She's Never Coming Back Read Online Free PDF

of the time.’
    ‘Sounds just like the archipelago,’ Jörgen said. ‘What does he do?’
    Calle leaned back in his chair.
    ‘How should I know? I haven’t seen him in twenty years. What’s with the obsession? Do you really go around thinking about them? Your old tormentors.’
    Jörgen didn’t look happy.
    ‘When I opened the yearbook it was like going back in time,’ he said.
    ‘You wanted to wave your bank book under their noses?’
    ‘At least a balance statement from the cashpoint. I thoughtI might just happen to stand in front of them in the queue and leave my receipt in the machine. What d’you reckon?’
    Calle Collin shook his head and smiled.
    ‘Do you understand the extent of your illness?’
    ‘Everyone else is invited to class parties and reunions all the time, but not us,’ Jörgen said.
    ‘And I’m bloody grateful for it,’ Calle retorted. ‘And you should be too. Didn’t you see that film,
The Reunion
? The same shit over and over again, everyone reverts back to their old roles. It doesn’t matter whether you’ve done time or earned your first billion.’
    ‘I thought it was done automatically with some kind of database,’ Jörgen said, in a distant voice.
    ‘What?’ Calle asked, without any real interest.
    ‘The invitations,’ Jörgen replied, ‘to class reunions.’
    Calle sighed loudly, finished his beer and pointed at Jörgen’s half-full glass. He nodded. Calle got up and went to the bar. Jörgen pulled the yearbook over and studied the class photo again. They were so young in the picture. But he still wanted to hold them to account, each of them, for all the shit they’d put him through. In Jörgen’s eyes, there was no time limit. Even though there were plenty who’d had it worse.
    Calle put the two beers on the table and sat down.
    ‘You’re completely fixated,’ he said. ‘Why?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘Haven’t you got more important things to think about?’
    Jörgen shrugged. ‘It’s not that, it’s just …’
    ‘Just what?’
    ‘I don’t know. It would just be so cool to know what’s happened to them all.’
    ‘Because you’re a big cheese now?’ Calle said.
    ‘No, not at all.’
    Jörgen pretended to be insulted. Calle sent him a cynical look.
    ‘Well, maybe,’ Jörgen said, eventually. ‘But is that so strange? Look at me.’ He tapped the yearbook with his finger. ‘I don’t exist.’
    Calle scrutinised his friend for a long time. He didn’t smile.
    ‘What?’ Jörgen asked.
    ‘I don’t think it’s very nice.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘What you’re doing,’ Calle said. ‘Look at me: unmarried, no children, a reporter for a weekly. I do saccharine interviews with washed-up TV celebrities and village eccentrics,write racy short stories about young women at their peak, twenty-seven years old. Short stories that are read by women who are seventy-two. Same numbers, just inverted. I have no ambitions, no prospects. My only luxury in life is ice-cream in summer, a beer in the pub and sometimes, when the urge takes me, a trip to the cinema in the middle of the week.’
    ‘And you’re complaining?’ Jörgen said.

9
    Breaking-in violence
    Nearly all women who are forced into prostitution give evidence of breaking-in violence and rape by their pimp. Violence is used to establish a clear power structure, and the perpetrator effectively breaks down the victim’s initial resistance. Anyone who has been subjected to violence or threats of violence knows what the long-term psychological consequences of this are. Violence is the clearest expression of power.
    The woman released the handcuff that kept Ylva’s left hand locked to the head of the bed. Ylva massaged her wrist and pulled up her knees.
    The man and the woman stood on either side of the bed. Ylva didn’t know who to look at.
    ‘Listen,’ she tried, ‘we need to …’
    The woman leaned forward with feigned interest.
    ‘Need to what?’
    ‘Talk,’ Ylva said, and turned to the man