The Demon of Dakar Read online

  “On my way,” Johnny Kvarnheden mumbled, and turned up the volume on the car stereo. The late-evening sun was bathing in Lake Vättern. Visingö looked like a towering warship, steering south, and the ferry to Gränna resembled a beetle on a floor of gold.

  There was something cinematic about his flight, as if someone had directed his melancholia, set the lights, and added the music. He was conscious of this cinematic effect and was steered, allowed himself to be steered, caught in the classic scene: a lone man leaving his old life behind, on his way to something unknown.

  A telephone call was all it had taken, a split second of deliberation in order for him to make up his mind, pack his few possessions—too few, and in too much of a hurry—and set out on the road.

  He wished that his road trip could last forever, that the contents of the gas tank, his hunger, and his bladder were his only constraints. That the trip could be the focus, that he could fly down the highway unconnected to everything except the friction between his tires and the asphalt.

  If there had been a camera, he would have turned it on the road, toward the black of the asphalt, the traces of traffic, and the grooves from the teeth of the snow-clearing trucks, not at his face or the landscape that flickered past. The sound track would not be Madeleine Peyroux’s voice from the CD player, but the rhythmic thumping from the roadway. The stiffness of his shoulders and the cramplike grip of his hands on the steering wheel would be the voice that spoke to the viewer.

  He kept his disappointment and grief at bay, but also his hopes and dreams. He thought about descriptions of food, plates of one prepared dish after another. The fact that he was a chef saved him for the moment.

  He was worthless as a lover, couldn’t even get it up anymore, and was just as worthless as a partner. This had slowly but surely become clear to him, and this insight had struck him with full force yesterday evening when Sofie described his attempts as “pathetic.”

  “You aren’t living,” she said, in a sudden burst of volubility, “and your so-called attentions toward our relationship are ridiculous. It is nauseating. You don’t know how to love.”

  He reached out and touched her, pressed his body against her, and felt desire for the first time in months. Repulsed, she shook him off.

  “Nauseating,” he said out loud. “What kind of a word is that?”

  He passed Linköping and Norrköping. Then he thundered on into Sörmland with an accelerating desperation that made him drive much too fast. The direction no longer worked. He turned the volume up higher, playing the same album over and over again.

  As he approached Stockholm he tried to think of his new job. Dakar sounded good, like a solid B. He didn’t know more about the restaurant than what he had learned on the Internet the night before. The menu looked all right on paper, but there was something about the presentation that was jarring, as if it was aspiring to be high class but couldn’t quite manage to live up to its own superlatives. There was no lack of self-confidence. The writer had simply put in too much.

  It was his sister in Uppsala who had told him about the job and he had called the owner. The latter had quickly jotted down his references and called back half an hour later to say he had gotten the job. It was as if he sensed Johnny’s situation.

  He didn’t know more about the city than that it had a university. His sister hadn’t told him very much, but that had not been necessary. He was going to … yes, what? Cook, of course, but what else?

  Four

  “Imagine being able to sail.”

  Eva Willman smiled to herself. The newspaper article about the holiday paradise in the West Indies was accompanied by a photograph of a yacht. It was at half sail and waves were breaking against the bow. A pennant fluttered at the top of the mast. There was a man dressed in blue shorts, a white tank top, and a blue cap standing in the stern. He looked relaxed, especially for someone with the responsibility for such a big boat. Eva sensed that he was the one who was steering. His gaze was directed up at the billowing sails. She thought she could see a smile on his face.

  “I wouldn’t even be able to afford the cap,” she went on and pointed.

  Helen leaned over and looked quickly at the page before she sank back into the sofa and continued to file her nails.

  “I get sea sick,” she said.

  “But just think what freedom,” Eva said and read on.

  The article was about the island cluster of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao.

  They were described as paradise islands, an el Dorado for snorklers and divers. A place where you could leave your troubles behind.

  “The Antilles,” she muttered. “Think of how many places there are.”

  “Sailing isn’t my thing,” Helen said.

  For a while Eva studied the map of the string of islands north of Venezuela. She followed the coastline and read the foreign place names. The rasping sound of the nail file was getting on her nerves.

  “I would like to see the fish, those tropical kinds in all the colors of the rainbow.”

  She glanced at the digital clock on the VCR before she continued to browse.

  “Maybe I should enroll in a class,” she said suddenly. “Learn to sail, I mean. It’s probably not that hard.”

  “Do you know anyone with a sailboat?”

  “No,” Eva said, “but you can always get to know someone.”

  She stared unseeing at the next story. It was about a school in southern Sweden that had burned down.

  “Maybe I’ll meet some hottie with a boat. It has to be a sailboat, not anything with an engine.”

  “And who would that be?”

  “A nice, handsome guy. A good man.”

  “One who would want a middle-aged bag with two kids? Dream on.”

  The words struck Eva with unexpected force.

  “Well, what about you?” she said aggressively.

  The nail file stopped in the air. Eva kept flipping through the magazine. She felt Helen’s gaze. She knew exactly how her friend looked: one corner of her mouth turned down, a vertical wrinkle in her forehead, and the birthmark between her eyebrows like the period in an exclamation point.

  Helen was adept at looking displeased, as if someone was always trying to put one over on her. Which was true. Her man was constantly unfaithful to her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Nothing in particular,” Eva said, and shot a quick look at her friend.

  “What the hell has gotten into you today? I can’t help the fact that you feel dumped.”

  “I haven’t been dumped! I’ve been laid off after eleven long fucking years.”

  Eva pushed the magazine away and got to her feet. It wasn’t the first time that Helen was using the word dumped. Eva hated it. She was thirty-four years old and far from washed up.

  “I’m going to get myself a new job,” she said.

  “Good luck,” Helen said, and resumed her filing.

  Eva left the living room and walked out into the kitchen, hastily shuffling together the papers from the unemployment agency and pushing them in among the cookbooks in the kitchen. Patrik would be home soon.

  The rhythmic filing could be heard all the way out in the kitchen. Eva ended up standing in front of the cabinet where the box of O’boy was. The most routine duties became important, every movement, such as taking out milk and chocolate powder, became significant. She stretched out her hand. The white line on her wrist where her watch had been was a reminder of the passage of time. She moved guardedly as if she were a stranger in her own kitchen, while the seconds, minutes, and hours marched on relentlessly. Her hand was warm but the cabinet handle cool. Her arm was tanned and covered in tiny liver spots that had grown more numerous over the past few years.

  Eva opened the cabinet. The filing had stopped and the only thing she could hear was the rustle of Helen turning the pages of a magazine.

  There was sugar, flour, oats, popcorn, coffee, and other dry goods on the shelves. She sized up each package as if it were t
he first time she was looking at it.

  Her paralysis was only broken when Patrik suddenly opened the front door. Eva quickly took out the powdered chocolate mix, then opened the refrigerator door and took out some milk. Barely two liters left. The cucumber was almost gone, the cheese an ancient monument, the eggs, okay, and enough yogurt, she summed up.

  “Hello!” she yelled, surprised at how happy she sounded, but only the sound of his feet on the hallway floor made her smile.

  Behind his shuffling movements and somewhat grumpy demeanor there was a capacity for observation that never ceased to amaze her. He was becoming wiser and more mature. When she pointed this out he became dismissive, and when she praised him he appeared completely bewildered, as if he did not want to admit to having been thoughtful or kind.

  He walked into the kitchen and sat down. Eva set the table in silence.

  “Who is here?”

  “Helen. She wanted to borrow the iron.”

  “Doesn’t she own one?”

  “It’s broken.”

  Patrik sighed and poured out some milk. Eva watched him. His pants were starting to get worn. When he claimed that they were supposed to look like that, she laughed heartily. When worn clothes became trendy, the poor man had the advantage for once.

  “I have a job for you,” Patrik said suddenly.

  He was making his fourth sandwich.

  “What?”

  Patrik looked at her and Eva thought she saw concern in his eyes.

  “Simon’s mom was talking about it. Her brother is moving to Uppsala, for a new job.”

  He took a sip of the O’boy chocolate milk.

  “What does that have to do with me?”

  “They need a waitriss. He’s a chef.”

  “Waitress, not waitriss.”

  “But chef is right.”

  “I’m going to work as a waitress? What else did she say? Did she talk about me?”

  A new sigh from Patrik.

  “What did she say?”

  “You’ll have to talk to her yourself.”

  He stood up with a sandwich in his hand.

  “I’m going to the movies tonight.”

  “Do you have money?”

  He shuffled off to his room without answering, and closed the door behind him. Eva looked at the clock on the wall. Simon’s mother, she thought, and started to clear the table, but stopped. Hugo would be home from school soon.

  Helen came into the kitchen and sat down at the table.

  “Where’s Patrik?”

  Eva didn’t bother to answer. Helen knew very well where he was. Fury boiled up in Eva at the sight of her friend.

  “You think I put you down, yes, I know it,” Helen said, with unexpected loudness. “You dream of sailboats and nice, wonderful men, but have you thought of something?”

  Eva stared at her.

  “That you never do anything about it. Get it? It’s only talk.”

  “I’ve got a job,” Eva said.

  “What?”

  “Waitress.”

  “Where?”

  “I don’t know,” Eva said.

  Helen looked at her and Eva thought she saw the flicker of a smile on her lips.

  When Helen had left, Eva poured out the last of the coffee and sank down on a chair. Not to be taken seriously, she thought, that was the worst. Or rather, that others didn’t have any faith in one’s abilities. Helen had tried to hide her taunting smile, she knew her friendship with Eva could not withstand everything, but the split-second insight that in the future, her friend would spitefully remind her about the waitress job made Eva rage inside. Helen would probably ask about it in passing, about how did that turn out, because … yes, what? Only in order to feel superior? To take her frustrations out on Eva when she ought to put her own life in order? Helen had not worked since she stopped running her home day care several years ago.

  She drank some of the coffee. She could hear music from Patrik’s room. Eva wished that he had stayed in the kitchen and told her a little more about what Simon’s mother had said. But she sensed there was probably not much more.

  Am I worthless? This question came to Eva Willman as she was pulling out a new trash can liner from under the sink. At the bottom of the plastic container there was a decomposing banana peel and a sticky, foul-smelling mass, in whose brown gooey center new life appeared to be flourishing. She took out the new liner, at the same time pulling out the trash can and placing it on the counter. Then she ended up sitting in a crouch, staring into the hole under the sink that the drain pipes disappeared into.

  She was about to call out to Patrik, have him come out into the kitchen and show him how disgusting everything became if one did not take care of something as basic as the trash, but why should she bother? She came off as enough of a nag already.

  How many times a week did she take out the garbage? How many times did she reach in under the sink, press down the contents, pull up the bag, and tie it?

  The sharp smell penetrated her nostrils. This is my smell, she thought, and this is my terrain, drain pipes and a collection of packets of hygiene products and brushes. She reached for the sponge that was tucked in between the pipes and had the urge to bite into it, chew it into green-yellow pieces and savor the taste of cleaning and dishwashing and chores that were threatening to overwhelm her.

  There was a splashing sound from inside the pipes. That was probably the upstairs neighbor, a newly arrived Bosnian woman doing the dishes. The sound reminded Eva that she was not alone in the building.

  She visualized the apartments as boxes arranged one on top of the other. Five entrances, four stories, and three apartments on each level. Sixty apartments. She knew the names of ten or so renters, nodded in recognition to some fifty people, and did not associate with any of them.

  Her legs ached and she sank down on the floor, leaned against the kitchen cabinets, resting there with her elbows on her knees and gently stroking her forehead with the tips of her fingers. Why was she sitting there, nailed to her own kitchen floor as if an invisible hand was pressing her down?

  Sometimes she entertained the idea of getting up, taking Hugo and Patrik and walking around to all sixty apartments, ringing the doorbell and saying … What should she say? Would they even open up, as suspicious as everyone had become since the shooting incident down at the school? No one had been hurt, of course, but the sound of the shots had rung out over the entire area.

  The woman one floor up had just stepped off the bus with her two children when it happened. She had recognized the sound of gunfire and had picked up the youngest and held the other by the hand and had run straight into the forest, through wilted grass and brush and into the shielding cover of the trees. She had run into the woods as people have always done in uncertain times and was only discovered under a spruce the next morning by an orienteering team from the UIF sport club who were setting up signs. Luckily, it had been a warm night.

  It had been in the papers. They had written about the woman’s background. The building complex had its own celebrity.

  Would she open the door if Eva rang the bell? Or Pär, the single man who went by on his bike every morning with a pained expression on his face but who greeted Eva with a smile when they bumped into each other outside. Would he open his door?

  Eva had talked to him before. He would often sit on the bench by the little play area and watch his five-year-old son build an endless series of sand castles. Sometimes the son was gone and Eva guessed he was with his mother. Pär was from the north. That was the only thing she knew about him.

  The woman above her came from the south. She had mentioned Tuzla, but also a village that Eva could no longer remember the name of.

  They had all gathered in a building with fifty-seven other families. Eva imagined them all walking from various directions, leaving behind them lives, relatives, and friends, in order to end up in a rental apartment building on the outskirts of Uppsala.

  An area at the outskirts of the city wh
ere the cries of the tawny owl could be heard from the forest.

  Earlier she had not thought about her surroundings so much. It was only after her divorce from Jörgen that she felt that she had the room to think. While they were still living together, it was as if he took all her time, used up all the oxygen around her, filling the space with his volubility and his thundering laugh. There were those who felt that he was sick, that his incessant talking was a manic fixation on the threat of silence, but Eva knew better. It was an inherited characteristic; his father and grandfather had been the same.

  It was possible that he suffered from an overinflated self-confidence. The problem was that he seemed to nourish this self-confidence by turning to his surroundings, preying on Eva like a predatory digger wasp in order to strengthen himself.

  Sometimes she pitied him, but only sometimes, and more rarely lately. As they sat in the lawyer’s office discussing the divorce, she felt only fatigue and great scorn. Jörgen was going on as usual, as if he did not understand that they were there to discuss the custody arrangements for the children.

  The lawyer interrupted his stream of words by asking if he could really afford to stay in the highly mortgaged condominium. That halted his speech and he gave Eva a terrified look, as if seeking the answer to a question he had never posed. Eva understood that it was not the financial aspect that frightened him, but the sudden realization that he would have to live alone from now on.

  Since then, this anxiety did not seem to want to leave him. It did not make him quiet, quite the opposite, but for Eva, Jörgen’s tentative questions about her well-being and tiptoeing into areas that they had not previously touched on were indications that he was not really mature, not conscious of what it meant to share one’s life with another person, that their marriage had simply been an extension of Jörgen’s life with his single mother. She, the bitch, as Eva called her in private, really had only one close friend, and that was her son.

  Now the thoughtfulness and questions came too late. Eva was never tempted to grab one of the hooks he tossed out that they should perhaps try again. She maintained her distance and was mostly exaggeratedly formal. She knew that it hurt him, but in an obscure way it gave her a sense of satisfaction. It was a primitive revenge, but she could not be bothered with his sad monologues, where self-pity always lurked behind his account of how difficult life was.