Stockholm My Love

1

Prime Minister Olof Palme...

is...

.dead.

The grief weighs heavily and

the feeling of unreality is numbing.

What happens when a Prime Minister dies,

is exactly set out in the constitution.

I saw her and it was terrible.

You must have carried them.

Gunnar.

I can't stop thinking about you.

Can I talk to you?

Can we walk together like I do

with my dad sometimes?

In all the shock and chaos, I saw

the oranges you were carrying.

They were undamaged. Free.

I didn't look at you first, sir.

I have so much to admit to you.

I felt the bang.

My hard car hitting your soft body-

-sounded like the crumple

of boots on snow.

My radio had been playing.

I got out of the car.

I didn't...

I wouldn't have turned the

radio off before I got out.

Would I?

There were people everywhere.

Just then someone had called an ambulance.

I should have called the ambulance.

You were lying there.

I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry.

I wish I could turn the clock back.

I swerved to miss the dog, sir.

I did miss it.

But didn't miss you.

The unharmed dog-

-was eating ham from a sandwich which

must have been in your bag, Gunnar.

The ambulance came. The road was closed.

They took you away, lights flashing,

siren ringing.

I didn't turn the radio off, did I?

This is the local news.

Russia is planning military activities

along the Crimean border...

Please tell me I didn't

turn the radio off!

The police took a statement from me.

And breathalysed me on site.

Then, unbelievably,

I picked up the oranges.

Why did I do that?

To make the only improvement I could,

at a scene that was unimprovable?

I don't know, Gunnar.

I don't think I looked for your dog.

What happened to it?

Who took it?

I saw her and it was terrible.

A car hit...

...a man. He died.

I won't be able to sleep tonight.

After this...

It was so bad...

...to see him fall down.

My killing you has been killing me.

I know it wasn't my fault, but-

-the crunch, the oranges,

the radio, the dog...

And you lying there...

These things have clanged

like iron in my head.

They've made me feel mad.

I'm scared of my ability to hurt.

How long did it take?

You crossing the road, then

realising your dog wasn't there?

Then me hitting you?

10 seconds?

Maybe 15?

They aren't the only bad things

that happened in my life.

But they are the 15 seconds

of the purest shock.

They're uncategorisable. My nightmare.

They won't bed down, they won't

become then. They're still now.

They're more present than the present,

more here than here.

St Mark's Church, Gunnar.

Were you religious?

If so, and you lived close by,

you were probably here.

I don't know how to live, Gunnar.

To walk towards you.

Sigurd Lewerentz made this church

when he was 75.

I'm an architect too, but I never thought

of making anything like this.

The brickwork was influenced by Persia.

Did the emotions blend into the walls,

like birch trees?

St. Marks reminds me of a monastery.

I could live here.

If it wasn't a God house.

Maybe monks' cells are good at

holding emotions in, Gunnar?

Behind walls?

Beneath here there was once a lake.

Were you good at emotions, Gunnar?

What things in life knocked you sideways?

You didn't fight in a war, I guess..

Sweden doesn't do wars.

What were our country's big traumas?

What were Stockholm's?

The murder of Palme?

Chernobyl?

The sinking of the Estonia?

But we've had no 9/11.

So maybe we're worse at dealing

with bad stuff than other countries?

Or am I worse?

Did you talk to your kids, Gunnar?

Did you cry when you watched old movies

or listened to old songs?

Or the music of Berwald?

Did you like this darkness?

Can you answer me?

Would you answer me?

Maybe this kind of medieval building

is better at sadness, despair-

-than all our clean lined,

democratic ones?

There is another place, Gunnar.

Can we go there?

Engelbrekt church.

Built in the 1910s, when your parents

would have been born, Gunnar.

Maybe they came here.

Were you ever inside here, Gunnar?

Why am I today?

Not for God.

For a shareable story?

To be with others, but alone?

To soar?

To hide I think.

Its massive walls

make me feel safe.

I'm here to feel like a foreigner.

Who can forgive me?

Can you?

Do I need to be forgiven?

I wasn't in the wrong.

The police said so.

Gunnar, there's somewhere

I've been meaning to go.

A place of death and beauty.

Maybe today I can.

Asplund's and Lewerentz's

Woodland Cemetery.

They wanted something new

for the oldest thing in the world.

Lewerentz's St Mark's was so rough,

so grey.

But here's his chapel.

Tall portico between tall trees.

He and Asplund had it laid out

to emphasise the tallness, Gunnar.

I love this tallness.

Did the day have an orange in its mouth?

Did the birds fall from the trees?

Were rooms still rooms this morning?

Were things still three?

Would I have noticed either way?

In my days that were not days?

When I'd come too old to play?

When life was not a cabaret?

The sun today makes me think of Italy.

I walk, Gunnar.

Towards you.

I fall to my knees.

I've wanted to go inside.

Climb with me.

It's locked.

Maybe that's good.

Is there light in my eyes, Gunnar?

I've not lost my mask yet, have I?

Maybe I can peep in.

See what lies ahead.

Wow.

It gives me vertigo.

Shame vertigo.

I'm ashamed of those 15 seconds, Gunnar.

I will be all my life.

God, Gunnar.

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