The Princess of Burundi - Kjell Eriksson [129]
A group of kids ran giggling out of the living room, stopping short when they saw Lindell. They looked at the boot in her hand and the pile of shoes. Erki said something in Finnish and they immediately drew back into the living room and closed the door behind them.
When Lindell continued to speak it was with greater assurance.
“I want you to count out one hundred thousand from the backpack and put it aside. Hide it, and when everything has calmed down I want you to make sure Berit and the boy get to Africa. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Erki nodded.
“He has to see the place, even if it’s only for a week,” Lindell said.
“Isn’t this wrong?” Erki said.
Lindell shook her head.
“I would be fired on the spot if this came to light, but you like the boy, don’t you?”
Erki Karjalainen smiled. Lindell thought she caught a whiff of mulled wine on his breath.
“Treat yourself to a taxi to Berit’s and back,” she said.
“But stealing?” Erki said. “What will the boy think?”
“Tell him it’s what John would have wanted.”
Erki leaned forward and for a second she thought he was going to hug her, but he only gave her an intent look, as if he wanted to check the sincerity in her expression.
“Are you alone with your baby over Christmas?”
Lindell shook her head, bent over, and fished out her other boot.
“We’re having Berit and Justus over,” Erki said. “If you want to come.”
Lindell looked around, sat down on a chair, and pulled her boots on with concentration. She wanted to run away but also stay there. She sighed heavily and pulled up the zipper of her boot.
“My parents are in town,” she said and managed to give him a smile. “But it’s very nice of you to invite me. Thank you.”
Lindell stepped out into the cold with a sense of longing. She turned. A nose was pressed against the glass and she waved. The nose disappeared.
She let the engine run for a while, like she always did. When she finally put it in gear she realized where this habit came from: it’s what her father had always done with the delivery truck. He would go out a few minutes before he wanted to leave, turn on the engine, then go back in and have the last drop of his morning coffee before setting out on his rounds.
She called home. This time her mother’s voice was commanding.
“You are coming home this instant,” she said.
“There’s a boy here who needed attention,” Ann said.
“You have a boy yourself.”
“He’s hardly suffering,” Ann said, but she felt a twinge of guilty conscience.
“Where are you?”
“Don’t you hear what I’m saying? I’ll be home soon! I’m just going to stop by and see someone on the way back.”
Her mother hung up, and Ann was not surprised. She knew her mother was incapable of having a discussion of any length with her daughter. The distance between them was too great.
She pushed away all thoughts of her parents in the way she had always done, by thinking of her work. Had it been right to ask Erki to put away a hundred thousand? He had raised the issue of morality, but the fact was that it was John’s money. Even if the starting sum had been stolen, then surely the poker winnings were his? If the money from the workshop was subtracted perhaps there would be even more than a hundred thousand, and this money would go to Berit and Justus in any case. This was how she was going to construct her inner moral defense.
She smiled to herself. After a while she turned on the radio. The calm music that flooded the interior took her back to another car ride on a summer’s day several years ago when she had been on her way to visit her parents. The music combined with her own sense of being lost had caused her to turn the car around and drive to Gräsö and Edvard for the first time.
It had been summer. She had had Edvard. Now it was raw winter. She turned off the radio, suddenly exasperated at herself and her depressing fate, her inability to look after herself.
Forty-two
Ruben Sagander was sweating and as the sweat froze it felt as if it were forming into armor.