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off the first of that Sunday’s trial explosions.
    Allan, himself, was curled up for protection behind the outhouse and could neither see nor hear anything. Not until he returned to the gravel, did he realise that something had gone wrong. Bits of Gustavsson’s automobile were spread out over half the pit, and here and there lay bits of Gustavsson himself.
    Gustavsson’s head had landed softly on a patch of grass. It stared vacantly out over the destruction.
    ‘What business did you have in my gravel pit?’ Allan asked.
    Gustavsson did not reply.
     
    Over the next four years, Allan had plenty of time to read and improve his knowledge of how society was developing. After the explosion in the quarry, he found himself incarcerated in an asylum, though it was hard to say exactly what for. Eventually, the topic of his father came up when a young and enthusiastic disciple of Professor Bernhard Lundborg, an expert on Racial Biology at the University of Uppsala, decided to build his career on Allan’s case. When Allan fell into the clutches of Professor Lundborg, he was immediately sterilised for ‘eugenic and social reasons’ on the basis that Allan was probably a bit slow and there was probably too much of his father in him for the state to allow further reproduction of the Karlsson genes.
    The sterilization did not bother Allan. On the contrary, he felt he was well-treated at Professor Lundborg’s clinic. Now and then, he had to answer all sorts of questions such as why he needed to blow people and things into bits and whether he hadany Negro blood. Allan answered that he saw a certain difference between things and people when it came to the pleasure of lighting the fuse of a load of dynamite. Splitting a rock down the middle, that could make you feel good. But if instead of a rock, it was a person, well, Allan couldn’t see why a person wouldn’t move out of the way under the circumstances. Didn’t Professor Lundborg feel the same way?
    But Bernhard Lundborg was not the sort of man to involve himself in philosophical discussion with his patients; he repeated the question about Negro blood. Allan answered that you never really know, but both his parents had had skin that was as pale as his, perhaps the professor would take that as an answer? And then Allan added that he was dying to see a black man for real if the professor had one on hand.
    Professor Lundborg and his assistants did not answer Allan’s questions, but they made notes and hummed and then left him in peace, sometimes for days at a stretch. Allan devoted those days to all kinds of reading: the daily newspapers of course, but also books from the hospital’s extensive library. Add to that three square meals a day, an indoor toilet, and a room of his own, and you can see why Allan found it very comfortable to be locked up in an asylum. The atmosphere had been a little unpleasant only once, and that was when Allan asked Professor Lundborg what was so dangerous about being a Negro or a Jew. For once, the professor didn’t respond with silence, but bellowed that Karlsson should mind his own business and not interfere in other people’s affairs. Allan was reminded of that time many years ago when his mother had threatened to box his ears.
    The years passed and the interviews with Allan became few and far between. Then parliament appointed a committee to investigate the sterilization of ‘biologically inferior individuals’ and when the report was issued, Professor Lundborg suddenlyhad so much to do that Allan’s bed was needed for somebody else. In the spring of 1929, Allan was pronounced rehabilitated and fit once again to enter society, and was sent out onto the streets with just enough cash to get him a train ticket to Flen. He had to walk the last few miles to Yxhult, but Allan didn’t mind. After four years behind bars, he needed to stretch his legs.

Chapter 5
Monday, 2nd May 2005
    The local newspaper lost no time in printing a story about the old