Shadow (25 page)

‘She sent the manuscript to me and said I could do whatever I liked with it.’

Torgny erupted.

‘She was ill, damn it! You knew that! Do you know how long she struggled over this novel?’

‘She didn’t want to have anything to do with it, she said. She was going back to Poland to start a new life. She wanted to forget everything that had happened, she said, and…’

Axel’s shoulders drooped and he looked down at his lap. With the fingers of his right hand he began twisting his wedding ring.

‘I hadn’t been able to write anything for several years, not a thing, and I was completely desperate. My publisher was hassling me, the bank was putting on the pressure, I had no money to pay the mortgage, I scarcely had enough left to put food on the table. I couldn’t wring a single line out of myself, I simply couldn’t write at all any more, it was all gone. I had just decided to tell Alice that we would have to sell the house. I was going round here preparing myself, and just then my parents rang and told me that my sister had died, that she’d had a heart attack. I hadn’t seen her in almost thirty years. I could hear what a hard time they were having trying to ask me, but at last they managed to get it out. They wondered whether I could take care of the funeral expenses, and I… I couldn’t tell them the truth, admit that I was broke. Admit that I had failed.’

He hid his face in his hands and for a moment Torgny thought he was crying.

‘I began searching through the cupboard to see whether I could find some old pieces I’d written, and that’s when I found it. It was just lying there and I… She’d told me I could do whatever I wanted with it. I know it was wrong, but just then I couldn’t see any other way out.’

‘Nobel fucking Prize winner Axel Ragnerfeldt! Jesus Christ! How the hell can you live with yourself?’

Torgny spat out the words, the contempt searing his tongue.

Axel sat huddled on the chair staring into space. The man Torgny saw was someone he had never met before.

‘You must have known that you’d be exposed, that I would read it eventually.’

‘She said you hadn’t read it. That nobody had read it.’

Torgny was speechless. For years he had sat at her side and encouraged her, persuading her to fight on when she wanted to give up. He had commented on every sentence; with eyes wide he had been amazed at her talent and tried to convince her of the greatness of what she’d written.

Hadn’t read it!

‘I took a chance. Just then I thought that nothing could get any worse. If I’d known that there would be such a fuss about it… Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine it would be like this. I just wanted to buy a little time so I could finish writing what I was working on.’

He looked at Torgny but turned away when he didn’t find the sympathy he sought.

‘Don’t you think that I’ve regretted it? How do you think it feels to me? You know me that well at least. The whole thing has been like one long nightmare.’

Axel got up and walked over to the window.

‘I wish I could undo it, Torgny. More than anything I wish that I could, but I can’t.’

There was silence in the room. A sound from the hall outside made Axel turn round. He went to the door and
opened it, but no one was there. When he assured himself that nobody was listening he went back and sat down.

‘I know that I don’t have the right to ask you to keep quiet about this, Torgny, but I’d do anything.’

Torgny snorted.

‘I’ll give you half the prize money.’

The proposal amazed Torgny. A little boy who was caught cheating on a test. With a little more skulduggery he thought he would be released. Torgny’s temples were throbbing. The blood wanted to burst out of his veins. The man he had reluctantly admired, whom he had always looked up to, despite his antipathy, was now grovelling before him like the little worm he was. His moral integrity, his strength of character. The whole time the opposite had been kept hidden underneath, eclipsed by his exceptional achievements.

‘She told me I could use it.’

Quietly, a final attempt to persuade him.

Torgny looked at Axel. The person he saw was the man who had won Halina’s love, who with his dazzling reputation had driven a wedge between Torgny and Halina.

‘When did she say that?’

Axel gave him a furtive glance.

‘It was in the letter she sent with the manuscript.’

‘Come on, Axel. You said you never saw her.’

‘She sent it in the mail.’

‘So where’s the letter now? Can I see it?’

‘I threw it away.’

‘Right. Why the hell would you think that I’d ever believe a word you say? What happened in Västerås, anyway? Suddenly Halina’s version sounds a lot more believable than yours.’

Axel didn’t answer.

Torgny closed his eyes.

Axel and Halina. Fucking in secret behind his back. His hands lying there on the desk, hands that had greedily explored her body. And Halina had willingly let it happen.

Axel had cheated him out of everything that had been his.
Everything that had belonged to him and Halina, that had taken them years to nurture and polish, that they had learnt from each other’s pleasure. The man who now sat there behind the desk, lying, had stripped them of their most intimate secrets.

He saw Halina’s face, her lips parted, the tip of her tongue, her mouth closing around Axel’s swollen cock; the glint in her eyes, the way she moved her hips, the sound she made when he thrust inside her.

If that had happened he would have to kill him.

‘Take off your trousers.’

Axel stared at him.

‘What?’

‘Take off your trousers, I said!’

‘Are you crazy?’

‘You have a birthmark there somewhere, don’t you?’

Axel closed his eyes.

‘Halina described it to me to make me believe her. She even drew it on a piece of paper to convince me.’

During those last days. When all that remained was to hurt him.

‘Do you remember what I said there in the woodshed? That I would kill you if I found out you had lied?’

Nothing more needed to be said. He could read the truth in Axel’s face.

‘You fucking pig!’

‘It was only that one time in Västerås. I beg you to forgive me, Torgny. She said that you weren’t a couple, that you were just friends. If I’d known she was lying I would never have touched her.’

Axel stood up.

‘It didn’t mean a thing, Torgny. We drank too much, it just happened.’

It was after Västerås that everything had started going wrong. After Västerås that Halina’s illness returned. It had been the beginning of the end.

It didn’t mean a thing, Torgny.

He was breathing hard.

Afterwards, during all the years he was forced to relive over and over again what followed, he often thought that it was at this moment he had gone off the rails. When the truth about the betrayal punched a hole in his innermost being and evil was released.

‘It was only once, that was the only time, I swear.’

Just one wish.

‘What are you going to do now, Axel, with the truth about
Shadow
splashed across the arts pages all over the world? What hole are you going to crawl into then?’

He could hear his own voice, muffled and toneless, as if it were someone else’s. Something had taken possession of him. Something that had knotted his fists and fixed his gaze on the man who had ruined his life. The man who had taken Halina and the boy away from him.

Axel must have noticed the change. With a calmer expression he sat down and assumed the same pose as before the revelation. Hands clasped on the desktop, he stared at Torgny, with a new feeling of determination. His excuses had been in vain, and it was clear that he was now thinking of trying a new tactic.

‘I’m sorry to have to say this, but you give me no choice.’

He paused for a second before he went on.

‘You can’t prove a thing.’

‘What do I have to prove?’

‘What you claim about
Shadow.
’

Torgny snorted.

‘So it’s not enough for you that
I
know? You can live with this as long as nobody else knows?’

‘What choice do you think I have?’

‘You fucking hypocrite.’

‘I’ve admitted that I made a mistake. What more do you want?’

‘I take it you’re going to persist in taking all the praise for her masterpiece?’

‘I was on the shortlist for the Nobel Prize long before
Shadow
. You know as well as I do that it wasn’t the only book that won me the prize, the award was based just as much on my other books.’

‘Your
own
books, you mean?’

‘As I said, you can’t prove a thing.’

Torgny didn’t move a muscle. He was thinking of Halina’s sense of inferiority after the degradation in Treblinka, which made her incapable of allowing herself to be loved. For the rest of his life he would be forced to watch Axel in the spotlight, cloaked in honour and fame, and know that the one who should have stood there was Halina. He would have to witness the obsequious flattery of the cultural establishment and watch Axel bow and scrape over the suffering that she had managed to transform into magnificent art.

The lie came as a matter of course, and he hadn’t even planned it. The same toneless voice came out of his mouth.

‘I have her notes at home. All the letters she received during her research. The rough draft, the whole outline. In her handwriting.’

That did the trick. But Torgny knew that Axel was right. There was no way to get to him. Nobody would believe Torgny without proof. Even if they did manage to find Halina. If what Axel said was true, perhaps she would even deny the truth and choose Axel once again. Like water off the back of a well-fattened goose the scandal would slide off him, and Torgny would be left to bear the shame of his tawdry accusation.

Torgny felt it glowing white-hot inside him. The desire to destroy Axel. To make him suffer the same pain he had caused. Nothing else was important. He was prepared to do anything to achieve it. If he couldn’t get at Axel’s body of work, then he’d have to destroy his life. The blackness was so powerful it scared him. He fumbled for something that might stop him, but everything had vanished in the darkness. And from a distant place he heard the voice which would set the diabolical plan in motion.

Where did it come from? He didn’t know.

‘If it’s my silence you want to buy, there is one way. It depends on what you’re willing to sacrifice.’

Axel sat quietly, waiting for him to continue.

‘There’s a saying: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.’

‘I don’t understand what you mean.’

‘You took my woman away from me.’

‘Torgny, it was
one time
, and I didn’t even know she was yours. Is that what this is all about? A single transgression?’

Tonelessly the voice droned on.

‘Once doesn’t matter, twice is a habit. Isn’t that what they say?’

Uncomprehending, Axel threw out his arms, and Torgny went on.

‘One time is enough for me too.’

‘I don’t understand. What is it you want?’

‘To be paid in kind.’

Axel’s frown testified to his confusion, until it was slowly erased.

‘Is it Alice you’re talking about?’ Axel snorted. ‘I don’t think she’s particularly interested, but be my guest and give it a try.’

‘I’m not talking about Alice.’

Axel’s smile disappeared.

Torgny’s body felt heavy, positioned between reason and will. He stood perfectly still and allowed the darkness to engulf him. The instant before taking the step towards his own ruin.

‘I’m talking about your daughter.’

Axel leapt up from his chair.

‘Have you lost your mind?’

To have the power to destroy. To have the power to ruin Axel’s life by whatever means he could.

‘It’s up to you. How much is your reputation worth?’

‘Annika has absolutely nothing to do with this, absolutely nothing. How can you even suggest something so…’ He
was momentarily speechless. ‘What do you think of me anyway? Do you understand what you’re saying? It was Halina who seduced me, if that makes it any better. Why should my daughter be punished for something I did? She’s only fifteen years old! Fifteen! I believed a lot about you, Torgny, but this! How low are you prepared to sink?’

Torgny smiled.

‘That’s exactly what you have to ask yourself, Axel. How low are
you
prepared to sink? You’ve already gone pretty deep.’

Axel’s eyes narrowed to slits.

‘I can assure you that I wish I’d never used that manuscript, but I can’t undo what is done, no matter how much I may want to. Isn’t it revenge enough for you to know what an advantage you have over me, to live knowing that you might some day expose me? You know very well what would happen if… I can’t imagine that even you, Torgny, would wish such misfortune on me.’

If what was raging inside Torgny were visible on his face, it would have made Axel take back those final words.

‘Halina said that I could do whatever I liked with the manuscript, so by what right do you come here with this vile ultimatum? Besides, I rewrote a lot of it. You would have done exactly the same thing in my situation.’

‘Would I?’

‘It’s easy for you to stand there now, all righteous and sincere, but I know you, Torgny. You would have done exactly the same thing.’

‘But I didn’t. That’s the difference.’

Axel sank into his chair again, opening his palms as if that might make Torgny listen to reason.

‘Torgny, let’s discuss this like two reasonable men. I deserve your contempt, I accept that. I’ve also offered you half the prize money. Go home and think about it. You’re much too worked up now to think rationally. I intend to forget what you proposed just now and forgive you. Go home and think
about whether the money is enough to make you want to keep quiet.’

‘I don’t want Halina’s money.’

‘What
do
you want?’

‘I’ve already told you.’

‘For Christ’s sake, man!’

Axel pounded his hand on the desk. Torgny smiled. Swearing didn’t sit well with Axel’s urbane manner.

‘You decide. It’s up to you. This time as well.’