Фредрик Бакман - Anxious People

When his daughter was a teenager, Jim used to think that children were like kites, so he held on to the string as tightly as he could, but eventually the wind carried her off anyway. She pulled free and flew off into the sky. It’s hard to tell exactly when a person’s substance abuse begins, which is why everyone is lying when they say: “I’ve got it under control.” Drugs are a sort of dusk that grant us the illusion that we’re the ones who decide when the light goes out, but that power never belongs to us. The darkness takes us whenever it likes.

A few years ago Jim found out that Jack had withdrawn all his savings, which he was planning to use to buy an apartment, and used them to pay for his sister’s treatment in an exclusive private clinic. Jack drove his sister there. She checked herself out two weeks later, too late for him to get his money back. She didn’t get in touch for six months, when she suddenly phoned in the middle of the night as if nothing had happened, and asked if Jack could lend her “a few thousand.” For a plane ticket home, she said. Jack sent the money, she never came. Her dad is still running about on the ground, trying not to lose sight of the kite way up in the sky, that’s the difference between the father and the brother. Next Christmas one of them will say: “She’s…,” and the other will whisper: “I know, Dad,” then get him another beer.

Obviously they find ways to argue about beer, too. Jack is one of those young men who is curious about beers that taste of grapefruit and gingerbread and sweets and all sorts of other crap. Jim wants beer that tastes of beer. Sometimes he calls the complicated version “Stockholm beer,” but not too often, naturally, because then his son gets so angry that Jim has to buy his own damn beer for several weeks. He sometimes thinks it’s impossible to know if children end up completely different despite the fact that they grew up together, or precisely because of that. He glances over the top of the computer screens and watches his son’s fingertips on the keyboard. The little police station in their not especially large town is a fairly quiet place. Not much happens there, they’re not used to hostage dramas, or any sort of drama at all, really. So Jim knows that this is Jack’s big chance to show the bosses what he can do, what sort of police officer he can be. Before the experts from Stockholm show up.

Jack’s frustration is dragging his eyebrows down and restlessness is blowing a gale inside him. He’s been teetering on the verge of a furious outburst ever since he was the first officer into the apartment. He’s been keeping a lid on it, but after the last interview he marched into the staffroom and exploded: “One of these witnesses knows what happened! Someone knows and is lying to our faces! Don’t they understand that a man could be lying hidden somewhere, bleeding to death right now? How the hell can anyone lie to the police while someone’s dying ?”

Jim didn’t say a word when Jack sat down at his computer after his outburst. But when the coffee cup hit the wall, it wasn’t Jack who threw it. Because even if his son was furious about not being able to save the perpetrator’s life, and hated the fact that a group of damn Stockholmers were about to show up and take the investigation away from him, that came nowhere close to the frustration his father felt at not being able to help him.

A long silence follows. First they glare at each other, then down at their keyboards. Eventually Jim manages to say: “Sorry. I’ll clean it up. I just… I can understand that this is driving you crazy. I just want you to know that it’s driving me crazy… too.”

He and Jack have both studied every last inch of the plan of the apartment. There are no hiding places in there, nowhere to go. Jack looks at his dad, then at the remains of the coffee cup behind him, and says quietly: “He must have had help. We’re missing something here.”

Jim stares at the notes from the interviews with the witnesses.

“We can only do our best, son.”

It’s easier to talk about work when you haven’t quite got the words to talk about the other things in life, but obviously those words apply to both things at the same time. Jack has been thinking about the bridge ever since the hostage drama started, because during his best nights he still dreams that the man didn’t jump, that Jack managed to save him. Jim thinks about the same bridge all the time, because during his worst nights he dreams that it was Jack who jumped instead.

“Either one of the witnesses is lying, or they all are. Someone must know where this man is hiding,” Jack repeats mechanically.

Jim sneaks a glance at Jack’s two index fingers, tapping the desktop the same way as his mother after a heavy night at the hospital or prison. Too much time has passed for the father to ask his son how he’s doing, too much time for the son to be able to explain. The distance between them is too great now.

But when Jim slowly gets up from his chair with the full symphony of a middle-aged man’s groans, to wipe the wall and pick up the pieces of the cup he threw, Jack gets quickly to his feet and walks to the staffroom. He comes back with two more cups. Not that Jack drinks coffee, but he understands that it occasionally means something to his father not to have to drink alone.

“I shouldn’t have got involved in your interview, son,” Jim says in a low voice.

“It’s okay, Dad,” Jack replies.

Neither of them means it. We lie to those we love. They hunch over their keyboards again and type up the final transcripts of all the interviews with the witnesses, reading them through one more time in search of clues.

They’re right, both of them. The witnesses aren’t telling the truth, not all of it. Not all of them.

14

Witness Interview

Date: December 30

Name of witness: London

JACK:You’d probably be more comfortable if you sat on the chair instead of the floor.

LONDON:Have you got something wrong with your eyes or something? You can see that the charging cable for my cell phone won’t reach the chair.

JACK:And moving the chair is out of the question, obviously.

LONDON:What?

JACK:Nothing.

LONDON:You’ve got really crap reception in here. Like, one bar…

JACK:I’d like you to switch your phone off now so I can ask my questions.

LONDON:I’m not stopping you, am I? Ask away. Are you really a cop? You look too young to be a cop.

JACK:Your name is London, is that correct?

LONDON:“Correct.” Is that how you talk? You sound like you’re doing role-play with someone who gets turned on by accountants.

JACK:I’d appreciate it if you could try to take this seriously. Your name is L-o-n-d-o-n?

LONDON:Yes!

JACK:I have to say, that’s an unusual name. Well, maybe not unusual, but interesting. Where’s it from?

LONDON:England.

JACK:Yes, I understand that. What I meant was, is there a special reason why you’re called that?

LONDON:It’s what my parents decided to call me. Have you been smoking something?

JACK:You know what? Let’s forget that and just move on.

LONDON:It’s not worth getting upset about, is it?

JACK:I’m not upset.

LONDON:Right, because you don’t sound at all upset.

JACK:Let’s focus on the questions. You work in the bank, is that correct? And you were working at the counter when the perpetrator came in?