Authors: Hans Koppel
Anna held the bell in, pure provocation in a country where unity and compliance are deemed to be national virtues.
‘Take it easy, I’m coming.’
Erik Månsson opened the door and Anna stepped past him into the flat. She stopped in the hall and turned around. Her eyes were black. She was charged, had been stewing in her anger all day.
‘What are you playing at?’
There was not a trace of the conciliatory tone her mother had advised.
‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,’ Erik said, amused.
‘What do you think you’re doing, contacting my husband, pretending to be interested in buying our car? You have got nothing to do with us. I don’t want you in my world. How bloody hard is that to understand?’
‘Tea?’
Anna stared, not sure that she’d heard correctly.
‘I was just about to make a cup,’ Erik said, and went out into the kitchen.
Anna followed him, at a distance.
‘Erik, are you listening to me?’
He filled the kettle and switched it on.
‘Hard not to, given that you’re shouting,’ he said, tersely.
Anna slammed her hand against the wall.
‘Erik, you listen to me and you listen well, do you hear?’
She held her finger up in the air in warning.
‘If you come anywhere near my family again I will kill you, do you understand?’
‘You’re threatening me,’ he concluded, nodding. ‘Exciting.’
Anna was shaking.
‘What do you want? What have you got on me? I’m not interested, I’ve told you. Have I wounded your male pride? Tell me what I’ve done.’
Erik cast her a glance before he opened the cupboard above the fridge and took out a box of teabags.
‘Are you sure you don’t want any?’
‘Erik, I don’t want anything to do with you. In any way.’
‘And yet you’re still here,’ he said.
Anna regulated her breath.
‘Erik, I came here to sort everything out. I’m here for closure. I don’t want you to call, email me or contact me or anyone in my family in any way, understand?’
The kettle started to boil. Anna had a horrible feeling that Erik might at any moment get it into his head to throw the boiling water in her face. She took half a step back towards the hall and changed her tactic and tone of voice, from confrontational to conciliatory.
‘Erik, I come with an open mind. I don’t want to argue. Tell me what I can do to make you happy. Tell me what I’ve done to hurt you so much. Please, tell me, and I promise I’ll do everything I can to rectify it. If you only leave me in peace.’
He moved over to the kitchen window, looked down on to the street.
‘I can’t stand this any more,’ Anna said. ‘It was a fantastic night at Mölle, it really was. And our meetings here too. But I’m married, happily married. We’ve got a daughter. You and I are something else, you should be able to see that. Please, Erik, I’m begging you. Leave me alone.’
The kettle clicked off. Erik went to the sink and poured some water in a cup. He dipped the teabag up and down, smiling as if he were enjoying the situation.
‘Erik, what are you doing?’ she said, trying hard to stay calm.
‘Right now, I’m making tea.’
‘Stop it, please.’
‘Please?’
‘My life is complicated enough as it is. I really am so sorry that I’ve hurt you in some way, truly I am.’
‘“Truly”?’ Erik parroted and smiled at her.
‘Please, I can’t bear this any more.’
‘Come,’ he said, and went out into the sitting room-cum-bedroom.
Anna followed him reluctantly but stopped in the doorway.
‘Erik, please, talk to me. Tell me what I can do.’
He put the tea down on the windowsill next to the only plant in the flat, which was half-dead, then went over to the bookshelves.
‘Come over here.’
‘No, Erik. I’m not coming over there. I’m not interested.’
‘Stop saying my name, like some sort of salesman. I want to show you something.’
‘I’m not coming into that room again.’
‘Why ever not? Don’t you trust yourself to withstand temptation? Is that why you’re here? You’re hoping that I’ll fuck you again?’
‘If you so much as touch me, I’ll report you,’ she snapped.
Erik reached out and picked up a T-shirt that had been slung on to a bookshelf.
‘This is a web camera.’
He took the cup from the windowsill and went over to the desk. He opened his laptop, clicked a couple times and turned the screen towards Anna. She heard herself, saw herself. Swaying breasts and loud lovemaking. Erik sipped his tea and closed the laptop.
‘You were there, so that was nothing new to you,’ he said.
Anna stood with her arms hanging by her sides. Her face was beetroot.
‘You, you…’
‘I know, the sound isn’t great. But the picture is surprisingly good.’
‘I’m going to report you, I am. This is too much. No more. You’re going down, you are going fucking down.’
She darted across to the desk, but Erik was in the way.
‘Get out of the way,’ Anna said. ‘I’m taking that computer, I’m confiscating that computer.’
She was shaking with rage.
‘You have no right to film me on the sly like that,’ she carried on, stabbing her finger into Erik’s chest.
‘To the contrary,’ he said. ‘I’ve got every right to record both sound and picture if I’m an active participant. However, I don’t have the right to distribute it.’
‘I want you to delete that video immediately. That’s harassment, sexual harassment.’
Erik lifted the cup to his lips and took a sip.
‘Delete it now,’ Anna said again. ‘Did you hear what I said? I’m going to report you for rape.’
‘Might be difficult,’ he said. ‘You can hear a lot of yeses on the clip, but not a single no.’
‘You… you’re sick, that’s what you are. I came here wanting to sort things out, so we wouldn’t part on bad terms. Consider yourself reported.’
Erik put down the cup.
‘The end is the best,’ he said. ‘When you focus on my, what shall I say, natural talent? I don’t know why, but I almost get the feeling that you’re comparing me with someone who doesn’t quite fulfil your needs.’
Anna shook her head. She was breathless, but unable to breathe. It was as if she had forgotten how to fill her lungs with oxygen. Her head rocked aimlessly like some dashboard doll.
The man who was half-lying on the swivel chair bore the title Chief Inspector, but had introduced himself as Karlsson. He didn’t use his first name. He spoke with a drawling Helsingborg dialect that gave the impression that he was a man of the world and not easily impressed, certainly not by anything that might be found outside the county boundary.
‘So what you’re saying is that there’s nothing I can do?’ Anna concluded. ‘I’ve got no rights?’
‘Weeell,’ Karlsson drew it out, ‘if the bloke you’re talking about decided to distribute the material, that would be a different story. But from what I understand he recorded the video for his own pleasure.’
‘And you think that’s all right?’
‘In purely legal terms, it’s permissible as long as he himself is a participant. If, however, you had both been unaware of it and filmed in secret by a third party, it would be another matter.’
Anna shook her head.
‘But that’s crazy.’
Karlsson shrugged.
‘New legislation in the area is being discussed. But it’s bloody chaos because tabloids are screaming censorship. And as you know, the discussion is really only about one thing…’
Anna didn’t know what he was talking about. When she realised that he expected a prompt, she tilted her head questioningly instead.
‘That they can write and claim whatever they like without having to think about the consequences,’ Karlsson stated.
‘Well, I’m actually a journalist, and I’m not entirely sure that I agree.’
Karlsson sat up.
‘What I meant is that… a lot of journalists…’
‘I work for
Family Journal
. We don’t really cover traditional news.’
Karlsson nodded.
‘
Family Journal,
that’s a fine old magazine. My mother…’
Anna waved her hand. She wanted to return to the subject.
‘So there really is nothing I can do?’
‘As long as he doesn’t distribute or threaten to distribute the video, no.’
‘Why would he record it otherwise?’
Detective Inspector Karlsson scratched his neck.
‘Well, I guess he sits there roughing up the suspect like all the other masturbators.’
Anna didn’t feel comfortable with the image the jolly policeman gave her.
‘But what if he posts it on the internet?’ she said. ‘He could pretend that someone has hacked into his computer or say that it was stolen.’
Karlsson leaned forwards, folded his hands on the table.
‘You’re not the first person to get caught up in something like this. My personal advice is to let the whole thing die down. If you start making a noise, the video is guaranteed to end up on some website. And then you’ll never be able to get rid of it, no matter how many courts you appeal to.’
‘What about the rest then?’ Anna asked. ‘The fact that he calls me and emails me and appears all over the place?’
‘You can always report him for stalking. But then it would be official and public.’
‘What should I do?’
‘Hard to say, really. Is the bloke a nutter or just unhappy?’
‘I don’t know. Both, it would seem.’
‘Could you talk to him? Do you have any men you could use?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A brother or someone who might help the lad to understand that you’re serious.’
‘You mean frighten him? No.’
‘Sorry, stupid idea. I can’t just sit here and recommend vigilantism, can I? What I mean is that blokes like that, if he is one, are often cowards. They’re all macho in front of women, but not quite so beefed up with other men.’
Karlsson looked at the desperate woman on the other side of his desk.
‘You know what,’ he said. ‘I know what we can do. I’ll have a word with him tomorrow morning, see if that can make the idiot see sense. Shall we do that?’
‘But what if he puts the video on the internet?’ Anna howled. ‘What will I do then?’
She stared straight ahead. For once her mother had neither sage advice nor comforting words to offer.
‘He can’t,’ Kathrine said. ‘He simply can’t. It’s a crime. So?’
‘I don’t think Magnus could deal with it,’ Anna said, as if she were talking to herself. ‘I really don’t think he could. And it would affect Hedda. Every child at school would know about it.’
She looked up at her mother.
‘We’ll have to move,’ she said. ‘We can’t stay here.’
‘Of course you can.’
‘And it doesn’t matter where,’ Anna carried on, as if in a trance, ‘it still won’t be far enough. Someone there will always be able to find it.’
‘Calm down. He hasn’t posted anything yet, and if he was to do it, there must be ways to remove it. And who on earth watches things like that? It would say more about them than about you.’
They sat in silence.
‘Perhaps it’s just as well if you talk about it,’ Kathrine said, finally. ‘To Magnus, that is. So that he hears it from you.’
‘He would demand to see the video.’
‘The boy’s bosses,’ Kathrine started. ‘Didn’t you meet them at Mölle? Couldn’t you talk to them?’
‘He doesn’t work for them any more. He either resigned or got the sack. And in his world, it’s because of me. The video exists, Mum, and it will always exist. It doesn’t matter what I do, it exists somewhere and will eventually be shown and people will see it.’
Kathrine moved her chair closer, put her arms round her daughter.
‘Sweetheart, oh, my darling.’
‘Magnus would never be able to deal with it,’ Anna snuffled. ‘I don’t sound like that with him, you see.’
Kathrine let her cry.
‘I’m horrible,’ Anna said, drying her cheeks. ‘A worthless mother and a terrible wife.’
‘You’re a fantastic mother and wonderful wife.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘Of course you are. Stop being silly.’
Anna laughed, embarrassed.
‘Do you remember when I was little, do you remember Alexander?’
‘Ugh, that one.’
The love of Anna’s life from junior high had made a career as a celebrity lawyer in adult life. And that, in Kathrine’s eyes, was one of civilisation’s lowest life forms.
‘Do you remember when I bit him?’ Anna giggled. ‘We were doing a slow dance and I was so happy that I didn’t know what to do.’
‘So you took a bite of him. Yes, I remember.’
It had been a huge drama. The teacher had switched on the lights and turned off the music. The other girls fought to comfort Alexander and to blame Anna, and it wasn’t clear which was actually higher on their wish list.
When Kathrine came to pick up her daughter, the heinous crime was reported to her. The teacher’s witness account had an underlying accusation: there was something wrong with the girl.
‘Do you remember what you said when we got home?’ Anna said and looked up at her mother.
It was more than thirty years since the great event.
‘No.’
‘You said that one day I would make a man very happy.’
‘And I was right. You do make him happy. Every day.’
Anna’s chin started to tremble, her mother opened her arms.
‘Oh, my darling.’
Anna didn’t know what to do. There was no answer. The world carried on and would continue to do so, no matter what.
Hedda was irritable when she came home from school. She muttered like a prepubescent, kicked off her shoes in the hall and walked into her room on hard heels.
Normally, Anna would have showered her daughter with love, peppered her with loaded questions. But now she stayed in the kitchen, looking out at the street. She saw a certain beauty in the situation. Her daughter was an independent individual who was, for the moment, in a bad mood. Maybe she’d had an argument with a friend, or been given a ticking off at school, justified or not, or maybe she had a bad conscience about something or was in a hurry or whatever. It was what it was and would quickly pass. Anna was just glad to be able to witness it. In all of Hedda’s ten-year life, Anna had never been away from her for more than two nights in a row. They had lived under the same roof, eaten at the same table and generally laughed at the same things. Anna didn’t know how much longer that would last.
Perhaps she was blowing it up out of all proportion. As her mother had pointed out, she wasn’t the first woman in history to be unfaithful. Nor was she the first one to appear naked in a film. However, the short clip she’d seen had reminded her of just how sexual their encounters had been.
Was that why Erik had reacted in the way he did? Was that why he expected more? Because he believed the strength of her response stemmed from powerful underlying emotions?
‘Are you going deaf?’
Anna spun round. Hedda was standing with her hands on her hips like an old busybody.
‘The phone’s ringing.’
Her daughter already had her hand on the receiver. She answered the call.
‘Nothing in particular,’ she said.
Anna could tell by her voice that it was Magnus.
‘In the kitchen,’ Hedda said.
Anna guessed he’d asked where she was. Strange, given that he’d phoned the landline. Anna looked at her daughter, who was inspecting the floor as she always did when she was on the phone.
‘But why? Oh, okay.’
Hedda finished the conversation and looked up at her mother.
‘Dad,’ she said. ‘We’re to stand by the window and look out.’
‘Look out?’
Hedda shrugged.
‘Why?’
‘He didn’t say.’
They looked out through the window. Five seconds passed, ten. Then they started to laugh when a red SUV glided majestically into view. Hedda ran out, Anna took her time. Magnus had just got out of the car when she came to the door.
‘What do you think?’ he asked, proudly. ‘A hundred and fifty thousand, and it’s ours.’
‘Is it second-hand?’
‘Of course it’s second-hand, good God, a new one costs five or six hundred thousand kronor. What do you think?’
Anna nodded.
‘Absolutely.’
‘Jump in.’
‘I’ll just lock the door.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that, just a quick spin.’
They cruised slowly around the streets of the neighbourhood. Magnus was unstoppable, told them all the about the car’s merits, the many finesses, the superior finish.
‘You really sit quite high up,’ Anna commented.
‘Just that in itself. The feeling it gives you, the overview.’
‘Like lords,’ Anna teased.
‘
Ganz richtig
, real gangsta wheels. What do you think, sweetheart?’
He turned and looked at Hedda in the back seat.
‘Nice,’ she said.
‘It sure is.’
‘How much fuel does it guzzle?’ Anna asked.
‘About one to ten, which isn’t bad. Not much more than the one we’ve got. What do you reckon?’
Anna turned to face her hopeful husband.
‘What’s the mileage?’’
‘Six thousand.’
‘Almost the same as our old car.’
‘God, there’s no comparison. This is German quality, a totally different car.’
Anna looked straight ahead again, thought how strange it was that something so meaningless could be so important. And how difficult it was not to be certain of the obvious fact that her husband’s boyish must-have joy would be replaced by everyday indifference within a fortnight.
‘Yes, why not,’ she said. ‘If you want it, so do I.’
Magnus grinned. He leaned forwards and put on the radio, turned it up loud, stretched his arms out to the wheel and with immense pleasure pushed back into the seat.
Magnus stopped outside the house.
‘I’ll just drive back into town then and finish up the deal,’ he said.
Anna nodded.
‘Still a hundred thousand less than the one we looked at.’
Magnus was pleased that she’d approved.
‘Exactly. I think that’s wise. Don’t always need to buy new. It’s the first two thousand miles that cost. And this is a very different car.’
Anna patted him on the knee, opened the door and got out. She turned to Hedda.
‘Are you coming, sweetie?’
‘I want to go into town with Dad. Can I sit in the front?’
‘Of course.’
Anna stood on the road and watched them drive off. She went into the house, closed the door behind her and caught a whiff of strawberries. A faint, barely perceptible trace. The air felt different. As if someone who had been out in the cold had just passed through the room. She stood absolutely still, with her hand on the door, listening for sounds.
‘Hello?’
She slowly let go of the doorknob and took a step into the room.
‘Hello?’
She looked around for something she could use as a weapon, grabbed an umbrella, held it out in front of her and called again.
She sniffed. The smell of strawberries wasn’t so strong any more. Had she got used to it or had she just imagined it?
‘Erik?’
She went into the kitchen, swapped the umbrella for a kitchen knife, and swallowed to wet her throat.
‘Hello?’
She pushed open the door to the bedroom. Looked under the bed, carried on to Hedda’s room. She stopped by the stairs down to the cellar, hesitated.
‘Hello? I’m going to get the neighbour. And if there’s anyone down there I want you to show yourself.’
A neighbour. How would she explain that to her husband? If it really was Erik and the neighbour detained him and called the police? Everything would have to come out.
‘Erik?’
She went down a step. And one more.
‘I have to warn you, I’m armed.’
She listened. The feeling that someone was down there was overwhelming. She didn’t dare continue. She backed her way up, retreated down the hall with the knife out in front of her.
‘Listen. If there’s anyone down there, I want you to leave the house immediately. I’m going to get help. You’ll have time to get away.’
She darted towards the front door, threw the knife down on the floor and ran to her closest neighbours, an elderly couple who had stayed in their big house, even though the children had long since left home. The woman opened the door. Anna was nervous and talked very fast.
‘Hello, I’m sorry. We just went out for a spin and I forgot to lock the door and now I think there’s someone in the house. Probably just my imagination, but…’
‘Göran, can you come here a minute?’
Anna explained the situation again to the husband. She was ashamed that she lacked the courage, but Göran seemed happy to be charged with such a dangerous task, despite his age. He put on his shoes and went back to the house with Anna.
‘I’m probably just imagining it,’ she said, embarrassed, ‘but it really felt like someone was in there.’
‘In the cellar?’
‘I don’t know.’
They went through the house.
‘Thank you, thank you so much,’ Anna said ten minutes later when they’d established that the house was empty of intruders. ‘I just got so scared, I don’t know what’s wrong with me.’
‘Not to worry, it was a pleasure. If it happens again, just ring the bell.’
‘Thank you. Really. I feel so embarrassed now.’
He put a hand on her shoulder.
‘Well, you shouldn’t. I know that feeling only too well. And it’s better to be on the safe side. I would have done exactly the same thing.’
‘Thank you.’
He left and Anna closed the door behind him, filled her lungs and let out a loud sigh.