REVENGE
a crime novel by Kaj Bernh. Genell 2024.
I
I have always desired to lead a peaceful and organized life just like everyone else. However, the weather can sometimes be unpredictable, leading to unexpected developments, as some of you may have experienced.
During the time of the story, I leased a two-bedroom flat in a typical three-floor building on a small street named Trädgårdsgatan in Mölndal - not out of preference, but due to its very affordable rent and the calm, peaceful environment, which was ideal for my nerves. In general, Mölndal was seen as a smaller area to the north of Gothenburg, which is much larger. The primary source of pride and vitality in Mölndal was primarily the broad road leading to the city. Many people believe that Gothenburg is a bustling city with a strong trading presence and is often referred to as "the world's biggest small city." In contrast, Mölndal is seen as simple, rural, old-fashioned, and unhurried. The houses in this area typically do not exceed three stories in size. A river, Mölndalsån - not navigable but drowning depth - splits the small town in half.
It was mid-November but still very mild and reminiscent of summer. Because of unusual weather and sky conditions, thick vegetation of ash and linden trees remained present.
Both my residence and the weather were suitable. However, I was still tense as my job, career, and finances unexpectedly became an issue. And not a minor issue. However, it was an immense and terrifying circumstance.
It wasn't until September that I found out that Paul, who I now see as a deceitful imposter, had swindled me out of my business using straightforward legal loopholes, making it difficult to recover. Naturally, that is the reason he employed them.
I chastised him, telling him what an a** he was. Certainly, it wasn't beneficial. I then consulted colleagues. I also looked into law books. I wrote letter after letter to Paul asking him to change his mind. I contacted a lawyer and fought like an animal to get back the up-and-coming firm, essentially my proud creation, but all this without a shred of results. That fuck had fooled me out of everything! Through a legal loophole!
In October, I was paused in my state of anger for a few days by the unfortunate death of my friend Ismail, a long-ago partner in my first company, in the business of web design and server technology. Ismail had died from liver cancer. It came as a shock to everyone, and I mourned him deeply.
It was luck in bad luck because I had other things to do and, simultaneously, a chance to more effectively ponder what I should do about Paul. Ismail, who also worked with Paul, had warned me about him, but I laughed and said, "Oh, I know Paul. A modest guy." But it turned out to be completely wrong.
It was not in Molndal but in Gothenburg that my and Paul's firm was located, occupying an entire floor in a skyscraper, where subsequently now this Paul resided, utilizing all my patents, all contacts, contracts, options, and octroys that we had created together. And all the capital that this represented.
On a Saturday in December last year at Ismail's funeral in Lidkoping, a small provincial town by Lake Vänern, it was terribly cold. This is, of course, not at all usual in December in Sweden but more so in February. I rattled my teeth from the train station to the church. When I saw the coffin on the catafalque and the few bouquets on the lid, of which mine was the one with blue violets, I realized again that life was short. You couldn't wait with things, postpone them infinitely, and if you wanted to create a decent life for yourself, it was time to start now. You couldn't expect anyone else to serve you in the future. Within a short time, you would be a companion for eternity with Ismail and all the others. And then the fun was over.
"What was fun?" I thought all the way home from the funeral. Yes, I had just divorced my beloved spouse, Els-Marie, in the spring and was happy to have escaped, at least for a while, the somewhat annoying, slightly sickly, but also almost creepily beautiful woman. My God, she had a natural "movie star look", and I have never been thrilled my any woman in how she had thrilled me.
Following the divorce, she phoned to express her happiness about being liberated. Even though we weren't together anymore, she called frequently and talked like always. I was feeling down, and it wasn't quite a pleasant sadness. I am naturally inclined towards optimism, as you may have observed from my logic. This situation involving the company, Paul's deceit, and my finances has negatively affected me.
I understood that as long as Paul was around, all the assets, debts, and projects I had created at my firm had no value. I wouldn't be able to create something like that once again. Paul was on track to build a successful company specializing in web and server development within a specific area, with finalized contracts. Paul had captured the complete market in the Nordic countries, Germany, and the Netherlands. I could not do anything about this situation.
After returning to Gothenburg by train from the funeral, I believed it would be possible to restore my business since I had made covert data backups. However, it would only be successful if Paul's company completely vanished, which is unlikely. However, in what way could it vanish? If only Paul would vanish...
It wasn't until after several days of my thoughts drifting that I made a decision. I attempted to assess my current state in my miserable life, carefully considering risks and probabilities. If everything I had worked for was taken away from me, my life held little value. I was without a spouse, relatives, or a profession. I had that before! At my current age of forty, the chances of a bright future appeared dim - a terrifying realization!
And as soon as the decision was made, which suddenly and marvelously seemed to be the case, everything at first went quite smoothly. Paul should be done away with, and I was going to ensure he disappeared from the living area. And quickly. The psychopaths had to go!
Nevertheless, I made the decision without telling myself I had made it. Through some unconscious mechanism, it made my entire body shake. I didn't understand how I had made the decision. Still, I was happy that I had finally decided on something important.
The tremors in my body didn't want to go away. To eliminate them, I had to run a lengthy exercise in the woods next to where I lived. Comically enough, Trädgårdsgatan in my small town lies next to a forest, a quite hefty small wilderness. I've been to many cities, and the street called Trädgårdsgatan ( Garden Street ) is usually situated in the middle of the city in the older parts and has something pathetic about it, almost ironic. Trädgårdsgatan was located close to a large forest on the outskirts of a small village, just like a tautology. ----. Once out in the woods, I calmed down a bit. When I met others – some dressed in colorful leotards – who also were out running, for there were a lot of them, I thought that they had not the slightest idea that here was a man running amongst them who, in a month or so would be a MURDERER. On my return home, I threw the almost worn-out socks in a blue plastic laundry basket while I thought that if the tremors returned and I began to feel sick, I could change my mind. Because not the slightest thing had yet taken place in real life. I had just planned the whole thing and had decided to kill Paul.
But at least for the time being, the decision stood firm.
What choice did I have? Really!
II
In the course of the next few days, I came to the realization that to get by economically during the nearest month or so, since I had no livelihood after the loss of my company, I had to make use of my taxi card and - just as important - my contact with a particular person named John, an older, quiet, sympathetic family man, interested in stamps, who always wore a burgundy jacket, who owned two cabs.
If I drove a taxi at night, I would perhaps get by. However, this caused a certain unease, as it is not the most pleasant job in the world, but also a relief because getting out a little among people could help my state of mind.
I called John and agreed that he would email me a schedule for the next few days. He also told me that I had always done the taxi job exemplaryly during the years I had driven for him. The car in question, one of the two cabs he owned, was also in excellent condition, he said, since last spring, the wheel suspension had been replaced, and the interior had been overhauled.
On Tuesday the following week, it happened that Stig called at noon.
Stig was an old friend of mine, an old classmate. We did not have much more in common than we once had been in the same class in high school. He eventually ran into a problematic situation in life. Without engaging in his life – since I did not think he wanted me to do that - I had never really brought myself to let the acquaintance go out, as I felt that he might need me at some point. Stig´s trouble had started early. The year after graduating – as a nineteen-year-old – Stig had gone crazy and gone into an asylum, and after that he never became an ordinary human being.
Now he was mainly sitting alone in a small apartment in an outlying area, Hammarkullen, where he hardly dared to go out, because of the criminal gangs, and he longed back to the days of the big mental hospitals, when he could spend months hospitalized among like-minded in a rural environment, in an idyllic landscape where the trains at night rolled by at a leisurely pace and let their steam whistles sound over the area. In the moonlight, black and white cows descended among the shrubs of reeds down to the small creeks in the mornings. But that was long ago. Now, the asylum was gone, replaced by chemical substances in the blood of the surviving patients.
When alone in his apartment in Hammarkullen, almost hallucinating, Stig used to make up crime stories that rarely got published. He was convinced that you wrote better ones if you lived in a state where you wandered in and out of psychosis. On his bookshelf, there were books by Philip K. Dick and Cornell Woolrich. Stig meant, quite seriously, that in a strained state of mind, you had a 360-degree view of the human being and the human psyche. According to Stig, no one could in literature lick the sweetness out of a crime like the half-insane, the borderline psychotic.
Stig did not call me to tell me about his latest literary achievement. He simply needed money. A visit to the dentist – since he needed to replace his front teeth - had ruined him, and now he didn't even have macaroni at home, he said.
"I will cable some.", I told him, even though my finances indeed were – as I already explained – not among the best in the country.
"Fine," said Stig, and, honest as he was, he added: "But would you perhaps visit me someday, too…? It's a bit lonely out here."
This was probably where the shoe pinched the most, I figured. I promised Stig to stop by the very same evening – since I know what loneliness is. When we hung up, I thought about what I should bring as a present. I felt that cloudberry jam was a treat, but I knew he would be happy to get birdseed for his large multicolored macaw parrot.
In fact, I was pleased about the invitation. Stig was, in his own way, an expert on crime. And crime was what my brain was busy with these days. 24-7. I did not think I could get away with Paul without committing a crime. Mabe Stig could help me out with my plan. Well, of course, I didn't have a real plan. No actual plan at all.
It was still only three o'clock. We had agreed that I should come by Stig´s place around seven o´clock. I had several hours before I was to get on the wagon out to Hammarkullen.
I sighed and looked up at the wall above my tiny desk, where hung a miniature portrait in black and white of William Blake, the philosopher who was the idol of my youth. I decided to take another walk before I got on the tram. Fresh air clears the head, and a walk also does.
When I got outside the house, I thought it was cold, although it was just September, and sure enough, the hollyhocks had collapsed entirely in the flowerbed. It also started to drizzle. Did it make sense to walk outside in the drizzle? The sneakers on my feet were not ideal in this weather and needed to be replaced, so I realized I had to change my shoes. It was almost six oclock and rush hour traffic, and it would be crowded on the wagon. I decided to return to my apartment to change my shoes and take a taxi to Hammarkullen. While switching to mahogany-colored boots, I wondered why they put such horrible names on the suburbs. I thought all the suburban names were somewhat brutal, like “Hjällbo”, and “Tynnered”, even “Rosengård” in Malmoe. I associated “Rosengård” with King's Manor and men with swords, who in the King's Court defended the king and beheaded the enemy or made them slaves, who had to serve on the farm. All the suburban names were brutal. “Biskopsgården” was not one bit better. “Kärna Ängar” in Örebro was, of course, a beautiful name.
Then I called for a taxi while I ran down the stairs, somewhat uncomfortable in my boots. I don't like boots, as the foot angle changes to a less natural one. I only wear boots because they are beautiful. The ideal way to control the foot is to have the main parts of the foot at a 90-degree angle to the lower leg. Then, you get the most power out of your leg, and the natural muscle pump will work at its best in this position.
The taxi driver was a stable lady about sixty-five, with grey, short hair, and she looked at me with a watchful eye. I silently wondered if she had a gun, but then closed my eyes and pretended I was tired. The chauffeur lady didn't say a word on the way to Hammarkullen. When I had paid on arrival at Stig's apartment row, she turned around almost halfway and said, without smiling in the least:
"Yes, we all have our problems."
´Exactly, ´ I thought, without answering. You should know! Then I thought, when I slammed the taxi door, that my problems were actually minor if you compared them to those that Stig had in his Kafkaesque life. I should have dragged the taxi lady up to Stig and told her to explain to Stig that we all had our problems. Then I wondered why I was so nasty and greedy - except for Stig then.
Why was I angry with everyone? Well, because someone had cheated me out of my entire business. That fucking Paul had put me in a vile predicament. I was now well on my way to becoming a criminal, a murderer. On my way to. So far, I was mostly angry. I could be characterized by the term: full of restrained anger.
Stig welcomed me with open arms.
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He lived alone in a two-room apartment on the third floor. The house was run-down and did not belong to the top stock, even in Hammarkullen. In addition, the apartment rooms were a terrible mess. Then Stig also owned a parrot of a more significant kind. Maybe it was a Macaw. Don't know. Why even ask if it wouldn't mean anything to me, which it was. It was multicolored.
As soon as I saw the bird, I realized that I had forgotten to buy seeds for it, not to mention the usual marmalade for Stig.
This time, he – despite this - was unusually cordial. However, under the merriment, I could see a gnawing of anxiety in him. He acted no worse than before. In general, Stig was among the wisest and most sensible people I know, even though he was completely crazy. He could give sane advice.
When I sat down on the filthy couch at Stig's, my phone silently rang. It was Els-Marie. I decided to take a look at it a little later. She didn't want to let go of the relationship; this was obvious, and she happened to be sick, too. Her lungs were constantly sickly, even though she was strong in general. People do have a hard time!
Now I turned all my attention to my dear friend, Stig. He had gained some weight since I last saw him, and I guessed that it was some medication of his that had such a side effect. But on the other hand, he had been improbably thin before. Stig was not one of those people who put on weight easy.
"Yes, this is how it is," said Stig, who, least of all, was a pretentious type. ("Better generous than pretentious.", as he used to say. With a slight wink of the eye. )
I thought I wanted to take Stig on a trip around the world.
"It's the psychopaths' fault," Stig said. "It always is. Everything is always the fault of the conservatives and the psychopaths."
That's what he always said. He generalized for fun. He then elaborated on this. We discussed this for a while and came to the conclusion that when you were at your worst, you saw psychopaths everywhere, in every corner. Everyone in the stairwell was a psychopath. But when you felt better, the number of psychopaths, as well as narcissists, in the world decreased drastically, and you suddenly couldn't think of a single one.
This was really the whole science of psychopaths, in a nutshell, we concluded. We laughed at this. Stig toothless, but still.
Already at eight o'clock, I returned home by tram.
III
Just as I have felt an attraction to insane people all my life, I also have, when it comes to women, always been amorous only with blonde, cat-like women. Those, you know, who are of that sleepy type, who you can pull over without them making much of a fuss about it, but they mostly drink a soda or a beer in the meantime.
Els-Marie was lascivious, lanky, rye-blonde, and slightly stupid, which I thought I preferred. It's never easy to know what you like, as you – as everyone also knows – can be erotically turned on by the most incredible combinations.
I most often get most sensually aroused by petite, dark, weasel-like, raw rubber-breasted teenagers, such as the hateful crook Paul's daughter, Linn, who was eighteen years old and a singer in a punk band. But those creatures are far too challenging to deal with in the long run, so I'm sticking to the typical Vimmerby-like, a little older ones of my own age, that you can more easily ignore when you like to. You are always drawn to the ones you can easily access in the long run.
But the dream of the hard-to-get lives with me, too. I often think Linn would have liked to have done this and that with me. When Paul and I worked together, She came to the office to beg for a penny from Dad Paul. She often sat down upon one of our drawing boards and ensured the little skirt was crooked and dangled with the little legs. Little girls always want to check their attraction to slightly older men. And I was very drawn to the girl. But, of course, I was careful not to show anything. You don't want to make a fool of yourself. Or get her dad on oneself.
I know this sounds like I am a terrible person, but I am at least honest.
Now Els-Marie, whom I have known since she was a teenager, had had an ailment for several years. It wasn't the lungs or migraines. She had accidentally hurt her knee many years ago when she got stuck on a trampoline. The knee was severely broken, and since then, her most common line, which, despite being as Swedish as you can be, is always said in English, namely:
"It's my leg, you know."
She had a fused knee. That is, she had undergone a arthrodesis. Her knee could not be bent.
Her new, actual ailment was that her leg had begun to ache at night, and she was sometimes completely upset about this. And that's understandable. You can put up with a lot, but not pain and insomnia. And she didn't want pills. "You shouldn't get stuck on Oxycontin or whatever it's called and become a wreck on that while you're still young!!"
In almost all situations, her arthrodesic, straight leg also caused problems. Els-Marie had, therefore, started to turn in the negative direction. Vain and conceited as she is, the use of this small line, -“It´s the leg you know!” – uttered in English and not in Swedish was a marked attempt to elevate the current situation and the problem of this to a finer, more international level and not to refer to an ordinary rustic fused knee leg, or straight leg.
I don't even know if it is still called straight leg – in our time when people are offended by completely objective terms, by calling a rose a rose – when you have had a leg operated on like that. It was done in Mallorca, where the trampoline had been. Perhaps in Sweden, they had never had an arthroplasty.
You can understand that she gets sad sometimes. I was now distraught. Her pain was terrible. If it was pain? You can never know as an outsider. Maybe she was too bored or just unlucky? She lived alone. After all, she was a beauty, almost young, and had undergone arthrodesis ata remote hospital in Spain.
Now, when I called Els-Marie one day and asked how the situation was, in response to a text message she had sent a few days ago saying: “Hello, Sweetie!" Els-Marie replied, unconcerned that I had just made a bet with myself that she would answer just:
"It's the leg, you know." ( She answered in English, not in Swedish.)
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Copyright K. Bernh. Genell 2024
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