13
Jack Kluger was sitting in the Wasahof restaurant on Dalagatan, waiting for Basir Balik. It was twelve thirty, and though they had agreed to meet at twelve, Balik was always late for lunch. Kluger didn’t mind, he wasn’t in a hurry.
At the table next to him, two women were eating shrimp salads. Kluger would have guessed they were in their thirties, and that they might have worked at the hospital farther down the street. Both were blond and well dressed, and Jack couldn’t stop himself from smiling and giving one of them a friendly nod. The one sitting closest to him said something in Swedish that Kluger couldn’t understand, but her expression was crystal clear.
She wasn’t amused.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “but in my part of Texas, nobody speaks Swedish.”
Then he smiled again, showing off the white dental veneers the American army had paid for.
It worked every time. His American accent was like a skeleton key, it could unlock any door. The woman’s irritated expression was replaced by an embarrassed smile, and just a few minutes later the three of them were sitting together, making small talk. There was nothing people in this city liked more than speaking English with a man from Texas. Kluger had even started dressing like a cowboy, with rough checked shirts and traditional boots. Clothes he had never worn when he lived in Texas.
“So if I only have a couple of days in the city, what would you suggest I do?” he asked.
Jack Kluger wasn’t a city person, but the minute he opened his mouth and said anything in his broad Southern accent, he was immediately identified as “American” and therefore someone who thought that Sweden and Stockholm were small and provincial.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Compared with Goldsboro, Texas, Stockholm was an exotic metropolis, full of dangers and temptations. Temptations in particular. There were beautiful women everywhere. They were in the parks, on the streets, sitting in restaurants. And the real miracle was that they all seemed to want to talk to him, of all people. Back home in Texas, he had been just one of many well-built boys who played American football and had a jaw as square as a cake tin. But in Scandinavia, he became exotic and unique.
In the past, he’d had low self-confidence when it came to the opposite sex, not least because he wasn’t much of a talker. It had been easier to fight for his opinions than to defend them with words. That was something he had inherited from his father; none of his siblings were particularly quick thinking.
But in Europe, and Sweden in particular, no one called Jack Kluger an idiot. There, the language barrier became a natural defense. Though everyone watched American films, no one realized that his vocabulary was as limited as his education.
“Gamla-stan?” he said, pronouncing the area of the city in his heavily accented way. “From what you’re saying, I’d need a guide. Would either of you ladies be interested?”
They laughed, but he could see that both were willing to lead him through the narrow streets of the capital’s main tourist thoroughfare.
Kluger glanced at his watch. Quarter to one. Where was Balik?
Goldsboro was a town of a few hundred people just south of Abilene, itself home to a hundred thousand inhabitants and a few hours west of Dallas. Kruger had been on his way back there for years now, but he was constantly finding new excuses not to get on the plane.
The detour to Stockholm hadn’t been planned, but he had managed to stay put there. He had always thought that Sweden was the country where they made chocolate and cuckoo clocks, but he now knew he had mistaken it for Switzerland. Geography had never been one of his favorite subjects at school. In fact, he hadn’t had any favorite subjects at all.
He was the third of five children. He had no contact with his brothers, but he thought that his older and only sister was still living at home. Kruger himself had dropped out of high school and enlisted in the army, back when the war in Afghanistan had recently begun, and since that day he hadn’t seen either of his parents.
Joining the military hadn’t been a patriotic decision, even if his sense of patriotism had grown during his service. It was just a way of getting away from home, of getting a job and health insurance and being able to avoid thinking about what he was going to do with his life.
Jack Kluger wasn’t much of a thinker.
He didn’t want to think about the war or about Afghanistan. He was tired of all the films about Rambo and war veterans coming home full of regret and with shot nerves; men who couldn’t sleep at night and started drinking or smoking crack, who lost their jobs if they’d even had one to begin with. Jack Kluger was better than that. He wasn’t helpless, he wasn’t a victim, he wouldn’t go crazy and kill himself or be haunted by memories of people blown to pieces or children losing their legs. He was strong. He could control his thoughts. He could shut out everything he needed to, and turn his mind to beautiful, easy and fun things instead.
But sometimes, whenever he lowered his defenses for a moment or two, the doubt reared its head. It was as though he got confused, and it always happened without warning. In the middle of a conversation, at the checkout when he went to the supermarket, or during a lunch when he was meant to be talking work.
Or, like now, when he was trying to charm two women in a restaurant.
He lost focus, suddenly didn’t know where he was or what he was doing there.
And as long as these moments of confusion continued to affect him, he held off on buying that ticket back home to Goldsboro, Texas.
He wanted to be completely back to normal before he returned.
He was just about to ask one of the women, the one with the bigger lips, what she was doing that evening and whether she wanted to go to a restaurant he had been recommended, when Balik came in through the door.
The sight of him made Kluger quickly end his conversation, and he got up to greet his friend. When the women left a few minutes later, the one with the bigger lips left her phone number on a napkin on the table. Kluger let it lie. There were plenty of other phone numbers in Stockholm.
14
Michel Maloof had been surprised at how unfazed Alexandra Svensson was by her own nakedness. Not wearing a thread, she climbed out of bed, went into the bathroom and left the door open. Once she was done, she flushed and continued, still naked, into the kitchen, where she first switched on the coffee machine and then began to slice oranges.
It was an early Sunday morning in early May. Alexandra had slept at Maloof’s place again; it was almost becoming a habit, the third time in two weeks. Compared with the way she lived, with someone else’s furniture in a tiny studio apartment, staying at his place was like visiting a castle. The roller blind wasn’t fully down, and he could feel the warmth of the sun on his skin. He lay in the soft bed, slowly waking to the sound of Alexandra in the kitchen. There was a growing knot of anxiety in his stomach, and he knew exactly why.
He was enjoying this far too much.
Maloof slowly turned onto his back, his head on the pillow. He opened his eyes. The sun glittered on the mirror on the wall. Why did his bedroom suddenly feel so much more comfortable? He glanced around and realized it was because of all the new feminine touches; the cushions she had brought over from her place, the new striped sheets she had bought, the pots of creams and perfumes on the counter, all the clothes she had strewn about and that smelled like a woman.
Maloof’s phone was on the bedside table, but he didn’t reach for it. That was one of the privileges of Sunday mornings.