Free The Father: Made in Sweden Part I by Anton Svensson

repeatedly, until the four phones became impossible to piece together again.
    ‘You did a good job. Sweetie – it’s like you were with us the whole time. Right?’
    His hand against her cheek. And she saw it on him. That he’d thought it would feel different. He should feel pride, joy. But he was empty, he had already left her and she knew it. Even though he’d just got home, he was already on his way to the next job.
    He had the same look on his face as he pretended to be happy, beside her on the sofa with Jasper on his other side, Felix and Vincent in the armchairs; the same look as when Felix overturned an imaginary wheelchair and jumped over a wall, and everyone laughed, when Vincent picked up a large empty fish bowl and filled it to the brim with money, or when Jasper hugged him and wanted his attention,
Leo, did you see, when youwere on the bonnet, how he looked at you first and then at me, did you see his eyes
, then he raised his voice and pretended to be an Arab again,
we know your names
, pretended to pull off their IDs,
sharmuta I will come for you
.
    It was at that point she realised what this reminded her of: it was as if they were talking about a movie. As if they’d gone the other way, into the city, seen some new movie together, and now sat drinking a beer at a bar, comparing their favourite scenes, trying to outdo each other in recreating them. She hadn’t seen that movie. That’s why she sat in silence and squeezed Leo’s hand until he noticed that she felt left out, and stood up and walked over to the goldfish bowl and waited for everyone to fall silent. And when they were quiet, he started taking out handfuls of notes, 20s and 100s and 500s, counting them out, and then handed them ten thousand kronor each.
    ‘Are you kidding me?’
    Felix wasn’t sitting in a pub and recounting scenes from a movie any more. He got up from his chair in a shabby flat in a shabby concrete suburb and started taking more bills out of the goldfish bowl.
    ‘Hey! Felix, what the hell are you doing?’ snapped Leo. ‘Ten thousand each.’
    ‘And I’m saying – are you kidding me?’
    ‘Ten thousand.’
    ‘Shit, there’s more than a million in there. And I’m going out tonight. I wanna go through five thousand, ’cause I’m worth it. And tomorrow I have to pay the rent. And—’
    ‘We’ll talk about that then. Tomorrow.’
    ‘Damn it, ten thousand kronor, that’s what an eighteen-year-old makes at McDonald’s!’
    ‘
Tomorrow
.’
    Felix held the stack of money in his hand, looked around, trying to delay making a decision, and then dramatically started to put the notes back into the goldfish bowl one at a time.
    ‘Are you done?’ asked Leo.
    One at a time.
    ‘Are you?’
    Until they were lying there again, every one.
    Leo got a piece of paper from the kitchen and wrote on it while the others sat and watched.
    ‘Yes, there’s a million there. But we were counting on ten. It’s clear asfuck you should party and celebrate. But we have to live until next time, too. That’s my responsibility. And we have to be able to
accomplish
the next one. That’s also my responsibility.’
    The paper was in the middle of the coffee table, next to the goldfish bowl, and he pointed with a pen to columns of figures.
    ‘Out there in the car park are two cars that belong to the construction company. We need to look like we’re going to work every day. Cars, clothing, tools. There are ongoing expenses that have to be met so that we can do this instead: clothes that will all be burned, leasing a container for weapons, a boat that will have to be sunk. And that was just this time. Next time will cost even more. You know how a business works? In order to make money, we need to invest money until we have so much damn money that we don’t need any more.’
    Felix and Leo looked at one another. And they were kids again – one who challenged the other and one who accepted that challenge and would beat it every time, as you