The Demon of Dakar aka The Demon from Dakar

Fifty-One

Zero nurtured a dream of moving back to Kurdistan, the land that his father had described so many times. There were those who said that Kurdistan was only a dream, which made Zero laughed. When he was in the seventh grade, the teacher had said that this land did not exist. That made Zero angry. That was the time when Zero put up his hand and asked when they were going to read about Kurdistan. After all, they had to study all the other countries, rivers, and mountain ranges.

“How can a land that exists not exist?” he had asked the teacher.

“I’m afraid that I don’t understand the question. We have to keep to…”

Maybe the teacher was convinced that Zero, who otherwise never raised his hand, was trying to mess with him, to cause trouble and confusion.

Zero stood up from his seat and walked out. Zero’s father was at home, reading. Zero asked him if the country existed. His father lowered the paper and looked at him.

“In here,” he said and thumped his chest, “Kurdistan is in here. If God wills it, we will move there and build a home. If we can only follow our hearts, I will drive a bus in Kurdistan.”

He drove a bus in Sweden, most often route 13.

“That is my lucky number,” he said, and laughed.

He could not understand the Swedes, a superstitious and unmodern people, and their fear of numbers. He loved buses, and liked to drive route 13.

Zero was afraid. It was a feeling he had more often now. Mostly he was afraid his father would not make it back from Turkey. At night he dreamed that he rescued his father from prison. He would drive a bus up close to the prison wall, on which his father and his friends had climbed, and then they jumped down into the seats on the bus. When it was full, Zero drove the sixty or so Kurds to freedom. His father sat up at the very front and told him how to drive, pointing to the right and to the left, but never with irritation. His father glowed with pride and he turned to his friends, pointed to the driver, and said that it was his son who was driving. Not his oldest son, admittedly, but his bravest.

When Zero awoke he was happy at first, but then he grew afraid.

The fear he felt as he stood in front of the Fyris movie theater was of a different order. Ever since the incident with the drug dealer outside the Sävja school, Zero had moved around with great caution, had not attended school, had hidden himself from his brothers, and had only spoken to his mother on the phone and to Patrik in the community gardens.

That the man with the Mercedes found him, terrified him. The car had come gliding up, stopped, and waited for Zero, who was on his way to buy some food at the local grocery.

He understood that they must have great power. Not even his family knew where he was holed up. Was it Patrik who had squealed? Zero did not think so. It was most likely Roger who had been indiscreet. He drank alcohol and took pills every day and was in constant need of money. Zero did not like him, but was allowed to stay in his apartment in Gottsunda in return for running some errands. Maybe he had sold Zero’s location so he could get more alcohol and pills?

The man in the Mercedes said that everything would be all right, that the old debts were no longer an issue, and that he was forgiven. All they wanted was for him to meet with an important person and apologize.

He had never been to the Fyris movie theater before, did not even know that it existed, and he did not understand the point of the movies that they were advertising.

As arranged, Zero stood outside the movie theater for a while before continuing on up the hill. Up ahead he could see tall trees and he knew he was supposed to go to the graveyard.

He hesitated at the entrance. The graveyard lay before him in complete darkness. There was a strong wind that was causing the trees to toss back and forth as if they were worried about what was going to happen.

He slipped in through a space in the fence. Gravel crunched underfoot. A sudden crack brought him to a halt, but it was only a branch that had broken off and was bouncing down through the canopy before landing on a grave.

Zero walked on. Nothing had been said about who he was to meet or what was going to happen, but he was convinced he was being watched. He rued his decision. He did not like walking among the dead. There was another crack overhead and Zero was convinced he was going to be struck in the head with a branch or be crushed by a falling tree.

Then he saw someone, partly obscured by gravestones, walking toward him. He stopped a couple of meters from Zero, who could not tell what he looked like except that he was a large man wearing a dark coat and with a hat pulled low over his eyes.

“Zero?”

“Yes, that’s me.”

“It’s good that you came.”

The stranger’s soft voice in the strong wind forced Zero to walk closer, but the man put up his hand and drew back behind a bush.

“This is for enough,” he said. “We can speak like this.”

“Who are you?”

“That doesn’t matter. I only want to ask you to do something.”

No, Zero thought, I don’t want you to ask me to do something. But he had no time to protest before the man spoke again. He had a different voice from Sidström, deeper and more firm.

“I want you to go to the police and tell them what has happened.”

“Are you a cop?”

The man let out a laugh.

“I want you to go to the police and tell them who is selling drugs in this town.”

“But that’s me!”

“Who is behind it?”

“I don’t know that.”

“But I do,” said the man, and Zero saw his teeth glimmer momentarily in the light.

“They will kill me.”

“No, they won’t. You will not have to appear in public.”

Zero did not know what he meant.

“No one will have to know that it was you,” the man clarified.

Zero stared into the darkness and tried to get a sense of what the man looked like. He was no svartskalle, he spoke like a Swede, almost like a teacher.

“I don’t want to,” he said.

“I think you do. You don’t want to hide any longer, do you? You only want to put this episode behind you.”

Zero tried to say something, but the man gestured with his hand and continued.

“I know what you are thinking. You are wondering how much you will get for your trouble. Shall we say five thousand kronor. Cash. Now.”

“I’ll get five thousand?”

“Yes, and another five thousand when everything is done.”

Zero was speechless. It was a dizzying sum. For ten thousand he could go to Turkey and visit his father. Maybe there would be enough money to buy him out of prison?

“What should I do?”

“Easy. You will go to the police and ask for someone who works with drugs, understand? Tell them that you have repented, and that you were pulled into the drug business against your will. You did not want to sell drugs. You were threatened. And now you want to talk.”

The man told Zero what he should tell the police. He went over this several times and asked Zero to repeat what he had said.

“But I’ll go to jail,” Zero objected.

“No,” the man said. “You are too young. The police won’t care about you. They want to catch the real bad guys. Understand?”

Zero nodded. He thought it was like in a movie. The police would be pleased and forget about him. And he would get ten thousand.

“I understand,” he said, and at that moment a new branch broke off and fell through the trees.