The Princess of Burundi

Fourteen

At three thirty Vincent Hahn stepped out onto the street, an extra two hundred kronor in his pocket. As always, it was like stepping out into a new world. People were new. The street that ran from the railway station down to the river had changed its character during the few hours he had spent inside the bingo hall. It looked more dignified, like a stately boulevard in a foreign country. The people around him seemed different from the ones he had left for the bingo hall’s warm retreat.

The feeling stayed with him for a minute or two, then the hostile voices returned, the shoves, and the looks. The linden trees no longer lined the street like leafy pillars but terrifying statues, black and cold, suggestive of funerals and death. He knew where this feeling came from, but did everything to suppress it, to avoid images of the graveyard where his parents lay buried.

Vincent Hahn was a bad man, and he knew it. If his mother and father could be brought back to life they would be horrified to see that their youngest child had become a misanthrope, a person who was suspicious of everyone and everything and who-and this was the worst-saw it as his task to revenge himself on those around him for their wrongdoings.

There could not be punishment enough for them. Hadn’t he suffered? But who cared? Everything simply kept going as if he didn’t exist. I’m here! he wanted to shout out to everyone on Bangårdsgatan, but he didn’t, and no one even so much as slowed down to pass him as they hurried on their way.

Air, he thought, I’m nothing but air to you. But this air will poison you, my breath will annihilate you, envelop you in death. He had made his decision. Now there was no fear, no hesitation.

He laughed out loud, checked his watch, and knew that he would begin this very evening. It was wonderful to finally have a plan, a meaning. A couple of retirees emerged from the bingo hall. Vincent nodded to them. To him they symbolized defeat. He didn’t want to stay with this thought because it led to both his source of strength and his weakness. The thoughts, memories. Until now they had held him down as an insignificant creature. He nodded to the old couple, loyal companions from the solitary community of the bingo hall, victims like himself. In some way he was sure they would understand. Living, but dead.

His bingo win made him strong, almost overconfident. He decided to go to a café. It would have to be the Güntherska. He could maintain his sense of control from the sofa in the corner.