He had to find her.
The lock was turned and showed green. He stopped breathing, closed his eyes for a moment. A woman in her fifties came out and he lowered his gaze. Where was she? Why didn’t she come? One more time he checked the display on his phone. No missed messages. Maybe he shouldn’t have left the flat. He was starting to regret it now, felt the compulsion enveloping him, pressing closer, ready to attack as soon as the slightest crack appeared in the shield she had given him. He looked at the door handle that he had just touched. Damn it. He touched it again to neutralise it, but that didn’t help.
Lulea to Hudiksvall 612, Lund to Karlskrona 190. Fuck! Where was she?
He looked towards the bar. How many steps could it be? He had to have a beer or something to force these feelings back. There were no seats available and hardly any room either, but a little farther down stood a man in his late fifties who had drunk too much but was still trying to convince the barman to serve him another. He stood up in a rage when he was refused. The metal chair crashed to the floor and the noise effectively silenced all conversation. The music took over.
Everyone was staring.
The barman took the man’s empty beer glass.
‘You’re done drinking for tonight. There won’t be any more here.’
‘You fucking little shit, give me another beer!’
‘I’ll have to ask you to leave now.’
The barman went over and put the glass in a rack for dirty dishes.
‘For fuck’s sake, what a shithole this is!’
The man looked around, searching for support in any of the eyes staring at him. Suddenly everyone was looking elsewhere, ignoring him. He didn’t exist. Only Jonas kept looking, felt hatred towards the man standing there, looking so pathetic and letting himself be degraded. In a flash he saw another man at another bar.
People all started talking again as if on command. The noise level increased and the blur of words was back. The man hesitated a few seconds, holding on to the bar in an attempt to look halfway sober. And, finally, with as much dignity as he could muster, he reeled towards the door and vanished into the night.
The chair still lay on the floor, and Jonas went over and righted it. The recollection the man had triggered had for some strange reason made the compulsion abate. He was not like his father.
He sat down on the chair. The barman wiped the counter in front of him and gave him a quick look.
‘Fucking riffraff.’
It was the same barman as the night before. The one who had served him and Linda. A tiny opportunity opened up.
‘A beer. Not a light one.’
‘A lager?’
‘Whatever.’
‘I’ll get you a Harp.’
‘OK.’
The barman reached for a glass from the rack above his head, filled it halfway and put it in front of him.
‘Forty-two.’
Jonas took out his wallet and put a fifty-krona note on the bar. The barman went off to serve some other customers and Jonas took a few quick gulps before he emptied the rest of the bottle into his glass. The foam ran over the edge and made a little pool on the bar. He dipped his index finger in the liquid and wrote an L on the newly wiped surface.
He had to ask. It was his only chance. He would drink a little more, get a little buzz on so the compulsion wouldn’t come at him if everything went to hell.
He was paying attention half an hour later. The barman was standing right in front of him, hanging up some clean glasses. Jonas was on to his third beer and was once again full of resolve.
‘Say, I wonder if you could help me with something?’
‘Sure.’
Glass after glass was moved from the tray to the overhead rack.
‘It’s like this: I met a girl here yesterday. I don’t know if you remember that I was here last night.’
‘Yeah, I remember. You were sitting over there.’
He nodded towards the short end of the bar.
Jonas nodded.
‘Well, that girl . . .’
He broke off and looked down at the bar, then glanced up and smiled.
‘Well, you know. We went home together and all that. And then I got her phone number and promised to call her, but I lost the piece of paper. This is embarrassing as hell.’
The barman smiled.
‘Well, that’s not so cool.’
‘Do you remember her too?’
It was a really dumb question. Obviously he’d remember. No one who ever saw her would forget.
‘You mean the one you bought a cider for?’
Jonas nodded.
‘Linda is her name. Does she come here often?’
‘Not as far as I know, at least I’ve never seen her before.’
Jonas felt his hope sink. This man and this place were his only link.
‘So you don’t know what her last name is?’
The barman shook his head.
‘No idea. Sorry.’
Jonas swallowed.
The barman looked at him briefly and hung up his last glass, took the tray and left. Jonas pulled out his phone; the display was still blank. She knew his name and where he lived but she still hadn’t called. He looked around – at all the unfamiliar mouths talking and laughing, all the eyes gazing at each other, all the hands. Where was she now? Was she sitting in some other bar, a place like this but somewhere else? The thought that she was with other people right now, that someone else’s eyes at this moment were allowed to look on her, that her body might be on someone else’s retina, inside someone else.
‘Listen, maybe I can help you after all.’
He turned back to the bar. The barman stood in front of him with a receipt in his hand.
‘She paid for her first glass with a credit card. Before you got here.’
His heart turned a somersault inside his chest. He reached out his hand and took the receipt.
‘Take it easy. I need that back.’
He read the white slip of paper.
Handelsbanken.
She had added a tip of ten kronor and then she had signed it.
The barman was watching him.
‘But didn’t you say her name was Linda?’
He read the signature again. Refused to understand.
‘This must be the wrong receipt.’
‘No, I remember, it’s hers. The pen ran out of ink halfway through, see.’
He nodded at the receipt. The last letters were written in different ink.
‘This is definitely the woman you bought the cider for. But it might not be such a good idea to get in touch with her.’
The barman gave him a wry smile.
Jonas couldn’t take his eyes off the utterly incomprehensible signature. The woman who had made him betray Anna, who helped her to carry out her unjust revenge, had lied to him. The name he had learned to love over the past twenty-four hours was a lie, a lie that pierced him to the core.
Her name was Eva.
Eva Wirenstrom-Berg.
