Nehaveigur

Crossing the Öresund Bridge that connects Copenhagen in Denmark and Malmö in Sweden, I knew a new part of my life was about to start. Most of the time, I recognize the transitions between phases in my life only retrospectively, but sometimes I’m aware as they happen.

I had previously moved to London without knowing anyone there, but within a day I had a place to live and within three days I had a job. My plan for moving to Sweden was the same: start without a plan.

Once I arrived at the train station in Malmö I got directions to the youth hostel and got a room there. The second day I spent looking for a more permanent place to stay but without success. Not knowing Swedish turned out to be a problem. Even though most Swedes know English well, many of those who advertise small rooms for rent at cheap prices do not. I was forced to return to the youth hostel for a second night, but when I arrived in the evening, it was already closed. It was September and not cold yet, so I decided to sleep on a park bench. After midnight I woke up shivering. The temperature had dropped significantly and I was wearing only a T-shirt. I couldn’t go back to sleep so I started pacing up and down in the small park. At four in the morning, a nearby bakery started to fire up their oven, warming the wall facing the street. For the next two hours I stood next to that wall, soaking up the warmth radiating from it.

On my third day, I found a room. It was in an apartment on Carl Hillsgatan in the northwestern part of town. The apartment belonged to Bertil, a man of almost 80 years who was the best person I could’ve wished for as a landlord. Despite his advanced age, he was more energetic than me. The first night I stayed in my room, he woke me up at six in the morning asking if I wanted to go for a swim in the sea. Having spent the previous night sleepless on a park bench, I had some sleep to catch up with and declined. He left without me.

Over the next few weeks, he involved me in different aspects of his life. He invited me to his grown daughter’s birthday party, took me along to a gallery opening, and he showed me parts of the town I wouldn’t have seen by myself. He used to be an interior architect but his real passion was talking to anyone and everyone. He told me that at his age, he could get away with things that a younger man couldn’t. He liked to invite himself to official functions at the art museum so he could eat at the buffet serving poached salmon. He also avoided wasting time at traffic light, jaywalking instead. The Swedish drivers without exception politely stopped and waited for the elderly gentleman to cross the street. He went inline skating at the waterfront and got his picture in the paper. One time I went across the bridge to Copenhagen with Bertil. He told me that the Swedish dialect he spoke in Malmö was almost identical to Danish. He happily chatted with the Danes, and they talked back, but also I could tell that they were amused by the old, short Swedish man and his Skånska.

I did some odd jobs here and there but never got a steady job while I was staying in Sweden. Most of my time I spent reading, trying to learn Swedish or exploring the surrounding countryside by bike. Sweden has a surprisingly high crime rate. While I was walking through a rougher part town the police stopped me and told me I couldn’t go on that way. I asked what was happening, and they told me that two gangs just had a shootout. A few days after that I walked home through Mariedalspark at night, crossing the dark playground. A tall man dressed entirely in white emerged from the shadows and asked me something in Swedish that I didn’t understand. I asked him in English if he could repeat, and he asked me if I wanted to have sex. I did not and told him so. He asked me if I was afraid. I wasn’t, but quickly left the park walking towards the closest streetlights.

A similar incident occurred a few years later, when I had a few days in Greece before a conference at which I was giving the first presentation of my scientific career. I took a bus to a beach and tried to find a good spot to swim. As I was undressing, a fat man hugged and me from behind. I still remember the black hair on his chest when I turned around and his sad eyes when I told him that I wasn’t interested. He immediately gave up and let me go. Later that day, when I told someone the story, they informed me that it was my own fault since I had gone to local gay community’s hookup spot. Those places unofficially exist all over the Mediterranean.

While I was in Malmö, I had a girlfriend there whose parents had come from Iran a few decades earlier. They didn’t approve of her having a boyfriend since she was supposed to focus on her studies. We had to keep our relationship secret. Fortunately Bertil, my landlord, didn’t mind her visiting occasionally. Otherwise, we met at kebab shops, parks and the public library. One of her hobbies was harness racing or Trotting, so sometimes I came along to see her practice at the Jägersro raceway. She was also a big fan of Bon Jovi, which should’ve told me that the relationship wasn’t to be, because I had no interest in his music.

After a few months, my girlfriend’s mother found some of my messages on her cellphone and forced her to stop the relationship. After that, we didn’t see each other for a long time until we both went to university in Brighton, where, away from her parents’ eyes, we briefly rekindled our relationship.