‘I keep doing everything wrong. I can’t understand why they’re always so grumpy. Especially Nils. Do you know what he did? He got so angry that he wrecked his new golf bag. I told him he’d have to pay for a new one, and then he said he didn’t give a shit because he wasn’t going to play any more!’
‘It’s called finding their independence,’ said Lina dryly as she set two coffee cups on the table. ‘All you can do is try to remain calm and on an even keel.’
Knutas shook his head.
‘I don’t remember behaving like this when I was a teenager. God, talk about a generation gap. In my day, you were expected to treat your parents with respect. You didn’t just say and do anything you liked. Am I right?’
Lina pushed back her thick red plait so it hung down her back before she poured the coffee. Then she sat down across the table from her husband, giving him a sardonic look.
‘Can’t you hear what an old curmudgeon you’re being? Have you totally forgotten what it was like to be young? You told me that when you weren’t allowed to go to Copenhagen on a camping trip with your girlfriend, the two of you hitchhiked to Paris instead, without saying a word to your parents. All they got was a postcard of the Arc de Triomphe. Your mother even showed it to me. How old were you back then? Seventeen?’
‘OK, OK,’ said Knutas. ‘I take your point. It’s just so strange not to have any control any more. Or contact. I can’t reach Nils at all. He always has his guard up.’
‘I know. But just think of it as a phase he’s going through. Right now it’s probably worse for you than me. He needs to free himself from you in order to become his own person. They’re both growing up, you know, Anders.’
‘But it makes me feel so helpless.’
She placed her hand on top of his.
‘Of course. But don’t you remember how it was last autumn when Petra barely said a word to me for months on end? Things are much better now. I think Nils is going through the same thing. Just relax. It’ll pass. It’s painful for them to free themselves from us. The only way they can do it is to belittle us for a while. It’s completely normal.’
Knutas looked at his wife doubtfully. He wished he could be as calm about it as she was. He opened his mouth to say something more but was interrupted by the phone ringing.
The sergeant on duty told him that a dead body had been found in the conference centre.
All indications pointed to murder.
DAWN HAS ARRIVED again, painfully confirming that life goes on. I’m sitting, or rather reclining, on the sofa, as usual. A sense of unreality has settled over me, as it always does.
I’ve been lying awake for several hours, having moved from the bed to the sofa in a desperate attempt to fall asleep. Memories from my childhood keep intruding. It’s as if time has caught up with me. I can’t escape it.
One summer, we were staying – as we often did – with my grandmother in Stockholm. On the day in question we were supposed to go to the amusement park and zoo called Skansen. Mamma had been promising us this excursion for a long time. I’d been looking forward to it for weeks and couldn’t think about anything else. When Sunday morning arrived, I was so excited that I could hardly eat my breakfast. I loved animals and kept talking about getting a dog. Or a cat. Or at the very least a guinea pig. I was eight years old, and this was going to be my first visit to the zoo.
The sun was shining outside the windows and Mamma was in a cheerful mood.
At the breakfast table she wolfed down her food and coffee. She was eager to get everything packed up so we could leave.
‘It’s going to be really fun to see all the animals, isn’t it, kids? And Skansen is so beautiful!’
She bustled about the kitchen, getting ready as she hummed along with Lill-Babs, who was singing her Swedish version of ‘It’s My Party’ on the radio. She made open sandwiches with lettuce, cheese and ham; she made fruit punch from syrup and water; and she took cinnamon buns out of Grandma’s freezer to thaw.
‘We’ll take along our own lunch so we can sit in that wonderful park over near Solliden. From there you have a view of the whole city, let me tell you. Oh, it’s going to be marvellous!’
She dashed into the bathroom to put mascara on her beautiful long lashes, making them even longer. I sat on the lid of the toilet and watched with admiration as she got ready.
‘You have such beautiful eyes, Mamma.’
‘You think so?’ she replied, giggling with pleasure. ‘Thank you, my sweet little boy!’
Grandma was too frail to go with us. Instead, we were going to meet Aunt Ruth and my cousin Stefan at the zoo. He was a few years older than me. Aunt Ruth was on her own, just like Mamma. Her husband had left her because he’d fallen in love with his secretary. The family used to live in Saltsjobaden and were ‘well to do’, as my mother put it. Now Aunt Ruth and Stefan had moved to a small flat in Ostermalm.
We took the train, since Grandma lived some distance outside the city. I grew more and more excited with every station we passed. I could hardly sit still. My siblings chattered away with Mamma, commenting on the view from the window and discussing the people who walked past on the platform whenever the train stopped at a station.
I couldn’t concentrate. I just wanted to sit in silence until we reached our destination.
After what seemed like an eternity, we finally arrived at Stockholm’s central station. From there we took a bus out to Skeppsbron in Gamla Stan. That was where we could catch the ferry to Skansen. Mamma didn’t like taking the underground. She said it smelled bad, and it was filled with so many unsavoury characters.
Aunt Ruth and Stefan were waiting at the ferry dock when we arrived. Mamma and Ruth hugged each other, while my siblings and I shook her hand. We didn’t see her very often, only a few times a year. Stefan seemed happy to see us, which was a relief to me. It was something I’d been worrying about.
We boarded the ferry and I stayed out on deck with the other kids. The sun shone; the water sparkled. It was May. Soon it would be summer and I would be out of school. Stefan and I stood next to each other, leaning over the railing and looking at the churches and other buildings in the narrow streets of Gamla Stan, which was receding more and more into the distance behind us.
Mamma and Aunt Ruth were sitting inside to stay out of the wind. Both of them had pinned up their hair under a scarf. Ruth’s scarf was navy blue, while Mamma’s was pink. That was her favourite colour. She was looking stylish in a tight-fitting black dress and a short pink jacket with big buttons. I was proud of my mother because she looked so pretty. In comparison, Ruth looked like an old woman, even though they were almost the same age. Mamma was slender and seemed much younger. She sat inside the ferryboat, laughing and looking lovely. I was glad to see her so happy.
And soon I was going to meet in real life all the animals that I’d seen only in pictures or on TV. I could hardly believe it.
All of a sudden the zoo was right in front of us. Stefan pointed. ‘Do you see the amusement park? And the rollercoaster? Over there. I’ve ridden on it a whole bunch of times. Don’t you think it looks scary?’
I shook my head. I’d never been there before, but at that moment it didn’t matter. I was going to Skansen.
The boat docked and everybody disembarked. There were a lot of people and I lost sight of the others in the crowd in front of the entrance to Grona Lund. Suddenly I felt somebody give me a hard pinch on the arm.
‘Where on earth were you?’ snapped Mamma in annoyance. That ugly voice of hers was back, even though she had just been laughing so merrily. ‘You need to stay close. Don’t you understand that?’
The lump in my stomach came back, settling into its familiar place. I tried to block out its presence from my mind, tried to forget it was there. We had almost reached the zoo. I tossed a remark to Stefan in a halfhearted attempt at a joke, making a great effort to act normal. We were here to have fun. I’d been looking forward to this day for such a long time. The animals were waiting inside.
At the entrance we had to stand in a queue. Mamma started looking tense because there were at least thirty people ahead of us. The nervous feeling in my stomach got worse. ‘I’m sure it won’t take very long, Mamma. Here, let me carry the bag.’
The sun was shining, it was warm outside, and no one else seemed at all concerned about the wait. They were talking and laughing and joking. I wished that Mamma could be as relaxed as they were.
The queue slowly moved forward. Ruth powdered her nose. Mamma lit a cigarette. ‘God, why is this taking so long? What can they possibly be doing up there?’
