Sail of Stone

11

Aneta Djanali was back in the four seasons. Vivaldi was far away from here. These were buildings and streets built for heavy metal. One building on the left was on its way down. They had just demolished half of it. There was still concrete dust in the air. A wrecking ball swung in the air like a clock pendulum. A dull echo of an explosion remained.

This is like driving in a war. She turned left and left again. A war against the northern suburbs.

“Good that they’re tearing this shit down,” said Sigge Lindsten.

“Is it?”

“Who the hell wants to live here?”

“Your daughter, for one.”

She turned her head and looked at him. He didn’t look at her. They had to stop at a roadblock. A soldier held up his hand, waving with his Uzi. No. A concrete worker showed them the way around with a spade. There was a rumble in the near distance. There were marks on the finish of a car that was parked behind the worker. The blast mats had been made of wide mesh. Stones fell from the sky.

“It was a mistake,” said Lindsten.

“That she moved here?”

“Yes.”

“Why did they move here, anyway?”

“Back,” said Lindsten.

“Sorry?”

“They moved back. She and… Forsblad,” said Lindsten, and she heard how much trouble he had saying the name. He spat it out quickly. He rubbed his mouth. “The fact is that we lived here before we moved down to Fredriksdal.” He looked at her now. “This is like the home district of the Lindsten family.” He let out a laugh, a metallic sort of laugh that sounded heavy and hopeless. Heavy metal, thought Aneta. “It hasn’t always looked like this. It might never have been beautiful, but there was something else here, some vital culture around the factories.” He turned his head. “This is also some sort of native district.”

She nodded.

“Everything revolved around the factories.” He hacked out a laugh again; it scratched like iron filings. “And they revolved around us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, there wasn’t really anyone who thought about escaping.”

“You did.”

“Yes.”

“Is that how you look at it? As an escape?”

“No.”

“Why did you move, then?”

“Well, my wife inherited some money and she wanted to live in her own house and she’s from down by Mölndal.”

So that’s how it is, thought Aneta. The listener can fill in the rest.

“When Anette was going to move away from home-it was several years ago-at the same time, an apartment that one of my cousins had been renting became available, and, well, it could be worked out.”

“It’s quite a ways from home,” said Aneta.

“She thought it was exciting. That’s what she said, anyway.”

“Did she and Forsblad move in together right away?”

“No.”

“Were they together?”

“Yes.”

“What did you think of them moving in together?”

Lindsten turned to her again.

“Do we have to talk about that damned Forsblad the whole time?”

“Don’t you think about him? The whole time?”

Lindsten didn’t answer.

“When did you last speak to him?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Repressed?”

“What?”

“Maybe you’ve repressed it?” she said.

“Repressed… yes… repressed. Yes. I have.”

She could see that Lindsten had gotten a different expression on his face. He seemed to relax. It was something she’d said. What had she said? That he’d repressed the memory of his daughter’s husband?

Later she would need to remember this conversation. Perhaps it would be too late then.

They sped away from the powdery construction smoke and drove up in front of the building, which was made of one enormous section.

Lindsten suddenly picked up the conversation from before. “Huge fucking monsters like this didn’t exist then. They were built later, when they thought that they could shove half a million slaves into a ghetto.” He looked up, as though he were trying to see the roof of the building. “First they built those piles of shit, and now they’re tearing them down. Ha!”

She stopped in front of the door. A marked car was parked there. A colleague stepped out; one remained inside.

“Cleaned out,” said the woman who had gotten out. Aneta didn’t recognize her.

“Cleaned out as in cleaned out?” said Aneta.

“Sure is.”

Aneta and Lindsten went up in the elevator, which seemed newer than the rest of the building.

“I have to ask you one more thing,” she said. “Has Anette been back here since she decided to move?”

“Now I don’t understand.”

“When she moved back home with you, did she come here any time after that? To get anything or something like that? To check on the apartment?”

“No.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Damn it, of course I’m sure. She didn’t dare to come back here, for Christ’s sake!”

“No one was going to take over the lease?”

“No.”

“A relative or something?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“She didn’t own it, for Christ’s sake. And these days it’s even harder to work things like that out than it was before.”

During their trip to the apartment she had tried to describe the two men to Lindsten. It hadn’t been of any help to her, or him. Could be any old bastard at all, any scoundrel at all. He had made a gesture in the air, as though he were sketching a face.

They stepped out of the elevator and went to the apartment door. Aneta opened it with keys she’d gotten from her colleague. There were two locks.

The apartment was cleaned out.

“Well,” said Lindsten.

“Why didn’t you move all her things when Anette moved?” she asked.

“We were going to do it next week,” said Lindsten. He took a few steps into the hall. “Now that’s not necessary.”

Detective Lars Bergenhem chased burglars, or the shadows of them. A wave of burglaries was washing over Gothenburg. That’s how the chief inspector at CID command had put it: a wave of burglaries.

Homes were emptied, cleared out. Where did all their things go? There must have been space somewhere in the city for everything that was stolen. Not everything could join the camel caravan to the Continent.

It was a search, as though in circles.

Bergenhem was used to driving in circles; that’s what he did with the portion of his free time that felt more forced, like a compulsion, than it did free. He drove back and forth.

What’s going on? he had thought more than once. What’s going on with me? What’s going on with my life?

I should be happy, what they call happy, or secure, what they call secure.

He worked overtime. He didn’t need to, but he might as well have: He drove around town on the thoroughfares and he was paid for it when he was on duty.

Am I someone else? he sometimes thought. Am I on my way to becoming someone else?

Martina’s face had become darker and darker. Concerned, maybe.

Ada’s face was still bright; she didn’t understand, didn’t understand yet. That was possibly the worst part: How could he sit here, out on the streets, when his little daughter was there at home?

They hadn’t spoken, he and Martina. She had tried; he had not tried.

He continued to chase burglars. He drove to the sea; they weren’t there. He could drive down to Hjuvik and just stand there. It wasn’t far from home, but it still seemed like the other side of the water.

He could get out of the car and go down to the beach and try to see his reflection in the water if it was calm.

Who am I?

What is it all about?

Who are you?

He saw his face from a strange angle. Maybe it was more real.

In the car on the way home, he tried to think back. He had always carried a restlessness within him, as far back as he could remember. But this was more than restlessness, worse than regular restlessness.

Or maybe it’s just that I can’t live with anyone.

But it’s not just that.

Do I need drugs? If I need drugs like that I have to talk to a brain doctor first.

Do I need something else?

When he parked in the carport, he didn’t know if he wanted to get out of the car or stay in it.

Is this what they call being burned out? he thought.

He heard sounds against the window. He saw small fingers. He saw Ada.