"You grew up here in Tungelsta, didn't you?" she asked.
The man nodded and held the door open for her.
"Please take your shoes off. Yes, I grew up nearby, in Kvarnvägen. Hello, sweetheart, is everything okay?"
The last few words he called toward the interior of the house, and a girl's voice could be heard from upstairs.
"Fine, Dad, but I'm stuck. Can you help me?"
"Sure, in a little while. I've got a visitor."
Olof Furhage pulled off his heavy boots.
"She's been down with the flu. She was really sick. I bought her a new computer game on CD-ROM to comfort her. Please come in, this way…"
A little face appeared on the stairs to the upper floor.
"Hello," the girl said. "My name's Alice."
She was nine or ten years old.
"My name's Annika."
Alice disappeared back to her computer game.
"She lives with me every other week, and her sister Petra has moved in here for good. Petra's fourteen," Olof Furhage said, while pouring water into the coffeemaker.
"You're divorced?" Annika said, sitting down at the kitchen table.
"Yes, a couple of years now. Milk and sugar?"
"Neither, thanks."
Olof Furhage prepared the coffee, laid the table, and sat down opposite Annika. It was a cozy kitchen, with a wooden floor, paneled kitchen cupboards, a checked red-and-white tablecloth, and an electric Star of Bethlehem in the window. There was a splendid view of the greenhouse from the window.
"How much do you know?" he asked.
Annika took out her pad and pen from the bag.
"Do you mind if I take notes? I know that your father was Carl Furhage and that Christina left you with a couple in Tungelsta when you were five years old. I also know that you contacted Christina a few years ago and that she was terrified of you."
Olof Furhage laughed again but this time a sad laughter.
"Yes, poor Christina, I could never understand why she was so horror-struck," he said. "I wrote a letter to her just after my divorce, mostly because I was feeling so incredibly low. I wrote and asked her all those questions I'd always had and never got an answer to. Why she gave me up, if she'd ever loved me, why she'd never come to visit me, why she wouldn't let Gustav and Elna adopt me… But she never replied."
"So you went to see her?"
The man sighed. "Yes, I took to driving over to Tyresö, sitting outside her house during the weeks when the girls were at their mother's. I wanted to see what she looked like, where she lived, how she lived… She'd become well-known by then. With the Olympics, she was in the papers every week."
The coffeemaker spluttered, Olof Furhage got to his feet, fetched the pot, and put it on the table.
"I'll let it percolate a bit longer," he said. He took out a plate with a sponge cake from the refrigerator. "One night she came home alone. It was in the spring, I remember that. She was heading for the front door when I stepped out of the car and walked up to her. When I said who I was, she looked as if she was going to faint. She stared at me as if I were a ghost. I asked her why she hadn't answered my letter, but she didn't reply. When I started asking the questions that I'd asked in the letter, she turned around and walked toward the front door, still not saying a word. I was furious and started screaming at her. 'Bloody bitch!' I screamed. 'Couldn't you at least give me a minute of your time,' or something like that. She started running and stumbled on the steps in front of the door. I ran after her and grabbed her, turning her around and shouting 'Look at me!' or something…"
He dropped his head, as if the memory hurt him.
"Didn't she say anything?" Annika asked.
"Yes, two words: 'Go away!' Then she went inside, locked the door, and phoned the police. They picked me up, here in this kitchen, that same evening."
He poured out coffee and put one sugar in his cup.
"Have you ever had any contact with her?"
"Not since she left me with Gustav and Elna. I remember the evening when we went there clearly. We went in a taxi, Mom and I; it felt like a long journey. I was happy. She had made it into an adventure, a fun outing."
"Did you like your mother?" Annika queried.
"Of course I did. I loved her. She was my mother, she read stories and sang to me, often gave me hugs, and said evening prayers with me every night. She was slim and bright, like an angel."
He fell silent and looked down at the table.
"When we arrived at Gustav and Elna's, we had dinner, pork sausages and mashed turnips. I remember it to this day. I didn't like it, but Mom said I had to finish it. Then she took me out in the hallway and said that I had to stay with Gustav and Elna because she had to go away. I was hysterical. I suppose I was a bit of a momma's boy. Gustav held me while Mom grabbed her things and rushed out. I think she was crying, but my memory could be deceiving me."
He had some coffee.
"I lay shaking all through the night, screaming and crying when I could muster the strength. Though things got better as the days passed. Elna and Gustav were both over fifty and had no children of their own. You could justifiably say that they spoiled me. They came to love me more than anything else in the world. You couldn't have had better parents. They're both dead now."
"Did you ever see your mother again?"
"Yes, once, when I was thirteen. Gustav and Elna had written to her, saying they wanted to adopt me. I remember I sent along a letter and a drawing as well. She came one evening, asking us to leave her alone. I recognized her immediately, even though I hadn't seen her since I was a small child. She said that adoption was out of the question, and she didn't want any more letters or drawings in the future."
Annika was speechless.
"I was devastated, of course, what kid wouldn't be? She remarried soon after coming here, perhaps that was why she was so uptight."
"Why wouldn't she let your foster parents adopt you?"
"I've wondered about that," Olof Furhage said, pouring out more coffee for Annika and himself. "I was about to inherit an awful lot of money. Carl Furhage had no other children apart from me, and after the death of his third wife he was wealthy— maybe you knew that? Yes, well, then you also know that he instituted a generous scholarship with most of his money. I received my statutory share of the inheritance, and Mother held that in trust. And she did that with a vengeance. There was hardly anything left by the time I came of age."
Annika could hardly believe her ears.
"Are you serious?"
Olof Furhage sighed.
"Yes, I'm afraid so. There was enough left to buy this house and a new car. The money came in handy, since I was at college and had just met Karin. We moved in and started doing the place up; it was barely fit to live in when we came here. Karin let me keep the house when we divorced. We had what you could call an amicable settlement."
"But you should have sued your mother!" Annika said indignantly.
"I couldn't be bothered, quite frankly," Olof said and smiled. "I didn't want anything to do with her. But when my marriage broke up, the bubble of my childhood came to the surface and burst. I tried to blame my failure on myself and my background. That's the reason I contacted her again. And it didn't make matters any better, as you might understand."
Alice came into the kitchen. She was dressed in pink pajamas and a dressing gown, holding a Barbie doll in her arms. She gave Annika a quick, shy glance and then crept up in her father's lap.
"How are you?" Olof Furhage asked and kissed the child's head. "Did you cough a lot today?"
The girl shook her head and buried her face in her father's knitted sweater.
"You're beginning to feel better, aren't you?"
She took a slice of cake and ran into the living room. Soon they could hear the theme music of the
Pink Panther
through the open door.
"I'm glad she'll be well enough to join in on Christmas Eve," Olof said and helped himself to another slice of cake. "Petra baked it. Try it, it's not bad!"
Annika had a slice: It was good.
"Alice came here last Friday after school and fell ill in the evening. I called the doctor at midnight; by then she ran a temperature of over a hundred and three. I sat there with a boiling hot kid in my arms until after three in the morning, when the doctor finally arrived. So when the police came on Saturday afternoon, I had an airtight alibi."
She nodded; she'd already figured that herself. They sat in silence for a while, listening to the doings of the Pink Panther.
"Well, I have to be getting back now," Annika said. "Thank you so much for making time to speak to me."
Olof Furhage smiled.
"It was nothing. A tomato grower isn't too busy during the winter."
"Do you live off your tomatoes?"
The man laughed. "Hardly! I barely break even. Making a business growing greenhouse vegetables is practically impossible. Even people who grow tomatoes further south, with subsidies, a warm climate, and cheap labor can barely make ends meet. I do it because I enjoy doing it. It doesn't cost me anything more than the commitment and the effort, and then I do it for the environment."
"So what do you do for a living?"
"I do research at the Royal Institute of Technology— waste product technology."
"Composts and stuff like that?"
He smiled. "Among other things."
"Will you become a professor?"
"Probably never. One of the two existing professorships has recently been filled, and the other one is up north, in Luleå, and I wouldn't want to move, for the girls' sake. And things might work out between me and Karin in the end. Petra is with her now, but we're spending Christmas together, all four of us. Who knows?"
Annika smiled, a smile that came from somewhere deep inside her.
* * *
Anders Schyman sat in his office, elbows on the desk, his head in his hands. The pain was out of this world. He had migraine attacks a couple of times a year and always when he started unwinding after a stressful period. And last night he had made the mistake of drinking red wine. Sometimes he could but not just before going on holiday. Now he was feeling sick, not only because of the headache, but because of what lay ahead of him. He was about to do something he'd never done before, and it wasn't going to be pleasant. He'd been on the phone for half of the morning, first with the MD and then the company lawyer. The longer the conversations went on, the worse his headache had become. He sighed and put his hands among the piles of paper on the desk. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair tousled. He stared into space for a moment, then reached out for his pills and a glass of water. He popped out yet another Distalgesic— now he would definitely not be driving home.
There was a knock and Nils Langeby popped his head around the door.
"You wanted to see me?" he said expectantly.
"Oh, yes, come in," Anders Schyman said, laboriously getting to his feet. He walked around his desk and indicated that the reporter should sit on one of the couches. Nils Langeby sat down in the middle of the largest couch, stretching himself out ostentatiously. He seemed nervous, and anxious to hide the fact. He was looking quizzically at the coffee table in front of him, as if expecting a cup of coffee and a Danish pastry. Anders Schyman took a seat in an armchair directly facing him.
"I wanted to talk to you, Nils, because I have an offer to make you…"
The reporter sat up, a light appearing at the back of his eyes. He thought he was going to be promoted, that he'd get some form of recognition. The editor noted this and felt like a bastard.
"Yes…?" Nils Langeby said when his boss didn't continue.
"I was wondering what your attitude would be toward working for the paper on a freelance basis in future?"
There, he'd said it. It sounded like a normal question, posed in a completely regular tone of voice. The editor made an effort to look calm and collected.
Nils Langeby was at a loss.
"Freelance? But… why? Freelance… how…? I'm on the permanent staff!"
The editor got up from the armchair and walked over to his desk to get the glass of water.
"Yes, of course, I know that, Nils. You've been an employee with the paper for quite a few years, and you could remain here for another ten or twelve years until retirement. I'm offering you a more autonomous way of working during your last active years."
Nils Langeby's gaze was wandering.
"What are you saying?" he said. He'd dropped his cheek; his mouth was a large black hole. Schyman sighed and went back and sat down in the armchair with his glass of water.
