Daniel Åberg - Virus - Stockholm - S1

“Do you think the train is broken?” he asks his father. Line is now asleep in their father’s arms. “He looks like a repairman.”

His father turns carefully so as not to wake up Dano’s little sister and looks at the crowd at the end of the carriage.

“Looks like it,” he says. “Let’s hope this means we’ll be moving soon. Or at least that they’ll tell us what’s going on.”

Baba’s beard has filled with even more pearls of sweat, Dano thinks. The temperature inside has risen sharply since they turned off the fans. Bilal is being naughty. He tired of standing in mama’s lap a long time ago, but still refuses to sleep. He wants to escape. Even Dano is fidgeting, his urge to pee has gone from annoying distraction to acute emergency.

He gets up.

“I have to find a working toilet,” he says. “Sorry, but I’m going crazy.” Mama looks up at him, he can see the worry in her eyes.

“Bilal and I are coming too,” she says. “He might need a diaper change.” She bends down and roots in the bag at her feet, finds a tatty nappy from the packet they bought when they used up the last of their money in Lidl just before the border with Denmark.

But there wasn’t enough for a new razor blade, Dano thinks, glancing at his father, who, with heavy eyes, is gently caressing a sleeping Line’s hair.

They move forward through the train. Dano goes first, trying to make himself big to clear a path for his mother and little brother. The seats are all taken and some people are standing, which makes it difficult to get through. He hears sighs and huffs, the heat is penetrating and the air is getting worse.

There are other refugees in some of the seats, most of them far worse for wear than Dano and his family. His grandfather’s wealth, the money that Dano knows his father tried to refuse until the threats against his wife became too many, helped them escape. They had been able to avoid many of the worst situations suffered by most refugees, including humiliation at the hands of the worst of the human traffickers.

More have now joined the crowd at the end of the carriage and the conductor is trying to calm a white, middle-aged, red-faced man. The man with the yellow vest is wheezing, he is fat, his breath is strained, and he seems to be suffering from the heat more than the others, even though Dano assumes he has just boarded. He attempts to interrupt the agitated red faced man, but the passenger doesn’t seem interested in listening and instead continues trying to push past, keen to move on to the next carriage.

“Excuse me,” Dano’s mother says, making no secret of the fact that she is holding a baby in her arms. On the contrary, she lifts Bilal higher, makes him visible. “Can we get through here, please?”

The conductor and the man in the yellow vest turn almost in unison to face her. The conductor seems to be trying to determine if she is worthy of his attention, but when he sees the little child in her arms, he makes his decision. He says something to the agitated man, raises a hand as if to calm him and turns to Dano’s mother.

“We can get through please? We need to change the baby’s diaper and my son needs to use the bathroom.”

At first, the conductor hesitates, but then unexpectedly shakes his head. “All toilets have been closed. We have an electrical problem.”

The conductor’s words set Dano’s stomach cramping.

“But he really needs to go,” his mother tries with the same brusque tone as before. She looks through the window. The afternoon sun is scorching the metal tracks. “Can you please open the door so he can go outside?”

The conductor erupts: “No! Why can’t any of you understand?!” he cries, throwing a quick glance at the man with the red face, “it is forbidden to open the doors. A train could come and…”

“But you said there was a red light.”

“What?”

“A red light. Wouldn’t that stop the other trains as well?”

“What do you…? No… I mean… You can’t open the doors!”

Dano notices that all eyes have turned on them. He glances around, meets the questioning eyes, the hint of concern in the faces of the other travellers.

The yellow-vested man leans towards the conductor and says something in a hushed voice. The conductor listens carefully, nods as if in agreement, but the words seem to worry him because his stiff, authoritative expression, the same expression Dano has seen so many times in the past six months, slowly collapses and is replaced by something that at first resembles surprise, then concern. The red-faced man is clearly annoyed to be excluded from the conversation. He gestures angrily with one hand, waving it dangerously close to the man in the vest’s face, who instinctively takes a step back and begins to wheeze even faster.

Dano’s mother puts an arm around her son and pulls him back. “I think he is claustrophobic,” she says to Dano, just as the agitated man lunges at the other man’s tool belt, seizing the handle of the hammer-like object. It catches in the buckle, he struggles, tugs he is surprisingly strong and eventually pulls it free. The man nearly falls, but regains his balance at the last moment and tumbles over the closest seat. He barks something at the two women sitting there. They raise their hands over their faces for protection just as the man strikes the hammer against the window.

A muted thud and subsequent roar of frustration are the only results, and despite being afraid, Dano can’t help reflecting on the fact that Swedish train windows are sealed so tightly shut that not only is it impossible for passengers to open them, but even a hammer can’t dent them. The man raises the hammer again and strikes with even more fury, if that were possible. A small crack appears in the pane. Encouraged by his success, he raises his arm a third time, ready for the final, crucial, blow.

“STOOOOOPP!’ the man with the yellow vest bellows.

Even though Dano doesn’t speak Swedish, he has no trouble understanding this, and surprisingly it works. The man stops and stares back with as much fear as rage at the thick, clammy man in the vest who has now raised his trembling right hand. He is holding something, but Dano doesn’t know what it is. The man is trying to calm himself, collecting his words, before saying something in Swedish.

The conductor looks as if he might be about to protest, but the man in the vest lifts what looks like a heavy manual further in a determined gesture. The conductor says nothing. The people standing in the aisle take a step back and to the side as if obeying a command, so that the man in the vest now has free passage through the carriage.

He moves slowly, stops for a moment to cough heavily, and then continues towards the stairs. Behind him the path closes, and one after another passengers start following him to the exit.

“He’s going to let us out,” Dano says to his mother. He’s afraid of what might happen if he doesn’t.

His mother’s grip around his chest tightens.

“No, we’re going back to our seats. We’re going to wait and see what happens,” she says.

More passengers realise what’s happening and start standing, gathering their things and reaching for bags in the overhead racks. One man pulls his big backpack so hard that it slips from his fingers and falls onto the head of a nearby woman. She snaps, a flash of guilt passes across his face, but disappears just as fast, he quickly grabs the bag as if nothing has happened and starts down the aisle. Dano’s mother just manages to pull Bilal away before he gets squeezed between them. Dano wants to scream “Watch it!” or worse, but he knows it’s better to keep his head down, be invisible, stay calm.

By the time they reach Line and Baba, who is now also standing and searching for his wife, nearly the whole carriage is in motion. A man holding a little girl in his arms asks Dano’s mother what’s going on. He speaks in a North African accent and when she says they seem to be leaving the train, he shouts behind him and hurries forward with his child pressed against him.