“Nettan. She’s in the middle of a divorce and wants me to go with her to the lawyer’s office.”
“Who the hell is Nettan?”
His outburst came on so suddenly that she pulled back and would have lost her balance if he hadn’t grabbed her arms.
“Who the fucking hell is Nettan?”
“You’re hurting me,” Vivan moaned in his grip. His disgusting breath nauseated her. “She’s my best friend.”
“Friend!” he spat.
“Why don’t you stay here?” she said. “I need the company.”
He let go of her suddenly and she started to collapse, then steadied herself against the kitchen counter and straightened up. No crying, she thought to herself. He hates teary women.
“What do you mean ‘stay here’?”
She swallowed and chose her words carefully. She had a flashback to Wolfgang’s rages and her attempts to placate him. After years of practice she had become more adept.
“I’m lonely,” she said and looked away.
“Lonely,” Vincent repeated.
“I don’t care about that woman. She hit you, after all.”
“Yes, she hit me.”
He paused with a thoughtful look on his face, and Vivan thought she saw the same quality of gentleness that had drawn her to Wolfgang so many years ago. The brothers had both inherited their mother’s rounded and slightly childish features, but also their father’s heavier ones, a mixture that was reflected in their intense emotional vacillations.
“That blow she gave you could have killed you, if you didn’t have such a strong skull.”
He sank down onto a chair. She put a hand on his bandaged head. If only he had died, she thought, no one would have missed him. But then she instantly regretted her thought-it was unfair. He was a human being like anyone else.
“Would you like some tea?”
He shook his head weakly.
“A little juice?”
He nodded. She quickly made up a pitcher of rhubarb juice and poured him a glass. He drained it. The gentle expression returned.
“Wolfgang says hello,” she said. “He called me a few days ago.”
Despite their divorce and the years of conflict, Vivan and Wolfgang stayed in touch. He called from Tel Aviv three or four times a year.
“You haven’t called me.”
“I’ve tried to, but you aren’t home very much. Anyway, Wolfgang is fine but he complained about all the trouble they’re having.”
“It’s the fucking Arabs,” Vincent said.
Vivan was very careful not to get into the subject of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Instead she relayed gossip from Wolfgang. One of their cousins had had a grandchild, and a few other relatives had taken a trip to Poland. Vincent listened with interest. Vivan had discovered that he liked hearing news even about distant relatives, had memorized names and trivial facts about them to a degree that amazed her.
“I heard that Benjamin got married,” he said, and Vivan pretended to be surprised.
“Really? I had no idea. Who did he get married to?”
“Some American girl who bought a house in East Jerusalem.”
They continued to talk about people they both knew. Vincent grew calmer, drank more juice. Vivan kept him entertained with questions and comments. She suggested they celebrate Christmas together and his face lit up a bit when she said that.
The attack came out of nowhere. Vivan hardly had time to register what was happening, let alone understand where it had come from. She died unknowing, with a small gurgling sound not unlike that which arises from a plugged drain.
He laid her on the bed and was somewhat reminded of Julia. They had the same beautiful air of peace. The marks on her neck from the phone cord were like the angry red strands of a necklace. The blue-toned tip of her tongue stuck out a few centimeters. Vincent chuckled at it and poked it back into her mouth, then quickly pulled his fingers away, convinced that she was going to bite him.
His chuckles gave way to an unarticulated roar, which died away almost at once, and he sat down on the floor to look at his sister-in-law. Almost family, he thought. As close to family as I can get in Uppsala. His feeling of loneliness was intensified by the sound of the clock ticking, as if to say, You are dead, you are dead.
Vincent reached for the clock, which he remembered Wolfgang had bought on a business trip. He threw it against the wall. An Argentine tango was playing on the radio in the kitchen.
He put his hand on hers. It was still warm, and suddenly he felt dizzy. The work of a moment and a person is gone, he thought. He let his hand travel up her arm, he stroked it lovingly. Somewhere in the innermost depths of his confused mind he sensed that he had committed an unforgivable act. Vivan, the one who had smiled at him in the window, the one who had been frightened by his appearance but nonetheless given him shelter, the one who had given him juice. Almost family.
He sensed that she had been as lonely as he, even though she always talked about her girlfriends. He thought suddenly that he could take his own life, that he should do it.
He got up, walked into the kitchen, picked up a chair that had been knocked over, and drank some more juice. When he took hold of the pitcher to pour himself yet another glass, he experienced something like an electric shock. A greeting from Vivan. It was her hand that had last held the pitcher. Now she was making her presence known. She would do this as long as he lived, he realized.
He found a laundry line with the cleaning supplies but could not bring himself to tie a noose. Instead he remained sitting with the green plastic-coated line in his hands, unable to kill himself.
After about an hour or so-he was unable to determine how long-he let the line glide from his hands and stood up. He ate some leftovers in the refrigerator, went into the sewing room, and fell asleep.
Allan Fredriksson had traced Vincent Hahn’s brother to Tel Aviv and with the help of Israeli police had managed to reach him on the phone.
Wolfgang Hahn, who worked as a computer-science instructor, had not been in Sweden for seven years. During that time he had talked to Vincent on the phone a handful of times, most recently a year or so ago. He even claimed not to know his brother’s most recent number. When asked if there was anyone in Uppsala who would be able to provide more information, Wolfgang mentioned his ex-wife, who he knew had sporadic contact with Vincent.
“How are things back in Sweden anyway?” Wolfgang asked. “I hear you’ll soon have even more Arabs than we do, and look at the problems they make for us!”
“Maybe that’s because you took their land,” Fredriksson said calmly. “What was Tel Aviv called fifty years ago?”
Wolfgang Hahn laughed.
“I see they’ve infiltrated the Swedish police,” he said, but with no hostility in his voice.
“Will you have a white Christmas?” was Fredriksson’s last question. When he hung up, he realized that Wolfgang Hahn hadn’t even asked why the police wanted to find his brother.
He looked up Vivan Molin in the phone book. She was listed as a laboratory assistant, living on Johannesbäcksgatan. According to Wolfgang she had been on disability for a while, he was unsure of the exact reason. They had no children together and she lived alone. A few years ago there had been a boyfriend in the picture, but he hadn’t heard anything about him for a while. Vivan Molin did not answer the phone.
Fredriksson called the health agency. She was not listed as being on disability. No employer was registered by her name either. Her last employment seemed to have been a temporary position with the Uppsala Biomedical Center. That position had lasted until August.
How likely was it that Hahn had looked her up? According to his brother, they were not on particularly good terms. Fredriksson sighed. Johansson and Palm were going door to door in Sävja, but so far they it had given them nothing. Most of Hahn’s neighbors had not even been able to identify him from the picture. His closest neighbor, a Bosnian from Sara-jevo, had only smiled enigmatically when asked if he associated at all with Vincent Hahn.