"You sit down and read, honey. I'll clear up here."
He leaned across the table and gave her a kiss.
"I love you," he said. "The Christmas ham is in the oven. Take it out when it reaches 167 degrees."
Annika's eyes opened wide.
"You found the cooking thermometer!" she exclaimed. "Where was it?"
"In the bathroom, next to the family thermometer. I took Ellen's temperature when we came home, and there it was. I think Kalle put it there. Logical, really. He denies putting it there, of course."
Annika pulled Thomas close and kissed him with her mouth wide open.
"I love you, too," she said.
HAPPINESS
Far up in the forest, beyond the barn and the bogs, lay the lake, Långtjärn. In my earliest childhood, it came to represent the edge of the world for me, presumably because the grown-ups' land ended there. I often heard it used as a symbolic terminal point, and I pictured the lake as a bottomless pit of darkness and fear.
On the day when at last I had been given permission to go there on my own, all such thoughts vanished. Långtjärn was an absolutely wonderful place. The little lake lay wedged in the virgin forest, barely a mile long and a few hundred yards wide, with glittering water and beaches covered in pine needles. It felt like the innocence of dawn; this was what the world must have looked like before the arrival of humans.
Once there must have been fish in the lake. A small, dilapidated log cabin stood next to the stream. It had been used as a fishing and hunting cabin and was surprisingly ambitious in its construction. There was only the one room, but it had an open fire on the far end, planed floorboards, and a little window facing the lake. The furnishing was sparse: two bunks fixed to the wall, two rough-hewn stools, and a small table.
Thinking back, my happiest moments in life have been spent in that little cabin. Every now and again, I've returned to the peace and tranquillity of the lake; its shimmering surface changing with the seasons. I have lit a fire in the fireplace and looked out over the surface, filled with a sense of absolute harmony. It now shows traces of the ravagings of people: The wood surrounding the road leading to the lake has been felled, but they've spared the trees lining it.
It's possible these words may be seen as provocative and, as such, be interpreted as ingratitude or nonchalance, but nothing could be further off the mark. I'm highly satisfied with the success I've had, but this should not be confused with happiness. Society's fixation with success and hedonism is the opposite of true happiness. We have all become addicts of happiness; constantly striving for more, higher and farther, will never make us satisfied with our lives.
In reality, success and prosperity are far less interesting than failure and destitution. Real success creates a feeling whose exultation borders on the erotic. But it's a banal trip to the stars. A proper failure has considerably more nuance and depth. Prosperity breeds, at best, tolerance and generosity but more often envy and indifference.
The secret of happiness in life is to be satisfied with what one has, to stop climbing and find one's inner peace.
Sadly, I've rarely done so myself. Except in the cabin by the lake.
TUESDAY 21 DECEMBER
The smell of newly baked glazed ham was still in the air when Annika woke up— one of the few blessings of having a busted extractor fan in the kitchen. She loved the taste of newly baked ham, but really hot— just out of the oven, the juices still trickling. She took a deep breath and threw the duvet aside. Ellen moved in her sleep next to her. Annika kissed the girl's forehead and caressed her plump little legs. Today she had to see to it that she left for work in time, so she'd be able to finish everything off before she had to pick the kids up at three.
She got in the shower and emptied her bladder straight into the floor drain. The pungent smell rose with the steam and hit her straight in the face, making her instinctively turn her head away. She washed her head with dandruff shampoo and swore when she realized they were out of conditioner. Now her hair would look like wood shavings until she washed it again.
She got out of the shower, dried herself and the floor where the water had seeped out, applied a good amount of antiperspirant under her arms, and smeared her cheeks with moisturizer. The rash wasn't quite gone, so she put some cortisone cream on as a precaution. A little mascara and a daub of eye shadow and she was good to go.
Annika tiptoed into the bedroom and opened the door to the walk-in wardrobe. The squeak made Thomas turn in his sleep. He had been up reading his report until long after she'd gone to bed. The main report on the regional question, which was Thomas's responsibility, was supposed to be ready in January. His staff still hadn't produced the interim reports it would be based on, so the pressure on Thomas was mounting. She knew that he suffered from stress just as much as she did, only his deadlines were further away than hers.
She felt a bit Christmassy and put on a red stretch top, red jacket, and black trousers. She finished just in time to catch
Rapport
's first news of the day at six thirty.
The footage from Sätra Hall wasn't very dramatic. The TV crew hadn't been allowed inside the cordons; they only had pictures of the usual blue-and-white tape flapping in the night wind. The voice-over announced that the explosion had occurred inside one of the changing rooms in the old part of the building. The fire brigade had found the remains of a man there.
There was a dispute between the police and firefighters' unions as to who should handle the remains of bodies they came across in their work. The fire department refused, saying it was not their responsibility; the police said the same.
Rapport
spent a large chunk of the program reporting on the standoff and announced they would return to the subject later on with a studio debate.
After that, a reporter walked around an empty arena somewhere in the suburbs, shouting "Hello!" There was no reply, and the reporter considered this a scandalous state of affairs.
"How is the police handling the security?" was the predictable rhetorical question. The exhausted police press officer was interviewed, saying it was impossible to watch all parts of every facility all the time.
"So how will you manage during the Games?" the reporter asked insinuatingly.
The press officer sighed, and Annika knew that the police now were faced with exactly the debate they had wanted to avoid most of all. The discussion of Olympic security would naturally grow louder the longer it took for the Bomber to be apprehended. Samaranch appeared, telling the Reuters reporter the Games were not in jeopardy.
The transmission ended with an analysis of a meeting of the Bank of Sweden,
Riksbanken,
later in the day. What would happen to the interest rate? They wouldn't change it, guessed the reporter. So it will go up or down for sure, Annika mused. She switched off the TV and went to get the morning paper from inside the front door. There was no mention of the victim's name; one reporter had been walking around shouting, "Hello!" in some other arena in some other suburb; Samaranch and the police press officer said the same things they had said on TV a second ago. None of the papers had time to get together any plans showing where the bomb had detonated; she wouldn't get that info until she reached the office and could get her hands on the evening papers.
Annika ate some strawberry yogurt and corn flakes, blow-dried her hair straight, and put on lots of warm clothes. The weather had changed during the night; it was snowing and a hard wind was blowing. Her original plan had been to catch the 55 bus to the paper, but she quickly revised it when the first squall hit her face, smearing her mascara. She quickly jumped into a taxi. The seven o'clock
Eko
started just as she landed on the backseat. Even the lofty
Eko
desk had been out "helloing" during the night; the police press officer sounded tired and strained; Samaranch was getting repetitive. She turned a deaf ear and stared out at the houses they passed along Norr Mälarstrand, one of the most high-priced addresses in Sweden. She couldn't understand why. The houses were wholly unremarkable: The short sides of the buildings faced the water and some had balconies— that was it. But the heavy traffic in the street below must make it impossible to sit outside and enjoy the view. When they arrived, she paid with a Visa card, hoping the paper would reimburse her.
During the week, Annika always grabbed a copy of the paper from the big stand in the main entrance. She would normally have time to leaf through it to the middle before the elevator landed her on the fourth floor, but not today. The paper was so full of ads that it was almost impossible to get through it at all.
Spike had just gone home, so she was happy about that. Ingvar Johansson had just come in and was absorbed in one of the morning papers, the first mug of coffee in his hand. She picked up a copy of the rival and some coffee and went into her office without saying hello.
Both of the papers had the name and a photo of the latest victim. He was a thirty-nine-year-old builder from Farsta by the name of Stefan Bjurling. Married with three children. For fifteen years he had worked for one of the hundreds of subcontractors engaged by SOCOG, the Stockholm Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games. Patrik had spoken to his employer.
"Stefan was the best supervisor you could wish for on a building site," the victim's boss said. "He had a great sense of responsibility, always finished on time, didn't stop working until everything was done. There was no messing around if you were on Stefan's team, that's for sure." He sounded like a great guy: hugely popular, wonderful sense of humor, cheerful temperament. "He was a great workmate, fun to work with, always upbeat," said another colleague.
Annika was angry, cursing whoever had killed this man and ruined the life of his family. Three small children had lost their father. She could only imagine something of how Ellen and Kalle would react if Thomas died suddenly. What would
she
do? How
do
people survive tragedies like this?
And what a shitty way to die, she thought, feeling sick when she read the preliminary police account of the killing. The explosive charge had probably been tied to the back of the victim, level with the kidneys. The man had been tied, hands and feet, to a chair before the explosion. What type of explosives had been used and how the charge had been detonated wasn't established, but the killer had probably used some kind of timer or delay mechanism.
Christ, Annika said to herself, wondering if they shouldn't have spared the readers the most graphic details.
She pictured the man sitting there with the bomb ticking on his back, struggling to get free. What do you think about right then? Do you see your life flashing past? Did this man think of his children? His wife? Or just of the ropes around his wrists? The bomber wasn't just nuts; he was a sadist to boot. She shuddered, despite the dry electric heat of the room.
She leafed past Janet Ullberg's description of yet another empty arena at midnight and skimmed through the ads. One thing was certain: There were enough toys in the world.
She went out and fetched another cup of coffee and looked into the photographers' office on her way back. Johan Henriksson was working the morning shift and was reading the morning broadsheet
Svenska Dagbladet.
"Nasty murder, don't you think?" Annika said, sitting down in an armchair opposite him.
The photographer shook his head. "Yeah, he seems like a real head case. I never heard anything like it."
"Do you want to go and have a peek?" Annika said teasingly.
"It's too dark," Henriksson said. "You won't see a thing."
"No, not on the outside, but maybe we can get inside. They may have removed the cordons now."
"Not likely, they'll barely have swept the guy up yet."
"The builders should be coming out there now in the morning. His workmates…"
"We've already talked to them."
Annoyed, Annika got to her feet.
"Forget it, I'll just have to wait for a photographer who can be bothered to get off his ass…"
"Hey…" Henriksson said, "of course I'll go with you. Just trying to be practical."
Annika stopped short and tried to smile. "Okay, sorry I lost my temper. My last photographer copped a real attitude."
"Sure. Don't worry." Henriksson said and went to pick up his camera bag.
Annika finished her coffee and went over to Ingvar Johansson.
"Do you know if the morning team needs Henriksson, or can I have him? I want to try to get inside Sätra Hall."
"The morning team won't get a word in the paper unless World War Three breaks out. That's how packed the paper is," Ingvar Johansson said and closed the rival paper. "We've got sixteen extra pages for the suburban edition, every column chock-a-block with ads.
And
they've sent out a team to cover the snarl-up the snowstorm is causing. Beats me where they think they're going to publish that."
"You know where to reach us," Annika said and went to put on her coat.
They took one of the paper's cars. Annika drove. The state of the roads really was appalling; the cars on the West Circular were crawling along at thirty miles an hour.
