Friday Evening
Tracing her was no problem. He called the tax office in Katrineholm and found out that her married name was Widell and that she had moved to Stockholm in 1996. Then he simply looked up Ann-Kristin Widell in the phone book and found someone by that name in Skärholmen. Then he called the relevant tax office and a friendly woman confirmed that she was the person he was looking for.
On Friday afternoon, he did not go home after work. Instead, he took the metro out to Skärholmen. On the local map outside the ticket window he found the address he was looking for almost immediately, and walked there in less than ten minutes. The building was one of several similar massive, white apartment buildings, in a residential area on a hill. The front door opened with an entry code, but after a little while a young mother with a pushchair came out of the building and he held open the door so that she could get the pushchair out more easily. She accepted his assistance without thanking him. As usual he was reduced to nothing.
He took the opportunity to slip in through the open door and scanned the directory until he found what he was looking for: Widell, two floors down – you could also live below street level in these apartment blocks. He went down the steps, his nostrils picking up an odour reminiscent of his childhood apartment building in Katrineholm. It was the floor that smelled – a white floor with black patches, meant to look like stones perhaps – in combination with various cooking odours, especially fish, that escaped through the plain, brown wooden doors of the apartments. He found her door. It said simply ‘Widell’ on the letter box, but otherwise there was no clue to what kind of person, or people, lived inside. He contemplated going out again to try looking through her window. But the darkness and cold outside were not enticing, and considering the sparse traffic he had seen so far in this stairwell, he did not dare take the chance of not being able to get in again in the near future. Probably she had her curtains drawn to keep passers-by from looking in anyway. Instead, he sat down on the stairs leading up from street level, where he could see anyone coming up from the basement.
Without any real idea of how long he should wait, he sat there thinking about how she might have evolved over the years. Not like Hans, he thought. Not like Hans if she lives here. Only unhappy people live here. No one would actually choose to live here. But how could a person like Ann-Kristin, who had made all the kids dance to her tune, be unhappy?
He remembered how Ann-Kristin had ordered him to go and skip with the girls one day when he was on his way home from preschool. Any other boy would have refused, but not Thomas. He did as he was told, not without some enthusiasm at actually being included. But he couldn’t jump; instead he got one foot tangled up in the rope. Ann-Kristin, of course, noticed his predicament, and with lightning speed she tore the skipping rope out of the hand of one of the girls. Then she danced around him, together with the girl holding the other end, turn after turn, until he was completely wrapped in the rope from head to toe, accompanied by the other girls’ squeals of delight. Then she knocked him down, so that he was lying on the ground, squirming in his cocoon. Then they dragged him out to the street and there – in the middle of the road – they left him to die.
He remembered the feeling of panic as he saw a truck turn the corner at the far end of the street and head straight towards him. He screamed at the top of his lungs and the girls, crouching behind a parked car, could not conceal their enjoyment. The truck driver spotted him however, put the brakes on and jumped down to where he was lying. ‘What kind of damn place is this to play cowboys and Indians!’ he swore, untied the skipping rope and gave him a slap. Thomas ran home as fast as he could, with tears streaming down his cheeks, not daring to look over at the car where the girls were giggling. Could that happy, popular Ann-Kristin possibly be living out here in the suburban ghetto, feeling depressed?
* * *
When she woke up it was already dark outside. She looked at the clock on the DVD player and could see it was past six. She turned on the bedside lamp, leaned down and picked up the ashtray from the floor and set it on her stomach. She was almost out of cigarettes. She would have to run down to the corner shop and buy some before seven o’clock. She lit one and took a few deep puffs. There was a half-empty can of beer on the bedside table, and she emptied it in one gulp, regretting it at once. The lukewarm, sticky liquid nauseated her, but by swallowing a few times she was able to minimize the discomfort.
Her eyes wandered across the small room and stopped at the framed photograph of herself and her sisters. It was a happy picture, from summer camp long ago. She was sitting on a little pony with her sisters standing either side. It had been a long time since she had heard from them. At least five years ago, she thought, when their dad died. Marie-Louise, the oldest, had married an American and lived in Ohio on a farm with horses. Viola was wandering around Asia with some idiot, whom Ann-Kristin had only met once, getting high presumably, if she was still alive. Viola always did exactly as she pleased; she’d coasted along, dropped out of school and gone out into the world, without goals and without money.
She was not doing much better herself, but at least she didn’t do drugs. She’d had a so-called accident when she was fifteen, but it wasn’t an accident. It was Widell, their neighbour in Julita where they were living, who had got off with her at one of her dad’s parties. He was drunk, and her dad was drunk, and she was drunk herself and probably didn’t really have anything against it. Then he dragged her into the sauna and she didn’t like that, but the old guys cheered them on, so she probably didn’t resist as much as she should have, being drunk and all. Some time later she moved to the other side of the fence and into the neighbour’s house, and after a few years they got married. They had three children in as many years, but they had moved out now, all of them. Widell died when his hand was cut off by a combine harvester ten years earlier, and she’d taken the opportunity to leave that godforsaken hole and move to the capital.
In Stockholm there weren’t any jobs for her, but she lived for a while on the money left by Widell. After a few years she started her ‘business’, as she called it. She figured she might as well get a little money for her trouble after doing it for free for nineteen years with an old lecher like Widell. In the beginning, when she’d still had children to take care of, there hadn’t been much left over, but in recent years she had saved piles of money. Her dream was to move to Ohio and live and work on her sister’s farm. She had a long-standing invitation.
She put out the cigarette and set the ashtray on the floor again. After a quick shower, she dried her hair, put on rather heavy make-up, pulled on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and rushed down to the corner shop. In her basket she put six cans of beer, Coca-Cola, juice and some bread. At her request, the cashier handed her three packs of cigarettes, then scanned the price tags on the goods and took payment without making eye contact. If there had been condoms in the basket, she wouldn’t have been able to keep from staring, Ann-Kristin thought, but that was something she never bought here. She hoped the neighbours couldn’t guess what she was doing. That was the big advantage of living two flights down – being the only tenant on the floor, and not having any neighbours pounding on the wall or observing your activities.
After a quick clean of the apartment she changed into more provocative clothes and splashed a little perfume behind her ears and in her cleavage. Then she sat down in front of the TV with a cigarette and a drink in her hand, waiting for the first customer of the evening.
* * *
Thomas was shocked when he saw her for the first time. She had been very pretty as a child, if you over-looked the malicious smile and the calculating look. Now she was fat and bloated, with worn, bleached-blonde hair and heavy make-up that was hardly becoming to a respectable person. When she came jogging up the stairs and out into the November cold dressed only in a T-shirt, he felt nothing but surprise. Pure surprise that the winner Ann-Kristin had let her appearance decline to such a degree that she almost resembled a … well, he didn’t know what. A loser, maybe. Then, when she came back with a cigarette in her mouth and a bag of beer and Coca-Cola in her hands and he saw her from the front, it struck him that maybe she wasn’t a respectable person.
A few hours later he knew what she was.
* * *
The murder of Hans Vannerberg happened on Monday evening, and though it was already Friday there had basically been no progress in the investigation. Petra Westman was in her office in the police station in Norra Hammarbyhamnen, staring listlessly at the colourful shapes of the screensaver dancing before her eyes. Yesterday’s visit with Vannerberg’s widow had produced nothing but a sore throat from the effort of holding back the tears. Pia Vannerberg looked pale and emaciated, and perhaps slightly medicated, but it was the sight of the two quiet children that was most depressing. A seemingly inexhaustible grandmother was trying to entertain them with board games while their little sister took a nap, but the children were uninvolved and absent. The following Monday they would go back to school and nursery, and that might divert them for a while, but their childhood was changed for ever.
Petra had spent most of Friday on Hans Vannerberg’s work computer, without finding anything of interest. Now it was six o’clock and she was back in her own office. Normally she would work until late in the evening, but she was out of ideas and considered going down to the gym to activate some endorphins.
‘Hey, guess what?’
Jamal Hamad was standing in the doorway, looking mischievous. Petra tilted her head to one side and met his eyes encouragingly.
‘You don’t have to use the default screensaver that comes with the computer. You can even have a slideshow of your own photos to look at while you sit there twiddling your thumbs. If you have any photos, that is. That presumes you have a life. Which you don’t have if you don’t leave the office when the work day is over. Which you are allowed to do. Did you know that?’
‘You don’t seem to be at a loss for words. What exactly are you trying to say … ?’
Jamal and Petra had known each other since their days at the police academy. They were never classmates, but they socialized at times in the same circles and had always had a soft spot for each other. Besides her good qualifications, Petra possibly had Jamal to thank for her job at the Violent Crimes Unit in Hammarby. He had been there a few years longer than her and she imagined that he put in a good word for her when she applied, though she had never asked him about it.
‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘Do you want to go up to Clarion and have a beer?’
‘I thought it was Ramadan.’
‘Yes, actually, it was. A month ago. Come on.’
The computer emitted a sound indicating that she had been automatically logged out and the screen went dark.
‘You see. A sign from God,’ said Jamal.
‘Allah,’ said Petra, getting up from the chair. ‘Okay, I’m in.’
After a ten-minute walk along Östgötagatan and up to Ringvägen, they entered the hotel. It was noisy and looked like a construction site; the stairs and passages they walked up and through to reach the bar appeared temporary or perhaps under renovation. There were no vacant tables, but at the bar they managed to get their hands on the only free bar stool. After hanging up her coat and bag on a hook under the counter, Petra convinced Jamal to take the stool and stood beside him.
‘I was just thinking about working out when you came and lured me out into bad ways,’ she explained. ‘I’ve been sitting all day, so I’m happy to stand for a while. Or does that offend your Arabic manhood somehow?’
‘Drop it. What would you like? Something to eat?’
‘A beer to start with.’
When they finally got the bartender’s attention, they ordered two large beers and peanuts. As it turned out, the kitchen was closed.
‘When you’re up here and it’s dark outside, Johannesbron looks beautiful,’ said Petra. ‘I guess it’s just all the lights that make it seem so cool and urban. Like Manhattan or something.’
The bartender set their beers and a bowl of nuts on the counter in front of them.
‘Cheers,’ said Jamal, taking a deep gulp.
Petra did the same. As she set the glass down, two young women on Jamal’s side got up to leave. She reacted quickly and managed to grab the closer of the two stools as a man in his fifties took the other one. Their eyes met and they exchanged a smile.
‘You’ve got to be on your toes in here,’ he said, drawing one hand through his light-blond hair before sitting down on the coveted stool.
Petra dragged the heavy bar stool behind Jamal and over to her own spot, climbed up on it and took another gulp of her beer.
‘Are you through exercising now?’ Jamal asked.
‘Yes,’ she answered, clenching her fist in front of his face to reveal her flexed upper arm.
Petra Westman exercised regularly and had nothing to be ashamed of when it came to biceps. The seams on her shirtsleeve were bulging.
‘Thanks for dragging me out. I was stuck anyway.’
‘Now let’s forget about work for a while and talk about something else.’
‘Well said. Let’s go for it.’
They toasted each other and drank and she felt the alcohol already making her feel relaxed and a little tipsy. Thinking about it, she had not had time for a real lunch, yet she did not feel particularly hungry. Maybe that was down to the tension of the slow-moving investigation, now in combination with the filling beer.
They discussed Christer Fuglesang’s impending journey into outer space and laughed at Swedish television’s ongoing parodies of the poor astronaut who never seemed to take off. They ordered another round and Petra wolfed down the last of the peanuts and pushed the empty bowl aside.
‘So where’s the wife this evening?’ she asked.
‘She’s with the mother-in-law,’ Jamal answered, looking down at his glass.
‘Yours or hers?’
‘Mine, of course.’
‘Isn’t she comfortable with your big, fat Lebanese family?’
‘Sure, but –’
‘And you weren’t invited to your mother-in-law’s?’ Petra interrupted. ‘Poor you.’
With feigned sympathy she caressed him lightly on the cheek with the back of her hand, but he recoiled with an irritated frown, so she pulled back her hand.
‘What’s going on with you?’ she asked with surprise.
His reflex movement had embarrassed her. To do something with the rejected hand, she reached again for her glass and took a few substantial gulps.
‘Stop flirting or whatever it is you’re up to,’ said Jamal morosely.
She shifted her gaze over his shoulder and for the second time her eyes met the blond man’s. He raised his wineglass to her. He looked friendly, with an open appearance reminiscent of Conny Sjöberg’s. This similarity prompted her to respond to his toast, contrary to her usual instincts. Jamal noticed something going on over his head, so he glanced quickly over his shoulder to see whom she was toasting. When he looked back she had put the glass down again and looked him right in the eyes.
‘Flirting – what do you mean by that? It felt like an insult.’
‘Making toasts with strange men, for example,’ said Jamal quietly. ‘Don’t do that. You seem a little tipsy.’
‘Jamal, for one thing, he was the one who toasted me. Secondly, I’ve had one beer. Thirdly, you said that I was flirting before I … before he toasted me.’
‘You’ve had almost two beers. And you haven’t eaten a thing. You’re working hard, exercising hard and you’ve had peanuts for dinner. You should expect that to have an effect.’
‘You still haven’t explained to me this thing about flirting. I think I can touch you without you thinking I’m trying to get you in bed. We’ve known each other for a hundred years, for Christ’s sake. Touched each other for just as long.’
Jamal motioned with his hand to calm her, but this only stirred up more emotions.
‘So why did you want to come out with me?’ she continued, in a lower voice now. ‘I wasn’t in the mood, but you were. So you got me to come and here we sit talking and having a nice time and suddenly you get all moody for no reason. Of course I’m hurt, don’t you get that?’
Jamal turned his eyes away from her and let them rest for a moment on a vague spot above a security guard who was leaning against the wall behind the bar. Then he turned back towards her and took her hand in his. He looked at her for a while with a dejected look in his eyes before he started talking again.
‘Okay, Petra. I take back what I said about flirting. I apologize for that.’
‘Seriously?’
She was not sure where this was going, if it would be better or worse, but she did not want to be considered a flirt. Especially not by Jamal, who with his brown velvet eyes, the charming little dimple on his chin and his well-built thirty-year-old policeman’s body could have knocked any woman off her feet before he got married.
‘Seriously. But you are a little tipsy,’ he said, revealing his perfect white teeth in a smile as he let go of her hand. ‘That’s okay. I guess that’s why we’re here. You’re fine, so don’t think any more about that either.’
Jamal sighed and Petra waited attentively for what would come next.
‘Now you might think I’m a little sensitive,’ he continued, ‘but sometimes I get so damn tired of all the allusions to my origins. I know the intentions aren’t bad, and I know that in most cases there’s no prejudice behind it. But it’s just so damn tedious. I am who I am, regardless of my Lebanese roots, which I’m proud of by the way. Sometimes I get the feeling that you all don’t see me behind all that Arab stuff you imagine in me. I’m Swedish, damn it! Just like you. I’ve been living in Sweden since I was six years old, for twenty-four years.’
Petra looked at him with a kind of uncomprehending sympathy in her eyes.
‘And I don’t like that look either,’ Jamal pointed out. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me. I don’t spend my time feeling sorry for you.’
Petra straightened up and tried not to look too sanctimonious. Instead, she gulped down the last of her drink and, without asking Jamal, ordered two more beers. Jamal, too, emptied his glass.
‘And where do I fit into the picture?’ she asked. ‘What was it I said that made you … grumpy?’
‘It goes on all the time. You don’t notice it, because you don’t mean anything by it and you know that I know that you like me and respect me. But it’s “Ramadan” this and “Mohammed” that, one thing after another. Just little things, but it all adds up … What was it you said before … ? Something about my “big, fat Lebanese family”? I just get so tired of that.’
Suddenly Petra knew what he meant. She recalled that she had jokingly asked him whether it ‘offended his Arabic manhood’ that he sat while she stood. She realized how annoying it must be to get such comments about everything you said and did.
‘It’s as though in every conversation with me you had to insert a little comment about … my big ears or something,’ said Petra, suddenly feeling that she was blushing.
Jamal’s face broke out in a scornful smile. Petra covered her face with her hands and drew up her shoulders.
‘I shouldn’t have said anything!’ She peeped out from behind her hands.
‘Now you’re flirting, Westman,’ said Jamal triumphantly.
‘I am not, I really am embarrassed.’ Petra looked up at him imploringly. ‘I should have made something up, not revealed my sore spot.’
Jamal took her head between his hands and pulled her hair behind her ears with his blunt fingers. Then he said, with a suddenly serious expression, ‘I think you have nice ears. Do we understand each other?’
‘Then I think we should leave this topic of conversation.’
Petra agreed, feeling suddenly stone-cold sober. It was often that way for her. After one beer, when she hadn’t had any for a long time, things could really start spinning. After two she felt sober again.
They sat and talked for a while longer. Petra asked what plans Jamal had for the weekend, but he answered evasively and looked at his watch. He asked her about her weekend, but because – as usual – she hadn’t planned anything, there was not much to say about that. She ventured to ask what he thought about the war that was once again raging in Lebanon. Jamal sighed and Petra anticipated him.
‘I’m asking because I’m interested, not because I want to stir anything up.’
‘Yeah, yeah, it’s cool. It’s just that it’s something you can talk about endlessly. Of course I’m against the war. Lebanon was flourishing when the war broke out.’
‘Have you been back?’
‘A few times. We were there on our honeymoon. It’s an amazing country. Was an amazing country.’
‘But the war will end sooner or later?’ Petra asked.
‘I’m not so sure about that. It’s all very complicated. And very simple, seen from any particular perspective. Everyone wants what they think they have a right to. And everyone is right in their own way.’
‘But who should you support? Who do you support?’
‘It isn’t a football match, with two teams. You don’t even know what teams are playing, do you?’
‘Apparently not,’ Petra admitted.
‘There are more than two teams. The situation in Lebanon is even more complicated than the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Just as impossible to resolve, but harder to get a sense of. Most people in Lebanon don’t even know what it’s about.’
‘But tell me which side you’re on,’ Petra tried ingenuously.
‘I’m sitting here in Sweden, just hoping for peace. A peaceful solution, with everyone getting their share of the pie. But that’s easy to say when you’re not in the middle of it. If I was still living in Lebanon, it would be a lot harder to view the conflict from any perspective other than my own.’
‘So where in Lebanon did you live?’
‘In a village in the south. Then in Beirut. Dad was a schoolteacher.’
‘And now? What does he do here in Sweden?’
‘He drove a taxi until he retired a year ago. When he came here he was very determined that we would all become Swedes, and that we would not isolate ourselves in some suburb among a lot of other immigrants. That has advantages and disadvantages, of course, but it turned out well for me and my siblings, so we’re extremely grateful to our parents. But they have never really managed to be accepted in Swedish society. They live for us.’
‘Is your dad happy with your choice of occupation?’ Petra continued stubbornly.
‘He’s very proud of all four of us.’
‘What would you have become if you’d stayed in Lebanon, do you think?’
Jamal emptied his glass and glanced at his watch again. It was eight-thirty.
‘I’ve got to go now,’ he said, jumping down from the bar stool.
He reached for his leather jacket and put it on without zipping it up. Petra had just started on her third beer, so she decided to stay and enjoy the lively Friday atmosphere around her. Jamal took his wallet from his back pocket and pulled out two hundred-kronor bills, which he placed on the bar in front of her.
‘See you,’ he said, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek.
‘You didn’t answer my question,’ said Petra.
He looked at her for a few moments, a look that did not reveal what he was thinking.
‘Hezbollah,’ he answered curtly, and then left.
Petra remained sitting there for a long time with her hands around the beer glass, staring vacantly ahead of her. What could that mean? Hezbollah – wasn’t that a terrorist group?
‘It sounds like you may need a little refresher on the political situation in Lebanon.’
Petra looked up in surprise. It was the man on the neighbouring bar stool, the man who had raised his glass to her earlier in the evening. He was nicely but casually dressed in a light-blue shirt unbuttoned at the neck, a dark-blue blazer and a pair of well-fitting jeans held in place by a Johan Lindeberg belt. When he smiled the skin around his eyes wrinkled in an attractive way under a lock of hair that tended to fall down over his forehead.
‘Yes, that’s putting it mildly,’ Petra sighed, responding to his smile with a little laugh.
‘Please excuse me, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I happened to hear fragments of your conversation and I am quite well informed on the subject, so I couldn’t help myself. Would you like to talk, or perhaps you’d rather sit by yourself?’
The man gave a genuinely pleasant impression, and the fact that he actually admitted eavesdropping somehow added to his credibility. He had blue eyes and a thick mop of hair that she thought must make any man his age a little jealous.
‘No, we can talk a little,’ said Petra. ‘But I’m heading home soon,’ she added to be on the safe side.
‘Yes, me too,’ said the man. ‘I’m working tomorrow, so it will have to be an early evening for me.’
He made no effort to move closer, but continued instead.
‘Lebanon is a marvellous country. Did you know that you can swim in the Mediterranean and go skiing in a resort with an amazing lift system all in one afternoon?’
‘I think I’ve heard that, but I didn’t know it was so close,’ Petra admitted.
‘Yes, in Faraya-Mzaar there are something like forty slopes and the view from there is amazing. On one side you have the Bekaa Valley, and if the weather is clear you can see all the way to Beirut.’
‘So that’s the place to go, if you can’t decide between a skiing and a swimming holiday,’ Petra laughed.
‘Absolutely. But not now. Cheers.’
Petra responded to his toast with a nod and took a sip of her beer.
‘So, do you know anything about the war?’ said Petra.
He nodded and set his glass down in front of him.
‘Then you’ll have to brief me. It seems I have a gap in my education.’
‘Sure. In the beginning of time – which was not all that long ago …’
Petra suddenly realized that they were sitting there shouting at each other at a distance of several metres, and asked him to move closer. The man laughed at the ridiculous situation, took his wineglass and jacket and moved over to the stool where Jamal had just been sitting.
‘Peder,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘Peder Fryhk.’
‘Petra,’ said Petra.
‘Well, both of those trouble spots – Israel and Lebanon – were pet projects for a few European fools in the 1920s who got the idea they should stake a claim to areas with major archaeological value. After the division of the Ottoman Empire, Syria became a French League of Nations mandate.’
‘After the First World War?’ said Petra.
‘After the First World War. The French colonialists took particular care of the Maronites – who were Catholics – in the Lebanon Mountains, the old Phoenician coastland in Syria. Then in the early 1920s, the French drew a few lines on the map and, just like that, Lebanon became a Christian, European country in the middle of all the Muslims. Then, when Lebanon became independent in 1943, political power was divided between Christians and Muslims and a few others. That was a balancing act, but it worked until the Arabs decided to invade the new state of Israel.’
‘When was that? 1947? ’48?’
‘It was 1948. Then Palestinian refugees poured into Lebanon, while hundreds of thousands of Christians fled and made their way to South America. Since then there has been no Christian majority in Lebanon, in fact, quite the opposite.’
‘And so the French and Israelis back the Christian minority and the Arab world supports the Muslims?’
‘Something like that. Although it’s even more complicated than that. You probably can’t bear listening to me droning on any more.’
He emptied his wineglass and waved to the bartender.
‘Try me,’ said Petra.
‘Okay. Two glasses of house red, thanks,’ he said to the bartender and then continued his account for Petra, who was doing her best to memorize what he was saying.
Once again she saw the features of Sjöberg in this man. He had really warmed to his subject, and he was so passionate that sparks were flying around him. And the enthusiasm was contagious.
‘None of these Palestinian refugees have any rights as citizens in Lebanon, so right there a certain discontent started to grow. Israel, for its part, feared the Arabs who surrounded them in all directions, so they made pacts with any non-Arabs who could be mobilized in the vicinity, including those Maronites in Lebanon. At that time Egypt’s President Nasser was promoting Arab nationalism and in the late 1960s he forced the government of Lebanon, which had no say in it, to open up the southern part of the country to the PLO to attack Israel. South Lebanon became a Palestinian enclave. That was when the spiral of violence took off, you might say. And then there was Syria, which had never acknowledged the invention of the French Lebanon as a separate country. So in 1975, when the civil war got going, Syria first helped the Palestinians to kill Christians, and then the Maronites to murder Palestinians. Finally they got what they wanted. With Israel’s consent, Syria occupied Lebanon, on the basis that they would keep the PLO in check in South Lebanon. Do you follow?’
‘So everyone was dissatisfied and everyone had pretty good reason to be that way too,’ said Petra, emptying her beer glass.
Peder Fryhk scooted a wineglass over to her.
‘That’s just how it was. And it only got worse. Did he say he came from South Lebanon, your friend?’
‘Yes, but they moved to Beirut,’ Petra confirmed.
‘The powers-that-be in Israel got the idea that they should eradicate the Palestinian enclave in South Lebanon, so they invaded, drove the Syrians out of Beirut and installed a Christian regime in Lebanon. Syria then had the new Christian president assassinated, and in turn the Maronites started slaughtering civilian Palestinians in refugee camps. The PLO moved its headquarters to Tunis, but as you might guess, there were foot soldiers still in South Lebanon and they naturally had major support from all the “old” Palestinians in the country, who had been living under a kind of apartheid since 1948. It was then, in the absence of the PLO, that Hezbollah was formed.’
‘And that wasn’t so strange,’ Petra interjected.
‘No, not at all. And so now there was a drawn-out war between Hezbollah and Israel playing out in South Lebanon.’
‘But the Lebanese in South Lebanon, what did they do?’
‘They were peaceful Shia Muslim farmers who tried to keep out of it. Many of them fled to south Beirut, which developed into a Hezbollah enclave, where their sons were trained to be fully-fledged child soldiers ready and willing to sacrifice themselves.’
‘Because they had lost what they had and could see no future. Yes, good Lord,’ Petra sighed. ‘It’s never-ending. When was this?’
‘Hezbollah was formed in 1982,’ said Peder. ‘Cheers.’
Petra sipped the wine and suddenly it was clear to her why Jamal’s father had taken his family and left Lebanon. And what Jamal meant by what he had said as he was leaving the bar, and why he was unable to explain. And what a badly educated idiot she was. Twice she had been through a course in world history, at primary and secondary school. Neither time had they got further than the First World War. She knew more than she cared to about the Stone Age and the Viking Age, and she knew the list of Sweden’s monarchs, but they had never even touched on the conflicts in the Middle East. Or any other trouble spot in the modern world.
Peder continued to explain about the involvement of the United States and the rest of the world in Lebanese politics, Syria’s retaking of and later departure from Lebanon, the murder of Rafic Hariri and the current situation. Petra listened with great interest. She hoped that all this useful information would not be completely gone tomorrow, and convinced herself that the essentials would stick in her mind anyway. Two hours later, when yet another glass of wine was put in front of her, it occurred to her that she was in desperate need of a toilet break. She had been so consumed by the sympathetic man’s monologue and – she believed and hoped – her newly won knowledge about her colleague and his background, that she had been oblivious to all else.
‘How do you happen to be so well-informed about all this?’ she asked when she returned.
On her way back from the toilet she had determined that she was not particularly intoxicated, but she decided that it was time to go home after this glass anyway. Three beers and two glasses of wine in five hours was not a problem, but it was more than enough.
‘I’ve worked down there,’ Peder answered. ‘True, it was a long time ago, but I love that country and so I keep up with what’s going on.’
‘What did you do there?’ Petra asked.
‘I worked as a doctor for an organization called Doctors Without Borders.’
Petra laughed at his modesty. ‘Are you kidding me, you’re a Nobel Prize-winner! Let me congratulate you.’
‘I’ve never looked at it that way, but maybe you’re right,’ Peder said. ‘Let’s drink to that.’
They did, and Peder also had a few things to say about the refugee camp in Beirut where he had worked and then revealed, in answer to a direct question from Petra, that he was now working as an anaesthetist at Karolinska Hospital.
‘What kind of work do you do?’ he then asked.
Petra was in no way ashamed of her choice of occupation, but over the years she had discovered that people’s reactions sometimes disappointed her when she answered that question truthfully. For that reason she had a standard response that she gave to people she met off duty and whom she had no intention of seeing again.
‘I’m an insurance agent at Folksam,’ she replied, absentmindedly fingering her watch.
This answer was so uninteresting there were seldom any follow-up questions, and that was the point of it.
‘Then you’re close to work anyway,’ Peder said.
Petra smiled back and downed the last drops in her glass. She noticed that it was almost midnight and she was starting to feel extremely tired. The week had taken its toll after all, although she had not really accomplished anything. She waved at the bartender and showed him the four hundred kronor piled neatly on the bar. She knew that would be more than enough, tip included.
‘Well, I think it’s time to move along,’ said Petra, getting down from the bar stool.
‘I agree,’ said Peder, anticipating her attempt to take her coat from the hook under the bar.
He helped her on with her coat and handed her the bag she had set down on the counter, then he put on his own jacket. Petra had spent twenty minutes in the shoe shop trying to decide whether to buy the better-looking boots with a higher heel or the not-as-fashionable but more comfortable ones with a lower heel. In the end she had chosen the trendy boots with the slightly higher heels. Which she regretted now, as one foot folded under her.
‘Whoops,’ said Petra, with a vague thought going through her mind that had something to do with flirting.
‘I’ll follow you to your taxi, young lady,’ said Peder Fryhk, taking her arm under his.