Two Soldiers by Anders Roslund

appeared in the gap.
    “Yes?”
    “Can you take our guest down into the unit?”
    Pereira turned to Oscarsson, gave a brief nod, thank you, then turned to the young prison warden.
    “José Pereira. Section Against Gang Crime.”
    Julia studied the man in civilian clothes.
    “You’re a policeman?”
    “Yes.”
    “With all due respect—I don’t think it would be a good idea for you to visit the unit. Or . . . any other unit in the prison, for that matter.”
    He had already started to walk.
    “I need information. And in fact that’s precisely what I want them to know, that I’m looking for information.”
    He stopped, waited for her to catch up.
    “And I take full responsibility for my own safety.”
    Down the stairs and into the underground passage. The first camera by the first locked door; he glanced over at her, a very young prison officer who had just advised a considerably older policeman against visiting the place where she spent eight hours a day.
    “You’re frightened.”
    Her eyes. And her manner of speaking, almost too self-assured.
    She stood facing the locked door and didn’t answer.
    “You’re frightened of them.”
    The door made the clicking sound they were waiting for, she pushed it open, and they walked in silence along the concrete corridor to the next locked door, the next camera.
    He didn’t say any more. She still didn’t look at him.
    Until she suddenly turned.
    “Yes.”
    The clicking sound again. But they stayed standing where they were.
    “I am frightened.”
    The door clicked again, and the camera zoomed in on the two people who didn’t seem to hear it.
    “Every time they look at me.”
    Now they opened the door, carried on toward the final locked door in the underground passage, then turned right, up the stairs to Block D. She stopped, halfway.
    “They don’t care what happens. Do you understand?”
    He looked into the eyes that were trying so hard to be professional and to cope, but couldn’t face doing it much longer.
    “Yes.”
    He hoped that she would realize soon, look for another life.
    “I understand.”
    One flight up. The unit called D1 Left.
    “I go on my own from here.”
    She looked at him for slightly too long, as if she wanted to talk more about what she couldn’t mention to anyone else there, as she had to be strong.
    “In that case, wait here.”
    She was perhaps only nine, ten years older than his two girls. And he didn’t even know what her first name was. But she had still trusted him, revealed what she otherwise kept hidden. He waited while she disappeared into the wardens’ office and then came back with a rectangular piece of plastic in her hand, gray with a red button on the side.
    An alarm.
    “ Just in case .”
    He smiled at her, accepted it, and put it in the front pocket of his pants.
    A long corridor. TV corner, kitchen, billiard table. Farther down, sixteen cells, eight on each side.
    Suddenly, as if everything had stopped. A peculiar silence.
    The two who were playing billiards and were only concerned about their next shot had stopped playing, followed him with a concentrated frown, billiard balls demonstratively thrown up, down, up, down, in the air until they were sure he’d seen. The four who were playing cards at the round table had turned down the volume on the TV, and glared at him in silence. The ones standing in the kitchen, one by the fridge and one by the stove, turned around and it was they who shouted, twice, three times, pig in the pen .
    José Pereira walked on, but not so fast, looked around, recognized at least three of them. The one to the left at the card table, one of the faces that had been moved from the second to the first wall this morning—Alexander Eriksson, full member. The one beside him, cards in hand, one of those so-called hangarounds, prepared to do whatever it took to be accepted—Marko Bendik. And the one in the kitchen by the fridge, the one who’d made the tattooing machine that was lying between