always had an easy time making friends, and the socializing he did outside the house made it possible for him to survive, year after year. He longed fervently for the day when he could pack his bags and leave home.
It was when he was a teenager that the change happened. There was a new boy in class who was interested in art; he went to all the gallery openings in town, and he also painted in his spare time. He was so enthusiastic and captivating that several of his classmates joined him on the weekends when he would go to Liljevalch Art Centre and the National Museum, Waldemarsudde and small, obscure art galleries. Erik showed the most interest of any of the boys. He was particularly taken with Swedish art from the early twentieth century. It was then that he discovered ‘The Dying Dandy’ and became utterly overwhelmed by it. Back then he didn’t understand why the painting had such a strong effect on him; he just knew that it resonated with something in him that was deep and hidden and over which he had no control. He started reading everything he could find about Dardel and the paintings of the early 1900s in general. He even went so far as to begin studying art history along with his other subjects. He was planning to keep his interest secret from his parents for as long as possible.
But it wasn’t just his interest in art that complicated his life during those years. He began feeling himself drawn more and more to his own gender; he was totally uninterested in women. Whenever his friends talked about girls and sex, he would laugh along with them and contribute some tall tales about his own advanced sexual experiences. In reality, Erik was furtively looking at men. On the bus, on the street, and in the showers at the gym. It was the male body, not the female, that interested him. Since he was painfully aware of his parents’ old- fashioned and narrow-minded view of homosexuality, he did everything he could to suppress his attraction to men. But then one day he had his feelings confirmed.
His family was supposed to spend a weekend on Gotska Sandon, staying overnight in a cabin. On the ferry ride over, they met a pleasant family from Goteborg whose son was the same age as Erik. Late that night, while the adults were still up drinking wine, the two youths left the party and set off for a walk along the sandy beaches that surrounded the small island. It was just before Midsummer, and the night was bright and warm. They lay down next to each other on a sand dune and gazed up at the sky while they talked. Erik liked Joel, as the boy was called, and they had a lot in common. They soon began confiding in each other, and Erik told his new friend about his problems at home. Joel was kind and understanding, and all of a sudden they were lying in each other’s arms. Erik would never forget that night. They exchanged addresses and phone numbers, but they never contacted each other again.
Erik had gone back to his life in Stockholm truly shaken by his first homosexual experience. He was so terrified by his feelings that at university he began going out with a girl who had been giving him long looks during classes.
Her name was Lydia. They soon became a couple and in due course got married. At first their marriage was relatively happy, and they had three children in quick succession. Erik’s excessive drinking had begun much earlier, but it escalated with each year that passed.
His parents found nothing unusual about the fact that he was so self-absorbed, and they gave Erik and Lydia money so that they could live comfortably in a large, fancy flat in the Ostermalm district. Lydia was from a middle- class family in Leksand. She trained to be an art restorer and eventually found a job at the National Museum.
Erik got into the habit of not coming home until two in the morning, still under the influence of alcohol and drugs. One Saturday, Lydia decided that she’d finally had enough. She took the children and went to stay with her parents-in-law.
Erik’s parents were furious, of course, and they threatened to stop sending the money that they usually provided each month. Lydia wanted a divorce, and naturally his parents took her side. It was Erik who had behaved badly and broken his promises.
Erik didn’t care what his mother thought or felt; she had destroyed any love he might have felt for her when he was young through years of psychological tyranny and indifference. He thought about all the times when she had insulted and criticized him in front of teachers, neighbours, relatives and friends. He felt absolutely nothing for her, and was convinced that the feeling was mutual. If there was any emotion left to speak of, it might almost be described as deep contempt.
But he still had warm feelings for his father. Mr Mattson had never been actually unkind to Erik, yet he had always meekly submitted to his wife’s wishes, in spite of the fact that he was so successful in the business world. She was the one who ruled the roost for all those years, and he had seldom questioned her authority, letting her do as she liked. It was the best thing for domestic harmony, as Erik’s father would say with a good-natured smile before he fled the scene and left on yet another business trip.
Erik saw his parents only once after his divorce, when Emelie turned five. Sitting at the table to celebrate his daughter’s birthday, Erik saw the pain and disappointment in his father’s eyes, and that upset him. A feeling of sorrow and deceit hovered over the party, despite all the balloons, day-care friends, gifts and plates of cake. Erik had been forced to go out on the balcony to get some air.
Even though Lydia felt deeply disappointed in Erik after the divorce, she still understood him better than anyone else ever had. He had told her about his miserable childhood, about the complicated relationship he had with his mother, and how he’d become aware of his homosexuality. Lydia accepted him as he was, and after all the agitation connected with the divorce had faded, they were able to remain friends. He thought that Lydia realized he’d tried to do the best he could. They decided that the children should live with her, since they were still so young, but they would stay with their father every other weekend.
This arrangement worked well for six months. Erik did his job in an exemplary fashion and remained sober on the days when he had the children. His parents continued to deposit a sizeable sum into his bank account every month, although his mother made it clear that the money was for her grandchildren and not for him.
Then one Saturday after Erik had picked up the children from Lydia’s house, an old boyfriend of his turned up and stayed for dinner. After the children went to bed, the former lover started getting friendly, and they had sex. Then they began drinking some of the excellent whisky that he’d brought along. And, as usual, once Erik started he couldn’t stop.
The next day he woke up on the living-room sofa around noon when the doorbell wouldn’t stop ringing. It was Lydia. She came storming into the flat and found the three children sitting in the bedroom in front of the TV, munching on crisps, cake and raw spaghetti.
They were all supposed to have gone to Skansen amusement park that Sunday. That was the last weekend that Erik was allowed to have the children to stay with him, and his parents stopped the monthly payments.
He hadn’t seen his parents since.
By chance he once caught sight of his mother in the hat section of the NK department store. For a long time he stood behind a pillar and watched her laugh as she tried on hats along with a woman friend of hers. He couldn’t understand how this person he was looking at could be his mother. That she could have carried him inside her body, given birth to him, and nursed him when he was a baby. It was incomprehensible. Just as difficult to understand was the fact that she had once chosen to have children at all.
42
The night was black and cold. When he turned his car on to Valhallavagen, he didn’t see a soul around. The temperature was minus 12 °C. He pulled into an empty parking slot outside the 7-Eleven, almost all the way down to the open space at Gardet. It was far enough away that his car wouldn’t be immediately linked to the crime scene if anyone, contrary to all expectations, happened to notice him parking here.
The backpack stored in the boot was lightweight and well packed. He fastened the sling with the cardboard tube to his shoulder so he’d be able to move his arms freely. He headed quickly across the street, choosing a path along the edge of the fields of Gardet so as to avoid being seen.
At the Kallhagen Hotel and restaurant, he cut across the car park and continued down the slope towards the Djurgardsbrunn canal. A short distance away he saw that the magnificent white facade of the Maritime History Museum was illuminated, as always at night. The area around him was quiet and deserted. He could just make out the rocks of Skansen’s hill on the other side, outlined against the dark night sky. Further off in the distance he glimpsed the lights of the city. The centre of town seemed so far away, even though he was only a couple of kilometres from the main shopping district.
