"There Are Things I Want You to Know" About Stieg Larsson and Me (14 page)

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 Gävle, about a hundred miles north of Stockholm. His voice sounded strange.

“Eva, you have to hurry.”

Then I phoned Erland, Stieg’s father, in Umeå. 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. Göran’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 them all. “You knew he was dead the last time I called here?” They nodded. The doctor had advised them not to tell me anything.

I was asked whether I wanted to see Stieg. I was so lost that I even wondered, confusedly, “Should I do that?” And then I thought, yes, because otherwise I would never manage to believe it. I wanted Erland, his father, to be there with me. I called Gun again. “So,” she asked cheerfully, “how’s Stieg?”

“He’s dead,” I replied dully. Gun told me Erland had taken a plane to Stockholm. I went to the main hospital entrance to wait for him. Back and forth I went, between the lobby and the sidewalk outside, smoking almost a whole pack of cigarettes. More and more people from
Expo
joined us; some seemed to drift in from the darkness but they stayed outside, completely disoriented and in tears, while others literally burst out of the taxis that brought them. Everyone was hugging, embracing, weeping … except for me; I still felt turned to stone. People were in a state of collapse,
dazed, at a loss, while I was simply there: I was smoking, and I didn’t understand anything. When I looked at that crowd of people in despair, though, I did tell myself that Stieg had had some good and wonderful friends at
Expo
.

That’s when I thought to call my sister, my brother, and our great friend Eleanor.

When Erland arrived, I went to meet him and took his arm. He asked, “How is he?” I told him Stieg was gone, that we could see him, if he wanted, and that I’d waited for him. “When you’re ready, we’ll go see him,” I added. We took a moment to pull ourselves together. The nurse asked me if I wanted her with us, and I said yes. (No one knew how I would react; they’d simply arranged that I might be admitted to the psychiatric ward if I broke down completely.) Erland and I went into the room where Stieg was, while the nurse remained discreetly by the door. I sat down next to Stieg and took his hand. He seemed peaceful. Sleeping, perhaps? He really did seem to be asleep. I held his hand, stroked his arm. “Stieg, dear?” I was freezing from having stayed outside so long. While he—he was still warm. You see, I told him in my thoughts, it’s completely crazy, you still warm me up. Erland was sitting on the other side of Stieg, but I did not see him. At some point, he left the room. So did the nurse. I caressed Stieg’s hair, his forehead, his cheeks … exactly the way I did when I had to awaken him from a deep sleep. As he gradually grew cold, I warmed up. I still couldn’t take it in. I imagined that he was going to open one eye and start raising a ruckus, the
way he always did. I remember murmuring to him, “Dearest, my love, thank you for the life you gave me, thank you for everything you’ve done.” And I kept kissing his mouth and stroking his hair. Now he was icy cold. I stood up, completely drained, and before I left I looked at him again. He was sleeping. It was incomprehensible.

LATER OUR
friends told me what had happened. Stieg had had an afternoon appointment at
Expo
, and he’d arrived at the building that morning with Jim, a friend of ours whom we’d met in Grenada in 1984. Before they went up to the
Expo
office, Jim noticed that Stieg seemed ill and unsteady on his feet. When Jim insisted that they should go to a hospital right away, Stieg refused because he wanted to go to the office first. Since the elevator was broken, he climbed up all seven floors only to collapse in a chair when he arrived. When Per and Monika, the accountant, noticed that his face was bathed in sweat and his breathing was labored, Stieg admitted that he felt a pain in his belly. An ambulance then took him and Per to a hospital only a few blocks away. Monika followed them with Stieg’s jacket and backpack, which contained the
Expo
laptop computer.

A FEW
weeks later, when I returned to speak with the doctor and the nurse, I learned that the health care team had
been very affected by Stieg’s death. They had rarely seen someone die so quickly that his wife couldn’t get there in time. And they’d never seen so many people rush to the hospital, either. The nurse told me about Stieg’s last moments. Shortly after he arrived at the hospital, he regained consciousness long enough to say, “You must contact Eva Gabrielsson,” and give my cell phone number. Then he lost consciousness again. Forever.

THAT EVENING
, Eleanor dropped Erland and me off at the apartment. Everything there seemed uncanny. Half of Stieg’s last meal was still sitting on the table: a dried-up hot dog and a chocolate drink bought at the newsstand. Erland didn’t want to go to bed; he kept repeating that it wasn’t normal, that children shouldn’t go before their parents. He was also talking about the death notice that would have to be written, trying to think which papers might report Stieg’s death, and wondering who would come to the funeral. He was in shock, too. It was unbearable. Fortunately, Eleanor called with an offer to come stay the night at the apartment, which I accepted with relief. Erland slept in Stieg’s office, Eleanor took the living room settee, and I was in our bedroom. The bed was still unmade.

Wednesday, November 10

AT
7:00 a.m., my sister Britt arrived from Gothenburg on the first train. Erland was pacing in the living room, composing and recomposing a death notice aloud, constantly asking us what sounded best. I was rigid: silent, staring, I felt ready to explode. Realizing that she had to get Erland out of there, Britt set off with him to walk to
Expo
, taking with her Stieg’s backpack and computer, which I’d brought home from the hospital the night before. The backpack also contained Stieg’s agenda, desperately needed at that day’s editorial meeting at the magazine.

All afternoon, the phone and doorbell kept ringing as people called and dropped by, bringing flowers. The apartment filled up with so many bouquets that their perfume grew cloying, oppressive, and I felt as if I were in a cemetery. Friends gathered around the large table in the living room, where coffee, fruit, and cakes were laid out. Now and then someone would persuade me to take a sip or swallow a bite of something.… I was like a robot.

The crowd talked in hushed voices and spoke gently to me. They were there, and I was grateful. One dear friend arrived with a crate full of food, and after collapsing into my arms, she said the most levelheaded thing I would hear all day: “Thank God he died that way and wasn’t murdered like you always feared. Just think how terrible it would have been, on top of everything, to have to hate someone all the rest of your life!” And that was true.

When Erland returned with Britt, he was surprised to see so many people. Not knowing anyone, he stayed on
the sidelines, and that evening he went home to Umeå. Joakim, Stieg’s brother, did not call me.

THE PREVIOUS
evening, while I’d been waiting for Erland out in front of the hospital as the gang from
Expo
was gathering, I’d heard Richard say, “It’s all over now,
Expo
’s finished!”
Expo
finished? So Stieg had fought for years for nothing?
Expo
just couldn’t disappear as well. No way. I was bewildered, desperate. Richard was Stieg’s immediate successor: if he backed out, everything would fall apart. I phoned Mikael Ekman, a good friend and one of the stalwarts of
Expo
.