The 1990s were the decade when capitalism test-drove a future in which the hordes of lifelong unemployed had to be kept in check so they didn’t revolt. Numbing entertainment, drugs that didn’t require a lot of follow-up care, ethnic conflicts to give rage an outlet, gene manipulation to minimize the future need for health care, and a constant focus on the monthly act of balancing one’s own private finances-would it take anything more to ruin the human soul that had developed over the millennia? Was there still dangerous ground somewhere, where a free, creative, and critical thought could be suppressed and redirected before it had time to flower?
The Power Murders had been a reaction, but a directed reaction. Blindly striking, conscience-free violence hadn’t yet shown up in this country, that extremely frustrated and ice-cold, sympathy-constipated reaction against everything and everyone. But now it had begun. Everything would change-and that was logical. One can’t be choosy about what is imported from the rulers of the universe. If one chooses to import an entire culture, then the dark sides will come along too, sooner or later.
Through the impenetrable deluge of water, Paul Hjelm glimpsed the illuminated contours of a city-planning project that was meant to destroy the last remnants of human dignity. He stopped, closed his umbrella with the illusory insignia of the police, and let the torrents wash over him. Who was he to cast the first stone?
He squeezed his eyes shut. What was left of the simple private ethics that functioned when one wasn’t seen, when people did good without needing to show it? Of do unto others as you wish them to do unto you? Was it all in ruins?
He had planned to end the day by checking out a service car, but now that he was suddenly on his way to contemporary culture’s place of birth, he wouldn’t need one. So he had taken the subway home again. And now, having wandered through Norsborg, he set himself in motion. He ran. He ran through the volumes of water with his umbrella folded under his arm. He needed to run until exhaustion filled his entire soul and pushed everything else away. He did so by the time he reached the door of his row house. There he stumbled into the hall, panting alarmingly. It was dark, past eleven o’clock. He could see a faint light coming from the living room: it wasn’t the television light for once-more like a small, flickering flame. He stopped in the hall until his breathing returned to normal. He pulled off his leather jacket and hung it up in the overcrowded hall. Then he turned the corner.
Danne was sitting in the living room waiting. No MTV, no comic book, no video game. Just Danne and a little flame.
Paul rubbed his soaking-wet eye sockets hard before he could attempt to meet his son’s eyes. It still wasn’t possible. They were boring deep into the table next to the little tea light that glimmered in an icy grotto of glass.
He walked over and sat down on the sofa next to his son.
A few minutes passed in silence. Neither of them knew how to begin, so no one began.
Finally Danne whispered, as though his voice had been cried away, “He just dragged me along. I didn’t know where we were going.”
“Is that a fact?” Paul Hjelm said.
Danne nodded. It was quiet for another moment.
Then the father placed an arm around his son’s shoulders. He didn’t recoil.
Becoming an adult just means being able to hide your uncertainty better.
“I’ve seen it too often,” Paul said quietly. “Do it just a few times, and you ruin your life. You can’t let that happen.”
“It won’t.”
First had come the sight of the sky, the sun, the moon, the forest, the sea. The first human gaze saw all of this. Then came fire, which first scared people to death but was soon tamed and became man’s companion. The little flame in front of them became a campfire. The clan gathered around it. It was a matter of survival of their blood. They remained in front of the ancient sight, and it brought out the memory of blood.
Bad blood always comes back around.
They stood up. Their eyes met.
“Thanks,” said Paul, without knowing why.
They blew out the flame and walked upstairs together. As Paul opened the door to his bedroom, Danne said, “You were awfully… tough today.”
“I was scared out of my mind.”
He felt paradoxically proud as he fumbled his way through the pitch-black bedroom. He didn’t shower or brush his teeth; he crept right into the bed next to Cilla. He needed her warmth.
“What was happening with Danne?” she mumbled.
“Nothing,” he said. And meant it.
“You’re cold as ice,” she said, without pulling away.
“Warm me up.”
She lay still and warmed him. He thought of his upcoming trip to America and all its potential complications. All he really wanted was for things to be as simple as this: children to delight in and a woman to warm himself with.
“I’m going to the United States tomorrow,” he said, testing her a little.
“Yes,” she said, sleeping.
He smiled. His umbrella was closed, and he was dry. For the time being.
20
Arto Söderstedt didn’t usually miss the sun. He was a lover of nuance, and as a newcomer to Stockholm, his manner of enjoying the city fell in a gray zone between a tourist’s superficial fascination and a native’s experienced gaze. The sun promoted both types of relationships, but the more profound pleasure of the newcomer required a certain degree of cloudiness, enough that the colors could come into their own without being flattened by the distorting light of the sun. That his theory might have something to do with his own sensitivity to the sun was not something he’d reflected on.
But now he’d had enough of clouds. He was standing in one of his favorite places in the city and could barely see his hand in front of his face, and he definitely couldn’t see either Operan or the Arvfurstens Palace, home to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That was where he was strutting off to now, under his silly Bamse umbrella, which he had grabbed at home by accident; he could visualize his next-youngest daughter’s face staring up into a heavenly arch of police logos. As he climbed the venerable steps, he had to admit that he truly missed the sun.
He wasn’t the envious type, but he felt a bit aggrieved that he hadn’t been considered for the trip to the United States; he was the serial killer expert, after all. Instead he was now treading the monotonous paths of fieldwork all the way to the reception desk at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The receptionist informed him in a reserved tone that Justine Lindberger was off sick, that Eric Lindberger was deceased, and that a day of mourning had been announced for the entire ministry. Söderstedt found it unnecessary to tell her that this information was superfluous, not only because he was working on the case but also because his eyes were open. After all, the story had appeared in every single morning paper and news broadcast. Not even a sleepwalker could have missed the fact that the dreadful Kentucky Killer had come to Sweden, nor that the police had known about it for almost two weeks without saying a word or giving citizens a chance to protect themselves. Söderstedt had counted eight pundits who demanded that all responsible officials’ heads roll.
“Did the Lindbergers work in the same department?”
The receptionist, a distrustful woman in her fifties, was sitting behind glass and looking like a work by a modern Velázquez, a thoroughly true-to-life but still incredibly mean depiction of a dying class. Söderstedt realized that, after all was said and done, he preferred this languishing, contrary sort of receptionist to today’s streamlined version.