Two Soldiers by Anders Roslund Page B

was being studied, assessed.
    “A couple of nights ago . . .”
    A sofa in the prison governor’s office.
    She looked around, she felt uncertain, sometimes . . . it wasn’t always easy to figure out where you were heading or why.
    Jesus  . . . a prison?
    Three years doing science at high school. Unemployed for a few days in summer and an appointment with the job center.
    She had never seen a prison before.
    She had never spoken to, known, or even met a criminal before.
    Three days later—after three days’ training—she had signed for her uniform and done her first day and was supposed to be responsible for them.
    “A couple of nights ago, the nightshift was . . . sorry, pure hell. Nine cells, nine inmates who didn’t sleep, who started . . . it sounded, I can’t explain it any other way, like they were constantly moving, noisy and aggressive, tidying their cells, making their beds, pulling off the sheets, making them again, pulling them off, pulling them off.”
    After three days’ training, she had put on her uniform and taken responsibility for them, but for the most part she’d been scared. Of the young guys. Their aggression, their hate was tangible and overwhelming. Not that the older ones were any better, they sized her up and commented on her body but never triggered the same feelings—the uneasiness, discomfort, the young guys could lose it at any moment and their hate was different, so potent.
    “Last night was the same. Awake, restless. And since I opened up this morning, they’ve all been complaining about headaches and done just about anything to get a sick note and some sleep. The ones who didn’t get one, the ones we forced to go to work, are confused—one managed to knock over four pallets on his first attempt to pick them up with the forklift, and then drove straight into one of the workshop walls—another one hid in one of the toilets in the laundry, turned off the light and stayed there for three hours, he’d jammed the lock and door handle with two rubbish bins.”
    The uneasiness, the fear, from the first day she’d walked the locked corridors prepared for a fist in her face or a piece of sharpened metalin her back at any time, she’d been so tense, so terrified of these men who didn’t for a moment care about the consequences—the men who hated, exploded, lashed out—and soon she realized that she was creeping along the gray concrete walls and had tried to deal with it, was trying to deal with it, she looked straight ahead so she would never show how frightened she really was, always looked people in the eye, laughed too loud for too long, talk, talk, she knew that the fear only existed if she didn’t hide it well enough.
    Jesus  . . . a prison?
    “Thank you . . .”
    Martin Jacobson, who was sitting at the other end of the new sofa, nodded to his young colleague.
    “. . . no one sleeping, confused, unpredictable. You don’t need to hear anymore, do you, Lennart?”
    The governor gave a light shrug, maybe he sighed, remembered the smacking lips and darting eyes.
    He had seen it and guessed correctly.
    “No, you don’t need to explain anymore.”
    He looked at his colleague, friend. They had worked there for so long, seen it time and again.
    “I’ve looked into it.”
    Martin Jacobson was unaware that he leaned forward, hands on the coffee table.
    “And I’m quite certain that the drugs were smuggled in by a visitor three days ago. Nine zero two two, Jensen. D1 Left, Cell 2.”
    He flicked through a small notebook, spiral-bound with thin red lines.
    “The visitor—a young woman, seventeen years old, registered at an address in Råby, Botkyrka municipality. She’s called . . . hold on a moment . . . Wanda Svensson.”
    “Jensen? Came here about four, max five months ago?”
    “Råby. Father from Botkyrka. Mother from Zagreb.”
    “Aggravated assault, armed robbery, blackmail?”
    “Four and a half years.”
    “Gang