Pen 33

by Anders Roslund

  Grens had been quiet on the other side. Now he cleared his throat.

  “Sven. That’s enough.”

  “Enough?”

  “That’s enough.”

  They rode in silence. Took the road north of Stockholm. It was still raining outside. The wipers beat from side to side, forcing aside the water whipping against the windshield.

  The bus left the main road, went through a roundabout, passed by two gas stations, then turned onto a smaller road with houses on either side. That was where the first demonstrators started to line up.

  Kilometer after kilometer. A long chain of people singing, shouting in chorus, waving large signs.

  Fredrik felt the same stomach cramps he’d felt during the demonstration outside Kronoberg. Other people singing his name, people who didn’t know him, who had nothing to do with him. What gave them the right? They weren’t there for his sake. They were there for their own. This was their manifestation, not his. This was their fear, their hatred.

  They stood closer together for the last bit, a gravel road that led to the Aspsås prison’s big gate. Fredrik looked down, staring at his thighs. It was quieter this time, not as threatening, not as aggressive, but he couldn’t look at them, the feeling was intense, almost like disgust.

  The minibus stopped some distance from the main gate. It couldn’t go any farther. Grens made a quick calculation, counted a few thousand demonstrators.

  “Just sit. Wait it out.”

  Grens spoke to his younger colleagues in the front seat, to Steffansson, to Sven.

  “It won’t be like last time. They’re just trying to draw attention. Don’t provoke them. They’ll be moved soon.”

  Fredrik continued to look down. He was tired, wanted to sleep. He wanted to leave this bus and the people outside it, wanted to put on a shapeless prison uniform and lie down in his cell. He wanted to look at the ceiling, at the lamp there, one hour at a time.

  They waited for twenty minutes. The demonstrators didn’t sing, didn’t shout, just stood there together, a silent human wall, until reinforcements arrived. Sixty police officers. They approached the crowd with shields and weapons and moved them one person at a time. No fights, no threats. They methodically carried immobile people away from the gate, who hung like heavy lumps in their arms. When the gap was sufficiently large, the bus drove slowly forward. Those they carried away did not run back. They didn’t move at all. There were only a few centimeters between those who stood closest and the minibus. Their backs were straight as they watched it pass, nearing the gate, driving through it when it opened, and into the prison yard.

  Grens and Sundkvist each held one of Fredrik’s arms those last steps toward the central guard station. They looked at him, nodded, turned, and walked away. Fredrik Steffansson was no longer their responsibility. They’d caught him, he’d been convicted, and then sent to prison. Now he would be the prison’s responsibility. For ten years. So he wouldn’t commit the same crime again.

  Fredrik saw the two policemen returning to the other society, the one on the outside. He was taken by two guards into the building to an open room immediately to the left. He had to sign in.

  They watched him undress. They had rubber gloves on when they examined him in his mouth, parted his buttocks, and felt inside his anus. They took his clothes and put them in a cabinet. He was given some fabric that hung on him, put it on. Now he was a prisoner among prisoners. The guards moved him to the next room: a bed, a chair, a grille on the window, and the wall outside. They asked him to wait there, locked the door, and explained that soon he’d be moved up to his unit.

  He’d sat on the chair and waited for an hour.

  The rain outside had made puddles on the lawn between the gray concrete wall and barred windows.

  He tried to think of Marie but couldn’t.

  She didn’t want to stay in his thoughts. He couldn’t grab hold of her. Her face was blurred, her voice, he couldn’t hear it, didn’t know how it sounded.

  There was a knock on the door.

  Keys in the lock. A man in a guard’s uniform stepped in. Fredrik recognized him vaguely, had seen him before, but didn’t know where.

  “I’m sorry, I was looking for someone else.”

  The guard looked hastily around, already on his way out. Fredrik searched his memory. Familiar. But not quite.

  “Excuse me.”

  The guard turned around.

  “Yes?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Nothing. I’m in the wrong place.”

  “I recognize you. Who are you?”

  The guard hesitated. For months he’d tried to keep his feelings of guilt in check, and now they overwhelmed him.

  “My name is Lennart Oscarsson. I’m head of one of the units here. The one they call the pervert unit. One of two units for sex offenders.”

  On TV. In interviews. Fredrik had seen him there.

  “It was your fault.”

  “I was responsible for him. I was the one who approved the transport he escaped from.”

  “It was your fault.”

  Oscarsson looked at the man a meter or so in front of him. And it was as if the guilt he’d carried was no longer sufficient.

  “I have talked a lot about you with a colleague. A colleague I trust. And we agree. Lund served his time here, and we gave him all the care we could. We tried every form of therapy that exists.”

  Oscarsson was still standing in the doorway. They were the same age. He had beads of sweat on his forehead, his hair moist.

  “I’m sorry for what happened. Now I have to go.”

  “It was your fault.”

  Oscarsson held out his hand.

  “Good luck.”

  Fredrik looked at it, but didn’t take it.

  “You can put that down. I’m not going to shake hands with you.”

  Hand still in the air. It trembled. Fredrik looked away. Oscarsson waited, then gave up, put his hand on Fredrik’s shoulder for a moment, then closed and locked the door behind him.

  ————

  It stopped raining just after lunch; the only sound he’d heard, the patter against the glass, disappeared almost abruptly. Several days of persistent rain, and it was suddenly over, almost empty. He went to the window, searched the sky. It would clear up by evening.

  He waited on that chair for another six hours. It had been morning when they passed the demonstrators in front of the gate, and it was late afternoon when two guards unlocked the door and entered—two hefty men with batons and authoritative steps. They’d brought in new guys before. That was when you showed who was in charge—respect and order. One of them, the one with blue glasses, held a couple of pieces of paper in his hand, flipping through them, reading them.

  “Steffansson. Is that your name?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, then. You’re going up to your unit now.”

  Fredrik remained seated.

  “I’ve been sitting here for seven hours.”

  “And?”

  “Why?”

  “That’s how it works.”

  “Are you trying to tell me something?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Is that why I’ve waited so long?”

  “There’s no particular reason. That’s just how it is.”

  Fredrik sighed, got up, got ready to go.

  “Where am I headed?”

  “To your unit.”

  “Which unit?”

  “A regular unit.”

  “What kind of people are serving there?”

  The guard had decided to stay calm. He looked around the sterile room—the bare walls, the bed without bedding, the chair, which was now empty.

  “You sure have a lot of questions.”

  “I want to know.”

  “What do you want me to say? A normal unit. The people serving there have committed every kind of crime that can be committed. Except sex offenders. We have a special unit for them.”


  He stopped, threw out his arms.

  “You probably haven’t understood yet, Steffansson, this is your home now. The other inmates, well, they’re your friends.”

  ————

  They walked slowly along a corridor. Fredrik saw the painted walls, the results of prisoners’ art therapy, as they passed through three locked doors and at each one the same ritual: the guard looked up toward the camera, a popping sound as the door was opened by a guard somewhere else, the guard’s nod toward the camera afterward, a kind of thanks. He counted the steps—the subterranean hallway was at least four hundred meters long. They met other prisoners being escorted by other guards. They nodded to him, and he nodded back. They swung into the last part of the corridor, white arrows with Unit H on the wall. So that was the name of it, his unit.

  Up two flights of stairs. A new locked door. The sign with SEC H on the door.

  It smelled strongly of food. Something fried. Herring? The guard who opened the door noticed him breathing in.

  “They’ve just eaten. You’ll get food later.”

  An ugly corridor. First, a TV room, a few inmates reclining on the sofa and playing cards around the table. Then a narrow hall with cells on either side, most of the doors half open. At the other end, a smaller room with a table tennis table standing at an angle.

  “You’re a bit farther down. Almost all the way. Cell number fourteen.”

  The gang playing cards looked up as he passed. A dark, pockmarked man with a gold chain, talking the loudest, stared at him, never took his eyes off him. Beside him sat a large ponytailed, body-builder type. Opposite, a short, dark man with a mustache, Turkish, maybe Greek. In the corner was a skinny guy whose appearance just screamed junkie, probably Finnish.

  He went into the open, empty cell, a little larger than the one at the jail, but otherwise identical. Grille on the window, a view toward the wall. Pale green walls, same piss-yellow ceiling. He sat down on the unmade bed. A blanket and a sheet at the foot of the bed, a pillow with no pillowcase.

  He did what he’d done in his jail cell this very morning, released the pain, hit his palm against the wall, started laughing out loud.

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing.”

  The guard fiddled with his blue-framed glasses.

  “You were laughing.”

  “Am I not allowed to?”

  “I thought you were having a breakdown.”

  Fredrik grabbed the blanket and sheet, made the bed. He wanted to rest. He wanted to close the door and stare at the ceiling.

  “You were kind of right before.”

  Fredrik looked at the guard who was speaking.

  “You were down in the reception for a long time. You might want to shower now. If you want, I can get you a towel.”

  He dropped the pillow.

  “Maybe.”

  “Then I’ll get one.”

  Fredrik stopped him.

  “Is it safe?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “To shower.”

  “Take a shower?”

  “You know, the risk of rape.”

  The guard smiled.

  “No need to worry, Steffansson. At Swedish prisons they don’t tolerate rape. Nobody fucks in the shower.”

  Fredrik sat down on the half-made bed and waited. He should finish making the bed, should unpack his bag of toiletries. He counted lines instead. Someone had made tally marks with a red pen along the baseboard. He counted to one hundred and sixteen before the guard came back with towel in hand.

  He walked in his flip-flops through the corridor. Two men, probably his closest neighbors, greeted him with strong handshakes. He passed the TV corner and those playing cards. The junkie was whining about how there was one king too many in the game and the dark one with the gold chain told him to shut up—and then he saw Fredrik, stared at him like before, with crazy eyes. He hated Fredrik, and Fredrik had no idea why.

  A large room. Four showers. He was alone. He closed the door to the hallway, wanted to escape the voices while the water ran over his body, helped him to forget for just a moment.

  ————

  Tinyboy saw the new guy and remembered the guards’ agitated conversation the day before. He remembered what they said. When that bastard came back with a towel over his shoulder, he put his cards down in the middle of the game.

  “Damn. Gotta go to the john. Skåne?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You have to finish playing, just make sure to build in the Big Ten and sweep it.”

  He handed over his cards and headed for the bathroom, turned around, making sure the others continued to play, walked past the bathroom, and opened the door to the shower room instead. He was inside no more than a few minutes.

  ————

  It sounded like someone was beating on the door. At least, that’s how the guard who was first on the scene described it later. As if someone were banging on the door trying to get out. When he then saw Fredrik open the door and almost fall out, he first noticed the hand pressed to the belly, at the point where the blood flowed out the fastest, where the tip of the blade had gone the deepest. The guard set off the alarm and ran to the man who’d fallen to the floor, who lay there trying to say something while blood pumped rhythmically out of his mouth. Without a word, he’d sought out Tinyboy Lindgren with his eyes, which looked scared—those were the guard’s words, his eyes looked scared. Two colleagues had now arrived and were trying to stop the bleeding and find a pulse, until finally they both realized they were holding a dead man.

  ————

  The cards lay in piles on the table. They’d stopped playing immediately when the new guy opened the door and fell onto the floor, bleeding. They knew the damage a knife could do to your internal organs, and they realized he was a goner. Jochum Lang was watching it all from a distance in the corridor. His shiny head was sweating—just a few minutes earlier he’d visited Steffansson, welcomed him and told him they were in neighboring cells, told him that he’d been following his fate on the news. He’d said to let him know if he needed any help. Now the father lay there, dead. Jochum quickly passed by guards, who were trying to stop the bleeding, over to the table with the card game. He put his face a centimeter from Tinyboy’s and hissed as he spoke.

  “What the hell was the point of that?”

  Tinyboy smacked his mouth.

  “None of your fucking business.”

  Jochum raised his voice.

  “You fucking . . . you know who the hell you just shivved?”

  Tinyboy smiled now, looking pleased with himself, whispered something to the face in front of him.

  “I sure as hell do. Sure as hell. A fucking pedo. He won’t be fucking any more kids.”

  The door to the unit was torn open.

  There were fifteen of them. Helmets, visors, shields. The task force formed a semicircle around the inmates.

  “You know the drill!”

  Jochum pushed Tinyboy away from him, looked at the guard who was screaming and slamming his baton on the table.

  “No fucking around now! You know the drill! Go to your cells, one at a time!”

  Those at the far end of the corridor went first. One by one, with two guards walking behind them, locking the door once they were in their cells. Then the two in the kitchen. The guard in command pointed to the sofa, to the card players.

  “Your turn.”

  Skåne stood up, staring at the guards he hated, gave them the finger before leaving the table.

  “And you.”

  The guard pointed at Tinyboy.

  “Go to your cell.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Now!”

  Tinyboy stood up—instead of going toward the corridor and his cell he leaned forward, grabbed the table, and flipped it over toward the black-clad guards. The cards flew across the room and landed in front of a semicircle of feet. He climbed up on the couch and jumped nimbly over a large aquarium standing along the wall.


  “Fucking fascists! Can’t a man finish playing Casino around here? Get ready for a fucking ride!”

  He continued screaming while he pushed both of his hands against the glass panes of the aquarium. Four hundred liters of water rushed out toward the guards as the rectangular container fell to the floor. Before the first guard could get near him, he rushed to the pool table, grabbed a cue hanging on the wall, and started swinging it around like mad and hit the first guard who got near him hard on the throat. He ran toward the guard station, went in and locked the door, started smashing everything in sight with the cue: the television, the two-way radio, a refrigerator, lamps, flowerpots, mirrors. In the meantime, five guards pried open the door and attacked with shields raised to protect themselves from Tinyboy’s long weapon. They surrounded him, and his escape routes were cut off.

  The leader of the task force stood in the corridor next to the shattered aquarium shouting commands.

  “Hold him there! He’s headed down to isolation!”

  In the corridor the four prisoners who hadn’t been locked up in their cells waited. They’d watched Tinyboy’s insane outburst, his flight, and the chase. Jochum looked at him, irritated, through the unbreakable glass of the guard station, at the guards surrounding him. He turned to Dragan, whispered a few words in his ear. Dragan nodded, he understood, and ran at full speed up to one of the guards waiting outside the station and kicked him hard between the legs. The guard fell and his colleagues turned to him. A moment of confusion. That was just what Jochum wanted. He struck a sharp blow to the temple of the guard closest to him, took a few quick steps toward the station, broke through the wall that had formed around Tinyboy.

  Tinyboy smiled, screamed.

  “Holy shit, Jochum! Fucking now, tjavon! Now the pigs have to work!”

  Tinyboy turned toward the guards, waving his pool cue. He felt strong again with a fellow prisoner at his side. He never saw Jochum’s arm, but he felt the fist in his face, into his midriff. He leaned over, whimpering.

  “Fuck, what the hell was that for?”

  Jochum Lang threw himself over the bent body, clutched his head, and ran with it into the wall. Tinyboy was unconscious when he let go of him, by the time the guards made it to his side.