The Father: Made in Sweden Part I (65 page)

‘Pappa, one part at a time,’ said Leo, putting his hand on his. They hadn’t touched each other in that way since … he’d forgotten when.

Ivan turned it. Once. Twice. Three times … it clicked into place! His hands were definitely shaking but he hid it well.

‘Good. And now the rest.’

The mechanism. Stock. The bolt. One piece at a time until the weapon was complete.

‘Are you with us now, Pappa? It’s important, you have to be able to do this tomorrow. I don’t want to see you let off a stray bullet or hit someone by mistake.’

Leo took the gun out of Ivan’s hands.

‘This is the safety – and the latch should
always
be on S. Until the cops are coming – then you switch it to P. Not A – that’s automatic, twenty shots in two seconds, and you have no idea what they’ll hit.’

Jasper had been standing some distance away, waiting. Now he stepped forward, took the gun out of Leo’s hands, sank into the firing position between the kitchen table and stove and aimed at the lowered blinds.

‘Listen, Ivan? Look at me. You aim and exhale as you take the shot – and remember to press your
whole
body against the butt to counteract the recoil. We don’t want you to hurt your shoulder, right?’

Jasper put the safety on and inclined his head slightly to one side.

‘Can you do like I did? Show me.’

An automatic weapon lay across Ivan’s thighs like an oar, because some brat who was here instead of his sons had put it there. And now that brat was giving him orders, asking him to stand up like some jerk and aim.

‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Jasper. And I—’

‘Were you at the pizzeria when I gave
another
loser who talked too much a beating?’

‘Yes, I saw it all through the window when you—’

‘Somebody else who thought he’d tell me how I should behave?’

Leo already knew what would happen when Jasper started his lesson. But he wasn’t sure if Ivan had fully understood the magnitude of what they were going to do tomorrow.

‘Pappa?’

‘Yes.’

‘Get your coat on. I want you to come with me.’

‘What are we going to do?’

‘Steal a car.’

Ivan stood in the hall again, near the presents. And couldn’t decide what irritated him more. The nerves that shook him from inside or the ceaseless Christmas music.

He’d been waiting for a minute, wearing a coat that had no lining and his slightly too thin shoes, when she waved at him.

‘Could you come up here?’ called Anneli.

She stood on top of a stepladder in the living room by the tree, a string of lights in her hands, the green wire wrapped carefully around the branches as she fastened it light by light.

‘I have my shoes on.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

Ivan did as she said and they looked at the tree, assessing it. They clearly didn’t see the same thing. She seemed satisfied, hummed again, started moving silver bulbs around. All he saw was some poor tree that had been taken from its natural place in the woods.

‘These ones are real,’ she said, picking up a couple of the gifts that were crowded around the bottom. ‘Most of them are for Sebastian. That’s my son. He’ll be here on Christmas Eve. To celebrate with us.’

The Christmas star lay on the windowsill. She handed it to him.

‘I can’t reach, can you?’

The Christmas carols were suffocating him. He took the star and wrapped its wire tail around the top of the tree.

‘Perfect. Wonderful!’

She looked so happy that the tree was finished; to him it simply looked even more overloaded.

‘Thank you, Ivan. Will you help me with those parcels down there, too?’ she asked, gesturing to the sacks of empty packages.

Carrying the light hessian sacks, one in each hand, they went to the rental car. Anneli opened the boot.

‘Half of them should be here, the first thing someone would see if it were opened tomorrow. It’ll be around three o’clock, so it’ll still be just about light at that time, and if they’re here and in the back seat and the rear window, you’ll see them from above. It was my idea.’

She looked just as proud now as she’d been of the tree. It was cold, and he was shivering, while she couldn’t decide if the blue or the green package should be next to the gold one. She moved them from the seat to the rear window and from the rear window into the boot.

‘What are you up to?’ asked Ivan.

‘It should look nice.’

‘It does look nice.’

Leo passed behind them, a bag over his shoulder.

‘We’ll take your car, Pappa, and dump it when we’ve got another one.’

Ivan followed Leo towards the gate and the car parked outside, which was half-filled with tools and paintbrushes.

‘That Jasper …’ began Ivan.

‘Yes?’

‘Who the hell is he?’

‘One of my oldest friends. Don’t you recognise him?’

Ivan found the car keys in the inner pocket of his black coat.

‘Do you trust him?’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Do you trust that pretend soldier?’

He opened the car door, and they sat in their seats, the keys in the ignition.

‘Listen … Jasper is the kind of guy who never hesitates,’ said Leo. ‘He does what I tell him to do. If something unexpected happens tomorrow, if they stop us, if they get close to us … he’ll stand his ground.’

Anneli watched Leo’s and Ivan’s backs from the kitchen window, waiting for Leo to turn round, for their eyes to meet in that way that had become part of her, but he didn’t – he would always retreat into himself in those last days before a robbery, into a world he didn’t share with anyone. She’d also become aware of something else: a father and his son. She had never seen them beside each other before, and now as they walked there shoulder to shoulder, their closeness became obvious, something they themselves were unaware of.

The living room was too dark. Anneli pushed a plug into the wall socket and a wreath lit up. She knelt by the tree and readjusted two parcels lying under the widest branch. She wondered if Sebastian would be happy – his face was always so focused when he opened presents, so full of anticipation. It had been a long time since they’d celebrated Christmas Eve together, but this year she’d have time to pick him up after they hid the getaway car and money and destroyed the weapons. She might even have time to cook a ham and put the herring in lime juice and fresh coriander and sugar and parsley and vinegar and leave it overnight in the refrigerator. They were going to have a real Christmas, as a family, just Leo and Sebastian and her.

She’d bought a horn for his bike, and an ice hockey helmet with flames on, exactly as he’d asked for. She started wrapping them up on the low coffee table.

‘And what do you want for Christmas?’

Jasper. She hadn’t heard him. He liked to sneak around.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I was thinking … I have time to get to Åhlens department store. This time of year they stay open until nine? I can’t spend Christmas here without giving you anything.’

‘What did you say?’

‘If I’m going to be here, then I have—’

‘You’re not going to be here. We’re going to rob a bank together. Then we’ll celebrate our Christmases separately.’

‘Leo asked me, and I said yes. So it’ll be us. The family’s getting bigger.’

He sat in Felix’s armchair and rocked gently, as Felix always did.

‘No. No. You are not going to be here.’

‘I thought, this is like a fresh start. Right?’

‘Did you hear what I said?
You are not going to be here
.’

‘And I think, if I’m guessing right, we can probably get over a million. And then … we’ll just keep going.’

She didn’t answer.

‘Anneli, what do you say to that?’

She didn’t look at him, carried on taping the parcel up instead, but it didn’t turn out exactly straight.

‘What do I say? That you haven’t understood a thing. That you will not be celebrating Christmas with us because you don’t belong to our family. That you … that you don’t understand that you’re just a little fucking soldier! A dog that runs after sticks whenever his master calls him.’

She tore the paper off, started again.

‘Don’t you realise that you’re not his brother? You’re sitting there in Felix’s seat but you
are
not a real brother!’

She stared defiantly at him, knowing he was prepared to hurt people to get what he wanted. But he just started rocking again.

‘Anneli, I’ve known Leo a hell of a lot longer than you have. He has never and will never let anyone like you get in his way. Leo has his brothers. You know that damn well.’

He put his hand on his breast, clenched it, pounded it a few times.

‘Leo has his brothers.’

Then he got up, walked towards the stairs, but stopped halfway.

‘I
am
a soldier. A damn good soldier. And a good soldier knows exactly what to do – so I know exactly what the hell I’m going to do tomorrow. Do you know?’

And then he saluted.

‘I’m not the weak link. You’re the one driving the getaway car – and how many banks have you robbed? What if the cops stop us and you’re the one who has to roll down the window? And you’re the one who has
to say, “Oh, officer, are you doing a breath test?” If that’s you … for fuck’s sake.’

And he carried on towards the stairs and then down to the armoury, which was his responsibility.

Jasper wiped a cartridge clean, pushed it into a magazine, then the next and the next, until the magazine was full and he could wipe it and then put it among the others. A pile of sixteen magazines free of fingerprints; he always wore eight, Leo wanted six, and Ivan would get two.

Sitting down here thinking about the next robbery – the big one, fifty million – he felt a little calmer, but the irritation that ran in front of him and roared at him didn’t stop altogether.
A little fucking soldier
. Anneli didn’t know shit about what they were planning to do in a year’s time! Not a damn thing!
Not a real brother
. She was a ticking time bomb, he could feel it, and wanted to scream it at Leo. He wanted to warn him, but he couldn’t do it, it would sound wrong. Ideally, he would have liked to push a gun barrel into her forehead and explain that she would disappear completely if she so much as considered talking. But he wasn’t going to make the same mistake again, not like with Vincent. You can’t teach somebody who doesn’t want to learn. He had been right though. That’s why he was the one sitting in the armoury polishing away fingerprints, not Vincent. He would be proven right by Anneli, too, dammit.

He looked at his watch. They should be in touch soon.

Row after row of automatic weapons. And something else, in a grey-green wooden box on the top shelf, still unused. He lifted up the lid. Hand grenades. They’d got hold of them at their final exercise, too. And he would take three of them with him tomorrow. Just as a precaution. Without saying anything to Leo.

Leo and Ivan drove in silence through the winter darkness in a newly acquired Ford Scorpio, stolen from a deserted car park in Södertälje. They passed Strängnäs and turned onto the exit for Highway 55.

‘Can you handle this?’ asked Leo, glancing at his father.