The Hand that Trembles

by Kjell Eriksson

  Gunlög Billström’s expression, and the way she leant in toward Svensk, clearly said that this was something she viewed with a benign eye and that he should feel free to tell her everything he knew about the amorous adventures of the former county commissioner without reservation. Her confidential tone, which Jan Svensk sensed was not based only in curiosity but at least as much in a desire for something romantic and deeply human in the mystification around Sven-Arne Persson, caused her to lower her voice so much that he had trouble hearing her.

  ‘You see, we just run after material things,’ she said, and let her gaze sweep over the room. ‘It would be so liberating if someone gave way to their heart. I can see him there in the garden, going about his trivial tasks, but, in his heart of hearts, so very happy. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?’

  Her face glowed, and in some obscure way Jan Svensk was moved by her words. She was no longer just a gossipmonger, one who closely followed the goings-on of Bangalore’s Swedish colony. Suddenly she appeared beautiful, with her somewhat wilted features.

  ‘Yes, it would be amazing,’ he agreed.

  She clasped one of his hands in both of hers.

  ‘We can go to Lal Bagh together,’ she enthused. ‘I can show you around and then we might find your mysterious friend together.’

  Jan Svensk carefully retracted his hand.

  ‘I don’t think I will lay down more trouble on this. I was mostly curious. Would you like another glass of wine?’

  Gunlög Billström shook her head. Jan Svensk sat back.

  ‘He isn’t really my friend. I was just curious in general, as I said, but I am not prepared to run my legs off for his sake. If it really was him, then perhaps he wants to be left in peace, what do I know?’

  She looked at him. He knew she was trying to discern something in his face that spoke against his apparent indifference. He smiled at her.

  ‘I think I will refill my glass,’ he said. ‘If you will excuse me …’

  She made a quick gesture with her hand and almost immediately a waiter with a bottle appeared beside him. He held out his glass and the waiter refilled it.

  Gunlög Billström opened her purse and held out her card.

  ‘Do as you like,’ she said, and smiled, ‘but if you change your mind, give me a call. I just mostly sit around at home, staring at a bloody cricket field, going to pot.’

  He took her card, surprised by her choice of words, studied it, and then slipped it into his coat pocket.

  ‘That’s kind of you,’ he said, and tried to think of a comment that could dampen her outburst.

  ‘The boys are fun to look at but cricket drives me crazy, can you understand that? Cricket gives me a migraine.’ She spat out her words. ‘They can go at it for days, the newspapers are filled with drivel, and there is national mourning and rioting if they lose. As if what this country needs is cricket!’

  Gunlög Billström changed as her bitterness was revealed; a desperation appeared in her eyes and her apparent dissatisfaction which she was unexpectedly sharing with him – a newcomer and temporary visitor and therefore perhaps safe – sullied her features, almost to the point of disfigurement.

  Jan Svensk was filled with pity, but also regret that he had turned down her suggestion that she help him find Sven-Arne Persson. He regretted even bringing up the subject to begin with.

  ‘You feel sorry for me, you think I am a pathetic failure,’ she said, and quickly waved away his attempts to dispute this. ‘And you are right. I am going to pot in this town. Have you seen the filth, the substandard streets, and the decay in old Bangalore? Once this was a beautiful city.’

  He nodded and leant forward in order to hear her better.

  ‘Now it has collapsed,’ she went on, and made a sweeping gesture with her arm, as if to illustrate the razing of the city.

  He followed her gaze. The company of men in dark suits next to them was becoming increasingly boisterous. Among them there was a successful Swedish banker next to another gentleman from Sony Ericsson.

  ‘Is that progress?’ Billström asked, rhetorically.

  ‘What do you mean?’ he wondered.

  ‘Haven’t you seen the industrial complexes? All these call centres and corporate parks. Not to mention all the hideous shopping malls springing up like mushrooms.’

  ‘It creates jobs,’ he objected.

  Billström snorted.

  ‘Impoverishment,’ she said curtly, standing up abruptly and touching his shoulder before she left.

  EIGHT

  Berglund could have left his bed but preferred to remain there. The former athlete – active in bandy and orienteering – had grown lazy. I have a right to lie here a while longer, he thought.

  The first snow of the season was falling outside. He felt the nurse, the new one whose name he had not yet learnt, watching him. She was standing at the window. She was talking about the snow, how beautiful it was.

  ‘I know,’ he said, straight out into the open, ‘I know I can walk.’

  ‘You won’t fall anymore,’ the nurse said.

  ‘I know,’ Berglund said, but at the same time he was irritated by her persistence.

  The day after the operation he had lost his balance when they forced him to get up and go to the bathroom. That time he had cursed the staff. The cut above his eyebrow still stung.

  ‘I know,’ he repeated, ‘but I would like to lie here a bit longer.’

  He wanted her to leave the room. Didn’t she have any other patients to attend to? He could take care of himself. He wanted to be alone. The nurse smiled at him. He didn’t see it, but he felt it.

  ‘I hate snow,’ he said.

  It was as if the procedure had reshaped his temperament, rearranging his brain in a way that caused him to say things he didn’t really recognise.

  ‘I’m not a winter person,’ he added.

  He had the idea that it might soften his outburst, make her realise that he wasn’t really so grouchy and categorical, that it was just the snow that was affecting him.

  ‘It isn’t snowing in here.’

  He turned his head and looked at her.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘but at some point I have to get up and go outside. And then the snow will be there.’

  He could see she had an objection ready on her lips but she chose to refrain from arguing further.

  ‘I’ll be back at half past nine. We’ll get you up then,’ she said, and left the room.

  He sat up in bed, pulled out the drawer in the bedside table, took out his glasses but replaced them immediately, pushed his covers aside, and swung his legs over the edge.

  I survived, he thought suddenly and was filled by a singular feeling of gratitude. He was uncertain to whom he should direct this gratitude, to God or science? Perhaps a combination of the two? God had always held a place in his conceptual world, ever since his first experiences in childhood of something mysterious that connected him to his parents, his little world with the big world, and the incomprehensible universe outside his window, which had given way to the secure knowledge of mature age of a higher order that simply was there. No mystery, no jubilant salvation, no punishing Lord, just a feeling of connectedness, resembling the one he had felt in his younger years with his teammates on the bandy field, in the locker room, and later in life with his colleagues on the job.

  It was the relationship with those who stood closest to him that was like God for Berglund. It was a closeness that arose out of the goodness and willingness to cooperate with others. It was the goodness of God. He could not explain it any other way and he did not trouble himself to seek a deeper answer. It was enough as it was, enough for him to become a human being.

  He rose carefully, testing his legs to see if they would hold him and if the vertigo would return. He set his sights on the window.

  Let it snow, he thought, at peace with winter. Let it come down until the earth is blanketed like the landscapes of my childhood, with snow piled a couple of metres high and the streetlig
hts reflecting in the glittering crystals. He suddenly recalled a wintery taxi ride in the late 1940s. The driver, a good friend of his father, had taken them on a ride through town. Was it a Packard? Large, black, with a scent of leather and tobacco. Berglund was five years old. His first car ride. He was convinced that God had a hand in the matter.

  He smiled to himself. Over half a century ago. The same city, the same snow, the same Berglund – amazed he was still alive, that he was still allowed along on the ride through his city.

  The door to the room was pushed open with that whispering sound that he had registered even before reaching full consciousness right after his operation.

  Convinced that it was the nurse returning, he did not turn around, being slightly shamefaced, as if caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to.

  ‘Hello, my friend,’ he heard a familiar voice say from the door.

  She had never called him ‘my friend’. He was known as Berglund, nothing more. It was only Ottosson who on rare occasions called him by his first name. No one had referred to him as ‘my friend’ for a very long time.

  With the thoughts that had dominated his morning, he was as raw as an open wound. It was only his extensive police experience that made it possible for him to control himself.

  He turned around. In some strange way it was like seeing her for the first time. He remembered the first time she turned up at the division. He recalled what he had thought that time: How young she is, what is a girl like her going to be able to do around here? Riis said something stupid as usual, while Ottosson laid it on thick like always. He had bought a cake to celebrate the ‘new recruit’ as if she, like a professional football player, had been recruited to team ‘Homicide’.

  ‘Well, hello,’ he said, clearing his throat.

  Ann Lindell remained standing by the door, observing him for several seconds before walking over and gently giving him a hug. He knew she was as emotional as he was, and that she was also doing everything she could to conceal it.

  He pulled away from her, shuffled over to the bed, and sat down.

  ‘How’s it going?’

  ‘Moving right along,’ he said, but felt the vertigo return at that moment.

  He wanted to lie down and close his eyes, but forced himself to look at Lindell.

  ‘Otto said you could have visitors.’

  He nodded. She looked at him in silence as if to check if the intrusion was affecting him.

  ‘And how do things look?’

  ‘A foot has washed ashore outside Öregrund,’ she replied. ‘Apart from that, everything is fine.’

  She had misunderstood his question.

  ‘A foot?’

  ‘Yes, just the foot.’

  ‘A foot can float?’

  ‘It was in a boot.’

  He chuckled.

  ‘You’re just the same,’ he said. ‘Are you going to—’

  ‘No, not Öregrund,’ she said quickly.

  He sensed why not, and left the subject.

  ‘But tell me,’ she said, ‘how does it feel? You should know that we have been … worried.’

  ‘I feel fine,’ he said, smiling. ‘A bit boring to lie in bed flat as a pancake.’

  ‘Are you tired?’

  He nodded. ‘Tired and a bit dizzy, but that will go away, they say.’

  ‘Will you have … I mean …’

  ‘Any permanent damage?’ he helped her along. ‘No, not really. It may be difficult at first, according to the doctor, but I don’t know. They don’t tell you everything. But I’m counting on getting back to normal.’

  Berglund was not being quite honest. Ever since he woke up from his operation he had toyed with the idea of taking early retirement. No one would blame him. He had served on the Uppsala police force for forty years.

  Again, he was overcome with an unexpected wave of sentimentality. He had to make an effort to appear, if not carefree, then at least somewhat relaxed and content with his situation. The feeling of ingratitude, as he now arose from his sickbed after an illness that had caused many others the loss of well-being or even life, was also irritatingly strong. His childhood faith – be humble and thankful for the time you have received – was not strong enough to battle the thought that life had treated him unfairly. What had he done to deserve this? Berglund knew it was a ridiculous thought, but the passive waiting in his sickbed had transformed him into a teary and disobliging old man.

  The insight struck him with full force; he was afraid. Afraid to grow old, afraid to die. Afraid not to be counted among the active and living, those who meant something.

  The sight of Ann Lindell only strengthened this feeling. She was still young. She even smelt of life. A faint but unmistakable scent of snow, fresh air, and soap had been brought into the room.

  ‘We received a call,’ Lindell said, ‘that I think may interest you, if you aren’t too tired, that is.’

  He gestured for her to continue.

  ‘An old acquaintance to you called. Rune Svensk. He had been called by his son, who is in India on some kind of business. He had observed something.’

  Berglund grinned. ‘If you travel to India you can bet you’re going to make some observations.’

  Lindell looked surprised but also relieved. It was as if his comment confirmed that he was the old Berglund, who for the moment was dressed in some loose-fitting hospital-issue trousers and shirt, but was definitely back and, in a way, on duty.

  ‘Whatever,’ she said with feigned irritation. ‘The son saw a man who had disappeared from Uppsala. A former county commissioner whom everyone believes is dead. He went missing many years ago.’

  ‘Sven-Arne Gotthard Edvin Persson. 1993.’

  ‘You remember?’

  ‘Of course. I worked on the disappearance for several months. There were those who spoke of murder.’

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘Suicide,’ Berglund replied without hesitation. ‘There was nothing to support homicide. Absolutely nothing.’

  ‘Was he depressed?’

  ‘No, not that we could find. He was … how can I put this?’

  Berglund hesitated. When he went up in smoke, Sven-Arne Persson had been a typical middle-aged man, socially well adapted and successful, but what did one know about his inner thoughts? Berglund had tried to map every inch of the county commissioner’s life but had not found any blights on his, to all appearances, blameless existence. Nonetheless he had drawn the conclusion of suicide.

  ‘There were not motives for murder, no irregularities and no threats. He simply disappeared.’

  ‘No body?’

  ‘No, no body. Not a trace. It was actually completely incomprehensible. No one saw him leave City Hall, no one saw him on the street or at his home. I mean, he was a public person, someone that people recognised.’

  ‘But he could have fled overseas?’

  ‘We checked up on everything. His passport was in his desk drawer at home. No money was drawn from his account. You can appreciate that the conclusion was suicide, even though everyone had trouble believing it.’

  ‘And now he turns up in Bangalore,’ Lindell said.

  ‘If it’s really him.’

  ‘The witness is completely sure of himself. And they are former neighbours.’

  ‘I know,’ Berglund said. ‘I have met Jan Svensk.’

  ‘What is he like?’

  ‘Oh, what should I say. A normal guy. Had a somewhat rocky period in his youth but has been fine ever since, at least according to his parents.’

  ‘How do you know them?’

  ‘From church,’ Berglund said. ‘And they are Uppsala old-timers. Like Sven-Arne Persson. I remember him from my youth. We were the same age.’

  ‘Was he sporty?’

  ‘No. Tall, but not exactly an athlete. He may have been able to handle chess.’

  ‘Married?’

  ‘Yes, with Elsa. No kids.’

  ‘Is Elsa still alive?’

  Berglund’s gaz
e flickered. Through the window he could see that the snowfall had grown heavier.

  ‘She’s barely sixty, I would guess,’ he said. ‘A teacher.’

  ‘Remarried?’

  ‘No, but I have heard rumours of a relationship.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Berglund looked out the window again. What should he think? Jan Svensk was no hysteric but the story sounded fanciful.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said finally. ‘It sounds strange to say the least. Why India?’

  ‘We’ll have to keep sniffing around. Svensk returns in about a week or ten days, according to his father.’

  Suddenly Berglund made a face, closed his eyes, and put his hands over his face.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Lindell got up from her chair and started to reach a hand out to him.

  ‘Nothing,’ Berglund said. ‘I …’

  He slowly turned his head. The look he gave her was one she had never seen before.

  ‘I’m raw,’ he said finally. ‘I’m just so damned raw inside.’

  Lindell could not recall ever hearing Berglund use such emphatic language before.

  Is he going to die, she wondered, terrified at the prospect. Was it sadness she saw in his gaze? Berglund was a smart man. Did he sense something that could not be said? Was he being less than honest when he claimed the operation had been a success?

  ‘Are you anxious?’

  That was not really a question she was allowed to ask, Lindell thought.

  ‘I don’t know what it is,’ Berglund said.

  He got to his feet slowly and walked over to the window. Outside the specks of snow were whirling more than ever. Without turning his head he started to talk about the melancholy that had come over him. The feeling had come creeping even before the operation but now it was threatening to take the upper hand.

  ‘Maybe they have taken something from me, I mean …’

  Lindell knew what he was talking about. She wanted to say something comforting, but refrained.

  ‘Do you want to be left alone?’

  ‘Maybe we should have a cup of coffee. Like the old days. Do you remember when you started in the Crime division?’

  Lindell nodded, glad at the turn in the conversation. When she had been new in the division, she had quickly appointed Berglund her mentor and confidant. They would withdraw over a cup of coffee, sometimes in his office, sometimes at the café, sometimes at the Savoy, the bakery that he had started patronising already in the sixties and that had come to be Lindell’s retreat when she wanted to be alone to think.