The Hand that Trembles

by Kjell Eriksson

  Sven-Arne wanted to say something beautiful and inspiring, but as in so many other cases his uncle pre-empted him.

  ‘Don’t say anything. I know what you can do. Words, words, and more words. I’m sure you still have that ability. I am glad that you came, but maybe you should have stayed where you were. There is nothing here. In India, yes … there is … what is there there, anyway?’

  ‘But you haven’t exactly given up and laid yourself flat on the ground.’

  ‘I have tried to fight back,’ Ante said. ‘But now everything is about defeat. Yes, we won a little, I am the first to admit that, but the final conclusion will not be affirming reading. And now everyone is talking about the fact that the world may be coming to an end, the ice caps are melting and we will drown like cats. That may be just as well. Everything will be ocean.’

  He stopped and Sven-Arne thought for a moment that he was about to burst into tears. His upper lip trembled and his watery old-man eyes twitched.

  ‘I often think about a little village by the name of Forcall. There was a whole gang of us there – a Pole, some Germans, and then me. Blom was off on some errand, maybe a woman, he was always after them. You must remember Blom.’

  Sven-Arne nodded. Ante’s talk was calming him down.

  ‘Everything was fine. Sometimes an Italian surveillance plane would go past, but everything on the ground was still. The Polack was a little hurt and one of the Germans was helping him with the bandage. We sat and talked about life. One of those times when you really get close to each other. It must have been our proximity to the Fascist positions. We had nothing to lose except our lives. I talked about Irina, the Serbian. You know, the one who made it into parliament and later became one of Tito’s trusted circle. I believed I would never see her again. It was fated that I should die in the mountains. I had been given a warning, been perforated by a grenade, but returned. I was in love with those villages.’

  ‘But also with Irina,’ Sven-Arne said. He had shifted his chair a little closer to Ante, who for once was speaking quietly, almost mutteringly.

  ‘Also with Irina,’ he echoed.

  ‘But you chose the villages and the conflict,’ Sven-Arne said.

  Ante nodded. ‘I thought I would meet her again when I was injured the second time, but she had been transferred.’

  ‘You lost both the villages and her.’

  Ante lifted his head and looked at his nephew.

  ‘Did you have a woman in India?’

  ‘For a while,’ Sven-Arne said. ‘But she moved on.’

  ‘Do you miss her?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  Ante nodded again. ‘Then I was captured.’

  ‘Where did Irina go?’

  ‘When the republic fell she fled to France with everyone else and ended up in a camp, Barcarès. There she met a Spaniard from Lerida, an anarchist who had fought alongside Durutti. He ended up in the Resistance movement in France, but the Germans got him and he died in Mauthausen. Irina was able to get back to Serbia.’

  ‘You’ve never talked about how you got yourself out.’

  ‘Nothing extraordinary. Bribes. I was being held with a Yankee from the Lincoln brigade, a lift technician from New York. A Jew. There were a lot of them in the republic. We managed to bribe a guard, that’s all it took. We parted ways north of Valencia, then I headed north. I had some things hidden away in a village.’

  ‘The children’s drawings?’

  ‘Among other things. You remember them?’

  ‘You told me about the drawings when I was a kid. What was that all about?’

  ‘You’ll have to read about it,’ Ante said. ‘It was a nurse from Karlstad who … but I don’t think I can go through it right now. I was just going to talk a little longer about that moment in Forcall. The Polack groaned a little. He was in pain, but it was nothing compared to what he was to experience the following day. Then he died, just like the Germans. Blom hung on for another week, then he went. He was from Hälsingland. I was the only one in the group who pulled through.’

  Ante looked at Sven-Arne with moist eyes.

  ‘Things like that prey on your mind, you know.’

  Sven-Arne had known this for fifty years, ever since that winter’s day on the roof.

  ‘I think about all the hopes they had. We were simple fellows, no big players. We just wanted justice. Then, when they started going on about Stalin and the camps in Siberia, what were we to think?’

  Sven-Arne stretched out his hand in order to put it on Ante’s stained trouser leg but pulled it back.

  They sat quietly for several minutes. The clatter of footsteps and the rattle of a passing cart could be heard from the corridor.

  Sven-Arne thought about what Ante had said, that he had only been fighting for justice. It could have been used for his own part, but he felt that the words were too big, words that no longer had any grounding. Now it was too late to back up the tape and start wreaking havoc, agitating. That time was over and the fault was partly his. He had let go of his dreams and become a prisoner of his situation, and what credibility would he – a fugitive county commissioner – have? In the best-case scenario, people would laugh at him. Wouldn’t they? He hadn’t embezzled any funds and made off with the coffers, had not been bought by the money men or left on a well-paying international assignment. He had spent his time planting trees, weeding, and picking up litter. Would he be able to speak as he had used to? And perhaps some things really had changed. Perhaps people were more receptive to talk about the things that lay beyond the most immediate matters of everyday life. He knew so little about what had happened in Sweden the last decade.

  Sven-Arne realised his uncle was studying him. He is reading me, he thought. To break it up he again stretched out his hand. Ante grabbed it.

  ‘We’re sitting on the edge of a piss-pot,’ he said. ‘We’re in a hell of a hole, aren’t we?’

  His hand was bony and cold.

  ‘We’re in a hell of a hole,’ Sven-Arne agreed.

  ‘There are a couple of thousand in every generation, the five thousand worst bastards, and I am glad I’ve belonged to that bunch. That will be on my tombstone. I am an odd duck, but …’

  ‘In India …’

  ‘What about India?’

  Ante sounded almost eager, but Sven-Arne shook his head and withdrew his hand.

  ‘Another time,’ he said, but sensed there would not be many more of those.

  In the same moment that he stood up and straightened his journey-stiffened body he made his decision. Suddenly it appeared as a simple alternative, the only one really. To once again become an honourable citizen in Sweden and Uppsala was not possible and to return to India was just as unthinkable.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said, and picked his bag up off the floor, but then he hesitated. He wanted to put his arms around the old man, who now observed in bewilderment that Sven-Arne was gripped by a sudden fervour. But he couldn’t do it. This was not because hugs had never been part of the Persson family repertoire but rather that he was convinced it would cause him to fall into an unconsolable fit of weeping. He had to stay upright and make his own decisions.

  ‘You’re leaving?’

  Sven-Arne nodded.

  ‘Will you be back?’

  Sven-Arne hated lying to Ante, and to top it off he was bad at it. Ante had almost always seen right through his hemmings and hawings, but this time he looked pleased when Sven-Arne explained that they would soon see each other again.

  ‘I just have some things to sort out again,’ Sven-Arne said from the door, and left the nursing home as unnoticed as when he arrived.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  One of the advantages of police work, Ann Lindell thought, was that no environment was inconceivable. For the first time in her life she stood leaning over a snowblower.

  ‘You have to prepare yourself,’ she heard a voice say, and turned.

  ‘How does it work, anyway? No, forget it. What I really want is to di
scuss chainsaws. I see that you carry both Stihl and Jonsered.’

  The young salesman nodded. I started wrong, Lindell thought, as she saw his watchful, possibly defensive stance.

  ‘I’m from the police,’ she continued, ‘and I am certain that you can help me. I think you can tell me about almost anything in this shop.’

  She smiled and was rewarded with a self-conscious grin.

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Daniel Andersson.’

  ‘Daniel, I would like you to look at a photograph,’ she said, and took a folder out of her bag.

  She held up the photograph. The picture of Tobias Frisk was one year old, enlarged from a group photo taken at a party in Östhammar. It was Frisk’s employer who had produced it. Conny Ahlén had claimed it was very like Frisk.

  ‘No, it’s no one I know. But maybe Martin would, he has worked here a little longer.’

  They walked inside the counter and arrived almost immediately at a small office. A middle-aged man was sitting at a desk, leant over a folder.

  Lindell presented herself and her reason for being there. He took the photo without a word and examined it for a couple of seconds.

  ‘He’s one of our customers,’ he said, and then returned the picture.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  Daniel grinned again.

  ‘Okay,’ Lindell said, and smiled. ‘You are sure. You’re often sure, right?’

  Martin closed his folder, rubbed his hand over his face, and looked at Lindell.

  ‘I’ve sold chainsaws and all manner of other things to half of Uppsala’s inhabitants. I remember the faces of eighty per cent of them.’

  ‘What about the other twenty per cent?’

  ‘They only come one time, so I don’t need to remember them.’

  ‘That’s a good ratio: eight of ten return.’ He nodded.

  ‘Good ratio,’ he said. ‘Not that it helps.’

  ‘Do you know what his name is?’

  ‘No, we’re not the KGB, but I think he is from Roslagen.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘His dialect.’

  ‘He bought his Stihl here.’

  ‘I see … if you say so. We carry Stihl, so that sounds plausible.’

  ‘Why would a person change the blade? Aren’t they expensive?’

  ‘The blade can be damaged. Amateurs aren’t careful. They get the saw caught and bang it and bend it so it ends up crooked.’

  ‘Was he an amateur?’

  ‘What’s happened? You said “was”.’

  Lindell tucked the folder into her bag. ‘That’s true, he doesn’t use his saw anymore. But was he an amateur?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Martin said. ‘What happened?’

  ‘An accident,’ Lindell said. ‘Thanks for your help.’

  ‘What help?’

  Yes, what help, Lindell thought when she was standing outside the shop. The third salesman, Thomas, had a faint recollection of Tobias Frisk, but could not recall if he had seen him in the shop recently.

  The visit to Såma had been a shot in the dark, and was probably a waste of time. They had the saw, and that was the most important thing. Where it had been purchased was of less significance. It would have been reassuring to establish that Tobias Frisk had bought a new blade and chain during the autumn. On the other hand there were probably a number of other places where he would have been able to pick up replacement parts.

  Lindell hated the very idea that a chainsaw had been used to butcher a young woman. Through the shop window, she saw the rows of chainsaws hanging on the wall. Saws were tools and not to be used as weapons other than in horror films, and definitely not by a bakery employee in the outer coastal area.

  ‘Not that it helps for shit,’ she muttered, and hunted around until she found Conny Ahlén’s number.

  The bakery owner only picked up on the fifth signal. He sounded stressed, so Lindell skipped over the polite phrases.

  ‘Hi! Lindell, Uppsala police, a quick question. What was Tobias Frisk doing last autumn, in August and September?’

  ‘Working, of course.’

  ‘Was there any change in his routine, no new employee who started at the bakery, or anything else that you can remember? Was his mood different during this period?’

  Conny Ahlén was silent for a couple of seconds. Music and clattering sounds could be heard in the background.

  ‘Now that you bring it up,’ he said finally. ‘He went to Norrland for a bit of fishing. He used to go up for a week or so every year.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘I can’t really remember, but I can check if I go into the office.’

  Lindell heard Ahlén’s steps and he talked to someone else. She caught the word ‘dinner rolls.’ When he returned to the receiver he was out of breath.

  ‘It is amazing. Sometimes everything gets messed up.’

  ‘I know how it is,’ Lindell said. ‘But I won’t keep you long.’

  ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Ahlén assured her. ‘Now let’s see … That was at the end of August 2004. He was away from work for eight days and returned at the beginning of September.’

  ‘How was he then?’

  ‘He was always pleased after his fishing trips.’

  ‘Do you know where in Norrland?’

  ‘If there’s a place called Sorsele then he was there somewhere. I think he mentioned something like that, but it may have been the year before. The fact is, I didn’t listen so closely to his fishing stories.’

  ‘He didn’t tell you anything else, that he had met anyone or experienced anything unusual?’

  ‘No, not that I remember, but he was pleased, as I said.’

  Lindell was about to ask if Frisk’s scent had changed after his fishing trip but she changed her mind, thanked him for the information, and brought the conversation to a close.

  Back at work she went straight to her office and turned on the computer. She had no idea where Sorsele was but she thought the name sounded good somehow. The fact was that this fishing trip was the only thing she had encountered so far that made Tobias Frisk into a human being. His home and for all appearances non-existent social life gave no clues and made him appear strangely anonymous.

  But now she had something to go on: Frisk’s interest in fishing, coupled with a trip that had changed him, if Lisen Morell’s judgment and sense of smell were anything to go on.

  After fifteen minutes’ worth of surfing on the Net she had located Sorsele on the map and familiarised herself with rivers and fishing camps in the area, and even turned up the name of a fishing consultant.

  She called Torsten Stenberg and explained what she was after.

  ‘I see,’ the consultant replied hesitantly, ‘there are many who come to Sorsele to fish. And it is over a year ago. Was it trout or something else?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Lindell replied. ‘I only know he went up to fish.’

  ‘Is he a fly fisherman?’

  Lindell didn’t have an answer.

  ‘If it was trout or charr then it had to be before the middle of September.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because the season ends,’ Torsten Stenberg said. ‘But it was probably grayling.’ He sounded surer now, as if simply the names of the various species of fish had given him a shot in the arm, or as if Lindell’s lack of fishing knowledge made him chatty.

  ‘It’s a nice fish,’ he continued, ‘but it needs immediate consumption because it loses its taste almost immediately. Do you know it tastes a little of thyme?’

  He told her about the various offerings that a visiting fisherman had to choose between. Lindell made a written note of the Laisa and the Vindel rivers, as well as a number of different options for guest accommodations. There were fishing campsites, hotels, private cottages, and youth hostels. She had her hands full making the notes as he spoke and realised that it would probably take a while to establish where Tobias Frisk had stayed.

  ‘Maybe at the campsit
e,’ Stenberg said calmly. ‘I would call them first. Who did you say you worked for?’

  ‘I’m with the police,’ Lindell said, astonished.

  ‘I got that, but what kind? You’re probably not solving bicycle thefts.’

  ‘I work at the unit for violent crimes.’

  ‘That’s what I thought, that it would be something big. What has he done, your fisherman?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ Lindell said, and could not repress a deep sigh. ‘We are only the beginning of the investigation. I think I’ll come up to you for a while and fish. It sounds relaxing.’

  Stenberg chuckled. ‘You should be happy that you …’

  He stopped himself and Lindell waited a few seconds for a continuation.

  ‘I mean about the work,’ he said. ‘It’s worse up here. I would welcome a little stress sometimes. And we need the police. Now there are only two of them and soon they’ll be down to one.’

  ‘In Sorsele?’

  ‘Yes. Do you know how large the county is? At least two hundred kilometres long and fifty or sixty kilometres wide. And we have two policemen, Hallin and Lindgren, and neither of them is young anymore. It’s probably fifty years since we had a murder and soon there will be no one around to kill. But go on and call the campsite. And if you want to fish, all you have to do is come on up.’

  Lindell ended up sitting for a while after the phone call. She studied her scrawls in the notepad and thought about what the fishing consultant had said. She tried to imagine him, a telephone voice, an unfamiliar person in the same country, speaking the same language – even if he did so with another dialect. Nonetheless Sorsele seemed foreign. She tried out the word ‘charr’ and smiled to herself. The unfamiliar word echoed in the room. She said it again, louder this time. It sounded like a promise.

  He had told her about his county, where the police had seventy kilometres to the nearest colleague – was that Arjeplog? – and two hundred and sixty kilometres to backup, the day such was needed. I will never again complain about distance, she thought. Östhammar and Bultudden are right around the corner.