Two Soldiers Read online

  “Gabriel? Listen. Him, get him . . .”

  Never refused. Or else they’ll have 2 pay.

  Then the moment was gone, he looked up, met her eyes, he wasn’t going to look away again.

  “You’ll keep it, bitch, because we want you to keep it.”

  She took a step forward, he didn’t move, her open hand struck his cheek.

  “Don’t you threaten me.”

  They were standing close looking into each other’s eyes without blinking and they knew each other so well and not at all.

  She had struck his cheek.

  He wasn’t quite sure why it was to be kept here, Leon must have his reasons, but he hadn’t moved, hadn’t looked away, hadn’t answered.

  “Don’t you threaten me, Gabriel, you—”

  “Keep it.”

  He caught her arm and pulled it, not hard, but enough for her to move so that Big Ali could get into her apartment and leave the white plastic bag on the hat shelf.

  He stood, as he normally did, by the window next to his desk and the armchairs and the photograph of a daughter who had flown the nest, who he never saw anymore. If he stood on his toes, he could see the upstairs and a tiny bit of one of the bedrooms in the house where he’d lived for the greater part of his life. Lennart Oscarsson spent his days in alternate worlds that were separated by a brisk two-minute walk and he had never wanted to be anywhere else. The town of Aspsås, with its low white- and slightly higher red-terraced houses, and the big detached houses up by the woods, had two thousand six hundred and forty-seven inhabitants. Aspsås prison, with its twelve three-story concrete buildings inside a fence, inside a wall, inside two protective barriers, had two hundred and nineteen inhabitants and it felt like he knew every face out there and in here. He still woke up every morning with the realization that he was someone who would rather be big in a small world than small in a big one.

  The windowpane caught the sun; he moved so he could better see the people sitting down there in the warmth, waiting, groups of inmates, sentenced to days, months, years. They never thought about time, never allowed themselves to, they knew that anyone who counted their breaths in prison could not bear to draw air for much longer.

  This morning—three were leaving. At around five o’clock, transfers, 0342 Gorgis and 2415 Lang from Block F, on their way to Kumla prison and Tidaholm prison, respectively. Around seven o’clock, a release, 0221 Jacobs from Block C, on his way to the Bommen hostel in Gothenburg.

  Part of life. That would continue elsewhere.

  This morning—three who were due to arrive. From Härnösand prison, six and a half years, aggravated rape, A3 Right. From Huddinge remand, four and a half years, armed robbery, F2 Left. From Kumla, transferred because he was a bad influence on other inmates, life for murder, segregation unit, Block H.

  Part of life. That would continue here. And could not be counted.

  But he did it himself.

  Counted.

  Four and a half years, plus six and a half, plus life, expected to be the full twenty-five years. Thirty-six years more in a morning.

  Half an average life to waste away.

  He studied the dusty prison yard again, looked at the men sitting on a simple wooden bench just inside the concrete wall, who were so different from those who had sat there when he started; they were younger, angrier, more broken, more violent—what once had been a life of crime that petered out when exhaustion replaced energy, was now conscious career choice: I will be successful. I will be someone. I will be a criminal, and you know, if I’m really good, I’ll even go to prison. He had walked back and forth between the terraced house and the wall all his working life and somewhere along the way he had failed to see the change and no longer had any idea of how he would recognize it. In Aspsås there had been the community inside that you could long to leave and a community outside where you could long to be, but now there was a third one and he had never been there because he had no idea where it was.

  There was a knock on the door.

  He waited, turned toward the other window, which was wider with a view of the main gate, which opened just then, and the roof of the white prison service transport bus that drove in and parked near the central security entrance.

  The door again, harder, longer.

  He opened.

  “Have you got a minute?”

  “Come in.”

  An older man, tall, slim, a friendly face, lines that had lived. Martin Jacobson. Lennart Oscarsson looked at one of his few friends. Both here and out there.

  “We’ve got a problem.”

  “We do?”

  “Him.”

  The prison governor turned back to the wide window. A young man, no more than a teenager really, was being led out of the side door of the white bus.

  Handcuffs. Body cuff.

  Four prison guards, in front and beside and behind.

  “From Mariefred prison. Six years and four months. Relocated following threats to the staff and suspected of beating up two other prisoners, crime classification perverting the course of justice.”

  One more.

  Six years and four months.

  A morning with thirty-six years had become a morning with forty-two years and four months. More time not to be counted.

  “Marko Bendik. He’s on his way over to me. But I can’t have him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Sentenced in the same case as someone who’s already there. Aggravated assault and attempted murder in central Stockholm. Plus the public prosecutor is preparing another case for other crimes that the two of them have committed together.”

  The prison service bus had red stripes running along the white. The young man pulled forward for a moment, hit his handcuffs against one of the side windows; it sounded and looked like it broke.

  “Never two accomplices at the same time. Never in isolation.”

  Lennart Oscarsson nodded and sat down at his desk, straightened the keyboard, looked at the screen.

  “Block D.”

  He changed his glasses; it was difficult to differentiate the letters and boxes when the sunlight reflected his own face on the dusty glass.

  “D1 Left. Cell 12. It’s been empty since yesterday.”

  One careful step at a time down the spiral staircase to administration and the reception area. Lennart Oscarsson kept his eyes on his friend’s neck until their ways parted, Martin Jacobson continued down the passage toward the isolation unit and Oscarsson opened the door and stepped into a bright and cramped space that was the first place to greet newly arrived prisoners. In the middle of the floor, surrounded by the four uniformed guards, stood a muscular and extremely pale boy who had been a child until very recently. Eyes that looked past him, through him, over him, anywhere other than at the person who held out his hand and wished him welcome.

  “Lennart Oscarsson.”

  And that didn’t answer.

  “I’m the governor here.”

  The eyes that neither saw nor answered, narrowed.

  “Good for you.”

  Recently strip-searched, now with new clothes.

  Recently a child, now a man with a long sentence.

  Oscarsson turned toward the prison guard who was standing closest, lowered his voice.

  “He’s to go to Block D.”

  “But it says here—”

  “I know. It was me who wrote it.”

  It wasn’t very often that he went through the underground passage, a square concrete body that stretched the length of the prison yard, with straight arms and legs that headed off in different directions and then turned into locked doors and security cameras, the way in when days were no longer to be counted and the way out when there was less of life left. He glanced at the prisoner who had lived only one adult year in freedom and would now live the next six years and four months inside these walls. He looked like all the others, hated like all the others. He was about to be let into the unit and would sit on the bunk in his cell and immed
iately get stuck in the quagmire of antisocial behavior. They always came from another time zone, they had committed crimes and filled their veins with drugs at night and slept and mustered strength during the day, and now the metal door they sat staring at would be locked at half past seven every evening and opened again at seven every morning, they would wake up, get up, piss, shower, and then walk either to the workshop to make red wooden blocks or to the classroom to read out loud.

  “Guard in the unit!”

  Oscarsson hadn’t even opened the door yet.

  The child, who only had a matter of minutes to prove that he was a man with a long sentence who knew exactly where he was at and so should be treated with respect, yelled at the sleepy unit in the way that he’d learned to yell, from now on one of thirty young people who were placed in various units at Aspsås alongside the older prisoners. Never more than that. Because the group then grew into a gang. And then the gang grew in power. And the prison governor had several times recognized only too late the moment when a group no longer needed to be fed recognition from the outside as an enemy and a threat, but had simply become an enemy and a threat, the moment when it was sufficiently big and sufficiently strong to feed itself.

  Lennart Oscarsson stayed standing in the doorway, guard in the unit, saw the first peer approach the new inmate and hold out his hand.

  “Ey.”

  Then another, and another.

  “Ey.”

  Always the same. The youngsters always knew each other. It didn’t matter whether they came from Fittja or Råby or Södertälje or Gävle. They always knew each other. Every time a young man took his first steps into one of the prison units, the others were standing there in a row ready to welcome him.

  Lennart Oscarsson was just about to leave when he saw one of them approach—he couldn’t remember his name, tall, short hair, long sentence for a serious crime—hand in the air.

  His eyes, darting restlessly here, there, and everywhere.

  His mouth, dry lips, smacking sound.

  “Marko.”

  Oscarsson was certain. The boy who said hello was seriously under the influence.

  “Leon.”

  First the hand, then the embrace; they smiled at each other.

  “Welcome, my friend.”

  ———

  Leon watched the older man who was standing there in the doorway, who he knew was the governor. The uniform stayed watching for slightly too long, he’d seen that they were high and Leon had made sure to smack with his lips in the way people do when speed has stolen their saliva. He raised a hand to Marko, then embraced him, they’d known each other since he was twelve and Marko was thirteen—Örkelljunga secure children’s home, Sirius Paragraph 12 home, and then Bärby juvenile detention center. Marko from Rotebro was one of the ones who had always been there and who wanted to belong, and maybe he would one day.

  They walked down the corridor, past the TV corner, past the cells with low numbers toward the one that had been empty since the day before, the guy who’d hanged himself in the narrow space between the wardrobe and the sink, Cell 12. Marko had his stuff, washed-out prison clothes and towels and bed linen in his arms, and Leon left him sitting on an unmade bunk in a bare room with pockmarked walls.

  “Cell 2.”

  The face that nodded to him.

  It was older now, nineteen, but just there, just then, the look of abandonment, he’d seen it before.

  In Vemyra.

  Fourteen years old. Juvenile detention center.

  They had lain on their backs on a desk each in the classroom, it was night and they had been sniffing strong glue and were off their faces, and had smashed the reinforced glass—a pot of boiling water and a cross scratched with a coin in a corner of the window—which they’d only ever come across before at a child psychology unit; they had forced their way into the teachers’ corridor, to the head’s wife who was on duty that night, and they had fractured her skull and broken her right thumb and stolen the keys.

  Forty-eight hours. Then they were back again.

  Marko had sat there just like he was sitting there now, when they were separated and forced into their rooms, his face, that expression, abandonment.

  “Cell 2, if there’s anything.”

  On the opposite side of the corridor, the cells with uneven numbers, number 9. Leon knocked.

  “One love, brother.”

  “One love.”

  Alex had waited, someone who already belonged; for so long it had only been Leon and Gabriel, Leon and Gabriel, then with Alex there was one more, and then one more with Bruno and one more with Jon and Reza and Uros and Big Ali and now there were eight of them and there weren’t going to be many more, a core that was hard, and that fucking longing to be part of it was for those who were outside, who were prepared to do anything to get in.

  He looked at Alex, dropped his hand as they walked over to Cell 10.

  They stood side by side in front of the closed door.

  Never open a door and go into a cell on any corridor in any prison without knocking.

  Because it’s not just a door. Because it’s not just a cell.

  Because most of them had lived longer here than they’d lived there, outside.

  He didn’t knock.

  This wasn’t a home. It was a junky den.

  “Oi.”

  The skinny bugger was sitting on the only chair by the only table, with his back to the door, looking out of the window. He hadn’t heard him come in, started, and turned around.

  The smile.

  Stiff lips, slightly apart.

  “Smackhead.”

  A hard fist to his shoulder.

  “Don’t ever smile at me.”

  Leon couldn’t understand why, he never had, but that bastard smile still annoyed him, it kind of got hold of you and was ugly and exposed all those yellow dirty teeth that somehow sank into the feeling of being in the way, that fucking drawn-out apology, a reflex that stared at whoever was staring.

  Another fist, the other shoulder, knuckles on skin and bones.

  “D’you understand?”

  “My deal.”

  “Later. Do you understand?”

  The scrawny body got up.

  “I want my hit.”

  “When you’re done, Smackhead.”

  “My name’s Sonny. And you can hit me as much as you like. Whenever you like.”

  Desperation. A surprising strength.

  “But I want my payment. Before. I want my ten grams.”

  He pointed at the table, at what was lying there, all lined up.

  Electric shaver, ballpoint pen, spoon, needle, tape, pipe cleaner, nail clippers, cotton thread, piece of metal.

  His high voice, his stammer, it was worse now.

  “I’ve got everything. Even the ink. But I’m not going to put it together. Not until I get my pay.”

  Leon saw the punctured feet that couldn’t stay still on the hard floor, cheeks that twitched around the eyelid, his tongue constantly running over his yellow teeth trying to wash them clean.

  But the lips. They weren’t open anymore, weren’t smiling.

  Leon opened the cell door, nodded to Alex who was standing outside, keeping an eye on the whole corridor.

  “Ten g.”

  He went in again, closed the door, looked at the skinny old bastard who must be around thirty, maybe even forty.

  “But you’re not to touch it. Not until you’re done.”

  They didn’t say anything while they waited. They had nothing in common, didn’t know each other, had never met before, would never meet again anywhere else once their days of living locked up together were done. They were the same height and looked straight into each other’s eyes, one who had already lived a life of crime and was now simply trying to survive the slow slippery downwards slope, and one who was still on the way up, taking up more space, who had energy and hate and no idea that the older man in front of him had until very recently been him.

 
; The door opened, Alex, five capsules in his hand, up close to the thin face that looked at them, felt them, took them.

  “You’re not to touch it. Not until you’re done.”

  That smile again, lips apart as the scrawny hands picked up the tape and then stood by the table and stuck the five capsules to the wall just where the curtain rail was widest, they were his now and he had hidden them, so he sat down again, his back turned as before.

  The tattoo brutha. Only on right thigh. ONLY THERE!!!

  First the electric shaver. Always a Braun. With the kind of blade that moves horizontally back and forth.

  Grinning, Smackhead held the shaver in one hand and with the other lifted up the piece of metal from the table that he had sharpened little by little over the past week, whenever he was certain that the guards were looking the other way, while he did his morning stint in the workshop, sharp enough to cut a bare throat, to cut off the locked rounded head on the shaver and take out the blades.

  He put the shaver to one side, picked up the ballpoint pen, cut it carefully across the middle and pulled out the plastic tube of ink, then cut off the ballpoint at the end with the nail clippers. Then he picked up the spoon and pressed it hard against the table, twisted it around until the shallow hollow that he’d eaten his buttermilk with only this morning fell off and his skinny fingers were left holding a straight rust-free handle, and when he then pressed this against the table for a second time, it became a metal hook, bent at ninety degrees.

  I trust a new tattoo 200%,

  The needle. The wires he’d pulled out of one of the metal brushes in the workshop with pliers.

  The pipe cleaner. That he had bought in the prison shop.

  The cotton thread. That he’d just pulled out of his pants.

  He positioned the needle right next to the pipe cleaner and wound the thread around them, hard, the end of the needle only a few millimeters longer than the pipe cleaner, then pushed them carefully into the empty shaft of the ballpoint pen, and when the pipe cleaner was too big and got caught and couldn’t go in any farther, the needle point came out through the opening, the hole which had been made for a plastic ink tube had now become the holder for a needle that was sufficiently sharp to puncture and color skin.