The princess of Burundi

by Kjell Eriksson

  “I knew Little John,” said the voice on the other end. “You know, the guy who was murdered.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Micke Andersson. I just found out. I’ve been working and I left my cell phone at home. I do snow removal and…”

  “Okay,” Fredriksson said calmly. “You come home and find a message on your cell phone that John is dead. Who left the message?”

  “John’s brother.”

  “Lennart Jonsson?”

  “He only had one brother.”

  “You knew John?”

  “We knew each other our whole lives. What happened? Do you know anything?”

  “A little, but perhaps you know something we don’t?”

  “I saw John yesterday and he was the same as always.”

  “When was that?”

  “Around five, maybe.”

  “Where?”

  “At my place. John had been to the liquor store and stopped by.”

  Fredriksson made notes and continued. Little John had turned up at Mikael Andersson’s apartment on Väderkvarnsgatan. Mikael had just come home from his job at the sheet metal shop. He had just stepped out of the shower and thought the time was around five o’clock. John had been to the state liquor store at Kvarnen. He seemed happy, not troubled. He had been carrying two green plastic bags.

  They had discussed a number of things. John had spoken about his fish tank, but he had not mentioned buying a new pump. Mikael had talked about work, about an evening shift he thought he was going to do. A couple of rooftops needed to be cleared of snow.

  “Did he have anything on his mind? Did he ask anything in particular?”

  “No, he was just stopping in on his way home, as I understood it. I asked him if he wanted to help with the snow removal. The company often takes on extra hands, but he didn’t seemed interested.”

  “He didn’t want any extra work?”

  “Well, he didn’t say no outright, but he didn’t pick up on it.”

  “And that surprised you.”

  “Little John wasn’t the type to sit around. I think I expected him to jump at the offer.”

  “Did he need the money?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “I mean, for Christmas or something.”

  “He didn’t say anything about that. And he had enough to buy Aquavit, didn’t he?”

  John had stayed about half an hour, or three-quarters of an hour. Mikael Andersson had left his place to shovel snow at the apartments on Sysslomansgatan at a quarter past six. He was under the impression that John was on his way home.

  “One more thing. He asked to use the phone but then he changed his mind. He never called.”

  “Did he say whom he was going to call?”

  “No. Home, maybe. He said he was late.”

  Mikael Andersson put the receiver down and felt around for the pack of cigarettes he usually kept in his breast pocket until he remembered that he had quit two months ago. Instead he poured himself a glass of red wine even though he knew it would make him even more tempted to smoke. John had always teased him about preferring his “chick drink” and at first he had felt ashamed, but by now it was accepted as a fact of life.

  He had lived with a woman called Minna for four years. One day she had left, never to return. She never even came back for her furniture or personal belongings. Micke waited for two months, then he packed it all up himself and drove out to Ragnsell’s dump in Kvarnbo. He filled half a container with her junk.

  She was the one who had taught him to drink wine. “The only good thing I can say about her,” he would say. “I maybe could have understood it if I had hit her or been a bastard,” he told his friends who wondered why Minna had left, “but to up and leave like that, I don’t understand.”

  He sat down in the living room in the same armchair as yesterday when Little John had sat across from him. He hadn’t taken off his coat. John, whom he had known his entire life. His best friend. My only friend, actually, he thought, and couldn’t help sniffling.

  He drank some of the wine and it calmed him. Rioja. He rotated the bottle toward him and studied the label before refilling the glass. Now that half hour with John seemed incredibly important. He wanted to recall everything, every gesture, laugh, and look. They had laughed, hadn’t they?

  He drank up and closed his eyes. We had a good time, didn’t we, John? He had been standing there with those plastic bags in his hands and said something about the holidays. Mikael was suddenly convinced that John had left the bags behind, and he walked out into the hall to check if they had been left there under the hat shelf. But he saw only his sneakers and wet work boots, which he should dry out before the morning.

  He walked thoughtfully out into the kitchen. What had John said? Mikael looked at the clock on the wall. Could he call Berit? He was sure she was awake. Maybe he should go over there? He didn’t want to talk to Lennart. He would just rant and rave and carry on.

  The horse-racing schedule was on the kitchen table. I’ll bet we win ten mil’ now that you’re dead, he thought, sweeping the schedule and tip sheets onto the floor. We who never won anything but played anyway. Week after week, year after year, in the hopes of the big win. The rush. Happiness.

  “We didn’t know what we were doing,” he said aloud. “We didn’t know shit about the horses.”

  If they had been tropical-fish races we would have cleaned house, he thought as he picked all the papers from the floor. Minna had taught him something besides drinking wine: If you let things start piling up on the floor you know you’re on your way out.

  He rested his head against the windowpane, mumbled his friend’s name, and looked at the snow falling outside. He normally liked Christmas and all the preparations, but he knew this view from his kitchen window of his neighbors’ holiday decorations would hereafter always be connected with the memory of John’s death.

  Lennart Jonsson was making his way through the snow. A car honked angrily at him as he crossed Vaksalagatan. Lennart waved his fist in the air. The red lights disappeared toward the east. He was gripped by a feeling of unfairness. Others got to ride in cars while he had to walk, jumping over the mounds of plowed snow, crossing here and there to find cleared footpaths.

  If he looked up and west he saw Christmas lights stretching in toward the center of town like a row of pearls. The snow crunched under his boots. A woman had once told him she wanted to eat that sound that shoes made on the snow when it was very cold. He always remembered her words when he walked in crunchy snow. What had she meant? He liked it, but didn’t really understand.

  A car with a Christmas tree on the roof drove by on Salabacksgatan. Apart from that there was no one. He stopped, letting his head hang down as if he were drunk, and realized he was crying. Most of all he wanted to lie down in the snow and die like his brother. His only brother. Dead. Murdered. The desire for revenge tore through his body like a red-hot iron, and he knew the pain after John’s death would let up only when his murderer was dead.

  Missing John was something he would have to live with. He pulled up the zipper on his down jacket. He was wearing only a T-shirt underneath. He walked along the street with a gait so foreign to him that he noticed it physically. He who normally rushed around without a thought was now proceeding with deliberation, scrutinizing the buildings around him, noticing details like the overflowing garbage can at the bus stop and the snow-covered walker, things to which he would normally never even have given a second thought.

  It was as if his brother’s death had sharpened his senses. He had only a few beers in him, John’s beers. He had stayed with Berit until Justus had gone to sleep. Now he was sober, alert as never before, watching his neighborhood slowly being covered by a white shroud.

  The snow crunched under his feet and he wanted to eat not only the sound but the whole city, the whole damn place; he wanted to tear the whole place down.

  At Brantings square he was only a few blocks from home, but he stopped when
he was halfway across. A tractor was working its way methodically through the masses of snow, plowing the parking spaces, entrances, and exits.

  Was John already dead when he was dumped in Libro? Lennart didn’t know, he had forgotten to ask. John got cold easily. His thin frame was not built for this weather. With his slender hands he should have been a pianist. Instead he became a welder and an expert in tropical fish. Uncle Eugene used to joke about how John should go on the Double or Nothing show on TV since he knew everything about those fish down to the last fin and stripe of color.

  Lennart watched the tractor, and when it passed close to him he held up his hand in greeting. The driver waved back. A young man, about twenty. He pressed a little harder on the gas when he saw that Lennart was still there, put it in reverse with a confidently careless hand movement, came to an abrupt stop, adjusted his position, changed gears again, and spun around, preparing to take on the last sliver of snow.

  Lennart was suddenly tempted to wave the driver down and exchange a few words with him, maybe say a few things about Little John. He wanted to talk to someone who understood the importance of hands.

  He kept thinking about his brother in discrete body parts. Hands, the careful laugh, especially when he was among strangers—no one could claim that John had a dominating personality. That wiry body, its surprising strength.

  John had been good at marbles too. As a kid John was always the one who went home with a bag full of marbles and new toy soldiers in his pocket, especially mastering those difficult ten-and twelve-step games. Only Teodor, the janitor, could beat him. He came by sometimes, borrowed a marble, and sent it flying in a wide arc, taking down a soldier. Being helped in this way was cheating, strictly speaking, but no one complained. Teodor treated them all the same, and each hoped that maybe next time he would be the one to get the favor.

  Teodor laughed a lot, maybe because he sometimes had a beer or two, but mainly because he was a man who showed his feelings. He loved women, had a fear of heights, and was afraid of the dark. Apart from these important characteristics, he was most known for his expertise and efficiency in matters of building maintenance. Few could rival him in that area, especially when gripped by his famous temper.

  Sometimes Lennart thought: If we had had teachers like that, with that strength and those weaknesses that Teodor has, then we would all have become professors of something. Teodor himself was a professor of being able to sweep a set of basement stairs without raising the dust, of doing three things at once, of keeping the grounds so clean that he made picking up garbage seem like an art form, of grooming the gravel paths and flower beds so well that they looked good for two, three weeks at a time.

  We could have learned all this at school, Lennart thought while watching the tractor. Do you believe me, John? You were the only one who cared—no, that’s wrong; Mom and Dad did too, of course. Dad. With his damned stutter. His damned rooftops. All that metal crap.

  Teodor didn’t have a big tractor, just shovels to start with and then a strong old Belos with a detachable snowplow hitched to the front. John and Lennart had helped shovel basement stairs, and once, in the mid-1960s—an unbelievably snowy winter—Teodor had sent them up on the roof, fifteen meters above the ground. They were the sons of a roofer. Ropes around their middles and small shovels in their hands. Teodor sticking his head up through the trapdoor, directing, holding the ends of the ropes. The boys sliding on the slippery slate, sending the snow down and over the edge. Svensson was down below, directing pedestrians.

  One time Lennart had looked over the edge and waved to Svensson. He had waved back. Had he been sober? Maybe. Teodor in the trapdoor, terrified of looking down. To the west were Uppsala castle and the twin spires of the cathedral. To the east, Vaksala church with its pointy tower reaching like a needle toward the sky. More snow in the air. A beating heart under the winter jacket.

  When it was time to crawl back up and then down through the trapdoor, Teodor laughed with relief. They went down to the boiler room, where the yard waste was burning in a huge furnace. They warmed themselves there. The air was hot and dry, with a slightly sour smell, but good. It was a smell Lennart had not come across since.

  In a space next to the furnace there was a Ping-Pong table and sometimes they would play a round. John was the nimbler of the two. Lennart was the one who wanted to take care of matters with a smash.

  Sometimes Teodor gave them soda, serving himself a beer. John always drank Zingo. Lennart smiled at the memory. So long ago. He hadn’t thought about the boiler room for ages, but now he reconstructed the various spaces, smells, piled crates with glass bottles and newspapers. So long ago. Professor Teodor had been dead for a few years.

  Lennart bowed his head like a graveside mourner. He was freezing but wanted to dwell in his memories. Once he got home, life’s fundamental shittiness would no doubt reassert itself. Then he would have a drink, if not several.

  The driver of the tractor glanced at him as he drove past. Lennart didn’t care what he thought. It was a long time since he had cared. He can go ahead and think I’m crazy.

  One time they had surprised Teodor. It was for his birthday, an even year, one of the parents must have told them. He was scared of the dark and the assembled kids heard his voice in the distance through the winding basement passage. He sang to calm his nerves. “Seven lonely nights I’ve been waiting for you…” came echoing toward them, amplified by the narrow passage, the many dark corners and nooks. When he rounded the bike storage the neighborhood kids started to sing and Teodor stiffened with fear until he understood. He listened to their rendition of “Happy Birthday” with tears in his eyes. These were his kids, he had seen them grow up, rascals he had lectured and played Ping-Pong with, the ones whose soccer ball he nabbed when they played on the soft, wet grass, and the ones he juggled with in the boiler room.

  Ten boys and a janitor in a basement. So long ago. John and his childhood. Back then before the future was set. Lennart took a deep breath. The cold air filled his lungs and he shivered. Had it always been fated that his brother would die young? It should have been he. He who had driven drunk so many times, drunk bad liquor, and hung out with drifters just living for the day. Not John, who had Berit and Justus, his fish, and those hands that had welded so many flawless seams.

  He started to walk. It was no longer snowing so heavily, and a few stars could be seen between the clouds. The plow had now moved on to the south end of the square. It had stopped, and Lennart saw the young man pull out a Thermos, screw the cap off, and pour out some coffee.

  When he passed the tractor he nodded and stopped as if on impulse. He walked over and knocked softly on the door. The guy in the tractor lowered the window about halfway.

  “Hey there,” Lennart said. “Looks like you have quite a job.”

  The young man nodded.

  “You’re probably wondering what I’m doing here in the middle of the night.”

  He stepped up onto the tractor so that his head was more on the same level as the driver’s. He felt the warmth of the cabin streaming toward him.

  “My brother died yesterday. I’m a little down, as you can probably understand.”

  “Damn,” the young man said and put his cup down on the dashboard.

  “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-three.”

  Lennart didn’t know how to continue, but he knew he wanted to keep talking.

  “How old was your brother?”

  “He was older than you, but still. My little brother, you know.”

  He looked down at his shoes, which were soaking wet.

  “My little brother,” he repeated quietly.

  Lennart looked at the guy for a short moment before nodding.

  “I only have one cup.”

  “That’s okay.”

  He took the steaming mug from him. There was sugar in it but that didn’t matter. He drank some and then looked at the guy again.

  “I was just looking in on my brother’s wife,�
� he said. “They have a kid about fourteen.”

  “Was he sick, then?”

  “No, murdered.”

  The young man opened his eyes wide.

  “Out in Libro, if you know where that is. Yeah, of course you do. That’s where the county dumps its snow.”

  “That was your brother?”

  Lennart drank the last of the coffee and handed back the mug.

  “Tastes fucking good to drink something hot.”

  But he shivered as if the cold had penetrated his core. The young man screwed the cap back on and shoved the Thermos into a bag behind his seat. The gesture reminded Lennart of something and he felt a sting of envy.

  “Got to get home,” he said.

  The young man looked out over the square.

  “It’ll stop soon,” he said, “but it’s supposed to get colder.”

  Lennart hesitated on the step.

  “Take care of yourself,” he said. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  He walked home slowly. The sweet taste in his mouth made him long for a beer. He picked up the pace. Through a window he saw a woman busying herself in the kitchen. She looked up and wiped the back of her hand against her brow as he was walking past. The next moment she went back to arranging Christmas decorations in the window.

  It was almost two when Lennart came home. He turned on only the light over the stove, took some beers from the counter, and sat down at the kitchen table.

  John had been dead for thirty hours. A murderer was still at large. For every second that ticked by, Lennart’s desire to kill the man who had murdered his brother grew.

  He would check with the police to find out what they knew, if they were willing to say anything. He looked at the clock again. He should have started immediately, should have started making calls. For every minute, the injustice that his brother’s murderer was able to move and breathe freely was growing.

  He got himself a pencil and piece of paper, chewed on the end of the pencil for a while, then scrawled the names of eight men. They were all men his own age, small-time crooks like himself. A few druggies, a blackmailer, moonshiners, and a dealer—all old friends from the Norrtälje institution.