Page 5 of The Happiness Blueprint
“I’ve got one on, haven’t I? This one is mine, the one Calle gave to me. He was your brother. If you want something that was his, it’s yours.”
New Alex is a fucker, don’t like him and his ways. Wouldn’t offer this New Alex a job if he were the last person on the planet, and so I save the employer the trouble of even interviewing him. Save my friends the trouble of seeing him too and also regularly save the shower the pleasure of seeing him. A thought hits me, and I don’t like it at all. What would my brother think of New Alex?
Phone buzzes with a reminder from my calendar as I leave the parking lot. Bizarrely satisfying to beat the schedule and already be here. The area is empty apart from some dog walkers and cyclists: icy winds from the Baltic Sea are something you only brave if you have to, not by choice. The white-and-gray building that is Turning Torso towers over me, a twisted, tall turret of fifty-four floors with the open sea as backdrop. It reminds me of a Twister ice cream that’s lost its colors. It’s on the outskirts of the city but a short walk from the center, one of Malmö’s few buildings that offer a luxurious, ultramodern living standard.
The male concierge nods at me in greeting. I always feel awkward doing the same, unsure how big my smile ought to be. Not used to staff and fancy marble floors. Mamma and Pappa thank him and make small talk when they visit. They can’t wrap their heads around the fact his presence is paid for and act as if it’s his house that he graciously lets them visit.
Feel a sense of being watched as I walk over to the elevator and press the button for the thirty-second floor. My fingertip leaves a mark on the shiny steel that must be polished several times a day to achieve that shine. I wipe it off with my sleeve as if I’ve done something bad and want no trace left behind. I don’t knock or ring the buzzer as I step out of it, I just slide my—his—key in the heavy steel door and push it open. It’s almost as if I’ve become him.
Dan is on the sofa with a beer and his smooth-looking, pedicured feet stretched out on the upholstery. A beer is best drunk with either a laugh or with a thoughtful look, and Dan and I are kings of the latter. What is there to laugh about?
Dump the pile of letters that I’ve brought with me on the round marble coffee table, keeping one envelope as a coaster for my beer bottle, which I walk over to the kitchen to get. Dan has been helping me with life admin for months now, paying bills and filing letters. He’s too nice to me; don’t deserve it. Sometimes I wish he’d shout at me rather than double as my secretary.
The fridge is odorless when I open it. Ketchup, pickles, mustard and Heineken. A teriyaki marinade and fresh yeast which must have gone off by now. I close the door. Is there anything more depressing than a fridge without food? Without people to feed?
Dan moves his legs to make space for me.
“I have to sell this place at some point. We can’t use a 10-million kronor property as our man cave forever,” he says. We both have our ways to survive—coming here has been his.
“I know.” I didn’t ask Dr. Hadid whether this, my third token, was also harmless to keep. I feel guilty for being the one to struggle. Dan is coping better than me when he has every right, even more right, to be broken too. Two weeks’ leave taken, ten pounds lost, and a lot of tears and he came out the other end functioning. No anger, no bitterness. Just a constant current of sadness that you see in his eyes. Like a bleak stretch mark on a body. But then, he’s not the one who refused to give Calle a lift home that night. Appears healing is a lot easier without guilt.
“I’m thinking of making some changes beforehand. Most people want more than one bedroom and less living area. It would bring the price up and make for a faster sale. I feel like Calle would hate it if I sold our place cheaply, just for it to be developed by someone and all this wiped out.” I love the massive, open space that is sparsely furnished. There is a couch in a gray hue, the same as the sea in winter. A large rug across the wooden tiles and a dining table by the breakfast bar. Everything is hidden—drawers, cupboards and the bowl with keys and random bits that every home has, normally on display by the front door. It’s a space that could make it into any interior design magazine. Calle had talent.
Memories of trading labor surface.
“I cleaned, aired and organized your bedroom while you were out. Now, finish my CD rack,” Calle would say, serious negotiating face on.
“Why does it smell like custard?” Sniffed suspiciously.
“Because I crushed some vanilla pods and mixed them with cinnamon. Your room smelled like unchanged bedsheets before my intervention, Alex.”
“Dude. I’m thirteen. What do I care what it smells like?”
“Doesn’t mean your room can’t smell nice.”
I built him wooden cars, then CD racks, then smooth wooden boxes to store his watches in. In return he organized my room and made it smell like vanilla.
Take in the open sky and the wild waters now, Copenhagen visible across the sound where some cargo ships and a passenger ferry are crossing in the distance. I’m at the top of the world, with air to breathe in abundance. If the tall building sways in the wind, it does it so gently we don’t notice. Would probably fall asleep here on the sofa if this was my home.
“Any news?” I ask. The amount of shitty stuff I’m waiting for at the moment has no end. When you are young you think waiting for something good is torture. School to finish: every minute creeps along as if it’s got a puncture. Adult dinners: how can there still beone morecourse until dessert? And Christmas—well, why do you think those chocolate calendars were invented? When you become an adult and have to wait for something fucking catastrophic, you rethink your whole childhood, and it seems idyllic.
We’ve been through the police investigation, the witness statement and the forensic report (fifth edit) and have been dealt a prosecutor and listened to the verdict. All legal professionals speak the same.It is impossible to predict. We cannot be sure. I do recommend adding this document to increase the chance.For people who need to deal with facts, assimilate them, analyze them and present them, they are an incredibly vague breed of professionals.
“I was just about to tell you, Alex. I spoke to the prosecutor this morning. There is a date set for the trial. April 22.” Months later but finally a date. This means I need to hurry the fuck up and be ready for it. My spine tingles with a weird sensation. Bad weird, I think.
“So, seventy-seven days,” I say instantly.
“I forget how good you are at math.”
My eyes are sore, and I can feel Dan’s gaze on my face.
“Have you been driving lately?” he asks. He’s the only one that knows what I do at night. What I can’t stop.
“Maybe.” He doesn’t tell me I’m a moron because deep down he understands why I do it, where it comes from, this urgent need. If you do something out of love, it doesn’t matter what it is, right? Even if it’s crazy.
There is someone we need to find, who has information we need, and no one else is looking.
April 22. I’ve just been given a deadline.
