Two Soldiers

by Anders Roslund

  He knew that it had to be pressed down hard into the tube, that was important. And that the top had to be firmly attached. And that the plastic wrap had to be wound around, layer by layer, as it was to be stored near water for several days. Eddie followed Gabriel’s hands as he made seven adhesive cushions on every side of the tube, took a recently stolen cell phone from the charger on the counter, and fixed it to the tube with even more plastic wrap, opened a rucksack and put what was now ready at the bottom.

  Remember. No 1 has blown it up b4.

  “You look after it.”

  Gabriel’s hands opened one of the outer pockets on the rucksack and put in a pair of pliers and then handed the whole thing over to the twelve-year-old boy who was standing close, dying to be part of it.

  “Keep it until I tell you we’re going to use it.”

  Two small hands reached out, took it, held it in his arms.

  “Until next time one of us is hauled in by the pigs.”

  Gabriel looked at the little boy who wanted so much. One point five meters tall, holding a red rucksack in his arms. Face of a child, eyes of a child.

  That’s what you are really, just a child.

  If I was going to sell the amount of drugs that you do.

  If I was going to keep a gun in a locker at ICA or at school, like you do.

  If I was to stand there with a bomb in my arms like you are right now, if the police came, I’d get fucking five years.

  But you, you’re perfect, you’ll get an appointment with a social worker and then be taken to the movies by a support worker.

  Eddie saw that Gabriel was looking. At him. He held the rucksack even harder and felt the laughter in his stomach again; it was the first time he’d been so far into Gabriel’s apartment, and he had seen them and they had seen him.

  He didn’t want to go, leave them, out into the dark that was hollow.

  He didn’t go home. Not yet. He walked along Råby Allé, then past Råby Backe to the school, which was totally empty.

  He looked in through the window on the ground floor—all dark. He counted to three and then kicked his foot through it. If he bent down and twisted his body, he could get through without catching his clothes on the jaggedness.

  Eight minutes. Before the security guys would get here. He had forgotten how loud the alarm was, it hurt deep into his ears.

  It was always totally weird to walk down the school corridor alone in the dark like this. He went over to his locker and opened it, forced the red rucksack in with all the math books and geography books and the gun, the locker was full now. As the alarm continued to wail loudly, he walked slowly back, the way he’d learned to, back to Råby Allé 102 and an apartment on the sixth floor and a door that was always open. His room was straight in to the left and he heard voices from the kitchen, his mother and someone else; he lay on the bed with his clothes on and turned on the light. He was tired and about to fall asleep and the lamp would be turned off in the morning when he woke up, it always was; his mom, when he was asleep.

  eight days to go

  She sat on the sofa and watched the movie and even though she’d seen more than an hour now, she still had no idea why everyone on the screen was running and why someone was shooting. She didn’t feel well and it was hard to concentrate when her stomach was churning, it wasn’t long since she’d thrown up and she was about to be sick again.

  Wanda tried to lie down without touching Big Ali’s feet; it eased off then, was easier to breathe. She had seen the kid with the gold chain leave the kitchen carrying a red rucksack at some point in the evening or night. He’d looked straight at her, seemed proud, she’d heard them laughing loudly out there, then someone had opened the fridge, more cans of beer, and they’d laughed even more.

  She lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply.

  She didn’t want to. But she had to. Gabriel had looked at her as he went into the kitchen and the movie had started—it wasn’t his kind face, it was the one she didn’t like as much, you’ve got three apartments left, bitch. And then turned back, didn’t expect an answer, didn’t notice her swallow, look away.

  She didn’t like it when he called her bitch. But when Big Ali did the same, or Bruno or Jon, she didn’t hear it, not really. Gabriel, it hurt more when he said it, she wanted to explain to him that it was like being stabbed in the chest every time.

  One more cigarette, more deep drags, until she suddenly felt sick again and threw up in the bucket by her feet.

  She had three apartments left to go.

  She had fixed two, Råby Allé 124, Råby Backe 4, as well as three cellar storerooms in Råby Allé 16, Råby Allé 143, Råby Backe 192. They were all to be at different addresses in Råby, that was important, and no windows that anyone looked in on.

  The first one was quite old, almost twenty-five, and her husband was doing twenty-two months for drugs; she’d screamed and spat at her and Wanda had raised the offer to five thousand a week, the old bird had screamed again but taken the money and left her the keys. The second one had been easier, nineteen and unemployed and her man was doing time for armed robbery, three thousand a week was a lot of money.

  This one, Råby Allé 172, fifth floor, HOLMGREN on the door, she was twenty-one and her man was a lot older, sentenced to fourteen months for assault. They’d done some things together before, but after he’d gone to prison, they’d seen a lot more of each other, she was called Linn and Wanda knew her and liked her and had protested when Gabriel had said that they wanted her apartment.

  She didn’t want to ring the bell.

  She rang the bell.

  It took a while—eye to the peephole—bare feet padding on the straw mat in the hall.

  Linn was pleased, she always was when Wanda came to see her, smiled and they gave each other a hug and she asked her to come in.

  Quite a small apartment. But nice. Two small rooms, lots of white and quite a lot of glass on the big shelf beside the TV. Wanda had always felt comfortable here, with Linn, she was as warm as the apartment.

  She asked if she’d like some tea. And she knew that Wanda liked half milk, half tea, not even Gabriel knew that.

  They drank two big cups, and it sloshed around in her empty stomach. It was easy to laugh here, she hadn’t been on Linn’s sofa for a while and had forgotten how much she missed it; it was a long time since she’d laughed like this.

  Linn was just about to pour a third cup when she felt it was time to say something.

  “We need your apartment.”

  At first Linn didn’t understand.

  “In eight days.”

  Wanda was forced to explain more.

  “For four, maybe six weeks.”

  When Linn finally did understand, she just sat there and didn’t say a word, didn’t even look at her. But it’s me that lives here. She didn’t ask any questions, didn’t protest. But I don’t want to. They rarely did, they knew who Gabriel was and who Leon was, how it worked.

  Linn just looked down at the table, then out of the window, Råby at night.

  “But you’ll get three thousand a week.”

  Wanda got up from the white sofa.

  “And you’ll get it back, after.”

  The third cup of tea stood there, untouched.

  “In eight days, don’t forget.”

  She had fixed another one. Only two to go. And only one more cellar room.

  She opened the door, looked at Linn and the apartment that she’d always liked to visit, Linn who had lived here for quite a while, Linn who was always warm and friendly. Wanda gave her a hug, held her tight like she always did.

  six days to go

  No one else in the unit.

  Leon was sitting in the TV corner, cigarette in his hand, the guard in the fish tank hadn’t seen him or couldn’t be bothered. Some program on TV, probably the news, it was the sound he wanted, anything to drown out the silence.

  The first of September. Soon autumn. But still warm outside, summer if he sat in a sheltered spot
out in the yard, near one of the walls.

  Five months since he came here.

  The last snow had just melted, it was nearly spring. It was easy to forget—that there were seasons out there.

  He’d been alone in the unit all week, still refusing to work and being reported every day as being on strike. But not tomorrow, he’d go to work again, go to the workshop and make red wooden bricks for toy cars and oblong metal doors for lampposts. If he refused to work again he’d be moved to solitary confinement and he had to be here, for exactly six more days.

  As the phone he shared with Mihailovic was still tapped, he’d used the one that he paid a guard in Block E two thousand kronor in cash for every call, to phone Gabriel a few times to talk about Javad Hangaround, who wouldn’t be able to stand up for a long time and about double deliveries from Afghanistan via Russia and Torneå that would pay for the apartments for as long as they needed them and the bags and boxes in the elevator shafts that were to become something that no one had ever done before, and he’d spoken to Reza about the wall at Österåker prison and to Uros about the gate at Storboda prison and it felt like all the waiting was unbearable.

  Ur brutha is the same as ur own body.

  But they never talked about the inmate that the staff in D2 Left had found on his knees with his head in the space between the end of the bed and the table that was attached to the wall, nor about the TV cable that was tied around a large book at one end and around his neck at the other.

  He lives 4 u and dies 4 u.

  He no longer existed. He had talked. And would never become the ninth.

  He’s there in the morning and in the evening, 4 better or 4 worse.

  But the one who came over now, just as Leon lit up another cigarette, the one who was in the greatest rush of the men returning from a day in the workshop or doing the cleaning and laundry, or the visitors’ apartments or classrooms or even on the grass between the walls and the inner fence that was looked after by trustworthy prisoners, the one who came almost flying into the unit, he soon would be.

  You can trust someone who kills for his brothers.

  “We’ve got the wire brush.”

  Alex pointed to his right pocket, Marko stood a few steps behind, his face flushed with expectation and joy.

  “And Smackhead’s sorting it out right now.”

  They opened the door to Cell 10 without knocking, and the bastard smiled and Leon wanted to smash the parted lips, but it was Marko’s day and he unfurled his clenched fist, he’d punch him tomorrow.

  “You can go and lie down on the bed then.”

  Marko unbuttoned his pants and pulled them off; even his white thighs were flushed.

  “No fucking lights.”

  Leon stretched over to the bedside light and switched it off.

  “I like having it on.”

  At night.

  “But it’s the day.”

  “I always have it on when I work, I can see better.”

  I have it on at night.

  He couldn’t help himself, the clenched fist right in the middle of that fucking smile, bleeding parted lips.

  “Bedside lights are always off during the day.”

  The thin fingers belonged to a thirty-five-year-old man who was about to turn on the light again, but stopped himself and instead fiddled with five bristles from a wire brush and a glass bottle of ink beside an empty glass tube on the small table. The proper one he’d made a few weeks ago had been confiscated after a cell search. But he still had the ink, immersed in a milk carton in the fridge, and what he was about to do always worked well; it took a while longer and it was maybe more difficult to get even edges, but he’d done it so many times before—the sharp bristles from the brush were like needles, the glass tube was the body—he normally put one wire at a time in the tube, let each new wire stick out a bit farther than the previous one, like steps, and then secured them by winding around some cotton thread.

  Remember, I trust a new tattoo 200%.

  Marko lay with his bare right leg stretched out on the bed and Leon looked at his face. Marko’s eyes shone as they had never done before, his cheeks still flushed, a restless tongue constantly licking his lips, and Leon recognized his own longing from way back, to belong to something that was greater than himself. Then the boy who would soon carry their name closed his eyes, those gleaming eyes didn’t want to watch when Smackhead’s hand stretched out the skin on his thigh and the other dipped the needles attached to a glass tube in tattoo ink and then stabbed hard with great control—two needles lifted the skin and three pressed in the ink.

  Remember, with each job they grow to b better soldiers.

  Marko opened his eyes, looked at Leon and smiled even though Smackhead was puncturing him again and again, to print GHETTO drop by drop with the improvised needles and write SOLDIERS what was going to be his life from now on. Six years of running errands in secure homes and young offenders’ institutions and then the initiation test and he had done it and he was no longer lonely.

  ———

  They had been eight.

  Now they were nine.

  ———

  Someone who kills for his brothers can be trusted.

  four days to go

  Photographs from a school yearbook.

  José Pereira absentmindedly ran his finger over one face at a time. To break the law and secretly cut out pictures of pupils in fifth and sixth grade—children—in order to investigate serious organized crime was not something anyone had mentioned at police college all those years ago.

  More than a week had passed. And what he did know was that two bullets in the knees and a TV cable tied around a neck were in some way connected with the group that had changed names and were on the move. He knew nothing more about them. He had nothing—door-to-door inquiries, questioning, information sources—fear kept a rein on those who hadn’t heard or seen anything.

  He carried the open file with both hands as he wandered aimlessly around his office in the Section Against Gang Crime, between the two walls of staring eyes. The plastic sleeve with GHETTO SOLDIERS and ASSOCIATED, he leafed through the faces, past the hangarounds, past the prospects to the category he had created himself, no criminal record and kids, photographs from the local primary school yearbooks of boys who couldn’t yet be IDed, or found in official police registers. He knew, and yet didn’t know, and so had to look farther afield. If you called it a chat rather than questioning, if you let a guardian or social worker sit in, Pereira could talk to them one at a time. He’d begin with the one in the blurred picture down on the left, the one who had already been called to this room on several occasions before, with his slicked-back hair and thick gold chain.

  ———

  Eddie was in the common room with his feet up on the rectangular table that bore deep wounds from his knife, the corner near the locker that was home to several kids in sixth grade, where they sometimes played cards. They hadn’t put a new window in yet—the one that he’d kicked in and then wriggled through—it was covered with a piece of plywood and layers of brown tape, so you couldn’t see out.

  Afternoon and only two classes to go.

  He’d been sitting here since the morning and he felt lonely. It was totally quiet. He didn’t like it when it was so quiet, it clawed at his throat and chest. The others had classes, but he didn’t go anymore—being lonely in there with all his classmates was worse than being lonely out here.

  He heard the main door opening. And footsteps. An adult’s footstep.

  “Pig bastard.”

  He wasn’t sitting with his feet on the table anymore, he got up and stood too close to the man who was at least forty and was wearing jeans and a jacket, trying to look young.

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  ———

  The boy stood up and came close to him, like they always did.

  José Pereira never allowed himself to be part of it—to stand in front of them, measuring them up—colleagues who unwitt
ingly fell for it had already lost.

  “You’re going to come and see me. To talk about things that you and I need to talk about.”

  He had looked through the file for no criminal record and kids linked to the group who now called themselves Ghetto Soldiers and a twelve-year-old who was registered as living in a two-bedroom apartment with his mother and little five-year-old sister in Råby Allé caught his eye. He’d seen his face around for a while, it looked like the ones who had been Jensen and Milton six years ago and were now serving long sentences in high security prisons, observed boy, eleven–twelve years old, in conversation with Leon Jensen and Gabriel Milton at Råby metro station, southern exit, a face that had increased its activity over the past two years, usual mini-gangsta outfit, thick gold chain, on his way to the apartment in Råby Allé 67 used by Gabriel Milton, the face that had gone furthest among the kids and took the greatest risks.

  The face he was now looking at.

  “I’m not going to answer your questions, pig bastard.”

  “I’ve already spoken to your mother. And told her to come with you.”

  The boy came even closer, stared at the policeman, held up his hand in front of the grown man’s eyes, screamed when Pereira grabbed hold of it and gripped it firmly.

  “Don’t you touch me!”

  He didn’t let go, maybe held even tighter.

  “On Wednesday, you’ll sit beside your mother in my office and we’ll talk about what happened to Javad Kittu.”

  Eddie stood still, swallowed.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  “Someone shot him. Twice in the knees. You know who. And I want to know too.”

  “Javad?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who’s that?”

  José Pereira didn’t smile, didn’t sigh. He might still be only a child. But he was already someone who without hesitation would harm another person if it helped his standing in the group.