Chapter 9
Some goings-on at the party weren’t very visible, or else they were visible but no one thought much about them. Later, Siri and her colleagues would spend a very long time trying to bring clarity to events no one had thought mattered.
Glass and porcelain shattered. Sander found Filip sitting on the floor of the kitchen and told him that his older brother was around somewhere and was definitely looking for him. Filip clumsily unscrewed the cap of his plastic bottle.
“He was being a total asshole to Jakob just now,” Sander went on.
“No surprise there,” Filip muttered.
“Oh?”
“He thinks Felicia Grenberg likes Jakob. Or that Jakob likes her, hell if I know.”
“He does?”
“This is my brother’s way of dealing with it. Being a dick and acting all, what’s the word, superior.” His gaze flickered over Sander. “Believe me, I know.”
“Dealing with what? Does Mikael like Felicia?”
Filip laughed as though the answer were obvious.
Filip was short and lanky and kept his head shaved.
He had sharp, angular features, with a pointy nose and thin lips, a blunt chin that formed a W.
His complexion was darker than his brother’s, and his disposition was grimmer.
He’d been like that since they were little.
Filip had fewer friends and a tougher time at school; counselors had been involved more than once.
But he was also funny and intense and you never quite knew what he was up to, whether he was messing with you.
Filip dropped the cap, which skittered across the floor. “Shit. I hate when that happens.”
Sander bent down to pick it up.
“Is she here?” Sander asked.
“Who?”
“Felicia?”
“No clue. Fuck, you ask a lot of questions.” Filip took the cap from him. “Thanks.”
“Does she like him?”
“How the fuck should I know? But my brother usually gets what he wants, one way or another.”
Sander stayed put as Filip stumbled off. Another crack in the world. Surely she wouldn’t even notice if he left. When he pictured Mikael and Felicia Grenberg all entwined in some secret corner of the house, a hot, sharp stab of rage flamed up in his chest.
Loud voices from upstairs. A scuffle. Something else broke.
“Hey!” Pierre shouted. “Stop it! Jesus, just stop! Calm down.”
People’s fuses were too short. Too much going on in their hands and not enough in their heads.
Sander went back to the leather sofa in the living room and sat down next to Killian. When Pierre came down a few minutes later, he sank to the floor, exhausted, and lay down on his back.
“I’m never having a party ever again.”
“What happened?” Sander asked.
“Jakob and Mikael got into a fight, is all.”
“Who won?”
“It’s fine now. I broke it up.”
So Mikael wasn’t with Felicia, at least. The first piece of good news tonight. Sander looked around for her again. Killian leaned toward him to be heard over the music. He was starting to slur his words.
“Madeleine hurt herself today. So I think Felicia’s staying home with her.”
“Hurt how?”
“I guess she fell off the roof. I heard Alice and Isabelle talking about it when I was in the bathroom.”
“Oh. Okay, sure.”
Killian lowered his voice a notch. “I wonder how much money it actually is.”
“What?” Sander was slurring now too. “What do you mean?”
“You know, in Jakob’s kitchen bench.”
“No one here probably has much, really.”
“Yeah, but still.”
“Hardly anything.”
Sander’s words made something between them shift.
“Why do you say stuff like that?” Killian asked.
“Like what?”
“Like you look down on other people.”
“I do not.”
“Well, it sounds like you do.”
“Fine, but I don’t.”
Pierre roused himself from the floor.
“Well, time for another beer. Or maybe the hard stuff, shit, I think there’s vodka in the fridge.”
Some people went to the kitchen, others to the yard; some went upstairs to try to have sex or smoke weed.
A picture was broken and soon Pierre himself was walking around with the frame around his neck, speaking in a snobby voice, holding a newfound bottle of vodka in his hand and proclaiming, “Heeeere comes a reeeeal connoisseuuuur! Riiiight from the arrrrsehole of Sssstaaahhhckholm!” Spit flew from his lips and he stumbled on the hall rug and hit the wall.
The Sweden clock fell from its hook onto Pierre, and he laughed and said, “Myyyyy, wassssn’t that a tiiiiimely misssstake!
” Pierre kept chuckling to himself while Sander helped him put the clock back up. A camera flashed.
Shortly after this climax, the party began to wind down.
People were too drunk and getting tired; they had to get home so they could sneak in before their parents woke up.
Filip had vomited and headed out hand-in-hand with a girl, into the winter night.
A little while later, Sander and Killian stood in the front hall, Killian wobbly and holding a cigarette.
There was a chilly draft from the open door.
Killian stepped out onto the stairs. “I know you’re not going to stay. I’m not stupid. I get it. And I get why you want to go. What you said before, inside, it’s true, isn’t it? That’s how you feel.”
“Not about you.”
“I don’t mean about me, I mean…” Killian appeared to be thinking it over. “Everything.”
“I’ll come back to visit and all that. And maybe I’ll move back home after a while. But I don’t know, I just need…you can come with.”
But Killian shook his head. “It’s your brain that’s taking you away from here. Your grades. I don’t have those.”
“C’mon, you’re smart.”
“Not like you.” He exhaled as he stood on the stoop, straightened up, and gazed out at the darkness, at the forest over past ?rniltsv?gen. “No, I’m going to end up here. But that’s what I want, so I’ll be just fine. Have you told your parents?”
“No. But I’m sure they’ll understand.”
He wasn’t nearly as sure as he made it sound.
Killian rested a heavy hand on Sander’s shoulder. “Wanna go home?”
Sander looked at his friend’s feet. “But you’re not wearing any shoes.”
As if this were news to him, Killian raised his eyebrows at the icy steps.
“You seem to be right. Guess I’m kind of drunk after all.”
The camera flashed behind them, from the living room, capturing for posterity a kid who had dozed off on the sofa and was drooling onto the armrest. Sander blinked. For an instant he saw two Killians.
“Me too, I think.”
—
Sander and Killian left Pierre’s party together. It was one in the morning. Everyone agreed on that.
What happened after that has remained a mystery for over twenty years.