There we were, four avenging angels in the little village outside Smolensk. We had given ourselves a name, the ‘Slumrats’. That’s how we saw ourselves. Creatures of the underworld without value, hunted, filled with self-loathing. But we didn’t just conduct trials in that barn, we prayed to gods of our own choosing. Inez had stolen a book from her step-father, a book filled with pictures of big cities in North America and Western Europe. Inez used to steal all the time; she was the one who taught me how, not my dad. When I told you that I was lying. My dad was a worm who couldn’t even have broken a bike lock. But Inez was never afraid. She would break into churches and steal the elaborate frames they use for icons. We would tear pictures out of our books and slip them into these old icon frames, hang them up and then pray to them. We prayed that we would one day get to see these cities. Then – so that no one would find the pictures – we buried them in one corner of the barn underneath the rotting floorboards.
I’m still not sure who gave the Slumrats their order to flee. Maybe it was me; it should have been me since I was the oldest. We were always dreaming of better places because we only saw hopelessness around us. Political borders may have fallen, but the only difference for us was the fact that now we could see what was on the other side. The rich life was out there, waiting for us. But how were we going to get there? How to cross the invisible border that still existed? We hated the feeling of being trapped, we kept executing our enemies and we started taking any kind of drug we could lay our hands on. None of us went to school, none of us worked. Inez taught me how it was done, she let me watch her when she picked people’s pockets or broke into houses. But we never kept the money for long. We bought drugs and clothes and then we had to start all over again. I don’t think I was clear-headed for a single day during that time, I was always high on something.
I don’t know who first heard of the Woolglove. I think it was Inez, but I’m not sure. There was a rumour that he could get girls well-paid jobs in the West. They had to be good-looking, independent, ready for anything. He was staying at a hotel in the city and he was only going to be in town for two days. We made up our minds on the spot. We put on our best clothes, made ourselves up, slipped glue tubes into our pockets and jumped on the bus. On the way, we took out the glue and sniffed it. Tatyana had to throw up before we went into the hotel. The man who opened the door – I still remember it was room 345 – was actually wearing white wool gloves. Later he said something about having eczema on his hands and treating them with a special cream. That was why he had to wear those gloves. He promised to get us jobs in a restaurant in Tallinn. We would be waitresses and get good pay, not to mention tips. He told us what girls usually made per day and he made it sound like we would earn all this money for about two hours of work. It was a restaurant that only catered to foreigners, he said. He also told us we would be sharing a big apartment together.
We drank in every word. He was wearing those strange wool gloves, but his suit was expensive and he smiled the whole time. He told us his name was Peter Ludorf, and he threw in a German word now and again to impress us. He wrote down our names on a small notepad. Then another man suddenly turned up. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone move so quietly. It still gives me the shivers to think about it. He took pictures of us and then left. And that was it.
A few weeks later we stood on the side of the road in our short skirts in the middle of winter, waiting for Peter Ludorf’s car to come and get us. But some unshaven men who smelled of vodka were driving the car. We stopped at various houses on the way and new men of the same sort took over the driving. We got almost nothing to eat, just a little water and enough time to jump out and pee in the snow.
Peter Ludorf had arranged new identities and passports for us. At first that had freaked us out, that our old identities had been taken away. Tatyana said it was like someone slowly scraping away our old faces. But we trusted Peter Ludorf. He smiled, he gave us clothes and talked to us like grown-ups. What else could we do? We had already put our lives in his hands. He was the one who had come to take us away from our old lives, to give us a chance at freedom – a raft with which we could paddle away from the vodka marsh where slumrats like us had no future.
We arrived in the middle of the night. The truck pulled into a dark yard where there were growling dogs pulling at their leads. I remember that Tatyana grabbed my arm and whispered, ‘It’s not right. Something isn’t right.’ We got out of the truck. It was cold and damp and there were foreign smells all around. Somewhere in the darkness among the growling dogs we heard voices speaking in a language we couldn’t understand. One man smiled and chuckled and I realised he was making comments about us standing there in our short skirts.
We were led into a room where the walls were clad in a red plush fabric. There were large gilt mirrors on the walls and Peter Ludorf sat there on a sofa with his white gloves on, smiling at us. He looked us over, then got up from the couch. At that moment it was as if a light had been turned off in his face. His eyes changed colour and even his voice seemed different. He stood right in front of me and told us that we would be staying in some rooms on the first floor. We were to service all the men who were sent up. We had to give him our passports.
To show us that he was serious, that he wasn’t making idle threats, he instructed us to walk over to the table right next to the sofa. There was a wooden box on the table, about twenty centimetres high and about as wide. He kept on talking the whole time, telling us that other girls had made the same trip that we had just done but that they had not understood that he meant business. He opened the box and took out two glass jars. In one jar was a pair of lips, preserved in some kind of ether. None of us knew what we were looking at. The other jar contained a finger with a ring still on it. The nail was painted red. It was only when we saw that that we realised the first jar had held a pair of lips.
The whole time Peter Ludorf kept talking. He told us the lips belonged to a girl called Virginia. She had tried to escape by stabbing one of her clients – an elite member of the French trade delegation – in the chest with a screwdriver. Peter Ludorf sounded almost wistful when he told us that he had cut her lips off himself in order to show all of us what happened to girls who misunderstood their situation and thought that rebellion and escape attempts would be tolerated. The girl who lost her finger – Peter Ludorf had used the kind of tool that blacksmiths use to extract old stitches out of horses’ hooves when they reshoe them – was called Nadia and she had been seventeen. She had also tried to escape, this time by climbing out of a window and stealing a car that she rammed straight into the wall of the house across the street.
Peter Ludorf put the jars back and closed the lid to the box. I don’t think his words had really sunk in yet. We were all too cold and hungry to focus on anything except food. We were taken to the kitchen where an emaciated woman was stirring a pot. She chain-smoked and she had no teeth left, even though she couldn’t have been older than thirty. There was no real restaurant there, just a bar they used as a cover. We were in a real live brothel. Peter Ludorf had betrayed us in the same way that he had betrayed many others before us. He had known exactly what to say to lure a group of slumrats like us.
None of us knew what kind of life was waiting for us. We ate some of the bad-tasting soup that the emaciated woman put in front of us, and then we were locked into our rooms. I could hear Tatyana crying through the wall. I think we were all crying, but you could only hear Tatyana. That night I remember thinking: what am I going to wake up to? Why don’t I try to fall asleep and stay somewhere deep inside myself where I never need to wake up again? At the same time I felt a growing rage inside. Was I really going to let someone like Peter Ludorf win?
The rest of the night I just waited for dawn to come. I had no other thought than escape. We were not going to allow ourselves to be humiliated in this brothel. None of us were virgins exactly, but no one would ever have thought of selling herself either. I know Tea-Bag had to do it; she had no other c
hoice. But I wanted us to break out, not turn into a couple of chopped-off body parts in a wooden box in a room where the walls were the same colour as blood. But when I heard a noise at the door the next morning I was paralysed.
I don’t need to tell you about what we had to go through. For half a year I stood at that door each morning prepared to attack whoever came through the door. But I never did. I didn’t have the guts. It took me six months for that, six months of unending, unimaginable hell.
One night a deep rage that I hadn’t even known was in me, came over me and I unscrewed two of the legs of the bed. They were made of steel. I tied them together with the help of a pillowcase and then I had my weapon. The next morning I finally struck back.
I had never seen the man who came into the room that day. I hit him as hard as I could so that blood spurted from his head. He died immediately. Then I grabbed the keys from him and unlocked the door next to mine. It was like opening the door to a chamber of horror. Tatyana just sat curled up on the floor staring at me. I screamed at her to get up, that we were leaving, but she didn’t move. I pulled at her, but nothing helped. I opened the door to Inez’s room but it was empty. I finally realised that she had hidden behind the bed. I tried to pull her out, I pleaded with her, but she was so frightened she didn’t dare crawl out. I opened the door to Natalia’s room and she was the only one who was willing to come with me.
The two of us tried to get the others to come along. We screamed at them and pulled their arms but with no success. Then we had to get going: we heard voices in the stairwell. We jumped out of the window and onto the roof of a garage. I ran and thought Natalia was right behind me. It was only when I had no more energy to run that I realised she wasn’t there. Maybe she had hurt herself when she landed on the roof. I don’t know.
I can normally keep the pain at a distance, controlling it like you control an unruly horse with the reins. But sometimes it doesn’t work. Then I sniff scent blocks in men’s urinals and wish that Peter Ludorf were dead and all my friends set free. I don’t know anything about what happened to them after I left. In my dreams I see us standing there on that road outside Smolensk, waiting in our short skirts, waiting for a car to bring us to freedom but that will actually plunge us into endless darkness. A darkness I am still waiting to find my way out of.
*
Tanya stopped.
I should ask about Irina, Humlin thought. But now is hardly the time.
Tanya took a phone out of her pocket and dialled a number. Humlin thought he heard a lullaby start playing nearby, in a place he couldn’t see from where he was sitting, but where he imagined the bag lady was still sleeping with her head resting against the old gravestone.
A gravestone where the inscription had long since crumbled away.
19
AFTER THE INTERLUDE in the cemetery, Humlin and Tanya went shopping and carried home bags full of groceries. His mother was preparing a meal in the kitchen. Humlin sat down in the living room and listened to the sound of laughter and clattering pots. He knew he needed to think of what to do next. The girls couldn’t stay here for ever. I have to draft the next chapter, he thought, as if what was happening was only part of a novel and not something real. The phone rang and his mother answered. Humlin listened anxiously but her voice sounded quite normal, no moaning. She came over and handed him the receiver.
‘How can it be for me? No one knows I’m here.’
‘I made sure to tell the people who needed to know.’
‘But I specifically asked you not to mention this to a soul.’
‘I haven’t said anything about the girls and that boy. But we never said anything about keeping your whereabouts secret.’
‘Who is it?’ Humlin asked.
‘Your wife.’
‘I don’t have a wife. Is it Andrea?’
‘Who else would it be?’
Andrea was clearly irritated.
‘Why haven’t you called me?’
‘I thought I made it clear that certain difficulties had presented themselves, difficulties that needed my immediate attention.’
‘That still doesn’t mean you can’t pick up the phone once in a while.’
‘I can’t talk right now. I don’t have the energy.’
‘Get back in touch when you regain it, then. But don’t be too sure I’ll be waiting around for you.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Exactly what you think it does. Olof Lundin called, by the way. He had something important to discuss with you.’
‘What was it?’
‘He didn’t tell me. You can call him at the office. Oh, and someone called Anders Burén called. He said he had a great idea he wanted to run by you.’
‘He always does. Last time he wanted to make me into the equivalent of a tourist hotel in the mountains. I don’t want to talk to him.’
‘And I don’t want to be your secretary.’
Andrea hung up. I’m the one who makes her sound whiny, Humlin thought despondently. She wasn’t like that when we met. As usual the fault lies with me.
He dialled Lundin’s number.
‘Why don’t you ever call?’
Lundin was out of breath and Humlin imagined he must have just jumped off the rowing machine.
‘I’ve been in Gothenburg dealing with some things.’
‘You mean those fat girls? How many times do I have to tell you, you don’t have time for that right now. We’re getting ready to publish the first chapter of The Ninth Horseman in next month’s issue of our in-house magazine.’
‘What book is that?’
‘The book you are in the process of writing. I was forced to come up with a title. It’s not half bad, is it?’
Humlin turned cold.
‘I’ve already told you I’m not writing a crime novel and you can shove that title up your arse.’
‘I don’t much care for your language. Unfortunately it’s too late to change the title at this stage.’
Humlin lost his composure and started to scream. Tea-Bag came into the room at that moment, carrying a tray with plates and silverware. She stopped when she caught sight of him, looking at him with curiosity. In some way her presence gave him more courage and strength than he would ordinarily have been able to muster.
‘I’m not going to write your damned crime novel. How could you have come up with such an idiotic title? How have you even had the nerve to write the blurb of a book that doesn’t exist? That will never get written? I’m leaving your company.’
‘You say that, but you don’t mean it.’
‘I have never been so outraged in my entire life.’
‘But we both agreed on this. You mean to say you’re going back on your word?’
‘We didn’t agree on anything. You agreed to it all by yourself. I’m not writing a book about nine or any other number of horsemen.’
‘I don’t understand you, Humlin. For the first time in your life you have the opportunity to write something that will sell in big numbers. What more is there to think about?’
Humlin looked at Tea-Bag who was busy setting the table.
‘I’m going to write a book about immigrants.’
‘Good God, I think he’s serious.’
Humlin came very close to telling Lundin the whole truth, that he was currently hiding three young foreign women and a stuttering Swedish youth in his mother’s apartment, that two of the girls were illegal aliens and that the third had just experienced the miracle of love. But he restrained himself this time. Lundin would never understand.
‘I don’t have anything more to say to you, Lundin.’
‘Of course you do. I don’t know why you insist on getting yourself worked up like this. Call me tomorrow.’
The conversation ended. Humlin carefully replaced the receiver, as if he was afraid of bringing the conversation back to life again.
*
It was a sumptuous dinner. It was also the first time in years that Humlin had actually felt hun
gry as he sat down to dine at his mother’s table. He noticed the respect with which the girls treated her. It was as if nothing from the past or the present could touch them while they sat there in the sanctuary of the apartment. Humlin should have invited Andrea. If she had been able to experience this for herself she would perhaps have been able to understand why these girls had become so important to him. That was also true for Viktor Leander, his doctor, Burén; everyone in his inner circle. But there was another important person missing from this gathering.
Humlin got up and called Törnblom from the phone in his mother’s study. Amanda answered.
‘I’m cleaning up the office. Otherwise it gets to be such a mess that no one can work in here.’
‘I don’t think I’ve ever told you what a great man you’re married to.’
‘There are millions of men in the world, but a real Man is rare. Pelle is a Man.’
Humlin tried to understand the difference while he waited for her to get Törnblom. When he came on, Humlin told him about the hasty get-away from Gothenburg and all that it had entailed. Törnblom chuckled.
‘The Chief of Police? Really?’
‘That’s what Tanya said. I don’t think she’s the kind to lie.’
‘She lies constantly, but not about these sorts of things. What are you going to do now?’