As Humlin now lay in bed he relished the idea that Lundin’s blood pressure was about to shoot up to new heights. But he was not completely able to banish the thought that Lundin was in fact a big player in the world of publishing and one who had the power to slam many doors in his face.
Viktor Leander’s reaction was easy to imagine and it provided him with a less ambivalent pleasure. Leander would lie sleepless for a number of nights and worry that Humlin’s idea would prove better than the number of lemming-like attempts by contemporary authors to jump on the crime novel bandwagon. In the on-going power struggle between Humlin and Leander the chief motivation was to cause sleeplessness in the other. This time it would be Leander’s turn to lie awake.
Humlin spent the rest of the day in bed. In the evening he took a taxi to Andrea’s apartment. There he explained what had happened. He changed some details, however, and omitted the fact that he had patted a girl on the cheek. He claimed instead that an unstable gypsy man had become violently upset when Humlin decided not to let him into the seminar.
‘Why couldn’t you have let him in? Gypsies have always been discriminated against in our society.’
‘I decided to restrict it to girls.’
‘Couldn’t you make an exception?’
‘Then I would have had at least ten boxers lining up.’
‘Why boxers?’
‘Törnblom has a boxing club. I can’t tell you anything more. It hurts to talk.’
That night they had sex for the first time in three weeks. The next day, when Andrea had left for work, Humlin immediately opened her diary to check what she had written. He knew she always wrote in the morning.
Humiliated, Humlin took his revenge by imagining a night of passion in a Gothenburg hotel with the beautiful and mysterious Tanya. There was more than one reason for him to return to Stensgården and continue this unruly mess of a class that he had not organised so much as landed in the middle of.
He went home. He spent the afternoon trying to find ways of concealing his bruise with self-tanning lotions. Whenever the phone rang he stood over the answering machine and let it pick up. Both Lundin and Leander called. Humlin didn’t take either call, nor did he call either of them back. His face hurt when he smiled.
Shortly after five o’clock he decided to take a walk. When he opened the front door he saw that someone was sitting in the stairwell. It was dark enough that at first he didn’t recognise who it was. Then he saw that it was Tea-Bag.
A door slammed shut several flights up. Since Humlin didn’t want a curious neighbour to catch him in conversation with an exotic-looking woman, he quickly ushered her into the apartment and shut the door. At the same time he started worrying about the possibility that Andrea would come by and fall into a jealous rage. He led Tea-Bag into the kitchen and asked her if she wanted a cup of tea. She shook her head energetically.
‘I don’t drink tea,’ she said.
Humlin thought about her name and was surprised.
‘Is there anything you would like?’
‘Coffee.’
She sat down on a chair and watched him as he brewed the coffee. Every time he looked over at her she smiled. He thought to himself that she was probably one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen. He still couldn’t decide how old she was. She could be anything from seventeen to twenty-five. She was very dark. Her skin was so black it almost looked blue. She had long beautiful braids woven into her hair. She wore no make-up. She was wearing a puffy down coat that she didn’t remove even in the warmth of the kitchen. She had tennis shoes on her feet, with different-coloured laces.
When the coffee was done he sat down across from her. She was sitting where Andrea normally sat. The thought both worried and excited him. He had the constant urge to touch her face, to feel with the tops of his fingers if she was warm or cold.
‘How did you find out where I live?’
‘It wasn’t very hard.’
‘Did Törnblom tell you?’
She moved her lips but didn’t answer.
There was a sudden sound at the front door. Andrea, Humlin thought with horror. All hell is about to break loose. But no one came in. Later, when Tea-Bag had left, Humlin saw that someone had slid a notice through the mail slot.
‘You’ve clearly gone to a great deal of trouble to find me, and you’ve travelled all the way from Gothenburg. You must want something.’
Tea-Bag seemed to hesitate for a moment and pulled at her fingers. Then she said something in a foreign language.
‘Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that,’ he said.
‘I have to speak my own language before I can speak yours. I am unlocking a door.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Once when I was a little girl a monkey cling on my back.’
Humlin waited but she didn’t elaborate.
‘Could you repeat that?’
