Death Angels

JANUARY 1997
1

lT HAD BEEN THE KIND OF YEAR THAT REFUSES TO LET GO. IT spun every which way and bit its own tail like a rabid dog. Weeks and months seemed to go on forever.

From where Erik Winter sat, the coffin appeared to hover in the air. Daylight poured through a window to his left and lifted it from the bier on the stone floor. Everything merged into a rectangle of sunshine.

He listened to the psalms of death, his lips unmoving. He was surrounded by a circle of silence. It wasn’t the unfamiliar atmosphere that made him feel isolated. Nor was it his grief, but another kind of feeling, akin to loneliness or the void that you stare into when you’re losing your grip.

The warmth of my blood is gone, he thought. It’s as if the path behind me is overgrown with weeds.

Rising with the others, Winter walked out into the light and followed the pallbearers to the grave. Once the farewell handfuls of soil had been thrown, there was nothing more to do. Only after he had stood quietly for a few minutes did he feel the January sun caress his face like a hand dipped in lukewarm water.

He walked slowly westward along the street to the ferry dock. The civil war within a man is over, he thought. An armistice has been signed. Now only the past remains, and my grief is just beginning. If only I could simply do nothing for a long time and then start weeding the paths to the future. He smiled wistfully at the low sky.

He climbed aboard and went up to the car deck. The vehicles on the ferry to Gothenburg were covered with dirty snow. They clattered like hell and he put his left hand over his ear. The sun was still out, lucid and impotent over the water. He had removed his leather gloves as the casket was being lowered into the grave, and now he put them on again. He couldn’t remember a time when it was ever this cold.

He stood alone on deck. The ferry chugged away from the island. As it passed a breakwater, he thought about death and the way life goes on long after it loses all meaning. The gestures still come from force of habit but leave nothing in their wake.

The ferry restaurant was full. The people seated to his right drifted over toward the big windows.

At first he sat hunched over his table without ordering anything to drink. He waited for the psalms to die down inside his head and then asked for a cup of coffee. A man took the seat next to him.

Winter sat up and unfurled his long frame. “Bertil Ringmar, of all people. Would you like some coffee?”

“Thanks.”

Winter motioned to a waitress.

“I think it’s self-serve.”

“No, here she comes.”

The waitress took Winter’s order in silence, her face oddly transparent in the sunlight. Winter couldn’t tell whether she was looking at him or at the church tower of the receding village. He wondered if you could hear the bells chime when you were on the opposite shore, or on the ferry when it was heading toward the island.

His posture is awkward, Ringmar thought. These tables aren’t made for tall people. He looks like he’s in pain, and it isn’t because of the sunlight in his eyes.

“So here we are again,” Winter said.

“It never ends.”

“No.” Winter watched the waitress put the coffee down in front of Ringmar. The rising steam thinned out at Ringmar’s brow and traced a circle around his head. He looks like an angel, Winter thought. “And what are you doing here?” he asked.

“I’m sitting on the ferry drinking coffee.”

“Why do we always have to split hairs with each other?”

Ringmar took a swig of coffee. “Maybe because we’re both so sensitive to shades of meaning.” He lowered his cup.

Winter saw Ringmar’s face reflected in the tabletop, upside down. The lighting suits him, he thought.

“Were you out here to see Mats?” Ringmar asked.

“You might put it that way… he’s dead.”

Ringmar grasped his cup. It burned like ice, but he didn’t let go.

“The funeral was quite an event,” Winter said. “I didn’t know he had so many friends. Only one relative, but the church was packed.”

“Hmm.”

“I was thinking it would be mostly men, but there were plenty of women too. More women than men, come to think of it.”

Ringmar was looking out the window behind Winter, who assumed the church tower had caught his attention. “It’s a hell of a disease,” he said, turning back to Winter. “You could have called me.”

“In the middle of your Grand Canary vacation? Mats was a close friend, but I can handle the grief. Or maybe it’s just starting now.”

Their silence gave way to the roar of the engines.

“It’s a bunch of diseases rolled up in one,” Winter said after a while. “What finally got him was a bout of pneumonia.”

“You know what I meant.”

“Of course.”

“He had the damn thing for a long time, didn’t he?” Ringmar asked.

“Yes.”

“Shit.”

“For a while there he thought he was going to beat it,” Winter said.

“Did he tell you that?”

“No, but I could sense what he was thinking. Sometimes the strength of will can save you when everything else is gone. He even had me convinced.”

“I see.”

“Then some kind of misplaced guilt got hold of him,” Winter said, “and it was all downhill after that.”

“Didn’t you mention once that he talked about becoming a policeman when he was younger?”

“Did I say that?”

“That’s how I remember it,” Ringmar said.

Winter reached up and brushed the hair back from his forehead, then left his hand on the thick strands that covered his neck. “Maybe when I started at the police academy. Or was thinking about applying.”

“Could be.”

“It’s been a while.”

“Yes.”

The ferry trembled as if it had fallen asleep in the calm waters and been jolted awake. Passengers wrapped their coats more tightly around themselves.

“He would have been welcome,” Ringmar said.

Winter let go of his hair and placed his palms on the table.

“I read they’re looking for homosexual police in England,” Ringmar said.

“Do they want to take homosexual police and assign them new duties, or train homosexuals to be police?”

“Does it make any difference?”

“Sorry.”

“At least in England they realize that the police force needs to reflect the general population,” Ringmar said.

“That makes sense.”

“Who knows, maybe we’ll have some gay officers here one of these days.”

“Don’t you think we already do?”

“Ones who are willing to admit it, I mean.”

“After what I saw today,” Winter said, “I’m beginning to think that I would admit it if I were gay.”

“Hmm.”

“Maybe even before today. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I would have.”

“You’re probably right.” Ringmar’s face relaxed.

“You shouldn’t have to pretend to be somebody you’re not and carry all that guilt on your own shoulders.”

“I’m up to my ears in guilt.”

The people by the big windows looked like they didn’t know whether they should burst into song or drown their sorrows in drink.

Winter glanced outside as the ferry passed a lighthouse. “What do you say we go out on deck and greet the big city?” he asked.

“It’s cold out there,” Ringmar said.

“I need some fresh air.”

“I understand.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Don’t try my patience, Erik.”

The day was gray and about to lose its freshness. The car deck had the muted glint of coal, and the cliffs surrounding them now were the same color as the sky. It’s not so easy to tell where one ends and the other begins, Winter thought. Before you know it you’re in the kingdom of heaven. One false step off the cliff and there you are.

By the time the ferry made its way underneath the bridge, the sun had already set. The lights of the city beckoned to them. Christmas was long past, and snowless patches dotted the landscape. The cold wave had frozen the ugliness in place like a photograph.

“I always think that late January is the nastiest time of year,” Ringmar said, “but when it rolls around it’s no worse than anything else.”

“I know what you mean.”

“That must mean that I feel just as shitty all year round or else that I’m always happy as a king.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I wish I was a king.”

“Things aren’t that bad, are they?”

“A long time ago, I thought that I was a crown prince. I was wrong. It turned out to be you. How old are you? Chief inspector at thirty-seven, or thirty-five when you were promoted? It’s unheard of.”

The sounds of the city had grown louder.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for you,” Ringmar continued. “But if I still had any hope left for myself, the workshop I was just at crushed it.”

“What workshop?”

“You know, the one about taking the next step in your life and that sort of thing.”

“Oh yeah, I’d forgotten all about it.”

“You were lucky to get out of it.”

“Right.” Winter watched the traffic out on the highway. The line of cars reminded him of an agitated glowworm.

“I’m not a career climber, when all is said and done.”

“Why do you keep talking about it, then?”

“Let’s say I’m processing my disappointment. That’s a natural thing to do every once in a while, even if you can’t complain about the scraps that life has thrown your way.”

“You’re a detective inspector, for God’s sake. A respected public official.” Winter inhaled the night air. “Not exactly a king, maybe, but certainly a role model.”

The wind was like coarse salt in Winter’s face. The ferry bumped against the dock.