Red Wolf_ A Novel Part 27

'A bad day on the battlefield?' he said, settling down on the other side of the table.

The chairman of the board fingered the lock of his briefcase, his nails clicking against the metal in an unconscious and irritating way.

'You win some, you lose some,' he said. 'I can give you good news that I appear to be winning on your behalf. I've just come from a meeting of the Newspaper Publishers' a.s.sociation, where I proposed you as new chair after the New Year. The last chap hasn't worked out at all, so we all agreed we need a change, and my suggestion met surprisingly little resistance. No one had any objections, neither publishers nor directors.'

Wennergren seemed genuinely surprised.

'Maybe they were just shocked,' Schyman said, as his secretary brought in a coffee-tray full of cups and biscuits.

'I don't think so,' the chairman said, grabbing a ginger biscuit before the tray had reached the table. 'The managing director called you a collective capitalist. What do you think he meant by that?'

'Depends if the tone was positive or negative, and what values you attach to the description,' Schyman said, avoiding the question.

Herman Wennergren took a careful sip from the china cup with pouting lips and his little finger sticking out. He swallowed a small mouthful, then said, 'It's possible that the other groups are gathering their forces. We shouldn't crack open the champagne just yet, but I think I can get you through as chair. And once you're there, at the board's first meeting, I want you to raise a particular question that's of the utmost importance to our proprietors.'

Anders Schyman leaned back in his chair and concentrated on keeping his expression completely neutral, as the true nature of his elevation dawned on him: he was expected to be the proprietors' weapon on the ostensibly unbiased and apolitical forum that the Newspaper Publishers' a.s.sociation purported to be.

'I see,' Schyman said blankly. 'What question would that be?'

Wennergren was chewing a caramel slice. 'TV Scandinavia,' he said, brushing some crumbs from the corners of his mouth. 'Are we really going to allow American capital onto our airwaves without any real debate?'

The second front, Schyman thought; the one being lost. The old boy really is worried the one being lost. The old boy really is worried.

'I thought it was being debated everywhere,' he said, not sure if he should be annoyed at the attempt to direct him as a lobbyist, or if he should pretend it was bad news.

'Of course,' Herman Wennergren said, wiping his fingers on a napkin. 'How many articles have we had about it in the Evening Post Evening Post?'

Anders Schyman stood up rather than raise his voice, and went over to sit at his desk.

Never before had the family that owned the paper exerted any pressure on him to write on issues where they had economic interests. He understood immediately what a large and sensitive issue the launch of the American channel must be for them.

'A precondition of me enjoying any sort of respect in the publishing community is that I maintain a critical and independent line towards our proprietors in all circ.u.mstances,' he said, picking up a pen without using it.

'Naturally,' Herman Wennergren said, getting to his feet. He picked up his briefcase and b.u.t.toned his coat. 'An independent line, of course, to anyone looking on. But you're not stupid, Schyman. You know who you work for, don't you?'

'Journalism,' Anders Schyman said, feeling his temper fraying. 'Truth and democracy.'

Herman Wennergren gave a tired sigh. 'Yes, yes,' he said. 'But you also appreciate what's at stake. How the h.e.l.l are we going to get shot of TV Scandinavia?'

'Make sure they don't get a broadcasting licence,' Schyman said at once.

Wennergren sighed louder. 'Obviously,' he said. 'But how? We've tried everything. The government is completely unshakeable. This American consortium fulfils all the criteria for access to the digital broadcast network. The proposal is up in parliament next Tuesday, and the Ministry of Culture isn't going to change its conditions just because we want it to.'

'As soon as that?' Schyman said. 'So it must be done and dusted then?'

'All the committee stages and consultation were finished long ago, but you know what Minister Bjornlund is like. She has trouble getting anything done, let alone on time. We've checked with the parliamentary print office, and they haven't received the text yet.'

Schyman looked down at his desk, and in one corner of the latest balance sheet were the words he had scribbled down as he had considered how hard he should be on Annika Bengtzon.

Karina Bjornlund engaged terrorist Ragnwald, blew up plane F21????

He stared at the words, feeling the pressure rise.

What did he want the media landscape in Sweden to look like in the future? Did he want the Swedish media to continue its long tradition of pursuing issues like democracy and freedom of expression? Or could he let them be stifled by a global, dollar-rich entertainment giant? Could he deliberately put the Evening Post Evening Post, the Morning News Morning News, the publishing companies, radio and television channels at risk, purely because he insisted on maintaining his form of mute and stereotypical ethics? Ethics that no one would ever know that he followed, nor at what cost?

And ultimately: was he prepared to sacrifice his own career?

Anders Schyman picked up the balance sheet containing the notes and looked at the chairman of the board.

'There is something,' he said. 'Something that Karina Bjornlund really doesn't want made public.'

Herman Wennergren raised his eyebrows, intrigued.

The winter sleet hit Annika in the face, making her gasp for breath. The doors slid shut behind her, the sucking sound mixed with the crunch of ice caught in the mechanism. She put her hand over her eyes to block the light of the paper's illuminated logo above her head. In front of her the street and the world stretched out, vast and impa.s.sable. Her centre of gravity sank, through her stomach, past her knees. How could she possibly take another step? How was she going to get home?

This is the biggest load of c.r.a.p I've ever heard . . . I hope you haven't mentioned this nonsense to anyone else?

At the back of her head the angels were tuning up their mournful voices, no words, just notes, reaching her through eternities of emptiness.

From now on you won't be covering terrorism at all. You will not spend a minute more on Karina Bjornlund or that b.l.o.o.d.y Ragnwald.

How could she have been so wrong? Was she really going mad? What had happened to her head? Was it because of her experience in the tunnel? Was something up there broken beyond repair?

She put her hands over her ears, closing her eyes to shut out the angels, but instead she kept them in. They overwhelmed her.

No. I don't want this.

Her mobile started buzzing from the bottom of her bag. She shut her eyes tighter and felt the vibrations filter through her notebook, chewing-gum, the bag of sanitary towels, the padding of her coat, hitting her in the waist. She stood and waited until it had stopped.

I don't want to hear another word about this.

Stockholm seemed to come to a standstill around her, the noise of traffic on the motorway disappeared, damp ghosts gathered around streetlamps and neon signs, her feet floated free of the ground, she took off and slowly floated above the pavement outside the entrance, down towards the garage, over the frozen gra.s.s lawn, past the concrete traffic island.

'Annika!'

She fell to the ground with a b.u.mp, gasping for breath, and found herself standing right outside the crunching, sliding doors, the wind tugging at her hair again, spitting and snarling.

'Hurry up, you're getting soaked.'

Thomas's old green Toyota had pulled up alongside the entrance to the garage. She looked at it in surprise. What was it doing here?

Then she saw him wave from the open driver's door, his blond hair wet and sticking to his forehead, his coat stained with sleet. She ran towards him, right into his smiling eyes, flying over the tarmac and patches of ice, drowning in his endless embrace.

'Good thing you got my message,' he said, leading her round to the pa.s.senger side, carrying on talking as he opened the door and helped her in. 'I tried to call your mobile but there was no answer so I told the caretaker that I'd come past and pick you up, I had to move the car anyway so it's no trouble, I've picked up some goodies and I thought we could maybe . . .'

Annika was panting slightly through her half-open mouth.

'I think I'm coming down with something,' she whispered.

'Right, let's get you home and tucked up properly in bed; isn't that right, kids?'

She turned round and saw the children sitting on their booster seats in the back seat. She smiled weakly.

'h.e.l.lo, darlings. I love you.'

Wednesday 18 November

31.

The man walked with floating steps past the campsite reception, his body fluid, his mind razor-sharp. He felt st.u.r.dy, strong. His legs had the spring he remembered, muscles tensing and relaxing. He filled his lungs, hardly noticing the stab in his stomach as his diaphragm expanded. The air was so strangely and distantly familiar up here, like a song you used to sing as a child and had forgotten, then suddenly hear again from a distance on a crackling radio.

Sharp, he thought, and stopped. Cold and watchful Cold and watchful.

He turned his gaze upwards and squinted at the sky, one or two battered snowflakes were struggling to reach the ground, jerkily sailing through the layers of air.

He had come here in order to come home, to be reunited with his family. He hadn't had any expectations of the country or the landscape, all too aware of how the mills of capitalism ground down culture and infrastructure. So his joy at seeing it all again was so unexpected, the huddled houses and snow-covered roads, the closeness of the sky and the desolate, closed pine trees. Even the changes felt safe; he had known that the occupation would make progress during his absence.

He walked towards the road where the girl had once lived, the ramshackle row of workers' houses with single cold taps and outdoor toilets. He wondered if he was in the right place. It was hard to tell. Karlsvik had changed in the way he had feared but couldn't imagine. On the heath outside the town, where the blueberries had grown in thick carpets in the summer of 1969, where he had rolled around with Karina until they b.u.mped into an anthill, there was a striped, panelled monstrosity in white and pale blue boasting that it was the largest indoor arena in northern Europe. He didn't need convincing.

By the river, where they had chased each other round the ruins of the old harbour and timber-yard, there now stood a four-star campsite with a collection of little wooden cabins: he had booked into one of them.

In the harsh winter air he could suddenly smell bubbling water on its way out to the Gulf of Bothnia, and could see the city in front of him on the far sh.o.r.e, remembering all the old remnants of the sawmill days, the fragments of wood and other rubbish that had lined the edge of the river. He wondered if there was anything left, if the pines had finally fallen into the water from the steep sandbanks by the sh.o.r.e.

He walked straight on, light and steady, along carefully sc.r.a.ped winter streets covered with a thin layer of ice, gravel and pine needles. The paths left by the snowploughs were straight and regular, the surrounding houses unrecognizable to him.

The area had been renovated, with the picturesque ambition reserved for the cultural elite and senior civil servants. The many rows of workers' houses had had their rust-red or ochre-yellow colour restored, but in a shiny plastic version. Wooden carvings shone white in the lead-grey twilight; ramrod-straight window-frames spoke of expensive replacements made with the best timber. With its playground's colourful swings, the recycling bins' neat lids and the carefully swept front steps, the place presented a dishonest and decadent excess.

It was empty and dead. He could hear a dog bark, a cat jumped up onto a heap of snow in the distance, but Karlsvik was not alive, it was merely a mirror, intended to reflect the people who lived there and perceived themselves to be happy.

He stopped in the middle of that thought, remembering that the lives of common people rested in the hands of the great capitalists, then as now.

He came out onto Disponentvagen and immediately recognized her house, the facade red and enticing like the moist lips of a wh.o.r.e, his gaze drawn automatically to her window on the second floor. Green window bars, an aerial on the roof like a giant insect.

His girl, his own Red Wolf.

Women had always thought him shy and reserved, a gentle and careful lover. Only with Karina had he been truly great. Only with her had love-making taken him beyond eroticism, and made love appear as the miracle it actually was. With her and her friends he had created his own family, and all through the racing years and seconds they had always been with him.

She hadn't wanted to talk to him.

When he looked her up she had rejected him. The betrayal burned in his face, she had been their glittering star. She had been given her proud name because they wanted to stress the group's Nordic background; they were communists from the Realm of the Wolf. Even if they believed themselves to be part of the Chinese people, there was nothing to stop them stressing the transgression of national boundaries in the fight for freedom.

But she had allowed herself to be intoxicated by the terrible sweetness of power, had turned her back on him. Now he turned his back on her childhood home and left the houses behind him; walked jauntily on towards the heritage trail alongside the campsite, and stopped by a heap of ploughed snow. He looked into the thin pine trees.

The remains of Norrbotten's first ironworks could just about be glimpsed as grey foundations. He saw the spiky fragments sticking out of the snow, twisted wreckage from mankind's vain desire to govern its own fate.

The history of the ironworks was short and violent. Several hundred people worked here just before the turn of the last century, working to purify the iron ore found in the area. Southern Swedish ironmasters bought the factory after the First World War, stripped it of its machines and equipment, sold the workers' housing and quite literally blew the ironworks up.

Some people are allowed to blow things up. Not everyone, though.

There was another jolt of pain in his diaphragm, and he realized he was freezing. The medicine was wearing off; he ought to get back to the cabin. He was suddenly aware of his smell again; it had got much worse in recent days. His mood sank when he thought about the dry nutritional powder he was forced to live off. This was no life.

Today was exactly three months since the diagnosis.

He shook off the thought and carried on walking, towards the pulp mill.

All that was left today was the warehouses, the shameful great buildings that were lent to the Germans during the war to store munitions and supplies. Weapons, grain, tins of food: the n.a.z.is could stash them here and collect them for their troops in Norway or the Soviet Union. Thirty men from the town had worked here, Karina's father among them. She had always claimed that it was working for the Germans that drove her father to drink.

Excuses, he thought. Man has his own free will. He can choose to do or not do anything, except death Man has his own free will. He can choose to do or not do anything, except death.

And he had chosen, and his choice was to fight against imperialism with death as his means of expression, death as a tool against people who in turn had chosen to impose oppression and captivity upon his brothers and sisters.

Brothers and sisters, he thought.

He grew up a single child, but eventually he acquired a family anyway. Created his own flock, the only one he had ever taken responsibility for, and the only one he had betrayed.

The pain settled into his stomach; his lack of responsibility afflicted his body and made it heavy. He turned back towards the campsite, walking with painful steps back to reception.

What sort of father was he? He had left his flock to fend for themselves, had fled as soon as things started to heat up around him.

The Black Panther, he thought, stopping beside the snow-covered mini-golf course to catch his breath, letting his lost children come to him. His heir and eldest son, the most impatient and restless of them, the most uncompromising, the Panther had taken his name from the freedom fighters in the USA. There had been some discussion about that in the group; someone had claimed that calling yourself something American was counter-revolutionary. The Panther himself claimed the opposite, said that taking the name of America's own critics supported the fight against the lackeys of capitalism.

Personally he had remained on the sidelines, watching the others argue. When they couldn't agree he cast the deciding vote and sided with the Panther.

His chest grew thick and tight when he thought about how the young revolutionary had changed. Without his leader the Black Panther had become a mere shadow instead of a force to be reckoned with.

The other children had gone their separate ways, had ended up far from their ideals. Worst of all was the White Tiger. The middle-aged Tiger was so different from the skinny boy he remembered that he almost suspected they had switched him for someone else.

He walked slowly towards his cabin, the smallest one, called a Ralsen. The White Tiger had walked with him here that summer; and suddenly he was beside him once more, the boy who had chosen his name because the colour stood for purity, clarity, and the animal symbolized stealth and strength.

He had been pure of heart, the man thought, yet today his heart is as black as the steelworks he runs.

Behind curtains and round corners he caught glimpses of people busy with inconsequential human activities: drinking coffee, writing shopping lists, hatching mean plots against their compet.i.tors, and dreaming of s.e.xual fulfilment. The cl.u.s.ter of cabins was almost fully occupied, visitors to one of the fairs in the huge monstrosity, which suited him fine. No one had spoken to him since he had checked in after his trip to Uppland.

He stopped outside his cabin, aware that he was swaying, that his powers would soon be gone. His two last children came to him.

The Lion of Freedom had been given his name because it was agreed that someone in the group ought to symbolize their solidarity with Africa, but the Lion himself had been incapable of any truly great thoughts. There was nothing wrong with the lad's convictions, but he needed a strong leader to help him find the right path. Together they had decided to make the Lion of Freedom's roar echo across the whole of the oppressed black continent and liberate the ma.s.ses.

The Lion of Freedom was the one who probably needed him most; he was also the one for whom things had turned out worst.

I'll take care of you, my son, the man thought, and went into his little cabin.