The Hand that Trembles (3 page)

He mobilised his old war buddies, calling upon a former county commissioner, and won over the older ones in the city districts; there was intrigue behind the scenes and thundering argumentation at the meetings. He reached out to the media, writing up something called the ‘Persson Appeal,’ a skillfully constructed document centred on ‘caring for the city of Uppsala’ and ‘moving the centre.’ The second expression could be taken literally, as the majority of his power base lay in the old working-class parts of Salabackar, Tunabackar, Almtuna, and Svartbäcken, but it could also be interpreted ideologically.

In the article he talked about ‘good work’ as an independent, almost magical concept, and used a couple of anecdotes from his days as a plumber, with a metaphorical language that characterised class-bound supremacy and the secretive language of the craft, which he knew presented a temptation for both the knowledgeable and the ignorant.

He spoke of tradition and renewal, worn concepts that in his appeal emerged as genuine since he skillfully connected his and others’ experiences of the poor Sweden, tradition with class, the smell of wet wool and dreams of holiday and dental care, with those of new technology within the fields of computer and biomedical research that would put Uppsala on the world map.

An area that he touched on only briefly was that of ‘the new Swedes,’ which truth be told he did not know, more than the fact that they lived in the outskirts of the city. Even here he successfully employed symbols. He was able to squeeze in Vilhelm Moberg’s Karl Oskar, Walloons, and Greek feta cheese in a piece that, viewed superficially, was unassailable, but that did not articulate a single problem and was not beholden to anything.

Sven-Arne Persson received flowers. His office at City Hall smelt of greenery. A multitude of Letters to the Editor streamed in to
Upsala Nya Tidning
, all positive. ‘At last someone who dares to talk ideology,’ someone wrote. ‘This is a Social Democracy we can recognise,’ said another.

The opposition was wise enough to hold off. The article was too generally supported and rhetorically so well constructed as to rule out the possibility of a counter-attack. Persson’s foremost opponent, the commissioner Herbert Gunnarsson of the Moderate Party, realised this gesture was intended for internal affairs. Privately he detested women in politics, and above all those with socialist leanings, and he was happy that Lyth was struck a blow, even though she was not actually referred to by name.

The only one who offered any criticism was Ante. He called right after the piece was published and laughed abrasively. He was not tricked. He undressed the words, and Sven-Arne silently cursed this person who stood nearest to him. Ante’s words would become etched in his body like rusty staples. Each time he employed this method, the rhetoric and the compelling but intentionally vague political language of the political appeal that he had mastered so well, the staples twisted and turned inside him.

Sven-Arne did not engage his uncle in debate. There was no point in gilding the lie. After Ante was done with his sarcastic tirade, Sven-Arne enquired about his hip. This was his uncle’s Achilles’ heel, since he was no longer able to move about without effort and was dependent on his nephew if he needed to travel any distance.

The result of Sven-Arne’s offensive was that Gerda Lyth had to back down. Sven-Arne pitied her for a moment, but immediately put this thought behind him. He was a power player and knew it. There was no room for doubt or regret.

Not a single word in his text was incorrect but he knew the whole was flawed. It was not an ideological manifesto, but an Orwellian betrayal.

After his victory over his internal critics, Sven-Arne sank into a deep depression. It went on for six months. After the refreshing power struggle, only indifference remained.

It was as if his disingenuousness not only revealed his true self but that of his colleagues, the ones who had supported him, cheered, and slapped him on the back. Shouldn’t everyone have been able to see through the dishonesty? Was his oration so convincing or was his party colleagues’ longing for ideologically coloured argumentation so great that they allowed themselves to be tricked by fanfare, which after it had died away left the same vacuum that they were looking to escape?

After hardly a year, Gerda Lyth left Uppsala for Gothenburg, where she had applied for and received a position within the university administration. When Sven-Arne met Gothenburg’s strong man in politics at a conference, he had asked about Gerda Lyth but the politician had never heard her name. Perhaps she had had enough of politics?

 * * *

‘What do you think, Sven-Arne?’

The county commissioner was jolted out of his reverie and stared blankly at Sandström.

‘I have to admit I haven’t really followed you.’

‘Are you unwell? You look a little pale.’

‘A headache,’ Sven-Arne Persson said. ‘Perhaps I’ll take a break, if that’s all right with you.’

He did not expect any protest, just stood up and left the room. And in so doing, also his wife, municipal politics, Uppsala, and Sweden.

It was at the corner of Brigade and Mahatma Ghandi Road that he had the first intuition. Not that he was superstitious, quite the opposite. Over the course of his career, rationality had been his trademark. It rendered him ill-suited to this country, and yet sympathetic to the Indian fatalism that he had grown to appreciate over the years. But he should have heeded the signs.

First this so unexpected thought of ‘home’: Whenever he thought of this word it was usually in conjunction with the flat in Bangalore or, more rarely, the town house in Uppsala. But this time a vision of his Vaksala Square neighbourhood rose before him. Of course he thought of his childhood street from time to time, but this time the recollection gripped him with unexpected force. He paused, was pushed aside, and came to a halt outside the entrance of a shop that sold Kashmir silk.

There was nothing about MG Road that was reminiscent of Uppsala. Absolutely nothing. The intense, almost insane traffic, the eternal honking, and the cloud of exhaust fumes hovering over the street, all this was unthinkable around Vaksala Square. Almost everything he saw was unimaginable on Salagatan; the holes in the pavement, some so deep they seemed like portals to another world – a darkness into which to descend. The stream of people, who adeptly veered to avoid the stopped man; the vendors of ‘genuine’ Rolex watches and ‘police glasses’ who avoided him with equal adeptness; the security guard from Guardwell posted outside the shop that promised excellent deals on shawls and saris but that in reality milked Westerners’ credit cards for a couple of thousand rupees extra. No eye-catching sums but enough to ensure that the Mafia from the north made handsome profits. At least that was what Lester said.

He saw the block of flats in which he grew up, the courtyard with the newly raked gravel of Fridays, the neatly edged lawns and plantings of roses and lilacs, the obligatory mock-orange bush and the unpleasant-smelling viburnum by the park down toward the railway tracks. An almost rigid order reigned over the landscaping around the buildings. An impression of immutability that he, at a brief visit many years later, could testify had lingered a surprising number of years. A utility building had been added, poorly placed and completely different in style; the gravel was no longer quite as attractively ridged; the flag post had been removed, perhaps temporarily; but the fundamentals remained, and the substantial lilac trees leant thoughtfully, heavy with age and with twisted trunks as if they writhed in regret at the passing of time.

All this came before him as he stood on the pavement along MG Road. The guard looked more closely at him, perhaps nervous that the old man was about to collapse and thereby force him to engage.

Sven-Arne smiled reassuringly. The guard jerked his head but remained otherwise impassive.

Was it nostalgia? Could it be called that, although before this moment he could not have been able to imagine returning to Uppsala? But suddenly this dreamlike vision appeared, as when one imagines soaring like a bird or diving into the depths like a fish.

It was most likely the lack of possibility that caused his pain. He even lacked a valid passport. He took a couple of steps, mostly to escape the watchful eyes of the guard, stopped, then walked off in the direction of St Marks Road.

The next warning came shortly thereafter.

After a few hundred metres, he saw a couple walking in his direction. He was immediately convinced that they were Swedes, even though there was nothing in their clothing or behaviour that gave this impression. He walked toward the catastrophe without a thought of slipping into the alley he had just passed. He would have been able to get away, as he had done so many times before when he had had this premonition. But it was as if the learnt defence mechanisms that had functioned so well for over a decade had now collapsed after the odd experience outside the silk shop. He walked toward them, defenceless.

Their gazes met when they were ten or twenty metres from each other. The woman scrutinised him, her eyes going from his face to his strange clothing (in her opinion, most likely) and then she looked away with indifference. As they passed each other he heard her say a few words to her companion, a man around forty years of age. He was sweating in his suit and tie, one pace behind the woman.

She was speaking Swedish. Northwestern Skåne, maybe Helsingborg, he thought, always childishly pleased with his ability to place a person’s dialect. ‘I think we should ask Nils anyway.’ Her tone was decisive, almost aggressive. Sven-Arne had time to catch the man’s unease. It was clear that he did not want to place a question to this Nils.

Just as they reached each other, the man glanced at Sven-Arne and for a moment the latter thought he saw a subtle shift in the man’s facial expression, as if he recognised him, and Sven-Arne also caught an imperceptible reaction. The man slowed down slightly and lost even more ground to the woman. Was it just an unconscious reaction, an appeal, as if to say, ‘Help me get away from this woman, distract her for a moment so that she’ll drop the idea of talking to Nils’?

Sven-Arne hurried on his way, without turning around.

The street noise grew louder the closer he got to St Marks Road. A rickshaw had collided with a motorcycle, and two men were involved in a heated dispute. A woman standing next to the motorcyclist was crying. Blood trickled down her forehead. The rickshaw driver was screaming out his fury, saliva was spraying out of his mouth, and he was gesturing wildly to underscore his arguments.

The crash had blocked traffic and caused a serenade of honking, from the bellowing of the lorries to the ridiculous high-pitched signals from all the yellow rickshaws trying to manoeuvre their way through. Sven-Arne slowed down but did not stop. He had his inner crash to sort out.

Afterward, when he had caught his breath at Lester’s, he cursed his own stupidity. He should have interpreted the signs better. Despite the evident warnings, he had continued along the street.

His goal had been Koshy’s, where he returned to eat dinner once a year, for sentimental reasons. It was the only nostalgic act he allowed himself.

One evening in November 1993, disoriented and hungry after having vomited on the plane from Delhi, he had found himself standing outside the airport and had asked a taxi driver to take him to a good restaurant. That had been Koshy’s.

Now he was going there to celebrate the twelfth anniversary of his arrival to the city that had become his home. It was, especially at first, an expression of self-torture, to test his own resolve.

The very first visit had not gone very well. He had burst into tears. Perhaps it was the exhaustion from the painful journey through Europe, the long flights and the extraordinary tribulations that caused him to collapse silently at the table. The waiter became aware of his distress and hurried over, but Sven-Arne waved him away, dried his tears, and opened the menu.

He was a stranger when he staggered out of the airport, and the sense of alienation had grown during the short ride into the city centre. At his table at Koshy’s he realised for the first time the enormity of his actions. Until this point he had been acting automatically without any thought of the consequences, from Uppsala to Arlanda airport, at Heathrow, at the terminal in Delhi. He had only one goal: to get away.

The yearly visit to the restaurant was therefore a test. He always sat at the same table. If it was occupied, he waited. Then he recalled in his mind the first experiences of Bangalore, the confusion and indecision, the uncertainty if he had done the right thing. Every year he came to the same conclusion: Yes, it had been the right thing to do. What other conclusion could he come to?

He stepped into Koshy’s, relieved to escape the noise of the street and any possible new unsettling events. He went to the right, to the somewhat more exclusive part, pushed open the swinging door, and set his sights on the table, which was obscured both by a pillar and the maître d’. The latter had been the same for all these years, a broad-shouldered wrestling type whose hair was growing thin on top but who still had an imposing handlebar moustache, large hands, and a heavyset, choleric face whose expression could nonetheless lighten at a moment’s notice.

It came as a complete shock. Sven-Arne Persson turned on his heels and fled.

Jan Svensk got halfway to his feet, had automatically stretched out a hand as if to detain the fleeing man, but then realised it was meaningless. The doors swung back and forth a few times; he was gone.

It isn’t possible, he thought, frozen for a few moments before he flung himself out of his chair and onto the deafening street. The heat struck him. He stared in all directions and glimpsed a grey head of hair through the filmy plastic window of a rickshaw. The driver set off and the vehicle was swallowed up in the heavy traffic.