Stieg Larsson, My Friend - Kurdo Baksi [19]
It was not only because of his shyness that Stieg maintained such a modest profile. His relationship with T.T. had reached a new low and he felt stymied. Because of his permanent post there, he was not free to be interviewed as an expert on matters involving racism or neo-Nazism. Nor was he allowed to write on these subjects. He was always being approached for articles that would have been right up his street. Sometimes he paid no attention to what his superiors said and wrote them. But that only made his position even more awkward.
You can’t serve two masters, Stieg!
You simply can’t do this.
You can’t publish a journal about right-wing extremism in your spare time and also produce credible articles on the same questions for a news agency.
You have to choose one or the other!
Over and over again he came up against the same arguments, and I could see how it was getting him down.
It soon became clear that Stieg was working day and night. We used to say that he worked from 9.00 till 5.00 – 9.00 in the morning till 5.00 the next morning. There seemed to be no limit to what he needed to do: write articles; do research; coordinate editorial activities; buy coffee, loo rolls, bookcases, computers and toners for the printer . . . I didn’t envy him, but I ought to have supported him more. My only consolation is that I know his pride would have prevented him from accepting more help than I gave him.
Every weekday at 1.30 he would turn up at the editorial office of either Expo or Svartvitt. He would bring a litre of milk for coffee, take a seat and talk before returning to his day job at T.T. He was back in the editorial office by 4.00. He told me that he often went to bed at about 5.00 in the morning. The last thing he always did was to switch off his mobile, which he both loved and hated.
We could see that he was pushing himself to the limit. His bloodshot eyes often betrayed his exhaustion. But I also remember the energy he radiated. Our collaboration was going well; we could look ahead with confidence and spent hours analysing the current state of democracy, or the latest move by some person or organization we both hated.
Then the day dawned when Stieg’s book on Euro-Nat arrived from the printer’s. Two weeks later we celebrated the publication of the first issue of the combined Svartvitt and Expo journals in my office. It was a memorable day. A lot of people called it a mad project. Perhaps they were right. But no matter; it was an act of madness that I shall never regret.
I remember clearly Stieg’s pride when we sat in the editorial office with the new issue in our hands. How his voice boomed: “It’s our obligation, damn it, to comment on and analyse and take the pulse of the new Sweden.”
And then, when somebody produced a camera, how he displayed great agility in slipping off to one side and managing to avoid being in the picture. He was happy to take on work and share praise with others. But he made sure he didn’t appear in any photographs if at all possible.
I sometimes wonder if Stieg had the same working habits when he was younger. If he only had one gear: full steam ahead. Or whether the frenzy gathered pace later in his life. I would have loved to have seen him as an eighteen-year-old, doing his project on racism and political extremism. That assignment must have awakened something extraordinary in his frail teenage body. Perhaps that was a starting point for all that he came to stand for in adulthood as a journalist, author and lecturer.
“Kill your darlings,” I used to tell Stieg when he was having trouble restricting