Åke Edwardson - Sun and Shadow

He heated up some more oil in a deep frying pan and sautéed the oysters very quickly on both sides at a high heat. He repeated this several times, then placed them on top of the salad, one by one. When he had finished, he drizzled over the dressing. He carefully tossed the oyster salad, divided it onto three plates, endeavoring to be as fair as possible in distributing the oysters.

He thought that should keep them going until the more substantial course, which was rack of veal with mashed garlic potato and pesto. The meat had started to turn brown and interesting smells were coming from the oven. It was spiced with coarsely chopped cloves of garlic, newly ground black pepper, and olive oil-he’d put the ingredients into the mixer and turned them into a paste, then rubbed it into the veal and allowed it to marinate for five hours.

For Morelius, Gothenburg was like a sea of fire. No. It was the sky that was a sea of fire, constantly shifting shades of red, never still. The official fireworks display had been followed by the unofficial ones, everybody competing with everybody else. He’d heard that five or six people had had accidents with rockets already, and it wasn’t midnight yet. You could hear ambulance sirens occasionally, but as far as he knew, nobody had died so far.

The slopes leading up to Skansen were full of people, mainly youngsters. The police were in position. Many of them were in uniform. He saw a girl hanging around Ivarsson’s neck, trying to give him a kiss. Ivarsson allowed it to happen, then bowed graciously by way of thanks. All was calm. No panic. It was just after eleven. Skanstorget, below where he was standing, was starting to fill up, like a semiarctic Times Square. Morelius had never been to New York, but he’d seen pictures.

He was a bit to one side of the worst crush when the couple emerged from the crowd. They recognize me, of course, he thought. This is a small town, really. They seem to be sober enough. Now they’re coming to me.

“A happy New Year,” Maria said.

Morelius nodded in acknowledgment.

“You’re keeping calm, I see,” Morelius said.

“Straight edge.”

“Eh?”

“We’re not getting carried away,” she said. “We’re taking nothing, drinking nothing.”

“Very sensible.”

“You enjoy everything all the more,” the boy said.

“Exactly.”

‘Are you busy tonight?“ she asked. ”Is there a lot to do?“

“It’s all been very quiet so far.”

“But the fun will be starting soon.”

“Yes.”

“Will you be working all night?”

“Until four in the morning.”

“All over town?”

“In the town center. But they might call out the circus to somewhere else, of course.”

“This is amazingly good,” Siv Winter said.

“It was hard to find decent calamari,” explained Winter.

“Just as well,” said Angela.

“Oysters are even better when they’re cooked,” Winter’s mother said.

“I agree.”

“Anyway…” Winter said. He raised his glass of Sancerre. “Cheers.”

“Cheers,” said Angela and his mother, raising their glasses.

They drank and put their glasses down again.

“I think it’s going to be a lovely year,” his mother said. She looked at them. Winter hadn’t noticed any difference in her voice or movements. She had drunk two glasses of champagne earlier and said no to a Tanqueray and tonic, which was a good thing, good for the taste buds apart from anything else. Anybody who drinks liquor before a gourmet meal should have it injected intravenously. “Is it awful of me to say that? After what’s happened… your father and the…”

“It’s good that you can say that, Mom.” He could still taste the trace of dry earthiness after the wine. “It is going to be a lovely year.”

“It hasn’t even started yet,” Angela said, looking at the clock and thinking about fate again. She took a sip of bottled water. The baby was calm just at the moment. She ate a little more and thought about all the things that were going to happen in the next few months. Nothing would be the same as before. It’s going to be a new life. I’m not sentimental, but there’s something special about New Year this year. The millennium coincides with us.

The new millennium boomed its way over Gothenburg, the churches sang. Two thousand people stood arm in arm in Skanstorget and sang “Auld Lang Syne” in exactly the same way as they were doing in Ab erdeen, in a straight line westward over the North Sea.

Twenty jet planes appeared as the clocks struck. One for every century after Christ. Two thousand people held their hands over their ears and screamed in delight. The jets crisscrossed the sky in a series of highly dangerous maneuvers, then headed off back to the south.

Patrik and Maria were holding hands, and some of the people around them burst into tears. One girl threw up into a snowdrift. Two men fell backward into the snow and made snow angels. That tempted several more to start a sort of wave of snow angels. After three minutes there was a long line of people making angels in the snow. The fireworks display seemed never-ending. The angels shone red and gold.

“Do you feel anything special?” Patrik yelled.

“I feel a bit older,” Maria yelled back.

“We’re a thousand years older,” Patrik yelled, and a gang of revelers who had set up a meal on some stones started cheering.

“A happy New Year, Angela,” he said, kissing her. She tasted of the four drops of Lanson champagne she’d allowed to moisten her tongue. “A happy New Year, Mother,” he said and bent down over his mother, who had lain down and was crying.

The twelfth chime from the radio died away. The apartment seemed to change its proportions as the red sky was shattered by all the shooting stars from the fireworks display. They heard the jet planes.

Then they heard an ambulance in the street below, the first of the night.

Angela kissed him.

“A happy New Year, Erik.”

“It will be the best yet, I can promise you that.”

When the door opened he said what he’d intended to say and the man smiled, or gave a laugh. Then he kicked the door in and hit the man twice in the stomach and the chest with his baton. He put on the mask.

She shouted something from inside and he walked through the hall that was striped from the explosions outside, the wall was changing all the time, new patterns were appearing. He heard the man groaning on the floor behind him. Hard to breathe.

She was getting up from the sofa but he was there before she could stand up and he did the same to her. She made the same kinds of noise after half a minute, groaning, gasping for breath. A wheezing sound from somewhere farther down.

He was panting so much himself that he thought he’d be forced to take the mask off in order to get some oxygen to his brain. He turned to the window, pulled his mask halfway up, and gulped in air. The world out there was a glittering slit through his almost-closed eyes. His headache was getting worse.

He was driving southward. There were thousands of people in the streets, staggering from pub to pub. Singing to one another. Last night I dreamed something I’ve never dreamed before. He braked suddenly when a group of revelers ignored a red light and reeled across the road ahead. Waved two fingers at him. They had become immortal.

The dashboard clock said four-thirty as he navigated the roundabout at Korsvägen. Liseberg amusement park was ablaze with light, as if it were another time of year. The first buses were stopping for people who had decided to go home.