October 21, 1981

Wednesday, October 21, 1981, is a dated point in the novel’s early chronology, joining a police inquiry to Hakan’s attempt to carry out a planned attack. Its scenes place the appearance of evidence before the reader alongside the private hesitation and tenderness that complicate Hakan’s violence.

Date and Narrative Placement

The novel identifies the day explicitly as Wednesday, October 21, 1981. In the scene introduced under that date, Gunnar Holmberg, the police commissioner from Vällingby, holds up a small plastic bag of white powder and asks what it might be. The moment frames the date with an object under police scrutiny, though the scene alone does not establish what the powder is or what conclusions the police draw from it.

Hakan’s Aborted Approach

Elsewhere in the day’s sequence, Hakan has only ten minutes remaining on a self-imposed time limit when a lone boy, whom he judges to be thirteen or fourteen, walks down the path. Hakan had intended to approach from the far end, but the boy’s arrival forces the encounter sooner than planned. Although Hakan sees him as a suitable victim and knows that delay will close the opportunity, his legs remain fixed; the scene makes his inability to act as immediate as the pressure of the dwindling minutes.

Violence and Tenderness

Hakan eventually carries the unconscious boy across soggy ground to a hollow, where he lays him down. He understands that the boy will wake in about eight minutes, but not survive. Before leaving, Hakan studies the boy’s face, strokes it with a finger, draws the limp body into his arms, kisses his cheek, and asks forgiveness in a whisper. Tears threaten as he looks at the defenseless boy, and he recognizes that he could still refrain. The date’s account thus holds together the planned violence and a moment of tenderness without resolving the contradiction between them.