Part 29 (1/2)

An hour and a half later, Isak Krekula returns from his rounds. Hjalmar is sitting at the kitchen table.

”I've started heating up the sauna,” he says. ”Do you want to join me?”

On the table is a six-pack of strong beer.

Isak has no desire to take a sauna. He has been visiting someone who has served up something stronger than coffee, that much is obvious to his son. But Isak eyes the beer with interest.

Hjalmar handles his father skilfully. He does not nag him. Does not ask the same question twice. Gives the impression that it is all the same to him in no circ.u.mstances must Isak catch on to the fact that Hjalmar has been set the task of making sure his father has a bath. Isak stands in the doorway and says nothing. Hjalmar picks up the beer and a towel only one. Isak lets him pa.s.s. Hjalmar makes his way down to the sauna.

He puts the beers in a bucket full of snow, to keep them cold. He gives himself a good wash, then sits down in the sauna and pours water over the hot stones. There is a hissing and a spluttering, and the hot steam rises to the top bench, where he is sitting. His skin feels burning hot. He tries to ignore the fact that his stomach is resting on his thighs it is disturbing to realize how fat he has become.

Instead, he thinks about how it has become obvious that the house is now the home of two elderly people. In the old days, whenever you started up the sauna there was always a dry smell of pine wood, Russian soap and the fire in the stove. Now when he pours water onto the stones, there is a smell of ingrained dirt it is a long time since the benches were last given a good scrubbing.

He has almost forgotten his father when he hears the outside door slam. Bending over, he fishes a beer out of the bucket.

Isak comes in and clambers up to the top bench. Hjalmar hands his father a beer, which he swigs rapidly. Then takes another swallow.

There is not much of him left, Hjalmar thinks. A frail old body, thinning hair that is far too long, coa.r.s.e skin covered in the pock-marks and blotches typical of old age. It does not seem very long since muscles rippled when Isak rolled up his sleeves, or since he could lift the tailboard on one of his lorries without a.s.sistance.

Wrath, Hjalmar thinks. Isak's anger is just as strong as it ever was. It provides the backbone that keeps him upright. The anger he feels, knowing that the other villagers are whispering behind his back, the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, half of whom would've been unemployed if it hadn't been for his haulage business; the anger directed at the tax authorities, those d.a.m.ned bloodsuckers, desk-bound wimps who have no idea what life is all about; the anger directed at local politicians, at insurance companies, at company directors, at the jerks in Stockholm, at the evening tabloids, at celebs (junkies, the lot of 'em), at the unemployed and s.h.i.+rkers on benefits idle swine who malinger and cheat and live off the hard work of others; at everything he sees on the television news bulletins, game shows, docu-soaps, why the h.e.l.l should he pay for a licence to watch s.h.i.+t like that?; at whoever is responsible for the fruit in the supermarket at Skaulo, a pile of rotting c.r.a.p surrounded by swarms of f.u.c.king fruit flies; at immigrants and gypsies; at academics a gang of presumptuous poseurs with ramrods shoved up their a.r.s.eholes.

At Hjalmar. When Hjalmar pa.s.sed his thirteenth birthday, his father stopped beating him, reduced it to an occasional box on the ears or smack in the face. When Hjalmar celebrated his eighteenth birthday, his father stopped all that as well.

But his anger did not subside. All that changed was the way it was expressed. Isak's body has grown weaker as he has become older. He can no longer lift a kitchen chair and smash it to pieces by bas.h.i.+ng it against the wall. His voice is now the bearer of his anger. It has become shriller, squeakier. His choice of words is cruder. He searches for words at the very bottom of the dunghill. He wallows in s.e.xual references and swearwords like a village dog in the body of a dead cow.

And now it is directed at Kerttu. It simply has to come out. All that wrath boiling and fermenting inside Isak.

”Huh, that f.u.c.king woman. So she's gone swanning off to the doctor's now, has she?” he says.

Steeling himself, Hjalmar takes a swig of beer.

”I suppose she has to find someone she can flash her b.o.o.bs at,” Isak says, and fortifies himself with another swallow.

He goes on to argue that it is a good job there are folk around who get paid for gaping at naked old crones. So that n.o.body else has to look at their drooping dugs, their sagging bellies, their dried-up p.u.s.s.ies. No, it's better to feast your eyes on young women, isn't that right, Hjallie? But then, for Christ's sake, Hjallie hasn't a clue about that.

”I don't suppose you've ever had one, have you? Eh?”

Hjalmar wants to say, ”Pack it in now.” But he knows better.

Nevertheless Isak notices how distressed his son has become as a result of his ranting. That he has. .h.i.t the nail on the head. With what he has said about Kerttu, and what he has said about his son's naivety. The fact that Hjalmar has never had a woman. Isak cannot know for sure, but he keeps on at him.

”Not even a good screw with some dead-drunk tart?” he says.

That seems to have eased things for Isak. The pressure inside him is reduced when he tortures his son. Hjalmar looks down at his fat belly draped over his thighs.

”I don't want to hear any more about Mother,” he says, pouring water over the stones so that the steam fizzles and splutters.

Isak pauses for a moment. His son does not usually have anything to say for himself. But the older man cannot hold back.

”You think,” he says, and the influence of the toddies he drank in the village and the strong beer in the sauna is making itself felt, ”you seem to think that she's a saint.”

Leaning back against the wall, he farts loudly.

”A saint in h.e.l.l,” he says. ”You should know. August '43. The resistance hid Danish and Norwegian freedom fighters and Finnish deserters. She was b.l.o.o.d.y brilliant at getting people to talk. Sweet and young and innocent, you know what I'm saying. In those days. Some Danish resistance fighters had escaped from a German iron-ore freighter in Lule harbour they'd been working as slave labourers. Three of them. She went to a dance and persuaded a young man to tell her all about it. Everything. Made a b.l.o.o.d.y wh.o.r.e of herself, that's what she did. They were in a hut in the forest. Things didn't turn out well for them at all.”

Hjalmar is filled with horror and disgust. What? What is his father saying?

Isak turns to look at his son. Something resembling a smile creeps over his face. A grin. Hjalmar thinks he looks like a snake, a bug, something you find when you turn over a stone. His old-man's teeth protrude provocatively. He does not have false teeth, but what he does have is enough to send s.h.i.+vers up your spine.

”What's happened to Simon and Wilma?” Isak says.

Hjalmar shrugs.

Isak does not know. n.o.body has told him. Of course he has his suspicions. The alcohol encourages him to ask. He is raving over having been excluded, shut out. He has been shrugged off, an old man who does not count. Someone who has to be protected. Someone who cannot be trusted. He is not allowed to know. He is not allowed to drive a car. Anger is gnawing away inside him like a parasite.

”She'll burn in h.e.l.l,” he says. ”You probably think that's what will happen to me. But she'll be a few levels further down. So there.”

His tone of voice changes. He becomes self-absorbed.

”So there, so there,” he says over and over again.

Then he falls silent. Seems to regret having said too much.

”Huh,” he says petulantly. ”It wasn't all that hot in here. You didn't make the fire hot enough. There's still too much of a chill in the walls.”

He clambers down from the bench and goes out into the cooling room. Hjalmar can hear him splas.h.i.+ng away in the wash basin. Then the outside door closes with a bang.

”What about Hjorleifur Arnarson?” Martinsson says. ”What happened to him?”

”That was Tore,” Hjalmar says. ”He hit him with a piece of firewood. We couldn't risk him having seen something. We moved him. Knocked the kitchen stool over. Opened the cupboard and put one of the rucksacks inside it. It was supposed to look like an accident.” Closing his eyes, he recalls his brother telling him to hold up Hjorleifur's blood-covered head so that it would not leave a trail on the floor when Tore dragged him along by his legs.

Thank you, G.o.d, Martinsson thinks. That means we can put Tore behind bars. The spots of blood on his jacket plus Hjalmar's testimony. A watertight case.

”What are you intending to do now?” she says. ”You're not thinking of shooting yourself, I hope?”

”No.”

She starts talking more quickly.

”Because if you did . . .” she says, ”I couldn't cope. Not after Lars-Gunnar Vinsa. I was there when he shot himself and Nalle. He'd locked me in the cellar.”

”I know. I read about it. But I'm not going to.”

Looking down at his mug of coffee, he shakes his head.

”Mind you, I did think about it.”

He looks up at her.

”You told me to go out into the forest. And I did. Something happened that I can't explain. A bear looked at me. It came really close.”