Echoes From the Dead

Jönköping, April 1970

“It’s not large, but it does have a view over Lake Vättern,” says the owner of the property, pointing out of one of the windows. “And the kitchen equipment and the bed are included in the rent.”

The owner is puffing and blowing in the narrow room. The elevator in the building is broken, and his forehead is shiny with sweat after plodding up four flights of stairs. He’s a man in a suit, with a very big belly beneath his shirt.

“Fine,” says his potential tenant.

“There’s good parking too.”

“Thanks, but I don’t have a car.”

It takes no more than five minutes to inspect the whole apartment, less than five minutes actually. One room and a kitchen, right at the top of Gröna gatan in the south of Jönköping.

“I’ll take it. For six months. Maybe longer.”

“A traveling salesman? With no car?”

“I use the train and the bus,” says his tenant. “I move around quite a bit... and I’m waiting for my bosses back home to send for me.”

Nils is still trying out his new name and his new life. He is slowly growing into it, and can feel his old life fading away. But it never disappears completely. It’s like having another life preserved beneath a cheese-dish cover. His new life is freer — it has an ID number and a passport that is accepted at borders — but despite that, it never feels completely real. Not in Costa Rica, not during the years in Mexico or the year outside Amsterdam or the last six months in an almost completely empty apartment out in Bergsjön outside Gothenburg, when he sometimes woke up in a cold sweat, believing he was back in the steaming heat of Costa Rica.

“Do you mind if I ask how old you are?” says the landlord.

“Forty-four.”

“Best time of life.”

“Maybe.”

When Nils asks when he’s actually going to be able to go home to Öland, all he’s had so far from Fritiof are evasive answers.

“An impatient person makes mistakes,” Fritiof had said to him over a crackling telephone connection three weeks earlier. “Just be patient, Nils. The coffin is buried in Marnäs; the grave is starting to get overgrown with grass and your old mother puts flowers there from time to time. She’s waiting for you.”

“Is she all right?” he wanted to know.

“She’s fine.”

Fritiof pauses, then goes on: “But she’s had postcards. Lots of postcards. First of all from Costa Rica, then from Mexico and Holland. Did you know that?”

Nils did know that. He has sent letters and postcards to his mother throughout all those years, but he’s always been careful.

“I didn’t put my name on them,” says Nils.

“Good. I’m sure they made her happy,” says Fritiof, “but now there’s a rumor that Nils Kant is alive. The police aren’t listening, of course, they’re not interested in village gossip, but that’s what people are saying down in Stenvik. That’s why you mustn’t be impatient. You do understand that?”

“Yes. But what happens when I get home to Öland?”

“What happens...” says Fritiof, as if the answer weren’t interesting at all. “What happens is that you come home, to your mother. But first of all we’re going on a treasure hunt, right?”

“That’s what we said. If I get home, I’ll show you where the treasure is.”

“Good. We just have to wait for the right opportunity,” says Fritiof.

“And when will that be?”

But Fritiof had already hung up.

This man, whose name is definitely something else, simply put the phone down. Nils has a feeling that he’s already a completed project for Fritiof Andersson, a dead man. Dead and buried in Marnäs churchyard.

“The rent is payable in advance,” says the owner.

“That’s fine,” says Nils. “I can pay now.”

“And it’s a month’s notice.”

“Fine. I don’t need any longer.”

Nils is not dead, he’s on his way home.

And the man who calls himself Fritiof shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking anything different.