The Shadow Girls (22 page)

Humlin slammed the phone and held his receiver down against the base as if he were drowning it, foreswearing any future calls from Burén. He finally let go and it remained silent.

*

The small amount of light coming in from the windows was grey. The noises from the street were soft and muffled. Humlin stood frozen on the spot and held his breath. He felt he was going to have a dizzy spell. All these damned problems, he thought. An investment broker who wants to turn me into an incorporated company and a girl called Tea-Bag who sleeps on my couch and only fears the nightmares she carries on the inside. Where do my fears come from? From the knowledge that my shares are losing value and that Andrea places demands on me I can’t meet. I fear my mother will write a masterpiece. I am afraid that my publisher is going to drop me and that my next book will only sell a thousand copies. I’m afraid of scathing
reviews, and of losing my tan. In short, I am afraid of anything that will reveal that I am a person devoid of passion and true character.

Humlin tried to shake off all these unpleasant thoughts and went to get a cup of coffee from the kitchen. He sat down in the study and looked at the two texts that the girls had given him last night. He had been meaning to read them on the way home but had been too tired.

He reread Leyla’s short text, then reached for Tanya’s packet and opened it. Inside was a photograph wrapped in a piece of cloth. It was a picture of a girl. The name ‘Irina’ was written on the back. A picture of Irina as a child, he thought. Or Tanya or Inez, whatever her name really is. He thought he could recognise her face even though the girl in the picture was hardly more than three. He lay down the photograph and leaned back in his chair. She presents her life as a puzzle, he thought. She carefully gives me one piece at a time, never turning her back to me, never taking the chance that I may betray her. She shows me pine cones and pieces of crystal, she lets me know she is a skilled pickpocket, that she is not afraid, that she is alone. And now she shows me a picture of herself as a child.

During the next few hours Humlin sat in front of his computer and entered in everything he could remember about his first encounters with Tea-Bag. Although he was simply making notes for himself, he felt that he could already feel a book starting to take shape. The various stories dovetailed into each other. When he finally turned off the computer he felt satisfied for the first time in a long while. There is something here, he thought. So far I have only been allowed to browse through their stories, but if I keep going out to Gothenburg I will one day have something
to write about. I don’t have to concern myself with their dreams for the future. I doubt any one of them has the necessary talent to become a writer. If they can make it in TV I have no idea. But I won’t leave this project empty-handed.

*

When he was done he called his doctor. He had begged his way to a weekly phone appointment with her.

‘Beckman.’

‘This is Jesper Humlin. I don’t feel well.’

‘You never do. What is it this time?’

Anna Beckman, who had been his doctor for ten years, had a somewhat brusque manner that he had never completely been able to get used to.

‘I think it may be something with my heart.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with your heart.’

‘I’ve had palpitations.’

‘I do too sometimes.’

‘Who are we talking about here? Me or you? I am telling you I’m concerned about my heart.’

‘I’m concerned about wasting my lunch hour. You are of course welcome to come in on a drop-in appointment.’

‘Yes, is that possible?’

‘As luck would have it I have a cancellation. Two o’clock.’

She hung up before she had received his reply. Immediately the phone rang. It was Andrea.

‘Is she gone?’ she asked.

‘She’s not here. What did my mother have to say?’

‘She’s worried about you. She thinks you should re-evaluate your life.’

‘What did she mean by that?’

‘You’ll just get angry if I tell you.’

‘I’ll be angry if you don’t tell me what she said.’

‘She thinks your last book stank.’

Even though Humlin had decided a long time ago not to care what his mother thought of his work, he still felt a pain in his stomach at these words. But he said nothing about it to Andrea.

‘That’s enough. I don’t need to hear any more.’

‘I knew it would make you angry.’

‘I thought she wanted to know how nurses can kill people.’

‘That was just an excuse. She wanted to talk about you.’

‘I don’t want you two to talk about me.’

‘But
we
need to talk. Soon. Is that understood?’

‘I’ll be here.’

‘That’s all I wanted to know.’

Humlin put the phone down, his head empty. Then he walked out to the mirror in the hall and looked at the remains of his rapidly fading tan. Luckily he had an appointment at the tanning salon tomorrow.

He ate lunch at a small restaurant around the corner, read the paper and then caught a taxi to the doctor’s office. His driver was from a small town on the island of Gotland and still wasn’t sure of his way around town.

*

Dr Anna Beckman was almost six foot tall, very thin and with short spiky hair. She also had an earring in one eyebrow. Humlin had heard that she had broken off a promising research career because she had become tired of the intrigues that went on behind the scenes in the constant battle for research funds. She
pulled open her door and stared at him. The waiting area was full of people.

‘There is absolutely nothing the matter with your heart,’ she shouted as she pushed him into the examination room.

‘I would be grateful if you announced your diagnosis in a quieter voice so not all of your patients hear it.’

She listened to his heart and checked his pulse.

‘I can’t understand why you insist on bothering me with these things.’

‘Bother you? You’re my doctor.’

She looked at him critically.

‘Are you aware of the fact that you’re putting on weight? And I’m sorry to say your tan is pathetic.’

‘No one could call me fat.’

‘You have gained at least four kilos since you were here last. When was that? Two months ago? You were afraid you were going to catch some intestinal bug in the South Pacific and shit your pants, if I recall correctly.’

As usual her way of expressing herself irritated him.

‘I think it’s only normal to consult one’s doctor before setting out on a long international journey. And I have not gained four kilos.’

Dr Beckman checked his chart and then pointed at the scales.

‘Take your clothes off and get on.’

Humlin did as he was told. He weighed 79 kilos.

‘Last time you were here you weighed 75. Isn’t that four kilos?’

‘Then prescribe something for me.’

‘What kind of thing?’

‘Something to help me lose weight.’

‘You’ll have to deal with it yourself. I haven’t got time for this.’

‘Why do you always have to get so pissed off when I come to see you? There are other doctors I could go to, you know.’

‘I’m the only one who can stand you and you know it.’

She reached for her prescription pad.

‘Is there anything you need?’

‘Some more calming pills for my nerves would be nice.’

She looked in his chart.

‘You know I keep an eye on these things. I don’t want this to become a habit.’

‘It’s not a habit.’

She threw the prescription at him and got up. Humlin stayed in his chair.

‘Is there anything else?’ she asked.

‘Yes, actually. You’re not by any chance writing a book, are you?’

‘Why would I be doing that?’

‘No crime novel in the works?’

‘Can’t stand them. Why do you ask?’

‘Oh, nothing. I was just wondering.’

Humlin left Dr Beckman’s office and was at first unsure of where he should go. In his pocket he felt Tea-Bag’s used ticket stub. He was about to throw it in a rubbish bin when he saw that there was an address written on it, some place way out in one of Stockholm’s less attractive suburbs. After a moment’s hesitation he started walking to the nearest station. He was forced to ask at the ticket booth which station he should get off at. The clerk inside was African but spoke excellent Swedish. To his surprise Humlin saw that the man had been reading a poetry collection by Gunnar Ekelöf.

‘He’s one of our greats,’ Humlin said.

‘He is good,’ the clerk agreed while stamping Humlin’s ticket. ‘But I’m not sure he really understood much of what the Byzantine empire was all about.’

Humlin was immediately insulted on Ekelöf’s behalf.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘It might take too long for us to straighten this out now,’ the clerk said. Then he pushed a card over to Humlin.

‘You can call me if you want to discuss his poetry some time. Before I came to Sweden, I was an associate professor of literature at a university. Here I stamp tickets.’

The clerk gave him a searching look.

‘Is it possible that I have seen you before?’

‘It’s not impossible,’ Humlin said, somewhat encouraged. ‘I am Jesper Humlin. A poet.’

The clerk shook his head.

‘You write poetry?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Humlin took the escalator down into the underworld. When he arrived at the station where he was supposed to get off he again had the feeling that he was crossing over an invisible threshold into another country, not into a suburb of Stockholm. He walked across a main square that resembled the one in Stensgården. To his surprise he discovered that the address on Tea-Bag’s ticket was for a church. He walked in.

The pews were empty. He went up and sat down on a brown wooden chair and stared up at the stained-glass window behind the altar. It was a picture of a man rowing a boat. There was a strong, blue-coloured light on the horizon. Humlin thought about the boats he had heard of in Tea-Bag’s and Tanya’s stories.
One had drifted down a river in the middle of Europe, the other had rowed from Estonia to Gotland. Suddenly, as if in a vision, he imagined thousands of small boats across the world filled with refugees on their way to Sweden.

Maybe this is the way it is, he thought. We are living in the time of the rowing boat.

*

He was about to get up when a woman came around the corner from the altar. She was wearing a minister’s collar, but the rest of her clothing did not make her look like a member of the clergy. She was wearing a short skirt and high heels. She smiled at Humlin, who smiled back.

‘The church doors were open. I came in.’

‘That’s how it’s supposed to be. A church should always be open.’

‘At first I thought this was a residential building.’

‘What made you think that?’

‘Someone gave me the address.’

She looked searchingly at him. He sensed that something was not quite right.

‘Who was that?’

‘A black girl.’

‘What was her name?’

‘Florence. But she calls herself Tea-Bag.’

The minister shook her head.

‘She has the biggest, most beautiful smile I have ever seen,’ Humlin said.

‘I don’t know her. It doesn’t sound like anyone who comes here regularly.’

Humlin realised at once that she was not telling the truth. Ministers don’t know how to lie convincingly, he thought. Perhaps when they are talking about the gods above and our inner spirits, but not when it comes to earthly matters.

‘No one by that name belongs to our parish,’ she continued.

She picked up a psalm book that had fallen on the ground.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘A visitor,’ he said.

‘Your face seems familiar.’

Humlin thought of the clerk at the subway station.

‘I don’t think we’ve met.’

‘But I feel sure I’ve seen your face. Not here. Somewhere else.’

‘I’m afraid you’re mixing me up with someone else.’

‘But you’re here looking for someone?’

‘You could say that.’

‘There’s no one else here apart from me.’

Humlin wondered why she wasn’t telling the truth. She started walking towards the exit and he followed her.

‘I was about to lock up,’ she said.

‘I thought you said a church should always be open?’

‘We always lock up for a few hours every afternoon.’

Humlin walked outside.

‘You are always welcome,’ the minister said before she locked the doors behind him.

Humlin walked across the street, then turned around. She wanted me to leave, he thought. But why? He walked around to the back of the church. There was a little garden. It was empty. He was about to leave when he thought he saw something moving in one of the windows. Whether it was a person or a curtain he couldn’t say.

There was a door in the back. He walked over and tried the doorknob. It was unlocked. When he opened it he saw a staircase leading down to the basement. He turned on the light and listened. Then he started walking down. It led to a corridor with a number of doors leading off on either side. On the floor were some toys, a plastic bucket and a little shovel. He frowned. Then he opened the closest door and found himself staring at a woman, a man and three small children sitting on a couple of mattresses. They gave him frightened looks. He mumbled an apology and closed the door. He understood. The church was sheltering refugees in its basement, like a modern-day catacomb.

Suddenly the minister turned up behind him. She had taken off her high-heeled shoes and approached him without making any sound.

‘Who are you?’ she demanded. ‘Are you from the police?’

She is the second woman in the space of a few days to compare me to a policeman, he thought. First my crazy mother, then a minister wearing high-heeled shoes. No Swedish minister should be dressed like she is. No minister should be dressed that way, full stop.

‘I’m not from the police.’

‘Are you from the Department of Immigration?’

‘I’m not going to tell you who I am. Do I have to show my ID in this church?’

‘The people who live down here live in fear of deportation. I don’t think you know very much about that kind of fear.’