"There Are Things I Want You to Know" About Stieg Larsson and Me by Eva Gabrielsson Page B

not paid to Stieg at that time, which would have been the normal thing to do. As for me, knowing how clueless Stieg could be about such things, I figured it made sense that this publishing house would offer to help authors who must all have been as innocent as Stieg in such matters. Did Stieg misunderstand what Norstedts told him? Was it an offer simply to advise him, but not to help him set up the company? In any case, as far as we two were concerned, it was agreed that from then on, everything we earned beyond our salaries—from articles, reports, the royalties from my Hallman book, etc.—would be paid directly to this company. So there was no need, Stieg explained to me, to start dealing with a mass of paperwork like wills, for example, because we would be equal co-owners of everything and the company statutes would stipulate that if one of us died, the other would get everything.
    I later checked our inheritance laws and verified this information, and since Stieg himself knew nothing aboutsuch things, a lawyer must indeed have spoken to him about them.
    Every now and then, I asked him how the setting up of the company was going, and he would tell me that it was being taken care of, that there was no rush.…

     
    ONCE STIEG knew his novels would be published, a wonderful period began for us, one of the most beautiful memories of my life.
    When I’d get home to Stockholm every Thursday night, Stieg would be waiting in the apartment and dinner would be ready: a simple meal, but home-cooked, like cutlets and green beans. This detail might seem unimportant, but it isn’t. Stieg was finally putting our life first. And he was changing the way he ate. The sandwiches, pizzas, junk food—gone. For the first time since I’d known him, he was starting to look after himself. He even bought some omega-3 fish oil supplements! I was beginning to recognize the man I’d met when he was eighteen years old. After all those years of stress, what with his job ending at the news agency TT, and the creation and difficult management of
Expo
, so chronically short of funding, Stieg was at last serene. His novels were going to be published and he was recognized for his true worth. He could breathe easy.
    Aside from those few months Stieg spent in Africa, we’d never really been separated during the thirty-two years we’d spent together. So it was a real pleasure to be a coupleagain after each week spent apart. Stieg had put the word out to his “entourage”: “Now I want to spend my weekends with Eva.” Putting me first, even before
Expo
, that was an absolute revolution.
    We’d always had what was basically a good life together, even during the worst years, but during this period Stieg was full of zest and deeply happy.
    We made all sorts of plans.
    He was determined to leave his position as editor in chief of
Expo
and to work there only half-time. Once my contract in Falun was over, my intentions were to find a part-time job that would allow us to work together, to add my knowledge to his talent as a writer so we could publish other books. We were especially eager to tackle a subject as yet unexplored: the construction industry. And there’d be more to say there than would fit in an article on crooked asphalt contractors.
    We thought
The Millennium Trilogy
would be a hit in the Scandinavian countries and perhaps Germany as well. As we saw it, this popularity would in itself be a kind of protection for Stieg. And we’d be able to appear in public together! What’s more, some of the money earned would pay for more sophisticated security when and where we might need it.
    So: Stieg had decided that what now came first was us, as a couple. That’s why he planned to have the money from the first three novels go toward improving our living situation, the first step of which was to pay off the 440,000 kronor ($64,500) debt remaining on our mortgage. Then we’dagreed to donate the proceeds from the fourth novel to
Expo
, to put the