Omid was a young man, considerably taller than Sammy had pictured him. Sammy’s first impression was that he moved self-confidently, but was also prepared to take a step to the side, back off.
His first words were: “That man saved my life.” He meant Sam Rothe.
“I know,” said Sammy.
“If he’s done wrong, I’m the one you should arrest.”
“He’s from the police!” Rothe shouted.
“Shall we talk?” said Sammy, who up to now had not moved at all. Despite the tension—this was a breakthrough—he tried to keep his voice collected and calm.
Omid nodded. “It’s been a long time since I talked with a policeman, and then it didn’t go too well,” he said. He has a sense of humor, Sammy thought, that makes it easier.
They sat down right next to the abandoned duck pond. Rothe had arranged a couple of chairs and a cracked bench under a flapping canopy of green fabric. There was also a round metal table with a bush-hammered top, what Angelika would call a smoking table. On the ground there were raffia rugs that had started to get moldy. Sammy got the feeling of being in a degenerate Bedouin environment. The shriek of the donkey, which seemed to sense the unease in the air, reinforced that image.
Rothe stood apprehensively a short distance away, and that was good. Sammy wanted to have Omid to himself. He started with his sympathy for his cousin’s death. The Hazara made no comment.
“Tell me what happened. I’m thinking about the fire. What did you see?”
“I saw the ones who set it,” said Omid.
“Would you be able to point them out?”
“One is dead. The one in the fire. Sam showed me a picture in the newspaper.”
“Daniel Mattsson,” Sammy stated. “Two others.”
“I don’t know their names.”
“Would you be able to recognize them if you saw pictures?”
“I think so. It was dark, but it had started to burn. I saw them in the window, back side of the building. They were laughing.”
“Why have you been hiding? You should have talked with us right away.”
“No one believes a Hazara.”
For Omid that was a truth, just as much as that the earth is round. It was there in his tone of voice, but it was not an accusation hurled out, simply a statement.
“Tell me what happened after the fire.”
“I ran,” Omid began. “I ran from Hamid.” He looked at Sammy as if to underscore, imprint, his words. “Every day I see it, I’m running, it’s cold. It’s dark. I ran from Hamid. He is dead.”
“But you didn’t know…”
“No, I didn’t know that he … but if I’d stopped … Why in a car?”
How many times must he have asked himself that question.
“You ran to Sam’s house, right?”
Omid explained how he’d made his way in. The cellar door was unlocked. He found a sack of old clothes that he used for bedding, and even what Sammy assumed was a roll of insulation that he spread out on the floor. He curled up there. The next day Sam came to the house. He saw the tracks in the snow that led down to the cellar, and there found an exhausted Omid frozen stiff.
“He didn’t ask anything. He helped me.”
“Why, do you think?”
Omid looked over toward Sam Rothe, who was crouching by the pond, like an emaciated smallholder in a foreign country, a man who had just lost his harvest. It looked like he was considering drowning himself. Whether he heard what they were talking about was impossible to say.
“Where I lived with Hamid was a man, Hazara. One foot was missing, but he had a wooden one. He sold tea and small cakes with nuts, others with no nuts. They were cheaper. His sister baked. He poured tea in small cups. People drank and paid, he moved on. Every morning he poured a cup for a man with no money, gave him a cake with nuts. Not to everyone, there were so many poor people, but every day one man, one poor man. It can be cold in the morning.”
“Was that in Afghanistan?”
“Iran,” said Omid. “We had fled there.”
“You can weld now,” said Sammy.
Omid smiled. “Bertil taught me. He is like a book. He knows so much. He wanted me to try different things, in order to understand my hands. He bought airplanes and boats I should build. Small, small things, with glue.”
Sammy understood that Omid meant models to put together.
“Patience, he said. I learned that word.”
“Those two who are still alive, do you want the police to take them?”
Omid nodded.
“Do you want to look at the photos?” The binder with the pictures he had shown Rothe earlier was in the car. He retrieved them. Omid studied each photo carefully, as if he wanted to imprint the appearances. Without a word, without changing expression, he went through the binder, before he shut it again.
“Two,” he said and without hesitation opened to the picture that was marked “3” and which depicted Daniel Mattsson, and went further to the last of the dozen that were in the binder. It depicted Stefan Sanberg.
“One is missing,” said Sammy.
“Not there.”
Sammy felt relieved in a way. Sebastian Ottosson was not pointed out. “Number three and twelve,” he said. “Look one more time.” Omid shook his head and handed back the binder.
“Did you set fire to the smithy, the building at the farm?”
Sam Rothe let out a sound that could have been made by one of the animals he sold or set free. Omid rested his laced fingers on his lap, mumbled something inaudible. Sammy got the idea that he was invoking a god. But Muslims don’t pray that way, do they? Omid was probably a Muslim, Sammy assumed. He ought to ask.
A minute passed, a long minute, where the second hand hesitated before every movement. Perhaps I’ll never get an answer, thought Sammy, and without a confession the Hazara could never be convicted. There were no witnesses, no technical evidence. There was motive, as well as opportunity, but that would not go far in a trial. Assumptions would be an attorney’s obvious objection, and a court would agree.
“It may be number seven,” Omid said at last.
Sammy opened the binder. The picture depicted Rasmus Rönn.
“Put them in prison,” said Omid, and Sammy understood that it was a prerequisite for Omid to speak openly and honestly about the night when the smithy burned.
When Sammy Nilsson opened the car door for Omid, a flock of doves flew over the farm. They came in a beautiful long curve from the forest, describing an arc before they landed gently on the roof of the old barn.
“Coming home again,” said Omid. Sam Rothe stood as if paralyzed, still by the pond, still silent. He had not said a word about the fact that Omid would be transported to Uppsala. The doves celebrated their newly won freedom by observing the abandoned aviaries. They strolled across the tile roof, amused themselves, socialized awhile, before as if at a given sign they lifted again and disappeared behind the jagged outline of the forest.
Sammy jumped into the car, locked the doors in childproof position. Omid met his gaze in the rearview mirror. Sammy said a silent prayer that the transport would go well, that Omid would not get any ideas. He should have called for backup, but did not want to subject Omid to that. This was perhaps the last time the Hazara could travel with a feeling that he was doing so voluntarily.
“I trust you,” he said, putting the car in gear. “We’ll take the back roads. It will be a little longer, but you won’t have to see the village.”