Åke Edwardson - Death Angels

The fourth book in the Erik Winter series, 2009

Translation copyright Ken Schubert, 2009

Originally published in Swedish as Dans med en angel by Norstedts Forlag, Stockholm.

HE WAS NO LONGER ABLE TO MOVE. HE COULDNT REMEMBER how long it had been this way. Movement was like a shadow play now.

He knew what was happening to him. He tried to make his way toward the south wall of the room, but the gesture was mostly in his mind, and when he raised his head to see where the sound was coming from

Once more he felt the coldness between his shoulders and down his back, followed by the heat. He slipped and struck his hip as he fell, then slid along the floor.

He heard a voice.

Theres a voice inside me, he thought, and its calling to me, and the voice is me. I know whats happening to me. Now Ill go over to the wall, and if I stay calm its going to be all right.

Mom! Mom!

He heard a whir like when time freezes and the world stops before your eyes. He couldnt escape it, and he knew what it was.

Get away from me.

Go away.

I know whats happening to me. I feel the coldness again. Im looking down at my leg but I cant tell which one it is. I see it in the bright light. Thats not the way it was at first. But when the coldness began, the light went on and everything turned to night outside the window.

I hear a car, but its going the other direction. Nothing stops out there.

Get away from me.

He could still take care of himself, and if he were just left alone, he would be able to move around the room and over to the door. The man had come in, gone back out and gotten his things, then returned, closed the door and made it night outside.

He still heard the music, but it might be coming from somewhere deep inside. They had played Morrissey, and he knew that the name of the album came from an area on this side of the river-not very far away. He knew a lot about that kind of thing. That was one of the reasons he had come here.

He heard the music again, louder now, but not the whir.

The light was as bright as ever. It ought to hurt, penetrate him.

I dont feel like its hurting me, he thought. Im not tired. I could leave if I were just able to stand up. Im trying to say something. Time is slipping away. Its like when youre falling asleep, and suddenly you give a start, as if youre climbing out of a deep pit, and thats all that matters. When its over, youre frightened and you lie there, incapable of moving.

He didnt think so much after that. The wires and cables in his head had been clipped in two and his thoughts spilled out and careened around his brain and merged with the blood that was running down his back.

I know its blood and its mine. I know whats happening to me. I dont feel the coldness anymore. Maybe its over. Whats next?

Im up on one knee now. Im staring into the light, and thats how Ill drag myself toward the wall and into the shadows.

Something is coming at me from the side, and Im turning away from it. Maybe Im going to make it.

He tried to move toward the refuge that awaited him somewhere, and the music grew louder. There was activity all around him, coming from different angles. He fell and was caught, and he felt himself being lifted up and to the side. He made out the contours of the walls and ceiling as they closed in on him, and he couldnt tell where one ended and the other began. Then there was no more music.

The last wires holding his thoughts together snapped, leaving him alone with dreams and fragments of memories that he took with him when it was over and silence had descended.

The sound of footsteps faded into the distance, and his thin body slumped against the chair.

lT HAD BEEN THE KIND OF YEAR THAT REFUSES TO LET GO. IT spun every which way and bit its own tail like a rabid dog. Weeks and months seemed to go on forever.

From where Erik Winter sat, the coffin appeared to hover in the air. Daylight poured through a window to his left and lifted it from the bier on the stone floor. Everything merged into a rectangle of sunshine.

He listened to the psalms of death, his lips unmoving. He was surrounded by a circle of silence. It wasnt the unfamiliar atmosphere that made him feel isolated. Nor was it his grief, but another kind of feeling, akin to loneliness or the void that you stare into when youre losing your grip.

The warmth of my blood is gone, he thought. Its as if the path behind me is overgrown with weeds.

Rising with the others, Winter walked out into the light and followed the pallbearers to the grave. Once the farewell handfuls of soil had been thrown, there was nothing more to do. Only after he had stood quietly for a few minutes did he feel the January sun caress his face like a hand dipped in lukewarm water.

He walked slowly westward along the street to the ferry dock. The civil war within a man is over, he thought. An armistice has been signed. Now only the past remains, and my grief is just beginning. If only I could simply do nothing for a long time and then start weeding the paths to the future. He smiled wistfully at the low sky.

He climbed aboard and went up to the car deck. The vehicles on the ferry to Gothenburg were covered with dirty snow. They clattered like hell and he put his left hand over his ear. The sun was still out, lucid and impotent over the water. He had removed his leather gloves as the casket was being lowered into the grave, and now he put them on again. He couldnt remember a time when it was ever this cold.

He stood alone on deck. The ferry chugged away from the island. As it passed a breakwater, he thought about death and the way life goes on long after it loses all meaning. The gestures still come from force of habit but leave nothing in their wake.

The ferry restaurant was full. The people seated to his right drifted over toward the big windows.

At first he sat hunched over his table without ordering anything to drink. He waited for the psalms to die down inside his head and then asked for a cup of coffee. A man took the seat next to him.

Winter sat up and unfurled his long frame. Bertil Ringmar, of all people. Would you like some coffee?

Thanks.

Winter motioned to a waitress.

I think its self-serve.

No, here she comes.

The waitress took Winters order in silence, her face oddly transparent in the sunlight. Winter couldnt tell whether she was looking at him or at the church tower of the receding village. He wondered if you could hear the bells chime when you were on the opposite shore, or on the ferry when it was heading toward the island.

His posture is awkward, Ringmar thought. These tables arent made for tall people. He looks like hes in pain, and it isnt because of the sunlight in his eyes.

So here we are again, Winter said.

It never ends.

No. Winter watched the waitress put the coffee down in front of Ringmar. The rising steam thinned out at Ringmars brow and traced a circle around his head. He looks like an angel, Winter thought. And what are you doing here? he asked.

Im sitting on the ferry drinking coffee.

Why do we always have to split hairs with each other?

Ringmar took a swig of coffee. Maybe because were both so sensitive to shades of meaning. He lowered his cup.

Winter saw Ringmars face reflected in the tabletop, upside down. The lighting suits him, he thought.

Were you out here to see Mats? Ringmar asked.

You might put it that way hes dead.

Ringmar grasped his cup. It burned like ice, but he didnt let go.