a job at the office. Peter didn’t like being dependent on his father and his company, so it had felt completely right to take an unpredictable path just to feel like he had a little freedom. He couldn’t help smiling in satisfaction when he thought about how he had been able to decline Lennart’s job proposal because he had been asked to teach a course at the university.
Not everybody thinks I’m a disappointment, was the satisfying underlying message. Of course, it was Professor Sturesson, an old acquaintance of his father, who had offered him the job. Like Peter’s dad, Åke Sturesson had come from humble but character-building circumstances. Both men had succeeded in making something of themselves, and they liked to congratulate each other for belonging to ‘Stockholm Business School’s most noble graduating class, the most successful class in history.’ Peter knew that the low status of teaching wasn’t something people in academic circles spoke openly about. In other words, there was very little risk that his dad would find out that summer teaching was shunned by exhausted assistant professors, that professors basically never bothered with undergraduate teaching, and that summer courses were taught by impoverished graduate students and semi-gifted undergraduates like himself.
‘Of course,’ Cissi continued, ‘fortunately, some students are interested. They’re the ones who give you an energy boost. Which reminds me! What do you think of her – Lundberg?’
Cissi’s round face radiated with something that most resembled enthusiasm. Not that he was in any way interested in Cissi. He looked at her, a well-dressed pencil pusher who couldn’t quite hide her hippie nature. Because he wasn’t opposed to making even ordinary, older women happier, Peter now turned on his charm offensive: ‘What do you think is so good about “her – Lundberg”?’
The answer was a crazy story more unbelievable than any pick-up line Peter had ever used. Peter didn’t really listen very carefully, so he didn’t know quite how it happened. Somehow, before he had finished his coffee he had promised Cissi that he would check with Kalle, who lived in his dormitory, whether the room he was looking to sublet was still available. Apparently Cissi knew some super-gifted but wretched Vera Lundberg who had a cosmic right to a bit of luck. And she – Lundberg – needed a place to live.
4
‘Are you starting to figure out how money works?’ Cissi asked. They were lunching on baguettes at the only campus coffee shop that was open during the summer.
Vera hesitated. In truth, Cissi was one of the best teachers Vera had ever had, but it felt weird to say so. Instead she said: ‘Definitely more than before, in any case. It’s really interesting. It’s always good to know the history of things.’
Cissi smiled. ‘Well, you’re definitely taking the right course, then. But now you need to tell me why a nurse would suddenly start studying economics.’
Vera looked at Cissi. ‘The short or long version?’
‘The long one, I guess.’
‘I was a volunteer with Basic Needs, in two of the wealthiest countries in the world if you measure wealth in terms of natural resources. The Congo is as big as Western Europe and has huge reserves of minerals, especially the kinds that we need to make computers and other modern electronics. Colombia’s natural environment is fantastic, and they export a huge amount of biomass. Unfortunately, the resources are worth an enormous amount of money.’
‘Huh? What do you mean, ‘unfortunately’?’
‘Because of the market value of the resources, people are willing to use violence to get control of them. I think there are four factions in the Congo, five in Colombia. Ordinary people who just want to live in peace are exposed to violence and suffer from shortages of everything – clean water, food, shelter, healthcare… Those are the people we try to help. In the Congo a lot of people suffer from cholera and are victims of sexual violence. Ironically, we were transferred to Colombia because it became too dangerous to be in the Congo.’
Cissi watched as Vera gently rested her leg on the sofa next to her. ‘Is that where you hurt yourself?’
‘Yeah, but I’m glad I got to see northern Colombia; that’s where we were. It’s so unbelievably beautiful! Have you ever heard of Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, the world’s highest coastal mountain?’
‘No.’
‘Imagine an area of a few thousand square kilometers that contains all the world’s climates. From coral reefs in the Caribbean to mangrove swamps and rainforests, deserts, steppes and tundra – all because the mountain rises out of the sea to a height of 5,700 meters. The mountaintops are always covered with snow; at the top it is -20 all year round.’
‘Sounds gorgeous!’
‘Yeah, what an experience it was! A completely unique people lives there… Kogi, the only indigenous civilization that still lives as it did before Christopher Columbus.’
‘There are people left that still live like that?’
‘The Kogi have lived on agriculture for thousands of years. They moved higher up into the mountains when the conquistadors came.’
‘And that allowed them to survive?’
Vera heard doubt in Cissi’s voice, and a feeling of sorrow arose in her as she admitted, ‘Many of them died.’ Vera stared down at her tea, remembering. ‘And I got to visit them. It was unreal, because they usually keep to themselves, and it is difficult to find them.’
‘So how did you get to them?’
‘The other people on my team were away doing vaccinations. I was doing inventory in the room where we kept the medicines. Suddenly he just appeared – a long-haired Kogi man dressed in white. He said: “We are in need of you. Can you trust me, please?” I just stared at him. As it turned out, I was forced to wear a blindfold when I went with him.’
The corner of Cissi’s mouth twitched and she mumbled, ‘Secret dream number… 86?’
‘What?’
‘No, but I mean, blindfolded… why?’
‘They don’t want people to be able to find them,’ Vera said simply.
‘But weren’t you scared?’
‘Yes, there was one thing I was afraid of… I usually don’t go out alone on difficult deliveries, and I was afraid that things would go so badly that I would be forced to do a fetal dismemberment.’
‘What? Is that what it sounds like?’ asked Cissi with a grimace.
‘Yeah. I still remember in Kivu, when Pierre had to crush the little head of a fetus that was stuck. But sometimes you have to do it, for everybody involved. I was usually the one who talked to the relatives, and when I had to tell the grandmother… oh, how I cried when I told her…’
‘What?’
‘That the baby was dead and would be buried with his mother, unless we tried to save the mother by breaking the baby’s skull. I can barely even manage to talk about it, and I was afraid that I might also be forced to do it.’
Cissi was pale. ‘I understand. It was the best thing to do given the situation. So it got… stuck to death?’
‘Yeah.
