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nothingofvaluewaslost · 9 months ago

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NOVELLA: Wings for Wheels

A longer story. Thriller/romance/SF. In an alternate 1970s, Gordon and his girlfriend Marie-Louise are awaiting the election of the new Saint, the woman whose role is to feel love for all humanity in order to stop aggression and wars. It is a momentous occasion -- and when M-L is the one to be elected, she and Gordon can no longer stay together.

Years later, Gordon is on the other side of the world, living his own life, when he finds that there are people who are willing to use his connection to M-L for their own purposes.

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Wings for Wheels, by Christina Nordlander

Gordon was barely over twenty when he stood in the crowd of Gustav Adolf Square waiting for the results of the election. The crowd had crawled towards the House of Parliament like a giant single-cell organism. The forecourt on Helgeandsholmen had been full before sun-up, and the streets and bridges were closed for traffic. They were all there, mum and dad and Sören. Lottie had come along even though she was two years older than he and wasn’t living at home any more. She studied childcare in college and had something going on with a bloke whom dad disliked, but she’d shown up for the Saint’s election. She’d even dressed up for it, not with her usual coloured scarves and large-painted eyes, but in almost the opposite style: a plain white dress, hair down, no other ornaments than a thin silver headband.

Many girls in the square and the streets were dressed the same way, in white dresses that they might have worn when they graduated, even some women mum’s age or older. The Saint was usually a healthy young woman, unmarried, without any duties that her new task would tear her from. There had to be some people in the government who checked the statistics and made a raffle between the women who were most suitable, but who knew? Perhaps it would be a mother this time, or a child whose parents would have to move to the residence. Several of the girls in the square had taken their shoes off and stood barefoot on the asphalt, even though it was only May.

Broad black loudspeakers had been placed on masts around the verdigris green equestrian statue and around the sides of the square, for announcing the decision. There wasn’t much to be gained standing around here: if you were at home, you’d get the election result on TV and radio. He must have had other things he’d wanted to do on a day off from college. Hang around downtown with the guys, take Marie-Louise to the café or drive her on his motorbike on some road around Lake Örnäs and between the sunlit pines. No-one’s presence was necessary for this, other than the statesmen’s and the old Saint’s who was going to transfer her power to the new girl from her deathbed. Yet he’d never thought about staying home. Perhaps everyone went here who knew a woman, and all women.

They’d waited long enough to get bored before the loudspeakers crackled. Those who had been talking fell silent. A male voice:

“After deliberation, the Election Committee has found the woman who is to succeed Saint Märta Josefina Sjöblad, from the third of May 1976.”

He paused. Perhaps he was just drawing a breath. Lottie raised her head. He would have liked to take her hand, even though it was cheesy: there were four million women for them to choose from, but surely there was a chance it would be her? She would go from studying to become a daycare teacher to living in a white villa and not having to do anything more than sitting sequestered and thinking good thoughts to keep conflicts and evil under control. If he’d been a chick, he would have longed for it too. Men didn’t become Saints, mum had explained to him when he was younger. Men were the ones who protected the Saint.

“Marie-Louise Johansson, municipality of Stockholm, daughter of Ingemar and Vivan Johansson.”

It felt like he’d known as soon as he heard the first syllable. Lottie turned around, a bit clumsily in the throng.

“But that’s your gal, Gordon!”

There were no huzzahs yet, that would wait till the investiture, perhaps only a few sighs from the white-clad women. His first thought was that he had to get to M-L as quickly as he could, as if he had to warn her of some danger. (That was true, too: she was in danger now, she might be more important than any other human.) It was stupid, she was already headed to the House of Parliament. Her family would have a chance to see her after the ceremony.

He only remembered the rest of the day in smoothed-out clips, as if he'd seen it on TV. M-L hadn't been in the square; she'd used the day to sit at home studying. She liked to have the radio on while she was working, so that might have been where she'd heard it. Perhaps she'd also hoped to become Saint, but dressing in white hadn't been her thing. The officials brought her downtown in a black VW that glinted like a piece of jewellery in the ruthless light. They'd given her time to get changed, because when she stepped out of the car – but that was something he only saw on TV and in photos in the paper – she was wearing a pinstriped suit that made her look like a secretary. It was the most formal thing she owned.

He saw her come out to the rostrum without glasses and in her new white dress, not dress, robe. She took the sword in both hands and swore the oath to the Kingdom of Sweden and the Crown. The sword was a military weapon that she wasn't going to keep; she was a defender, not a warrior. There was already a guard of honour stationed around her, darker against the white fabric.

People would get to speak to her in private before they took her to her new residence. Her family was first, obviously; after that, you were entered in a list.

“We know each other,” Gordon said to the suit-wearing receptionist.

She shook her head; only family members and spouses were given precedence. He was entered after some woman he'd never heard M-L talk about.

The queue was so long, he wouldn't get to meet her until six o'clock. Mum had asked him if they should stay, but he'd told them they didn't have to. He wouldn't get to eat until late. He bought an apple and a couple of toffees at a newsagent's, that way at least he wouldn't collapse in the House of Parliament.

A somewhat heavy guy in a suit and thick-rimmed glasses, maybe dad's age, led him through a corridor in heavy oak. He opened a door with a glass pane. A chick, still dressed in white, sat at the end of an oblong table inside. The door was open, he was allowed to go through, but it took a moment before he was certain that it was she and not some other young woman with hair dyed dark. Of course it was she.

“Gordon?” she said as if she hadn't expected him. “Come here, sit down.”

She waved a slim hand towards one of the chairs next to her. By the door was a heavy-set young man in a black suit and sunglasses, a bodyguard? That was the stuff of Hollywood movies.

“I apologise, I thought we were going to speak in private,” he said to both of them and managed a laugh that sounded cowardly.

The guard didn't have to say anything, because M-L replied:

“I'm not crazy about it either, but you know, they have to, for my safety. I know you're not going to hurt me, but...”

He turned his chair so that he had his back to the guard. It was rude, but he had to understand.

They ended up sitting in silence. He hadn't thought about what to say. M-L was the one to talk first.

“You know, Gordon? I'm sorry.”

As if it were her fault – as if she were in a police cell instead. He was about to hug her, but now he might not have been able to even if they'd been alone. Instead he put his hand on her arm. Her robe had flared sleeves that easily slipped down from her lower arms. It looked like something set aside from the physical world, like the robes of a kid attending first communion. That was correct.

“Good God, M-L, don't say that! It's not your fault they chose you.”

She jerked back against the backrest, barely noticeably. Was it because he'd used her nickname? Until yesterday, he'd been able to call her that.

“So now you're the Saint,” he said, making his voice a bit happier. “Do you feel any different?”

That seemed to have helped, because she managed a smile. She was a bit pale, but that might have been from the white dress.

When she replied, it was more like the old M-L's voice:

“Yeah... I think I can feel something different in me, but I don't know yet. I don't know how to use it. You know... I had a paper to hand in next week. The one about Rasputin? I'd only written two thousand words on it. I was meaning to ask you if you could hand it in for me, but it's not like it matters now. Anyway, it wasn't finished.”

She gave a little nervous laugh.

“How're you doing?” she went on.

Gordon shook his head.

“Good Lord... after this happened, and you ask about me? I'm doing fine, I'm just a bit hungry, I've got my German homework to do... you've become the Saint. I don't know whether I matter all that much in comparison.”

She sat silent, looking down at the tabletop. It didn't seem like he'd hurt her.

“You must understand that we can't be together any more,” she said without looking at him.

It sounded so sensible coming from her. He straightened his back. Perhaps he could look as glinting and strong as she.

“I understand.”

The room was quiet, perhaps soundproofed. He heard the sliding of the folds in her robe when she breathed in.

“I'm sorry, I just wanted you to be up to speed on that. So you don't get any false hope.”

“Don't you think I get it?”

His voice sounded coarse. He hadn't meant to let it go that far. If M-L had snapped back at him, they might have started fighting – and wouldn't that have been a wonderful way to end the day? – but when she raised her eyes, all she did was look at him. Her look was understanding, as if she'd already been subsumed into the role of Saint.

“I'm sorry,” he said and gave her a quick hug, without her stopping him. “All of this, you must understand... I'm sorry.”

“It doesn't matter.”

She smiled, her old and almost pointy smile.

“Tell you what,” she went on, “I'm starting to get hungry. What do you say to us going out for a meal?”

“They'll let you do that?”

She got to her feet, a bit clumsily in her long skirt, and made a worldly gesture for him to follow her.

“Naturally. I'm the Saint, I'm not some sort of prisoner. But you'll probably have to pay for your meal, I don't think they'll treat you.”

They went to a Chinese place where he'd never been: glittering, low-lit, with black and bright orange carp in a pond in the foyer and lanterns with red silk tassels. M-L's two bodyguards sat at the table next to them. He didn't have to see them. (Was it necessary? If they wanted to protect her, all they needed to do was give her back her old clothes, and she would have been any old college student.) He ordered Three Dishes, salty beef with spring onion and sweet battered shrimp. M-L got small shiny dumplings, but didn't eat more than half of her portion.

“Yes, I am happy,” she said, and it sounded sincere. “Not that I have to leave you... that is going to be sheer hell. But I'm glad that I'm the Saint. Someone has to do it, it might as well be me.”

Her gaze was set on something he couldn't see, and her eyes were full of silver reflections.

It was the weekend four weeks later. He hadn't been meaning to wait this long, but the previous weekend had been grey and rainy, and it felt like he couldn’t do this in the middle of the week. All exams and papers piled up at the end of term. If this worked out, he would toss college overboard with everything else, but he didn't know whether she had some specific schedule during the weekdays. Perhaps she wouldn't even be in the residence.

The residence was in Djursholm, not many kilometres from him. Mum and dad had driven past it back when they were little – Märta had been the Saint in those days – and he'd twisted around in his seat to see as much of the villa as possible. It had been natural, being curious about what was inside, but in hindsight it was as though he had known that he would be connected to it one day.

As soon as he'd had breakfast he took the Matchless out of the cold garage. The bright red paint job was still as new and made the chopper look like it'd cost twice as much. Perhaps they would track him through it. He drove along byways – it took longer, but the weather was idyllic. One time he stopped behind a flower-strewn tractor-trailer with children fresh out of the term.

The residence lay far from the water and far from the other houses. It was vast and of course painted white, with a top floor that jutted out over the ground plane and rested on pillars, like a crow's-nest. He'd seen similar houses once when he was in Dalecarlia as a kid, in crisp silvery timber over Lake Siljan. The property was surrounded with walls, and on each side of the tall iron gate stood a guard: not the suited bodyguards from an American film, but armed guards in dark uniforms. He hadn't remembered that there were guards.

He parked the bike and walked the last bit, putting his hands out a little to show that he wasn't a threat. He'd made sure to dress up, as if he were going to a lecture.

“Is there any way for me to speak to Saint Marie-Louise?” he asked, taking out his identification.

“The residence is not open to the public,” the guard said. “If you have anything to say to the Saint, you will have to write it in a letter to the Chancery of Government.”

It was hard to see his face behind the glass of the helmet, but from his voice he didn’t sound much older than Gordon.

He straightened his back, only because they would see if he showed weakness.

“What’s their address?” he said.

“That is not our purview,” said the younger guard.

It was starting to go wrong. He glanced at the wall. It was rugged limestone, half again as tall as he. They must have noticed his gaze by now.

“Are you able to get in touch with her?” he asked. “My name is Gordon Matsson, I’m a close friend of hers. She’ll let me in.”

His voice hesitated before “close friend,” but perhaps they hadn’t heard a pause.

“The Saint does not admit private persons,” the guard said.

It would be best to go and not drag it out. He managed a smile that must have looked broken.

“But thanks anyway,” he said, turning around.

He’d only taken three steps when he heard a voice behind him:

“Rupert, Albin, let him through. He’s a friend of mine.”

M-L stood on the light garden path behind the gate, in her white robes and glasses. She was shorter than both guards. It ought to have been comical, seeing her give orders to two uniformed men.

The gate screeched open. One of the guards searched him, but perhaps they did that to everyone who passed through.

On his way up through the residence, behind the flutter of M-L’s white skirt, he had an impulse to look around in every direction like a tourist, but soon none of this would matter. What he could see was strangely simple, anyway: a lawn trimmed short like a golf-course, without bushes that would make it harder for the guards to spot intruders, a house as bare as if it were just finished. He saw plainclothes guards and a woman in a light blue uniform who might be some sort of cleaner or maid. They saw M-L and paid no attention to him.

“It was pure dumb luck,” she said. “I was on the balcony, that’s why I saw you. Otherwise those idiots would have sent you home, and I wouldn’t even have known.”

“Perhaps they would’ve had me shot,” Gordon said and laughed to show that it was a joke.

M-L’s metal-dark hair rocked as she shook her head.

“They don’t shoot unless there’s a threat.”

She opened the door to the balcony, but he shook his head. He didn’t know how far their voices would carry into the garden. At least in the room inside the glass doors they were alone. Was it a dining room? The only furnishings were a table in bright wood and a few chairs. M-L took a seat, and he sat down facing her.

“What do you do out here?” he asked.

M-L – Marie-Louise, now – shook her head. He heard the little glossy sound as her hair slid across the shoulders of her dress.

“Not a lot… I just sit in a room and… well, love people. Make an effort to love humanity… not humanity, every person, as much as possible. When I think it’s getting boring, I think about how many wars there were before they found the first Saint. Sometimes I get very tired by the time afternoon rolls around… but that’s when I think it’s working.”

“I don’t get how the Saint works,” he’d said to dad many years before.

It’d been in the living-room, in the evening. He remembered the hazy light of the floor-lamp. Perhaps he’d been doing his Social Studies homework, and that’s why he’d been thinking about the Saint.

“Well, no-one knows,” dad said, folding his newspaper down.

“No, not that. I mean, the teacher says that she creates more love in the world, so there won’t be more wars and things like that. Because she makes people love each other. But… I get angry quite a lot, and I fight with Sören and such. If it works, shouldn’t all people have to nice to each other?”

Dad sighed.

“You’re right,” he said. “The Saint hasn’t made the world a utopia, that’s to say, a paradise… but she’s indubitably made it a whole lot better. Just look at the history books. She might not have enough power to make everyone stop fighting, so maybe she focuses it to the places where it’s needed. I mean, you and your brother are just two little guys. You can hardly push the button for the atomic bomb.”

Now he could have asked her how she did it.

“Sometimes I read,” she went on. “Gunna takes out books for me sometimes when she goes downtown. I meditate… one of the girls showed me how to do it. I mean, it seems like a lot of woo-woo, but it does make it easier to control your emotions.”

He looked around the room, whitewashed walls and a timber floor. It was like something in a convent. At least she got to go out in the garden.

“Don’t you get to do anything else? Watch TV… play badminton or something?”

His voice sounded almost gasping, as if he was the one who was locked up. Marie-Louise shrugged.

“They’d probably let me. They spoil me, more than anything… they’d give me anything I ask for.”

His gaze slid out towards the window for a moment.

“What happened when you met the old Saint? Did she do anything?”

It wasn’t until he’d said it that he realised that it might have been a secret, but Marie-Louise replied.

“They took me to her room at the hospital. Yes, it really was her deathbed… she was wearing an oxygen mask, IVs in her arms, all that. I got to sit next to her bed, and… She didn’t do anything. She didn’t say anything, I don’t know whether she could speak. But she focused on me… I could see it, and I felt it.”

She shook her head, making her hair fly.

“After a while I felt something changing in me. Maybe physically. It didn’t hurt… it felt different, that’s all. They got me out of there when it was over.”

She let her gaze sink to the tabletop and finished:

“I don’t know how long she lived after that.”

“When did it stop?” he said.

She fixed her eyes on him. When she spoke, she almost sounded amused.

“It never did. I don’t feel it as strongly any more, but it’s still going.”

He sat motionless for a moment. It felt like his own organs and flesh tried to simulate the sensations of something changed.

He leaned closer to her across the table. There were no cameras in the ceiling that he could see – but that didn’t necessarily mean anything –, and the door was shut.

“Are we being tapped?”

Her face had become ill at ease.

“Of course not, Gordon. Why…”

Her voice faded away. He had to ask, it would only get worse if he waited longer.

“Would they let you leave? It looked like they obey you… say, if you said you were going out with me for a couple of hours to play golf?”

“Why…?”

There was something new in her face. Had she been this pale before? He lowered his voice further.

“I’ve got my chopper standing right outside the gate. We could leave together. I could buy normal clothes for you, perhaps we could cut your hair, and then we could go wherever the hell we want. I’ve got a bit of cash. There’s probably somewhere we could get a job, maybe far away… wherever you want.”

She stared at him, but when she opened her mouth it wasn’t a scream. She leaned her head on her arms so that he couldn’t see her face.

“Why do you say these things? Haven’t you understood any of this? I can’t just run away from it.”

“Marie-Louise, I beg of you, please listen to me.”

His voice didn’t sound annoyed when he went on, only eager.

“That’s not what I meant! You’d still be the Saint… I get that that’s not something you can run away from. But you wouldn’t be locked up in here. We could go up to Åre, or to the USA, anywhere you want. Can’t you carry out your duty no matter where you are?”

Behind her head, he saw the blinding light in the window, a flat blue sky and the treetops on the other side of the road.

“I would be there and take care of you. Isn’t that enough?”

She still didn’t look up. After a while she heaved as if she was going to throw up.

“Why are you making me choose?”

Oh God. He nearly lost his balance when he got up and ran over to hug her. At least she didn’t push him away. She was warm in his arms and pressed her cheek to his chest like a little cat. If he was never going to see her again, at least he had these few minutes.

After a moment her chair squeaked as she stood.

“We’re going,” she said, so curtly it took a while for him to understand. “Wait here, I’ve got some bloody handbag or something in my bedroom upstairs. I’ll tell them I’m going for a walk around the block. If we’re lucky, they’ll let you come along to escort me.”

She turned and stepped out of the dining-room. The last thing he saw was the smooth dress closing over her back. If he said anything, it might be audible outside.

He sat down again. The table was of thick varnished light wood, probably pine, with deep grain. He gripped the edge until his nails went white. She’d said they weren’t being surveilled. What would he have done now if he were innocent? He’d have gone out on the balcony and stood there enjoying the view while waiting for her to get ready. If he went out there, he wouldn’t hear her coming back, so he took up position by the shiny picture windows facing the road across the garden. He was about to support himself on the white-painted window-sill, but his fingers might leave grease stains from the sweat. How could it take so long? She just needed to go upstairs to her bedroom and get her handbag, put money in it – did she have money? She wasn’t part of society any more.

The hallway floor creaked. He turned, as controlled as he could. The tension had become like a poison, something injected in him. He felt the bitter taste of adrenaline on his tongue.

It was M-L. He only needed to see her silhouette.

“Come along now,” she said.

Her voice was small and controlled. He couldn’t remember hearing her sounding like that.

They got out in the floor-waxed corridor. The stairway was a well of light in front of them. He focused on moving like he was walking normally. Surely he’d be nervous if he were just going outside with M-L for a couple of minutes, in case they wouldn’t let him go with her. He saw her robe as just a flicker at the edge of his vision.

They’d reached the stairway. It was broad and curved, and in front of them a square of dark abstract artwork hung on the wall over the lobby. Outside the windows, all he could see was the glitter of sun.

The first step creaked under his feet. It would be hard to run here, but so far, no-one had spoken up. When they reached the landing where the stairs turned, they would be at the halfway point. Perhaps he should have said something to her, to seem natural, but his brain was wiped clean.

They were down in the lobby. M-L stumbled and had to grab on to his sleeve. At first he had the notion that she was ill, low blood sugar, some side effect of her new powers, anything that might come and ruin this, but she grinned horribly.

“It’s these shoes,” she said. “I’m not used to them.”

They reached the door, heavily carven with little panes of frosted glass. He opened it, getting sunlight in his face as he heard a footstep in the stairs behind him.

“Ma’am Saint,” a male voice said.

Gordon turned around. A man, dark-haired and in a dark suit, stood halfway leaning on the banister above them. Maybe it wasn’t over yet. He hadn’t called anyone.

“Where are you going?” he said to M-L. His gaze brushed Gordon, then back to her.

If he looked at her now, maybe the man would suspect something, but from the corner of his eye he saw her hair fall back as she raised her head.

“I thought I could go for a walk,” she said, her voice almost childishly bright. “Gordon’s with me... we need to have a talk.”

The man raised his hand and mumbled something in a walkie-talkie that Gordon couldn’t see. He blinked down at them again, almost apologetic.

“You understand why we can’t let you do this, Ma’am Saint,” he said.

Footsteps got closer in the hallway. Her shoulders rose and sank when she breathed. For a moment it looked like she really might collapse, but when she looked up at the man, she was still standing.

“Let him go,” she said. “He didn’t know anything. I... it was my plan. Everything was my plan. I didn’t intend to say anything until we got out. Don’t punish him for my actions.”

It must have worked, because the guards did nothing more than escort him to the gate. She walked with him.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

It might have been for any of it. Her eyes were shiny as if she were about to start crying, and he didn’t know what would happen if the Saint cried.

He would only have needed a few words to apologise to her, as well, but the guards were there, listening. He barely had enough strength to talk.

At the gate, she signed for them to stop.

“Are we friends?” she said.

“Of course we are.”

There was no strength left in his voice. If he was going to stand there much longer, he’d have to cry.

Marie-Louise managed a quick smile.

“We’re not likely to ever be anything more than friends, I’m afraid,” she said. “But I don’t want to lose that too.”

If he’d got to keep M-L, he might have flunked his bachelor’s degree.

The final year, he did nothing but work from the moment he got home from college and up to his room, hunched over his notes on the dark-patterned bedspread while the sky brightened and the trees grew lush outside. As expected, his dissertation on Goethe got finished on time and with the sufficient number of pages. He’d picked Goethe almost at random. Shiny Pre-Romanticism felt too cliché to hurt him, but even then there were a few paragraphs in The Sorrows of Young Werther that made him sit up in the city library and draw in a breath to stop himself crying.

Once he’d got his degree, he went to dad and told him he wanted to train for work as a security guard.

They fought over it, and in the end he had to say that he was over age and that they didn’t have any power over him. Dad gave way.

“But I’m not supporting you with one penny,” he said. “If you want to throw your education away like that, you can pay for it yourself.”

The next time he was in town, he went to the police station at Kronoberg and asked, because he didn’t know any better source of information. The woman in the reception told him to apply to a security company and then undergo training at the Security Sector Occupational and Work Environment Authority; that way he would receive part of his salary during the training period. The company in charge of guarding the residence was Securitas.

“How can I ensure that I get a position at the Saint’s residence?” he asked the instructor in private after maybe two weeks.

The instructor’s name was Tavaststierna: sharp, lean like something dried, looked like the old officer he was.

“You can’t, Matsson,” he said. “We hand you your diploma, then you see what positions there are.”

That brought him down, but not enough to make him quit. He kept going to the drill, the theory classes in the auditorium with its scratched desks screwed into the floor, the target practice. One day on the train into town, he looked out at the glitter of sun over the trees and realised that he would protect her no matter where he ended up, because he would free up another guard to work at the residence.

In 1981 he was among the security detail going with Swedish ambassador Hemming Reuter to the USA. He’d bragged to Lottie and Sören while trying on his suit, unusually comfy for such a formal piece of clothing. He was the youngest of the guards. As the plane took off, he lit a cigarette and felt like James Bond.

When they arrived at the function, he was so hungry it felt like a disease. He was posted by the door, old-fashioned double doors to a clean-scraped ballroom with many tall mullioned windows. After a couple of hours, the soles of his feet felt tenderised as if he’d run a half marathon. A pretty Asian waitress came by him with a tray of champagne flutes.

“I’m sorry, I’m not allowed to drink on duty,” he mumbled in English.

The waitress swept away and soon came back with a tray of sandwich triangles. She gave him a wide smile as he grabbed a couple. The first was filled with peeled cucumber pieces.

“You saved my life, madam. Tell me your name.”

A couple of guys were heading towards him through the crowd. One was Bengt, one of his colleagues. The other was a guest his own age with glittery hair, who wore his tuxedo as if he were used to it.

“That’s Gordon,” Bengt said, pointing. “He’s the boyfriend of the Swedish Saint.”

It took him a moment to link the new words to an image.

The guest walked up, grinning widely as they shook hands. Jacob Everly, he introduced himself. It was pronounced “Jaycob”, but it was still a more Swedish name than he would have expected.

“I wouldn’t mind talking to you when you’re off duty,” he said. “I’m going into screenwriting... my buddy’s in film school. I have an idea for a screenplay about the Saint.”

Gordon listened to him with his eyes on the ambassador over the guy’s shoulder. He’d been good at English in school, but the accents and the informal mode made it feel like he didn’t understand every third word.

“About Marie-Louise?”

Saying her name felt wrong. Jacob’s eyes clouded over for a moment, then he drank the last mouthful of his champagne.

“Well, it probably shouldn’t be about her. About a fictional lady.”

Bengt put his hand on Jacob’s shoulder and told him to leave Gordon alone. He vanished among the guests, guys in tuxedos and chicks in glossy dresses, and Gordon got to chow down on the second sandwich, with crayfish tail.

Jacob came back once after that. He grilled Gordon about Marie-Louise, and got out a pocket notebook in a leather cover and made a few notes, not long enough to annoy him. The second time he left, Gordon looked around the room for the waitress, but she’d vanished in the crowd.

The guests were starting to thin. The next time Jacob showed, Gordon found himself smiling at him. There was something about Jacob that had the same soothing influence on him as alcohol, whether it was that the guy was drunk or just his enthusiasm. His interest in Marie-Louise shouldn’t have annoyed him. (Perhaps if she’d still been his girlfriend, an ordinary girlfriend of an ordinary guy.) It was almost flattering.

“Show me your script when you’re done,” Gordon said. “It sounds fun.”

They both laughed. Jacob took half a step closer, lowering his voice.

“How did it feel? Doing it with... her?”

It took an idiotic amount of time before he was able to translate it in his head.

Afterwards he would sometimes remember that he’d laid Jacob out, maybe grappled with him on the smoothed stone floor, but in that case they’d have taken him to court. What did happen was that he took Jacob aside in the hotel corridor and said: “You know I have a gun, right? If you talk shit about her again, I may shoot you.” A few days later, Reuter fired him.

For over a year he lived in Sampaguita’s apartment down in Vero Beach. He joked that she hadn’t needed to give him a place to stay: the tropical climate was the best place to be homeless. Sampaguita refused to listen to him. After a few weeks he got a job at the gas station and didn’t have to feel that he was a burden for her. She cooked Filipino dishes for him, and he tried to show her Swedish ones, even though the supermarket didn’t have most of the ingredients. He spent the days changing oil and doing bodywork in a repair shop where the smell of benzene and the sun’s heat were intoxicating.

The thoughts of Marie-Louise didn’t stop him the night when they had sex on the beach, in the twilight when the sky was swept clean and the sea was a worrying shimmer of slow colours, but they did when Sampaguita started hinting about marriage.

“I couldn’t dream of finding a better woman than you,” he said when he got up from the couch as if she might have held him back by force. “But I can’t get married. She might want me back.”

She did him one last favour. Her brother knew a guy up in Jacksonville who was going to start a delivery company and needed truckers. He might as well go there. What else was he planning, going back to Sweden?

You needed a special licence to drive an eighteen-wheeler. He didn’t have one, but Vereen, the entrepreneur, sent him on a training course over the summer. The theory classes were held in the basement room of a community college where it was so hot, most of them took their shirts off. When it got tedious, he bribed himself with dreams about being a trucker: his own life, being able to sit alone for days at a time while the desert landscape moved around him.

He passed the practical exam and got his diploma. Of course there were downsides that hadn’t been in his romanticised dreams. His superior yelled at him the first times when he didn’t have the loading finished on schedule. There were filthy toilets along the highway, dehydration and a nausea that he thought would kill him, long hauls where he slept curled up in the driver’s cab and woke with a crick in the neck on one side and his teeth covered with some sticky substance. He got used to that, too.

In 1985, he was home in Jacksonville and had taken a couple of days off from driving. He’d just been down at the local library and picked up a few books when the phone in his apartment rang. It was so rare, he lifted the receiver and expected it to be the bank or taxman.

“Gordon Matsson?” said a young male voice he didn’t recognise.

“That’s me.”

He shook his hair out of his ears. It was starting to grow out again, a mullet.

The voice gave a short laugh.

“You’ll have to excuse me for sounding like a stalker... but you’re a trained security guard, aren’t you? From Sweden. A guy I know tells me he met you in Washington DC, in ‘81. You were there with the Swedish ambassador.”

“Mhmm?”

“It’s great to have found you. Now listen... I’m calling from Robur Incorporated, we’ve just started up. My company has an offer for you. Are you working at the moment?”

“I drive a truck.” He hesitated. “I’ve taken a couple of days off. Is it a job, or...?”

On the other side of the line, the guy hummed, like a nod.

“Not a chauffeur job. We may need a man with your training... I can’t promise anything, but we would appreciate getting to meet you, to put you to the test. If it turns out that you’re suitable, and I think it will... we’re able to offer a lot more than you make now. Some thirty K a year, maybe more. Does that sound interesting?”

“That sounds very promising.” If he sounded too enthusiastic, they might change their minds. “Where can I meet you?”

“I’ll give you the address in a sec. It’s a good drive north of Jacksonville... you may need to stay the night. We’ll pay for your accommodations, obviously. Do you have a problem with it?” A pause. “If you turn out to be suited for our position, you may need to move. It’s very mobile... though that shouldn’t be an issue for you. Do you have any family at all?”

“Oh, no.”

He could think about Sampaguita’s smooth face with almost no reaction now.

He got the address and a phone number that seemed to have too many figures. Perhaps it was for a cell phone.

“See you the day after tomorrow, then,” the guy said. “Let’s say quarter past four, that’ll work out if you get going early in the morning... but if it turns out you can’t make it, call us and we’ll schedule the interview a bit later. We’re looking forward to seeing you, Gordon. If all goes to plan, you’ll be able to quit the delivery work when you get home.”

There was a rattle in the receiver. Gordon hung up and ended up standing, supporting his hands on the worktop.

The question was whether it was worth quitting the delivery job, but he didn’t know whether he’d get the job yet. It was more money than he was earning now, and almost certainly for less work. It was his guard training they were after. Then there was the lack of information – CIA? FBI?

The anxiety powered him like some kind of fuel. It felt like he barely needed to eat that evening.

Maybe he should have suspected something, but it was many years since there’d been any risk of him being the target of violence. He hadn’t had any reason.

When he got to Vidalia, a pretty name that didn’t mean anything as far as he knew, he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but he bought a bagel and a cup of black coffee at a cafeteria. He needed to ask a couple of times before he found Church Street, and had to walk further along the almost deserted street before he found the right number, but they’d told him there was no rush. It was November and hardly warm any more, but the sunshine was flashing bright and his coat warmed him.

The house was a two-storey townhouse, the kind that had originally been built as a dwelling, a bit European in appearance with its red and white brickwork. He looked at the silver-bright street number as he rang the bell and waited.

A guy in a dark uniform opened the door, letting him past into a cramped hallway that smelled polished and old.

“Gordon Matsson?” he asked. “You got any weapons on you?”

All he had was a knife in a pale leather sheath in his coat pocket, he used to bring it along in the truck in case anything happened. He handed it over, but the guy patted his jean legs for weapons anyway.

“Please forgive me,” the guy said, taking a step back. “Gene will see you in a second, but I have to ask... our source said you had a very special lady friend. Is that correct?”

Were they trying to lure the truth out of him? But the guy knew he’d been seeing her. If he lied, they’d know.

“Marie-Louise,” Gordon said, lowering his head. “Yes, it’s true. We’re not an item any more.”

“She’s the Saint, isn’t she?” the guy said.

He didn’t make any rude jokes, he just nodded and winced a bit compassionately.

“I guess being in a relationship wasn’t easy for her,” he said.

He vanished into the back rooms when a blonde woman in a suit came up to Gordon, smiling up at him.

“Would you like anything to drink?” she said.

“Coffee, please. Black.”

She smiled again, quick as a wink. Was she flirting with him?

“Mr. Aaronson is on the second floor,” she said, gesturing towards the stairs. “Straight to the left at the top of the stairs.”

She vanished down the corridor, maybe to some bright kitchen, and he went upstairs and entered an office, a bit cramped and messy with many columns of pressboard folders. The AC was on. Behind the desk sat a guy with slicked-back hair, a bit too fair to suit that style. His shoulders were blockily wide beneath his shoulder-pads and made his suit look like it didn’t fit him right. He didn’t look older than Gordon. Maybe it had been easier for him to get somewhere in life.

“Please sit,” he said, pushing his own chair forward so he could point to a chair with chrome legs opposite. “I hope Christy’s offered you a drink. My name is Gene, Gene Aaronson.”

He sounded like the person who’d spoken to him over the phone. Every now and then he smiled in the middle of a word.

Gordon took a seat. He was under evaluation. Through the window he could see the houses across the street, colourful and flattened like something in a children’s book illustration.

“Okay,” Gene said. “You’ve worked as a bodyguard previously. May I ask for your résumé?”

He’d been fired from the position as a bodyguard after what he’d done, but if Gene knew, he had offered him the job anyway, and if he didn’t, Gordon wouldn’t have to tell him.

The door-frame creaked, and the girl came inside with a white industrial cup on a saucer. He sipped it, but it was very hot. He smiled up at Gene.

“I started training as a security guard at the Security Sector Operational Authority in ‘77, and studied there for about a year...”

The next time he tasted the coffee, it had cooled to drinkable. The office was chilly from the fan, and he could hardly ask them to switch it off, so he drank the coffee and let it warm him from inside.

“Sounds to me like you have enough experience for our job,” Gene said. “Why did you quit as a bodyguard?”

Gordon looked straight at him. Smiling wasn’t hard. He’d calmed down, maybe from the insouciant way Gene was sitting.

“I wasn’t super stoked about working in that kind of hierarchy. That guy, Reuter... he treated us like we were... well, accessories. Mobile furniture.”

It was such a suitable expression, why hadn’t he conceived of it until now? Gene nodded a few degrees.

“Sure, I understand that... Then, why did you come to our interview?”

Gordon blinked. He tried to smile, but it probably looked forced, as if he were trying to eat something too big for his mouth. The caffeine had made his hands grow chilly and tremble.

“It wasn’t that bad. I think it was mostly his fault. And then, I don’t know if I want to drive a truck for the rest of my life.”

He saw the light shift when Gene nodded again.

“The plan is for our company to rent out guards. Freelancers. The rates are good, but it may also mean that you’ll have to work for divas... maybe worse ones than your former employer. Do you have any thoughts on that?”

It was an easy question, compared to why he’d quit, but for a moment, all the words in his brain died. His tongue lay paralysed against the roof of his mouth. He turned towards the window to win time, but the light in the window had become so glaring, it burnt the nerves behind his eyes. He shook himself off and turned back to the desk. Gene smiled at him, encouraging.

“I’m not young any more,” Gordon said. “I can deal.”

Maybe he said more things as well, but his tongue had become dull and thick. It felt like being drunk. He started staring down at the lino at the side of the chair. If he let himself fall off the chair, maybe he’d fall back into the blankets back home.

The world had become a nightmare. He lay crammed together inside something, and it was dark. He could have gone back to sleep, but the room tossed and shook him. He threw up and couldn’t crawl away from the vomit.

The world was a nightmare that you couldn’t wake from.

When it started to change, he heard a hatch click open so that the darkness brightened to grey sky. A car hatch? What he’d smelt was gas and the fuzzy upholstery on the inside of the trunk. They pulled him up and out, and someone screamed when they saw that he’d thrown up, but they didn’t do anything to him. They led him to a front door. For a moment, no-one was holding him. He even tried to run, but his body was faint and the road was nothing he recognised. Metal-hard hands twisted his arm behind his back and used it to tow him into the hallway. He must have been poisoned. It felt like a hangover, all the metallic chemicals that had built up in his brain.

A dim basement, a large box in white-painted plywood along one wall. When Gene told him to sit on it, he saw a gun. The box had a sawed hole under his ass, a toilet, and straps nailed to the front, and another plywood board like a backrest against the wall. It felt like he’d been sat there for minutes before the other guy had strapped him in and Gene could put his pistol away. He was forced to sit with his back straight, arms strapped against the board behind him, with everything vulnerable in his stomach and torso laid open.

“I’m sorry about all this,” was the first thing Gene said.

It wasn’t possible to see if he was smiling. The only light came from a narrow window high on the wall behind them, matte with dust or spiderwebs. It turned them into silhouettes. The other guy was shorter and thinner than Gene, his body thin like something soft, and when he moved, the light glinted on flaxen hair. He was smoking. Gordon could see the flame of his lighter and the little point of light on the cigarette. He could only smell basement still, damp concrete.

Don’t say anything. He had already shown weakness, he didn’t have to degrade himself further by asking questions.

“We would have preferred for you to work with us by your own free will, but we couldn’t risk it.”

“The Swedish ambassador?” Gordon said.

His voice still sounded clear, as if nothing that had happened had had any effect on it.

“You realise I haven’t worked for him... it was more than four years ago. I don’t know where he is now. I have nothing to do with him. How about you let me go before the cops find us?”

Finding the right words was hard, English still didn’t come really naturally to him. The blond guy lowered his cigarette. It was a relaxed movement, as if he just needed to stretch his arm.

“You know nobody knows where you are,” Gene said. “You know we’re far from Church Street. So I think we can negotiate at our own pace, don’t you? We’re not after your employer.”

A pause. He was taking his time.

Nobody had known he’d gone to Vidalia – why the hell would he have suspected that someone would try to kidnap him? Maybe someone had seen them carry him out to the car. His brain shied away from that image. He could still taste the bile.

“We can’t have you sitting like this,” Gene said, turning to his mate. “Clean him up a bit... get the paper as well.”

The other guy slunk out into the stairway. Gordon listened, but couldn’t hear his footsteps. Gene waited, without any other movements than blinking and swallowing. Were there more? The woman might have been on their side, but Gordon didn’t know whether she’d followed them out here. There might have been others.

The other came back with a dark towel and used a wet corner of it to wipe the corners of Gordon’s mouth. The water soaking it was even a little warm. When Gordon looked up he saw a smile, an open innocent smile.

The guy turned his back while he put down the towel and picked up a paper. It was too dim to read any of the print. He held it up straight next to Gordon, like some sacred banner.

“Look in front,” Gene said.

He turned his head and saw a camera flash. The guy next to him lowered the newspaper and resumed his position half a step behind Gene. Gene put down his camera on the box.

He looked at the black afterimage of the flash while it faded.

“You need anything?” Gene said.

“Yes, you can let me go!”

His voice had become rough, just with rage. That was good. Now they’d wiped his face clean, it felt like it had just been a nasty joke, and he had to fight that feeling. The world had diluted and weakened around him, but the straps pulled tight and made the skin and muscles under them real.

The light shifted a little when Gene smiled.

“It’s Marie-Louise we want to talk about. We know that you two are close.”

And there it was. He kept his gaze straight on them, as if he might be able to wake up soon. That voice went on:

“What can you tell us about her?”

He couldn’t squeeze himself together very far, the straps tugged his arms backwards. If he could have folded forward over his legs, he could have at least protected parts of himself with the harder and bonier parts. There was so much they could do. Of course they knew that he’d betray her to them, because they wouldn’t stop. His head had sunk forward until all he could see was the white-painted box and a bit of the concrete. He was about to throw up, as if his insides had started to dissolve.

Gene gave a little relaxed chuckle.

“Don’t worry, Gordon,” he said. “We already know as much as everyone else about the Saint... we’re not out to hurt her.”

Gordon couldn’t stop himself from sagging as he exhaled. It was Jacob, Jaycob, wasn’t it? Jaycob wasn’t there.

“She was your girlfriend, wasn’t she?” Gene said.

“Yes, she was.”

He nodded fiercely. When his gaze swung up towards Gene, the guy looked like he was content.

“Do you know a way to contact her personally? Without having to go through all the red tape?”

Gordon shook his head.

“I got to meet her in person, but that was just because she recognised me and stopped her guards turning me away.”

That was a quick spark of hope. If he could pretend that they’d convinced him or broken him, they might bring him to Sweden and the residence. He needed to keep his eyes on them; they might see it in his eyes, but they would certainly see it if he looked away. Gene didn’t react, so he had to continue:

“Her parents would probably get access, too, but apart from that, I don’t know.”

“Is her mail – ?” Gene said, and then a word he didn’t know.

He shook his head.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know what ‘vetted’ means.”

Gene flung his fist downward, the first impatient gesture Gordon had seen from him.

“Is it checked... sorted? By her handlers?”

“I guess so.”

They were still looking at him, so it wasn’t enough. He nodded.

“Yes, it is.”

“As are her calls, I guess.”

It was a question.

“I don’t know,” Gordon managed. “I never called her.”

Gene nodded after a moment.

“Do you want a glass of water?” he said.

“Yes, please.”

Gene gestured to his mate. The guy went out and came back with a low, wide glass. The water glittered in the shaft of light. He had to hold the glass against Gordon’s lower lip and tip it, and Gordon leaned his head back. He needed it after the taste of vomit, but he couldn’t enjoy it like this. The guy removed the glass and set it on the box, a couple of feet away.

“That’s good,” Gene said, nodding. “We’ll get to talk to her.”

He smiled a bright smile, as if he didn’t want to make Gordon anxious.

“You do understand, we won’t do her any harm,” he said. “Quite the opposite... she’ll get to stay in her residence in Stockholm, surrounded by security. We just want to influence her.”

He went to get the camera, then turned back to Gordon, tilting his head a bit.

“As long as she’s cooperating with us, you won’t have to worry, either,” he said.

Both left. He listened to their steps in the stairway, in case they were going to come back, but then he heard a door shutting and locking.

As soon as he knew that he was alone, he started struggling. This was so fucking jerry-rigged, surely the straps could tear off. He couldn’t get his hands out of the straps, he couldn’t tear them from their attachments, and even if he could have freed himself, the door was locked. If they were anywhere there was a risk of people hearing, they would certainly have gagged him. He screamed anyway. He screamed as if it were a weapon. The glass was still half full of water and stood where he couldn’t reach it.

At one point he heard a creak atop the basement door. He listened. What was up there didn’t come down.

He didn’t know how much time had passed when he heard footsteps in the stairway again. The light-level in the window hadn’t changed. He sat straight-backed when Gene entered, alone.

“We need something else from you,” he said. “I am going to free up your right hand for a few minutes. We want you to write a couple of lines to... her.”

He put a ruled paper and a biro on the box and took out his gun. The buckle of the strap clicked a little when it slid open. Gordon’s gaze fastened on the gun, but he could still see the piece of paper in the misty part of his field of sight.

Gene took a step back and put his gun away. Maybe he wasn’t keen on threatening people; it did seem like he was trying to make this as diplomatic as possible.

Gordon had the pen in his hand: plastic, worthless as a weapon. He tilted his gaze up to Gene again.

“What do you want me to write?” His voice had become ragged from the screams.

Gene looked down at him with that surprising smile.

“Just a couple of lines,” he said. “Tell her you’re here... just enough for her to know it’s you. It’s not necessary, you understand, we have the photo and are going to send our own letter, to explain what’s going on and what she needs to do.”

Gordon dropped the pen. It clicked on the wood.

“What do you want to make her do?” he said.

Gene made a soft noise, as if disappointed.

“You need to get rid of the habit of asking questions,” he said. “But we have no reason to hide it from you. Your girl has always been impartial, hasn’t she? An unworldly priestess... impartial as the Pope. She just sits there repressing anything that might lead to conflict, regardless of where in the world it is.”

He paused.

“We just want her to promote our interests,” he went on. “Her power isn’t just some type of general anaesthetic. If it were in the hands of a governing interest... if it could be directed against certain states or organisations... it could become a weapon.”

“America’s interests?”

Gene smiled, nodding.

“Because it is my homeland, of course. You probably have the same feelings for Sweden.”

Gordon’s gaze slipped away.

“No, I guess not,” Gene said after a while. “Sweden’s never tried to use her that way. It’s possible that you don’t deserve her.”

As if M-L were nothing more than an A-bomb or a magic wand – an object. And why was he thinking about that? Gene had said that they would preserve her. Perhaps she’d get to stay in Djursholm, walk around the lawn in her white dress and play badminton, while they fed her with letters and photos from Gordon. He was the object.

That was still a little better. They weren’t out to kill or abuse him: that meant that the cops’d have more time to track him.

“You realise we’re not in a relationship,” he said, looking up at Gene. “I haven’t been in contact with her for several years, for Christ’s sake. We broke up the last time we met... it was very definitive. She can’t have a partner.”

His voice almost cracked. Gene was free to believe it was from fear.

Gene kept his eyes on Gordon, but never faltered.

“Be that as it may,” he said. “I don’t think that she... she, least of all, wants to sacrifice an innocent person, even if she doesn’t want to sleep with him.”

Gordon sagged.

“So I can write whatever I want?” he said.

Gene nodded.

“In English. You understand that we want to know what you’re writing, surely.”

“Yes, I understand.”

He pulled the sheet of paper to him so that he could reach to start at the top. The ruling was hard to see in this lighting.

A couple of lines. Perhaps it would be possible to get something through to her. He had to write in English, but Gene didn’t know Swedish. There were codes, but he’d need to get through to her that there was a code. Once, he’d read an Edgar Allan Poe poem that had contained a woman’s name as an acrostic with the first letter in the first line and the second letter in the second, but had M-L read it?

He had no message to give her.

Hi, Marie-Louise. I hope you’re OK. They’re treating me well so

“No,” he said, letting the pen rest with its point on the paper. “I can’t write this.”

His voice sounded strong, but he couldn’t bear looking up at Gene. He scribbled over the words with some lines, until the pressure made the sheet slide out of reach.

“You write, if you want to,” he said. “I won’t do this.”

After a moment he heard the soles of Gene’s shoes scrape against sand grains on the floor. He strapped Gordon’s hand back in, then took the paper and pen. He took a step back.

“Look at me,” he said.

Gordon raised his gaze. He could look at the pale grey concrete behind his head. Could he tell?

“Thank you, Gordon,” he went on. “You know, we need you. You are very important for what we are doing.”

He paused.

“As far as I’m concerned, you are a means to an end,” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you... I’ve got nothing against you, Gordon, it’s your sheer bad luck that you’re the one who ended up in this situation. But if you get too difficult to handle, I’ll hand you over to Adrian for an hour or so.”

“Is that him?” Gordon said, nodding in the direction of the door. “He seems like a nice fella.”

Gene nodded. He hadn’t gone too far.

“Perhaps you ought to be afraid,” he said. “You know that there are no limits to what we can do to you.”

He broke off. Perhaps Gordon should have said something.

“And Adrian,” he went on. “I don’t even know whether he’s interested in controlling the Saint. The only thing he’s after is getting someone to work on.” A pause. “I don’t think he would kill. It’s possible that that’s where the line is drawn, for him. I don’t even think he enjoys it... hurting people, that is. It interests him. But if I catch you trying to escape, or trying to get a message out through her, I will send Adrian down here and lock the door, and when I open it again, you are going to want to help us.”

He fell silent and his gaze grew pensive. Not hesitant; there was no weakness there.

“It’s possible that I will hand you over to him anyway, sooner or later. Having you compliant would make this easier for us.”

That was the last thing he said before leaving.

“Do you want me to write that letter?” Gordon called after him in the stairs.

His voice sounded light and torn. Gene didn’t react. Maybe he hadn’t heard.

He could only keep track of time by the window growing lighter or darker, but it felt like it did more often than it should have. Maybe it was because he fell asleep. They didn’t do anything to him other than feed him and pull his pants down so that he could use the bucket beneath the box. It was most often Gene who wiped him, and most often Adrian who fed him. He stopped asking questions. As long as this went on, he had some form of equilibrium. Sometimes his thoughts went to the truck in its hangar bay, funnily enough, not so often to the apartment or mum’s and dad’s terraced house in Stockholm. The memories were so bright, it felt like he might be able to wriggle out into them and only leave the slack straps on the box.

He thought about scraping the plywood with his fingernails: if he could get through it, he might be able to pull his hand out. At the start he didn’t even make the paint flake, but he had time. (How much time? Several months?) It was like being buried alive, it was the only way out. Don’t think about things like that. He’d worried about getting chips of paint under his fingernails, but it hadn’t happened yet. After a while, the ends of his nails must have shredded, his fingertips felt minced, but the pain barely slowed him down.

After one of the meals, Adrian glanced at his hands. He raised his fingers, looking at the little scoop underneath.

“If you keep doing that, I am going to break your fingers,” he said.

His voice was so mild, it felt like it took a minute before Gordon understood what he’d said. He took the empty plate and the cutlery and vanished up the stairs.

That night, Gene came down. His steps were light as if he were about to start singing, and he carried a steel-coloured cell phone tenderly in both hands.

“It’s her,” he said. Into the phone, he said: “I’m here with him now.”

“What do I say, then?” Gordon hissed.

“Something in English,” Gene said, holding the phone by his face.

He heard faint interference – the sky above the Atlantic –, then M-L’s voice, so close:

“Are you there, Gordon?”

It wasn’t the tone he’d expected. There was nothing loving in it, it was just tired.

“M-L, I’m sorry,” he managed. “They’re making me speak English so they can understand what I’m saying. But it’s still me, Gordon. I didn’t want this to happen.”

“Are you okay? Are you injured?”

“No, I’m tied up, but they’re treating me well. I get food. They said they’ll untie me if...”

His gaze flickered up to Gene, but Gene’s face was still gentle.

“If what?” M-L said, in English now.

“It was nothing.” He breathed in. “I miss you. I... I hope you’ll do what you feel is right.” And everything had gathered towards a horizon where he couldn’t go on.

Gene went for the receiver.

“I’ve got to go,” said Gordon, and in Swedish: “Don’t do it.”

He made it quick and lighthearted, like a conversation closer. All he could hear was M-L’s silence.

“Don’t do it,” he said again. “I’m not worth it.”

Gene took the receiver from him, not violently, and turned away as he spoke.

“We have sent you the first plans... we’ll keep you apprised about him. I’m sorry, Ma’am. We don’t want to mistreat Gordon, but if you go against our wishes, you will be responsible for what happens to him.”

He turned around. Maybe he’d switched off the phone, Gordon had missed it.

“You said something in Swedish there,” he said. “What was it?”

“It was just ‘goodbye’. Just a farewell.”

“You don’t know where you are,” Gene said smiling. “You don’t know our real names. The only thing you might have said is some little defiant message. Isn’t it strange that you risk so much for a woman who doesn’t care for you?”

He stomped upstairs. Maybe it would end there, maybe all he’d deserved was a threat and an insult, but a few seconds later, Adrian came downstairs. He stood relaxed, smiling in the light, hooking Gordon’s gaze with his own.

“You’re a fraud, aren’t you?” he said. “You liked being a bodyguard because you got to wear a suit and ride around in black limousines. Because you wanted to show off.”

He crouched down so that his face was a little below Gordon’s. As long as he sat like that, there was air between them and he wasn’t able to do anything. Gordon had clenched his fists until the straps cut into his skin, and Adrian must have seen it. The cigarette dangled forgotten between his fingers, a little glimpse of white.

“But there is no shame in admitting it,” he said, as if he were surprised. “I’m a bit of a fraud myself.”

He stood. His sole creaked on something as he took a step closer.

“Do you want me to break one of your fingers, or burn you?” he said.

Gordon shook his head as if he could have got the words out of his ears. Adrian crouched down a little until he had to look into his bright bright eyes.

“You have a choice,” he said. “Either I’ll break one of your fingers, or I’ll burn your hand for a while. With the cigarette. Which do you prefer?”

“Why do you ask me?” Gordon managed, and now it felt like he was drunk or feverish. “You can do what you want anyway.”

He was still struggling with the straps, even though he’d have snapped them off by now if he’d been able to. If he tossed his head back hard enough when it began, he might be able to pass out. He rubbed the back of his head against the surface, and it wasn’t concrete, it was just particle board. Maybe it would work anyway.

“What do you want me to do?” he said.

His voice still sounded reasonable, as if it wasn’t really present in the basement room. His gaze tried to shy away from Adrian, but he would need to look at him, he would need to adapt to his reactions. M-L had got the message. Gene hadn’t told her to do anything else. As long as they hadn’t begun, he could pretend that he would stick to it.

Adrian smiled, surprising.

“You don’t have to do anything, for the moment,” he said. “But he thinks you need to learn not to do things at the spur of the moment, or anything like that. To adapt to our wishes.”

Far off in Stockholm, in the residence, M-L would be sitting with his message. What was she going to do? That depended on whether she loved him more than the world. How many hours ahead was Sweden, was it dark? His thoughts shied from that too.

Adrian lit a new cigarette. This close, he could smell the smoke. He felt the nicotine in his blood, just little pinpricks.

“Which do you choose?” Adrian said.

He hunched over a little, feeling Gordon’s left hand, with his fingernails, as if trying to elicit some reaction. It was going to be his left hand. Gordon tried to fling his head forward to reach him, but there were many inches of air between them.

“You... choose,” he said.

But he barely had enough strength to breathe. He didn’t get the sounds out. It turned into just a hiss. Adrian’s tickling fingers moved over his, gripping his index finger, bracing, folding it back. Maybe this would be quicker. M-L sat in the lit dining-room, hunched over folders of white sheets of paper, and he couldn’t see her face.

The pain in his finger was a yellow flash. He focused on breathing. Adrian pulled back a little. That was good. He could retain equilibrium like this. He hadn’t even had to scream.

Adrian leaned closer again, reaching for his hand. Gordon tried to pull clear, and he couldn’t budge, and he still tried.

“I need to set it,” Adrian said with a tone as if he were talking to a little kid or a rambunctious kitten. “Otherwise it might not heal right.”

He pinched his finger and pulled it out. It hurt as much again. He got out a pale roll of gauze and wound it around the finger, and attached it with a safety pin that Gordon didn’t feel. He’d pulled so far to the right that his legs were twisted to the side and ached. And it was over, she was still sitting out there and they hadn’t made him say anything to her.

“You fucking idiot.”

Adrian’s voice had turned so hissing and changed that he first thought someone else had come into the basement. Gordon looked up at him while Adrian straightened up.

“You disgust us, do you realise that?” he went on. “I don’t see why... and we’re supposed to feed you! And your fucking chick sits over in Sweden and... and Gene expects me to...”

Gordon didn’t have a chance to sway clear of the blow. It hit him on the mouth, rocking his head back against the particle board. Adrian punched him again, on the side of the head this time. It didn’t hurt as much, but he was on the left side, he was near his hand.

“Fuck off!” Adrian yelled. “We ought to beat you to death. We ought to take you out and beat you to death and send the bitch the photos!”

Gordon had started screaming himself, he couldn’t hear if the guy said anything more. The door rattled open and Gene ran down the stairs.

“What the hell’s gotten into you, Adrian?”

Adrian kicked. It missed Gordon’s leg and hit the box with a crack instead. Gene tried to yank Adrian’s arms back, but Adrian twisted free and hit him across the eye, maybe. Gordon let his gaze slide to the floor. It was all just more pain. The side of his head was throbbing, not painfully, in time with an aura of gold that came and went at the edge of his vision. Something salty ran into his mouth from the split lip.

Gene stumbled backwards from Adrian and got his gun out. Adrian stayed where he was, a bit hunched as if to pounce.

“Go back up,” Gene said, gesturing with his free hand. “Fucking psycho. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

Adrian hesitated, as if he were still thinking about going for him, then turned and disappeared up the stairs. Gene swung around, gun pointed at Gordon. He opened his mouth as if he were about to say something, but swallowed and left. Gordon heard the lock.

It was okay, it was okay. His hand didn’t hurt particularly as long as he didn’t move it, and Adrian had said that he’d set the finger-bone, it would heal. The pounding in his head might be more worrying. He didn’t have anywhere to lean it except straight backward, and perhaps it would slide and twist. If he felt his teeth, one of them might be loose. They hadn’t thought to turn out the light when they left. The window was a square of night in front of him.

It wasn’t the physical pain any more. He had that under control. It was the knowledge that he would sit here, and his eyes would dry under the fluorescent lights, and some blood vessels might already have started slackening and flooding his brain with red. She was sitting in her villa above the glaring blue body of water, wondering whether to sacrifice him or not. (He’d started tasting odd flavours, something like chocolate. Could it be from the blow?) Had she loved him at all? She’d just walked next to him as if it were easier than breaking up. If he’d been the one to be chosen, would she have tried to take him away? She hadn’t tried to save him now. They were going to come back and hit him again, maybe do something more to his finger, or something to his fingernails or eyes, and he would scream and bleed for the sake of a frigid doll who’d never cared about him.

He was the one who’d told her not to save him.

He strained in the straps, just to make them cut into his skin. All this, and now the things he’d thought about M-L. Maybe it would be good if this got worse. There would come a point where the compact darkness in his brain would seep into his body and poison it. A bit of dark hair hung into his eye. It troubled him as much as the real injuries.

He’d started hearing noises from the ground floor: doors slamming, and once something hard splintering. Was it the police? No-one came down to him. It was Gene and Adrian having a fight. There was too much in between for him to make out the words, but he could hear the tone. At one point, a voice – Gene’s? – rose in a scream, and something went bang. Maybe he was slamming a door again, maybe he’d punched the wall. Were they going to fight up there? It was possible that both of them would lie dead while he sat here, in the straps, and started screaming without any sound travelling outside. His brain started to alternate between that image and the thought of Adrian lying with blood pulsing out of a cut in his scalp, how red it would be, that colour that got your adrenaline going, and how the fucker would whimper and try to writhe out of the way when Gene raised a heavy boot over him again. Sinking into those thoughts was better. They made him feel better for a few seconds.

The door clicked open, and he heard footsteps in the stairs. It was Gene, so it would be better, maybe. He didn’t look like he’d been in a fight, but the whites glinted in his eyes.

“This is your fucking chick,” he said.

His voice was so neutral, it sounded ill. It was thin, decrepit. He held the gun, but he wasn’t aiming at Gordon. Something long poked out of his pocket, swinging when he moved. Did he have his finger on the trigger? The panic fixed something in him.

“If you kill me, you won’t have any power over her any more!”

You could hear fear in his voice, but faint, not much more than anxiety. Gene’s gaze slid up to him, and for a moment, his face opened up in a smile.

He tossed the gun in a corner. It clicked, but didn’t go off.

“You know, you disgust me,” he said. “It’s a shame Adrian didn’t want to join in. I think he’d... like... now that we’ve lost her...”

He fell silent.

“Is she dead?” Gordon said.

Gene didn’t speak again. He pulled out the handle poking up from his pocket. The light glittered on something, the head of a hammer. The handle he held must have been textured rubber. He took a step closer, then another, swinging the hammer slowly like a Cyclops in a forge.

He managed to fold out of the way of the first blow, and the hammer crashed into the particle board instead. What was the point? He was just putting it off. He couldn’t budge when Gene raised the hammer again, and yet he tried. The hammer bore down on his shoulder, near the neck where it was soft with muscle. He didn’t hear anything break.

“Stop it, then!” Gene sobbed, or was it himself?

He raised the hammer. It struck the box, this time. He raised the hammer. Gordon’s thigh, a few inches above the knee. He tried to close his eyes, but they flew open every time he heard Gene move.

Then it was over. He looked at Gene and didn’t see a hammer, his hands hung empty. Maybe it was over, maybe it was something in his brain that had blinked and gone out after the blows, but Gene didn’t go for him again. He stood with his thick shoulders pulled up around his head and his face in shadow. At first, Gordon had the thought that he’d had a heart attack, some kind of heart attack, but he was still standing. He breathed in trembles that didn’t sound normal.

But Gordon could barely see him any more, because some form of delight floated up inside him. It made all outlines blur. For a moment – before it flooded his brain – he thought about when he’d been given morphine, when he fell out of a tree when he was twelve. It didn’t feel like the morphine, but it was equally disconnected. Had they drugged him, then? It didn’t matter, maybe it was better like this.

It was sobs that shook Gene. He almost stumbled when he rushed up and started undoing the straps, in so much haste that it might have taken longer. He hadn’t needed to. If Gordon moved now, it might dispel the happiness.

“I’m sorry,” Gene whispered once it was possible to hear what he said. “I don’t know. We should never have done this. We didn’t know... we thought it would be better for us...”

Sometimes it sunk to an incomprehensible sing-song. And yet it was over, the straps slid from his wrists. There was a bursting sensation in his head once he was able to bend forward and free his legs. He walked, and Gene didn’t try to stop him.

He staggered up the basement stairs, into the hallway. Adrian unlocked for him. Gordon managed to look at him. Adrian’s face was blanked as if he were trying to hold back tears, but he smiled a swift smile as the street-light fell into the hallway, and maybe Gordon smiled back.

He spent two days in hospital where they splinted his finger and drained the blood under his skull. At that point, the serenity had started to sink away, and the patients and even the nurses were irritable as if they had a hangover after some delightful drug. Perhaps he was the same, himself. As he went down to the lobby, dozens of people were still coming in to get tested in case what had happened had left them with damage.

He flew to Stockholm, but stayed a day with Sören and his family before contacting her. When he went to make tea in the evening, the spice cabinet in their kitchen smelled of cardamom and the burnt scent of Lapsang Souchong. It turned the kidnapping and torture into just a closed loop that had affected his life as little as a dream.

Sören let him borrow his car, a Citroën, and didn’t ask where he was going. The road to Djursholm was flowing with sunlight; if you didn’t look up into the bare twigs, you could have believed it was summer.

“Go up and tell her Gordon Matsson is here,” he told the guard. “She knows me.”

Soon he saw her emerge from the large portico, small as a white butterfly when she started running down the slope. The gate clattered open. Her dress might have been the one she’d worn the last time he saw her.

What had he expected? Almost ten years had passed – a bit pudgier, maybe faded? In fact she’d grown thin as if from a serious illness. If he hadn’t known how old she was, he might have thought she was ten years older than he; the wrinkles were the skin sagging where there wasn’t enough flesh underneath. But beautiful, more beautiful than he remembered her.

She stood in front of him, maybe at a loss for words, so he was the first to speak:

“Was it you who did it?”

She understood. She nodded once.

“Come up to the residence,” she said. “We can’t stand here talking.”

She walked a little in front up the garden path. He tried not to look at her hairline, because he had a sensation that it was starting to come out in downy tufts, but her steps were still springy.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

It sounded flat and dumb. She turned around and smiled at him, her old smile.

“I guess I look like shit... It’s not as bad as it looks. I need to rest. Gunna keeps telling me I need to rest, and after this, I will...”

They’d reached the portico. For a moment it looked like she was about to totter, and he gripped her arm and felt the goosebumps and the bones inside. M-L didn’t tear free, but gave him a look that might have been worse. He let go, and it was gone as if he’d imagined it.

“I’ve seen physicians,” she said. “Trust me, they don’t want me working myself to death. They bring a doctor here if I blow my nose.”

“I missed you.”

She didn’t react to it.

“Did they have time to torture you?” she said.

Her voice had become hoarse. He nodded and started to tell, but her gaze had already gone to his bruises and the bandage on his finger. He was able to think about it without feeling anything: maybe that love that she’d injected in him had killed the trauma. He just didn’t want to talk about this. The most horrific part had been how he’d looked at Gene and Adrian as if they were his friends.

“So it was you who made them release me?” he said again.

M-L nodded. Now he could have asked how she’d done it, but the question was whether she could explain it in words he’d understand. She hadn’t asked what they’d done to him.

“Was it difficult?” he said instead.

She shook her head.

“I wouldn’t do it again, if that’s what you’re thinking. If given the choice. But it worked, didn’t it?”

It was the first time her voice had sounded carefree since he came back. She raised her head, just a degree.

“Did you report them?” she asked.

He’d thought about it, but not had the time: once he was dismissed from hospital, all he’d been able to think about was getting to Sweden as quickly as possible. She noticed his expression and interrupted him:

“No, it’s good if you didn’t.”

For a moment he saw a look in her eyes as if she were bleeding and it hadn’t stained her dress yet. She collected herself and went on:

“They’ve caused enough pain... Gordon, they won’t hurt anyone again. I focus on them... on them as well. Together with everything else.”

“I’m sorry,” he said in the silence.

He had to support himself on the brickwork of a pillar. M-L took a step closer, as if she were going to grab him, but stopped herself.

“God damn it, Gordon, it wasn’t your fault, was it?”

“It was my fault,” he said, nodding with his eyes open. “I let them trick me into an ambush and drug me... I was a bodyguard, for God’s sake, I should have known better...”

“It was my fault!”

She didn’t yell, but her voice had a keenness as if all her strength had gone into it. She leaned against the pillar opposite him.

“Now do you see why?” she said, and her voice was a whisper that he could barely hear. “I can’t protect you... even by leaving you I couldn’t protect you.”

She was silent for a while, as if gathering strength, then she spoke again:

“I had to love the people who did this to you. While they were hammering in your flesh. I still love them. Do you understand what that means? It wasn’t... I wasn’t able to think ‘okay, I’ll pretend I love these bastards, so they’ll let Gordon go.’ I actually loved them, the way I love all human beings... the way I have to love...”

For a moment he thought she was going to start crying. He was about to apologise, but she was talking again. She’d lowered her head so that he couldn’t see her face.

“And that was why I had to break up with you. Because I... I can’t squander my emotions on one person.”

She looked up at him. Her eyes were a light blue and hadn’t changed.

“I wasn’t going to ask you to go with me this time,” he said.

And yet, if there had been a chance that she would do it... He didn’t need to say it, because she couldn’t read minds.

He managed to smile at her, and after a moment she smiled back, a stiff little smile.

“Thank you,” she said.

He’d only meant to give her a hug, but as he put his arms around her shoulders, she gripped the back of his head and kissed him. Maybe he was warm around her. He hadn’t asked about the one moment when her influence had retreated from the world and the only pleasure that remained was the pleasure of seeing others bleed. Maybe he should have asked, in case she wanted to talk about it.

“You won’t have to do this again,” he said as they let go.

When she looked up at him, she smiled.

“Be careful,” she said.

Once, he turned around. She was still standing in the portico. If not for the wind fluttering in her robe, he might have believed he was looking at a statue and not a human.

The sunshine lay on him as he walked alone down to the car.

THE END

#fiction #novella #romance #thriller #torture #science fiction #SF #fantasy #long

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