5
The cold stung Henrik’s cheeks as he waited for the landlord to let him in. He wasn’t wearing warm enough clothes for this unusually cold November evening, but the place was around the corner from his apartment, exactly as he had imagined when he dreamed of one day having his own bakery.
He had had his eye on the property for a while. Located right in the middle of the Vasastan district of Stockholm on a small street just off Odenplan, it was a stone’s throw from the subway station and the busy life of the city. It currently housed a real estate office, which was a huge waste of its potential. With its tall arched windows that let in a fantastic amount of light and its open layout, it would make an amazing bakery, with plenty of room for customers to sit and chat over a cup of coffee and a delicious cinnamon bun.
He had stopped in once on the pretext of asking the agent about an apartment, and had been blown away by the place. When it subsequently became available to rent, he took it as a sign that he had to act. The landlord had shown him around the previous week, and he’d determined that it wouldn’t cost much to convert it to a bakery. The idea was that his father, Camilla, and Tom should have taken a look earlier in the day, but only Camilla and Tom had shown up. At the last minute and with no explanation, Hasse had informed his son that he had to postpone the meeting. As usual. Hasse Eklund often did exactly what he wanted, and he expected the rest of the family to fall in line. However, he was coming over this evening.
Henrik thought the bakery would make an excellent addition to the family firm in which Henrik, his two siblings, and their father were all active shareholders and board members. At one point both Henrik and his father had had more executive roles within the company, and before that Hasse had worked hard to expand the business, and their bread and pastries could now be found in virtually every food outlet in Sweden. Then he had become a popular TV baker, and worked twice as hard as before. Henrik had been the company’s production manager for many years before his own TV career took off. His sister, Camilla, acted as agent for both Henrik and his father; Tom was the only one who still worked for the firm on a daily basis, as business manager.
Although Eklunds sold mass-produced bread, Henrik had thought for a while that they ought to open a physical bakery too. That had always been his dream, and this location was perfect. He looked forward to showing it to his father so that he could visualize everything Henrik proposed to do.
The landlord appeared, a bunch of keys ready in his hand.
“Hi—I hope you haven’t had to wait for too long.”
Standing outside in the cold hadn’t exactly been pleasant, but Henrik smiled and said it was fine.
The landlord unlocked the door, and they went inside.
“I thought I’d leave you to it and come back a little later if that’s okay? I just need to stop by the office.”
“No problem.” Henrik actually preferred to show his father around on his own. He should be here any second.
The landlord left, and Henrik took off his coat and draped it over one of the chairs in the sparsely furnished reception area. He wandered around, picturing how the bakery would look. Tiled walls, rustic oak shelves stacked with loaves of bread and rolls, wooden chairs with upholstered seats in muted colors, comfortable sofas and round tables for larger groups, large potted plants, modern art on the walls. He wanted something tasteful but livelier than the industrial-chic trend that had been in vogue for a few years now.
He sat down and opened his laptop to review the numbers one more time. Where the hell was his dad? They were running out of time. Tomorrow was the first day of recording for the Christmas special, and Henrik had to go home and pick up his suitcase before catching the night train to V?stervik.
He called his father, but the call was rejected. Then a text message came through: Sorry—running late. I’ll be there in half an hour.
Half an hour? He glanced at his watch. Shit, there was no way he’d make his train, which meant he’d be late for tomorrow’s recording. Well, it couldn’t be helped. He had to show his father the property and present his proposal tonight; the landlord wasn’t willing to wait another week.
Some people might think the dream of opening a bakery was silly, but Henrik wanted to get back to the essence of baking, not just running a bread production company and being a TV personality. His most cherished childhood memories were the hours he had spent baking with his grandfather during summer vacations at his grandparents’ lakeside country home. He’d kneaded and proofed dough. And made cinnamon buns. And made batter and baked cakes. His love for baking came from his grandfather. Everyone thought it was down to Henrik’s father, but the truth was that they had never baked together when he was a child. Hasse was too busy working or hanging out with other celebrities.
His grandfather had often talked about the café the family had run alongside the bakery when he was younger, when the family firm was a smaller enterprise, and Grandfather himself helped out in the bakery. There was a kind of romantic nostalgia in his tales of cycling to work before dawn, preparing the first dough as the sun rose, and ending the day serving customers in the village café. When the family’s large-scale production operation had grown, the family had chosen to focus entirely on that. They kept the bakery, but sold the café in Almtorp in Bergslagen where everything had begun, which meant that Grandfather moved farther away from the essence of it all, as he put it. And that was what Henrik longed for, more and more: the essence of it all. Henrik thought a bakery with a café reminiscent of the one his grandfather used to run would give the company a little more heart. It would also enable him to meet the people who bought his bread and to bake real bread in his own oven. Bread that would be eaten by customers and not just by a production team after the cameras had stopped filming. He would do more than simply sit in endless meetings about improving the marketing and maximizing the sales of factory-produced bread.
Eklunds’ strong brand name would give the bakery an enormous advantage, but he was a little nervous. Given the family’s reputation, he couldn’t open an ordinary café or bakery—people would expect something special. At the same time, he didn’t want anything too grandiose; he thought he’d landed on a concept that was just right. Camilla and Tom had been enthusiastic, which left only his father.
He flicked through his business plan, which had all the numbers that his mother and her boyfriend, Vanja, had already reviewed. Vanja was a high-ranking bank director, and his mother now worked for an investment bank. In other words, he had been given two expert opinions. They both thought his calculations were sound, the business plan was solid, and the location was perfect. Henrik couldn’t think of anything that would make his father say no. However, Hasse was always the one who came up with suggestions within the family firm, and usually everyone agreed with him. That was how it had worked so far. Hasse had taken the company to where it was today; it was thanks to him that the expansion during the eighties and nineties had happened so fast, which was why he thought he had the monopoly on running Eklunds—everyone simply had to go along with whatever he wanted to do. And now for once Henrik had been working on an idea that hadn’t come from Hasse, which could be seen as an attempt to undermine his father and his role—Henrik was well aware of the implications. That was why his planning had been so meticulous—he wanted to be sure that Hasse couldn’t say no.
The door opened and his father swept in, a faint smile visible behind the graying beard. His glasses immediately steamed up; he took them off, rubbed them quickly on the lapel of his coat, put them back on, and patted Henrik on the shoulder. “Okay, what’s so important? Let’s hear it.”
His cheerful demeanor gave Henrik hope. Maybe he’d misjudged his father?
Henrik made them both a coffee from the agency’s machine, and then they sat down and Henrik handed over the business plan. He explained his vision while his father perused the document.
“So I’m thinking that the bakery will be our hub, a meeting place for the family and a flagship for Eklunds,” Henrik said in conclusion.
“A flagship for Eklunds? What do you think Almtorp is?” Hasse stared at Henrik. Almtorp was the small town in Bergslagen where the head office had always been located.
“Of course. But it’s not a place where our customers can go, it’s just an office. It would be easier for us to meet up here. We could try out new recipes, talk to customers, maybe even run classes or training courses.”
Hasse nodded slowly while Henrik was talking—which was encouraging. Had he been worrying for no reason?
Hasse finished his coffee and slowly put down the cup, but deliberately remained silent for a few seconds. “To be perfectly honest, this feels like we’re going back fifty years in the company’s development.”
Henrik didn’t know what to say, but soon regained his composure. “What do you mean?”
“This was how Eklunds began, with a little café—why would we revert to that now that we have a national baking empire?”
“This isn’t a step back, it’s an extension of what we’re doing today. Something that will give Eklunds heart, a way of enabling us to connect with our customers,” Henrik persisted. “Camilla and Tom like the idea.”
Hasse still looked skeptical.
“It won’t mean more work for you—the idea is for me to run this on my own,” Henrik added.
His father let out a bark of laughter. “Seriously? You think you’re capable of running this on your own?”
Like an insufficiently proofed dough, Henrik deflated. Why had he even bothered to bring his father here? Hasse had never believed in anything Henrik did. Hasse had always made clear that he felt Henrik’s various successes had only been a result of the work Hasse himself had done to build the family business. He’d never even acknowledged his son’s success with Let’s Get Baking —or the boost in sales that Eklunds had seen thanks to that.
If Henrik couldn’t convince his father about this new opportunity, there was still another option.
“If you don’t like the idea, I assume I can present my proposal to the board and ask them to vote on it.”
Hasse stared coldly at him. Henrik had crossed a line. The question of voting always infuriated his father. Hasse had assumed that he would inherit the entire business from his father, but Henrik’s grandfather had left equal shares to his son and his three grandchildren. This meant that Hasse had no official decision-making advantage over Henrik, Camilla, or Tom. But he had unofficial, implicit power over all of them—and always had. Henrik was suggesting they might vote against Hasse, which none of the siblings had ever done. So far, any new ideas that any of them had brought up had been vaguely discussed until Hasse crushed them. Henrik was determined not to give up this time. He knew this was a good plan, and he refused to let it go.
“Feel free to suggest a vote,” his father said, still staring at him. “But I will not hesitate to remind everyone about the Coffeepot.”
Henrik didn’t say a word. The Coffeepot was a failed project that Henrik had set up on his own—a small hole-in-the-wall street café that catered to stressed inner-city workers. It hadn’t been the success he had hoped for. He preferred to forget the whole thing, but his father enjoyed reminding him of this proof of his lack of business acumen.
Hasse got to his feet, put on his coat, and headed for the door. “By the way, I have something I’d like to discuss at the next board meeting. I was going to wait to tell you all then, but Camilla already knows, so I might as well share it with you.” There was something unpleasant about his smile, and Henrik realized that he wasn’t going to like what his father was about to say. “I’m in line for a new TV show.”
“Oh—tell me more.”
“It’s a show featuring me, with Anita as my sidekick.” Hasse had met Anita when he was given the honor of making a dessert for the Nobel banquet. He had worked with the legendary gourmand Anita Roslund. A romance had sparked somewhere between the fresh cloudberries and chocolate Florentines, and before long they were a couple. They had now been married for fifteen years, and she somehow managed to put up with him, even though her own career had gone downhill ever since she met him. She had set aside her own projects and ambitions to support him—just as Henrik’s mother had done, until one day she decided she had had enough.
“The idea is that I will go through the ingredients listed on the most common baked goods on the supermarket shelves, and look at exactly what’s in them. Then I will make a product, a genuine product, under the name of Eklunds. By Hasse for Eklunds. ” Another unpleasant smile. “The production company has already given it the green light.”
“That’s great—congratulations,” Henrik said, and he meant it. His father’s career as a celebrity baker had stalled somewhat. He had judged a few baking competitions, and he had published a new cookbook a couple of years ago that had sold reasonably well. This new show might be good for the company.
“Thank you. It’s going to get the prime-time slot next fall.”
Fall? But that was when Let’s Get Baking came out. Was there really room for more than one baking show in the autumn schedule?
“I hope the Christmas special gets good viewer ratings this year,” Hasse added.
“ Let’s Get Baking always gets good ratings.”
“ Mm —I suppose it depends how you define good . I heard that TV24 is unhappy with the numbers this year, and that it’s down to the Christmas special to save your beloved show.” There was no mistaking the malice in Hasse’s eyes.
Henrik was taken aback. What was he talking about? Where had he heard that? Henrik knew the numbers, and they were the same as they had been in previous years.
“Your show is starting to become a dated concept; they want something new and fresh, which was why I pitched By Hasse for Eklunds .” He laughed. “Don’t you understand why they’ve brought in Don as the executive producer for your show? They’re trying to revamp it as a kind of docusoap. The final attempt to save it.” Hasse sighed, then smiled again. “They want my show to go on at eight o’clock on Wednesday evenings,” he informed Henrik with an apologetic look that was far from sincere.
“But Let’s Get Baking is on at eight o’clock on Wednesdays,” Henrik said.
His father shrugged. “That’s what they suggested.”
Henrik didn’t say a word. He simply wondered what had turned his father into the type of person who was deliberately nasty to his own son.
Hasse glanced around. “Nice place, by the way.”
The door closed behind him, leaving Henrik standing in the middle of the room.