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

door and nodded towards the bedroom door with a finger to his lips. He took the blanket off the goldfish bowl and threw it onto a fully clothed Felix, who sank into the sofa.
    ‘What the hell is that?’ Felix asked, grabbing the drawing from the table.
    ‘The next one.’
    ‘Where?’
    ‘Handels Bank. Svedmyra. Let’s sleep now.’
    ‘Sleep? Cheers, brother! Here’s to financial independence!’
    ‘It’s not about the money.’
    ‘And that fucking goldfish bowl, then? It’s filled to the brim!’
    ‘It’s about making sure no bastard can
ever
tell us what to do again. After this you and I and Vincent won’t have to depend on anyone ever again.’
    Felix looked at his big brother who, trying to avoid more questions, went over to the window, lifted the blinds a little and peered outside.
    ‘Leo?’
    ‘Yeah?’
    ‘I don’t get how you can fucking live here.’
    Leo could hear in his voice that he was drunk. But he meant it.
    ‘Sometimes you know every bush, every staircase.’
    ‘That’s what I’m saying!’
    ‘We grew up here.’
    ‘We grew up here – and you moved back voluntarily!’
    A car reversed and turned round in the car park. A cyclist rode through the underpass. Otherwise, it was peaceful in a way that only existed between the hours of the final news bulletin and the arrival of the morning paper.
    ‘We’ll be moving soon.’
    ‘What I don’t understand is why you moved back in the first place.’
    ‘Sometimes you have to.’
    ‘But here!’
    ‘And then we can move. Again. For real. Anneli wants a house. And I … I’ve already chosen one.’
    ‘A house?’
    ‘Yeah.’
    ‘A lawn? Cutting the grass? You?’
    ‘There is no lawn. And no basement. That’s the whole point.’
    It had been a virgin robbery by four beginners: a code to a steel door that he hadn’t anticipated; ten million that ended up being only a million.
    But next time, everything would be perfect.
    Leo lingered in front of the living room window, which was covered with stray raindrops – outside was Skogås, a suburb south of Stockholm whose tower blocks were almost identical to all the others built in Sweden in the sixties and seventies.
    The asphalt that had been his whole world.

8
    LATE EVENING WINTER darkness, and big patches of white, brown and grey snow lie on the asphalt, the steam pouring from his mouth as he counts his own big breaths.
    He has no coat on. Despite that, he’s not cold. They’ve been doing this for a while, up and down, up and down, and the skin on his forehead and cheeks is covered with shiny layers of sweat. He wipes his hands across his face, and they end up wet, so he dries them on his trousers.
    A three-storey building that looks just like all the others. 15 Loft Street. Five steps to the door. He turns his head to look at the next door along, 17 Loft Street, and his opponent, who stands there looking back.
    Felix. His seven-year-old little brother, already in junior school.
    Leo raises his arm slightly, angles it away from the shining streetlamp. A light brown leather strap, the watch face with red hands that are short and ugly. The day he has enough money, he’ll buy a new one, the kind that other people look at.
    He waits. The second hand passes the nine. Ten. Eleven. He holds his hand high up in the air.
    ‘Now!’
    At twelve exactly he runs. Opens the door to number fifteen, while Felix opens seventeen.
    Taking two steps at a time to each new door, a wad of paper in his hand, Leo delivers seven different leaflets from seven different companies, which they’ve bundled together at home on their living room floor.
    He opens the first letterbox and glances at the red hand of his watch. It took twenty-four seconds to run up the stairs and deliver the first bundle of ads. On each floor there are four letterboxes that he has to press open with the palm of his hand in order to make the opening large enough. One at a time, and as quickly as he can. They slam shut when he’s done and