Babylon (42 page)
‘There’s nothing you can do,’ she said after a short pause. ‘Nothing more than you’ve already done. You came to see if I was all right. I know you find these things difficult, and that makes your visit all the more touching. But I’m fine, don’t you worry. I’ll get through this, even if I’ve had to make a lot of adjustments lately. I’m looking forward to picking up where I left off, to building something new, something good.’
When she moved into the hallway, he took it as an indication that she wanted to be alone.
‘Every coin has a reverse side. That’s been very clear to me lately, particularly over this past week. Even if you don’t see the positive side until much later.’
For a moment his hand rested on the door handle. ‘Sometimes I just wish that I was a bit better at seeing the silver lining sooner. It would save a lot of unnecessary suffering.’
‘True.’
Beckman smiled slowly and Tell smiled back; he came down to earth with a sudden growing understanding. He was back.
‘Thanks for coming, Tell. I’m off work for the next week. Then I’ll be back.’
Tell walked through the courtyard and out onto the street; he had the feeling that Beckman was watching him from the kitchen window. He didn’t get his phone out until he reached Slottsskogsgatan.
He would have preferred to see her face to face, but he was still pleased when Seja answered.
‘I just wanted to say that I love you. Very much.’
As he ended the call, he realised that, oddly enough, he hadn’t heard her reply, and yet his body felt warm and soft.
He pulled off the bandage and threw it in a bin.
He had heard a child in the background, which meant that her friend Hanna was there with her son. He made a decision: to Pennygången for a quick check on the situation, then back home to throw a few things in a bag. He could definitely be in Stenared by five.
Gothenburg
Valand was abuzz. Trams were screeching and rattling as they rounded the corner from Kungsportsavenyn to Vasagatan, and the taxis right behind them revved impatiently. Shoppers emerging from the Pressbyrå mini-market stepped straight out into the cycle lane and cyclists rang their bells amidst the in-line skaters and strollers. Röhsska Museum stood calm and solid, like a colossus in the midst of the chaos.
Karlberg felt foolish, sitting in the passenger seat of an armoured car transporting priceless treasures. Cecilia Lindgren was waiting on Teatergatan, a back door leading into the museum standing wide open behind her.
‘Welcome at last,’ she said when Karlberg had retrieved the unassuming bag from the back seat. ‘You’re leaving it in safe hands.’
‘I’m just glad to get rid of it, to be honest. Sorry it took so long, a few other things came up. But now . . .’
Lindgren took the bag with both hands, her lips slightly parted. She was wearing a short knitted skirt which looked as if it might be rather warm for this time of year, and bright rose-patterned tights. Karlberg glanced down at her legs and suppressed a smile. The first drops of rain began to fall from a darkening sky.
‘Would you like to come in while I take a look at these?’
‘Er . . . yes. Thank you, that would be interesting.’
‘Rain again! Whatever happened to the nice weather?’
Their footsteps echoed off the walls, which carried within them the smell of dust from stone and fabric, and which had remained cool even in the early summer heat.
Hence the knitted skirt and tights
. Karlberg felt as if knowledge from every epoch had settled within these walls, in the air which every visitor breathed, which Cecilia Lindgren breathed . . .
‘I’m working on a project at the moment,’ she said as they walked.
‘I’m studying the museum’s artefacts from the Middle East. We can go along to the office I’m using in a little while, but first I’d like to show you the architecture exhibition room. It contains a lion and dragon from Babylon. Here we are.’
‘I’m not sure . . .’
She led Karlberg to the centre of the room. Only then did he see what she meant. Each side of the opening leading to the foyer was adorned with a huge relief made up of glazed tiles.
‘Impressive,’ was all he could muster.
‘They certainly are. I wanted you to get an idea of what . . .’ She gestured towards the cloth bag. The reverence with which she was looking at the reliefs was remarkable given that she must have seen them countless times.
‘They were found during German archaeological digs, and they are the only examples of Babylonian culture we have in Sweden. Do you know much about Babylon?’
‘Er . . . I vaguely remember from my RE lessons that they built a tower reaching up into the sky.’
‘About two hours’ drive from Baghdad, across the desert, is what is called the cradle of civilisation. Many Sumerian towns were located there; the best known is Babylon, with its notorious tower of Babel. At least according to the Bible it became a symbol of hubris, avarice and materialism; the Babylonians tried to construct a tower which would reach all the way up to God, and He punished them by confusing their languages. These reliefs come from a hill that was the centre of the city.’
She pointed to the pictures. ‘There would have been sixty lions on either side. The dragon – the animal sacred to the gods Marduk and Nabo – comes from the gate itself.’
Karlberg nodded, trying to summon up the same enthusiasm as Cecilia Lindgren. The lion’s mouth was wide open, its tail high in the air; a depiction of strength. The dragon had the head and tail of a snake, but the front legs of a lion and the hind legs of a bird of prey.
With Karlberg trailing behind her, Cecilia Lindgren headed back through the foyer. They entered a room which wasn’t particularly large, but the high ceiling gave an impression of space. She offered Karlberg a chair by a window looking out over a rain-soaked Vasagatan. She spread a cloth over a table next to him then, with infinite care, she
unwrapped twenty-nine artefacts from the padded cloth and arranged them in a straight line from one side of the table to the other: two necklaces, earrings and hair slides, a dozen or so clay figures, two bowls and a number of seals.
Karlberg was certainly curious, yet he couldn’t take his eyes off the expression on Cecilia Lindgren’s face. It almost embarrassed him; he felt as if he ought to leave the room and give her the privacy the occasion demanded.
‘Some of the jewellery is just incredible,’ she said eventually. ‘The style is actually quite similar to the pieces that were dug up in Nimrud. Not quite as showy, perhaps, but still, if they were cleaned so that you could see they were gold . . . Have you heard of the Treasures of Nimrud?’
‘No . . .’
‘Sixty-five kilos of gold, silver and precious stones in the form of jewellery, bowls and goblets was discovered beneath a palace in the city of Nimrud in northern Iraq. The jewellery was worn by three historically important queens and symbolised their power over Iraq. It was thought that these artefacts had been stolen during the invasion, but they were later found in a bank vault where they had been placed for safe-keeping. I think these items date from approximately the same period, perhaps six to eight hundred years BC. Have you noticed the gold leaves decorating the necklace and these two bracelets? Such precise work!’
‘And the other items?’
‘Well . . . they’re a bit of a mixed bag,’ she said after some hesitation. ‘Some are probably considerably older than the ones I showed you before. I would guess that the representations of women and animals are approximately seven thousand years old.’
She held up a fragment of clay which didn’t look like anything remotely recognisable to Karlberg. He thought he might just be able to distinguish the outline of a pair of narrowing eyes.
‘A pair of eyes is widely thought to be a symbolic representation of a god. Otherwise I would say that most of these figures were meant to somehow glorify the ruler, or they had religious or symbolic significance. They would have played a role in rituals of praying to or appeasing the gods, to influence nature, to prevent unforeseen disasters . . . Or to drive out evil; we think bowls like these, inscribed with
religious quotations and spiritual invocations, would be placed in the corner of a room, or buried under the threshold of the house, to capture demons and other creatures.’
She showed him something that looked like a small stamp. ‘Can you see IM marked on the seals? And on a number of the figures. Iraq Museum.’
‘Our contact at Glyptoteket in Copenhagen, Alexandr—’
‘Alexandr Karpov, yes. He’s more of an expert in this field than I am.’
‘. . . said this had something to do with the war in Iraq.’
‘Oh yes?’
‘So these objects come from Iraq?’
‘If I mentioned the Land Between Two Rivers, what would you say?’ When she smiled, her laughter lines reached all the way to her temples. ‘And if I said Mesopotamia?’
‘I wouldn’t say very much at all.’
She laughed. ‘What I mean is that these items come from the place we now call Iraq – and its neighbouring countries. Some of them are from the Iraq Museum, as I said. Some might have been stolen – from graves, for example. Which makes them even more interesting in a way: nobody has had the opportunity to analyse them yet. So, do you know anything about the war in Iraq?’
‘Yes, of course. Sort of. Well, only what’s been on the news, really.’
‘OK, so perhaps you know that on the night American soldiers entered Baghdad, Iraq’s national museum was plundered; this was an event of world importance. There were pictures from the cradle of human civilisation and the dawn of science. The origins of writing, mathematics, astronomy . . . The innermost rooms of the museum were emptied. Things were smashed to pieces, stolen.’
‘And sold?’
Cecilia Lindgren nodded. ‘The suspicion is that those responsible were linked to the illegal international art trade. It took two days to empty the museum, and another day or so before the first artefacts turned up on the Internet.’
She folded her arms over her chest, her fingers digging into her upper arms.
‘May I ask how all this ended up in the hands of the police?’
‘It’s a very long story. But our theory is that one particular individual bought these items on a trip.’
‘A trip where?’
‘He was in Istanbul a while ago.’
‘Not impossible. Hmm. At any rate, it’s fantastic that they’ve been found; let’s just hope that—’
‘What are you doing now?’ Karlberg heard himself say, and could have bitten his tongue a second later.
Timing, it was all about timing
. And his was usually terrible.
Cecilia Lindgren did indeed look surprised.
‘What do you mean by now?’
‘I just think what you’re doing is really interesting –
Oh no, inane flattery, it’s getting worse and worse
. – and I wondered if you’d like to join me for some lunch . . . so that we can carry on chatting about what happened when the museum was plundered?’
‘OK, if you hang on a minute, I’ll just get my coat. Good job it’s waterproof.’
To Karlberg’s inexpressible surprise, this beautiful woman was smiling at him.
Gothenburg
Sitting outside the Marmalade Café, Rebecca Nykvist was just finishing a letter to Henrik’s parents. It had ended up as a brief but conciliatory account of their relationship, which had been more good than bad, in spite of everything. She hoped that was true.
After tucking the letter into her handbag, she listened in to the conversations around her. They were all about trivial things. Rebecca envied these people for their ordinary lives so much that it hurt. She wrapped her hands around the scalding glass of tea and watched her palms turn crimson. Her skin was burning.
A man came out of the Co-op with a newspaper and made his way clumsily across the tramlines. He glanced over the tables and their eyes met.
‘Anyone sitting here?’
Grateful for the illusion of company, she moved over and indicated that the man was welcome to sit down. He spread
Göteborgsposten
over his half of the table. Rebecca dared to lean her head back at an angle and glance across at Axel Donner’s apartment, its two dark windows reflecting the light.
After she had handed an application for sick leave to her boss, she had felt drawn to Mariaplan. She knew perfectly well that she couldn’t change anything by sitting where she now sat, or even by standing in the stairwell outside the door that still bore the name A. Donner. Or if she reached out and touched the door. She wouldn’t lose her feeling of terror. And Axel wouldn’t be there. She would have liked to talk to him, but he had no doubt been charged with murder by now.
Rebecca had phoned the police switchboard and been informed that the inspector was unavailable and his colleague was off sick. She tried again, her mobile pressed to her ear: Christian Tell was still unavailable.
Her tea was cooling fast and she lost interest in it. She fiddled with her phone, wanting to talk to anyone who could throw some light on what had happened between her and Axel on the bridge.
She closed her eyes and went over it again: his agonised expression. It had been like staring straight into her own deepest pain. Her envy. And their exchange had been over so quickly that afterwards she wasn’t even sure it had happened. They had shared an involuntary, incomprehensible moment of intimacy. It is often said that when a person is drowning, his life flashes before his eyes; she remembered the very first time she had seen Axel and Henrik together, joined in their own secret little club and, as usual, she had felt like a piece of ice. The feeling reminded her of when she was upset as a little girl. But then she had swallowed hard and decided to become untouchable. She had become conscientious and so strong that she never needed anyone, and this had worked terrifyingly well.
She had intended to confront Axel with the accusation that he had known about Henrik’s infidelity all along, with his fucking lack of honour and basic human courage. She had wanted to take her anger out on him. But instead, standing there on the bridge, he looked so small, and she just wanted to give him a hug. She had no experience of that emotion; afterwards she had linked it to other situations where
she had been exposed, thinking of sex or clichéd notions of kindred spirits, but what she had actually looked directly in the eye was her own smallness. Her old jealousy, reflected in Axel Donner’s jealousy.