The Kindness, page 55
‘Because it was so loud. It really hurt my ears.’
‘What was so loud?’
‘The . . . tanker. When it whatdoyoucallit . . . exploded. It really hurt.’
A tear trickles down Alva’s cheek. Siw hugs her daughter and rubs her back until Alva relaxes. Siw loosens her grip and takes Alva’s hand. ‘Let’s go and sit on the bench for a little while.’
‘But I’ve got training . . .’
‘Just for a minute or two.’
Alva resists, but eventually allows Siw to lead her to the bench. Siw drapes Alva’s jacket around her shoulders. ‘Tell me exactly what you heard.’
‘So, this truck came along, one of those . . .’
‘Tankers.’
‘Yes. It came from that direction.’ Alva points towards the gym. ‘Then it came along here.’ Alva’s finger follows Carl Bondes väg. ‘And then it braked, and then someone screamed, or maybe someone screamed and then it braked and then it whatdoyoucallit skidded and then there was a huge bang when it . . .’ Alva turns her head and looks at the rampart. ‘I think it hit that . . . lump there. What is it?’
‘A rampart.’
‘What’s it for?’
‘I’ll tell you later. What happened next?’
‘Then there was lots of noise and splashing and liquid pouring out and then . . . then there was a huge bang. Like a thunderstorm, but louder.’
‘The tanker exploded.’
‘Yes.’
Siw takes a deep breath and glances towards the spot where Alva said the tanker would be. She can’t understand why she didn’t hear anything herself. She takes Alva’s hands, which are cold from sitting still, and rubs them with her thumbs. ‘Okay, sweetheart, let me explain. What you heard . . . is something that’s going to happen in the future. It could also be something that’s already happened, but not in this case; we would have known about it. That means it hasn’t happened yet, but it’s going to happen.’
‘I know.’
Siw is so taken aback that she lets go of Alva’s hands. ‘You know?’
‘Yes. I knew when I heard it.’
Siw runs a hand over her chin. Alva’s relationship to her gift is clearly going to develop in a completely different way from Siw’s. She takes her daughter’s hands again. ‘Okay, that was unexpected. But the problem is that you never know when it’s going to happen. It could be in a few minutes . . .’ – Siw’s eyes flick towards the gym – ‘. . . in a few hours, or tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow. Do you understand?’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean, no?’
‘It’s not like that. This is going to happen in a week. Seven days. That’s a week, isn’t it?’
‘Well, yes, but . . . how can you know it’ll be in seven days?’
Alva shrugs. ‘I just do.’
‘Are you certain?’
‘Absolutely certain.’
‘And do you know what time?’
‘No. But definitely seven days. I want to go back to training now.’
Siw is about to protest, but she is so taken aback that before she can work out what to say, Alva has shot off to rejoin her teammates. Perhaps it’s just as well. Siw needs to think.
If it’s as Alva says, then that explains why Siw hasn’t had a Hearing. She has never been able to hear more than three days into the future. Possibly four, once. On top of that, Alva is fully aware of the implications of her special talent, and is able to predict a fairly exact point in time. If all of this is true, then her gift must be considerably stronger than Siw’s.
The force is strong with this one.
Siw is struck by a childish impulse to do what she has always done when a Hearing is involved: to run to Grandma and tell her all about it. She will go to see Berit, explain what’s happened and that all four of them are now sibyls, but for the moment Siw is the adult who must deal with the situation.
Apart from anything else, she must take into account that a tanker is going to explode here in a week, with significant danger to human life. In spite of her promise to herself, one thing is clear: she has to contact Max.
Escalation
1
It is Monday morning and Maria is dreading going to work. In recent days she has been frightened by people’s extreme unpleasantness, but now she is mostly afraid of herself. She has started to have such horrible fantasies about the café’s customers. When she puts down a meatball sandwich in front of a sour-faced man, she sees herself smashing the plate and slicing off his downturned lips with a shard of porcelain. And so on, and so on. Her days pass in a cloud of violent fantasies; maybe that’s what enables her to function, in spite of everything.
And then there’s Jesus. Five times he’s shown himself. Since the outdoor dining area closed he has chosen a new regular table, right at the back of the room. No one except Maria takes any notice of him, and when a couple sat down at the same table as the Saviour on one occasion, he simply disappeared into thin air. Maria is the only one who can see him, but that doesn’t make him any less real.
She hasn’t spoken to him, because she is afraid of what he might say. Presumably he can see inside her head, and knows that she is a bad person with bad thoughts. He is there to bring Maria back to the straight and narrow, and at the moment she can’t cope with walking that particular path.
Moving house at the weekend was sheer torture. Theoretically, Maria knows that Marko has done something amazing by buying and kitting out the new house, but from a practical point of view it’s a fucking nightmare. The acquisition of such an ostentatious place has more to do with Marko himself than his parents. Or his sister.
In spite of the fact that Goran and Laura have expressed their sincere gratitude, Maria can see that they are lost in their over-the-top residence. They wander aimlessly through the sparsely furnished rooms; all that is missing is the sound of clanking chains to make them the very epitome of restless souls. Maybe things will improve over time, but right now their luxury home is making them homeless. Again.
The move hadn’t even got underway when Marko announced his next lunatic project – travelling down to Bosnia to restore the family farm. Maria restricted herself to sighing when he revealed his big plans and waved the key to their old front door, but secretly she has two thoughts regarding the project.
Thought number one: it is a much better idea than the purchase of the show-off house. Goran and Laura never complain unnecessarily, but there is a special tone in their voices when they talk about the old farm, a nostalgic melody with its rhythm made up of tears shed in the past. To be able to return there, if only for a holiday, would heal something within them.
Thought number two: although she would never admit it to Marko, she really appreciates having him around. However much she moans about his big-brother-act, it’s nice to know that he’s there . That she has someone to turn to if the floor gives way and the whole thing collapses, and recently she has felt it beginning to crack beneath her feet. This is not the right time for Marko to leave her, but she would never say that to him.
Maria picks up her wallet, phone, and the keys to the café. She says goodbye to Goran and Laura, who are sitting at the enormous kitchen island with a cup of coffee. They seem to be enjoying themselves just as much as if they were in the waiting area at A & E.
Fucking Marko , Maria thinks. You crush people with your goodwill.
She is in a bad mood all the way to the café, and it doesn’t improve when she reaches Tillfällegatan and hears the rushing of the river. Yet another day inside that infuriating noise. Can’t someone come and dry it up? Many times a day she is seized by the urge to run outside, grab hold of the railing and scream at the river: ‘Can’t you shut the fuck up for once?’
Before she goes into the café she stops and looks over at the far side of the river, the place where someone was shot the previous day. The blue and white police tape is still there, cordoning off an area of about thirty square metres, and the path is discoloured with a dark fluid. Maybe someone turned their fantasies into reality? Maria shakes her head and unlocks the front door.
She is the first to arrive. The place is empty, apart from the table in the far corner where Jesus is sitting. He is wearing a white linen tunic and an equally white robe. When he smiles at her, his teeth are very white. Maria runs a hand over her eyes. Jesus is still there. She rubs her eyes. Jesus tilts his head on one side. She considers hitting herself on the head. Instead, she goes over and sits down opposite him.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘What do you want?’
‘I am here for you,’ Jesus replies in a voice so gentle it seems to have been filtered through honey. He speaks Swedish, of course; what else would you expect?
‘And why me?’
Jesus shrugs, sending a billowing wave through the fabric of his robe. ‘My mother was also called Maria.’
‘That’s not a reason. There are lots of people called Maria. What is it you want with me?’
‘To help you.’
‘I don’t need any help.’
‘Yes, you do.’
Okay, so Jesus is up to speed with the situation, as he should be. Any ordinary person can see that Maria is having a hard time, so it would be a blow if the Son of God couldn’t. Maria puts her reservations to one side for a moment. ‘How can you help me?’
‘You are tormented by your thoughts.’
‘Yes. And?’
‘Don’t do it.’
Maria raises her eyebrows. This at least is unexpected. But does Jesus really know what she is thinking, does he know about the horrible images that fill her mind every day? She soon has her answer. Jesus says: ‘I had similar thoughts. When they tortured me .’
Maria’s eyebrows go up a little further. ‘Do you mean on the cross?’
‘Mmm.’
‘That’s not what it says in the Bible.’
For the first time since he appeared to her, Jesus’s lips curl into a contemptuous sneer instead of a smile.
‘ The Bible. How would the idiots who wrote that know what I was thinking ? They got most things wrong, and they made up a load of stuff. Okay, the bit about driving the moneylenders out of the temple was more or less correct, I really did lose it that day, but otherwise . . . pff.’
Jesus flaps his hand as if he were waving away a particularly irritating bluebottle. Maria can’t help being fascinated. Lose it . She is more surprised at his choice of words than his knowledge of Swedish. Then again, something happened to the disciples that made them able to speak different languages, so Jesus must have been able to as well.
‘So . . . you also had this kind of fantasy?’ she asks.
‘All the time. I mean, the Romans were one thing; in a way they were just doing their job, albeit a little overenthusiastically, but do you know who I’d really have loved to fry slowly?’
‘No.’
‘Those idiots who were allowed to choose who should be released, me or Barabbas. Even Pontius Pilate wanted to let me go, but oh no, free Barabbas and up on the cross with Jesus, they shouted. Doesn’t make sense. What fu . . . what absolute idiots. If I had them here . . .’
Jesus clenches his right fist and shakes it as if he were crushing something hateful. This is not at all what Maria had expected; this version of Jesus is much more to her taste than the one that emerges in the Bible. She is about to delve deeper into how he can help her when the door opens. Maria turns her head and sees Kitchen-Birgitta come in. When she turns back, Jesus has vanished.
Oh well. No doubt there will be more opportunities.
2
‘Have you seen this filth?’
Berit gesticulates towards her computer screen, where she has the Roslagen portal open. Anna leans over and glances through the article. ‘An ordinary evening in Norrtälje’ is about someone, presumably a guy, who has been the victim of an attempted mugging by two Blackheads, as he calls them, but was saved by the timely intervention of a Swede.
The text is dripping with contempt for people who live on the goodwill of Swedish institutions, yet at the same time conduct a low-intensity war against Sweden and the Swedes. Zero tolerance is proposed. The smallest offence, for example shoplifting, and the individual is sent back where they came from. Steps must be taken before it is too late, otherwise Norrtälje will soon go the same way as Malmö. Tolerance is all very well, but zero tolerance is better. Signed SvenneJanne.
‘That’s . . . horrible,’ Anna says.
‘Mmm, and do you know what’s even more horrible? The number of people who agree with him! Hundreds of them in the comments box. One of them even hints that he was the one who started the fire at the refugee centre as a tribute to this SvenneJanne.’
Anna clears away Berit’s lunch dishes; she decided to eat in her room today, because she couldn’t cope with, quote: ‘sitting there with all the dribbling old fogeys’. Anna stacks the plate, glass and cutlery in the dishwasher, then returns with a cup of coffee – one lump of sugar and a dash of milk, just the way Berit likes it.
‘There’s a very unpleasant atmosphere,’ Anna says. ‘It’s as if attitudes are . . . hardening.’
‘Exactly.’ Berit points to Monday’s paper, which is on her bedside table. ‘And now people have started shooting one another.’
Anna has already read the article with growing unease. The shooting down by Brodds sten took place about half an hour before Acke showed up at her apartment. The perpetrator was wearing a hoodie, and has not yet been found. It’s a common item of clothing and proves nothing, but Acke was wearing a hoodie when she saw him from the balcony, coming from the wrong direction. According to the article, the murdered man had no known links with the criminal fraternity, but Anna suspects that if the police dig a little deeper, then Ewert and Albert’s faces will emerge. They will, of course, have a rock-solid alibi for the time of the shooting.
‘What is it?’ Berit asks. ‘You look worried.’
‘No, it’s just . . . there’s a lot going on.’
‘Indeed there is.’ Berit blows on her coffee before taking a sip. She smacks her lips contentedly. ‘By the way, Siw and Alva are coming to see me the day after tomorrow.’
‘Cool. Any particular reason?’
Berit frowns. ‘You think they need a reason to visit this old bag?’
‘Yes. I presume you pay them to turn up.’
Berit bursts out laughing and puts down her coffee to avoid spilling it. ‘Joking aside, I got the feeling there was something – possibly to do with Alva. I have my suspicions, but we’ll see. And yes, I do slip Alva the odd note now and again. I don’t think that’s why she comes, but better safe than sorry, eh?’
‘You’ve got nothing to worry about. She thinks the world of you.’
‘It’s okay, I’m not fishing for compliments. Anyway, how are you? What are you up to?’
Anna doesn’t even consider sharing her fears about her little brother, partly because she doesn’t want to spread groundless suspicions, and partly because it’s too big a subject, and she has other residents to take care of. Instead, she mentions the other thing that has been occupying her recently.
‘I read a novel,’ she says. ‘An absolutely fantastic novel.’
‘Author?’
‘It was actually written by a friend, so it’s just a pile of loose sheets of paper. But it’s the best thing I’ve ever read.’
‘Hmm. I didn’t know you had friends like that.’
‘You mean, because I’m thick?’
‘More of an imbecile,’ Berit says with a warm smile. ‘What fun! Is she – your friend – going to get it published?’
‘It’s a he. And he’s afraid to try.’
‘Then you’ll have to persuade him. Do I detect . . . ?’
‘No, you don’t. Time I got back to work.’
Anna stands up and strokes Berit’s hand. Berit nods towards the computer. ‘If that SvenneJanne has to write, then he’d be better working on a novel instead.’
3
Max and Siw meet at the Espresso House after work on Tuesday. They avoid the sofa where they sat last time, even though it’s free. The situation is different now, and they sit down opposite each other at an ordinary table with a cappuccino each. Siw clears her throat and says in an almost formal tone: ‘First of all I have to say that this isn’t about us.’
Max looks amused. ‘No?’
‘I mean it. On Sunday, at football training . . .’
Siw explains what happened when Alva’s gift came to life, and how it differs from her own. She has spoken to her daughter, and Alva has told her that her Hearing was so detailed that it also evoked images, and that was why she knew the vehicle was a tanker. Plus, she knows which day it’s going to be.
‘Unbelievable. The force is strong in this one.’
‘ With this one,’ Siw corrects him. ‘Very funny, but that’s exactly what I thought at the time. Anyway . . . I went past that exact spot today and I’m still not hearing anything, but Alva insists she’s absolutely certain.’
‘Okay. And . . . ?’
‘I think you know.’
‘You want me to be there on Sunday to warn you before it happens.’
‘Or to prevent it from happening, if possible. There are so many kids on the football pitches on Sundays, and this is going to be very close by.’
‘Good point, but preventing things doesn’t seem to be my strong point. Remember when we were last here and the guy in the river . . .’
‘Yes, but that was before Alva.’
Max looks searchingly at Siw. ‘You really believe this.’
‘Yes. Or I believe that Alva believes it. If it turns out to be wrong, then so much the better, but it’s impossible to do nothing when she’s so convinced.’
Max nods. ‘I agree. And it would be wonderful if we could put this gift to a positive use for once. So yes, I’ll be there.’ He runs a hand over his forehead, as if he is wiping away imaginary beads of sweat. ‘Shit. We’re sitting here chatting about this as if it’s just a matter of stepping in as a football coach.’
‘How else would we talk about it?’
