Therefore, when the father comes back, the son says that he and Berit have to leave. The father is happier than he lets on because if they didn’t leave, he would have to continue entertaining them. In which case, he would put the candlestick on the tray and be forced to let it fall. He is happy to be absolved.
I suppose you won’t be out long, he says as he stuffs the piece of metal in his pocket.
The son hears the joy in his voice and replies:
Well, I’m just taking Berit home. And we’ll probably walk, at least to Katarina Elevator.
Before they leave, Gun breaks off a rose and sticks it in Bengt’s buttonhole. She stands close to him and her perfume fills his nose and mouth. The father is standing with the tray under his arm and thinks it’s a lovely gesture. That’s how a mother should behave. He wants the two of them to like each other, like a mother cares for a son and a son his mother. So he’s irritated when Gun extends her hand and Bengt doesn’t take it. To avoid shaking her hand, he pretends to be looking for some matches. But the father still forgives him because he is leaving.
Once Berit and Bengt reach the street, Bengt has a headache, so he wants Berit to take the streetcar. Nowadays, he always lets her take the streetcar, but he always gives her money for it. Bengt thinks the streetcar stop is too far, but Berit thinks it isn’t far enough.
You should have shaken her hand, Berit says.
Then Bengt lets go of her arm, but Berit takes it again because she’s afraid of leaving him alone right now.
I don’t want to shake her hand, he says. I never will.
Then, Bengt, she asks, curiously relieved, why did you take the flower?
At once, Bengt rips the flower from his buttonhole and chucks it into the gutter. He also tears his arm away.
On his way back, he checks to see whether the flower is still there. It is, but someone has stepped on it in the dark. His headache has subsided, but now he feels a strange wave of heat in his body that he usually only feels after certain dreams, a heat wrapped in a thin layer of fear. Earlier, he experienced something strange. He tried to forget it immediately, but since it wouldn’t let itself be forgotten, it was part of the reason why he left the apartment. They were still sitting at the table. Gun suddenly tells his father that she must have a rock in her shoe, so he kneels down at her feet – clumsily yet well meaning. At once, the son notices that the curtain is no longer drawn, so he gets up and pulls it across. He stays by the door for a while, straightening some of the rings that had gotten tangled up together. When he turns around, the father has just taken off Gun’s shoe. Now he is holding her foot in his hands. Then the son is suddenly shocked when he realizes that he recognizes the foot, that he has seen exactly the same foot once before in his life. Even though it’s a preposterous thought and a preposterous feeling, shivers run down his spine.
Now when he tries entering the dark building, another strange thing happens. He is already standing with his keys in his hand when he suddenly puts them back in his pocket. For he feels he can’t go inside. The feeling is so overwhelming that he starts shivering again. Instead, he walks across the street and stands in the doorway next to the butcher shop. A thin veil of rain separates him and the building they live in. The night’s dark clouds spill over the roof, thick as pitch. I have to wait until she’s gone, he thinks and looks up at the window. The candle is burning in the other room, and the windows are closed. He creeps farther into the darkness of the doorway and prepares to wait a while. But, standing in the doorway, he is struck by something else that had just happened, something extraordinary.
When they were on the way to the streetcar, he suddenly grew irritated with Berit, partly because he was forced to walk in the rain with her – it had just started to rain then – and partly because she was holding his hand and squeezing it so hard. Then all of a sudden he snaps, Do you always have to wear that damn black dress? Then she stops in front of a display window and unbuttons her coat. Underneath her coat is a red dress. But it’s dark red, so he can be forgiven. But then she asks, Did you see what dress she was wearing? A red one, he must say since he did in fact see it. It was your Mama’s dress, Bengt, she says. Then he becomes terribly upset that she’s lying, because he had seen for himself that it wasn’t her dress but a different one altogether. And a son should know his own mother’s dress. And your Mama’s shoes, too, she added. Then he becomes so upset that as soon as the streetcar is visible around the curb, he storms away from her. Bengt! she yells after him so that people stop and stare. Bengt! Bengt! But it’s raining, so he’s in a hurry to get home. That’s why he didn’t even turn around.
Now there’s only a small lamp on in the other room. And when the curtains are drawn, he slowly leaves the doorway. Now he knows she is leaving. He lights a cigarette as she proceeds down the stairs, but it’s raining harder now and the rain puts it out. Somebody is coming out the door. The rain is dreary. All he can see is a shadow and an umbrella that quickly dissolves into the rain. Then he runs across the street. He runs up the stairs, too. Although the pouring rain was cold, his body is burning. But his head is cool. Quietly, he rushes up to the fourth floor, but even though his head is cool, he doesn’t know why he is so quiet. Nor does he understand why he sticks the key into the keyhole so gently, as one sticks a finger in his lover’s mouth. He just does. He doesn’t turn on the light as he stands in the dark entrance. He feels inside the dog’s basket; it’s warm but the dog isn’t there. Then he walks silently through the hallway and up to the door of the other room. He doesn’t hear a sound from inside. The father must be writing. Cautiously, he opens the door, and it doesn’t creak because the father has greased all the hinges, so they wouldn’t creak when he was alone.
As soon as Bengt sees it, he slams the door and runs to the entrance. Like a whip, the scream stings the back of his neck. He opens the front door, slams it shut again, but stays inside. Gasping, he thrusts his burning brow against the cool doorpost. Suddenly, the tension fades and he feels himself turning completely soft inside, not a hard bone is left in his body, not a single taut muscle. Just a floating, hot mass that burns against the walls of his body. A minute later, when the mass has cooled off and his body has gotten its bones back, he realizes that what he had seen – a naked woman’s body on his mother’s daybed – is not the worst part. The worst part is that he knew he was going to see it but that his mind concealed it from him.
He hears voices from the room, one calm, low, and deep and the other light, rather high-pitched, and very worried. Eventually, both voices are calm and subdued. They think he ran out. And they know how it is with young people; they run away, thinking they’ll never come back. But the older ones left waiting in the room know very well they’ll come back very soon. Then quiet footsteps approach their door. A streak of light flashes in the hallway but goes out the same instant. Afterward, someone comes pattering out toward the entrance.
It sounds like a frightened human being, but it’s a dog. It finds him in the darkness with its soft nose and is friendly to him. Then he quietly opens the door and entices the dog out. It isn’t difficult. He has the leash and thinks about walking the dog around a couple of the dark blocks.
But when he reaches the end of the stairs, he goes out to the yard instead. He doesn’t turn on the yard light. And even though the yard is dark, he still seeks out the darkest spot behind a tall carpet-beating rack. There, he takes the dog by the nose and grips it tightly so that it won’t bark. Then he starts beating it with the leash. As he flogs it, the dog twists around, trying to free its nose from his grip, but he is too strong and unyielding. Sometimes it falls on its back, but it still can’t break free. And every blow causes Bengt pain because he’s actually beating himself, and it’s his own mouth he has to clench shut so that he won’t scream out in agony. Or with joy because he is hitting her, too. Instantly, he realizes it’s her dog.
Then a patch of the yard is suddenly bathed in light. Someone has turned on the light, so he stops thrashing and fa
lls to his knees over the dog’s body. It’s writhing around like a snake but cannot break free. Window after window, he glimpses a flash of her distinct silhouette gliding down the stairs. After the last window, he hears her footsteps echoing from the front entrance. Then the door reverberates as it shuts again. When the light goes out, he notices for the first time that it’s raining. He is drenched in a brew of sweat and rain, and his shoulders are throbbing. At the same time, he is listless and wrung out like a wet rag. He puts the leash back on the dog. As he leads it across the yard, he holds it on a very short leash so it won’t bite him.
After he turned on the light, he falls to his knees before the animal in a vestibule and is affectionate. He gently wipes the gravel and rain from the dog’s back. He rubs its upper neck and embraces its hind legs. Finally, he looks it in the eye. In that moment, he knows that the dog can never have the kind of eyes he wants to see. Cold with shame, he drags it upstairs with him.
The worst thing about hitting animals is that you can never ask them for forgiveness. And you can never get forgiveness. Though, in the end, forgiveness is the only thing you need.
A Letter in May from Himself to Himself
Bengt!
I’m all alone as I write this, alone in my room. And he’s alone in his. The other night he asked, Shall we play a game of chess like we used to, or a little poker? Come on, let’s go to the other room. He went first and evidently thought I would follow him. When he noticed that I wasn’t coming, he asked if I didn’t like playing chess. Now, he knows very well how much I like to play chess. He also knows that I like playing with him – in the kitchen or in my room. However, he also knows that I’ve been refusing to go into the other room lately. He hasn’t asked why, because he knows all too well. Night after night, he’s tried to beguile me by any means necessary into breaking my promise to myself. As for me, I’m always trying to make him ask me, Won’t you tell me why you’re avoiding the other room? I’d be very glad if he asked because I have a crushing answer on hand. My answer: Because you and she have made the room so filthy that only the two of you can go into it without feeling ashamed. If I were to go in, I would not only defile myself but also my pure memory of Mama.
It’s possible that he might not understand this at all, because I think parents always have a different understanding of purity from what their children do. For them, at least as far as my own experience goes, the quality of purity has lost every semblance of practical meaning. It may be possible for them to consider it something worth aspiring to for teenagers going through their “awkward years,” but in their own actions, parents constantly deny that such a concept even exists. Parents always live a more sordid life than their children because parents have always condoned all the things they do themselves. That is, to be able to excuse everything for themselves, yet practically nothing for their children, is the reward that “experience” affords adults. What parents call experience is really nothing but their attempts – successful to the point of sheer cynicism – to deny everything they once considered pure, true, and right when they were young. They themselves don’t realize the terrible cynicism behind all the incessant talk of “experience” as life’s highest goal. They only notice the “inexperience” in their children; that is, the kind of inexperience called purity and honesty, and then they become irritated. And when they’re irritated, they take their irritation out on their children. They call this “raising children” because what else is raising children but the attempt of frustrated parents to stifle in the child what they recognize as the stifled goodness in themselves? And if they aren’t vexed, they act superior, superior because they erroneously pride themselves on their great life experience, as if it were particularly respectable and remarkable to destroy the best within us.
Papa is arrogant. I think he’s far too aware of the wrong he’s doing, and has done, to want to “raise” me to accept it as simply something every experienced adult can do without remorse or feelings of shame or guilt. Instead, he acts as if I’ll see that he, at least, isn’t bothered by it. And nowadays he doesn’t even make the slightest attempt to hide it when he visits her. He often goes so far as to extend her regards to me and facetiously says that she’s looking forward to seeing me again. So she thinks I’m sweet. Very sweet. And it’s just like her to use such a word, as if there weren’t any less vulgar words to flatter someone. Now, I know very well that it’s only flattery because not even Berit has ever told me that I’m especially handsome.
They also have other ways of trying to win me over. For instance, she apparently promised me free tickets to her theater, according to Papa, as if it’s really so great to go to such a tiny, dirty, and sordid place as the Lantern with its old, dreadful films. I do go there sometimes to look at the posters in order to see what they’re showing, but it would never occur to me to go in. In a way, that would be to admit that she and Papa, when all is said and done, probably aren’t so wrong for what they’re doing.
I’ll never admit that, no matter how much they try to tempt me. And I know the temptations can be both overpowering and multifarious, but I think that anyone who knows himself and constantly analyzes his own situation as well as his own actions cannot be coaxed into doing something that he doesn’t want to do. Analysis – that is, awareness – is a person’s most noble weapon against both the bad examples of others and the passions within himself. I’ve recently come to see what a particularly excellent tool analysis really is for someone who wants to keep himself pure and untainted – or, in other words, young. More than anything, my aim is to avoid the kind of “experience” described so fervently by the ones who have already lost their youth. It won’t change me no matter how many times Papa comes home humming at night or late in the evening after being with her, carrying on – while practically smacking his lips – about what an exquisite woman she is. I can see in his red, self-satisfied face why he finds her so enchanting, and I could tell him why if I wanted to: it’s because he sees in her the very irresponsibility and lack of sense of duty that he wished Mama had had.
I could also tell him what she’s really like, the woman he thinks brought “happiness” to him. Based on her only visit here or the few times I’ve coincidentally seen her leaving the cinema alone or walking with Papa down Ringvägen, where she apparently lives, I have a very distinct and reliable impression of her. With the help of these experiences, I’ve analyzed both her and her temperament, and I’ve come to the conclusion that she has to be utterly cold and truly indifferent to the suffering of others by nature. Otherwise, she could hardly harden herself to the point of disturbing my father on the day of my mother’s funeral.
In a sense, I can strangely understand why she’d make a certain impression on a man like Papa. After all, she’s exactly the kind of “experienced” woman he considers to be the highest conceivable form of human being. I really think she’s seen a little of everything. She isn’t exactly ugly, and even though her type doesn’t exercise the least bit of attraction on me, you could even go so far as to say that she’s rather pretty, or at least she used to be. Her real age can be detected behind the mask of youth she dons in her conscious moments. She has to be at least forty, and I’m positive she’ll start to look her age the day someone tells her that she looks as old as she really is. I don’t think anyone would ever notice how old she really is if she didn’t go to so much trouble to keep her face so young. And in the same way she tries to exaggerate any residue of beauty, she exhausts any likable features that, despite everything, she might have. For example, she has a very beautiful smile, but she ruins it by smiling too much; maybe it’s an occupational hazard, I don’t know. Her eyes aren’t ugly either, but she makes them ugly by the provocative way she likes to look at people. She has very nice legs, but, of course, she has to show the whole world by wearing short skirts that would better suit a young girl. Her voice is pretty soft, but when she talks, she tries at all costs to make it softer. As a result, she only sounds ingratiating and insincere. To t
ake another example: she wears a perfume that smells very pleasant indeed, but by applying it excessively she only repels people with the overpowering fragrance as soon as they get near her.
Incidentally, something happened the other night that says more about her than any lengthy description. I was lying in Papa’s daybed and reading a very good novel by Stefan Zweig when the telephone rang. (Parenthetically, I can say that it’s naturally only when Papa’s home that I refuse to go into the other room. He’s the one I want to punish – not myself!) When I answered, it was Papa. He didn’t say where he was calling from, but I heard from the background noise that he must have been calling from a restaurant. By the way, it wouldn’t have surprised me if it was the same restaurant where we had Mama’s memorial dinner. With his first word, I could tell he was drunk. I generally detest drunken people because they instantly lose any bit of innocence they may have had. Nowadays, I especially loathe Papa when he’s drunk because he refers to Mama as “Alma” in such an unbearably vulgar way, as if she were something we had lost on a walk or while moving. Then he said to me, There’s someone here who wants to talk to you, Bengt. I suspected who this person might be, but I was still inexplicably upset when I heard it was she. I was even more upset when I heard that she was drunk, too, not very drunk but enough to notice.
A Moth to a Flame Page 12