The Shadow Girls (28 page)

I remember a time two years ago when we got a letter from Taala, one of Mum’s four sisters who had disappeared and who had now traced us and said she lived in a city called Minneapolis in America. Mum started dancing when she got this letter, Dad sat on the sofa and watched her, he looked so young, like a little boy, and he watched her moving through the rooms of our apartment almost as if he were embarrassed to see her happy after so many years of fear and grief and imprisonment. She danced so the walls started crumbling and the windows opened and she stepped out of herself and she became the person she really was and all because Taala wasn’t dead. Taala had breathed on her through that letter and memories had risen up from her words and Mum danced as if she were a young girl again.

But when Nana touched my cheek I saw Torsten. He looked just like he had when he opened the front door and saw me. He was holding a duster in one hand and he was wearing a silly red apron with blue hearts and we stared at each other. You can’t love someone who wears a red apron with blue hearts. Nana looked at me and wanted to know what I was thinking. I always blush when I get questions I don’t want to answer and she noticed of course and asked me sternly if I had been thinking about a boy and who was it? I don’t know how I thought of this but the words came of themselves as if they had been stored inside me for so long they needed to get out.

‘I was just thinking of Ahmed.’

‘And you call that “just”! To be thinking of your dead brother!’

‘I don’t mean it like that.’

‘How do you mean it?’

‘It was so unexpected. It was as if he was there in your hand.’

Nana calmed down.

‘He is always in my hand,’ she said. ‘He is in my hand like I am in God’s hand.’

Then she walked back to her chair in front of the TV, pushed some buttons on the remote control and started watching. A programme came on with several men seated around a table, discussing something. Sheep, I think. They talked about sheep-shearing. I said goodbye, took my coat and left. When I came out I looked down into the snow and tried to figure out which footprints belonged to Torsten and which were the ones that I had left.

Then I started walking back to the tram stop and it was light now and the snowflakes didn’t feel cold for some reason. I wondered what I should do. When I entered the underpass that leads to the tram stop I stopped short. Torsten was standing there. I stared at him. I thought I must be mistaken. But it was him. He was just
standing there and even though I couldn’t know, I did know. There was only one reason why he would be standing there and that was that he was waiting for me.

*

Leyla stopped reading abruptly. A man had just entered the room and Humlin recognised him. It was Leyla’s father.

‘I haven’t told you any of this,’ she hissed. ‘I haven’t said anything. Nothing about Nana, nothing about the underpass.’

‘What happened after that?’ Tanya asked.

‘I can’t tell you now. Don’t you get what I’m saying?’

Leyla’s father approached the table. He was short and stocky. He looked around at them suspiciously and then turned to Humlin.

‘What is going on here?’

‘We’re conducting a writing seminar.’

‘It shouldn’t start without me.’

‘I’m sorry if there’s been some kind of misunderstanding. I start when all the girls are present. I can’t be expected to keep track of all their families.’

‘I am not simply a relative; I am Leyla’s father.’

He turned to his daughter and grabbed her arm roughly.

‘Where have you been all day?’

‘At school.’

‘No, you haven’t. They called home and asked why you weren’t there. Where have you been?’

‘At the hospital.’

‘Are you sick?’

‘No,’ Tea-Bag said, interrupting, ‘she felt dizzy and went to hospital. She’s had nightmares and difficulty sleeping.’

Leyla nodded. Her father paused, clearly hesitating as to whether or not he should believe this.

‘I can’t allow Leyla to participate in this course any longer.’

Humlin saw how Leyla tried to swallow her disappointment – or was it anger? He looked at her round face, shiny with sweat, and thought that her plump exterior hid not only a beautiful face but also a strong will.

‘What exactly is the problem?’ Humlin asked.

‘She’s not telling me the truth.’

‘What is it that isn’t true?’

‘She hasn’t been to the hospital.’

‘I have too,’ Leyla said softly.

Her father turned and shouted at her, a tirade of smattering sounds of which Humlin understood nothing. Leyla bowed her head submissively, but Humlin thought he could still see the streak of rebellion in her bearing. Törnblom stepped up and looked as if he were preparing for a boxing match.

‘I’m sure we can solve this somehow.’

He didn’t get any further. Haiman rose to his feet at that moment and approached the table.

‘Of course Leyla will continue her work here.’

‘You are not her father. I am her father, I decide.’

‘Let the girl decide for herself.’

The exchange between Leyla’s father and Haiman grew more heated. They used a kind of Swedish Humlin had never heard before. Suddenly Törnblom jumped in.

‘We’re expecting a TV crew to arrive soon. I would like to suggest that Leyla’s father be present for the interview as a representative of the parents. You would be interviewed with Leyla and Jesper. Damn it, we can’t have fights over little things like this.’

Haiman gave Törnblom a stern look, and Törnblom in turn gave Humlin the same stern look. Humlin could not recall a previous mention of this supposed return of the TV crew. He assumed it was an attempt by Törnblom to diffuse the situation.

‘It is not a little thing when a father believes his daughter has lied to him.’

‘But I’m sure she was at the hospital, like she said. Weren’t you, Leyla?’

Leyla nodded. Humlin heard Tanya mutter with anger on her behalf.

‘I was just going to suggest the same thing,’ Humlin said. ‘That you as Leyla’s father participate in the interview with us.’

Leyla’s father looked unsure for a moment.

‘And what would I say?’

‘That you are proud of your daughter.’

Leyla’s father thought about this.

‘What exactly am I proud of?’

‘That she wants to learn to write, that she wants to be a serious writer.’

He shook his head.

‘I don’t care what she does. The most important thing is that she doesn’t lie to her family.’

Leyla looked pleadingly at her father.

‘Dad, I want to be a soap star or a TV personality – if I don’t make it as a writer, that is. This might be my only chance.’

‘I also want to be interviewed.’

Everyone looked at Haiman who had made the last comment. Humlin was starting to feel tired.

‘There isn’t time for everyone to be interviewed.’

‘I have much to say of great importance for the Swedish people.’

‘I don’t doubt that, Haiman, but this is hardly the right time and place to air your views.’

‘I will not participate if he does,’ Leyla’s father said.

Humlin looked at the people around him. The main subjects of the conflict were still seated and following the discussion with sombre faces.

‘TV programmes like this are often very short,’ Humlin started carefully. ‘If everyone is to have a say it will take far too long for the slot they have in mind for us.’

‘Then we leave and Leyla will not be able to continue her participation here,’ Leyla’s father said firmly. ‘She cannot be left on her own. After a few times here she has started lying to us. She has never done that before.’

Leyla drew a deep breath.

‘You’re right, Dad. I didn’t go to the hospital. I don’t know why I said that. I went to the library in the city centre. I started reading and forgot all about time. I was there to study so that I can do better in school. And to read books by good authors so that I will learn to write better.’

Leyla’s father regarded her in silence.

‘What did you read?’ he asked finally.

‘I found a book about rugby.’

‘There are books about rugby? What am I supposed to think? Is she lying to me again?’

Haiman got up. Humlin was starting to realise that Leyla was craftier than he had expected.

‘There are great books about rugby,’ Haiman said. ‘She is speaking the truth. This initiative to go to the library is something a father should encourage.’

An appreciative murmur was heard from the audience, mainly
people from Leyla’s large family who had not said anything until now. Her father now turned to them and threw out a question that raised a heated debate. The voices died down after a while.

‘We have decided,’ he said. ‘I will stay here and be interviewed by the TV people. We accept for now that Leyla continues the course.’

As Leyla’s many family members filed out of the room Humlin thought that he had just won his first fight in Törnblom’s boxing club. Leyla’s relief was palpable. She sank down on her chair and Tanya squeezed her hand. To Humlin’s surprise Törnblom grabbed a towel and waved it at Leyla as if she were a boxer waiting between rounds.

*

Naturally the TV crew never turned up. After an hour Törnblom pretended to call them and then declared that there had been a mix-up with the day. Leyla’s father looked put out but Humlin hastened to tell him that the delay would simply enable him to prepare his statements more carefully. Then he turned back to his students.

‘Write down your stories,’ Humlin said. ‘Write what you have told us today – everything. A story without an end is not a good piece of work.’

He saw that Leyla understood.

It was snowing when they came back out on the street. Leyla disappeared with her family, Tanya whispered something after them that Humlin didn’t hear. Törnblom locked the door and Tea-Bag ran around in circles making patterns in the wet snow. Tanya pulled her cap on.

‘Are you still in the Yüksel family’s apartment?’ Humlin asked.

‘No, they’re back.’

‘Where are you living now?’

Tanya shrugged her shoulders.

‘Maybe in this empty apartment on the other side of the square. Maybe somewhere else. I haven’t decided yet.’

Humlin had been meaning to talk to her about the little girl in the photograph, but it was as if she knew what he was thinking. Before he could say anything, she put her arm around Tea-Bag and the two of them left. He watched them walk away and wondered what he was really looking at.

Törnblom drove him to the station.

‘It’s going great,’ he said. ‘You should feel good about it.’

‘No,’ Humlin said. ‘It’s not going well. I have this constant feeling that I’m on the brink of an enormous disaster.’

‘Now you’re exaggerating again.’

Humlin didn’t bother to reply.

*

Törnblom dropped him off at the train station and Humlin walked into the waiting room. Suddenly he stopped in his tracks. The thought of going back to Stockholm that evening was starting to feel like an impossibility. He sat down. Tea-Bag’s face flashed through his mind, then Tanya’s and, last of all, Leyla’s. He wondered if he was ever going to see her move again from the place by the underpass where she and her story had so suddenly been frozen.

He left the station and checked into the nearest hotel. Before he turned out the light and fell asleep he sat with the phone in his hand for a long time. Andrea. But he didn’t call her.

*

He left the hotel at a quarter past eleven the next day. For the first time in a long while he felt fully rested. While he was waiting for his train to arrive he made several calls to the various phone numbers belonging to Burén, but to no avail. Before he turned off the phone he listened to the voice messages that had been left for the original owner, a detective inspector by the name of Sture who clearly spent a lot of his time betting on horses. A person with a lisp had called several times and left the message that ‘Lokus Harem is a sure bet.’ He was just about to turn the phone off when he saw that there was a text message as well. He stared at the words. Then he realised it was for him, not the unknown Officer Sture.

It was a short message, only four words long:
Help. Tanya. Call Leyla
.

At that moment the train pulled into the station. But Humlin did not get on.

HE CALLED THE
boxing club. A young boy who could barely speak comprehensible Swedish answered the phone. After a few minutes Törnblom came to the phone.

‘It’s Jesper. What’s Leyla’s phone number?’

‘How would I know that? Where are you?’

Humlin had already decided to lie. Why, he wasn’t quite sure.

‘Back in Stockholm. I thought her brother was a student at your club?’

‘I never take down any phone numbers. It makes no sense. People come and go all the time.’

‘What about her last name?’

‘I can’t remember. But I’ll check if there’s anyone else who might know.’

It took Törnblom almost ten minutes to get back to the phone.

‘Allaf.’

‘Can you spell that?’

‘How would I know how it’s spelled? Why do you sound so worked up over this?’

‘Because I
am
worked up. I have to go now.’

Humlin called information and got a number for the last name ‘Allaf’. A woman answered the phone in a low voice, as if she were afraid of it.

‘I’m trying to get hold of Leyla,’ Humlin said.

He received no answer. A man who spoke in the same hushed tones came on the line.

‘I’m looking for Leyla.’

There was no answer. Another man came on the line.

‘I’m looking for Leyla.’

‘Whom am I speaking with?’

‘This is Jesper Humlin. I need to ask Leyla if she has Tanya’s number.’

‘Who?’

‘Her friend, Tanya.’

‘Do you mean Irina?’

‘I mean the other girl participating in the writing seminar, the non-African one.’

‘That is Irina.’

‘Perhaps I can speak with Leyla directly?’ Humlin asked gingerly.