The Sons: Made in Sweden, Part 2 Read online

  New York • London

  Copyright © Anders Roslund & Stefan Thunberg 2017

  Jacket photographs: landscape © plainpicture/Johner/Johan Willner; figures © Premysl/Shutterstock; footprints © Grigory Bruev/Adobe Stock; trees © wayra/iStockphoto; Cover by craigfraserdesign.com

  English translation copyright © Elizabeth Clark Wessel 2017

  First published by Quercus in the United States & Canada in 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages in a review. Scanning, uploading, and electronic distribution of this book or the facilitation of the same without the permission of the publisher is prohibited.

  Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Any member of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use or anthology should send inquiries to [email protected].

  e-ISBN 978-1-68144-340-9

  Distributed in the United States and Canada by

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas

  New York, NY 10104

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, institutions, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons—living or dead—events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  www.quercus.com

  What constitutes the past in this book has been inspired by real events, while the parts in the present are pure fiction.

  Contents

  Black Gaps

  “If I can change, you can change.”

  Burst Blood

  “If you get my brother involved, I’ll get your brother involved.”

  Golden Thread

  “If you turn me in, I’ll turn you in.”

  Eye of Steel

  Black Gaps

  BLOOD.

  He has never thought about how red it is.

  How much there is in a woman’s body.

  Enough to color an entire kitchen and an entire hall and, step by step, three stories down to the outer door. And still there’s enough left that she’s able to keep on running away.

  The rag in his hand becomes darker and darker. He forces his spine outward and braces himself with his feet. He presses all his weight against the plastic rug on the kitchen floor as he rubs away the last patches of blood, rinses out the cloth in the warm, bubbly water in the bucket, and crawls to the doorway and the sticky stuff in the cracks.

  What happened here has to stay here. That’s how it works in a family.

  Mama whimpered like a wounded animal and, without turning back a single time, ran out, away, pursued by the tracks of blood he rubbed and rubbed until they were all gone.

  Leo gets up and stretches his legs, cramped from staying so long in the same position. That’s strange. He should be exhausted. But he somehow feels exhilarated, restless, and calm all at the same time. Stronger than ever. Every thought clear. He knows exactly what he should do. There’s nothing he can compare it to, apart from maybe the first time he drank alcohol, that instant before he became too drunk. But this is better, soft inside and hard on the outside.

  The kitchen window has striped curtains and faces the street. Leo peers out and looks for Mama, who’s not there. Of course, it’s just the spatter in the hallway that remains.

  And Papa.

  Is he still here? Why is he sitting down there in the car as if nothing happened? What’s he waiting for? Police, shit—they could come any minute.

  Papa drove here all the way from the prison outside Stockholm and barged in intending to kill her. His eldest son jumped on his back and pressed his arm around his father’s neck, fought him, and forced him to stop hitting.

  The kitchen is done, not a trace. It smells clean.

  The hallway is worse. She slipped several times there, and the patches are bigger—like pools. But finally there’s less after he has rubbed and scrubbed a bit out into the stairwell and the water has become more of a cloudy red than clear.

  He sneaks back to the curtain again.

  The yellow Volkswagen van is still parked down there. With Papa in the driver’s seat and the front door open and his left leg sticking out, his wide gray pant leg flapping in the wind and his brown shoe tapping the asphalt.

  Papa must be waiting for someone. Why the hell else would he be there?

  Does he think Mama will come back?

  Or is it that Papa is angry and disappointed that Leo stopped him, just as he got hold of her head and kneed her again and again—has he decided to come back into the stairwell and up to the apartment on the third floor? Is it his turn now? Leo is the one who saw to it that she escaped, that she’s alive.

  But the rattled, hyped-up, alive, and almost happy feeling inside takes away the fear. He is not afraid, not even of his father.

  In the bathroom, the nurse’s bag with Mama’s medical paraphernalia is spilled out on the terry-cloth bathmat, and the lid with a white cross is ripped open—someone has been rooting around in it. He lets it be. First he must wash off his mother’s blood. The warm water rinses away the scum from his skin. It becomes a beautiful, light-red whirl just before it vanishes down the drain.

  Felix was worried. He often is, but this time it was particularly clear that he was not well. And Vincent, his youngest little brother, didn’t say a word. He just closed the door to his room and stayed there.

  He checks a third time through the window. Now the police are coming. Fucking Papa just sat there and waited for them! They’ve done it before, picked him up. Four years ago. The time Papa threw a Molotov cocktail and burned down Grandma and Grandpa’s house because Mama was hiding there, but that wasn’t like this. Today it’s Papa who is waiting for the police.

  Right away one of them is standing on the stairs, ringing the doorbell. A tall, rather young one is visible through the peephole. When he steps in onto the doormat, he doesn’t see shit. The blood is completely cleaned up.

  “Hi, I’m Peter Eriksson. Constable. I just want to say someone’s on the way here. From social services. You don’t need to be worried.”

  “I’m not worried. Why would I be?”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Leo.”

  “And how old are you?”

  “Old enough.”

  “How old?”

  “Fourteen.”

  Now the cop looks around, inspects the hallway, and leans forward a little to be able to see into the kitchen. But there’s nothing to find; everything is put back. The table stands in its place again, both chairs are picked up and pushed in under it, and even the rag carpet that he turned over to hide the blood spots lies without a crease between the table legs.

  “Did it happen here?”

  “Did what happen?”

  “Your father has already confessed. So I know what happened. I’m here to examine the scene.”

  “It was here.”

  “Where?”

  “It began in the hall. Ended in the kitchen.”

  The cop-gaze sweeps through the apartment—along the hall floor, through the doorway into the kitchen.

  “I see you’ve cleaned up. I can even smell the cleaning products. But that’s not important right now. Still, I do want to know if your father has been here before.”

  “He hasn’t lived with us for a few years now.”

  “So he’
s never been inside this apartment?”

  “No. We moved here from Stockholm four years ago. When Papa went to prison.”

  The cop’s hand is on the door handle. It seems as if he’s about leave. No more questions from someone who shouldn’t be meddling.

  “There’s one more thing.”

  “Yeah?”

  “The woman coming from social services soon is Anna Lena. She’ll see to it that you and your brothers get help.”

  “We don’t need any help.”

  “Everyone needs help once in a while.”

  And so he leaves. Not one word about what happened to Mama. Papa gave himself up, maybe that’s why.

  Felix is still hiding behind the sofa in the living room, but he crawls out as soon as Leo waves at him.

  “Is she . . . dead? Leo, is she? Say it, if it’s true.”

  “Of course she isn’t dead.”

  “Where is she then? Where, Leo? She must be really hurt.”

  “She’s a nurse. She knows what to do. Where to go.”

  “Where to go? So can he find her there too?”

  “No. The police have Papa.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What do you mean, you ‘don’t understand’?”

  “Why he came here. And wanted to kill her.”

  “Because Mama split the family up.”

  “You’re just saying that because Papa said that.”

  “No, I’m not. But I know Papa better than you do. He’s just like that. He operates that way.”

  “But if he—”

  Leo traps his little brother’s agitated, flailing, swinging arms, a torrent that must be shut off.

  “Felix—I get it that you are worried. And scared.”

  “I—”

  “But I know that she’s all right. I saw it. And now I need your help, Felix—with Vincent. Okay?”

  Leo lets go of both arms, which seem to understand now. They aren’t flailing or swinging anymore.

  “Okay.”

  And together they go toward the closed door.

  “Vincent?”

  Their little brother doesn’t answer. Leo carefully turns the door handle. Locked. He looks in through the keyhole. Blocked, the key in the way.

  “Vincent, open up.”

  They both lay an ear against the door, hear him breathing heavily in there.

  “The nurse’s bag.”

  “I saw it. On the bathroom floor. But, Leo, what if he’s hurt himself? If he . . .”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  Leo is already on his way. Somewhere. Through the hall, toward the stairs.

  “Where are you going?”

  “The drainpipe.”

  Felix doesn’t like being alone when it’s not his own choice. He looks at the locked door to Vincent’s room, at the wood surface, which has peeling paint at the bottom, and at the door handle that doesn’t move—as if he could make it turn by staring. He knows exactly what Leo plans to do. He knows that when he’s rushed down the stairs, he’ll continue out to the yard, to the back of the building. They climb up there to the balcony if they’ve forgotten the keys. But that won’t help now; it’s Vincent’s door that’s locked. So Leo’s going to climb up the second drainpipe, the one rising to the heavens between Mama’s bedroom and Vincent’s room, near the window that Vincent usually leaves open. That way is much harder. A metal railing runs around the balcony that you can grab on to and lift yourself over. Vincent’s room has only a small window ledge and it’s extremely dangerous—slippery with edges that cut up your fingers. Leo has to hold on to the drainpipe with one hand and reach out and grab the ledge with the other. And then, with a jerk and a swing, he throws himself over. It’s not easy. And what if . . . surely it rained a little before? Then the whole drainpipe gets sticky and slippery like wet brown leaves in the autumn. He doesn’t know what frightens him most: Leo climbing straight up and maybe falling down, or Vincent, who may have hurt himself behind the locked door.

  He kicks the door handle and regrets it; he might frighten Vincent.

  He should probably just look at it. There’s nothing else to do. Stare. And count the seconds. Until it moves and Leo is standing there and Felix can go in.

  Two hundred and forty-eight seconds.

  Then it happens, it is actually moving and the door opens.

  He has never seen anything like it.

  Ever.

  He walks toward the bed. Vincent is lying down and Felix doesn’t know if he should touch him. He doesn’t. Instead he tries to catch Leo’s gaze.

  “What . . . So Vincent has . . . Why did he bandage himself?”

  All over the floor, among toy cars and soldiers, are empty paper boxes that otherwise belong in Mama’s nurse’s bag—and should contain bandages. Now the chalk-white cloth is wrapped all around Vincent. His whole body covered, from his ankles to his thighs to his stomach to his shoulders to his throat to his face. The work of a seven-year-old. There are narrow spaces between the edges of the bandage and his underpants and T-shirt, with his naked skin sticking out through the gaps. Most obvious is the intended opening for the mouth, his breath wetting the woven edges.

  “The blood out there . . . shit, Leo . . . it’s . . . Mama’s, right? Isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just Mama’s?”

  “Just Mama’s.”

  Leo squats down by Vincent’s unmade bed and grabs a bit of bandage that dangles loose from his wrist.

  “We’re here now, Vincent, with you. And Papa is far away.”

  One hand around the loose cloth and the other on Vincent’s bandaged cheek.

  “So I think we’ll ease this shit off now.”

  He doesn’t even manage to loosen the first layer. With all his strength Vincent jerks the bandage out of his brother’s grip, and his scream is muffled in the way screams are if you press your face hard against a pillow.

  Felix is standing just past the doorway, not really understanding what he’s looking at, when the doorbell rings. Again. And waiting on the other side of the peephole is the woman the police officer mentioned. The social services lady. And that . . . he knows exactly what that means. So he hurries back to his big brother.

  “If she sees that goddamn little mummy, Leo, everything will go to hell.”

  “Fix it then. And don’t talk so loud. I’ll answer the door and you can take care of him.”

  Vincent has managed to sit up in bed. He has gotten the red felt-tip pens and drawn round spots on his bandaged left arm. Felix hears Leo opening the door out there, the social services lady stepping in and the rattling of the hanger when she takes off her coat, and he whispers to his brother, who is just about to begin a rather large spot on the middle of his stomach.

  “You have to lie down. Got it? Pretend you’re sleeping.”

  “I’m not tired. And you aren’t lying down.”

  “The woman out there, Vincent, you hear her, don’t you? She can’t see you like this.”

  “Who?”

  “It doesn’t matter. But if she sees you . . . with all that shitty . . . with all of that stuff on you, then she’ll take you with her, don’t you get it?”

  If he fixes the sheet, unfolds the blanket . . .

  “Come on, for fuck’s sake!”

  If he turns the pillow and the wet patch of sweat disappears . . . maybe Vincent will lie down then.

  “She’s coming in here soon!”

  He does it—Vincent gives up. He crawls in and Felix hides him almost entirely. The blanket is tucked in around the bandaged head.

  “And now you breathe exactly like you usually do when you’re sleeping. In, out. In, out. Slowly.”

  Then he hurries out and meets Leo and the social services lady in the hall. They say hello and she smiles.

  “And your little brother? Where is he?”

  “He’s asleep. He’s tucked in under the blanket.”

  They let the lady peek into the room and she sees what she ou
ght to see, a child who’s sleeping deeply and shouldn’t be disturbed. And that works out well, she explains as she looks at Felix, because now she wants to talk with Leo alone.

  “If you tell us how Mama is first.”

  “She’s in pain, Felix. But at present she’s in the hospital—they know how to take care of this kind of thing.”

  And when they are alone, she and Leo, when Felix is sitting on the sofa and looking at some TV show, she makes an attempt to talk and explain.

  “I have visited your mother in the hospital ward where she is staying. The doctors will check on her every hour—and she has to remain there for a few days.”

  She puts a hand on his shoulder. He twists downward and steps backward until her hand slides off.

  “Your mother wants you and your two brothers to stay here. But it isn’t really possible, is it? Not if you’re alone.”

  He doesn’t nod or shake his head. He heard what she said, but he’s not planning to leave the apartment. Not now. Vincent, shit, they can’t go out with him bandaged like a mummy. And if they yank the bandages off him he would get hysterical. That wouldn’t help a fucking thing.

  “Felix is eleven. And Vincent is seven. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  I understand what you’re saying, he thinks. And I remember what Papa said.

  You have the responsibility from now on.

  “I can take care of my little brothers.”

  “You’re fourteen years old.”

  “Look, there are fourteen-year-olds who experience a shitload of worse things. A boy I read about, in Brazil I think, he harpooned fish to get money for his family, but then one day he harpooned himself in the foot, and then—”

  “Listen to me. I reasoned with your Mama for a long time.”

  Her hand is on his shoulder again—and it stays there even though he twists his body.

  “Leo, how are you? Now?”

  “Now? I don’t really know . . .”

  He knows exactly how he is. But he doesn’t know if it’s the right thing to feel.

  “. . . or, it’s all right, I guess.”

  Is it okay to feel so incredibly strong? Almost happy. That should be wrong. How can that happen when his inside explodes with the image of Mama bleeding and running away?