physiological point of view, the implantation seems unlikely. Meanwhile, the whole notion of horns representing men who have been sexually betrayed is also puzzling, because horns, being of a phallic shape, prominent on males, and often used for fighting, are generally associated with potency.
These were some of the things that passed through my mind when Kaitlin was telling me the story of her liaison, the fact of which eventually led to our parting of ways. When she had finished, she declared that it was my ‘impenetrability’ which made her seek comfort in a lover. That’s when she called me ‘a robot made of meat’.
But I am not a robot made of meat.
In that moment, though, I wished I was.
The early part of the train journey to Stockholm is long and pleasantly uneventful, through the dusty post-harvest landscapes of Belgium and Germany. I spend the first few hours reading the complex financial documents Ashok has sent. The day after his sabotage was revealed, Jonas Svensson swallowed more than a hundred aspirin. If his teenage son Erik had not come home from school early and found him, he’d have died. There’s a ferry to the Danish island of Zealand, then another train to the Central Station in Copenhagen, where I change trains. The next part of the journey involves crossing a long and elegant bridge with a view of wind turbines. I like wind turbines, both from an engineering and an aesthetic standpoint. In Sweden itself, the geography is monotonous and rain-washed, with oceans of fir forest. It’s a centralised nation with a largely urban population: now I’m seeing for myself how this translates visually. There are few towns and vast tracts of land which, save for the railway line itself and a few isolated farms, are unmarked by any human presence. I have brought my Swedish dictionary. Suicide is självmord , meaning self-murder. Sabotage is sabotage , just as it is in many European languages, deriving from the French word ‘sabot’: in the eighteenth century protesting workers would fling their wooden clogs – sabots – into a factory’s machinery to wreck the production process. I know that in Sweden they have advanced public services and a solid welfare system. Crime is low, but modern Swedes are preoccupied with its genesis, a preoccupation which has spawned much popular fiction. The theory is that if someone breaks the law, their actions are seen to represent a wider societal dysfunction. Like the parents of wayward children asking themselves how they failed their offspring, the focus is not on what the criminal did wrong, but on how Swedish society could have prevented it happening.
The morning after my arrival in Stockholm I discover that Jonas Svensson’s boss Lars Axel is in this sense a classic Swede. He wants, urgently and desperately, to know the explanation for Svensson’s inexplicable act, and the distress which led to it. The Svensson and the Axel families were friends. They cross-country skied together. His office overlooks a large and elegant square. The interior walls are white and the furniture is black apart from a lamp whose metal shade I identify as Weathershield’s 2011 Autumn Mustard.
‘We are relaxed in this organisation. And open,’ he tells me, leaning back in his chair and scraping the hair off his forehead to reveal the shape of his skull, which is strong and majestic, in contrast to the smaller and more delicate features of his face. ‘If Jonas had a problem with coffee futures, or anything else, why didn’t he tell me?’
‘He may not have known how to articulate it.’
He shrugs. ‘Well he certainly wasn’t himself. To commit sabotage on this scale, and for absolutely no reason, after all the hard work he has done, and then try to kill himself . . .’ He trails off, as though exhausted, and inspects his hands. I think again of Sunny Chen’s acte manqué. A single oddity is a one-off. Two is the beginning of a Venn. ‘He wouldn’t talk to me
These were some of the things that passed through my mind when Kaitlin was telling me the story of her liaison, the fact of which eventually led to our parting of ways. When she had finished, she declared that it was my ‘impenetrability’ which made her seek comfort in a lover. That’s when she called me ‘a robot made of meat’.
But I am not a robot made of meat.
In that moment, though, I wished I was.
The early part of the train journey to Stockholm is long and pleasantly uneventful, through the dusty post-harvest landscapes of Belgium and Germany. I spend the first few hours reading the complex financial documents Ashok has sent. The day after his sabotage was revealed, Jonas Svensson swallowed more than a hundred aspirin. If his teenage son Erik had not come home from school early and found him, he’d have died. There’s a ferry to the Danish island of Zealand, then another train to the Central Station in Copenhagen, where I change trains. The next part of the journey involves crossing a long and elegant bridge with a view of wind turbines. I like wind turbines, both from an engineering and an aesthetic standpoint. In Sweden itself, the geography is monotonous and rain-washed, with oceans of fir forest. It’s a centralised nation with a largely urban population: now I’m seeing for myself how this translates visually. There are few towns and vast tracts of land which, save for the railway line itself and a few isolated farms, are unmarked by any human presence. I have brought my Swedish dictionary. Suicide is självmord , meaning self-murder. Sabotage is sabotage , just as it is in many European languages, deriving from the French word ‘sabot’: in the eighteenth century protesting workers would fling their wooden clogs – sabots – into a factory’s machinery to wreck the production process. I know that in Sweden they have advanced public services and a solid welfare system. Crime is low, but modern Swedes are preoccupied with its genesis, a preoccupation which has spawned much popular fiction. The theory is that if someone breaks the law, their actions are seen to represent a wider societal dysfunction. Like the parents of wayward children asking themselves how they failed their offspring, the focus is not on what the criminal did wrong, but on how Swedish society could have prevented it happening.
The morning after my arrival in Stockholm I discover that Jonas Svensson’s boss Lars Axel is in this sense a classic Swede. He wants, urgently and desperately, to know the explanation for Svensson’s inexplicable act, and the distress which led to it. The Svensson and the Axel families were friends. They cross-country skied together. His office overlooks a large and elegant square. The interior walls are white and the furniture is black apart from a lamp whose metal shade I identify as Weathershield’s 2011 Autumn Mustard.
‘We are relaxed in this organisation. And open,’ he tells me, leaning back in his chair and scraping the hair off his forehead to reveal the shape of his skull, which is strong and majestic, in contrast to the smaller and more delicate features of his face. ‘If Jonas had a problem with coffee futures, or anything else, why didn’t he tell me?’
‘He may not have known how to articulate it.’
He shrugs. ‘Well he certainly wasn’t himself. To commit sabotage on this scale, and for absolutely no reason, after all the hard work he has done, and then try to kill himself . . .’ He trails off, as though exhausted, and inspects his hands. I think again of Sunny Chen’s acte manqué. A single oddity is a one-off. Two is the beginning of a Venn. ‘He wouldn’t talk to me
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