Mari Jungstedt: Dark Angel

When Knutas had gone out to fetch the Sunday paper from the letterbox that morning and looked up at the cloudless spring sky, a round of golf with his kids had seemed a splendid idea. The wind had died down. The day was fair and calm. The sun was shining and felt wonderfully warm on his back.

But none of that had made any difference. He was already regretting his decision.

‘Bloody sodding piss! I hate this fucking game!’

His face bright red, Nils raised his club and shoved it with all his might into the golf bag next to him. The club went right through the leather, making a huge slit in the bag and also breaking a bottle of Coca-Cola. The Coke sprayed out like a fountain, drenching Nils’s new jeans.

Knutas felt his fury rise. He’d put up with the kids’ sullen expressions all morning; now his patience had finally run out.

‘That’s enough!’ he shouted. ‘What do you mean by wrecking that bag? It was a present and it was really expensive! I’m cancelling your allowance until you pay me back enough to buy a new one!’

Angrily he gathered up his things as he continued to rant.

‘Here I am trying to arrange something fun and have a good time with the two of you, and all I get are surly looks. That includes you, Petra. This is just not acceptable. You’re both behaving like spoiled brats!’

‘I don’t give a shit,’ yelled Nils. ‘And I don’t want a new golf bag, because I’m never going to play golf again! I hate it!’

‘Don’t yell at me,’ Petra sulked. ‘I didn’t do anything.’

Knutas stomped off, heading for the car.

He was angry, hurt and disappointed. He just didn’t understand his children any more. Sometimes he really felt inadequate as a parent.

A heavy silence descended over the car as they drove back to town. Nearly 30 kilometres without a single word spoken. Knutas felt he no longer knew how to talk to the twins. No matter what he said, it was always wrong. So he thought it better not to say anything at all.

He’d had such ambitious plans when the children were born. He’d thrown himself into the role of father with the greatest spirit and gusto, determined not to spend too much time at work. He played with the kids whenever he had time, took them fishing and hung hammocks for them out in the country when they went on holiday. He also made an effort to attend at least a few football matches every season. Whenever the children’s friends came over to the house, he was always friendly and polite. One year he was even the parent representative for their school. He’d been naive enough to think that the good relationship he’d established with the twins would last a lifetime, and that the foundations he and Lina had worked to build would remain stable. The past six months had disillusioned him. Chastened, he’d gradually come to the painful realization that his relationship with his children was terribly fragile and brittle, liable to shatter at any moment. Yet deep in his heart he wanted to believe that everything was fine and fundamentally solid.

He parked the car outside the house, relieved to see that the lights were on in the kitchen. Lina was home, which meant he’d at least be able to share his misery with someone else. His offspring swiftly strode up the gravel path, several metres ahead of him. The rigid set of their backs signalled their disdain.

‘Hi. Did you have fun?’ called Lina from the kitchen as they entered the front hall.

‘Yeah, sure. It was great,’ muttered Nils sourly as he kicked off his shoes and disappeared upstairs.

Knutas heard him slam the door to his room. He sat down at the kitchen table and sighed with resignation.

‘Good Lord, what am I going to do?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I keep doing everything wrong. I can’t understand why they’re always so grumpy. Especially Nils. Do you know what he did? He got so angry that he wrecked his new golf bag. I told him he’d have to pay for a new one, and then he said he didn’t give a shit because he wasn’t going to play any more!’

‘It’s called finding their independence,’ said Lina dryly as she set two coffee cups on the table. ‘All you can do is try to remain calm and on an even keel.’

Knutas shook his head.

‘I don’t remember behaving like this when I was a teenager. God, talk about a generation gap. In my day, you were expected to treat your parents with respect. You didn’t just say and do anything you liked. Am I right?’

Lina pushed back her thick red plait so it hung down her back before she poured the coffee. Then she sat down across the table from her husband, giving him a sardonic look.

‘Can’t you hear what an old curmudgeon you’re being? Have you totally forgotten what it was like to be young? You told me that when you weren’t allowed to go to Copenhagen on a camping trip with your girlfriend, the two of you hitchhiked to Paris instead, without saying a word to your parents. All they got was a postcard of the Arc de Triomphe. Your mother even showed it to me. How old were you back then? Seventeen?’

‘OK, OK,’ said Knutas. ‘I take your point. It’s just so strange not to have any control any more. Or contact. I can’t reach Nils at all. He always has his guard up.’

‘I know. But just think of it as a phase he’s going through. Right now it’s probably worse for you than me. He needs to free himself from you in order to become his own person. They’re both growing up, you know, Anders.’

‘But it makes me feel so helpless.’

She placed her hand on top of his.

‘Of course. But don’t you remember how it was last autumn when Petra barely said a word to me for months on end? Things are much better now. I think Nils is going through the same thing. Just relax. It’ll pass. It’s painful for them to free themselves from us. The only way they can do it is to belittle us for a while. It’s completely normal.’

Knutas looked at his wife doubtfully. He wished he could be as calm about it as she was. He opened his mouth to say something more but was interrupted by the phone ringing.

The sergeant on duty told him that a dead body had been found in the conference centre.

All indications pointed to murder.

DAWN HAS ARRIVED again, painfully confirming that life goes on. I’m sitting, or rather reclining, on the sofa, as usual. A sense of unreality has settled over me, as it always does.

I’ve been lying awake for several hours, having moved from the bed to the sofa in a desperate attempt to fall asleep. Memories from my childhood keep intruding. It’s as if time has caught up with me. I can’t escape it.

One summer, we were staying – as we often did – with my grandmother in Stockholm. On the day in question we were supposed to go to the amusement park and zoo called Skansen. Mamma had been promising us this excursion for a long time. I’d been looking forward to it for weeks and couldn’t think about anything else. When Sunday morning arrived, I was so excited that I could hardly eat my breakfast. I loved animals and kept talking about getting a dog. Or a cat. Or at the very least a guinea pig. I was eight years old, and this was going to be my first visit to the zoo.

The sun was shining outside the windows and Mamma was in a cheerful mood.

At the breakfast table she wolfed down her food and coffee. She was eager to get everything packed up so we could leave.

‘It’s going to be really fun to see all the animals, isn’t it, kids? And Skansen is so beautiful!’

She bustled about the kitchen, getting ready as she hummed along with Lill-Babs, who was singing her Swedish version of ‘It’s My Party’ on the radio. She made open sandwiches with lettuce, cheese and ham; she made fruit punch from syrup and water; and she took cinnamon buns out of Grandma’s freezer to thaw.