The princess of Burundi

by Kjell Eriksson

  “Africa isn’t what he thinks it is, but it’s the dream he shared with John. What happens to him now?”

  A group of kids ran giggling out of the living room, stopping short when they saw Lindell. They looked at the boot in her hand and the pile of shoes. Erki said something in Finnish and they immediately drew back into the living room and closed the door behind them.

  When Lindell continued to speak it was with greater assurance.

  “I want you to count out one hundred thousand from the backpack and put it aside. Hide it, and when everything has calmed down I want you to make sure Berit and the boy get to Africa. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Erki nodded.

  “He has to see the place, even if it’s only for a week,” Lindell said.

  “Isn’t this wrong?” Erki said.

  Lindell shook her head.

  “I would be fired on the spot if this came to light, but you like the boy, don’t you?”

  Erki Karjalainen smiled. Lindell thought she caught a whiff of mulled wine on his breath.

  “Treat yourself to a taxi to Berit’s and back,” she said.

  “But stealing?” Erki said. “What will the boy think?”

  “Tell him it’s what John would have wanted.”

  Erki leaned forward and for a second she thought he was going to hug her, but he only gave her an intent look, as if he wanted to check the sincerity in her expression.

  “Are you alone with your baby over Christmas?”

  Lindell shook her head, bent over, and fished out her other boot.

  “We’re having Berit and Justus over,” Erki said. “If you want to come.”

  Lindell looked around, sat down on a chair, and pulled her boots on with concentration. She wanted to run away but also stay there. She sighed heavily and pulled up the zipper of her boot.

  “My parents are in town,” she said and managed to give him a smile. “But it’s very nice of you to invite me. Thank you.”

  Lindell stepped out into the cold with a sense of longing. She turned. A nose was pressed against the glass and she waved. The nose disappeared.

  She let the engine run for a while, like she always did. When she finally put it in gear she realized where this habit came from: it’s what her father had always done with the delivery truck. He would go out a few minutes before he wanted to leave, turn on the engine, then go back in and have the last drop of his morning coffee before setting out on his rounds.

  She called home. This time her mother’s voice was commanding.

  “You are coming home this instant,” she said.

  “There’s a boy here who needed attention,” Ann said.

  “You have a boy yourself.”

  “He’s hardly suffering,” Ann said, but she felt a twinge of guilty conscience.

  “Where are you?”

  “Don’t you hear what I’m saying? I’ll be home soon! I’m just going to stop by and see someone on the way back.”

  Her mother hung up, and Ann was not surprised. She knew her mother was incapable of having a discussion of any length with her daughter. The distance between them was too great.

  She pushed away all thoughts of her parents in the way she had always done, by thinking of her work. Had it been right to ask Erki to put away a hundred thousand? He had raised the issue of morality, but the fact was that it was John’s money. Even if the starting sum had been stolen, then surely the poker winnings were his? If the money from the workshop was subtracted perhaps there would be even more than a hundred thousand, and this money would go to Berit and Justus in any case. This was how she was going to construct her inner moral defense.

  She smiled to herself. After a while she turned on the radio. The calm music that flooded the interior took her back to another car ride on a summer’s day several years ago when she had been on her way to visit her parents. The music combined with her own sense of being lost had caused her to turn the car around and drive to Gräsö and Edvard for the first time.

  It had been summer. She had had Edvard. Now it was raw winter. She turned off the radio, suddenly exasperated at herself and her depressing fate, her inability to look after herself.

  Forty-two

  Ruben Sagander was sweating and as the sweat froze it felt as if it were forming into armor. He looked up at Berit Jonsson’s illuminated windows. He walked in the front door to the building but did not turn on the light. He took a deep breath and started to walk up. The stairwell was full of Christmas smells. He walked past door after door. He heard music and laughter. Now he was sweating copiously, just like he always did on an elk hunt when the animal turned up in his viewfinder and he slowly, silently raised the barrel.

  One flight of stairs left and in his mind he saw the damaged sign to the shop and recalled the sign of the first one they had erected in the shop. Sagander paused. A door opened on the floor below and he heard the sound of footsteps going down.

  “Take the boxes with you too!” a woman shouted. The footsteps stopped. A man muttered something and returned to the apartment. There was a brief exchange and then the footsteps went down again. Ruben Sagander stood completely still and was relieved that the man hadn’t turned on the light either. The front door opened. Sagander waited and fingered the knife in the pocket of his hunting jacket. A few minutes later the man returned, tiptoed up the stairs, a door opened, music streamed out, and the door closed again. Sagander breathed again and kept going.

  Outside Berit’s door he stopped and took out a hood. He drew the knife from its sheath and cut two slits in the fabric, pulled the hood over his head, and felt the door handle. The door was unlocked.

  Berit was sitting at the kitchen table staring blankly at the carton of bills in front of her. Thousands of kronor. She had never even seen this much money before. She stuck her hand down and put a bunch of five-hundred-kronor notes on the table. Suddenly she started to cry.

  “Why, John?” she sniffed and pushed some notes off the table.

  Mechanically she started to count, putting twenty five-hundred-kronor notes in each pile. Anger overcame her when she had counted to fifty thousand. He had let her down. God, how she had scrimped and saved all fall, worrying about their finances and their future. She had even wondered if they would be forced to sell the apartment and start renting. This while John had been sitting on hundreds of thousands of kronor the whole time. Justus had clearly taken some money too. He had also known. John and the boy had been planning something together. A double betrayal.

  There was a sound from the hall. She reached out and turned down the volume on the radio.

  “Justus,” she called out. “Is that you?”

  Lennart watched the man looking up at Berit’s windows. The yard was badly lighted and in the heavy snowfall it was hard to pick out any detail, but the figure looked familiar. Could it be Dick Lindström? He wasn’t quite as large, but winter clothes could be misleading. Was he back from Holland and horny as a tomcat? Lennart swore under his breath. I’ll fucking catch you in the act, he thought. He’s got some nerve showing his face around here. And Justus, the poor bastard, has to stand by and watch his mother being mounted by a scumbag with buck teeth a week after his father has died.

  Lennart drew closer to the entrance but pulled back after he caught sight of a man carrying garbage bags and a large box. He walked toward the garbage shed where Lennart was hiding. He heard the man come closer, how he mumbled something, cleared his throat, and spat into the snow.

  He threw open the door to the garbage shed and Lennart more saw than smelled the stink waft out into the winter night. The man shut the door, cleared his throat again, and walked back to the apartment building. Lennart waited a minute or so before following him.

  Ruben Sagander stared transfixed at the money in front of him. Piles of money were laid out on the floor and table. His money. He had been right. He gave a harsh laugh.

  Berit automatically drew the money toward her as she stared at the masked man. She started puttin
g the money back into the box.

  “Don’t touch me!” she said and looked around for something to defend herself with.

  The man laughed again, bent down, and picked up a note. Berit lunged for a bread knife on the counter but was immediately caught in an iron grip. She felt the intense sweat smell and the hands like a vise around her arms. The man didn’t say anything but he was panting. The mask made him unrecognizable but nonetheless there was something familiar about him. She tried to free herself but her attempt resulted only in a tighter grip and another laugh. She kicked him on the leg but it didn’t seem to affect him.

  I don’t want to die, she thought with increasing desperation and remembered the expression of terror on John’s face when she had said good-bye to him at the morgue. She made a new attempt to escape by throwing herself to the side as she also knocked him with her head. Her forehead met its mark. For a moment the grip around her arms loosened. She threw herself over the counter but the man was immediately on top of her again. She was thrown to the floor but managed to get one hand up and scratch him in the face. Her hand touched something wet and she understood it was blood seeping out through the mask. He howled with pain and aimed a blow at her body. It hit her on the shoulder and Berit was spun around by the incredible power of the blow.

  Then he was on top of her. It had been a silent struggle, but now Berit screamed. He let go of her with one hand and tried to cover her mouth, and that gave her the opportunity to push her knee into his crotch. He cringed with pain, rose halfway to his feet, fumbled inside his coat, and pulled out the knife.

  I’m going to die, she had time to think when she saw the raised knife above her head. At that moment there was a violent explosion and she felt the masked man flinch. Then there was another explosion and she saw the mask torn asunder and a terrible wound was revealed in his head before he was thrown forward on top of her.

  The man’s limbs jerked before everything was still. The weight and sharp smell of his body fueled her panic and she fought to get him off her. Blood dripped down onto her face and chest.

  When she had managed to free herself she saw a figure standing in the doorway. She saw the weapon in his hand and realized that he had saved her life. She managed to crawl over, then pulled herself up to her knees and wiped the blood from her face with her sleeve. Then she saw it was Lennart. He was pale as a ghost. The hand with the gun was shaking and his body twitched once as if from an electric shock. She drew her breath and tried to say something.

  “Lennart,” she whispered.

  He shook more violently and started to cry.

  “Lennart,” she repeated.

  He turned around and left the apartment on wobbly legs. She looked at him leaving, stretched out her hand as if to stop him, but where he had stood only the gun remained. Berit leaned her head against the kitchen cabinet as heaving sobs racked her body. She stared, sickened, at the wound where the bullet had entered the man’s head and retched violently.

  Lennart was running. A door opened to the apartment directly below Berit’s as he passed and he fell against it with full force, got back on his feet, and kept going.

  He had shot a person, killed a person. Who was it? It was clear that it wasn’t Dick. For a moment he had thought about walking over and peering under the mask but he hadn’t dared. Now all that mattered was getting away. Had he been wrong about Berit? That was no lover coming for a visit, but a robber. Lennart had seen the money on the table and knew it was the poker winnings. Berit had been lying when she said she didn’t know anything about the game.

  He stopped by the front door, took some deep breaths, patted his jacket over the pocket to check that the gun was still there, but then remembered he had dropped it onto the floor in the apartment. He realized that it was all over, because even if Berit kept quiet his fingerprints would be found on the gun.

  He opened the door. The cold blew over him and in the whirlwind of snow he saw a woman coming toward him. Ann Lindell. She was close but had probably not seen him. He turned on his heel and ran back up the stairs. Several doors were open and anxious neighbors peeked out. He paid no attention and kept going.

  He was caught in a trap. Lindell was not likely to be alone. The whole area was probably crawling with police. On his way up the stairs he realized that he wouldn’t be able to get to the attic without a key. For a while he paused in front of Berit’s open door, not sure of what to do next, then ran back into the apartment.

  He looked into the kitchen. Berit was still sitting next to the dead man. Her gaze was empty. She saw him, but not really. Lennart had a sudden impulse to go into the kitchen and sit down next to her on the floor. He wanted to say something to her, something that would explain everything. She had been good for John and because of that he liked her a lot. The words were there but Lennart hesitated.

  He realized with an increasingly paralyzing clarity that his own life was over, that his words had no more power. He ran into the living room, glanced at the fish tank, and in his mind he saw John there, smiling, just like he had on the evening of the inauguration. Lennart stretched out his hand to touch his brother but there was no one there.

  He could barely open the balcony door because of the amount of snow that had fallen. Nonetheless he managed to squeeze out onto the balcony, and suddenly he remembered the day with Micke, shoveling snow and the feeling of doing a good day’s work. He looked out over the railing and felt dizzy. There was no one down in the yard, but he heard sirens in the distance.

  With a strength he hadn’t believed himself capable of he jumped up, dug his toes into the brick wall, managed to get one leg onto the laundry line, and heaved his body over the gutter. His legs kicked into thin air and he was panting hard.

  “I can do it, I can do it,” he said quietly. He was faintly aware of the sirens drawing closer. He rested his head against the roof and felt his strength ebbing away. He started to slip down. He turned his head and saw the police lights reflecting against the building opposite.

  He turned his head back and looked at the ridge, catching sight of the oversnowed safety railing about a half meter from the edge of the roof.

  “I’m the oldest son of a roofing man,” he mumbled. “I’m the roofer’s boy.” He kicked with his legs, conscious of the fact that this was his last chance, threw out his right hand, and managed to reach the railing. He stretched out his left hand and connected even with that. Slowly, slowly he pulled himself up. He mumbled, chewed snow, felt the taste of blood in his mouth, but he conquered the roof, reached the safety of the railing, and could breathe a sigh of relief.

  “The roofer’s boy!” he shouted triumphantly. One of his legs was cramping up, he was shaking with cold, but he had managed to get up here on his own. He thought about his father, how he would have been proud. He looked up at the sky, which was covered in clouds.

  “Albin,” he said and smiled. “Dad.”

  He looked down and his fear of heights came back over him like a wave. The ground started to spin around and he lay flat against the roof on his stomach. His knees, propped up against the railing, were aching. A powerful puff of wind sent clouds of snow whirling over the roof. But it was as if the wind also brought calm with it. Lennart turned his head again and looked out at the city lights. The snow was no longer falling as thickly and he could pick out both the castle and the cathedral spires.

  “That’s where you died, old man,” he said.

  When he turned his head toward the south he could see out to his childhood neighborhood in Almtuna. House after house, roof after roof. People preparing for Christmas.

  His fear of heights was slowly sinking away, replaced by a sense of being above all this, all the confusion and noise. He found himself here, and there were worse places to be. It felt silly to be lying on his stomach, as if he were afraid, submissive, as if someone could come over and put his foot on his neck at any time. He turned, straightened his back, and sat up. He laughed.

  “I’m up on a roof!” he shouted to
the wind.

  He stood up with a wide stance secured by the railing, trying to parry the gusts of wind and shouting out his hate at the city that had witnessed his birth, but suddenly he calmed down. Stop shouting, he thought.

  He should have said those things to Berit. She was the one who could transmit something, tell Justus that John and Lennart were the roofer’s kids, that they had laughed together and that there had been moments of happiness. She would be able to talk about the hard things, tell Justus about their little sister, maybe show photographs.

  He had killed an unknown man and now there would always be a price on his head, he would always be on the run. He had managed to botch even the simplest thing, his revenge. But he had killed the guy who had threatened Berit. The cold made him shake harder. Shouldn’t he go back down to Berit and talk about something important for once?

  The wind threw itself over the ridge, squirming past the chimney, howling down seams and tiles.

  “Little brother,” he said, took a wobbling step, and fell forward. He hit the tile roof violently, felt something break in his face, and then somersaulted off the edge.

  Ola Haver, who was on the street, saw him fall. He heard the scream and instinctively held out his hands to stop the man’s free fall. But in the next moment the body hit the frozen ground.

  The lights from the police cars whirled around, and on the other side of the street, peeking out from between their amaryllises and poinsettias, people were watching.

  The ground was white and Lennart’s blood was red. For a few moments everything on the street grew still. Berglund took a step closer to the body, which had come to rest in an unnatural position, and removed his hat.

  THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.

  An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.

  THE PRINCESS OF BURUNDI. Copyright © 2006 by Kjell Eriksson. Translation © 2006 by Ebba Segerberg. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.