“You can feel for yourself when you come.”

“Yes, well…”

“What’s the matter?”

“Well, er…”

“Don’t say you’re not coming home.”

“I seem to feel more unsure the closer it gets…”

“It’s nothing to hesitate about. We’re looking forward to seeing you. Think about Lotta and Bim and Kristina. And Angela. And me. But maybe most of all think about yourself.”

“It might be better for me to stay here. I mean, you have your own life to lead.”

This is really what you might call a role reversal, Winter thought. Before, she was the one urging us to come to Spain, and now it’s us urging her to come to Sweden.

“Everything’s ready,” he said. We’ve bought the Tanqueray, he thought. “You have to come.”

“Yes, well… I want to.”

“I’m expecting you at the airport on December 23.”

“As long as it’s not snowing.”

“The snows will have thawed or been washed away by rain before then.”

“Give my love to Angela.”

“Of course.”

“To both of them.”

“Naturally”

“Have you got a name? For the baby?”

“Lots of them.”

It was thawing the next morning. The air looked heavy, as if it had been hung up like a curtain as the night drew to a close. Winter stood in his boxer shorts, cup in hand, listening to Angela’s Springsteen while she was in the bathroom. Happy, happy in your arms.

He was seldom at home as late in the morning as this. There was less traffic now than at the time he usually drove to work.

Angela emerged from the bathroom and headed for the hall.

“We have to be there in half an hour,” she shouted.

“I’m ready” Winter said.

“What?”

“I’m nearly ready” he yelled, and took his empty cup to the kitchen before heading for the bathroom.

It wasn’t raining, but the air was just as damp as it had appeared to be from the window.

“Let’s walk,” Angela had said on the way down in the elevator.

“It’s wet.”

“I need a walk.”

It was the first time for him. He felt nervous.

It was only a ten-minute walk to the Social Services Clinic. Thin sheets of ice were floating down the canal. A car passed and splashed slush onto Angela’s coat. Winter memorized the license plate number.

“Do you want us to find the driver?” he asked.

“Yes,” Angela said, who was trying to brush off the dirty liquid. “Put him behind bars.”

They hung up their coats and waited in a room with two other women. Winter was the only man. He leafed through a women’s magazine he’d never heard of before while Angela went off with the nurse to have samples taken. Winter read about why women in Stockholm preferred to stay single. That’s not the case in Gothenburg, he thought. This isn’t a place for singles anymore.

Angela came back.

“What samples did they take?” he asked.

“Blood tests. Hemoglobin, blood group, blood sugar.”

“Couldn’t you have done that yourself? At home?”

“Stop it now.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. They did HIV and rubella, in the tenth week. When I first registered.”

“What’s rubella?”

“German measles.”

Winter wondered what it had to do with the Germans. The Berlin Wall. The writing on the wall…

‘Are you nervous, Erik?“

“What do you mean?”

“You sound as if you are.” A woman opened a door and beckoned to them. “It’s our turn now.”

They followed the woman through the door. She ushered them into a smallish room with a desk and two comfortable-looking chairs.

The woman was normally dressed. No white coat, no uniform, Winter thought. He shook the hand she offered him.

“My name’s Elise Bergdorff. I’m a midwife, as I’m sure you know. Welcome! I’m glad you could come.”

Winter introduced himself and sat down.

Angela and the midwife talked about the previous couple of weeks. It only took Winter a few seconds to realize that there was an understanding between the two women. Angela felt secure. He relaxed, listened, made the occasional contribution.

Time for the ultrasound. Angela lay down on a hospital bed, the midwife applied a translucent gel to her stomach, and held up a microphone connected to a machine.

“What’s that?” Winter asked. Does it matter? he wondered. I’m just so used to asking questions.

“It’s a Sonicaid. For measuring ultrasound waves.” She held the microphone against Angela’s blue stomach with its slightly convex mound.

Winter could hear the sound of a heart beating. Actually hear it! It was beating fast, twice the speed of an adult’s. It filled the whole room, all around him. Angela took hold of his hand. He shut every other thought out of his mind, simply listened.

31

Patrik closed the refrigerator door, but it was opened again immediately by one of his father’s friends who had brought with him from the living room an acrid smell of smoke and liquor.

“I had a bottle of Marinella here that should be cold and tasty by now,” he said, looking at Patrik. “Have you stolen it?” He burst out laughing. His eyes were porcelain: frigid, gleaming. Before long they’ll sink back into his skull and he’ll end up on the floor, thought Patrik. Maybe the old man will end up on top of him.

Pelle Plutt slammed the fridge door shut. “WHERE’S MY ‘NELLA?!” he screamed into the living room, where the party was going with a bang. They’d been struggling to get to where they were now, but from here on in it was downhill all the way. Pelle Plutt looked at Patrik. He was only twenty-five, but could have been the old man’s brother. He still had all his hair, but that was all he still had.

“What have you done there?” he said, screwing up his eyes and pointing at Patrik’s face. “That was a king-size wallop if ever I saw one.”

“It’s nothing.”

“You had it seen to?”

“Yes.”

“It’ll go away, but it’ll be black and blue for a while,” said Pelle Plutt, opening the fridge door again and rummaging around inside. A tub of margarine fell out onto the floor. “Here’s the fucking nectar!” He held up the bottle, half full of the yellowish-red liquid.

One of these days I’ll dilute it with piss. Fifty percent piss and he won’t notice a thing. Patrik smiled at Pelle Plutt. Piss, you bastard.

“This looks like your face,” said Pelle Plutt, gaping at the blue label. He looked at Patrik. “Only joking.” He looked at the bottle again, then back at Patrik. “Would you like a drop?”

“No, thanks.” Patrik went into the hall and put on his jacket and his shoes, which were very wet inside. You could put newspaper in them when you took them off, to dry them, but it was a long time since he’d done that. He had a vague memory of it. Maybe it was his mum, when he was very young.

Some woman started singing in the living room. His father laughed, and Patrik closed the door quietly behind him.

Maria was sitting with a cup of hot chocolate on the table in front of her when he arrived at Java.

“It’s getting worse,” she said.

“It’ll get better eventually”

“Was anything broken?”

“No.”

“You ought to turn in that bastard.”

“That’s what the police say as well,” he said, taking off his jacket and hanging it on the back of his chair. “Your mom’s pal, Winter.”

“He’s not exactly her pal.”

“Well, him, anyway” He eyed her cup.

“Would you like one?”

“Chocolate? No, thanks. I had enough at your place.”

“Four cups.” She smiled. “Mom figured you’d get into the Guinness Book of Records.”

“I’ll order a coffee,” he said, getting up.

“You haven’t gotten any further with what you saw on the stairs?” she asked when he came back.

“I’m not sure.”

He said hello to somebody walking past. The cafe was full of young kids smoking and drinking coffee or tea or hot chocolate. There were books everywhere. Patrik himself used to come here with his school-books when he really should have been at school with them on his desk.