Stieg Larsson, My Friend - Kurdo Baksi [5]
At the same time, few people are as generous in their relationships as Stieg was. He gave, and so many of us were keen to receive what he had to offer. I have no doubt at all how he would have responded to Raymond Carver’s two momentous questions.
Did you get what you wanted from this life?
Yes.
And what did you want?
To be loved.
2
The first conversation
The most stereotyped crime novels generally begin with a telephone call. A chief inspector is woken up in the middle of the night by persistent ringing. Eventually he gropes sleepily for the receiver, checks the clock and is informed that a murder has been committed. He has to stagger out into the freezing-cold winter’s night and make his way to the scene of the crime. The drama can begin.
It was not in the middle of the night that the story of Stieg and me began, but it did start with a telephone call. I still remember exactly when it was: Tuesday, 4 February, 1992. When I reached for the telephone, which was ringing just as persistently as in a sleepy chief inspector’s bedroom, the voice I heard skipped the usual polite preliminaries: “I hope I’m not disturbing you at an inconvenient moment. I have something important to discuss.”
At the time I was a member of the 21 February Committee and was sitting in their newly established headquarters in the Kungsholmen district of Stockholm. The committee’s name referred to a strike that had been called in reaction to the shooting of eleven people in Stockholm by an individual the media had labelled the Laser Man. Hardly a day passed without the newspapers printing long articles about this lunatic who had been wandering around in broad daylight, aiming his laser sights at dark-skinned immigrants. The capital was on tenterhooks for several months, especially since one of the victims, a Swedish-Iranian interpreter, had been shot dead on 8 November, 1991. Another ten immigrants had been seriously wounded, some of their injuries potentially fatal.
It would be no exaggeration to say that during these terrible months Stockholm felt like a city under siege. If not for all its citizens, then certainly for those with dark skins. It was a time many commentators called the most repugnant in recent Swedish history – a period full of menace and political betrayal.
I quickly realized that the caller had no intention of congratulating me on my role as a strike organizer. He continued without pausing: “You have said on the radio and television that if it were not for immigrants, Sweden would grind to a halt. You’re absolutely right. But why is it only immigrants who are allowed to take part in the strike? What you have said excludes the majority of the population. How do you envisage including my solidarity with Swedish immigrants?”
“Er . . .” I began, but was immediately interrupted.
“I was born in Skellefteå of two Swedish parents, but I’ve lived for many years in the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby, which has a high proportion of immigrant residents. I want to take part in the strike on 21 February, because racism isn’t just an immigrant problem, it’s a problem for Sweden as a whole.”
Obviously, I understood what he was leading up to, but he didn’t allow me to get a word in edgeways before making his own proposal.
“I want you to call a press conference and say that everybody in Sweden, irrespective of the colour of their skin, their gender, their mother tongue, their nationality, their homeland, their sexual orientation or their religion, is welcome to take part in this strike to demonstrate solidarity with immigrant Swedes at 10.00 this coming Friday.”
Only then did he explain who he was. I recognized his name, having been present once or twice when he had delivered an address, usually at some demonstration or other, or at a rally to express solidarity with refugees. Most importantly, I knew he was the author of the pioneering book Extremhögern, an analysis of anti-democratic movements