_There Are Things I Want You to Know_ About Stieg Larsson and Me - Eva Gabrielsson [37]
That summer, Stieg and I wound up our long tour as we always did, in a small rented cottage on the Stockholm archipelago.
One evening, home again at the end of August, when we were sitting close together on our settee, he asked me timidly, “Why don’t we get married now?” He’d spoken as if fearing a refusal, but I made a show of my delight, and was also a touch embarrassed, from surprise. We decided that in the autumn we’d give ourselves a huge party for our fiftieth birthdays and then reveal to our friends that it was really our wedding celebration. Ever since a trip to Lisbon in 2001, we’d been saving a bottle of Quinta do Noval Porto 1976 for our fiftieths. But we never had time for either the marriage or the party. That bottle of port turns up in Lisbeth Salander’s new apartment in the second book of The Millennium Trilogy. Now it’s in my kitchen. I will never open it.
During that last summer, the sea was with us everywhere. Those constantly renewed horizons seemed to us the symbol of all the changes ushering in our new life. Well, my life did change. Unfortunately.
November 2004
Monday, November 8
THAT DAY, as always, Stieg was running late. Toward the end of the morning, he’d gone out to have breakfast in a cafe, also as usual, before heading on to Expo. I kissed him goodbye. He was in good spirits. At around a quarter to eight that evening, I phoned him from the station just to say hi before my train left Stockholm. He was fine. Three hours later, I arrived in Falun. It was winter, a dark night, and I had to make my way through poorly lighted narrow streets. (I always carried a can of mace.) As soon as I arrived, I called Stieg to tell him all was well; it was one of our rituals, it reassured him. There was no real news to relate. “Lots of love, good night.”
Tuesday, November 9
AFTER BREAKFAST, I got a call from Mikael Ekman, a journalist at Expo, who told me that Stieg had had some kind of collapse. He advised me to contact Richard, the editorial secretary, at the office. Then Richard explained that Stieg had been taken away in an ambulance, accompanied by Per, a friend of ours whom we’ve known for thirty years. I called Per, only to learn that the situation was quite serious. When I asked him what I should do, he said: “Get here right away.”
I left work immediately, dashed to the station, and took the next train. Since it wasn’t an express train, I called Per again when it stopped at Gavle, about a hundred miles north of Stockholm. His voice sounded strange.
“Eva, you have to hurry.”
Then I phoned Erland, Stieg’s father, in Umea. His companion, Gun, explained to me that he was at the library doing some genealogical research. I told her that Stieg was in the hospital, I didn’t know why, but that it sounded serious and I thought Erland ought to go to Stockholm.
When I arrived at around seven that evening, Per was waiting for me at the entrance to St. Goran’s Hospital. Five or six people were with him, including Svante, our psychiatrist friend. They all looked at me in silence. A nurse brought me some coffee, and I went to see a doctor who wanted to speak to me. And then I heard, “I am sorry to have to tell you that your husband has passed away.” He told me that Stieg had arrived in serious condition and been immediately taken to radiology, but that since the chest X-rays had been inconclusive, the cardiologist had sent Stieg to an operating room for an interventional procedure. Stieg had then lost consciousness; a few moments later, his heart had stopped beating. For more than forty minutes, the medical team had tried to revive him. In vain.
At 4:22 that afternoon, he was declared dead.
In fact, he was already gone when I’d gotten on the train. When I returned to the waiting room, no one made a sound. I looked at