They sit at the very back of the theater. His fiancée wants to sit closer to the screen because she has poor eyesight, but her fiancé says the auditorium is so small that it doesn’t matter – and to a certain extent, he’s right. Then he tells her that this is where Greta Garbo saw her first film. It isn’t true, but his fiancée comes from Härjedalen and doesn’t know any better. But as he tells her, he isn’t so sure he is wrong.
When the six white half-globes on the naked green walls start to dim, he starts counting the people. Including himself and his fiancée, they are twelve. During the newsreel, he counts them two more times. During the break, he hears the telephone ring, and when the film starts, the fiancée whispers that they have in fact seen it. This doesn’t make him upset but cruel. Because she whispered this, he pinches her arm very hard and tells her to be quiet. So she is. And to keep her from crying, he acts as if the pinch was only an affectionate squeeze. So he ends up sitting in the dark and stroking the sore area. He tries to watch the film, but he can’t make any sense of it, even though he has already seen it before. And when the ten other people laugh, he laughs with them. His fiancée is not laughing.
They are the first ones to exit the auditorium, and even though he is blinded by the only light in the hall, he immediately tries looking at the cashier to see whether she is looking at him. But she is merely sitting in her booth, looking out at the street. Then he leaves his fiancée by herself and goes to the lavatory. Since it’s empty, he stands in front of the mirror and smokes a cigarette. As he smokes, he examines his face. He is bright red and his cheeks are burning. When he comes out, his fiancée is standing underneath the bright light. She is also very red, particularly her lips. When he comes closer, he notices for the first time that she’s wearing makeup. She has never worn any before. And when this occurs to him, he merely feels indifferent. Then, on the short walk to the gate, he turns around twice and looks back at the box office. The cashier is looking in his direction – but not at him, exactly. When the fiancée asks what he’s looking at, he asks her whether she thinks the cashier looks like his mother. She says she doesn’t think so but she does have a nearly identical red dress. Because she said this, he pinches her again. But this time he doesn’t caress her.
It is raining hesitantly, and the oil left behind by cars glistens underneath the streetlights. Church bells strike thirteen times, nine strikes of bronze and four of crystal. When they turn the corner, the fiancée wants to look at some baby items in a display window. But she doesn’t even get to do that, because he pulls her across the street with him. Soon after they reach the sidewalk, the father comes out of a café farther down on the other side of the street. Then, in the twilight rain, the dog and the father run down the same corner Bengt and Berit had just turned. As they run past the display window, the fiancée says:
I think that was your dad and his dog.
The fiancé snaps at her and says there are obviously a lot of black dogs in Stockholm. Then they walk back to the display window, but when the fiancée faces it, she can’t see a thing. Everything is just a haze of rain and tears. But after drying her eyes, she is finally able to see a little. There is a baby in blue clothing sitting in a high stroller, and a light is shining directly into its rosy face. She doesn’t notice when her fiancé lets go of her arm, nor does she notice when he takes two steps back. But he notices. Standing two steps away, he looks at his fiancée as though she were someone he didn’t know. He has never done this before and is surprised he’s doing it now. But the longer he looks at her, the less surprised he is and the less he recognizes her. The display window is big and bright, and standing in front of it, under the rain, is a skinny girl in black; someone you would normally walk by without noticing; someone you could stand next to in front of a display window or sit with at the cinema and afterward feel as though you’ve been alone the entire time.
Aren’t his clothes adorable? the fiancée asks.
Then the fiancé responds:
I’m not your son.
He never imagined saying something like that before. But he says it all the same. And now that he has said it, he doesn’t regret it. They walk straight to his apartment building from the display window. He walks quickly, and when he pays attention, he hears that her shoes have high heels. She is wearing them especially for him. She is also wearing a red dress, although he thinks it’s black. When he tries saying good-bye to her in front of the building, she tries to come up with him.
I have to, she whispers.
You have to what? he says rather impatiently, because he suddenly feels he’s in a hurry, a terrible hurry.
But when she tries to tell him that she needs to come up with him, someone walks out of the building. It’s an old blind woman rapping with her cane. The cane frightens her. Then the knocking frightens her. In fact, almost everything frightens her. But the old woman doesn’t see poorly; it’s only Berit’s fear that has made the old woman blind. Then Berit whispers:
Go!
He kisses her fleetingly on the cheek and leaves. And before the rain has the chance to dry on his lips, he is already four flights up after running the whole way. He is in that much of a hurry. After unlocking the door, he realizes why he’s in such a hurry. It’s because it is well past nine. He dials a five instead of a four on his first try. Then he dials correctly. It’s almost completely dark in the hallway, but he doesn’t turn on the light. Now he is afraid of the light.
But he is not afraid of what will happen. For within us, we all carry an image of something dreadful that will happen to us one day when it’s very dark; an image of someone we will meet one night when it’s very rainy and stormy; an image of someone waiting behind a door for us when we enter a dark room someday. We all carry an image of a ghost within us. And this is why we are never truly afraid at that dreadful encounter, because every time it gets dark, we are already expecting it. A sensation of confirmation mingled with terror is all that we feel.
This is why – when the woman answers in his ear, The Lantern Theater – he can very calmly say into the receiver:
Are there any tickets left for the nine o’clock show?
Yes, the soft voice answers impatiently, but the film has already started.
Sorry, he is able to say and still remain quite calm.
Now Bengt can hang up.
Gun has already done so.
A Letter in April from Himself to Himself
Dear Bengt!
Today at three o’clock it was exactly three months since Mama died. Tonight, while we were eating our soup, Papa suddenly pulled out his watch. After looking at it for a while, he looked at me and asked whether I knew what day it was. I said it was Friday. Then he told me that Mama had died three months ago today. Of course, I knew that, but it wasn’t so critical that I had to stand by the window at precisely three o’clock today and think, It’s exactly three months to the second since my mother fell off a chair and onto the ground of David Englund’s butcher shop. After all, such a thought didn’t do any good. It’s three o’clock every day. Therefore, you could, strictly speaking, be justified in thinking the same thought every day in front of the window at three o’clock. Besides, three months is a rather arbitrary amount of time, especially in this case. And because February only has twenty-eight days, these three months don’t even make up ninety days anyway.
I told all of this to him, not because I wanted to hurt him in any way or to show any lack of respect for Mama’s memory, but because of my genuine belief that you can’t bind your remembrance of a dead person to a specific time and date. The loss of Mother is constantly alive for me, which is why a fixed date doesn’t mean the same to me as it does for someone grieving less. However, I noticed that he was hurt, so in order to soften my words (not because I thought I was wrong in any way, but because I knew that he, with his undeveloped sense of the value of words and of the sincerity of intonation, misunderstood what I had meant), I said, Hasn’t it been longer since Mama died? My words didn’t exp
ress what I was really feeling, didn’t express anything at all; it was just a placating phrase purposely meant to reassure him. Since you know him as well as I do, you know how easy it really is to reassure him, if you’re clever enough to hit on the right word. But the words I uttered didn’t seem to be the right ones, because instead of reassuring him, I made him more upset. Have you already forgotten your mother, Bengt? he asked.
I have to admit that I was genuinely shocked by the question. This was truly the last thing I expected him to ask me. It came so abruptly and seemed so cruel and unfair that I couldn’t get a single word out. I was on the verge of asking him what right he had to say something so brutal and untrue to me, but out of consideration for his feelings, I held back my words. You see, everyone who knows him knows just how wrongly, in the truest sense of the word, he treated Mama. And I’m positive that he knows what others think about him, too, so I didn’t have to remind him. But I can personally swear to you that I didn’t let him off so easily. I personally condemned him a long time ago, and if I could have, I would have abandoned him a long time ago, too.
For the time being, I’m unfortunately dependent on him and his goodwill that allows me to continue my studies. If I had wanted to tonight, I could have pinned him to the wall with one word, one intimation, and forced him to realize how horribly he wronged me with his suspicion. I remember, for example, a little episode that occurred the day after Mama died. It was a Sunday. We were sitting at the table in the other room and both reading the paper. We hadn’t said a word to each other all day. Then the clock struck three. As I walked to the window, I said to him: it’s exactly twenty-four hours since Mama died. He didn’t respond. When I repeated it, he crumpled up his paper and left the room. That evening, he didn’t wind up the clock like he usually did on Sundays, so it stopped that night. And when I asked him why he didn’t wind it up, he said that he had lost the key. It wasn’t true then, but it’s true enough now, I suppose.
I could have reminded him of this if I wanted to. But I don’t want to hurt him too much, even though he deserves to be hurt badly. He is still my father, and I suppose you have to forgive your father things that you wouldn’t be able to forgive anyone else.
Of course, I’m aware enough of my own feelings about Mama not to let them be contaminated by insidious questions from someone who doesn’t even have the right to ask them. The three months since her death haven’t meant anything to me but continuous martyrdom. Now, I know from my own bitter experience how a dead person is so far from being obliterated from existence that she instead continues to live on in the acts and dreams of the one who really loved her. No one can deny that she hasn’t left my side even once this whole time. She is constantly in my thoughts all day and constantly in my dreams at night. I once told you that I had a dream about her red dress. Since then, the dream has recurred in different forms. I’m just as frightened every time I wake up, but at the same time I get a feeling almost of happiness at the thought of someone I loved being so alive in me. I could almost say delight instead of joy, because in the dream it’s truly delight I feel. It’s so beautiful yet frightening at the same time. Twice I have dreamt that I was holding her foot in my hands. I kissed it both times because it was so beautiful. I still consider this martyrdom because my aching for Mama and the forms it has taken against my will have made it impossible for me to work.
For example, yesterday it was my intention to take the exam, but since I couldn’t study as I wanted to, I had to pass on it. I had tried by all means to devote myself to studying, but thinking about Mama – perhaps mostly about the pain Papa had inflicted on her – made it truly impossible for me to concentrate. Everything in the apartment is impregnated with her. Every chair you sit on, every spoon you put into your mouth, every stocking you trip over when opening the closet, every handkerchief, every brooch, and every letter that catches your eye as soon as you open a drawer. Sometimes, especially lately, it’s even been impossible for me to stay indoors. So I’ve had to go out for walks, but as soon as I’m outside, I feel absolutely weak. I cannot go very far, so I just roam around the block and come back home. But to avoid going home, sometimes I go to the cinema. And quite often lately. The theater is nice, better than books. And whether you want to or not, you are forced to focus all your thoughts on one thing, on whatever is happening on the white screen.
Papa has been acting quite strangely lately. Sometimes I think he’s starting to suffer from a persecution complex. No matter where I go, I run into him and his black dog. I think he’s hunting me with that dog, having him track my scent. I can’t describe it any other way but that he is constantly on my heels as soon as I leave the house. And the other day, I noticed that he had put a rubber band around the bottle of aquavit, as though he imagines me drinking in secret while he’s away at work. His dirty suspicion irritated me and to get back at him I poured myself a pretty large glass and pulled the rubber band down. Besides, it’s very stupid to use a rubber band if you want to see whether there’s less alcohol in the bottle. All you have to do is move the rubber band.
He’s also strange in another way. The other night the dog came into my room, and this was quite unusual. It jumped up on my bed so it could sleep there. I didn’t throw it out, because I’ve gradually come to like it a little. But instead of sleeping, it started digging under my pillow with its paws. Soon, it jumped off and disappeared. After a while, Papa came in with a handkerchief in his hand. It was a little yellow handkerchief that the dog had had in its mouth when it left my room. Papa asked me where I got the handkerchief. I wasn’t able to tell him. Then he tossed it to me and left. It seemed like he actually thought I went around stealing handkerchiefs. One morning, I found a pair of Mama’s stockings on my bed. I don’t know why he put them there.
He might be acting strangely because, despite everything, he is grieving. But I did manage to make him happy yesterday. I was supposed to take the exam yesterday, but because of everything that has happened to me regarding Mama’s death, I had to postpone it until the fall. In this way, I’ll have the whole summer to study, and I plan to study intensively. So I don’t think I’ll get a job this summer as I usually do every year. Of course, I’ll be more dependent on Papa than ever before, but on the other hand, I really want to finish my studies with a degree. Otherwise, it would feel like defeat. It just so happens that I’ve been talking to Papa this whole time about the exam, so that he’ll see that I really have been working toward an immediate goal. Immediate goals have a stimulating effect on him, probably because he thinks they are the cheapest. Without a doubt, he has high expectations for the exam. That isn’t my fault, but once I finally realized what a great disappointment it would be for him if I didn’t do well in it, I had to pretend as though I had already succeeded.
When he got home last night, he asked me how it went as soon as he walked in the door. I never meant to exaggerate, but when I saw how full of hope he was, I told him that I had passed with laudatur. Since he didn’t know what that meant, I told him it was the best grade you could get. Then I showed him the exam book. I hadn’t actually intended to, but I did it to see him genuinely happy for once. That day, I had sat around leafing through the empty book. I had a pen with me, and just for the hell of it, I wrote Cum laudatur and then the professor’s name. Since I didn’t have anything special to do, I put a little stamp together and placed it below his name. Just for the hell of it. My joke made Papa very happy, and I didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was just a joke. Besides, it amused me a little to see how believable I could make the forgery. After all, if a single confession would upset him, and if you don’t hurt someone with a little gag but instead make him happy, then there’s no reason at all to expose the joke as a joke. And there is just as little reason to be sorry about it.
It’s midnight.
He just got home and walked straight into my room. I had a bad feeling. I don’t really know why. He said it as soon as he came in. I’ve been expecting it for a while now, but
it was still a shock to hear it. He said that his fiancée is coming to visit us tomorrow evening around nine. She worked till nine, which is why she couldn’t come earlier. I didn’t say anything. Then he asked whether I had a problem with it. I said that I did. But once I said it, I was sorry I did, and he must have noticed because he said, Invite Berit, too. But he didn’t know why I suddenly regretted it. Only I know why. I’ve known for a long time now that it’s necessary for her to come. She has to find out the truth, and I’ll be the one to tell it to her. Once she has learned the truth, she will never come back. Nor will she want to see Papa anymore. So she has to come for Mama’s sake.
The other night when Berit and I were at the cinema, I jokingly said as we were leaving, I’m the Avenger. We had just watched a film by that name. I didn’t mean to frighten Berit, but she got very scared. She was so scared that she told me why she has been so worried about me lately. She’s afraid I’m going to hurt the other woman as soon as I find out who she is.
But I know who she is! She’s a little cashier at a dirty little theater a few blocks from here. I’ve seen her a few times. She looks very plain, at least compared to Mama. She has to be very old, though she likes dressing as if she were very young. She has a hoarse voice, probably from smoking. I’ve heard her voice a few times over the phone. You see, I once found a scrap of paper on the table with a phone number on it. Just for the hell of it, I dialed it and she was the one who answered. Since then, I’ve called her a few times at a quarter past nine. That’s when she closes the register. That’s also when Papa usually arrives with the dog to pick her up. She always gets impatient when I call so late, and it amuses me to keep her from leaving. I also like to hear her calling out “Hello” without saying anything back to her. Her name is Gun Berg. That name is much too young for such an old woman.
A Moth to a Flame Page 9