LITMIR.BIZ

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for so many years, survived so many of his friends, not always out of love of life as much as his all-consuming fear of death. It was fear that had kept Ben alive. But the stream of hospital bills was also an excuse.

      Grip’s trips to Stockholm weren’t just about duty and money; they became a way for him to breathe. Not just to be there for someone else, watching and standing by, but to be himself. Himself. To work, to take something on, to do some good. To hear people laugh at a clumsy joke, to get angry with someone without having to hold back. The flow of impressions during the workday kept other thoughts from rising up. There was the vaguely pleasant satisfaction of dealing with the car in the Säpo garage and with equipment in the office, and realizing that he didn’t have to devote every single moment to Ben when he got to work in the morning. But finally, Ben was too weak, and Grip couldn’t work more or borrow more than he already had.

      Then there was a hospice for Ben, with a good reputation but grim single rooms. Run by volunteers, the care they offered was essentially a last few days under morphine. Once they moved in, Ben and Grip realized that these four bare walls would be their last room together. Sometimes Ben yelled out, full of anxiety and accusations. Those who worked there called it the release of a dying person’s unresolved thoughts. Grip knew better.

      A couple of times at the end, they’d still managed to talk about the good times, agreeing on which were their best memories. Trips to Cape Cod, the house with the fireplace they’d sometimes borrowed by the sea. The café at the Whitney Museum, where they’d sat down and decided to try each other out. These were the bright spots, because when the morphine erased the pain, it also destroyed the ability to hold on to thoughts and talk. The awareness in those squinting eyes became increasingly rare. Just a few quiet words. When did everything fall silent? The breathing slowed. One evening in June, shortly after eleven o’clock, Grip let go of the cold hand.

      He sat with the body for a couple of hours and then went home and curled up for the rest of the night. Never in his life had he felt so alone. The worst was knowing it would continue. The feeling of not really knowing what he’d left behind or what would come next.

      Grip had never even met Ben’s family. Lawyers, mostly, with a friendly manner and a penchant for living lies. There was a barrier that Ben himself had created. He’d managed to be out everywhere, except to them. Twice a year he went home to Houston to play the returning son, a little sickly, admittedly, but above all straight. In that world there was no Grip—and what they suspected, he could only guess. Given that even the most casual acquaintances knew that Ben was a gay man who ran a gallery, it was as simple as that. He’d forbidden Grip to contact the family before his death. When he died, his elderly mother came up immediately, and his father a few days later. In their eyes, apparently he’d come to New York to clean. “Thanks for your help” and a handshake, that was all they had to say to Grip. He was less surprised by their attitude than by their efficiency. A family of lawyers, with hired henchmen to slash straight through the administrative details. Not even a week after Grip had let go of his lover’s hand, the Flatiron gallery was boarded up.

      At a tense meeting in the apartment, Grip was permitted to go around and take what was unmistakably his—not much besides clothing. As soon as he picked up or looked at any of the things that represented shared memories, his parents glared. Even when he lifted up an unremarkable piece of driftwood from New London, the mother stretched her neck vigilantly. Despite his mounting anger, Grip restrained himself. But when he was about to leave, and the father held out his hand for the keys, Grip pointedly held the bundle a few seconds too long above his open palm before he released them. A lawyer was also present, which Grip saw as some kind of passing acknowledgment.

      Grip returned that same night. Of course there’d been a spare key. He brought a suitcase with him, and after a half hour going through their possessions, the worst of his anger from earlier in the day had subsided. The twisted driftwood branch lay in his overstuffed bag. When he was done, he moved some furniture around in the apartment, pulled out a couple of drawers, and yanked up the carpet as if someone had kicked it. And then he left, leaving the front door of the apartment unlocked.

      After a few blocks, he threw the spare key into a storm drain. Not so much to hide his tracks, as to make sure he wouldn’t be tempted to return for more.

       9

      It wasn’t until after lunch on Monday that the syrupy feeling started to go away. He hadn’t slept much the night before. Once again, it was past two when he got into bed.

      Ernst Grip was supposed to be with the crown princess that afternoon, but someone had fixed his schedule so he could go to the debriefing after the Husby raid. The meeting was a mere formality, with not a single SWAT guy there, because no matter how you spun it, the operation had failed. Sure, there was still a little game with the evening papers: the prosecutor who approved the action and a security police chief made it sound like something major. But they had failed. Three Somalis with Swedish residence permits, a little over a hundred thousand kronor in cash, and a box of mobile phones with SIM cards. In short, a complete bust. No suicide vests, no weapons, no USB sticks with grandiose plans. Something had gone wrong, or gone cold, and now no one at Säpo headquarters wanted to speak English over the encrypted phone.

      No one said a word about a bathroom.

      He sat through the half-hour debriefing while a chief who hadn’t been on the scene explained to the others what they’d done. A boiled-down version, summarized in a few bullet points on a single PowerPoint slide. Nods, agreement. They’d done what they could—wasn’t that true?—based on the intelligence they had—wasn’t that true! When the review was over, and a paper had been circulated approving compensation for new front and bathroom doors, the two security police officers who’d actually been there went up to Grip.

      “They really didn’t talk?” asked one, while the other sized Grip up. A question repeated from the day before.

      When the bathroom door had caved in from Grip’s kick, and he’d stared at them with rage and contempt, both police officers had worn guilty looks. Later, they told him they’d simply been trying to instill fear. The Somali had been lying on the floor, exhausted and soaked to the bone.

      “So, did he spill his guts?” Grip had asked defiantly, a little later, when it was just the three of them. Obviously, there’d been no confession, only violent splashing, and a man weeping and praying for his life in Somali. But his coworkers figured it was the men in the bedroom who’d give up the important stuff. The two under Grip’s control. They were the ones who’d be scared into talking. The ones who didn’t yet know but who imagined what was coming. Grip had told the officers that they hadn’t said a word, that they were speechless with fear. Now they repeated the question a day later, beyond the chief’s ears: “They really didn’t talk?”

      “Not a sound,” Grip lied again, and then left.

      The small voice recorder that Grip brought to Husby in a pocket of his bulletproof vest was his own idea. He often took it along; you never knew when you’d need to back up your own version afterward. What had been said, and what hadn’t. He’d listened to the recording afterward, to the chaos and the shouting, but it was really only the last part that interested him, when the young man with the nosebleed said something in Somali.

      From that, he’d sensed a bigger picture. On Monday morning, even before the debriefing and the questions, he’d gone looking for a translator. He found the academic who did work for the security police, originally from Yemen, fluent in both Arabic and Somali. In his office, Grip had played the last few minutes, keeping the recorder in his hand. Sure, Grip could have started further back, but he was anxious to keep an outsider from getting the larger context. If he’d played the recording from beginning to end, the actions would have been obvious—and given the prayers and screams, it could have started people talking. And if some damn lawyer got involved, Grip had no out. He was just as entangled as the two police officers if someone started flipping through the statute book.

      “Yuhuudi,” the translator said, repeating what was on the recording.

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