“Do you often think about what it’ll be like, being a father?”
The question took him by surprise. It was like interrogating a suspect. Taken by surprise. No time to think.
“Of course.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“How on earth could I fib about that? It’ll be the most important event of my life, along with my own birth.” He looked at her. Hair combed back. A slight swelling of the stomach. “That, and when I met you.”
“Good answer. But I think you’re already starting to worry about all the bad things that could happen.”
“That’s where you’re wrong, Angela. I’m an optimist, as you know.”
She burst out laughing.
‘About this, anyway,“ he said.
“I think you’re already starting to think what it will be like when ... when our child is a teenager roaming around the Avenue with a gang.”
“Come off it.”
“I’m right, though, aren’t I? That’s what’ll happen.”
“There won’t be any Avenue by then.”
“No parade street in Gothenburg anymore? Is that the optimist talking?”
Winter’s mobile rang on the bedside table. It was 12:03 A.M. The few people who had his mobile number rang on police business, apart from Angela, but she was lying in bed beside him, still soft and red, with three small beads of sweat on her forehead.
His mother was the only other person it could be. It’s either murder or Mother, Winter thought, without smiling. He scrambled over to the other side of the bed and answered.
“Erik! Thank God you answered.” His mother was out of breath, as if she’d just run up two or three hills in Nueva Andalucia. Winter could hear crackling over the line from the Costa del Sol.
“What’s the matter, Mom?”
“It’s your dad, again. This time it’s serious, Erik.”
Winter recalled the last time, last year. His father had been taken into the Marbella hospital with a suspected heart attack, but it was in fact myocarditis. Winter had considered flying down to Spain, but it turned out not to be necessary.
He hadn’t seen his father since his parents had more or less fled Sweden, taking their money with them. He hadn’t wanted to see him last year and he didn’t want to do so now either, if it could be avoided.
“Is it myocarditis again?”
“Oh, Erik. He’s had a heart attack. Just a couple of hours ago. I’m phoning from the hospital. He’s in intensive care, Erik. ERIK? Can you hear me?”
“I’m here, Mother.”
“He’s dying, Erik.”
Winter closed his eyes, took a deep breath. Keep calm. Calm.
“Is he conscious.”
“What ... no, he’s unconscious. They’ve just operated on him.”
“They’ve operated on him?”
“That’s what I said. He’s undergone a long operation. Cleaned out his ducts, I think.”
Angela had pulled the sheet up to her chin and sat up in bed. She looked at him, a serious expression on her face. She gathered what had happened.
“Have you spoken to Lotta?” he asked. His sister was a doctor. Angela was also a doctor, but she couldn’t speak Spanish. His mother spoke a bit of Spanish, but he wasn’t sure whether she understood what people said to her. She was best at wines and spirits. Even if the doctor spoke in English to her, she would be too upset to listen properly. Even if the doctor spoke Swedish.
“I phoned you first, Erik.”
“Has the doctor said anything?”
“Only that he’s still under the anesthetic.” She was sobbing into his ear. “What if he doesn’t come round, Erik?”
Winter closed his eyes, saw himself in the car on the way to the airport, in an airplane seat. A blue sky over the clouds. He glanced at his hand. It was shaking. Perhaps these are his last hours, he thought.
“I’ll take the first flight.”
“Will there be ... will there be any seats? Flights are nearly always full at ... at this time of year.”
“I’ll fix that.”
Angela looked at him. She had heard it all. He would fix that. He would be aboard that aircraft at seven o‘clock, or whenever it left. Some other passenger would have to lean against his golf bag and wait for another flight before he could lower his handicap on the Costa del Sol.
4
He had locked the apartment door behind him when he came in. Or left the others in the room and did it later, before they’d started, he wasn’t sure. Anybody trying to get out would lose a few valuable seconds.
He had eaten, he couldn’t remember what. He hadn’t thought about what he was putting into his mouth. She had laughed, once or twice. He, the other one, hadn’t. As if he sensed it ...
As if he knew who he was. Why he was there.
Here I am, he thought, sitting. Now I’m speaking. I’m saying words that don’t mean a thing. I don’t know if they’re listening either.
He could hear the music inside his head. It started soft, got louder, then faded away, got louder again, then softer. It was like being at home, listening, or in the car, but he rarely did it in the car. He didn’t want to drive into a tunnel wall.
He was listening, that was before it started. Or maybe it started with him listening. He had tried to avoid listening and that had worked for a while but now it was impossible. And it didn’t matter now, now that he was sitting here. He looked around the kitchen. They’d asked if he wanted to sit in the kitchen and he’d shrugged. Then we’ll move into the living room later, she’d said in a tone of voice that had made him feel cold inside his head as the music got first louder, then softer. He wondered if they saw that, if they’d eventually get around to hearing it, the very moment before it happened.
The guitars were screeching inside his head. The vocals screeched, rattled, hissed through the music that wouldn’t leave his head: lying in the black field, memories start to move into my mind, visions of the red room, my bloodied face, her bloodied head.
Visions of the red room. He closed his eyes. He grew more excited. She noticed that and smiled. She had no idea. The man seemed to be fidgeting but gradually started to fade away, to turn into a shadow. When he looked at her she too started turning into a shadow. It was time.
She spoke.
“What?”
“Hello! Anybody home?”
“What ... yes ...”
“You look miles away”
“No ... I’m here.”
“You were moving your head as if you were listening to something. Inside your head.”
“Yes.”
“Can we listen too?” she said with a grin. The other man didn’t laugh. He looked straight at him, as if he could see them sitting there, playing inside his head. “What’s it sound like?” she asked, getting up and walking around to him and leaning against his ear. He could feel her weight and the strong smell of alcohol on her breath. They’d been drinking before he arrived. He hadn’t touched a drop. Not then and not now. “I can’t hear anything,” she said, leaning more heavily against him; then she kissed him. He could feel her inside his mouth. He didn’t move. “What’s the matter with you?” she said. “Aren’t you feeling excited ?” She turned to the other man. “He doesn’t seem to be very excited. I thought he was a swinger.”
The other man said nothing. He was still scrutinizing him. Maybe it didn’t mean anything.
She left the kitchen. When she returned there was music coming from another room. He didn’t want to look at her. He could see a bit of her exposed skin.
“What do you think of that?” she asked.
“Eh? What?”
“The music,” she said. “The music! I thought we could all listen to something!”
He tried to listen but no sound could penetrate the metal screeching inside his head.
She shouted something, started wiggling in a sort of dance.
She dragged the other man to his feet, kissed him. Glanced over toward him. She starte
d unbuttoning the other man’s shirt and put his hand on her left breast. Moved in time with the music. Laughed again.
“Elton John!” she yelled. “It’s swinging!”
He suddenly felt sick and at the same time extremely aroused. They were both looking at him. The other man nodded, had his hand inside her blouse.
They took two or three dance steps in front of him.
He stood up.
5
Winter collected his case from the carousel, passed through customs and out to where his hired car was waiting. He took off his jacket and settled behind the wheel. The car had been parked in the shade behind the terminal building. As the plane approached, Málaga had announced itself as gray cliffs climbing skyward from burned earth fifty thousand feet below. A semicircle embracing a calm sea. It was ninety degrees in the shade. The heat was reluctant to release Andalusia from its grip. He’d never been here before.
He felt tired, and his head was pounding. He started the engine. He felt sad, and his emotion seemed to be exaggerated by the heat. As if the heat were an omen.
Winter unfolded the map of the Costa del Sol he’d been given by the car rental firm and checked his route to Marbella. It seemed straightforward. The E15 all the way. The motorway was reputed to be the most dangerous in the world, but he reflected that the media had suggested the same thing for other roads as well, as he reversed out of his parking space.
He drove westward and switched on the radio. A Spaniard was singing a version of “My Way” in lisping Castilian. That was followed by a flamenco set for orchestra: it sounded cheerful but out of tune to Winter’s ear. The flamenco gave way to a Mexican rhumba with ten thousand trumpets. Then the Spaniard came back with “The Green, Green Grass of Home.”
The grass bordering the road was dry and almost colorless.
He drove through the suburbs. The high-rise blocks looked black in the shade. The concrete façades were dotted with colorful washing hanging on balconies. The wasteland between the clusters of houses seemed to be deserted, apart from small groups of feral dogs chasing one another through piles of trash. No sign of any people now that it was siesta time.
He steered well clear of a truck that overtook him on a bend. The driver was sitting back, smoking, his elbow resting on the window frame. A woman in the passenger seat was playing with a couple of toddlers in the seat in the back, and the children waved to Winter. He waved back, then wiped his face. He was very hot. The air-conditioning didn’t work (“The very best, señor!”) and the slipstream was insufficient to cool him.
To the left he could see what must be Torremolinos, or “Torrie,” as his mother had called it, the way the English do: a series of concrete blocks halfway to heaven and halfway out into the sea. It could be a paradise or a living hell, depending on whom you asked. Winter didn’t ask, and had no intention of staying: he devoted no further thought to Torrie, regarding it as no more than a wall built along the shore, and drove on to the hospital.
Four miles outside Marbella, Winter noticed the Hospital Costa del Sol to the right, colored white and green. He turned off at the Hotel Los Monteros, followed a road running parallel to the highway, and then came around to the hospital. He parked close to a bus stop and followed the signs to the ENTRADA PRINCIPAL. The grass was green and the flowers red. A circle of pines had been planted around the gigantic building: cactus, bougainvillea. Flowers tumbling from balconies.
Broad steps led up to the entrance, which looked like a black hole. Winter took a deep breath, ran his hand through his closely cropped hair, and went in.
Morelius left Bartram standing outside the Park Lane Hotel and crossed over the Avenue to Hanne Ostergaard, who was still rooted to the spot. She didn’t see him until he was next to her. “You can’t stand here, Hanne.”
She looked at him.
“It’s not out-of-bounds, is it?” she said, and he thought he heard a dry laugh. She raised her head and looked for the youngsters, but they could no longer be seen among the mass of people. “This little drama seems to have attracted an audience. At least you were in the right place at the right time,” she said, looking straight at him. ‘Again.“ Then she laid her hand on his arm. ”Forgive me, Simon.“
“Nothing to forgive,” he said. “Can we give you a lift home?”
“No, thank you, I have the car parked at Heden ... Assuming it hasn’t been stolen.” She looked down Berzeliigatan. ‘According to one of your younger colleagues who I speak to occasionally, all cars parked at Heden get stolen sooner or later.“
“That’s probably true.”
“Maybe I will need your help, then.”
“I can go there with you and take a look,” Morelius said.
‘Aren’t you on duty? You’re in uniform. Shouldn’t you be on patrol?“
“This is duty.”
‘All right,“ she said, and started walking. Morelius signaled to Bartram, who waved back and continued toward Götaplatsen.
‘All this makes you giddy,“ said Hanne, staring fixedly ahead. ”Chasing your child all over town.“ She turned to Morelius. ”I even start using words I’ve never used before. Like ’giddy.‘“
Morelius said nothing.
“It started out of the blue,” she said. “I never thought I would have to put up with this kind of thing. Never. Huh! Talk about being naive.”
Morelius didn’t comment. He knew that she lived alone with her daughter, but he didn’t want to say that it couldn’t be easy in those circumstances, or any of the other silly things people say.
“I suppose it’s a sort of emancipation,” she said. “And if your mom’s a vicar the emancipation is all the more hotheaded. More marked.” She looked at Morelius again as they crossed over the Avenue and waited for the lights to change at Södra Vägen. “Do you think that’s what it is, Simon?”
“I really don’t know,” he said, staring straight ahead. “I’m not the right person to ask about things like that.” He could feel the sweat breaking out under his cap. He hoped she wouldn’t see it. Sweat trickling down his face.
“Why not?” They crossed the road and aimed for the farthest corner of the car park. “Surely you can have an opinion on it. Why not?”
“I don’t have any children.”
“So much the better.” That dry laugh again. “No, I must stop this.” She halted and looked around. “I’m not quite sure where I left it. The car, that is.” She looked again. “I didn’t think about it. Then.”
“What does it look like?”
“It’s a Volvo. One of the early models. It’s about ten or eleven years old.”
“License plate number?”
She looked around again. “Do you know, I can’t remember. This is ridiculous.”
“It’s pretty common,” Morelius said. “Forgetting your car’s license plate number.”
“Especially when you’re under stress, is that right?”
“Yes.” He scanned the surrounding cars. Volvos everywhere.
“There it is, over there.” She pointed and set off toward it. “The one with the empty space at the side of it. To the right.”
The car was very dirty. He could see that from thirty feet away.
“We wouldn’t have been able to read the license plate number in any case.”
“That’s what happens when you keep putting things off,” Hanne said. “But it’s not good, when you think of rust and whatnot.”
“No.”
“It doesn’t seem to matter just at the moment.”
They had reached the car. Hanne unlocked it and sat down behind the wheel.
“Anyway ... thank you,” she said.
“It’s a pleasure.”
She was staring straight ahead with the car keys in her hand, then turned to look at Morelius, who was leaning toward the car. She started the engine.
“And I always thought we had such a good relationship,” she said, but Morelius didn’t catch every word.
6
When Winter arrive
d at Room 1108 his father was awake. He approached the bed. It was a difficult moment. Winter had trouble swallowing. His father held out a hand. Winter took it. The hand felt warm and firm, as with a healthy man, but Winter could feel bone and sinew. He tried to say something, but his father got in first.
“Good of you to come, Erik.”
“Of course I came.” Winter could see that his father was in pain. Moving his hand had been awkward. “Take it easy now.” Winter squeezed the hand gently. “That’s the main thing.”
“It’s the only ... possible thing.” Bengt Winter looked at his son. “This wasn’t exactly how I’d planned to greet you when you finally got yourself down here to the sun.”
“That doesn’t matter. Hurry up and get well and then you can greet me as planned later.”
“You can ... you can bet your life I will. Oh sh—, can you move this pillow up a bit?”
Winter pulled up one of the pillows behind his father’s head. He noticed a pungent smell, and something more. It took him a second to recall his father’s aftershave. When he did, his headache returned. The sadness of the situation stuck in him like a lump of stone.
He fluffed up the pillow a little.
“That’s fine,” his father said.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s perfect,” his mother said. She was sitting on a chair next to the bed. Winter didn’t want to look at her.
“How was the journey?” his father asked.
“Everything went well.”
“Which airline did you use?”
“Some charter company. I forget what they’re called.”
“That’s not like you.”
“Hmm.”
“It was short notice. But they found a seat for you even so?”
“Yes.”
“I bet some golfer or other had to wait for a few more hours, was that it?”
Sun and Shadow Page 3
