The Father: Made in Sweden Part I

by Anton Svensson

  Then, suddenly, for the very first time, it was.

  The parallel films now featured new stories that he hadn’t anticipated: new lines, new scenes, new characters acting outside the script. Three chance interruptions that shattered the illusion. It was no longer possible to reduce what he saw to a drama on a TV screen. The people existed. They were stepping out of the picture. And if they were real, they were also vulnerable. And here he was, standing with a real machine gun in his hands, which shot eight hundred lethal rounds a minute.

  First, an elderly hunter left his car with his wife still in the passenger seat. Wearing a camouflage jacket and a hat with reflectors, he opened the boot and pulled out a case with a hunting rifle inside. He then walked purposefully towards the machine gun, which Felix was pointing in his direction. Right up to him.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

  And Felix aimed a war machine at him.

  ‘Get out of here, now!’

  But the old man just stood there, staring defiantly into the barrel and cocking his own gun.

  It was him or the old man. He had no choice.

  They were aiming at each other, and Felix knew he was about to shoot. That was when the wife got out of the car and began shouting at her husband, pulling on his jacket.

  ‘Please, stop, Bengt, come back, come with me right now!’

  It had been so close. And it had been real.

  Then Leo left the bank, walking the way he did when he was feeling on top of the world … until suddenly he stopped, fear filling his face.

  The bag in Leo’s hand exploded. A dense, red cloud of dye pushed its way through the open teeth of the zip, staining his thin leather gloves, and kept rising into his mouth and nostrils and eyes.

  A damn fucking dye pack.

  Two million, probably even more, destroyed.

  I was in control. Of the whole place. We had an agreement. And she ruined everything.

  He kicked open the glass door, holding the steaming bag in front of him like a time bomb, and stepped over the customers who were pressing themselves to the floor.

  ‘I told you! Everyone in here could go home to their fucking families if you just did what I said!’

  He knew exactly where in the room she was – under the second cashier’s desk.

  ‘Petra!’

  The still-warm coffee cup was standing there.

  ‘Petra, get up!’

  She did, and when she looked at him, her eyes weren’t at all like before. Now they were filled with contempt.

  ‘You sneaked in a fucking dye pack! I trusted you – and you betrayed that trust!’

  ‘I did my job.’

  Although her voice betrayed her fear, still she spoke without hesitation.

  ‘You are responsible for their lives! This is your fault!’

  And then he started shooting. Without aiming. Just held the trigger in for as long as it took to empty the whole magazine. Into the safety glass, chair backs, desks, walls, ceiling. And all the while she stood there looking at him. Weeping. Convinced that she was about to die.

  ‘It’s your fucking fault!’

  Then he left with the bag in his hand, while the red smoke slowly petered out. One bank to go.

  Felix had never seen Leo like this before, not when it was important for him to keep his composure – he’d just lost it in the bank, firing wildly, out of pure anger, completely out of control. Like Ivan, Felix thought, Leo had lost control when a woman betrayed him, and he’d turned back in order to punish her. From the roof of the car, it was difficult to see if anyone had been hit. He didn’t think so. But the reality that had arrived with the old man and his hunting rifle moved even closer now: he saw its pores, experienced it with all his senses.

  Then came his little brother.

  It was Vincent who reached the third, middle bank first and arrived at the now-locked bank door. He used the butt of his gun and the barrel to break down the window, splintering the TV screen, and ran inside. He ordered them to lie down as he was supposed to, and everyone complied.

  Except for one elderly lady.

  She walked towards him with her hand outstretched as if asking for something, perhaps to be let out. An outstretched hand that was misinterpreted. Felix watched as Vincent turned round and cocked his gun in one movement, before realising that the old lady wasn’t a threat. With the gun pointed at her, she started pleading so loudly it could be heard all the way out in the car.

  ‘Don’t shoot, please, don’t shoot!’

  A single finger-tap away. His little brother had almost killed someone. And reality had never been as present as it was when Vincent stood motionless with his gun pointed at the ground trying to understand what he’d almost done.

  Then, just as suddenly, the three parallel films returned to their predetermined course.

  The robbers left the third bank through the sharp gap in the broken TV screen, rushed towards the car, threw in the bags and pulled open the side door, while Felix took down the war machine and sat himself in the driver’s seat.

  Moments later, they were zigzagging between passing cars frozen in fear on the road.

  Vincent guessed they were going at a hundred and twenty kilometres per hour on a very narrow road. Cold air blew in from the hole, and the entire roof rattled. In front of him, Leo furiously searched around in a bag full of red bills.

  ‘Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck! Two million! And all of it’s red!’

  Vincent could still feel the tension of his finger on the trigger as he looked at the woman’s wrinkles and grey hair, could still hear her pleading to leave.

  She’d been brave, he thought. And the cashier had been just as brave when, despite her terror, she did as she’d been instructed to do, sneaking a dye pack in among the money that the robber was demanding.

  ‘That fucking bitch, everything’s red!’

  Leo continued to scream and Vincent looked up at the treetops through the sawn-out hole. The forest was becoming denser. A few kilometres outside town and only one or so left to the forest road Felix would turn onto.

  ‘And you two? How much did you get?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ replied Jasper.

  ‘Guess, damn it!’

  ‘Max … four hundred. Altogether. The vault in the first bank was completely empty.’

  Wrong answer.

  The bag ricocheted off the wall when Leo threw it into the back of the van.

  ‘Four hundred thousand lousy kronor!’

  The treetops were no longer one mass, Vincent was able to discern individual trees. They’d slowed down, left the road, and Felix accelerated again as the uneven surface started to beat against the chassis.

  Not far to go until the protective darkness behind the wall. The forest road stretched out and started to slope upwards. And they were halfway up that hill when the first thump sounded. Vincent heard it and felt it. A clear blow. The next blow was even more powerful, as if made by a wooden mallet. It was then they started to lose speed. And he knew right away what was wrong.

  There’s a very particular feeling when an engine gives out.

  The van was on a steep incline as Felix put on the handbrake and hopped out.

  ‘It’s … completely dead! It won’t start!’

  With torch in hand, Felix was under the stationary van.

  ‘The fuel line, Leo. It’s completely broken!’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That fucking dye pack and now this … Fuck! … fuck fuck! … we’ll have to push it the rest of the way up, then roll it as far as we can. And walk the rest. We’ll be at least twenty minutes late!’

  Eight young arms pushed a heavy van up the hill, each metre taking a little more of their remaining time. When they reached the crest, Felix jumped in and steered until the wheels almost stopped and turned straight into the woods. Two kilometres left to their rendezvous. They started running.

  The truck was standing where they’d left it nearly
an hour earlier, at the edge of the turning area, surrounded by trees and stones and a small pile of timber. If someone had gone by, become curious and opened the doors, they would have seen just what Vincent and Leo and Jasper saw now as they pushed the rear doors open. Bales of scratchy, rough, fluffy insulation. They jumped in, pushed their way through and up to the wall that backed on to the cab, and loosened it. An illusion. A detachable wall that exposed a secret chamber, which they’d built the previous week in their garage in Tumba. It was there they’d stay during their ride to Gothenburg and the next vehicle change.

  ‘Twenty-seven minutes late,’ said Leo.

  The police had had time to set up roadblocks now.

  Felix was nearly finished; he’d changed out of his robbery gear into his work clothes, because he’d be doing the driving.

  ‘Knock twice on the wall if we need to turn the safety off on our weapons. OK?’

  Felix nodded and straightened out the fake wall.

  It was completely dark in that small space.

  It was a squeeze, and Vincent was sitting very close to Leo, almost on top of him, as they bumped from the unmade road to the asphalt. Jasper was just as tight on Leo’s other side. They sat in complete blackness, the kind of darkness that was living, organic, a tissue growing out of the wall and into the cab where Felix sat. Every time Leo exhaled in short, intense breaths, Vincent could feel the warm air caress his cheek.

  And every time the truck slowed slightly, they were inhaled by the darkness, the movements of the truck rocking around inside his chest.

  But not this time.

  Felix stopped for real.

  They heard the first knock. Then the second.

  Vincent felt Leo shift his body in order to turn off the safety on his weapon, and Jasper followed his lead, a clicking sound that bounced around the cavity. Vincent realised that this was what he’d been waiting for all night and all day.

  This isn’t going to go well.

  He knew what a roadblock looked like. Two police cars with rotating blue lights. Four officers – one of them holding up a sign that said POLICE on it, requesting vehicles to stop.

  Felix hadn’t slept either. He hadn’t said anything, but Vincent had seen it in his eyes. He’d been awake for thirty hours.

  He rolled down the window; they could hear everything through the thin wall.

  ‘Can I see your driving licence?’

  It was not an old voice. Barely older than Leo. Then silence. Felix kept his wallet in his breast pocket, and was probably taking it out now.

  ‘Where are you going and where have you come from?’

  ‘Come from?’

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Has something happened?’

  It was quiet again. Vincent imagined the policeman examining Felix’s licence while his colleague waited a short distance away.

  ‘I asked where you’ve been and where you’re going.’

  ‘A summer cottage in Tylösand. On the coast, white sandy beaches, pretty as hell. I rent it out. The first tenants arrive from Stockholm in a month, and they pay damn well. I’m putting in some insulation in one of the rooms for them. The materials are in the back.’

  ‘Could you please step out of the vehicle?’

  The door was opened, and there was a thud as Felix landed on the ground.

  ‘And please open up the back.’

  Steps along the side of the truck. He recognised Felix’s. The policeman’s steps were lighter – maybe he wasn’t so big. Then the doors were opened, angled outwards. The policeman could now see straight in.

  And light started to seep through the gap at the top where the secret wall met the ceiling. It was possible to see the policeman’s shadow as he moved around.

  Vincent held his breath. Closed his eyes. He tried to focus only on Felix, who might be talking to the other policeman.

  In his mind, he saw her grey hair again, her wrinkles like tree rings that made him think she was probably wise, her outstretched hand appealing to him.

  The bales of insulation on the other side of the wall were pushed aside. The plastic surrounding them scraped against the floor. He was close now, the policeman. The fabric of his jacket got caught as he turned, scratching against the wall.

  Anything could happen. Any time. Jasper would shoot if the police found them. Leo, too. But Vincent hadn’t turned the safety off. Not yet.

  Someone was leaning against the secret wall. The gap up above let in a little more light. Leo and Felix had built it, and they usually did a good job. But what if …? What if the weight of a body caused it to give way?

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘There’s been a robbery.’

  ‘A robbery?’

  Get out of here.

  ‘A bank robbery. And not one. Three.’

  Away from the wall. Now.

  ‘I get so tired of this,’ Felix said.

  Vincent opened his eyes. He could see him shaking his head.

  ‘I mean … why don’t those fools just get a job like the rest of us?’

  The policeman wasn’t leaning against the wall any longer. It sounded as if he was moving away, his clothes rubbing against the plastic around the closely packed bales.

  The policemen hopped down from the back of the van. The two doors were closed.

  The darkness enveloped them again, alive like before. There were footsteps outside, Vincent could just make them out, and Felix saying something to the officers about doing a good job. Reality had shattered for a few minutes, millions of shards falling like broken glass behind his eyelids. Now he put them back in place again, piece by piece. But they wouldn’t fit.

  The truck’s engine started.

  The shards could never be put back in their proper places again.

  He was sure of it. The only thing he really was sure of. And he felt their speed increasing, as they found their way back into his chest.

  57

  VINCENT DRANK THE contents of the glass so slowly it turned lukewarm and then stale. He was being careful not to get drunk. Not here. He’d been on the verge of falling asleep several times, and a night without rest had left him with only the remnants of extreme focus and fear. Just a little longer, then they’d be on their way home, the thumping of the tracks would rock him to sleep and the images of a triple robbery would blur – the moment he’d almost stopped being a robber and become a murderer. A single moment that had split reality into two distinct alternatives.

  He looked out the window of the bar at the back of Gothenburg’s central train station.

  Jasper.

  Walking out of the 7-Eleven opposite the bar with bouncing steps, even though he too hadn’t slept, carrying newspapers that shouted TRIPLE ROBBERY, MILITARY LEAGUE, accompanied by a picture of Jasper in a black mask caught by a surveillance camera right before the moment he shot it down. Jasper was flushed, and he threw the papers onto the table then went to the bar for a third beer and a third shot of Jägermeister that he downed at the counter.

  ‘Have you seen? The late edition’s arrived!’

  ‘Ten minutes till departure.’

  ‘Three fucking banks, Vincent, can you imagine? Fucking madmen!’

  He held up the papers. He was talking too loudly. And looked around to make sure other people were paying attention to him.

  ‘Jasper, stop,’ Vincent whispered softly.

  Jasper laughed, hoarsely and incoherently after so much alcohol in such a short time, while he picked up one of the papers and pointed to a large picture.

  ‘Have you seen this guy?’

  ‘There are cops out there! I saw them. Several of them! At the station! And they … stop for fuck’s sake!’

  Vincent didn’t want to sit here with Jasper. He wanted to talk to his brothers, with Leo driving the truck somewhere along the E4 motorway or with Felix who was about to take off from Landvetter Airport and would land in Stockholm in forty-five minutes. He needed them, here, now.

  Splitti
ng up afterwards was another way of not attracting attention, yet here was someone doing just that, spattering his aggression all around him in an attempt to be provocative, as if the robbery hadn’t let go of him and had to be let out somehow.

  ‘Listen … everyone’s talking about this. What do you think Grandma over there is reading about? And that guy there, sneaking Smirnoff into his coffee, don’t you think he’s seen the reports on TV? It’s not weird if we are too. It’s fucking weird if we don’t do it! Just relax, little brother.’

  Little Brother.

  ‘Did you see Leo’s eyes? When he realised that more than half of it was red? I saw them. I know exactly what he felt. Me and Leo … we planned this together. Then that fucking cashier puts a fucking dye pack in his bag! It’s all red, and it’s fucking worthless now. It’ll have to be burned.’

  ‘Jasper – shut up.’

  ‘But we would have got a lot more money, little brother, if you hadn’t wasted so much time talking to the staff like a fucking wuss! A bank robber doesn’t need to coddle the staff! We could have fucking got a few more million!’

  Coddle.

  That bit and took hold.

  Vincent had to get out of here. He stood up, grabbed the bag under the table and slung it over his shoulder, felt the outline of a gun on his hip. He headed towards the platform and the train to Stockholm, with Jasper running behind him.

  ‘Little brother, coddling the staff.’

  ‘Hey, I got the keys. Didn’t I?’

  ‘Get them? You take keys. Press the barrel against their foreheads until they’re in your hand.’

  He hadn’t been able to resist. But no matter how long that fucking idiot talked to him, he would just lie down on the train seats and sleep. He would not, could not answer Jasper again.

  ‘But listen. Leo explained that we’re a real company. And in that case Leo … he owns the company, like a CEO, and I … I’m more like a supervisor and you, Vincent, are just a teensy little trainee, an intern, that’s why you coddle the staff. Leo knows that. So he has me to take care of it. To be hard on the staff. And I am. Hard. Not like you, little brother.’