Someone pulled out a cardboard box from the pile by the wall. Perhaps the man had picked it up himself. The family that was staying in the half-razed building collected junk. Brant understood that from the carts in the alley.
Now a cardboard box that had once contained a Consul brand freezer became his shroud.
The sound of sirens came closer and closer, and soon a police car drove into the alley. The blue light on top was pulsing. Two men got out and stood quietly for a few moments observing the scene, before they went up to the body. The one pushed the box aside with his foot.
Should I go down, he wondered.
The other policeman peered up toward the facade, looked indifferently at the woman who was draped over the wall, in utter despair, no longer capable of screaming out her desperation. Anders Brant saw her upper body contract as if in convulsions.
“Is this your husband?” the policeman shouted, but got no answer.
A man from the crowd took a few steps toward the policeman and said something, pointed at the lifeless body and then toward the building.
I am actually a witness, perhaps the only one, Anders Brant continued reasoning to himself. Should I tell about the argument and the hand I thought I saw?
Suddenly the old man, the one Anders Brant had seen sitting in the beach chair earlier, stepped forward. A woman sobbed and tried to hold him back, but he freed himself and with stiff joints fell laboriously down on his knees beside the dead man. He extended his hand and closed the wide-open eyes.
The crowd was quiet. The one policeman crossed himself and that served as a signal for the others, who all crossed themselves.
Even the traffic stopped before the calm that spread out over the alley.
The old man placed his hand on the dead man’s chest, held it there several seconds before he pulled himself up in a standing position, with the assistance of helping hands.
“The gringo is crying,” shouted one of the boys in the crowd and pointed.
Anders Brant closed the window, backed into the room, and sank down in front of the computer, just as it was going into sleep mode.
The voices on the street had become louder, the death had become a concern for the whole neighborhood, the minimal favela that was interspersed among the more regular construction.
He had stayed at the simple but well-run pousada on many occasions over the years and could study how the surroundings had changed. The first few years he was often afraid about coming home too late, always took a taxi up to the entry. He never carried large amounts of cash, and definitely no rings or gold chains around his neck.
The horror stories of robbery and assault marked his initial time in the city. Now after several trips in the country he was experienced, knew how to behave, and security had also gradually improved.
The death in the alley of course did not fundamentally change conditions in the area, but he was still brought back to the aching uncertainty of earlier years. He had experienced a murder, he no longer doubted that he had been a witness to a violent crime. The hand had been there, the shove likewise.
What frightened him, and made him increasingly agitated, was the man’s indifference. Even the hand on the woman’s shoulder seemed like a mechanical action without any deeper meaning, scornful.
Then the smile, when he left the woman alone by the wall. He had looked down across the gap of the alley, observed the gringo in the window, and then smiled. What was the meaning of that? Perhaps it was a grimace, of disgust or sudden pain, perhaps of regret?
The man’s serene calm was the most frightening. The message was clear: I know you saw what happened, but that doesn’t matter. No one will believe you, and more important: You will never dare say anything. It was a concealed threat, that was becoming increasingly obvious to Brant.
He moved nervously in the creaking chair, considered peeking out, but did not want to expose himself more. The boy’s shout that he was crying, moved as he had been by the old man’s clumsy but also very dignified manner, created an unwelcome interest in his presence.
Perhaps the police would pay a visit? What should he say? That he was drawn to the window by the noise that the crowd was making and had not seen any of the preliminaries?
The incident would of course affect his remaining time in the city and definitely his writing. He was known for writing sharp, but somewhat dry and factual prose. He did not try to fan the flames, but instead let facts speak for themselves. Would he be able to describe the situation of the homeless in this country in his quiet way, an assignment for the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter that would surely produce enough surplus material for several more articles?
Could he simply take the incident in the alley-now in his mind it was an “incident,” not a murder-as the starting point for the article? Could he do that without mentioning his own passive but still central role in the drama?
He got up from the chair, forced himself not to look out, and went to the kitchen to make a cup of coffee. The usual, secure puttering with the coffeemaker, the characteristic aroma of the scouring powder the landlady had used all these years to clean the floor, and the liberating feeling that the kitchen window faced in toward the courtyard, all together meant that he relaxed somewhat.
But the worry came back: When thoughts of the “incident” were pushed aside by everyday impressions, he returned in his mind to why he originally sat down at the computer. It was not often he turned on his cell phone, and this time among all the expected reminders and inquiries there was Ann’s brief message, distinguished both by the slightly desperate tone and the affectionless address. She had not even added an “XOX.”
What could get her, a woman he had gotten to know as a very level-headed person without a lot of fuss, to send such a message? Only one thing. And he felt very tired, perhaps even scared, even if he did everything to stow that feeling away in a distant, inner corner.
He had meant to send an e-mail and try to explain his headlong flight from home, in any event present some kind of half-truth. She certainly perceived it as running away, what else could be expected?
Could he explain how it all fit together, and do that without having her push him away? A single mistake and he would be punished. Because there was a punishment waiting. He feared that he had definitively lost Ann, a woman who in a rare, unexpected way had taken hold in him.
When had she figured out the truth? And how? Did she know the whole truth? He didn’t know. If she had only given him a little more information in her message, it would have felt better. And how successful would it be to offer a half-truth if the whole picture was now clear to her? He would be exposed immediately as a notorious liar.
“Isn’t that what I am?” he asked himself.
The water started boiling and he made his coffee; sat down at the kitchen table, listened out toward the alley, where it was still noisy.
I’ll wait, he decided, and immediately felt better.
Twelve
The coffee shop outside Laxå was just as rundown as the exterior promised. Håkan Malmberg had hoped for a surprise, that the cracked canary-yellow paneling, the rusty sheet metal roof, and the misspelled sign along the side of the road was a front.
But the interior was even more decrepit, with broken chairs and tables, worn textiles, and incredibly dusty plastic flowers. The coffee was lukewarm and the cheese sandwich dry as dust, the only thing he dared buy because of the obvious risk of food poisoning where the other sandwiches were concerned, sweating behind a smudged plastic cover: meatballs with red beet salad and shrimp sandwiches swimming in mayonnaise.
He was alone in the place. He understood why.