Girl Who Played with Fire, The - Stieg Larsson [218]
“Alexander Zalachenko,” Palmgren said as soon as the door was closed.
“So you know that name?”
“Lisbeth told me the name. And I think it’s important that I tell this story to someone … should I happen to drop dead, which is all too possible.”
“Lisbeth? How would she know anything about his existence?”
“He is Lisbeth’s father.”
At first Blomkvist could not make out what Palmgren was saying. Then the words sank in.
“What the hell are you saying?”
“Zalachenko was some sort of a political refugee—I’ve never gotten the story quite straight, and Lisbeth was always tight-lipped about it. It was something she absolutely did not want to talk about.”
Her birth certificate. Father unknown.
“Zalachenko is Lisbeth’s father,” Blomkvist repeated aloud.
“On only one occasion in all the years I’ve known her did she tell me what happened. Here’s how I understood it—Zalachenko came here in the mid-seventies. He met Lisbeth’s mother in 1977, they had a relationship, and the result was two children.”
“Two?”
“Lisbeth and her twin sister Camilla.”
“Good God—there are two of her?”
“They’re very different. But that’s another story. Lisbeth’s mother’s name was in fact Agneta Sofia Sjölander. She was seventeen when she met Zalachenko. I don’t know anything else about how they met, but I gather she was quite a dependent young girl and easy prey for an older, more experienced man. She was impressed by him and probably head over heels in love with him. Zalachenko turned out to be anything but nice. I assume he was just after a willing woman and not much else. Naturally she fantasized about a secure future with him, but he wasn’t the least bit interested in marriage. They never did marry, but in 1979 she changed her name from Sjölander to Salander. That was, I suppose, her way of showing that they belonged together.”
“How do you mean?”
“Zala. Salander.”
“Jesus,” Blomkvist said.
“I started looking into the whole matter just before I fell ill. She had the right to take the name because her mother, Lisbeth’s grandmother, was actually named Salander. Then what happened was that Zalachenko proved himself to be a psychopath on a grand scale. He drank and savagely abused Agneta. As far as I know, this abuse went on throughout the girls’ childhood. As long as Lisbeth can remember, Zalachenko would turn up from time to time. Sometimes he would be gone for long periods, but then he was suddenly there again in the apartment on Lundagatan. And every time it was the same old story. He came there to have sex and to get drunk, and it ended with him abusing Lisbeth’s mother in various ways. Lisbeth told me things that indicated it was more than physical abuse. He carried a gun and was threatening, and there were elements of sadism and psychological terrorizing. I gather it only got worse as the years went on. Lisbeth’s mother spent a great part of the eighties living in fear.”
“Did he hit the children too?”
“No. Apparently he was totally uninterested in his daughters. He hardly even said hello to them. Their mother used to send them to their room when Zalachenko turned up, and they weren’t allowed to come out without permission. On one occasion he may have spanked Lisbeth or her sister, but that was mostly because they were irritating him or were somehow in the way. All the violence was directed towards their mother.”
“Jesus Christ. Poor Lisbeth.”
Palmgren nodded. “Lisbeth told me all this about a month before I had my stroke. It was the first time she had spoken openly about what had happened. I’d just decided that it was time to put an end to the absurd declaration of incompetence. Lisbeth is as smart as anyone I know, and I was prepared to take up her case again with the district court. Then I had the stroke … and when I woke up I was here.”
He waved at his confined quarters. A nurse knocked at the door and brought in coffee. Palmgren sat in silence until she left.
“There are some aspects of Lisbeth’s story that I don’t understand,” he said. “Agneta had been forced to go to the