The princess of Burundi (10 page)

At three thirty Vincent Hahn stepped out onto the street, an extra two hundred kronor in his pocket. As always, it was like stepping out into a new world. People were new. The street that ran from the railway station down to the river had changed its character during the few hours he had spent inside the bingo hall. It looked more dignified, like a stately boulevard in a foreign country. The people around him seemed different from the ones he had left for the bingo hall’s warm retreat.

The feeling stayed with him for a minute or two, then the hostile voices returned, the shoves, and the looks. The linden trees no longer lined the street like leafy pillars but terrifying statues, black and cold, suggestive of funerals and death. He knew where this feeling came from, but did everything to suppress it, to avoid images of the graveyard where his parents lay buried.

Vincent Hahn was a bad man, and he knew it. If his mother and father could be brought back to life they would be horrified to see that their youngest child had become a misanthrope, a person who was suspicious of everyone and everything and who—and this was the worst—saw it as his task to revenge himself on those around him for their wrongdoings.

There could not be punishment enough for them. Hadn’t he suffered? But who cared? Everything simply kept going as if he didn’t exist.
I’m here!
he wanted to shout out to everyone on Bangårdsgatan, but he didn’t, and no one even so much as slowed down to pass him as they hurried on their way.

Air,
he thought,
I’m nothing but air to you. But this air will poison you, my breath will annihilate you, envelop you in death.
He had made his decision. Now there was no fear, no hesitation.

He laughed out loud, checked his watch, and knew that he would begin this very evening. It was wonderful to finally have a plan, a meaning. A couple of retirees emerged from the bingo hall. Vincent nodded to them. To him they symbolized defeat. He didn’t want to stay with this thought because it led to both his source of strength and his weakness. The thoughts, memories. Until now they had held him down as an insignificant creature. He nodded to the old couple, loyal companions from the solitary community of the bingo hall, victims like himself. In some way he was sure they would understand. Living, but dead.

His bingo win made him strong, almost overconfident. He decided to go to a café. It would have to be the Güntherska. He could maintain his sense of control from the sofa in the corner.

The photograph in the evening paper was of a young John Jonsson. Gunilla Karlsson recognized him immediately, as she would have even if they had used a recent picture of him. She had bumped into him just a few months ago, unexpectedly, at the grocery store. And on top of that she had had Justus in preschool. Actually not in her room, but he was a boy who stood out. It was mostly Berit who dropped him off and picked him up, but sometimes John turned up in the afternoon, straight from work. He had a nice smell. She had wondered what it was for a long time before she had the courage to ask. He had been completely at a loss until he realized she meant the smell of welding smoke. He had exused himself, looked extremely embarrassed, and mumbled something about not having had time to shower. Gunilla had been equally embarrassed and assured him that she liked the smell. There they were, with Justus between them busy putting on his warm things, both blushing furiously and looking at each other. Then they had burst into laughter.

After that time he often smiled at her. He told her about the body shop and offered their services in case the preschool needed any repairs. She had thanked him but said she didn’t think they needed to have anything welded. “But please feel free to stop by more often,” she had added, “we’re short on men around here.”

He had looked at her in the old way, which she remembered so well from their days at school, and felt warm inside. He liked her words—that’s what his look told her—but Gunilla also read something else there, a spark of attraction.

She would have wanted to kiss him, not passionately, just a peck on the cheek to draw in more of that welding smoke that had penetrated all his pores. It was a fleeting impulse that lasted no more than a second, but it returned to her every time they met.

They stood there for a short while, close to each other, and it was as if time had stopped. It occurred to her that John was one of the few people she saw regularly and who had met both her parents while they were still active. Now they were both in homes, unreachable.

She had also met John’s parents, the stuttering Albin and Aina, who used to leave terse notes in the communal laundry facilities urging her neighbors to clean up better after themselves.

A long time ago she had been in love with John. Back in junior high, maybe seventh grade. She had been part of the group that hung out on “the hill,” an empty lot next to Vaksala square. John and Lennart used to go there, as well as thirty or so other teenagers from Petterslund, Almtuna, and Kvarngärdet.

A builder who had gone bankrupt stored leftover lumber and parts at the top of the hill and the youngsters had arranged these in an ingenious series of tunnels and rooms. Gunilla had gone mostly for John’s sake and had been frightened by the heavy smell of paint thinner, trichloroethylene, and other chemicals that hung in the air.

The paint sniffing came and went in waves. At certain times no one was doing anything but then there would be an outbreak that would last for a few months or more. It was mainly a summer and fall activity. The police made occasional raids but no one really took the substance abuse seriously.

Gunilla had often thought about the number of brain cells that must have died on the hill. She was glad she had managed to break away from the group even though it meant she had lost contact with John.

And now he was dead. She read the article, but composed an internal text about his background and life. It struck her how little information there really was about John in the paper, even though the article was three pages long. The reporter had made things easy for himself, had dug out a list of John’s sins and also connected the murder with a crime that had taken place a few weeks earlier when a drug dealer was knifed down in central Uppsala. “A city of violence and terror,” she read. “The standard image of a sleepy, idyllic university town with its lively student life and dignified academic traditions is increasingly being replaced by images of violence. The popular children’s series of Pelle Svanslös and his innocuous feline adventures feels remote when we study the number of reported crimes and the unsettling realization of how many of these crimes remain unsolved. The police, plagued by internal conflicts and budget cuts, seem at a loss.”

“A sleepy, idyllic university town,” Gunilla sniffed. Uppsala had never been that, at least not for her. Even though she had been born and raised here she had never visited any one of the historic student organizations or even watched the graduating class don their caps on the last day of April and listened to them singing spring songs on the slopes of the castle grounds. It had never been an idyll for her. Nor for John.

But what would John have had to do with a drug dealer? She knew he and his brother had been involved in their share of shady dealings but she doubted that it had ever involved drugs. John just wasn’t the type.

She pushed the newspaper away, stood up, and walked to the window. The snow had stopped falling but a strong westerly wind blew it onto the roof of the garages. Her closest neighbor was walking up to the building with bags of groceries.

She walked past the mirror in the hall, stopped, and looked at herself. She had gained weight. Again. While she stood there she suddenly thought of the rabbit. How could she have forgotten? She walked quickly to the patio door, opened it, and saw Ansgar hanging from the railing, just as she had left him this morning, but now his abdomen had been slit. The internal organs that spilled out had a grayish cast.

There was also something white in the cut. She walked closer and looked at the stiff corpse with disgust. The rabbit’s wide-open eyes seemed to be staring accusingly at her. It was a note. She drew it out carefully. It was bloodstained and she shivered as she unfolded the tiny piece of paper, no bigger than a bus ticket.

The handwriting was almost illegible and looked as if it had been done in haste: “Pets are not appropriate in densely populated areas.” No signature.

What a mean-spirited thing to do
, she thought. How would she explain this to Malin, the girl next door? She looked back at the rabbit. Incredible, to kill a rabbit. It had to be a very sick person.

Should she notify the police again? Had they been here? Probably not. They had more pressing matters to attend to than a dead rabbit.

She thought of John again and started to cry. People could be so awful. Had the note been there this morning, or had the person who strangled Ansgar returned later? She looked around. The forest that encroached on the buildings was starting to grow dark. The light from the windows was reflected on the tall trunks of the pine trees. The wind sighed in the treetops. Granite boulders lay scattered about like large animals.

Gunilla went back into the apartment. Her feet were wet and she was cold. She pulled the patio door shut and closed the blinds. Her initial fear was starting to give way to anger, and she hesitated as she stood there. Then she decided to get in touch with the head of the building association. He was a curmudgeon, but he needed to be notified about this. Perhaps he had received complaints about pet owners in the area. Maybe there had been another incident that could be connected to Ansgar’s death?

She found his number in the phone book, dialed the number—which was confusingly like her own—but no one answered. She thought about going over to the neighbors to see if they had heard anyone sneaking around outside but she didn’t feel like leaving her apartment. Maybe he was still out there.

Malin and her parents were away and wouldn’t be back until the weekend was over. The neighbors on the other side were recent arrivals. They were an older couple who had sold their house in Bergsbrunna. Gunilla had spoken only briefly with the woman.

The news at six didn’t mention John’s murder. She changed the channel to check the local news program on channel 4, but the top stories were over and the weather was of no interest to her. Not now.

Calm down
, she told herself.

It was the work of a madman, a sick human being. Mentally, she ran through the list of other occupants. Was there anyone capable of strangling and disemboweling a rabbit? No. Her neighbor Cattis could be difficult and she certainly had opinions on everyone and everything, but she was hardly so far gone as to do this.

The wind had picked up and Gunilla thought she could hear the rabbit’s body rhythmically smacking against the railing. She knew she should cut him down but didn’t want to go out onto the patio again. And if she called the police again, what would they do? They must have enough on their hands with John’s murder without investigating the death of a pet rabbit.

She heard Magnus Härenstam’s voice on the television as she gently pushed open the door and at the same time turned on the outside light. It didn’t turn on and she tried again with the same result. A branch of the bird-cherry shrub that Martin had planted was dashed against the plastic roof.
Why did he plant it so close?
she had time to think before she noticed that the rabbit was gone. As it was white, it took a while before she spotted it again. Had it been blown down onto the snow or had someone taken it down?

She looked out toward the trees, holding her breath and crouching down slightly so that she would not be as visible to the outside. The pine trees swayed in the wind. The bird-cherry branch scraped against the roof. She took a few hesitant steps, wearing only thin stockings. Ansgar couldn’t stay down there, people would think she had done it. Malin would never forgive her.

She was terrified, but strangely not very surprised, when a hand covered her mouth and another encircled her waist. She tried to bite her attacker but couldn’t open her mouth.

“Rabbits are disgusting,” a voice hissed in her ear, a voice she recognized but was unable to place.

The man’s breath stank of decay. Gunilla tried to kick back with her legs like a frightened horse but had no strength. The man only chuckled, as if her show of resistance amused him.

“Let’s go in,” he said smoothly.

Gunilla desperately tried to place the voice. She had been so stupid. He must have been hiding behind the door.

He dragged her back into the apartment without allowing her to see him. He turned off the light by pressing his back against the button, then dragged her farther into the room and gave her a shove so that she fell into the sofa.

“Hi, Gunilla,” he said. “I just wanted to drop in for a visit.”

His voice was so familiar. She studied his face, which was narrow, with two deep lines that ran down his cheeks, a black beard, almost bald on top, and with a smile on his lips that frightened and confused her.

“I’m talking to you.”

“What?” Gunilla said.

She had seen his lips move but had no idea what he had said.

“Do you remember me?”

Gunilla nodded. Suddenly she knew who he was. She started to shake.

“What do you want?”

The man laughed. He had bad teeth, disintegrating and covered in tartar.

“Did you kill the rabbit?”

Vincent Hahn’s features stiffened in a mask, a laughing mask.

“I want to see your breasts,” he said.

She flinched as if he had struck her.

“Don’t touch me!” she sobbed.

“That’s what you said before, but now I’m the one who decides.”

He didn’t look so strong, she thought. His shoulders and wrists were thin, but she knew how easily one could underestimate a person. Even mere children could be moved by rage to incredible feats of strength, which their bodies did not seem capable of. They had talked about self-defense at the daycare, once, when one of her colleagues had completed a course. She knew she had a chance to escape if only the opportunity arose. No one was invincible.

“If you show me your breasts I’ll leave.”

He looked tired. Maybe he was on medication.

“Then I’ll leave,” he repeated, and leaned forward so that his sour breath wafted over her again. She had to fight against revealing her disgust.

What was the right thing to say?

“Take off your sweater.”

“It’s certainly been a long time.”

“Or I’ll lay you on the ground.”

She stood up. Suddenly she felt sorry for the man in front of her. At school he had always been the one the other students looked down on or treated as an outsider, someone who never fit in. But he had not been completely without friends, and he actually seemed to manage his schoolwork well. A few years ago, when she was leafing through her yearbook, she had seen a picture of Vincent’s thin figure. She had thought at that time that it was strange how Vincent seemed to have gone through high school virtually unchanged—lanky, acne-ridden, and to all appearances unaffected by the usual emotional and hormonal storms that descended on everyone else, especially the boys. He had simply been there, attentive to the teachers, sometimes with an air of superiority toward the other students, but often ingratiating, wanting to please.

“I need to have a drink,” she said. “I’m so scared. Would you like some wine?”

He looked back at her with a total lack of expression. She wondered if he had even understood what she had said.

“Would you like some wine?”

He grabbed her when she tried to walk past. Her arm hurt. He pulled her over but she managed to keep her balance.

“Let me go. I’m only getting some wine. Then you can see my breasts.”

Don’t show your fear,
she thought, as the image of the strangled rabbit with his slit belly made her whimper softly. She pulled off her sweater and saw Vincent sway at the sight of her upper body.

“Okay, one glass,” he said and smiled.

He followed her closely. She could feel his body heat behind her back. He was breathing heavily. The wine bottle clinked against the stand and it was as if the noise startled him, because suddenly he grabbed her shoulder, the way Martin did when her neck and shoulders were tight, but this grasp was much harder and turned her around.

“You remember me, don’t you?”

“Of course,” she said. “But you’ve changed a lot.”