Three Seconds (41 page)

    Stefan's voice. On his way to a cell farther down the corridor. "What did you say?"

    The guard with the eyes. Piet Hoffmann pressed his ear even harder to the inside of the cell door-he wanted to be certain that he heard every word.
"Stukay, It's Russian."

    "We don't speak Russian down here."

"There's someone who does."

    "Into the cell with you now, just get in!"

    They were here. Soon there would be more, every prisoner in solitary confinement from now on would know that there was a snitch here, stewing in one of the cells.

    Stefan's voice, it had been pure hate.

      He pressed the red button and he would continue to press it until the guards came.

    They had let him know they were there. Now it was just a question of when, of time. Hours, days, weeks, the pursuers and the pursued knew that the moment would come when there was no more waiting.

    The square hatch opened, but it was other eyes, the older principal officer.

    "I want-"

    "Your hands are shaking.

    "For fuck's sake-"

    "You're sweating heavily."

    "Telephone, I want-"

    "You've got a twitch in your eye."

    He was still pressing on the button. A piercing pitch that echoed in the corridor.

    "Finger off the button, Hoffmann. You've got to calm down. And before I do anything… I want to know what's up."

    Pier Hoffmann lowered his hand. It was eerily quiet around them. "I have to make another phone call."

    "You just made one."

    "The same number. Until I get an answer."

    The cart with the phone and telephone directory on it was wheeled in and the gray-haired principal officer dialed the number he knew by heart. He watched the prisoner's face the whole time: the spasms in the muscles around his eyes, his forehead and hairline that were shiny and dripping, a person who was fighting his own fear as he waited for a phone that was not answered.

    "You're not looking good."

    "I have to make another call."

    "You can do later."

    "I have to-"

    "You didn't get an answer. You can call again later."

    Piet Hoffmann didn't let go of the receiver. He held it in his hands that were shaking as he met the eyes of the warden.

    "I want my books."

    "Which books?"

    "In my cell. In G2. I have the right to have five books down here. I want two of them. I can't just sit here staring at the walls. They're on my bedside table.
Nineteenth Century Stockholm
and
The Marionettes.
I want them here, now."

    The prisoner didn't shake as much when he talked about his books. He calmed down.

    "Poetry?"

    "You got a problem with that?"

    "Not often that it's read down here."

    "I need it. It helps me to believe in the future."

    The flush on the prisoner's face had started to recede.

"Then suddenly it hits me that the ceiling, my ceiling, is someone else's
floor
.”
^"

    "What?"

    "Perlin.
Barefooted Child.
If you like poetry, I can-"

    "Just get me my books"

    The older warden said nothing, just pulled the cart out of the cell and locked the heavy door. It was quiet again. Piet Hoffmann stayed on the cold floor and wiped his wet brow. He had twitches and spasms, he was shaking, he was swearing. He hadn't realized that it was visible, his fear.

     He had moved from the floor to the bed and lain down on the thin mattress that didn't have any sheets or covers. He was freezing and had curled up in his stiff, oversize clothes and eventually fallen asleep, dreamed that Zofia was running in front of him and he couldn't get close to her no matter how much he tried, her hand disintegrated when he touched it, she shouted and he answered but she couldn't hear him, his voice dwindled to nothing and she got smaller and smaller, farther and farther away until she disappeared.

    He
was
woken by noise outside in the corridor.

    Someone was being escorted to the bathroom or the cage for some air, someone who had said something. He went over to the door, ear to the square hatch. It was another voice this time, Swedish, no accent, a voice that he hadn't heard before.

"Paula, where are you?"

    He was sure that he'd heard it right.

"Paula, you're not hiding are you?"

    The warden with the eyes told the voice to shut up.

    It had shouted in no particular direction, but just outside his cell, selected a specific listener.

    Piet Hoffmann sank down behind the door, sat there with his chest and chin against his knees, his legs weren't working.

    Someone had exposed him as a
stukatj
last night, he had been given a death sentence. But… Paula… he hadn't understood it, not until now, that this someone had also known his code name. Paula. Christ… there were only four people who knew the code name Paula. Erik Wilson had made it up. Chief Inspector Göransson had approved it. Only those two, for many years, only those two. After the meeting in Rosenbad, two more. The national police commissioner. The state secretary. No one else.

    Paula.

    It was one of those four.

    It was one of them, his protection, his escape-one of them had burned him.

"Paula, we want to meet you so much."

    The same voice, farther away now toward the showers, then the same tired "shut up" from the wardens who didn't understand.

    Piet Hoffmann held his legs even tighter, pressed them into his body.

    He was already everyone's quarry. He was a snitch in a prison where informants were hated as much as sex offenders.

    Someone banged on their door.

    Someone screamed
stukatj
on the other side.

    Soon it would be as it always was when the shared hate was focused on one locked cell door. First, two who banged, then three and four, then more, minute by minute, hatred channelled into the hands that hit harder and harder. He put his hands to his ears, but the banging penetrated his head until he couldn't stand it anymore, he pressed the button and held it down until the noise of the bell drowned out the monotone rhythm.

    The square hatch opened. The principal officer's eye.

    "Yes?"

    "I want to make that phone call. And I want my books. I have to phone and I have to have my books."

    The door opened. The older principal prison officer came in, ran his hand through his thick, gray hair and pointed out into the corridor.

    "All that banging… has that got anything to do with you?"

    "No."

    "I've been working here for a long time. You're twitching, you're shaking, you're sweating. You're bloody frightened. And I think that's why you want to phone."

    He closed the door and made sure that the prisoner made note. "Am I right?"

    Piet Hoffmann looked at the blue uniform in front of him. He seemed friendly. He sounded friendly.

Don't trust anyone.

    "No. It's got nothing to do with that. I just want to make a phone call now."

    The principal prison officer sighed. The telephone cart was standing at the other end of the corridor, so this time he got out his mobile phone, dialed the number of city police and handed it over to the prisoner who refused to admit that he was frightened and that the banging out there had anything to do with it.

    The first number. Ringing tone and no answer.

    Twitching, shaking, sweating, it all got worse.

    "Hoffmann."

    "One more. The other number."

    "You're not in a good way. I want to call a doctor. You should go to the hosp-"

    "Dial the fucking number. You're not moving me anywhere." Ringing tone again. Three rings. Then a man's voice.

    "Göransson."

    He had answered.

    His legs, he could feel them again.

He had answered.

    He was just about to tell them, in a couple of moments they could start the administrative procedures that would mean freedom in a week.

    "Jesus, finally, I've been trying… I need help. Now."

    "Who am I talking to?"

    "Paula?"

    "Who?"

    "Piet Hoffmann."

    The silence didn't last that long, but it sounded like the phone had been put down, the electronic void that is empty, dead.

    "Hello? For fuck's shake, hello, where-"

    "I'm still here. What did you say your name was?"

    "Hoffmann. Piet Hoffmann. We-"

    "I'm very sorry, I have no idea who you are."

    "What the fuck… you know… you know perfectly well who I am, we met, just recently in the state secretary's office… I-"

    "No, we've never met. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got a lot to do." Every muscle was tensed, his stomach was burning and his chest and his

    throat and when everything is burning you have to scream or run or hide or… "I'm going to call the hospital unit now."

    The telephone in his hand. He refused to let go.

    "I'm not going anywhere until I've got my two books."

    "The phone."

    "My books. I have the right to have five books in solitary confinement!"

    He loosened his grip on the cordless phone and let it slip out of his hand.

    It cracked when it hit the floor, plastic bits bouncing in every direction. He lay down next to them, his arms around his stomach and chest and throat, it was still burning and when everything is burning, you have to run or hide.

    "Did he sound desperate?"

    "Yes."

    "Stressed?"

    "Yes."

    "Frightened?"

    "Very frightened."

    They looked at each other.
If we let it out who Hoffmann is?
They had more coffee.
What the organization then does with that knowledge is not our problem.
They moved the piles of paper from one side of the table to the other.
We will not and cannot be responsible for other people's actions.

    It should have been over.

    They had arranged a meeting for a lawyer with one of his clients that evening. They had burned him.