Karin Alvtegen - Shadow

‘Halina said that I could do whatever I liked with the manuscript, so by what right do you come here with this vile ultimatum? Besides, I rewrote a lot of it. You would have done exactly the same thing in my situation.’

‘Would I?’

‘It’s easy for you to stand there now, all righteous and sincere, but I know you, Torgny. You would have done exactly the same thing.’

‘But I didn’t. That’s the difference.’

Axel sank into his chair again, opening his palms as if that might make Torgny listen to reason.

‘Torgny, let’s discuss this like two reasonable men. I deserve your contempt, I accept that. I’ve also offered you half the prize money. Go home and think about it. You’re much too worked up now to think rationally. I intend to forget what you proposed just now and forgive you. Go home and think about whether the money is enough to make you want to keep quiet.’

‘I don’t want Halina’s money.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I’ve already told you.’

‘For Christ’s sake, man!’

Axel pounded his hand on the desk. Torgny smiled. Swearing didn’t sit well with Axel’s urbane manner.

‘You decide. It’s up to you. This time as well.’

Axel shook his head in disgust.

‘You can’t mean what you’re saying!’

‘Choose now, Mr Nobel Prize winner. My offer expires in one minute.’ Torgny raised his arm and looked at his watch.

‘You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re not thinking clearly.’

‘Forty-five seconds.’

Axel got up. ‘You can’t be serious.’

‘Thirty seconds.’

Axel closed his eyes.

Torgny felt empty inside. The enjoyable malicious pleasure had dissolved in the dense darkness.

‘You’re going to regret this, Torgny, when you come to your senses.’

‘Ten seconds.’

Axel sank back in his chair.

The second hand completed its fateful circle and Torgny lowered his arm.

“Well now, Axel, it pleases me that you managed to scrape together a tiny ounce of honour from some forgotten corner.’

Axel leant forward with his head in his hands. Torgny moved towards the door. He had just put his hand on the doorknob when he was stopped by Axel’s voice.

‘Wait.’

Something in the dark sneered. Torgny turned round. Axel had got up from his chair, and what was burning in his eyes was a worthy rival to what was ravaging Torgny.

‘You leave me no choice. I hope you realise that.’

‘One always has a choice, Axel. After that it’s a whole other matter as to what takes priority.’

Axel looked away. He was breathing heavily.

‘How do you intend to proceed?’ His whispered tones were scarcely audible.

‘Let me worry about that. Just see to it that she’s alone here tonight.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Take your wife to the cinema or something, and make sure that Gerda stays away. I’ll wait here in your office until you all leave. And don’t forget to bring me that whisky you offered me.’

‘You bastard.’

Torgny smiled.

‘How does it feel, Axel? Be sure to remember how it feels.’

Axel stood leaning forward with his hands flat on the desk, a shadow of his former self. Torgny’s revenge was complete. All that remained was to carry it out.

With a voice that had lost all its resonance, Axel ended the conversation, slowly emphasising each and every syllable.

‘If so much as a rumour ever comes out that anyone but myself was involved with Shadow , I will hold you personally responsible and make public what you did here today. If I go down, you will go down with me. I also want your promise that you will for ever stay out of my sight. And my last hope is that you will end up in hell, where you have always belonged.’

Torgny sank down onto on his unmade bed. For thirty years he had endured in the darkness which after that day had never left him.

How could he have done it? He didn’t know. Only that the darkness had blinded him. For thirty years he had searched, but he had never succeeded in finding any excuse. For a while he had pretended. Kept the outer surface polished and denied any blame.

But even a bell’s invisible crack is revealed by a dull peal.

Had the evil always been inside him, as a natural com ponent of his being? Or was it an intruder that had taken over when everything was stolen from him? When all that remained to him was the ability to shatter in order to retaliate.

Too late he realised that he had directed his revenge at himself. That what he had shown himself to be capable of had chained him to a shame too heavy to bear.

Axel’s last hope had been granted.

The rest of Torgny’s life had become an effort to live as the brute he had proven himself to be. All intentions produce results in the end, if only one makes a real effort. And that he had done.

And he had succeeded beyond all expectations.

I t is early morning. Already before I wake I know that I am happy.

‘ George, ’ she whispers, and her lips graze my ear. ‘ The spring has come, I can smell it through the window. Come! ’

Sonja takes my hand and wants to pull me along to everything that is waiting. I open my eyes and she laughs.

If the gods can feel envy, I should be careful.

Don’t take this away from me, I pray silently.

But never so that she hears.

We pack the basket and go down to the water. Spread out our blanket and eat breakfast. The boy has left his cap at home and rolls around in what had been brown and dead, places where the green has now awakened to life. I lift him onto my shoulders and gallop through the springtime air till he almost chokes with laughter. She is sitting on the blanket and laughing. A little dot far off in a red dress.

Afterwards he sits on her lap and eats biscuits. I serve coffee in mismatched cups. The boy catches sight of something that only children can see and walks off a little way from us. She keeps a watchful eye on him.

I lack nothing, I think. She is well again and I lack nothing.

But after I have thought this thought, it sits down between us on the blanket.

The thing we never talk about.

She takes my hand as if she too sees the unwelcome guest. As so many times before, she replies before I even ask.

‘ I never fell, ’ she says. ‘ I just sank. ’

‘ I am here with you. ’

I stroke her cheek.

‘ It is through you that I breathe. It is with your legs that I walk. Do not leave me, George. ’

‘ I will not leave you. ’

She looks at the boy.

‘ Man and woman can make promises to each other. They know what the words mean, that they apply to here and now, and can always be renegotiated. ’

‘ Not mine. ’

She takes my hand in hers.

‘ A child believes in the words. I believed my mother when she said that she would never leave me. How can one promise a child something when one does not know if the promise can be kept? ’

She looks at the boy again.

‘ I love him. Why is that not enough? ’

Kristoffer put down Torgny’s book. He was still in bed, although it was already afternoon. He had been reading excerpts from The Wind Whispers Your Name , sometimes just lying still and staring at the ceiling. The text was only bearable in small portions. His hidden world – for all those years it had been available at the library.