Not That It Even Matters

[Siggdalos]

A snippet of things to come.

*****

FRIDAY 11 DECEMBER 1981

The weather outside the Chinese restaurant was bordering on a blizzard. Bloody winter, the dining customers said to each other. Should move to a warmer place. China, why not. The royal couple had been there a couple months earlier, after all, looked at bridges and pandas. Or Italy. Or the States. Or wherever the hell, as long as it was someplace where you were spared from Swedish weather.
It was quiet around the corner table for six nearest the door. There was some clinking from Morgan Cederqvist and Laurence Abramsson's glasses when they picked them up and put them down again, and every now and then the sound of dry paper when Erland Karlsson turned the page in a copy of Svenska Dagbladet. That was all.
Morgan and Larry had spent twenty minutes discussing the latest in horse racing without reaching any kind of conclusion worth a damn. After that, Morgan had tried to start a political discussion with Karlsson, but the bastard didn't take the bait. So now they sat here in silence instead, and in all likelihood the other two were thinking the same thing as him: that the only reason for their staying was that the alternative was to head out and face the cutting wind on their own.
Morgan wished that someone at least would've moved the empty chairs to another table. Then it would maybe feel less like they were just sitting here waiting. Waiting for one of the missing members of the gang to come in through the door, for the evening to start for real. Like in that play Lacke and Jocke had discussed a couple times, about some guys who stood around waiting for a third bloke who never showed up.
A couple weeks ago, the remains of the gang had gathered here and held a memorial service of sorts. Including Gösta. Morgan did not have the faintest clue how Larry had managed to convince the man to not only leave his apartment, but also to properly wash himself to the point where the stench only felt intrusive if you sat next to him. Morgan had explained the situation to the waiter, who'd taken Jocke, Lacke, and Virginia's portraits down from the wall and placed them on their table. He'd even lit a candle for them, even if he pursed his lips at Gösta's presence.
That evening had turned out alright, despite it all, and at the time it felt like a natural way to get some kind of closure. What was less natural was figuring out what the guys were supposed to make of each other's company afterward. Gösta never showed his face anywhere, and as far as the others were concerned, Morgan had started feeling more and more as though their evenings together didn't amount to much more than ... well, than repetitions of an old play. One where none of the lines worked anymore since half the ensemble was missing.

At around half past six, the door opened. Morgan looked up and did a double take.
The woman who came in with a bag in her hand could've been a twenty-five years younger copy of Virginia, aside from the oversized glasses and the pixie cut of her blonde hair. She went up to the bar, got the owner's attention, and pulled out a small framed painting from the bag. The owner smiled and pointed first at Virginia's picture on the wall, said something in his heavy accent, and then in the direction of the regulars' table.
Morgan got an uneasy feeling in his stomach. He looked at Larry, who met his gaze and made a grimace. The old man had thought the same thing.
This could mean trouble.
The woman came up to them. "Excuse me, hi, you were friends of Virginia Lindblad, right?"
Karlsson looked up from his newspaper.
Morgan considered lying for about half a second before he replied: "Correct." Even though he was already perfectly aware of the answer, he continued: "And who might you be?"
She stretched out her hand. "Lena. Her daughter."
Morgan and Larry shook it, said their names. Karlsson introduced himself with both first and last name, the stuck-up bastard.
"Can I have a seat?" She motioned at one of the three empty chairs. Morgan realized that it was the same chair Virginia used to use. He looked at the others, who shrugged.
"Sure, make yourself at home." He cleared his throat. "And ... sorry for your loss, and all that."
She took off her scarf and blue duffel coat and hung them on the chair. Perhaps in an attempt to delay the inevitable, Morgan asked:
"So where's the little one?"
"Pardon?"
"Well, Virginia used to talk about her grandson every now and then." He chuckled at the memory. "She was so bloody happy that time she came in here and told everyone how she'd become a grandma. Right, guys?"
"Yeah", Larry mumbled and took a sip of his beer. Karlsson was busy trying to hide behind his paper.
Lena smiled wanly, too. "My dad's babysitting him."
The waiter walked past and asked if he could get her anything, but she dismissed him with a polite gesture.
"Well, then", Morgan said and sipped on his beer. "How can we be of assistance?"
The last of Lena's smile snuffed out. She looked down and seemed to search for a way to phrase her request among the Oriental patterns slithering across the tablecloth.
"I want to ... talk to you about Mom."
"Sure. What do you ..."
"What happened before she died."
The table fell quiet. Some older guys at another table laughed out loud at something.
She continued, somewhat more forcefully: "I know that she ... died in the fire at the hospital. But I couldn't get any straight answers from the police or the hospital about what happened or why she was there. For god's sake, I didn't even know she'd been admitted. Her coworkers said that she was mostly with you the ... the last few days. I can't stand just ... not knowing why she died. You have to tell me everything. Please."
The wind increased in strength outside, howled like a person on fire. Morgan scratched one of his sideburns and glanced at the others.
Karlsson turned the page. Larry looked at the clouds of snow whirling up against the window pane.
"Well ..." Morgan said at length. "It's a tad ... complicated."
Lena raised her voice. "But how hard can it be?"
"It's ... something of a long story, see."
To hell with it, I'm worthless at this kinda thing.
He looked at Larry and elbowed him in the side. Larry made a Why does it always have to be me-face and cleared his throat.
"Alright", the old man began. "First things first. She was admitted because she'd been attacked by cats."
"Cats." Lena's face was expressionless.
"Yes. Cats."
"Okay, and what does that mean? Someone at the hospital said something similar, but I honestly didn't understand what they meant."
"It means that she was attacked by cats."
"Ordinary cats?"
"Yes. See, she was at Gösta's place, a buddy of ours ..."
"Also called 'the Stinkbomb' by certain individuals around here", said Karlsson.
"Shut it", said Morgan.
"Did they have rabies?" said Lena.
Larry gave the other guys an irritated look. "Hell if I know. In any case, all of Gösta's cats flipped their wigs as soon as she stepped foot inside, for some reason. They pounced on her all at once, and she ended up having to be ferried off in an ambulance. Lacke went with her."
"Lacke? Her särbo?"
"Yes. Or whatever you're supposed to call him."
Lena had taken her glasses off. She rested her forehead in her hands and stared down at the tablecloth. "Good god. Why didn't she call me?"
"Worth mentioning that she wasn't exactly in tip-top shape when it happened, either", Larry said. "What with all the stuff that happened earlier."
Lena looked up at him and Morgan said: "Might be best if you take it from the top, Larry."
"Yes", Lena said. "Please do."
Karlsson rustled his paper.
If he keeps that up, I'll shove the bloody thing down his throat.
Larry gave her the long version. Once the cops had gotten their fingers out and come looking for Larry and Morgan a couple days after Lacke's death, the two of them had through an unspoken agreement avoided mentioning Gösta. Didn't want to send the cops after the guy, considering his current state and what he'd said earlier. Now, on the other hand, Larry told the whole story: Jocke's disappearance, Gösta, the attack on Virginia, the cats. He slowed down, hesitated when he approached the scorched hospital bed, fast-forwarded past without detailed descriptions, and finished with Lacke being found dead in the Ritual Killer's apartment later that same day. The old man strayed off on sidetracks a couple of times and Morgan expected Lena to interrupt with questions, but she never did. She mostly sat and stared down at the tablecloth or out through the window.
Once Larry had finished she remained silent for a long time before saying: "You, in all seriousness, expect me to believe all that."
Karlsson made a grunting noise, probably meant to signal agreement.
Larry scratched his throat. "Er, well ..."
"All of this sounds totally insane, can't you hear that?"
Morgan put his glass down, a little more forcefully than necessary. A couple drops spilled out on the table. "Yeah, of course we fucking do, but why should we lie? Huh?" Lena looked at him, but before she had time to open her mouth, he continued: "I know what we look like. What kind of ... bloody impression we make."
"Morgan", Larry said, but he ignored it.
"But I was stone-cold sober when I saw what had happened to your mom in that bed, and I can vouch for every word that this here fellow has said. And no, we can't explain this shit. We don't know what happened. We don't know a thing. And there's nothing we can do but say what we've seen and what we know, even if it's next to nothing, and that was what Missus came and asked about, so she'll bloody well have to take it or leave it."
"Morgan", Larry said again.
Morgan followed Larry's gaze and glanced over his shoulder in time to see the customers at some of the other tables turn away. He couldn't muster the energy to care and instead turned back to Lena. She didn't look angry anymore. Looked more like someone had stuck a needle in her and caused the air to start seeping out.
"I just don't understand ... why she never called."
Larry peered into his drink as if he thought that he'd find an answer etched into the bottom of the glass. "Guess she didn't want to ... worry you."
"And you think that would've been worse? Do you?" Lena raised her voice again. Out of the corner of his eye, Morgan saw the other customers look in their direction again. Maybe they were hoping that the waiter would intervene and kick those people by the window out if they insisted on continuing to make noise.
Lena took no notice and instead kept going. "Worse than ... not being told a thing? You think so? That it was better that I didn't have a clue about what was happening until they suddenly called and said that ... that my mother is dead, that she's stone dead and that her family will never see her again, that I never even got a chance to ... a chance to say ... to say ..."
She shut her mouth and seemed to struggle to control her face's movements. Then she abruptly got to her feet and gathered up her things while mumbling: "I'm sorry, I ... It's probably best if I leave."
She pulled her outerwear on and hurried out with the bag held tight against her chest. She dashed through the snowstorm outside like a blue phantom, and then she was gone.
Karlsson raised his eyes and looked in the direction where she had disappeared.
"Thanks for the help, buddy", Morgan said.
Karlsson shook his head and started folding up the paper. "You two handled that so well on your own."

***

MONDAY 14 DECEMBER

Larry felt a little silly. He thought that the unease should've started fading, that the place should've started to feel somewhat like a normal place again by this point. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't look at those concrete walls, that section of the path without constantly thinking that that was the place where Jocke took his last breaths ever.
Maybe things would get better come spring. Maybe the aura would melt away into the ground with the snow. But until then, he would always the take the stairs instead of walking under the bridge.
"Right, so", Morgan said between drags. "It was here that it all ... started, you might say."
"I see", Lena said from behind the scarf pulled up over almost half her face. She maintained a short distance from Larry and Morgan with her hands stuffed into the pockets of her coat, as if she didn't trust her tidy appearance to be enough of a signal to passersby that I have nothing to do with these two. Larry wondered if she felt ashamed that her mother had hung out with guys like them.
Probably.
Not that she needed to worry. It was the middle of a Monday and the park lay empty around them, aside from the recurring chirps of some great tits. Karlsson had abstained from coming along, said something of the usual about "having a job to attend, unlike some others I could name."

Lena had called Larry on St. Lucy's Day and asked if they could meet, after first apologizing at least four times for her (as she put it) "behavior" at the restaurant and for calling him in the first place.
"I have to head there and fix the last couple of things in Mom's apartment anyhow", she explained.
Larry hadn't needed any time to think it over before he said yes. It wasn't like he had anything better to do. Lena had asked him to invite Morgan as well. Larry hadn't asked why she didn't call him herself.
Larry and Morgan had met up at the main square ten minutes before the agreed-upon time and sat down to have a smoke outside the library, next to the immense Christmas tree reaching toward the pale overcast sky. Both of them agreed that the decorations in the shop windows seemed more subdued than usual this year.
Lena had emerged from the subway half a minute before the agreed-upon time and accompanied them down to the park while she told them about the job she'd taken some time off of. Evidently her mother's workaholism wasn't hereditary. Larry hadn't listened particularly closely. The more she'd talked, the less he'd understood what the woman actually did all day. It had something to do with computers, and Larry wasn't very good at keeping up with the times on that front. He'd hummed every now and then and thought about how he could've had children in Lena's age if life had turned out different. And that this was like the introduction to one of the Bellman jokes the kids told sometimes.
There was a drunkard, an old drunkard, and a young lady.
Morgan hadn't even pretended like he was listening.

Lena turned her face up at the high-rises on their left. "So where does this Gösta live? I'd like to talk to him as well."
Morgan was done smoking and flicked away the butt in an arc that made Larry think of illustrations of the way ballistic missiles moved.
"Because you don't believe us, eh?" Morgan said and stretched out his arms.
"No, it's just ..."
He gave a dismissive wave of his hand, said: "Yeah, yeah, yeah", and pointed out Gösta's window to her.
"I don't know if that's a good idea", Larry chipped in. "He's still a wreck, I think."
"Could just go up and ring the doorbell. If he doesn't want to chat, we'll leave him alone."
"Now?" Lena asked. "Isn't he ... at work?"
Larry realized that he had no idea whether Gösta even had a job. But: "I don't think he has one."
"Oh."
"Might as well go up and check, in any case", Morgan said. "Or were you two planning on standing here and freezing your asses off all day?"
Lena glanced at the underpass and then shook her head. Larry had no objections.
He suspected that Morgan's motive for coming along on this little expedition was quite different from his own. Larry had some vague idea about wanting to help out, whatever that meant in practical terms. Morgan, on the other hand, mostly seemed fixated on the idea of convincing Lena that he and Larry were right. That everything they said was true. Whatever that mattered.
"You weren't exactly eager about believing Lacke's story", Larry had pointed out to him outside the library.
"Look who's talking. And that was a whole different thing, anywho. Werewolves and monsters. What I'm talking about is pure facts."
"I seem to remember Lacke saying the same thing."
"Oh, don't you start, too."

Morgan took the lead up the stairs. After a couple steps, Lena jogged back down and moved Morgan's cig from the snow to a litterbin before catching up again. Larry couldn't help but smile to himself.
If he'd tried harder at school and become a doc like his ma wanted. If Ingrid had looked in his direction instead of Göran's that one summer. If he hadn't let work and the bottle wear his body out prematurely. If and if and if.
Gösta's building towered over the bridge and the park like a dour giant, accompanied by its twin brothers further down the street. The door was up on a small stone terrace. When Morgan came up on it he glanced at the nearby bushes and pointed.
"Speaking of ... Isn't that one of his?"
Larry didn't see what he was talking about until a small white head emerged from the tangle of black branches. A snow-white cat carefully crept out onto the terrace, walked up to Lena, and pushed against her legs. She crouched down and scratched it behind the ear, eliciting a loud purr. The mog didn't have a tail. Where the tail should have been, there was only a short stump. Impossible to tell whether it was an injury or deformity, but Larry recognized it.
"Yeah", he said in reply to Morgan's question. "It is."
"I thought he said he'd stopped letting them out."
"He did."
They exchanged a look and Larry got an uneasy feeling in his chest. The same feeling as when Lena had shown up at the Chinese restaurant, the same childish instinct saying: This is the start of something bad and I don't want to be involved when it happens.
Lena stood up with the cat in her arms. "We going in?"
Morgan held the door for her with a "Ladies first". Larry went in after Morgan. The joke was starting to sound pretty contrived.
There was a drunkard, an old drunkard, a young lady, and an ugly cat.
When they got to Gösta's floor, Morgan rang the bell a couple times. Mechanical screeching noises were heard from inside the apartment, but no other sounds. Lena pulled in air through her nose and fidgeted a little.
"What's that smell?"
"Cat piss", Larry said.
Morgan stooped, pushed the letter slot open with his finger, and hollered into it: "Hellooo! Anyone home?"
"What are you doing?" Lena hissed and looked around, as though she was afraid that one of the neighbors would see them.
The cat let out a mewl and twisted in her arms like an earthworm the moment before it's impaled by the hook. Larry felt the unease growing like a tumor in his chest.
Morgan rose with a grunt and waved a hand in front of his nose. "Bloody hell. Stinks worse than usual."
"You sure he's not at work?" Lena asked.
Larry shook his head and looked at the door.
"You think something's happened to him?" she continued.
"It's not like him to let them out like that", he replied with a nod at the cat. Without any real thought behind it, he stretched out his hand and tried the handle.
The door opened without resistance.
The lump in his chest turned heavy as lead. He exchanged a look with Morgan and Lena before peering inside the gloomy doorway. Almost took a step back when the stench hit him. An invisible beast had been let out of its lair and now billowed out into the stairwell. He let out a cough and got tears in his eyes.
Oh, hell.
He cleared his throat and tried calling: "Gösta?"
No answer.
Lena exchanged a look with Morgan and said: "Should we ... call the police?"
Larry would later regret not taking her advice. Leaving the situation for someone else to take care of. But in that particular moment, that felt like the entirely wrong option. So much shit had already gone down, shit which they had all let happen without so much as lifting a finger. He didn't want do to that yet another time.
He stepped inside. Tried to breathe through his mouth.
Behind him he heard Lena and Morgan follow his example. Lena coughed and swore. He didn't envy her. Walking into the apartment after having never been subjected to the signature Gösta smell before must be like having a freight train shoved up each nostril. Larry wasn't sure, but if anything, the smell seemed to have gotten worse than last time, just like Morgan had said.
All the blinds were drawn and the apartment lay in gloom. Sparse Christmas decorations, no tree. Hair, hair, hair everywhere, just like he remembered. But no sign of any animals nor their owner still being in the apartment. He tried calling again. Same result. When he reached the living room, he was about to shout a third time when he glanced at the kitchen and caught sight of Gösta.
The unease in his chest instantly evaporated and was replaced by an endless exhaustion that dragged him down into the nearest armchair with a sigh.
Behind him he heard Morgan say, in an almost irritated way: "But for heaven's sake, Gösta ..."
Gösta's feet hung, unmoving, a decimeter above the floor, next to the knocked-over chair. The rope tied to a hook in the kitchen ceiling looked so thin and tattered that it was a wonder it hadn't snapped under the weight. On the table next to him stood an empty glass and an opened bottle of vodka.
Lena dropped the white cat on the floor and ran toward the kitchen. "Well, don't just stand there! Help me out here!"
Larry mumbled something about his sore back while Morgan hurried to give Lena a hand. The cat followed Morgan into the kitchen, raised its paw and gave Gösta's legs a prod, setting the body to swinging to and fro until Morgan gripped him and Lena used a kitchen knife to sever the rope from the ceiling. Once they had him down on the floor, Lena checked his pulse, but it was obvious that it was far too late.
The cat hopped up on Gösta's chest and started licking his chin, as if it thought that that would wake him up. It didn't.

A minute or two later, they were out in the blessed fresh air again. Larry had called the police from Gösta's phone. None of them wanted to wait in there, with the smell and with ... that. Him. The body. Larry couldn't get the image of Gösta's face out of his head.
Bloody hell.
He paced back and forth in front of the terrace, occasionally headed out on the sidewalk to look for blue lights. Lena sat on one of the terrace steps with a blank expression on her face and the tailless cat in her knees. She half-petted, half-stroked its fur, as though she was trying to comfort it. Or herself. Her hand trembled a little.
"Did he have any relatives? Friends?" she asked in a flat voice. "Other than you, that is."
"Not that I know of", Larry said.
"Suspected as much." She looked down at the cat, mumbled: "Poor bastard."
"Yes", Larry said, even though he wasn't sure if she meant the cat or Gösta.
Morgan walked around in circles up on the terrace, stopped every now and then and took a draft. He'd taken the liberty of bringing Gösta's vodka bottle down with him. Larry had given him a look, and Morgan had answered with a look of his own that said: Try to stop me.
Larry tried to recall the last time he'd seen Gösta. The evening at the Chinese restaurant, when they'd sat and toasted with the portraits. Gösta had mostly sat and stared down into his glass, mumbled things along the lines of: "If only I'd said something earlier ..."
The others, especially Morgan, had tried to cheer him up, said that no one in the gang thought that it was his fault, but Gösta hadn't shown much sign that he heard them.
Should we have understood what he was planning? Did we have a responsibility?
"Were you planning on adopting that thing, or what?" Morgan suddenly said and pointed at the cat.
Lena looked down at the animal as if she'd briefly forgotten that it was there. Shrugged. "Well, someone has to take care of him."
Morgan scoffed and brought the bottle to his mouth again.
Larry looked at the cat and wondered if it was one of those who had participated in the attack on Virginia. Probably. After all, Gösta had said that they'd all gone crazy. Every last one. Even the ones who could normally barely stand up.
Lena scratched the no-tail behind the ears. It purred contentedly and looked as though it didn't have a harmful bone in its body. Larry remembered stories he'd read of cat owners who had died in their homes and been halfway eaten by their pets before anyone found them.
Was that why he let them out?
Nah. If anything, he supposed Gösta would've liked the idea: getting to be a meal for his darlings as his last deed in life. Larry shuddered. No, it must've been that he didn't want to lock them up and run the risk of having them starve, that he hoped that they'd be able to get by on their own out here.
Where's the rest of them now? Are they running around town somewhere?
"Know what", Morgan said. "I've had about enough of this."
Larry looked up. "What?"
"I'm leaving you. Farewell. Auf Wiedersehen."
"You're just going to leave?"
"Yep."
"But we have to ... talk to the cops."
Morgan shook his head. "You two can handle that on your own. Sorry, but ... I've seen a lot of crap lately, see, but this ..." He glanced up at Gösta's window and shook his head again. "No. Enough is enough." He raised the bottle in a farewell gesture of sorts. "If they want anything of me, you know where to find me."
"Well ... alright, then."
Morgan strolled down from the terrace and down the footpath in the direction of Holbergsgatan with the bottle bouncing against his hip.
Lena watched him leave and seemed to wait until he was out of earshot before she said: "Not much of a friend, that one."
Larry didn't know what to say. Eventually replied: "Last couple of months have been a handful."
"I understand that. I really do. But that's no excuse for ... behaving like that."
"He isn't usually like this. This whole mess has dredged up all his worst sides."
"Sure, but he could always try showing some empathy for once. He's hardly ... one of those who've been given the worst lot here."
Larry had to strain to hear the last part. After she said it, she shut her mouth tight and lowered her head, as if she felt ashamed. Her fingers kept moving in soft furrows over the cat's fur, like some kind of harmless version of Ernst Blofeld.
Larry looked at her a short while. Then headed out on the sidewalk and smoked a cig while looking out for police vehicles.
If Jocke hadn't taken the path through the park that evening. If Virginia hadn't chosen the same path the night when she was attacked. If Larry and Morgan had tried to stop Lacke from doing whatever it was he'd tried to do. If and if and if.
He went back to her and said: "Sorry for dragging you into this."
She didn't reply.

***

SUNDAY 20 DECEMBER
Fourth Sunday of Advent

The flakes fell in a slow and idle dance over the graveyard. Small and dainty they were, and the stirring wind sent them whirling in a waltz and somersaulting over one another, all in such silence that the slightest creak underfoot hurt the ear. They followed the path next to Råcksta Lake, which had pulled a white blanket over itself and gone to sleep for the winter. When they came in among the graves, Lena slowed down and mumbled something about forgetting to bring matches. She gave her sapphire umbrella to Larry and started digging through her pockets until Larry handed her his lighter.
She lit the candle in the lantern she was carrying and sank into a crouch so she could plant it in the snow in front of the marble plaque. Stretched her hand out and brushed away the snow covering the letters Sofia Virginia Lindblad / June 13, 1930 - November 9, 1981. Lighter and umbrella swapped owners again.
They stood like that for a while. Larry rubbed his gloves together in a stillborn attempt to warm his hands. Avoided looking at Lena. Wondered if he should have gone to the funeral after all. Sought warmth in a cigarette, but only managed two drags before a flake landed on it and snuffed it out. Sighed.
Lena had more or less said that he was the only one of the guys whose company she could stand, but she still hadn't explained why she had asked him of all people to accompany her here.
And Larry didn't have an umbrella.
When the sobs started, he walked away. Couldn't stomach just standing there on the side. He wished that there had been someone else here, someone who could've put a hand on her shoulder without it being interpreted the wrong way.
He went for a stroll around the graveyard. Threw the wet cig in a bush and let his thoughts drift along with the snow. Morgan would've kept trying to light his cig no matter how many times it got snuffed out, would probably have worked himself up and gotten really pissed off after a while. Karlsson would've drily stated something about the weather and not even tried. And Gösta didn't smoke, as far as Larry knew.
He looked over at Lena, an immobile blue blur amidst all the whiteness.
Why was he keeping this up? Should go home and warm himself with a grog instead. It was moronic to think that he could do anything for her, and even if he could've done so, there were others who were better suited for it anyway. Virginia's coworkers, for one. Or Virginia's mother. Or really anyone who wasn't him.
He kept walking.
The cemetery housed quite a few of Larry's acquaintances, but he couldn't remember where most of them lay and didn't feel inclined to go roving in search of them. He settled for stopping next to the newest of them.
Lars-Åke Henrik Ivar Sörensson
February 1, 1936 - November 9, 1981
"The wisest of all is he who can, if only once a month, call himself a fool."
Larry picked up his lighter again and planted a flickering little fire in the lantern sitting on a pole next to the grave. Brushed away some snow from the lantern's top.
"Hi there." He opened and closed his mouth a few times and felt that he should say something more. Sorry, perhaps. Unclear for what, exactly. Ultimately, all that came out was: "Well, I just wanted to say hi, really. Have yourself a merry Christmas now." Then he sought out Jocke's grave and did the same thing there.
Lacke would neither have tried to light the cig nor extinguished it. He would've resigned himself to standing with it unlit in his mouth and looking cheerless. Jocke would've happily followed his example, and then the two of them would've stood there laughing with each other about the whole thing.
Virginia would have shaken her head at them and pointed out that they could always just go in under a tree instead of standing there like idiots. Nevertheless she would've stayed where she was and continued to keep them company.

Larry sat on a bench next to the footpath when Lena came walking, red-eyed and miserable. She made a mitten-wrapped gesture at the sky.
"How are you managing? With the weather."
He shrugged. She sat down next to him and held up the umbrella--or paraneige, as she'd claimed that it was called when used against snow--over the both of them.
"How are you managing?" he asked.
She sniffled and smiled wanly. "Fuck if I know."
They listened to the rumble of a nearby snowplough struggling along Grimstagatan. Flashes of orange light passed through openings in the hedge separating the cemetery from the road.
Lena looked out into the air and shook her head, as if she'd caught herself having an unusually stupid idea. "I don't know why I'm telling you this, but ... I feel like I have to tell someone about it, if you see what I mean."
"Alright", Larry said.
Lena sniffled again. Didn't look at him. "When I talked to Mom's coworkers ... one of them said something so strange. A couple days after that ... incident in the park."
"When she was ..." Larry tried to find a way of phrasing it that didn't sound too blunt, but didn't come up with any and instead said: "When she was attacked?"
Lena grimaced, as if that last word was painful to hear, but nodded. "Yes. Exactly. Were you there when ...?"
"Yes. Or, not quite. Almost. It was when we ..."
She brushed off his explanation. "Doesn't matter. In any case she went back to work only a couple days later." She wiped her nose and shook her head again. "So bloody like her. And sure enough, it turned out to have been a stupid idea, since she only managed to be there for a little while before she passed out. One of her coworkers had to help her home, but ... That was the strange part. While they walked, Mom got some kind of blisters all over her face. And her hands."
"Blisters?"
"Yes, like ... This coworker wasn't sure, but she said that she thought it looked like burn marks. As though Mom was ... burned by the sunlight."
The words hung motionless in the air. Larry thought he caught a whiff of smoke and swallowed in an attempt to force down the sudden nausea tickling the back of his throat.
Lena adjusted the umbrella. Sighed, straightened a little, and looked him straight in the eyes.
"All the things that you and Morgan have told me. Are they true?"
"Yes."
Her hazel eyes remained fixed on his. Moved a little back and forth. Scrutinized him.
"And this stuff that ... Lacke was talking about. Do you believe in that? In any of it?"
Larry hoped that she could hear the honesty in his voice when he said:
"I don't know."
She kept looking at him for a long time before glancing away.

She got to her feet after about a minute of silence.
"Thank you", she said.
"For what?"
She shook her head. "Just thanks. For everything."
She handed him the umbrella. Pulled the scarf up over her face, planted her hands in her pockets, and walked away with raised shoulders, back in the direction of Blackeberg, of the subway, of the way back to her child and her life.
Once she'd disappeared out of sight, Larry folded up the umbrella and remained seated, holding it under his arm. It didn't make a difference anyway. He was already oversnowed.

[metoo]

Nice.

For foreigners: The noun särbo is sort of an anti-these to sambo, sam-bo, the latter mening a couple who live together under marriage-like forms.
Sär-bo is thus a couple who live under marriage-like forms, but have different addresses.

Sam means together, bo means to live (or in this case one who lives), sär means apart.

[Siggdalos]

For foreigners: The noun särbo is sort of an anti-these to sambo, sam-bo, the latter mening a couple who live together under marriage-like forms.
Sär-bo is thus a couple who live under marriage-like forms, but have different addresses.

Sam means together, bo means to live (or in this case one who lives), sär means apart.

To elaborate on why I used the word here, LTROI (Friday 30 October) describes L&V as "särbos på maximalt frivilliga grunder"—"särbos on the most voluntary basis possible". The English translation takes some liberty with this and renders it as "They were a couple in the loosest sense of the word".

[gkmoberg1]

Absolutely loved this! As I made my way towards the end, I was wondering what help Birgit (if I have the name correct) and the two others from the grocery might provide ... and then you had that in there for the finale scene.

I take it, then, that Gösta deliberately removed the cat. Then, perhaps he removed the others as well? I know this is not something that matters. But I suspect 20-25 housebound cats would likely be a fuss once the three made it into his apartment.

Lena might find some information from the police. Or would they not say anything? For example, she doesn't go to the scene of the attack when Elias dropped on her from above. And, as far as we know, she doesn't go to the hospital, the one she was taken to for that attack, for information. It was different hospitals, right? One for when she was initially attacked and the a second when she was admitted?

Nice addition to our ff collection.

[Siggdalos]

I guess I should explain my intentions with this a bit more than what I wrote at the start. This is an excerpt from a longer fan fiction I've been sporadically working on in fits and starts for ... well, close to two years now (sheesh!). In the original context, these three scenes are spread out over a longer chapter (or chapters, haven't decided yet), so if they seem a little disjointed in terms of tone or pacing, that'd be why. I realized that I had unfortunately posted zero fan fiction all year, and I wanted to at least contribute something small before 2022 was out. Since these three already served as a small story-within-a-story and they're some of the parts I'm happiest with, I edited them together to make this. Writing Larry and Morgan was fun and their voices came pretty naturally, at least in Swedish; don't know how well I managed to preserve it in this translated version.

As I made my way towards the end, I was wondering what help Birgit (if I have the name correct) and the two others from the grocery might provide ... and then you had that in there for the finale scene.

I briefly considered writing another scene from Lena's POV where she talked to the people at the store, but I decided it wouldn't add anything that wouldn't be better summed up in a couple of sentences. The ICA employee that Lena mentions here, the one who helped Virginia home, is Lotten. The one you're thinking of is Berit.

I take it, then, that Gösta deliberately removed the cat. Then, perhaps he removed the others as well? I know this is not something that matters. But I suspect 20-25 housebound cats would likely be a fuss once the three made it into his apartment.

The intention is that he got them all to leave the apartment before he did the deed, so it's catless when Lena & co. enter. I don't know how realistic this is. In an earlier version of the scene there were a couple more cats who lingered around the building and followed Lena & co. inside, but I thought I was making things more complicated for myself that way and that having only a single cat made the scene feel more desolate.

That said, I've not forgotten about the rest of the cats (as hinted by Larry's thoughts on the matter). The concept is somewhat inspired by (shamelessly copied from) Misslyckas igen, misslyckas bättre and one of JAL's early scrapped ideas for the novel, which was to have a group of children murder an old cat lady in the belief that she was a vampire. Her cats would then run loose throughout the rest of the story. Of course, in the end, the woman was reimagined as a man (Gösta) and the cats were given a different role. I mentioned this in my thread about the book.

Lena might find some information from the police. Or would they not say anything? For example, she doesn't go to the scene of the attack when Elias dropped on her from above. And, as far as we know, she doesn't go to the hospital, the one she was taken to for that attack, for information.

Well, when Lena steps into the restaurant on December 11, it's been over a month since her mother died, which is time she could've spent nagging the authorities for info. I'm thinking that going to Virginia's old drinking buddies for help is something of a last resort for her. One could probably write a fanfic entirely devoted to Lena's search for answers, but I didn't want to go into much detail, both because I don't think it'd be interesting (at least if I wrote it) and because I don't think I know enough about how police and hospital procedures work to write about it realistically.

That said, I didn't think about the possibility of having her visit the spot where Virginia was attacked by Eli. I may have to add that into the December 14 scene now.

It was different hospitals, right? One for when she was initially attacked and the a second when she was admitted?

I believe the novel doesn't specify where she was taken the first time. After the cat incident she was taken to Sabbatsberg, in Stockholm proper.

Nice addition to our ff collection.

Thanks.