Small Comfort

IG: I wouldn’t say that, no.

GJ: Okay, let me tell you what it was like. My old man spent twenty years submitting his poems to Bonnier. Fantastic poems, if I may say so.

IG: Oh?

GJ: And, finally, they decided to publish him. It came in the mail, a personal letter from one of those bearded, bespectacled types who sit all day in their swivel chairs and decide things. A letter with a signature in real ink. It said they were impressed, that it was a raw collection of poems written in a modern, yet personal tone, that they’d tried to call him and asked him to call them back, with a number and name at the end. I still remember it.

IG: The name?

GJ: Yes. And the number. Because I called that number, eventually. And I spoke with that bearded man for a long time. And he asked what we had in our bookcase, and I walked down the shelves and told him everything we had in there, and the bearded man made some good guesses about some of the foreign names I hadn’t heard about. How about Gregory Corso, he asked, and I walked over to C and found two of his books. That was after the funeral, when I was putting everything in boxes.

IG: The funeral?

GJ: Pops died two days before the letter came from Bonnier. Cancer in the large intestine. Those tumours just exploded in him. It didn’t even take three months.

IG: So there was no book, then?

GJ: No. They had a meeting and retracted their offer.

IG: Ah.

GJ: And our bookcase contained most of what should be in a bookcase. I read Mayakovsky at fifteen, just like you did. But I read him from below. You get what I’m saying? The way he wrote.

IG: None of this has anything to do with our interview, and I don’t know why you sound so angry. If you believe that I came here with a bunch of ideas about who you are, you’re probably right. But they might not be what you think. And you shouldn’t be so sure that you know everything about me, either. I read Mayakovsky from below too. Though I was about twenty.

GJ: What are your ideas about me, then?

IG: You’ve been to prison, for instance. Things like that do paint a certain picture, at least for me.

GJ: Like what?

IG: I mean, it’s not necessarily negative.

GJ: And why is that?

IG: You haven’t been convicted of any violent crime. Violent crime is scary: killing, fighting, unpredictable people. Your crimes are – I don’t know, harmless. You tried and failed to take things that weren’t yours. Fraud, forgeries.

GJ: And?

IG: I don’t know.

GJ: You’re saying I’m a loser?

IG: Not at all. Not at all.

GJ: No?

IG: And, anyway, that was a while ago, right? It’s sort of past the statute of limitations by now.

GJ: A prison sentence never expires. It follows you for the rest of your life, no matter how short your time, no matter how insignificant the crime. Every prison sentence is for life, by definition. You go to prison and try to land a job afterwards and you’ll see how easy it is. Or a flat.

IG: You work now, though, don’t you?

GJ: Work? I’m self-made.

IG: Self-made?

GJ: An entrepreneur. You know: Jacob Wallenberg, Antonia Ax:son Johnsson. Only I’m Greger Johnson. I’m an entrepreneur; I own a company.

IG: In what industry?

GJ: The treasure-hunting industry.

IG: Okay.

GJ: Though lately I’ve been thinking of quitting.

IG: You’ve found the treasure, then?

GJ: Yes. I wouldn’t be lying if I said as much.

IG: Anything that’ll put you back in touch with the justice system?

GJ: Hardly.

IG: I’ve got a source who works as a cop. Called him before this. Turns out you’re implicated in an open investigation.

GJ: A small car loan, yes. The other day. Pure self-defence.

IG: Self-defence?

GJ: Protection against the cold. It was minus ten. If not more.

IG: Can you tell me about it?

GJ: Are you going to write about it?

IG: Of course not. I’m just curious. My source said it was an odd affair.

GJ: Okay. So I was out on a walk.

IG: Yesterday? In minus ten?

GJ: Could have been minus twenty. If not more. It was the day before yesterday. I wasn’t wearing appropriate clothing.

IG: Why not?

GJ: My girlfriend had thrown me out.

IG: Ah.

GJ: We’d had a fight. It’s her flat – I just live there. Like I said: you go to prison and try landing a flat afterwards. I live with her, but sometimes she gets sick of me and then she’ll throw me out. She’s a pretty dynamic person. She’ll turn on a dime about loving me or not, about loving someone else, what I need to do in order for her to love me. She explodes at regular intervals and when that happens I’ll go for a walk in the neighbourhood until she cools off. Sometimes I’ll take a half-hour to sit outside the basement office door and smoke.

IG: Like Emil in Julle’s workshop.

GJ: Right, though that’s a different movie. This time the basement was locked, so I had to take a hike. She lives next to a flush neighbourhood and I like to stroll around there, check out the homes. They’re huge, you know. Some of them have a pool, patio, a two-car garage. Just the toys scattered on the lawns have a combined value that exceeds my annual income. But this evening was dark and snowy and really fucking cold. A cold you can’t even imagine. I normally enjoy walking around there, but not this time. Way too cold.

IG: You normally enjoy looking at toys whose combined value exceeds your annual income?

GJ: Yeah, because at some point it’s going to be my turn. Right? That’s got to be what everyone thinks when they see rich people, when they find themselves with their nose pressed to the bulging wallets of other people: I’ll show them. It’s gonna be my turn one day.

IG: I’m not so sure about that.

GJ: You don’t think that way? You can’t be too rich yourself.

IG: Not too rich, no.

GJ: You’re not drowning in jobs, and they don’t pay that well. Am I wrong?

IG: No.

GJ: Well, then I’m convinced that you’re thinking: Soon enough, you arseholes. Just you wait. It’s going to be me soon, driving one of those fucking four-wheel-drive land yachts, and I’m not going to stop when you’re at the pedestrian crossing.

IG: I have to say that I almost never think that way.

GJ: You’re happy with your lot in life, then?

IG: I don’t know if I experience any particular lot in life. I don’t think I’ve been handed a lot to be happy or unhappy with.

GJ: That’s precisely what sets the lower class apart from the upper classes. We experience our lot in life. The rest of you don’t. You think you’ve decided to be a little bit poor, don’t you?

IG: I wouldn’t say that I’m poor, exactly. Or rather, the financial stuff, I don’t know if that’s the most important thing. That it matters all that much.

GJ: Exactly.

IG: I’m sorry?

GJ: That unwillingness to make any sort of analysis. But if you did, as I do almost daily, even several times a day, you’d immediately realise that things could be different, and that you want to get back, claw back. You’d realise that it has to be your turn at some point.

IG: Revenge?

GJ: No. A righteous reset.

IG: Ah.

GJ: A little bit of success.

IG: I see.

GJ: I don’t think you do. Not in any sort of real way. But, in any case, that is the feeling I have whenever I amble down those leafy streets lined with villas.

IG: Okay, but if you’re always thinking about revenge—

GJ: I’m not.

IG: Call it taking back, getting even. It’s got to be hard to walk through life with that feeling?

GJ: Tons of people walk through life with that feeling. Anyone who’s ever experienced the ‘in’ of injustice walks through life with that feeling. They all live in that sensation; they’ve made a home inside it.

IG: Okay. Let’s get back to your story.

GJ: Are we in a rush?

IG: No. I was just checking the time.

GJ: It’s not often you see a wristwatch these days.

IG: I know. Impossible to find someone who’ll repair it. All they do is tell me to get a new one. But yeah – no, we’re not in a rush, I just wanted to check the time. Keep going.

GJ: Where was I?

IG: In a swanky neighbourhood, knee-deep in your usual desire to rectify things.

GJ: Right. And there it is. It’s minus ten with a sprinkling of snow, it’s windy, the spit on my lips is transforming into fucking ice, the foreskin is cracking inside my underwear, my toes are long gone, my fingers and nose – I am, to put it simply, succumbing to the cold. And, all of a sudden, there it is.

IG: What is?

GJ: The car. With the engine on. A BMW, I don’t know which model, but the colour is that heartfelt shade of golden yellow, as if the enamel had been tuned. A BMW is an extreme car in many ways – you have to agree with that.

IG: I don’t know. I don’t know anything about cars.

GJ: Didn’t you make a movie about cars? About drivers’ licences or something?

IG: It was about people. Did you google me?

GJ: Of course I did.

IG: Fine. I know a bit about cars, but I’m not exactly passionate about models and stuff like that. Keep going.

GJ: With a BMW, you don’t get into your seat the way you would in a regular car. You sink into it. You let it hold you like another body. It’s organic in a way no other car can even approximate. As close to a mammal as a car can be without ceasing to be a car.

IG: I see. Keep going.

GJ: The varnish gleams, there’s no snow on it, it looks brand new. It just stands there, engine humming, a purring little animal, ready to embrace me and take off. The only way to understand this situation is as a kind of offering, right?

IG: An offering?

GJ: Here I am, about to freeze my ass off. I’ve been told to hit the road and it’s going to be several hours before I can go home again. I’ve got nothing on me other than an empty wallet and two smokes, I’m wearing a suede blazer, a button-down shirt and a pair of jeans without long johns underneath. Ice is forming on my lips and I’ve got no hat on. No hat, no car, no friends who are home and willing to let me in, barely even a girlfriend at this point. No car, no food, no booze. No car. Especially no car. And there it is: a kind of offering. The door is unlocked, the engine is on, the key is in the ignition. Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have got in.

IG: I don’t think I would.

GJ: Not even for a spin?

IG: Never. No matter how poor or cold I was. I’m too much of a chicken.

GJ: It’s not about being bold. It’s about desperation. Your degree of desperation.

IG: Some kind of courage is necessary. There’s a line there I can’t cross. I don’t want to cross it. And I can’t.

GJ: You’ve never had to cross it.

IG: Perhaps.

GJ: You’re sighing.

IG: Yes.

GJ: You’re looking at your watch.

IG: I am?

GJ: What time is it?

IG: I don’t know. Did I look?

GJ: I’ll continue. The car is there, its engine is humming, it’s calling my name with an offer I don’t refuse. I don’t even think of it as theft, not exactly. It’s more as if I was suddenly given a chance to protect myself against the cold. And the feeling of getting inside that car . . . It’s indescribable. Pale leather seats, armrests that fold down. A compact, powerful gearshift. A dashboard that looks like it was carved out of a single piece of wood. It doesn’t even look like a dashboard, with technical controls, but like something else, a living thing. The car itself looks as if it has a heart, and I can almost hear it beating. Then there’s the fact that it’s golden yellow. It’s just too much. Do you get it?

IG: I don’t.

GJ: I shift into first gear and we roll off. I don’t even need to think.

IG: But your plan was to warm up a bit?

GJ: I don’t know what the plan was. I got inside and suddenly it was the most natural thing in the world to take off. There it was, so warm.

IG: Where did you go?

GJ: Not far.

IG: Where were you planning to go?

GJ: Initially, I was just going to take it for a spin.

IG: A spin?

GJ: An easy spin. I turned on the radio, took off my blazer, adjusted the temperature. Mozart’s Sixth Symphony. I changed the station. Deep Purple, that eighties record. What’s it called again?

IG: Strangers something. Their best.

GJ: By far. I drove south, towards the city, coasting. Turned wherever I felt like it, was planning to park it somewhere, have a smoke, then take the subway home.

IG: But?

GJ: Yeah, then I realised it wouldn’t be so hard to pass it on. That goddamn car could be out of the country in forty-five minutes as long as I got hold of the right people.

IG: Oh?

GJ: You don’t know much about this stuff, do you?

IG: No. I know very little about this stuff. I’ve gathered that there are ships in Frihamnen that move goods to the Baltic countries.

GJ: The Baltics and beyond. They’ve got auto paint technicians working on board, one of the best painting gigs you’ll find in this country. My yellow pearl would dock as a green emerald. Or a red kiss.

IG: Okay. You went to Frihamnen?

GJ: That’s where my troubles began. When I started to make plans. It’s always where the troubles begin. I got my phone out, trying to get hold of the right person for this kind of undertaking. Made a bunch of calls while navigating the roundabouts to the city. Red lights. People were looking. I was getting nervous. I was starting to feel rushed. You understand.

IG: Not exactly.

GJ: I was agitated, anxious. I felt pursued.

IG: I heard you drove straight into a snowdrift and were seen running off.

GJ: Who says that?

IG: The police report. Like I said, I read it.

GJ: I was seen running off? Period?

IG: You were seen running off.

GJ: That’s all?

IG: What’s all?

GJ: Running off. Nothing else?

IG: What would that be?

GJ: Oh, I don’t know.

IG: Is there something else? This story feels kind of incomplete somehow.

GJ: That’s because you’re a journalist. You guys arrange stories that way, as if everything is finished with a bow tied on top. But the real world isn’t whole like that. It’s totally fucking half. Unfinished, like your name.

IG: That’s too kind of you.

GJ: No offence.

IG: My question is why you’re smiling in that – how can I put it? – triumphant way.

GJ: I’m not smiling. Why would I be smiling? The cops showed up and nabbed me the next day, so why would I be smiling?

IG: You smiled. I asked why.

GJ: To summarise: I hit the snowdrift, got knocked by the steering wheel, couldn’t get out of the drift. I peaced out. Took the subway home, knocked on my girlfriend’s door, bled a little, she let me in. All is well on God’s earth. The next day – yesterday – the cops rang my doorbell and brought me to the precinct for questioning. They let me go, but there’s a small charge waiting for me. I assume probation, and in the meantime I’ll lay low. Ulrika and I have made up again.

IG: Ulrika?

GJ: My girlfriend.

IG: I’m glad.

GJ: And, since the car barely even had a scratch, it was able to return to its owner the next day, after a brief stay at the repair shop. It was the shortest of thefts, more like a little loan.

IG: What’s so funny?

GJ: It’s just crazy, all of it.

IG: What, specifically?

GJ: I’ll tell you some other time. Another time. Later.

IG: Okay.

GJ: I’m gonna take a leak.

IG: To the right, in the hall.

GJ: Thanks.

IG: Hi, honey. No, not yet, it’s going to be a while. Are you home already? Was there any mail for me? I see. Okay. No, he’s a total loser. It’s just nasty. No, he’s in the bathroom. No, I’ve got no idea how I’m going to produce a piece about him. The others have normal lives. This guy – I don’t know. No, I don’t think drugs, but a load of crimes. Prison and stuff. He’s confrontational, keeps arguing with me, trying to put me in place somehow. A total loser. No, that’s too hard. I’ve asked Paul again. I think he’ll do it. It’s not like he’s got anything else going on. I’m going to call him now. See you. Kisses.

Paul, hi, did you get my message about the transcription? Great. I’d guess it’s about two hours, a bit more. No, there’s no huge rush. Sometime next week would be swell. I’ll send you the file when I’m done. Great, talk soon.

GJ: I took some more coffee.

IG: Good. Shall we?

GJ: And a cinnamon bun. Did you bake?

IG: No. My colleague did.

GJ: It’s a co-working space, this. Small.

IG: Yes.

GJ: You don’t have a private office?

IG: No. Space is at a premium in this city.

GJ: See? You’ve got financial circumstances too. But you don’t have the correct analysis.

IG: I’m not sure what there is to analyse. I rent a space with a few friends, and before that I was working from home. This feels like luxury to me.

GJ: And Percy Barnevik?

IG: What about Barnevik?

GJ: Does it feel like luxury to him? Or Niklas Zennström, Filippa Knutsson, Fredrik Eklund, all those CEOs? Would this feel like luxury to them?

IG: I don’t imagine so, no. But I don’t compare myself to them.

GJ: Why wouldn’t you?

IG: Well, why would I?

GJ: Because you’re all humans. You and Niklas Zennström, for instance, are born the same year.

IG: You really did google me.

GJ: In the same suburb, even. Do you know each other?

IG: No, not at all.

GJ: Have you met?

IG: No.

GJ: But you could have been friends, right? You could have been neighbours, your parents could have socialised, been co-workers, attended each other’s Christmas cocktails. You could have been in the same school and year, gone to each other’s graduation parties, maybe kissed each other outside a cinema on Storgatan some late night. Right?

IG: What are you trying to get at?

GJ: You could have been him. There’s no reason you didn’t become him. Don’t you think?

IG: Absolutely not. He’s a genius. I was a goalie for my football team and set a new district record for number of missed saves in a game. Twenty-two.

GJ: That’s not what makes the two of you different.

IG: No. There’s a whole host of other things too.

GJ: What makes you different from one another is luck. Pure chance. The tiniest little things with enormous consequences. And we only look at the consequences when we try to determine how different we are from each other. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to bear it.

IG: I don’t know what you’re talking about. It sounds interesting, but I think we’ve got kind of off track.

GJ: And the track is?

IG: You could tell me a bit more about the film shoot, for instance. Was Astrid there?

GJ: Astrid who?

IG: Har har.

GJ: Yes, in fact. She crouched down and didn’t touch my hair. I was so used to everyone touching my hair when I was little. Everyone would come and tug and pet and tousle, but she didn’t even look at it. We talked for a good while.

IG: About what?

GJ: No idea. But I remember that I understood how she was able to write those books. She saw things from below. It’s not about the stories, but the perspective.

IG: Right.

GJ: The pen’s position. Where it’s writing from.

IG: Right.

GJ: Take yourself, for instance. You’ll write this from above.

IG: That’s what you think?

GJ: Because it’s the only way it can be written. Because this kind of thing is always written that way. It’s in the nature of the thing. I’m sure it will be empathetic, thoughtful, sensitive, spot-on, with a few zingers. But from the above. It’s inevitable.

IG: I guess I’d prefer it if you read the piece before judging it.

GJ: I don’t need to read it to assess it. If white has thirteen pawns left and black has two, everyone already knows the result. Isn’t that right? Nobody needs to see that game.

IG: I’d want to know how it went. How black lost its pawns.

GJ: That’s the thing. The game starts that way, with that distribution.

IG: Oh God.

GJ: What time?

IG: Two thirty.

GJ: What are you doing after this?

IG: I need to pick up my kids.

GJ: Daycare?

IG: After-school.

GJ: A drag?

IG: A drag, and fun.

GJ: That’s what you’re obligated to say, right? Add that word. Fun.

IG: I don’t think anyone is obligated to do anything. It is fun.

GJ: Sometimes?

IG: Most of the time.

GJ: And hard, most of the time?

IG: It’s both. It comes with the annoying parts. It comes with the fun parts. Can we get back on track? You were telling me about the film shoot: Astrid came to visit.

GJ: Yeah. She came up to me before she talked to any of the others, including the director. I thought she wanted to touch my hair, but no. She just sat down in front of me and asked for my name, if I was in school, how I felt about the shoot, the adults, if I was homesick. That kind of thing. She didn’t look at my hair at all, and not at my body either. I had already started to look like this, you know.

IG: Like what?

GJ: Like a hunchback. Kyphosis paired with scoliosis and progressive spondylolisthesis. Inexorably congenital. As if my spine was about to make a loop and had a change of heart halfway through. But she didn’t look at me in that way, and it was a relief. I mean, I didn’t think of it as a relief back then – kids don’t. I just experienced it. I was inside of it for a few minutes, a few hours. I wasn’t analysing. All of a sudden, it was easier to breathe, and I didn’t know why. I thought of her as an old woman, but now I understand that she was still pretty young at the time. Of course she did become an actual old woman, an old lady. But she still had that thing. It was obvious. The way she looked at the children.