Caroline Åberg - Stockholm Noir

“It was no accident,” Klas said. “I was there... Don’t you get it, you fucking ditz?”

She shook her head blankly.

Finally, Klas snapped. There was no reason to smack her — but suddenly he’d done it, right across her face so that she fell back against the sink. No reason, but it felt good. Klas stepped forward and raised his hand again.

The Ditz shrieked, lifted her hands protectively, and reached for something. At first Klas didn’t know what it was, but then he saw that it was one of the knives from the counter, the chef’s knife.

“Drop it!”

He threw himself at the Ditz, tried to twist the knife from her hand; they danced around the long kitchen sink and knocked over the bowl of beets. Klas slipped on the mash with his arms around the Ditz and hit the floor beneath her — hard.

He tried to push her off him and get up; the only thought in his brain was: Where the fuck did the chef’s knife go?

Then he felt an icy weight in his breast and knew the answer.

Anna Nyman couldn’t have been happier in Kallhäll. She loved the forest and the birds and the close proximity to Mälaren. She appreciated the health center and the senior get-togethers at the Munktell Museum and the little square with all the shops. She’d lived on Bondegatan in Stockholm for many years and had moved out here to retire, away from the noise and congestion, and it felt like the powers-that-be in Kallhäll had done all they could to make her comfortable.

Her only problem was with some of her neighbors. Sometimes they played their music too loud, and some weekends you could hear fighting. Up until now, the young couple in the apartment right next to hers had been quiet; but this evening loud voices came through the wall.

Then it got worse; Anna heard an insane shriek and the sound of shattering glass. After that it was quiet for a few seconds and then the outer door opened. Heavy steps staggered out into the hallway. Someone summoned the elevator up from the ground floor, but didn’t get in.

Anna cautiously opened her door. She glimpsed someone in the hallway. It was the young man from the neighboring apartment, slouched against the wall. He stared at her with heavy lids, and then stumbled toward the elevator and slowly lifted his hand, but seemed unable to open the steel door.

Anna went outside to help and it was only when she’d opened the door fully that she saw the neighbor’s white shirt was shredded. Red splotches were spread across the breast.

“What happened?” Anna asked.

Without answering, the man stumbled into the elevator and collapsed onto the floor.

Anna followed and bent over him. He looked around, slowly opened his mouth: “Where am I?”

“You’re home,” Anna said. “In Kallhäll.”

He coughed blood and began to laugh to himself, and almost immediately the floor beneath them shook. The elevator began to descend.

“There now, stay calm.” Anna took the man’s hand and tried to comfort him, but he closed his eyes like she didn’t exist.

“Still in Kallhäll...” he mumbled, and laughed and coughed blood onto the elevator floor, the entire way down into darkness.

Translated by Laura A. Wideburg

Rörstrandsgatan

Twilight comes on quickly.

The pub is housed in a small shed in the back courtyard, not far from Rörstrands porcelain factory. The dank premises measure barely thirty square meters. Black smoke is thick on the walls and across from the door a scratched wooden bar runs down the long side of the room. On the far end of the counter, a tiger-striped tomcat with scarred ears sits cleaning his fur with slow strokes of his tongue.

Behind the counter, there is a man wearing a soiled apron over his protruding stomach. He runs his hand through his enormous walrus mustache. One of his thumbnails is missing.

The fire crackles in the cast-iron heater in the corner. From the building across the Vikingagatan comes the furious song of the riveting machines from the porcelain factory. Their monotonous clatter is broken by the dull thump of four bronze candlesticks hitting the surface of the bar counter.

“Light is on the house.”

The bartender strikes a match and lights the candles. He’s set the candlesticks down between two men sitting at the bar. They both wear blue shirts and the heavy vests of rock blasters. The older man is carrying a trowel in his belt as if it were a weapon. Their wooden clogs are spattered with white mortar. The younger man nods listlessly, his elbow on the counter. He’s holding a three-cornered schnapps glass in one hand. It’s empty.

The back door creaks, and a girl, her blond hair in a bun, enters. Cobwebs stick to her knitted cardigan. She wears wool socks with her clogs and carries a wicker potato basket filled to the brim with sawdust.

“Make sure you do a better job than last time! Spread the stuff out all the way to the corners!”

The bartender shakes out the match and puts it back into its box. The girl nods and with a rustling sound she shakes the sawdust over the floor. She works methodically from one side of the room to the other. She kicks the sawdust under the tables and chairs. The men at the bar follow her movements in silence. The scent of resin and fresh shavings fills the room.

In the corner, beneath a warped rectangular window, a woman sits at a table and the grease stains on her wide-brimmed hat gleam in the grainy, fading light that comes through the dirty, lead-rimmed panes. She’s darkened her eyebrows with burnt cork and black flecks have fallen onto her eyelashes. Her lips are painted red. She holds a cigarette between her fingers. On the table, there’s a pack of Bridge and a broken white enamel cup holds a number of cigarette butts stained with red lipstick.

As the girl with the basket of sawdust approaches, the woman shifts her skirt aside and lifts her high-heeled, worn-out, lace-up boots — she’s not wearing stockings. A large bruise shows on her pale calf. The girl looks away as she kicks the last of the sawdust beneath the woman’s chair.

“Well, what a shrinking violet we have here! Don’t worry, soon she’ll be making a living with her legs in the air too, just wait and see.” Slurred, but loud, the woman’s voice cuts through the clatter of the machines. The men at the bar hold back their laughter, but their shoulders shake. The younger man slaps the older one on the arm. The girl says nothing. She makes her way quickly over the sawdust and sets the basket by the back door. She looks down, smoothing her apron with both hands.

The front door opens and the leather curtain made of pigskin is pushed aside with a swish. The flames of the candles flicker in the draft. The men at the bar turn around. The tomcat pauses in his cleaning, his tongue halfway out of his mouth.

The sawdust crunches under heavy soles as the youth walks into the room. He’s wearing a sailor’s cap that seems to be a few sizes too large. He hides his mouth behind his hand as he glances around. Fish scales glisten on the frayed sleeves of his jacket.

He chooses the table farthest from the door and pulls out a chair. Beneath his slight blond mustache, his upper lip has a cleft that stretches halfway along his nose. The edges are pale pink. His yellowed front teeth show through the gap.

He sits down with his back to the wall, facing the door. The girl comes to him with a schnapps glass and an unmarked bottle. She shows him the bottle and the youth nods. The girl quietly fills the glass to the rim. The oily surface of the liquid glimmers as she strikes a match and lights the candle on the table. She is already turning away when the youth raises his hand. She stands silently, holding the bottle in the crook of her arm.