Knock Knock

by Anders Roslund

  But he didn’t take one of the streets—there was an old path that snaked in between the backs of the houses, with the branches of fruit trees hanging above, and sprawling raspberry bushes lining either side. He crouched along until he reached the corner of his backyard, then climbed over the back fence and crept the last few meters to a small tool-shed. And when he opened the shed door and snuck in between lawn mowers and rakes, he thought about all those renovations, seen and unseen, which he’d done before they’d moved in.

  * * *

  • • •

  Rasmus’s action figures were still standing in the same pattern in the hall, which his father had learned not to stumble over, and surprisingly the stairs didn’t squeak even once on his way up—maybe this endless heat had sapped the energy to whine out of the wood, too. Piet Hoffmann stopped at the door to Hugo’s and Rasmus’s rooms, two boys deep asleep. He couldn’t see Luiza behind the drapery that separated her room from the upper hall, nor through the pile of teddy bears Rasmus had ordered to stand guard outside her crib. But he could hear her calm and steady breathing. Zofia lay with her back to the doorway, and he gazed at his wife’s naked body entangled in a thin sheet. He sank down on his knees at the edge of the bed, shook her shoulder gently, whispered.

  “Zo?”

  She shifted anxiously.

  “Zo? Love?”

  Then she woke up and turned around. Piet Hoffmann could see the terror in her eyes. He laid his hand over her mouth to stop her from screaming.

  “Zo—it’s me. Piet.”

  She tried to scream again. He pressed harder.

  “Listen, Zo. It is me. Me. It’s me who’s about to kiss you twice on the forehead like I always do. And when I do, I’m gonna take my hand away and kiss you twice on your mouth.”

  He leaned close, and she tried to push him away. His lips touched her warm forehead, then he removed his hand and kissed her twice on the mouth, then put the hand back again.

  Maybe she relaxed a little.

  Maybe she just wanted him to think she had.

  “Zo?”

  He loosened his grip, a little bit at a time.

  “I’ll explain everything to you when this is over. But right now, Zo, you have to promise to just listen and trust me.”

  He waited, trying to make eye contact.

  She didn’t scream.

  “My voice. My face. But we have to get out of here, now, tonight. So we don’t have time to talk about it yet, Zo. Not you and me. Not with the kids. Okay?”

  She looked at him.

  Perhaps unsure if she was awake or still dreaming.

  Then she nodded.

  * * *

  • • •

  Zofia held Hugo and Rasmus by the hand. Drowsy. Tired. While Luiza slept in his arms. Their boys didn’t trust the man who was leading them down into the basement. But they trusted Zofia who said this was what they had to do now. Don’t turn on any lights. And be very quiet. Only when they finally reached the basement and were heading into the office did Hugo protest.

  “That’s Dad’s room. We’re not supposed to go in there. He’s not supposed to go in there.”

  Piet Hoffmann wanted to hug his son. Say how proud he was. But instead he said:

  “Your dad asked me to do this. Gave me permission. Even told me how to get inside.”

  Piet Hoffmann waved for everyone to follow him into the closet. Then he pressed the hidden lever and opened the secret room. A room he knew Hugo and Rasmus had visited once. They never talked about it, but a gun lying in the wrong direction had given them away. Zofia, on the other hand, looked as surprised and duped as she probably felt. But he gave her no time to ask. She could do that later. After they were through the next hidden door. The one that even Hugo and Rasmus didn’t know about. Because behind the weapons cabinet, which he now lifted off the wall, there stood a small white button. If he pushed it, part of the wall opened up. Inwards. Another hidden door. High and wide enough for an adult to easily enter a tunnel, which led under the backyard all the way to the toolshed—the same path he’d just used to enter.

  * * *

  • • •

  They snuck through the darkness. Past the fruit trees and raspberry bushes. He glanced at Zofia, who was staring straight ahead. He wanted to explain to her that it was long ago, when they’d just bought this house and she was still living in a tiny apartment in the city while he did the renovations, and he was another person back then, living in a parallel reality. The one she’d made him leave. But that time was still always there, maybe in documents that threatened his family, maybe in a secret tunnel that ended up being his family’s escape route.

  They approached the car, parked in another section of their sleeping suburb, loaded the backpacks he and Zofia had hurriedly packed. As he asked Hugo and Rasmus to climb into the back seat of an unfamiliar vehicle with a stranger in the driver’s seat, he had to bite his own cheek as hard as he could to keep from hugging them. When Zofia sank down beside him with Luiza on her lap, biting was no longer enough and he had to turn talk radio up loud to cover his mumbled “it’s me—Dad.” They sat in silence for the whole of their short trip to the ground-floor apartment at Number 37, which none of his passengers had ever seen before.

  Silent until Hugo just couldn’t take it anymore.

  “Who are you?”

  Hoffmann adjusted the rearview mirror to get a good look at his son.

  “A friend. Of your . . . father’s.”

  “If you’re his friend, how come we’ve never met you?”

  “You have.”

  Hugo peeked at his mother sitting in front of him, and she nodded, as if to confirm the stranger was speaking the truth.

  “When?”

  Hoffmann twisted the rearview mirror, looking at his wise and thoughtful son.

  “When . . . what?”

  “When did we meet?”

  “It was . . . The first time was long ago. You were little.”

  “Why are you here and not my dad?”

  “I don’t know—all I know is that he wants me to help you and your brother and your sister and your mom. He’ll probably explain everything when he gets home again.”

  Now it was Piet Hoffmann who peeked. And when he was sure Hugo had leaned back, he sought Zofia’s hand, squeezed it hard.

  The horseshoe-shaped apartment building seemed more awake than their suburban neighborhood had been; there was at least one window lit on every floor. Rasmus and Luiza had both fallen asleep during the short journey, while Hugo anxiously tried to make sense of what he was seeing outside the car window.

  “What . . . Why are we here?”

  “Your dad said you needed to sleep here tonight.”

  “Why should we do that?”

  “He didn’t say. But he wanted me to help you. Drive you here, show you.”

  “Mom?”

  Hugo grabbed hold of the front seat and pulled himself forward until he was almost beside Zofia.

  “Is it true, Mom? Are we sleeping here?”

  Piet Hoffmann squeezed her hand again, he didn’t have to catch her eye, he knew what those eyes would say, how uncomfortable she found all of this.

  “Yes, darling. Tonight, and maybe a few more nights.”

  “If you knew, why didn’t you say so when we got to bed?”

  Zofia swallowed, and before she could answer, Hoffmann interrupted.

  “Your mom didn’t know it, either. At that point. It’s your dad’s fault, he should have said something to her and to you. He told me to tell you he’s sorry he forgot.”

  Zofia carried Luiza, Piet carried Rasmus and the two small bags, and Hugo walked defiantly just a few short steps behind them from the car to the apartment building.

  “Here? Seriously?”

  Hugo made a quick lap through the three-room
apartment while his parents laid his sleeping siblings in beds.

  “Are we gonna live here? There’s hardly any furniture.”

  “Just tonight. And like your mother said, maybe a few more nights. But the beds are good, which is the most important thing. There’s a kitchen table and food in the fridge. Which is also important. And here . . .”

  Hoffmann took Hugo’s hand and led him into the living room.

  “. . . is the most important thing of all: a sofa and a TV. And I put your PlayStation in one of the bags. You and your little brother can play as much as you want, whenever you want.”

  He plucked a console and controls out of a bag and some games he didn’t understand and put everything on the coffee table in front of his eldest son, then opened the closet in the bedroom and carefully placed the bags onto a newly laid floor, so no one would hear it was hollow.

  It was later, after he’d whispered to Zofia to call the boys in sick tomorrow and tell the school they’d be gone for the rest of the week, which was the last one of the semester, after he’d gone to the bathroom and almost drowned in the mirror wondering who the hell was staring back at him, after he’d closed the apartment door and was on his way out of the building into what looked like rain, that Hugo caught up to him.

  “Hey, you?”

  Hoffmann stopped, turned around.

  “Yeah?”

  “I know.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Hugo pushed Piet’s arm.

  “I know it’s you, Dad.”

  “I think you . . .”

  Now he shoved harder, more angry than eager.

  “Just stop it. I knew it didn’t make sense. I knew something was wrong. Then in the apartment—I saw how you moved. Held yourself. I know how you walk, Dad. You walk like me. With your feet and arms like so . . . we walk the same way.”

  And Piet Hoffmann could no longer hold back his fear. It just came, couldn’t be denied.

  “It is me, Hugo. First, promise me one thing—don’t say anything to Rasmus.”

  His eldest son seemed to be considering it, silent and still.

  Then he nodded, just as Zofia did when she was lying in bed with her husband’s hand pressed over her mouth.

  “Why, Dad? Why do you look like that? Sound like that? And why are we here?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  Hugo sighed deeply, but not because he too was scared. Because he was serious.

  “Dangerous, Dad.”

  “What?”

  “It’s dangerous. For us. That’s why we’re here.”

  Hoffmann grabbed Hugo’s hand, pulled him closer.

  “Not dangerous, Hugo. But you might say that . . .”

  “Dad—just stop.”

  Piet pulled him close enough to hug him and whisper in his ear.

  “Yes. You’re right. It is dangerous, Hugo. That’s why you’re here. And that’s why you have to help me and go back to the apartment. Until it’s not dangerous anymore.”

  A hug that turned into them staring at each other.

  Then Hugo swallowed, lowered his eyes, and looked at the ground for a moment. Finally, he turned around without saying goodbye.

  Piet Hoffmann hadn’t felt this alone in a very long time.

  PART

  3

  Thump. Thump.

  Someone hopping. Onto him.

  Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

  A little girl. She’s jumping on his stomach. Her clothes are dirty, and she’s laughing and singing. Happybirthdaytoyooou. Happybirthdaytoyooou. Singing loud and clear and off-key. But it’s beautiful.

  And then the thuds get heavier. Muted, hollow.

  The little girl is knocking on a door, hitting it with every ounce of strength she has, knocking that won’t stop and intensifies in strength, explosions in the same rhythm, bang, bang.

  A gun.

  Bang, bang. Bang, bang.

  The explosions are like volcanic eruptions, furious, roaring.

  So close that he can see them, too.

  He can see that little head trying to escape, see the first shot penetrate her forehead, tear a hole in her temple.

  Bang, bang, bang, bang.

  And now the gun turns to him.

  And its cold, hard muzzle tears the skin of his face until drops of blood start to fall.

  The finger on the trigger starts to pull.

  He woke up. In a cold sweat. His heart pounding in his chest. Until he looked at the familiar ceiling. And the walls that were protecting him. He got up from his corduroy sofa, still in his office at the police station. The first step always meant stabbing pain in his stiff leg and his neck and lower back.

  Ewert Grens wasn’t sure what exactly it was—but something was different.

  He limped over to his window and looked out over the police station’s deserted courtyard.

  And then he heard them again. The shots. Someone shooting and someone running.

  Just like in the dream.

  And he realized what had changed. It was easier to breathe. The gnawing, sticky heat had been replaced by heavy gray clouds, and now those clouds had burst with a helluva rainstorm, which beat violently against his window and metal windowsill, clattering, bang bang, bang bang. That’s what he heard. The shots. That’s why he woke up.

  The detective superintendent smiled at his own confusion—thoughts born from his own mind—and listened to the rain until the window was just a blur. All the buildings outside, the core of Swedish police operations, were hazy, now lacked any sharp lines. He opened the window and cupped his hands, brought rainwater to his face, and the stuffiness inside drifted away. He ran his wet hands through his hair and looked at his reflection in the top pane of the half-open window, saw those thin, straggling strands slicked back by rain.

  A Stockholm night. Which would soon turn into a Stockholm dawn.

  Sometime after two he’d finally lain down to get some rest. Apparently he’d fallen asleep. Now he returned to his desk and one of the two folders that he’d checked out of the guarded archive. He flipped through the case file and the autopsy reports of a nearly twenty-year-old investigation without noticing anything he hadn’t seen before.

  Nothing.

  He found no more now than he did back then.

  He had instructed Nils Krantz—the forensic technician who was one of the few who’d been a police officer as long as Grens himself—to comb every centimeter of the apartment on Dala Street 74. Fingerprints, fibers, DNA. Nothing. He’d analyzed every visit to the guarded archive in recent months. Nothing. He’d even ordered an examination of the blank paper left inside the folder, not just dusting for fingerprints—but finding manufacturers, distribution chains, retailers. Nothing.

  Ewert Grens was pacing anxiously around his office as he so often did when he wanted to make progress but had no idea how or where. Around and around in a tight circle so as not to crash into the closet or the bookshelf. Until it became too cramped, until he crashed into himself, so he headed out to the corridor and the coffee machine and a plastic mug of lukewarm black coffee. From there it wasn’t far to Sven’s office, where he opened the window just as wide as his own, then on to Hermansson’s office and her window. The air started to move. What an amazing invention a cross draft was. Sven Sundkvist and Mariana Hermansson were the only colleagues he could stand, and who could stand him. But they were at home now, asleep in their own beds. He hoped they could keep living the kind of lives where they didn’t need an old worn-out corduroy sofa to be brave enough to close their eyes and face sleep unguarded.

  The witness protection program folder was lying on Hermansson’s desk, because she’d been working on the analysis of the blank paper. Ewert Grens couldn’t stop himself from opening it, even though it only made him quiver with rage. It should have told him the story of one little g
irl’s future, of what happened to her, who she became, and where she ended up.

  Unwritten pages whose contents were hidden outside those windows somewhere.

  He knew that when the trial was over, when an individual was no longer of interest to the police, they were also no longer the responsibility of the witness protection program. These people, who would always have to live with having once been threatened, were now flushed out into another reality, and had to be traced via the records of their new town’s tax agency, which had given them their new identity. After the trial, after the investigation was abandoned, a person who had been threatened would just have to make it on their own. But this girl had only been five years old. She wouldn’t have been able to fend for herself. She would have been placed into a foster home, into a new life, maybe eventually she would have been adopted and grown up as someone else’s child.

  Grens had his own special access to the Swedish Tax Agency. The kind of back door criminals often bought or threatened their way into. His own arrangement was different—he and his contact exchanged their services. Information from the police records was traded for information in the tax records. Not quite legal, but it wasn’t always possible to find lawbreakers by following the letter of the law.

  Right now he was waiting for his contact to call him back. Why wasn’t he? Shouldn’t matter how late it was. Grens slammed the useless folder shut again and sank into Mariana Hermansson’s desk chair. He’d never sat in it before. He had spent the last ten years in her vicinity just a few doors down, and had barely stepped over her threshold. That was how it worked, just a part of their unspoken agreement. She could barge into his office at any time and say anything—while he respected her privacy and integrity, which began at her door. Like a child who needed to maintain boundaries with a demanding and overprotective father. He liked it that way. That was why he had adapted himself to her, a rare occurrence for him. She must know she was the daughter he’d never had, even though they never spoke of it and never would.

  A palpable feeling of unease.

  Not because he was sitting in Hermansson’s chair, that felt fine. An unease that had been with him since the moment he first looked at those blank pages.