Dark Angel (Anders Knutas 6)

were dozens of little notebooks, stacks of notepads and scraps of paper covered with handwriting. He wondered what it said. Heaps of clothes, belts, various small purses and shoes were scattered about. The walls were covered with pictures of different pop stars, but he didn’t know the names of any of them.
    What did he really know about his daughter and the thoughts that whirled about in her head? How many genuine conversations had they had lately? When did they ever talk to each other, and what did they say? Feeling dejected, he realized that they mostly discussed practical matters: what they should cook for dinner, whether she had to go to practice or not on a specific evening, and how things had gone at school.
    And then there was Nils. He was lying in bed with his back turned to the door, and he’d forgotten to turn off his desk lamp. Nils had inherited his mother’s thick red hair. The room seemed naked, stripped bare. Nothing on the walls, a few schoolbooks on the desk, otherwise just the computer, which he spent far too much time staring at, in his father’s opinion. Nils was sleeping calmly.
    How well do I really know my own children? thought Knutas. He felt an uneasy churning in his stomach, out of fear that they were slipping away from him. If he didn’t do something about it soon, it might be too late. We should take a trip somewhere, he thought. Just me and the kids. Lina often spent time alone with them at their summer house out in the country when he had to work at the weekend. Why shouldn’t he spend time with them too?
    Quietly he closed the door to Nils’s room. He needed to think of something: maybe a week’s holiday on the Canary Islands or a long weekend in a big city. London, Paris, New York? The kids could choose where they wanted to go, within reason, of course.
    Maybe sharing some experiences with them away from home would help.

I WANDER THROUGH room after room and pull down the blinds on all the windows. It takes a while. The flat may be a free zone for me just now, but I’m actually trapped in here, like a prisoner in a cell with too much space. Taking the lift four floors down seems, as usual, practically insurmountable, even though I need to buy groceries. I have no desire to go out in the street, among all those people who are always racing along in every direction yet going nowhere. I’m no longer part of any of that. I feel as if I’m looking down on a gigantic anthill. People and cars rush aimlessly through their daily lives, like hamsters in a wheel. To what purpose?
    In the bathroom I take my medicine, though with some hesitation. I shake out two capsules and a little round tablet. Then wash them down with several gulps of water, shuddering. I’ve always had trouble swallowing. I avoid looking at myself in the mirror, fully aware of what an unpleasant sight it would be. My stomach is empty, but I’m not hungry even though I’ve hardly eaten a thing in days.
    I go back to the sofa and curl up in a foetal position with my back to the room. My eyes are dry and open wide, staring without seeing at the white upholstery of the sofa cushion. I know that I won’t be able to sleep. I just lie there, mute and motionless. Like part of the furnishings. That’s precisely what I am.
    Again I start thinking back.
    To one of those Sundays. We were going to visit Aunt Margareta and Uncle Ulf, who lived inside the ring wall, very close to the church. Their eldest son, Marcel, was the same age as me. We went to the same high school but pretended not to know each other. I always looked away whenever I saw him in the corridor. I suspected Marcel of making jokes about the fact that we were cousins.
    He was named Marcel because his mother loved the Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni. We might have been friends, if only circumstances had been different. If it weren’t for the fact that I was regarded as a wimp. And the fact that we were always being compared to each other. By our mothers.
    Marcel was already six foot one, with hair under his arms and a moustache. He had dark hair and doe eyes. He was well built, with attractively muscular arms, which he was happy to show off, evoking delighted giggles from both his mother and aunt.
    The living room smelled like a shoe shop, maybe because of the white leather sofa in the corner. A pair of porcelain dogs six feet tall guarded the front door. The obligatory coffee was served at the obligatory time – always two o’clock. The leather sofa