The Caller

Chapter 13

Lily Sundelin browsed the newspaper.

She also had her eye on Margrete, who was sitting in a baby bouncer at her feet. Now and then she lifted her foot and carefully gave the bouncer a little nudge; the chubby child smiled with her toothless gums. Karsten, at the table with a crossword puzzle, observed them on the sly. So much has happened, he thought, and Lily is a completely changed person. She has another voice now, another look in her eyes.

A different sensitivity.

Lily looked up at him and pointed to the newspaper. ‘Have you read about the fake obituary?’

Karsten put his pen down and nodded.

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ she said.

‘Why should I say anything? You can read about it yourself.’

She folded the newspaper and put it on the table. Her gestures betrayed her irritation. Then she leaned over the bouncer and stroked Margrete’s cheek. ‘It could be the same man. It has to be the same man.’

Karsten Sundelin picked up his pen again and wrote a word in the puzzle. ‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘No one’s talking about anything else. But talking doesn’t help.’

Once more he was overcome with a strange feeling: a force that rose from deep within and made it hard for him to breathe. As if a new Karsten Sundelin had begun to grow inside him, a Karsten which had lain in slumber and now wanted to escape.

He who doesn’t seek revenge, he thought, sets nothing to rights. It was an old adage. Why do we not live by it any more? Why should the authorities have to avenge them? Why did criminals have so many rights? Why were they entitled to respect and understanding? Had they not acted so unlawfully that these rights should be stripped from them?

‘Something terrible must have happened in his life for him to do these things,’ Lily said.

‘Something happens in everyone’s life,’ Karsten said.

He stood up and went to the bouncer, lifted the child and held her close. He felt her wet mouth at the hollow of his neck, and her scent reached his nostrils. Sometimes he came close to tears because Margrete was a miracle. Margrete was his future, his old age; she was hope and light. She was the last cipher in the code to the vault of his innermost self, and he had finally gained access to the truth about himself.

He had found a warrior.

He returned Margrete carefully to the bouncer and went back to his crossword puzzle.

‘Revenge is sweet,’ Lily said suddenly.

‘That’s what they say,’ Karsten said. ‘I’ve never avenged myself on anyone, but it’s certainly true.’

‘But why sweet?’ she said. ‘Isn’t it a strange thing to say?’

‘It must have something to do with the rush of endorphins you get when you finally do it. Something like that, I don’t know. I don’t really understand it.’ He put his hands behind his head and stretched out his long legs.

Lily could tell he was thinking of something; his green eyes narrowed. Do I love him? she wondered abruptly. The thought ran through her head, and she was quite horrified. I guess I have to love him, it’s just us two. For eternity.

‘When you discipline a dog,’ Karsten said, ‘you do it immediately. The dog steals a meatball from the table, and you smack its snout. You have to do it right away. If the dog’s not punished in the span of three seconds it will never see the connection between the meatball and the hand that strikes.’

‘Why are you talking about dogs?’

He paused. Thought carefully about his words. ‘Our system may be just, but it’s too cumbersome. And what is too cumbersome surely cannot be effective. Some fool commits a crime. After a while he’s arrested and put in jail, and there he awaits his trial for months. Then there’s the trial, and the fool is finally sentenced. But of course he’ll appeal, and if he’s sentenced again, he’ll appeal again. Then he’ll be sentenced again. Then he’ll be given a tag because there are no vacant cells. How is that idiot supposed to see a connection?’ Karsten gesticulated wildly. ‘Put the guy in handcuffs on Monday, sentence him on Tuesday and throw him in his cell on Wednesday. Then he’ll stop stealing meatballs.’

To show how serious he was, he hammered his clenched fist on the table.

‘That doesn’t work,’ Lily said. ‘We don’t live in that kind of ideal society. We’re not dogs either,’ she added with a sideways glance at her husband. She lifted Margrete and put her on her lap. ‘Criminals must have a certain mental capacity, and it’s clear they see a connection. The most important thing is the consequence of their action. Besides, they’ll carry it with them the rest of their lives. It will go on their record. They’ll basically go through life tarnished,’ she said dramatically.

‘Mental capacity?’ Karsten snorted. ‘Do you think the idiot who was in our garden has any mental capacity?’

‘Yes,’ Lily said. ‘I do. Perhaps he’s very intelligent. And that’s the reason I’m so afraid. Precisely because he is so cunning.’

‘But you shouldn’t be afraid,’ Karsten cried out. ‘You should be livid!’

Again he pounded his fist on the table.

Lily closed her eyes. Never in her life had she been livid at anything. She couldn’t summon the feeling. Something could fester inside her, but the minute it rose to the surface it was converted into helpless tears. There was something hopeless about it all, something that attached itself to her whole being; she couldn’t scream and fight, couldn’t get angry as others grew angry when they’d been violated. She just curled into a ball in the corner and licked her wounds. I’m a victim, she thought. I’d go to the slaughterhouse of my own volition, if anyone asked me to.

‘Yes, well,’ she said aloud, ‘everyone is entitled to their opinion. The most important thing is that we’re better people than he is. That we demonstrate the fact by letting the authorities handle it.’

‘But they only go so far.’ He looked at her with narrow eyes. ‘What should we do if they don’t catch him?’

Lily cradled Margrete in her arms. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it,’ she said.