Another large rug country was Turkey, where Carl-Ivar was at this very moment. The collective name for rugs knotted there was Anatolian.
That rugs and carpets were the bearers of culture was easy to see. Anyone visiting Olsson’s carpet shop understood that to be the case practically the moment they stepped inside. A rug purchase was not supposed to be a hasty affair. Naturally, it was perfectly acceptable for customers to take rugs home and roll them out to see if they matched their furniture. Annelie had learned that Oriental rugs go well virtually everywhere. If customers couldn’t find what they were looking for, Carl-Ivar would promise to keep his eyes peeled to see what he could get his hands on. There was little that couldn’t be ordered. The carpet dealer also had a warehouse, the location of which Annelie was still slightly uncertain of. He’d never taken her there, and this had, of course, fired her curiosity.
Annelie was surprised at how much she thoroughly enjoyed looking after rugs, answering the phone and delivering orders. Perhaps because it wasn’t particularly stressful. The rest of the day she could devote to her thoughts. She was no “thousand irons in the fire” kind of person. She’d once believed that she was in her eagerness to be a young woman on the go. It was one of the conditions of her generation. To slave away for the reward of intervening indolence. But her body preferred a more even trot.
She was just about to start fantasizing about M – she could already feel the physical thrill of his touch – when she saw a woman slowly waddle toward the door. Her gait was precariously tilted backwards owing to an enormous pregnant stomach. Annelie recognized her, it was Veronika Lundborg who opened the door and puffed and panted into the shop.
“I brought in a rug for repair,” she said, collapsing as she did so onto the German Chippendale chair that stood conveniently by the door.
Annelie knew exactly which rug she was talking about, a threadbare but lovely Sivas from Central Anatolia.
“Is it ready?”
“Afraid not.”
“No matter. I was passing and just thought I’d pop in and ask.”
Annelie nodded, but found it hard to believe that someone with a belly like that went anywhere at all unless they absolutely had to. She was sitting like a swollen inflatable doll there on the chair. Annelie tried not to stare at her belly, an exercise just as hopeless as avoiding a nose that was flaming red or blue. And yet it was somehow alluring. Annelie hadn’t yet been subjected to that kind of physical deformity. Unfortunately.
Veronika sat motionless for half a minute just gazing at the walls.
“Nice place.”
“It is, isn’t it,” said Annelie with a smile.
“I could sit here forever, but I guess I’d better toddle off. You’ll get in touch when it comes in?”
Annelie promised, and Veronika groaned herself up from the chair and shuffled out through the door, but as she reached the second step down a man appeared on the pavement wanting to go in.
So the door opened and closed again.
Jeepers, we’re busy today, thought Annelie. Before her stood a man with strikingly pale blue eyes.
“Is Carl-Ivar Olsson here?” he asked unsmilingly.
Veronika paused in Lilla Torget Square and took out her new sunglasses. A pair of Ray-Bans, the classic Wayfarer model that had come back into fashion and that suited her.
She set off for the mall again. Her visit to the carpet shop had been a waste of time, but pleasant. If Claes and Klara hadn’t dawdled so much she wouldn’t have gone. But she felt that she’d been sitting for such a long time that passersby might have started thinking she’d made a home for herself there on the bench on Flanaden.
On Västra Torggatan she bumped into Birgitta Olsson, and told her that she’d just been into her husband’s shop, although she’d not met him but a young woman instead.
“Carl-Ivar’s in Turkey,” said Birgitta Olsson.
That explained it. They stood there chatting for a while, Veronika’s swollen legs the cause of constant pain. Birgitta Olsson, by contrast, was a lithe and nimble woman and was probably in better shape than Veronika, even without the belly, despite being fifteen years older.
“Seize the day, as they say,” said Birgitta suddenly, and gave a broad grin that prettified her finely defined wrinkles.
“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” laughed Veronika and thought how strange it was that certain people could say certain platitudes without it sounding in the slightest bit silly.
“When’s it due?” wondered Birgitta in a maternal tone of voice that spread a warmth through Veronika.
“In a week. Caesarean in Kalmar.”
“Lovely. Then you’ll soon have your hands full. Good luck!”
Birgitta nodded and vanished into a shop on the corner that sold sporting goods. She needed to buy some new running shoes, she said.
Veronika was unhappy to see that the bench was full, so she sought out another, a little further east where Flanaden crossed Östra Torggatan to then merge with Besvärsgatan, which with its cobblestones and wonky, picturesque wooden houses represented a totally different epoch.
She collapsed onto the bench. Now she had a different view to survey.
There was no traffic to speak of on Besvärsgatan, which ended in a series of steps that climbed down the cliff face to the harbor. Veronika could at least see two figures that came from that direction, a man and a woman who could hardly be said to belong to the upper echelons of society. She recognized the man, who’d come into A&E a few years ago, high on something and causing havoc; the woman was younger and had a long-haired Alsatian that lumbered by her side on a loose leash.
Why do they always have to have such big dogs, these druggies? she thought. The couple made their way toward the park.
A kick inside her broke her train of thought. She rested her hand on her belly and felt how it bulged. A foot, or a hand. She curled her lips up in a stately and self-centered maternal smile.
Just then, Claes called to inform her that they had just started to buy the sandals. Their trip to the toy store had taken longer than expected, he said, a shade apologetically.
“No problem,” she said generously. It was pointless to stress when it wasn’t absolutely necessary.
The creature within gave another kick. She wasn’t worried, a scheduled Caesarean was all ready to go. There’d been no quibbling, bearing in mind, above all, her age, and the relative stiffness of the pelvis, presumably. And besides, Klara had been born by Caesarean, but that hadn’t been planned. The placenta had become detached. Ablatio placentae.
Many minor reasons converged to become a major, significant decision. That was how Veronika interpreted the obstetrician’s judgment, and neither she nor Claes had cause to think otherwise.
Forty-seven, next year. She was “the mature mother.”
They didn’t say it aloud, but she suspected that the comments were primed and ready as soon as she was out of earshot. She would certainly have come out with similar opinions, back when she only had Cecilia and was young and knew best. A long time before she met Claes and became the mature mother, who, in spite of this, was now asserting her raison d’être.
Her thoughts passed to Cecilia. To when she was born one late night toward dawn at Karolinska Hospital in Stockholm. Veronika was twenty-three, a biologically favorable age for childbirth. She wasn’t anxious that time, either. Hadn’t the good sense to be. And it went fine the normal way, even though she’d been surprised at how much it hurt.
But still the opinions came. It was irresponsible of her to have a baby in the middle of her studies, she was informed. She sat there with her newborn daughter at her breast and tried to defend herself. Was told that one made a better parent with a little more maturity. So said her mother-in-law. What do you want me to do? she wanted to retort. You surely don’t mean that I should get rid of her?
She remembered. Of course she did, for who forgets their births? In particular, they came to her as an almost physical sensation every t
ime Cecilia or Klara had a birthday. The bewildering joy and pride. “You’re a mom now,” the midwife had said as she lay alone with her arms embracing Cecilia’s naked body. The words made her cry. She was a mom.
But she also remembered the piercing, dark forlornness, which took its time melting. Where the father was that long night she lay in labor she didn’t know. It was before the time of cell phones. And he was probably too drunk and tired to read the note that lay on the kitchen table once he’d stumbled home. He later claimed that he hadn’t seen it.
Could she forgive him for not being there? She thought so, at first. Trusted in the gentle influence of reconciliation. And in time. She so wanted them to be a family of three, not of two. It had never struck her that two could also be a family.
But Dan continued to let her down more than she had the energy to forgive. She could still feel a little cold twist in her soul when she thought of those times. Almost enough for her to need to console herself. It was strangely mixed. A multi-colored confetti. Hard and heavy and black, and then the rose-red pride, joy, and happiness. Why yes, she was happy. Too happy.
This time, though, she wasn’t alone. Just over-aged.
Before she’d taken her parental leave, she’d met a patient who lodged herself in the happy corner of her memory. The woman was a little over ninety and remarkably astute. She saw Veronika’s belly stick out from under the green smock. They were in one of the smaller treatment rooms of the A&E clinic. The nurse had called Veronika there since she’d operated on the patient the week before, for the sake of continuity.
“So you’re expecting,” the woman said amicably. “A joyful event!”
Veronika nodded and smiled. She sat on an adjustable stainless steel stool by the bed where the patient lay, her stomach bared. The woman had undergone a stomach operation to remove parts of her small intestine, and she’d pulled through well. But now she had a palm-sized area below her naval that was a shocking red and warm, and that fluctuated and throbbed. An infection. The pus must out, as a good old maxim went.
Veronika removed some staples that she’d closed the edges of the wound with and drew some local anesthetic up into a syringe while, stupidly, blurting out that she was not exactly of child-bearing age. To be honest. Which the patient didn’t need to know. It wasn’t her, the doctor, whom they were meant to be focusing on.
“You’ll manage, believe me,” said the patient encouragingly. “In the old days it was almost shameful to expect a child at a late age. At least it is not like that now, thank the Lord.”
Veronika carefully opened the wound with forceps. As the pus drained away, the pain receded. It reeked. She wiped away the gooey mess and pressed lightly on the swelling so that it emptied completely. A pleasant calm spread through the room.
“‘Bringing mongoloid children into the world, whatever next!’ That’s what we used to say,” continued the woman.
“You actually said that?”
“By golly, yes. When I got in the family way with a new chap I was over forty, you know. We didn’t have the same methods of examination then as we do now. It was my first child… and my only, as it turned out. Abortion was also out of the question; it wasn’t allowed unless under very special circumstances, that is. If you had mental issues or something. And mentally challenged, I was not. We were very happy, my husband and I.”
Veronika could hear the obstinate blend of unadulterated joy and hope that lives beyond all anxiety and humiliation. She could hear something else, too, and hoped that the nurse wouldn’t burst in and break the spell.
“The girl was christened Stina. She was a source of much delight for her parents.”
Her eyes glittered like crystals under the diaphanous eyelids. And then the woman drew up short, as if she needed to catch her breath.
“And, well, sure enough she had Down’s syndrome, as one says nowadays.”
Her tone was lingering, and told Veronika that she had spoken those words many times, but had never felt really comfortable doing so.
“Stina passed away ten years ago from a congenital heart disease.”
Veronika nodded almost imperceptibly. Silence hovered in the room and descended softly. They were still waiting for the dressings.
“Yes, it was a difficult time. How we missed her, my husband and I.”
CHAPTER 4
ILYAS BANK CAST A GLANCE over the guardrail. It would’ve been impossible for anyone on board to miss the busy sea traffic. Small, high-speed ferries zigzagged between the larger vessels that lay still in the seaway as they waited to enter the Bosporus, the narrow strait leading into the Black Sea that he himself had just passed through.
He sold tea on the ferry; it was afternoon and he was starting to feel tired. But still his working day was far from over.
He filled the samovar with a practiced hand and switched it on for a new round of hot drinks. He then dipped the used small, tulip-shaped glasses crammed onto the tray into the sink, fished them quickly out again and placed them on a rack hanging on the wall to drip dry. He nodded in passing to Ergün, who, finding himself with an empty counter in front of his kiosk, could slip out at last from his booth to light a cigarette by the railing.
Ergün motioned that he wanted company. Ilyas didn’t smoke, but went amenably to join him, his arms folded over his chest. Across the water they could see the city with its eroded quarters and the huge cupolas, one after the other, and all the slender minarets that pointed heavenward.
They said nothing. They didn’t feel the need to.
The air vibrated, ever more saturated with diesel and exhaust fumes the closer they sailed to the quayside in Eminönü. The tourists, herd animals that they were, had already risen from their seats and shuffled off stemwards to make sure to disembark first. They were standing in clusters now, watching the approach. But some remained behind. A tall, well-built man in a white cap, who looked American, rose from his seat and wandered around until he leaned his hands against the guardrail so that Ilyas and Ergün could only see his back before he left the spot and continued fore. Three young women, obviously Turkish, stood in a little knot wearing thin coats and headscarves of the same checkered pattern but different color scales: a pink, a turquoise, and one that tended more toward lilac. They had all chosen matching makeup and were probably sisters, thought Ilyas. They were hot.
He returned his gaze to the sea and looked at the enormous Sülaimaniya Mosque and the Blue Mosque, with its six lean minarets, and between them the alleyways of the bazaar quarter scrambling up the hillside.
The berth was tight. The ferries lay hull to hull, as though hitched together in several rows out into the water. On the quayside, the chaotic throng was almost impenetrable, and the perpetual smell of grilled fresh fish was spread by the wind. At the quay edge, the terminals of the different ferry companies jostled together all the way to the Galata Bridge, which spanned the Golden Horn. Up on the bridge he could see a swarm of heads and fishing rods with their lines dangling in the water.
“The Golden Horn, it’s a strange name when you think about it,” said Ilyas eventually to break the silence. He was in a chatty mood.
“It’s actually a broad estuary that goes in there, not a bay. I’ve heard that the name comes from the way seafarers were once so rich that they threw gold and shiny objects into the sea.”
Ilyas fell silent. He wasn’t sure if Ergün was mocking him or not.
Ergün flicked his cigarette.
“I don’t know if it’s true, though,” he continued.
“Why do it?”
Ergün shrugged.
“Perhaps to show their gratitude to Allah for having arrived safely.”
Ilyas decided not to believe everything that guy said, simultaneously regretting that he had shared his plans with Ergün. All the wonderful places, one after the other, that he intended to visit. Or move to for good. If he managed to scrape together the money, that is, here in Istanbul.
“How’s the money situation?” asked E
rgün, as if reading his thoughts.
“Not brilliant,” answered Ilyas truthfully. “But I haven’t been working for so long…”
“What’s wrong with this place, anyway?” said Ergün, nodding out over the water. “You can stay here, no?”
“Nothing at all. Not a single thing wrong, except for the fact that it’s absurdly expensive,” Ilyas hastened to say, and felt that grindingly uncomfortable sensation that always sprang up as soon as they discussed his future plans.
Ergün obviously thought he should control himself and not let his imagination run away with him, and it made him feel callow and stupid, at the same time as he refused to let go of his faith in the future and its possibilities.
And, anyway, he didn’t want to control himself. But it was impossible to get the money together. The frustration was magnificent. You had to walk blind through Beyoğlu’s shopping district to avoid being sucked in. Hip t-shirts, cool shoes, and the latest cell phones. But everything cost far too much. Nothing for him. Not now.
But it was still hard to resist the temptations, and his money ran through his fingers. And his panic rose at the same pace. How was he going to make ends meet? Especially as he’d made his mind up to put a bit aside for his future departure.
It suddenly struck him just how simple and cheap everything at home in his village was. He said this to Ergün.
“Go home then!” said Ergün with a lopsided grin.
But going back wasn’t in his game plan, not to the little village in eastern Turkey by the banks of the Tigris. Even if the memory of how they played by the river in the summer did feel nice and homely right now.
The village came to him now and then, strangely enough, even though he tried hard not to think backwards. As if his homesickness did as it wanted. He found a creeping comfort in seeing the huddle of dilapidated houses in front of him, the ancient settlement nestling in the river valley between steep rocky slopes. The road dust that whirled and constantly lodged itself in the nostrils, the thistles and dry grasses that doggedly survived in the cracked earth under the heat of the summer sun. In the evenings as darkness fell, lights could be seen glowing cozily in the caves where people still lived. By day, it was the satellite dishes that shone instead, like large white plates outside the cave mouths, announcing that the place had not been abandoned. People had been settled here for thousands of years. “The caves are cool in the summer and easy to heat in the winter,” his mother often said dreamily. She remembered. Unlike the cheap buildings that the mayor had had erected in the village. “But one shouldn’t complain,” she also said.
Death of a Carpet Dealer Page 3
