sweden would see the end of not only the world’s highest standard of living but also of its status as the world’s conscience. Swedes’ strange, naïve, deterministic conviction that everything would work out for the better meant that during the 1980s they, more than any other people, surrendered themselves to international capital, and they let it run more freely there than anywhere else.

The inevitable downfall brought a decisive collapse of all political control over the fickle whims of computerized capital. Everyone had to pay to clean up the mess-except business. As the country neared bankruptcy, its large-scale companies were maximizing their profits. The burden of payment was placed on households, on the health care system, on education, on culture-on anything that was fairly long term. The slightest suggestion that business ought also to pay for a tiny, tiny bit of the mess it had made was met by unanimous threats of leaving the country.

All at once the whole population was forced to think of money. The soul of the Swedish people was filled to bursting, from all directions, with financial thoughts, until only small, small holes were left unfilled-and there, of course, nothing long-term could find room. There was room only for lotteries, betting, and shitty entertainment on television; love was replaced by idealized soap operas and cable TV porn; the desire for some sort of spirituality was satisfied by prepackaged New Age solutions; all music that reached the public was tailor made for sales; the media stole the language and made themselves the norm; advertisements stole emotions and shifted them away from their proper objects; drug abuse increased considerably.

The 1990s were the decade when capitalism test-drove a future in which the hordes of lifelong unemployed had to be kept in check so they didn’t revolt. Numbing entertainment, drugs that didn’t require a lot of follow-up care, ethnic conflicts to give rage an outlet, gene manipulation to minimize the future need for health care, and a constant focus on the monthly act of balancing one’s own private finances-would it take anything more to ruin the human soul that had developed over the millennia? Was there still dangerous ground somewhere, where a free, creative, and critical thought could be suppressed and redirected before it had time to flower?

The Power Murders had been a reaction, but a directed reaction. Blindly striking, conscience-free violence hadn’t yet shown up in this country, that extremely frustrated and ice-cold, sympathy-constipated reaction against everything and everyone. But now it had begun. Everything would change-and that was logical. One can’t be choosy about what is imported from the rulers of the universe. If one chooses to import an entire culture, then the dark sides will come along too, sooner or later.

Through the impenetrable deluge of water, Paul Hjelm glimpsed the illuminated contours of a city-planning project that was meant to destroy the last remnants of human dignity. He stopped, closed his umbrella with the illusory insignia of the police, and let the torrents wash over him. Who was he to cast the first stone?

He squeezed his eyes shut. What was left of the simple private ethics that functioned when one wasn’t seen, when people did good without needing to show it? Of do unto others as you wish them to do unto you? Was it all in ruins?

He had planned to end the day by checking out a service car, but now that he was suddenly on his way to contemporary culture’s place of birth, he wouldn’t need one. So he had taken the subway home again. And now, having wandered through Norsborg, he set himself in motion. He ran. He ran through the volumes of water with his umbrella folded under his arm. He needed to run until exhaustion filled his entire soul and pushed everything else away. He did so by the time he reached the door of his row house. There he stumbled into the hall, panting alarmingly. It was dark, past eleven o’clock. He could see a faint light coming from the living room: it wasn’t the television light for once-more like a small, flickering flame. He stopped in the hall until his breathing returned to normal. He pulled off his leather jacket and hung it up in the overcrowded hall. Then he turned the corner.

Danne was sitting in the living room waiting. No MTV, no comic book, no video game. Just Danne and a little flame.

Paul rubbed his soaking-wet eye sockets hard before he could attempt to meet his son’s eyes. It still wasn’t possible. They were boring deep into the table next to the little tea light that glimmered in an icy grotto of glass.

He walked over and sat down on the sofa next to his son.

A few minutes passed in silence. Neither of them knew how to begin, so no one began.

Finally Danne whispered, as though his voice had been cried away, “He just dragged me along. I didn’t know where we were going.”

“Is that a fact?” Paul Hjelm said.

Danne nodded. It was quiet for another moment.

Then the father placed an arm around his son’s shoulders. He didn’t recoil.

Becoming an adult just means being able to hide your uncertainty better.

“I’ve seen it too often,” Paul said quietly. “Do it just a few times, and you ruin your life. You can’t let that happen.”

“It won’t.”

First had come the sight of the sky, the sun, the moon, the forest, the sea. The first human gaze saw all of this. Then came fire, which first scared people to death but was soon tamed and became man’s companion. The little flame in front of them became a campfire. The clan gathered around it. It was a matter of survival of their blood. They remained in front of the ancient sight, and it brought out the memory of blood.

Bad blood always comes back around.

They stood up. Their eyes met.

“Thanks,” said Paul, without knowing why.

They blew out the flame and walked upstairs together. As Paul opened the door to his bedroom, Danne said, “You were awfully… tough today.”

“I was scared out of my mind.”

He felt paradoxically proud as he fumbled his way through the pitch-black bedroom. He didn’t shower or brush his teeth; he crept right into the bed next to Cilla. He needed her warmth.

“What was happening with Danne?” she mumbled.

“Nothing,” he said. And meant it.

“You’re cold as ice,” she said, without pulling away.

“Warm me up.”

She lay still and warmed him. He thought of his upcoming trip to America and all its potential complications. All he really wanted was for things to be as simple as this: children to delight in and a woman to warm himself with.

“I’m going to the United States tomorrow,” he said, testing her a little.

“Yes,” she said, sleeping.

He smiled. His umbrella was closed, and he was dry. For the time being.