When it was time to head off to Central Station, Jeanette carried the suitcases out to the car because she didn’t want to be in the way when her in-laws gathered the last of their things and said an emotional goodbye to Johan.
Jeanette parked between two taxis in front of the station. They got the luggage out together, then waved goodbye on the platform after another tear-soaked farewell. Jeanette suddenly found it easier to breathe. She took ?ke’s hand and walked back to the car.
The troubling thoughts she had had during the day seemed to have blown away. She belonged with ?ke, in spite of everything, and he with her.
What could Sofia offer her that she couldn’t get from ?ke? she thought.
Excitement and curiosity aren’t everything.
Grit your teeth and bear it.
On the way home they stopped at a kiosk and bought a copy of Dagens Nyheter. It was supposed to contain a review of ?ke’s exhibition. He would rather have got hold of a copy before breakfast, but had held off because he didn’t want his parents reading a review that slaughtered him.
Once they were home they sat down together at the kitchen table and spread the paper out in front of them. Jeanette could see he was more nervous than she had ever seen him.
He was laughing and pretending to be unconcerned.
‘Here it is,’ he said, folding the paper and putting it in between them.
They sat and read in silence. When Jeanette realised she was reading about her ?ke, she started to feel dizzy.
The male reviewer was utterly lyrical. According to him, ?ke’s paintings were the most important thing that had happened in the Swedish art world in the past decade, and he predicted a brilliant future for ?ke. There was no doubt that he was going to be the next great Swedish cultural export, and in comparison artists such as Ernst Billgren and Max Book looked like pale imitations.
‘I have to call Alex.’ ?ke got up and went into the hall to fetch his mobile. ‘Then I have to go into the city. Can you give me a lift?’
Jeanette sat where she was, not sure how she should feel.
‘Sure,’ she replied, understanding that from now on nothing was going to stay the same.
Allhelgonagatan – a Neighbourhood
THE FAMILIAR STRAINS of accordion music were drowning out the noisy traffic on Dalslandsgatan. ‘The Ballad of the Brig Blue Bird of Hull’ was blasting out of an open window, and Sofia Zetterlund stopped to listen before carrying on towards Mariatorget.
A few other passers-by stopped and smiled, and a woman began to sing along with the mournful lyrics about the ship’s lad who was lashed to the mast and forgotten when the ship sank. The music created an unexpected spiritual space, and functioned as a verbal catalyst in a country where no one talks to anyone else without good reason. Everyone knows their Evert Taube, as they’re given him along with herring and mother’s milk.
When she came to Allhelgonagatan she stopped, took the little tape machine from her bag and put the earphones in. On the cassette case she read that the recording had been made four months earlier.
Sofia pressed play and carried on walking.
… so I got the ferry to Denmark with Hannah and Jessica, that pair of hypocritical cows I got to know in Sigtuna, and obviously they had to go to the Roskilde Festival and left me alone in the tent with those four awful German guys who kept at it all night, fiddling and rubbing and pushing and grunting, while I could hear Sonic Youth and Iggy Pop in the distance, and couldn’t move because they took turns holding me down …
Completely cut off, she wandered into a dreamlike state where she neither saw nor heard anyone around her.
… knew that my so-called friends were right at the front by the stage and didn’t give a shit about the fact that I was lying there knocked out by their sweet dessert wine getting raped and then didn’t want to tell them why I was so upset and just wanted to get away from there …
Magnus Ladul?sgatan. Her body was moving automatically.
Timmermansgatan. The words became images she had never seen before, yet were still familiar.
… and continue on to Berlin where I emptied their backpacks and lied and said we’d been robbed while I was lying there asleep when they were out buying even more wine as if we hadn’t drunk enough already. But they were making the most of it because their parents weren’t there, and were back home in Danderyd working to earn the money they sent down to Germany so we could keep interrailing …
Then she realises what Victoria Bergman is talking about and remembers that she’s actually listened to this particular tape several times before. She must have heard the story of Victoria’s journey through Europe at least ten times.
How could she have forgotten?
… to Greece and got stuck at the border and sniffer dogs checked our luggage and we had full-body searches by randy old men in uniforms who stared at our breasts as if they’d never seen breasts before, and thought it was a good idea to use plastic gloves when they stuck their fingers in you. Then the bad stuff passed as we drank vodka and ended up with a big memory gap covering pretty much all of Italy and France and woke up somewhere in Holland. Then those two cows had had enough and said they were going home and I left them and ended up with a guy in Amsterdam and he couldn’t keep his fingers to himself either and that’s why he got a flowerpot on his head. It was only right to steal his wallet and the money was more than enough for a hotel room in Copenhagen, where everything was supposed to end and the voice fell silent when I finally showed that I dared to do it. But the belt snapped and I fell to the floor and my tooth broke and …
Suddenly she feels someone grab hold of her and she jerks awake.
She stumbles, takes a step to the side.
Someone pulls out the earphones, and for a moment everything is completely silent.
She ceases to exist and becomes calm.
It’s like being in water, and coming back up to the surface after diving too deep, and finally being able to fill your lungs with fresh air.
Then she hears the cars and the shouting and looks around, dazed.
‘Are you OK?’
She turns round and stares into a wall of people on the pavement and realises that she is standing in the middle of Hornsgatan.
Eyes watching her, inspecting her critically. Beside her a car. The driver is blowing his horn angrily, shaking his fist and revving the engine.
‘Do you need help?’
She hears the voice but can’t work out who in the crowd it belongs to.
It’s hard to focus.
She walks quickly back to the pavement and on towards Mariatorget.
She pulls out the cassette player to remove the tape and put it in its case. She presses eject.
Astonished, she stares at the empty space where the cassette should be.
Earlier, Vita Bergen – Sofia Zetterlund’s Apartment
MAMBAA MANYANI … MAMANI manyimi …