“How did it go?” the man asked me.
“Relatively well,” I replied.
“It did?”
“I owe you a drink,” I said, nodding toward the bottle.
“That’s why I brought it,” he said, and the others laughed. I laughed too. It felt good to laugh. There were books lying on the table. I lifted one of the volumes in my hand.
“So this is the one we’re working with tonight?” I asked.
“Dubliners. Have you read it?”
“Just once,” I said, and turned to the last page.
Still in Kallhäll
by Johan Theorin
Translated by Kerri Pierce
Kallhäll
The murder plan was perfect, Klas knew — after all, his intended victim was old and in a wheelchair.
The plan was simple. The murder easy.
The only problem was getting out of Kallhäll alive.
The thing was, a person could die a slow death in Kallhäll simply by living there, as Klas himself had done for the last six months.
Still in Kallhäll, he thought every morning when he woke up in the suburb — in the one-room apartment on the fourth floor, in a large concrete building that doubtless had slumbered for fifty years like a giant on the bedrock, just waiting for something to happen, which never did this far out from downtown Stockholm. Kallhäll was located where once there had been forest and isolated cottages, until the capital really began to expand.
The Ditz snored gently beside Klas, deciduous trees sighed outside the window, and birds sat in them and sang, undisturbed by roaring traffic — all of which reminded him that he wasn’t in the city’s center.
He hated his girlfriend. He hated trees. He hated birds.
Most of all Klas hated how the fuckers who called the shots in Kallhäll desperately tried to make him comfortable. Did they actually think they could simply build longer jogging trails, more residences, and new health centers and keep him here forever?
Klas had no intention of staying in Kallhäll. He was resolute, and on Thursday he’d take his tight leather gloves and a wool cap with him to the city — that way, he wouldn’t leave any evidence behind.
Klas Svensson was good at covering up his tracks. He’d left Falun the year before, forced to break all ties with his hometown because of some stupid petty debts he owed to the wrong people, and a hysterical bitch who had threatened to report him for assault. It felt natural to head down to Stockholm; all the young men went there and there was plenty of work to be had.
Within a week he’d snagged a job at Sailor Store in Östermalm. With its wide glass windows, it was only a few blocks from Stockholm’s most exclusive street, Strandvägen, where imposing stone buildings towered over the Nybroviken Bay. Plenty of boaters lived there; they waltzed into Sailor Store with sunburned faces and dazzling white teeth and shamelessly fished out their fat wallets. Klas thrived in Sailor Store.
A place to live was another matter. In the beginning he stayed in a hostel on Fridhemsplan and hunted for a rental flat in the city’s center, but there was nothing — no available apartments in Stockholm. A number of his Sailor Store colleagues still lived at home with their parents despite the fact that most were at least thirty years old. Others subletted apartments, or lived in some hole-in-the-wall for which they shelled out at least five thousand kronor. Some had taken out several million in loans to buy a studio apartment.
Without any money, Klas was forced to look for an apartment farther and farther away from downtown — all the way out in Kallhäll. There he found a furnished studio and moved in.
In the beginning, he was overjoyed that he’d actually managed to find a place. After all, Kallhäll was close to the water, maybe he could buy himself a sailboat. At work and in bars in the city he told chicks about his new place, but all he got were empty stares.
“Where do you live?”
“Kallhäll.”
“Kallhäll? Where the hell is that?”
“Northwest,” said Klas, “past Jakobsberg. It’s not too far, you just hop on the commuter train and...”
But as soon as he began to explain, the woman he was talking to had already stopped listening. No one pays attention once they realize you live in the suburbs.
In the center, your life matters. Outside the center, you’re just a loser.
During his second week in Kallhäll someone slipped a brochure through the mail slot. He read it before ripping it up.
Welcome to Kallhäll! Located right on Lake Mälaren, Kallhäll is a thrilling place to be, with plenty to offer to both inhabitants and visitors. Fresh air, new housing opportunities, and a fast and smooth commuter train ride into Stockholm...
The commuter train into the city — it quickly became the only thing Klas liked about Kallhäll.
Though it wasn’t on the train that he’d met the Ditz, it was in Stockholm. On a break from Sailor Store, he’d gone, as usual, down to Strandvägen to wander along the dock and take in the boats and stone buildings. Wishing and dreaming.
Out of one of the wide doors, number 13B, came a young woman in white jeans and a black quilted jacket with a large suitcase in her hand. The suitcase was a horrible color, hot pink, and seemed heavy. She carefully closed the door and left.
Klas wouldn’t have given her another thought if he hadn’t seen her again that same evening after work. It was the hot pink suitcase he recognized, only this time he saw it in Kallhäll. The chick from Strandvägen was carrying it, only now she also had a paper bag of groceries. She schlepped everything over the bridge from the station toward Kallhäll’s small center, past the shops on Gjutarplan, before continuing along the rows of apartment buildings.
What was she doing out here?
Her ass wiggled nicely as the struggled with the suitcase. Klas smoothed his bangs, put on his best sailor grin, and approached her.
“Do you need help?”
She turned around, smiled, and nodded, just like a grateful ditzy girl. Her ass was more attractive than her long, pale face, but the face would do.
The suitcase was heavy; Klas struggled with it up the stairs.
“It’s filled with books,” the Ditz explained, laughing nervously. “Just some heirlooms.”
“Heirlooms?”
“From my grandfather. He lives in the city, on Strandvägen. He gives me things in advance, before I can inherit them. He’s alone, the poor guy...”
Klas nodded and thought about the wide doorway: 13B. He helped her home and accepted a coffee in her small kitchen. The rest of the evening he listened to her sob story: how her grandfather, an old major general, was the only one she had left. No parents, no siblings. She’d been two years old and strapped in a car seat when her father had tried to pass a truck outside of Varberg. The family was killed — her father, mother, and older brother — but she’d remained firmly stuck within the protective casing and had survived without a scratch.
Klas listened. He accepted a vegetarian dinner, and watched while she sliced and diced with intense energy as she simultaneously flipped on the TV. Turned out her evening entertainment was cooking programs, and her major passion was root vegetables. Chopped beets, sliced carrots, diced rutabagas.
Klas thought about the hot pink suitcase and realized he wasn’t in love. She told him her name, but he knew he’d always think of her as the Ditz.