The television shows images of a dark street, road signs, and snow. Stockholm. A sidewalk has been cordoned off with red-and-white plastic tape, people have gathered behind it. They, too, are standing very still. Some are clasping their mouths. The woman on the television speaks very slowly as if she has just woken up. She says that Olof Palme came out of a cinema not far from there. That he was with his wife, that they had been to see the film The Mozart Brothers and were on their way home. On the gray sidewalk are dark stains that look like paint. The camera zooms in on them. "It's blood," my dad says, never once taking his eyes off the screen. We're back on the street. We walk quickly as if rushing away from the images on the television. I think we're heading home until we turn right by the closed-down butcher's. Toward the harbor, down a narrow, cobbled street. My dad sits down on an iron girder; I sit down beside him, as close to him as I can get. The water in front of us is black. A couple of fishing boats are sailing into the harbor; there's a huge crane to our right, its hook hangs just above the surface of the water. The sky is gray. My dad hides his face in his coat sleeve. I hear loud sobs through the thick fabric. He squeezes my hand so hard that it hurts. "So they got him," he says. "The bastards finally got him." I don't remember ever seeing my dad cry. I ask him if Palme was someone he knew, but he makes no reply. He holds me tight. My feet are freezing in the rain boots. "They got him," he says again. The wind whips the sea into foam. "I think we're going to have to move again." Excerpted from A Fairy Tale by Jonas T. Bengtsson All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
