Daniel Åberg - Virus - Stockholm - S1

Somehow she makes it out onto the street and almost collides with a bearded guy in a cap rolling past on a longboard. “Watch out!” he shouts. She swallows the desire to kick him. The café on the corner isn’t open yet, the place is dark, which is a good thing, she could never have managed the usual small talk today. She reaches the door, a big truck is parked outside on the pavement and two tense young men are mounting a ramp on the steps while a third, wearing a carry belt, is lugging boxes out of the truck’s open back.

He is dumping the boxes theatrically. One of the other men sniffs, “You can sulk later. Wait till we get to the piano, there’s no chance it’s going to fit in the lift.”

Amanda can’t help herself. “A piano?” she asks, her face pained. Having fixed the moving ramp in place, one of the guys stands and stretches.

“Yeah, a big bastard, but it’s furthest in at the back of the truck. We always save the best to last,” he says and laughs.

“What floor?” Amanda asks.

“Fourth. You live on the same floor?”

She sighs. “Third. Which will be just as bad I guess.” This answer gets her a laugh. She waves limply, walks inside and sees the boxes stacked along the wall. The elevator has arrived. She pushes on the number 3 and they start sliding upwards. She barely dares to breathe in case of more retching and fishes out her key before she reaches her floor. With shaking hands, she unlocks the door.

Amanda steps inside, closes the door behind her and kicks off her shoes. She heads for the kitchen, takes a large glass from the cabinet and fills it with water, slumps heavily to the floor and leans back against the cool refrigerator. She begins to drink slowly, forcing herself to take a few minutes to empty the glass. Then she slides down, defenseless against the stupor.

Please, let the piano just be an ornament, she thinks before closing her eyes on the world as she knows it forever.

The moment Iris first realises something is wrong, she is standing behind the information desk and registering returned titles. She scans the barcodes and places them onto a trolley beside the desk. Occasionally a message pops up onto the screen about late fees and she clicks them away. The fine is added to the lender’s account and they will have to pay next time they want to borrow something.

It’s almost half past eleven. In the last hour and a half, only three people have borrowed books. She has helped people search for a few titles, a man was looking for a book that hadn’t been released yet and she also sent a woman to the City Library who was looking for a specific title about natural remedies. She even organised a card for a girl who only seemed interested in the Wi-Fi.

Three people. Eight titles in total. Five novels, two non-fiction books about knitting and one collection of poetry. It should have been at least double that by now, maybe even three times as many if it hadn’t been the week after Midsummer.

She scans in the last books. Out of the corner of her eye she can see Ramir approaching, but he stops dead when he sees an obviously drunk man stumble through the revolving door from Sergels square. The man’s clothes advertise the night spent outside. He notices a guard also watching, straightens and walks nonchalantly towards the toilets.

The first four or five steps go well enough, but then he sways and gets a foot caught in one of the chairs that has strayed outside the designated café area. He tries to continue in a forced but ultimately hopeless attempt to conceal what has just happened, but then overturns another chair and the table beside it. He falls hard and is left lying on the ground. Ramir runs over, followed closely by their colleague Susanne, who has also been watching the scene play out from afar.

Something isn’t right. The man moaning on the ground is the first windswept visitor of the day. “Are you OK?” Ramir asks in an officious tone. The homeless and broken usually form a steady procession throughout the day. Their doors straight onto the drug-addled Sergel’s square is a direct invitation.

“I’m afraid I have to go home.” Lotta, one of the librarians, is approaching behind her. “I’m getting worse… Oh, what’s happened here?” she asks and looks at the scene five metres in front of her.

“He fell over or something,” Iris says. Lotta nods.

“I’m sorry, I really can’t stay. I’ve got the world’s worst headache and I feel like I’ve got a forty degree fever.” Lotta tries to smile, but her expression is more abject than jolly.

Iris looks at her and decides her assessment is an understatement. “It’s fine, go home. We’ve hardly got any visitors today anyway.”

“Yeah, it’s unusually quiet,” Lotta says, taking no notice of the fact that the man on the floor has started shouting something about being attacked. “You’ll be OK? I’ll tell Juan I’m going, so he knows. I’m not sure I’ll make it tomorrow either.”

“It’s Wednesday, I’d aim for Monday if I were you. You look pretty awful,” Iris says and smiles. Lotta gives a short laugh. “Maybe.”

Iris stands at the counter. Checks her mobile. Two people have liked her latest status update and a question has been posted on the library Facebook page. She types an answer: no we won’t be closed over the summer, we will be maintaining ordinary opening hours throughout July, come whenever it suits. Yours sincerely. She reads over her answer and changes the ‘yours sincerely’ to something less formal. Thanks! No one is sincere on Facebook.

Holiday countdown: two weeks and two days. A week in a cottage and then two weeks with the in-laws at their summerhouse .

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Ramir approaching.

“Juan is a trained nurse, right? There’s something… not right about that guy. But I don’t want to call an ambulance if it’s not necessary. We rang twice yesterday for what turned out to be plain old drunkenness. Do you think he can come take a look? He’s not being aggressive, the guy, but… I don’t know. There’s just something not right.”

“Yeah, he was a nurse, but if the guy is sick you’ll still have to…”

Her mobile vibrates. She looks down at the screen: Little Pheasants.

“Sorry, it’s my daughter’s nursery. I have to take this. Juan is in the back,” she says and nods vaguely towards the office. “Hi, Iris speaking,” she says, her pulse rising. The nursery teachers never call to make small talk.

“Hi, this is Stina from Little Pheasants. We’re calling all the parents because we… Well we have to close for the day. Birgitta has come down with something very bad this morning and I’m not feeling too good myself to be honest, even if I could perhaps keep working. But you know how it is, we don’t want to give anything to the kids. And I think some of the children are also feeling sick, they’re talking about tummy aches and…”

“What about Sigrid?” Iris interrupts.

“Huh? Oh, she’s OK. Sorry, I should have said. She’s fine, no problems, but we’ve decided we have to close after lunch. Birgitta will leave once we’ve got hold of all the parents and I’ll lock up once all the kids have been picked up. There aren’t too many here today. I know you don’t collect Sigrid on Wednesdays, but I tried your other number and got no answer so… yeah.”

“OK, um. We’re actually low on staff at the library too… But of course I’ll be there. Or, I’ll try to get hold of my husband, but if I can’t reach him I’ll make it work. It’ll take… well at least half an hour. I’m on my bike.”

They hang up.

Ramir has found Juan and they are both crouched over the intoxicated man who is now sitting, leaning against the wall by the toilets. He coughs, grabs his chest and breathes hard. Juan stands, pats Ramir on the shoulder and Ramir answers, “Yeah, I’ll call them. Thanks.” Juan walks back in the direction of the office.