A Moth to a Flame

by Stig Dagerman

  You are sitting in Alma’s seat! someone says shrilly.

  It is the ugly sister who says it. Her eyes are blinking behind her foggy glasses, and he could have hit her for having said it so loudly. He should be able to get up with dignity, but instead his demeanor is frightened, humiliated and frightened. A used match has been left on Alma’s white plate.

  Now the son is the one sitting nearest the candle. It is his mother’s candle burning down. He looks at it but only feels emptiness. He stares into the flame until he can see nothing else, and, blinded, he tries to think: this is my mother’s life burning away. It is my mother who is slowly dying.

  But he knows that she is dead and that the candle doesn’t change anything. It’s just an ordinary candle that is burning, and once it has burnt out, nothing else will have happened but that an ordinary candle has burnt down to its stick. Looking at the fiancée, he notices that she doesn’t dare look at the candle. She can only bear to look down at her lap, where a crumpled-up handkerchief is. Otherwise she would have to cry.

  The son watches his father, watches him for a long time. So long that he forgets to eat. His sandwich sits uneaten on his plate and his beer remains untouched because he suddenly has the urge to look into the father’s eyes. He still doesn’t really know why; he just knows that he has to look into his eyes – if only for a second. But the father isn’t looking in the son’s direction. The candle is in the son’s direction, and he doesn’t want to see the candle. It’s a beautiful candle, and although he appreciates what is beautiful, he doesn’t want to see it. So he looks in the opposite direction, in all other possible directions. He becomes sweaty and red from twisting his neck so much. He nods to the guests across him and to each side of him, tosses a word here and another there, and drops a fork with a piece of herring into his lap. Suddenly, he forgets where he is and starts laughing, laughs as one does at something trivial. Then the ugly sister takes him by the arm, pinches him above the elbow, and says so that almost everyone can hear it:

  You shouldn’t laugh, Knut!

  No, he shouldn’t laugh. He realizes this, and icy shame shoots through his body, paralyzing him. He pulls out his handkerchief, which is dry now but will soon turn wet from sweat, the sweat of shame. He hides behind it for a while, composes his expression so that when everyone can see him again he is wearing a beautiful mask, a peaceful and beautiful mask of earnestness, and perhaps even grief. And when the hard liquor is being served, he is able to look at the candle on account of the mask. But the son is sitting in front of the candle, and the son’s eyes sink into his own, piercing them so that it nearly burns. This makes it easier for him to look at the candle because it’s a beautiful candle, one he can appreciate. But the son’s eyes are not beautiful, so he cannot love them. He cannot even bear to look at them.

  They have a drink in silence in honor of the deceased. Then someone gives a sigh of satisfaction after finishing, but his wife coughs to cover it up. The widower coughs, too, and then starts tapping on his glass.

  A moment of silence for Alma, he says and bows his head.

  Then they all bow their heads. And nearly all of them think about the deceased. The candle burns with a tall, bright flame. Outside, the snow is whirling and dogs are barking. Inside, it is silent and warm, and from a distance they can hear sweet music coming from the restaurant. A minute is a long time. A lot can happen. One of them sees the coffin sinking and being swallowed up by a hole. One sees the ambulance with red lights skidding through the snow, and another sees Alma sitting in his yard with her swollen legs on a pillow. One of them sees her when she was young, standing on a flight of stairs with a towel on her head. One hears her voice saying something disturbing through a door. He shakes his head until a better memory comes to mind. One always comes when you shake your head.

  But one of them thinks of something else and wishes that the minute would finally end and that the candle would burn out quickly. The silence and the candle frighten him that much. There is someone else who doesn’t see her either, because he knows that she is dead and that only a big empty hole is left when someone is dead. For the entire minute, he looks down at his plate, which has two frightened red eyes on it the whole time. For a whole silent minute he thinks, Why is Papa so afraid? And then he realizes that that was exactly what he wanted to know: whether these eyes were mourning or whether they were merely afraid.

  After that, there isn’t a silent moment for the rest of the evening. They are given a lot of alcohol, suspiciously more than they have a right to, and it tastes good. First, it warms you and gives you beautiful eyes, and then it makes everyone else’s eyes beautiful, too. Everything hard becomes soft, and all that is yours becomes theirs. If you give someone your hand, there is someone to take it. And if you say something, there is someone who will listen as if it were worth listening to. You get closer to each other, and it feels good to get closer. Your lips become beautiful, and your mouth becomes gentle and friendly. Everything is warm and all shadows disappear. Sorrow itself takes on the form of happiness.

  They look at the candle, which is burning lower and lower and which will have soon burnt out. But they are not afraid of it, or afraid that it’s burning so quickly, or that someone’s life is burning away with the bright, glaring flame. Bright and glaring? No, it is soft and warm, and the lower it sinks, the softer it becomes. The lower it sinks, the softer the memory of Alma becomes. Then everyone pulls out photographs and holds them up for their neighbors’ lovely eyes to see. All pictures become lovely when they are viewed by lovely eyes.

  She was kind and patient, says the woman who had stood on the sidewalk and watched the ambulance skid by. She was beautiful in death and so gracious in the mortuary with her hands folded together. You could hardly tell that she fell on her forehead.

  And a good friend, that’s what Alma was, says the sick man who had shivered in the car.

  How she suffered and struggled all the time, says the man in whose yard she sat with both legs swollen.

  And how hard she fought, his wife adds.

  And we all know what she meant to Knut, and he knows that best of all, says someone who was never her friend.

  But it’s true. He does know best of all. And that’s why he is sitting so quietly. The alcohol tastes good. And no one notices you if you are sitting quietly. Nor will they notice if you are too afraid to look at a candle. It may be true that death is a big empty hole and that sorrow is to know just how empty that hole is, but it’s only true if you are sober. If you have liquor, then you can fill the hole up with all the beautiful thoughts you can think of and all the nice words you can find. You can fill it up all the way to the brim and place a stone on it afterward.

  But if you can’t, then you must have your reasons. The entire time the son sits and talks to his pale and petite fiancée about his dead mother, he thinks to himself, Why isn’t Papa saying anything? And why is he so afraid?

  As for him, he isn’t trying to fill any empty hole, because he knows how empty it is. He is merely talking about the deceased with his fiancée. He isn’t doing it because he has been drinking. In fact, he never drinks. Almost never. He is doing it because he loved her. And, of course, you talk about the one you loved – if you talk at all. And he loved her because she loved him. And the one who has loved you should always receive your love in return. Otherwise, you are a fool.

  But the flame is sinking lower and lower, and several of them want to leave before it has reached the bottom. The son’s fiancée is the first to leave. She is pale and has a headache. She is always pale, and she almost always has a headache. Or else she is crying. She even cries a little when she is laughing. She is just seventeen years old. The son walks her out to the entrance, where a telephone is sitting on a table. An attendant calls for a taxi since it’s snowing outside and she is almost always cold. Once she has her gloves on, he squeezes her hand very hard and looks deep into her eyes. She starts to cry. Then the taxi rolls up in the snow, and he gives her three kronor
for the fare. It’s all he has.

  He is sitting at the table between the candle and an empty chair. The flame is very low now but it warms him all the more, especially his hands. It feels good to be warmed since he always gets cold as soon as he touches the fiancée. He does care for her, but she makes him cold. So he has never been able to really hold her. He moves closer to the candle to get even warmer. Two enemies of the deceased leave because there is nothing more to eat or drink. There are now thirteen at the table, and when the relatives from the country notice this, they want to leave, too. The father walks them out. They are his relatives, as the deceased doesn’t have any left. Two brothers, twenty years older, had died in America. Her mother died in a sanatorium in Jämtland, and her father died at sea when he was young.

  The father’s relatives take a taxi through the snow. They don’t ride to the station as they say they will but to some richer relatives in Essingen. But they are respectful and don’t want to hurt the man who is poor and grieving. And they are a little drunk, too. They only come to the city for funerals and christenings, but when they do, they stay for a long time.

  As they are saying good-bye at the entrance, a couple of the father’s rivals, two of his colleagues, leave as well. They are in a good mood, and since it’s only nine they still have plenty of time for more drinking. But they don’t tell Knut, because nobody wants to hurt a man who is recently widowed. Then one of the sisters, the beautiful one, comes out half a minute later. She has a headache and ought to go home. But when the coworkers pull up, she climbs into the same car.

  What beautiful legs, one of them says as he brushes the snow from her silk stockings.

  He has thought so the whole day. Even in the chapel, he thought it. So he whispers it into her ear. At first she thinks it’s inappropriate. Then she thinks it’s funny. Eventually, she likes it. She likes anyone who thinks she is beautiful. And because so many people find her beautiful, she likes so many people. But she likes herself most of all.

  But back in the private room, the candle is almost burnt out and the ugly sister feels like crying, so she leaves before the tears start to fill her eyes. She knows that crying makes her ugly – uglier, that is. But the father is upset when she leaves. Not because she is leaving, but because she is ugly. Unattractive women usually arouse his contempt.

  Why is Papa so upset? the son thinks. Now he is almost sitting on top of the candle. He is warm, and when he’s warm, he longs for his fiancée because he wants to warm her, too. But whenever she comes near, he just gets cold. The father looks at him, probably accidentally, but he looks all the same. What’s Papa so afraid of? he thinks.

  Maybe it’s the candle. Now the flame is almost scorching the black mourning crepe as it sinks mercilessly down to the bottom. Only emptiness is above it. The vast emptiness of death. But there is still a piece of candle grease underneath it, and he suddenly finds himself hoping that it will allow the candle to burn for a long time. Even though he knows all about the emptiness, he is still able to hope. Why does he still have hope? Is it because the father is so afraid of the candle going out?

  Then the neighbors depart and leave them alone with the candle. No, the father walks them out and leaves the son alone with the candle. The flame is flickering. It’s almost dark in the room. And in the darkness the son does something unheard of. Slowly and silently, he leaves his seat and moves over to the mother’s. It’s so cold that he shivers. So cold is death. So frightfully cold. The flame of life is as faint as this flame now. When someone opens a door and looks in, the flame flickers violently, so he cups his hands around it to shield it. An attendant is standing between the doors.

  Mr. Lundin? he asks.

  Yes, the son answers.

  There is a call for you up front.

  For which Mr. Lundin? For Bengt?

  Yes, the attendant says, I believe it was Bengt.

  The son gets up to speak to his fiancée. He closes the door very carefully so that the candle won’t go out. He genuinely enjoys talking to his fiancée on the phone because he can make his voice very warm and then blow his warmth into her cold ear, making her voice warm, too. They are both warm over the phone.

  As the son makes his way through the nearly empty restaurant, the three neighbors are sitting in a taxi. They will split the fare among the three of them since they cannot afford it on their own. The snow falls beautifully as they drive up Götgatan, billowing gently like a thick curtain in front of the display windows.

  She had a nice funeral, says one of the female neighbors.

  The others remain silent because there is nothing more to say. But the man who is sick is sitting in the middle, and suddenly he is no longer sick. He is healthy and strong – and drunk, too. So when the taxi rolls up their dark street, he puts his hand under one of the women’s snow-covered breasts. And the other woman laughs.

  While the son is still making his way to the phone, the father is in the restroom. He has just washed his hands. Now he is washing them again. He holds them up to the mirror. Yes, they are clean. But he washes them one more time.

  The telephone is on the table, and the receiver is off the hook. The son smiles as he sits down. He is grinning at what he’s about to say. If she has a headache, he will tell her, Take one pill and think of me. And if that doesn’t help, take one more and think of something else. But if she is crying, he will say, Don’t you remember what I said at the table? Yes, the same thing Mama told me whenever I was sad – when I was grown up and sad. When I was little, she kissed me until I felt better, but when I was older and sad, she said, Sit down at your desk and write a letter to yourself. It’s always good to write to yourself. Almost only to yourself. And when the letter is finished, you won’t be sad anymore. But you will have a long letter. A long and beautiful letter.

  So he picks up the receiver and says hello.

  But it’s a woman’s voice that he doesn’t recognize, and the voice says:

  How are you feeling, my dear? Tired?

  Tired? he asks. Who is this?

  It’s Gun, whispers the mysterious woman.

  Then she is very frightened. He can tell by her sobbing gasps how terribly frightened she is. He isn’t afraid at all.

  Who is this? she whispers.

  This is Bengt, Bengt Lundin. He spit the ts into the receiver.

  I’m sorry, she says. And she is gone.

  He hangs up. Shortly after, an attendant grabs the telephone and calls a cab for a drunken person. And when the father with clean hands emerges from the restroom, the son is sitting alone on a chair beside the telephone. He is not smoking. He is just sitting. He has the corner of a handkerchief between his teeth. He always chews on something when he is upset, either his nails or a handkerchief.

  They walk back to the private room together. It’s almost dark now, but the flame will continue to burn for a little while longer. The son is walking behind the father, but once inside he sits on the opposite side of the table. He wants to look him in the eye. He wants to see whether his eyes are afraid. But the father doesn’t look at him. The father is standing next to the deceased’s cold chair and looks down at her empty plate. But it’s no longer empty. The bill is on the mother’s plate.

  The son waits and waits. If his father’s eyes are afraid, he will make them even more afraid. But if they are not afraid, he is going to hurt them, hurt them as much as he can. More than he has ever hurt anyone in his entire life. He gazes at his bowed head and his thin, messy hair. He gazes at the wide, red face, which the light is struggling to illuminate, lighting it less and less. Then he notices that his eyelids are twitching, maybe from fatigue, maybe from fear.

  Then he realizes how he can make the twitching worse, so horribly excruciating that every time his eyelids close, they will close to a burning candle. He cups his hands around the flame like a shield. There is only emptiness above the flame and a few centimeters of wax underneath it. But his strong hands surround all of it. You cannot wake the dead. Not for yourself. Be
cause, for you, the dead stays dead. But you can resurrect her for others. You can say to someone else, She’s alive, you know. The candle is still burning. The candle will not go out. So she is alive.

  The candle is burning inside his hands, which swelter over the flame. His whole body is blistering. It is a scorching heat, but he needs it. He needs to burn.

  Someone called, he says.

  He has perfume in his mouth, so it didn’t sound like he wanted it to. The father looks up from the bill. He is anxious but not particularly fearful. Nevertheless, the candle is blazing. But he can’t really see it. The son’s hands are darkening it.

  Oh, he answers, who?

  A woman, says the son.

  I see, the father replies. What did she say?

  She only apologized, the son whispers. Her name was Gun.

  Immediately, the father’s eyes shoot up from the bill and look over the son’s head and up to the ceiling. Finally, the mask thuds off, the widower’s dismal mask. And behind the mask is joy, a great and terrible joy. After all, joy can look like fear in anyone who is forced to mourn. He is afraid to reveal his happiness, but there’s nothing he can do to suppress it. The dead cannot haunt someone made happy by the living. And the son can always keep his hands there a little while longer, but even in this moment he knows that his hands are only filled with emptiness, that there is only emptiness above the candle and emptiness beneath the clump of wax, and that to grieve is to have an empty hole inside of you, a vast empty hole that no tears can fill.

  At that moment, the son burns his hands. Someone walks through the doors, someone who wants to be paid, and the flame flutters again. First, to one side and burns his left hand, and then to the other side and burns his right hand. Then the burnt son pulls his hands back. The one who entered has stopped at the door and is silent. The whole room is silent. The whole world is silent. The son’s tongue tastes like perfume, so he is unable to say a word. The perfume of the woman he hates is so bitter that he can’t even scream. He can only swallow, and swallow some more, and raise his burnt hands up to his parched eyes.