A Moth to a Flame
Page 22
It is all so pleasant for only a moment. On the table there is a candle that has some Christmas wrapping on its base. Gun tosses a box of matches on his lap.
Light the candle, Bengt, she cries.
When he lights the candle, he plans to light it for her and for himself. But that doesn’t happen. It can never happen. Because an image of a candle is already within him, and that image is eternal. Now every time he lights a candle, it will always be this candle he lights. He looks away as soon as he lights it. The father is sitting behind the candle, and there is only one candle the father can sit behind. Bengt takes a sip from his glass, but it doesn’t soothe him. He has to ask. It’s a stupid question – a stupid statement, to be precise.
It’s three o’clock, he says.
Then he feels more intoxicated than he really is. It isn’t three o’clock at all, and he knows it. It is much later. It is six.
No, Son, the father says, it’s much later than that.
The father doesn’t remember anything, because reminiscing doesn’t really matter to him. He scarcely cares about what used to be. He only cares about what is.
Is the clock working? Bengt asks.
He didn’t want to mention anything having to do with clocks, but he can’t resist. Shame – or decency, rather – forces him to go on. But the father replies that the clock is certainly working. The key was underneath the armchair, whoever the hell put it there, and they put the head back in its place, freshly gilded. This would have been enough, but when Bengt looks at Berit, he can see that she still isn’t satisfied. He grows irritated with her because he isn’t satisfied himself. So he tells her that she ought to go and lie down, and he grabs her hard by the arm as he usually does when he wants her to understand. She understands and goes.
He feels happier once she is gone, but not entirely. To be as happy as he needs to be, he drinks another glass. They have wine, rum, and aquavit with them. The father is also drinking. And the more he drinks, the more affectionate he becomes. He moves his chair closer to Gun’s and caresses her both above and underneath the table. Bengt moves his chair farther away. All of a sudden, he doesn’t want to see or hear them anymore. But he is not jealous yet. He is only suffering. There is a soiled napkin under the table – scarlet from wine. He picks it up and plays with it for a while. If only everything would just end now, if the candle would go out, if the ice would break up, if Gun would only scream with disgust at the drunken voice that was defiling their stillness. But the candle is in the center of the table and it is burning. It is an ordinary candle yet very brazen.
Then he realizes the candle is not the worst part. Once he realized this, he turns cold. A giant hole emerges from his suffering, and it swells with a shameless chill. Then he gets the urge to torture, to smash things, to tear things down. He destroys all the bars caging his tiger. Then he sets the tiger on the gazelle. He stands up and looks at Gun and his father, but they don’t seem to notice. They are merely carrying on with their endlessly abhorrent behavior. What he noticed then is that Gun, quite simply, isn’t suffering as he is from his father’s drunken caresses. And then what he notices is something dreadful: she actually likes them.
If it hadn’t been too late, his reason would have told him what he already knew, the shocking truth that he himself experienced so many times: namely, that we are never so tender to the ones we are bound to as when we are certain that the stranger we love actually loves us in return. He can only understand this when he himself is tender to Berit because of Gun’s love, yet he can’t understand this about anyone else. This explains why he is so upset and why such filthy thoughts are flowing out of him, like a busted sewer. As he leans against the window post, he thinks: they’re just like this when they’re alone together. They sit at the kitchen table, drink, and fondle each other as they’re doing now. They are just like dogs when they are alone together.
At the same time, it turns three o’clock. His already misty eyes fill with tears. The tiger is chewing the gazelle and considers it just. It’s only right for him to think of his mother after a year has passed since she died. There isn’t anyone who is more right than he. He knows it when he leaves the room, and he is more convinced of it when he goes outside. It is twenty-five degrees below and dark as it usually is in winter, a luminous darkness that reflects itself in the snow and ice. He walks a bit and then drops to the ground. Because he is so right and everyone else is so wrong, he lets himself lie there and even cries for a while. Then he is afraid of freezing to death. That’s when he feels the weight of the leash inside his pocket. It makes him feel like hanging himself. And when they come out with their lantern, they will find him hanging from a tree. Now he is staggering around, feeling after branches. In his heart, he feels he is already hanging. His throat is so taut that he can scarcely swallow, and he’s on the verge of vomiting. Finally, he finds a suitable branch, makes a noose in the leash, brushes the snow and ice off the branch, and ties the leash around it. When he sticks his head through the noose, the branch snaps.
He knew it would happen. But he is satisfied he tried. And because he had been saved, he doesn’t try it again. He feels somewhat better, a little less miserable. But he is immediately sad again because no one opens the door and calls out to him. They have left him all alone in the snow and the darkness. He simply cannot fathom anything so inhumane. Some light trickles through the slits of a shutter. Laughter and loud voices are inside. But inside him is only darkness and silence. And the beginning of tears, too. The memory of his mother shoots up inside him like a smarting pain. Like an ache and a fever.
Silently, he opens the door. The alcove is empty. Berit has gone to visit the others. His fever escalates, but at the same time his mind becomes clear, as a fevered person’s does. He turns on a flashlight and lays it down on Berit’s bed. He looks for a pen and paper. Then he writes a letter. Not to himself but to the others. The whole time he writes he hopes that the door will open, that light and warmth from the main room will come rushing in, and that someone will carry him into the light and the warmth. But no one comes, and soon the letter is finished. When it’s completely finished, he folds it up and puts it in his pocket.
The candle is almost burnt out when he joins the others. But none of them notices that it’s burning down. Not even Berit, who has been given rum, a lot of rum. Therefore, she doesn’t see the candle, doesn’t see much of anything, really – maybe not even Bengt. Slowly, the room begins to spin, and she seems to be enjoying it. Gun and the father are sitting with their arms around each other. He stands for a long time and watches them, the whole time seeing what he expected to see: they look exactly as they did on their wedding night. There are yellow pears on their plates. The father frees his hands and starts paring with his razor; either there was nothing better, or he wants to be funny. Once it is peeled, he tosses the razor on the table and starts feeding Gun.
Then the son goes up to the father very closely and hits him lightly on the shoulder, but not as lightly as he wanted. The father asks him what he wants. He says that it’s three o’clock. No one seems to understand.
No, it’s not, the father says.
Then he shouts so they will understand:
Aren’t you all happy now!
Gun chuckles, but he is far from finished.
Aren’t you happy? he yells. It’s Mama’s anniversary. One year since she died!
The room grows silent except for the scraping of chairs. Bengt blows the candle out before the paper starts to burn. But it doesn’t get dark, because Berit turns up the flame of the kerosene lamp and because her hand is so white. She gazes at Bengt, gazes so strangely at him that he has to look away.
My boy, the father says with beautiful, glistening eyes, don’t you think I remember? Come here. Don’t be sad. Don’t cry, my boy.
But he doesn’t move. Everything is as he expected. Now it’s only confirmation that he’s looking for, confirmation that everything is how his tiger said it would be. Enraged, he shouts:
The moon, the pale moon of winter, and a multitude of pointy stars shine outside. Sleds are waiting by the shore, and their runners are glistening. He kneels down; the skin around his throat tightens. One of the sleds is sturdy and new, and he ties the leash around its handles. When everything is ready, Gun calls out to him. He looks up at the cottage one last time. Because she stays there and continues to call out to him, he looks up one more time. When she still doesn’t move, he runs toward the cottage, stumbles, falls down, and white with snow, rushes up the steps. She pulls him close to her so that she can hold him. She is afraid because she doesn’t understand a thing. She can’t understand why he doesn’t see that she is glad to have found him again.
But love is just a game of misunderstanding. Instead of wrapping his arms around her and saving himself, he takes a step down. The leash hook glistens when he raises his hand. Then he strikes her across the face like a dog. But she doesn’t cry out. She merely leaves him alone.
He stands alone, cold, and naked on the steps. Hitting a woman is like hitting an animal. Afterward, you feel dreadfully alone. Afterward, you cannot be forgiven. But without forgiveness, he is hopelessly lost. And it is precisely this hopelessness he was searching for. But now that he has found it, he is terribly afraid, so afraid that he can’t even move. And when Berit comes out to him, he is still standing hopelessly still.
What’s wrong, Bengt? she whispers.
She isn’t aware of what has happened, she never is. When he doesn’t answer, she looks at him as curiously as she had just done inside. After studying him for a while, she turns away to the door.
Do you know what you look like? she whispers.
No, he whispers back at her. And it’s true: he couldn’t know. All he knows is that it’s over, and to realize this is more horrific than he ever imagined.
Like a dog, she answers.
Now everything is confirmed. There is nothing left. There is only one thing to do, and he does it. He pushes past her, flings open the door, and marches up to the table, up to the woman who hates him and up to the man he is indifferent to. He still might need a little courage to be able to do what he wants to do. Then the courage comes. As he stands behind the father’s chair, Gun suddenly starts talking about a Negro. She had only seen him on the street and thought he was beautiful. But men cannot, without hatred, tolerate it when their women talk about Negroes being beautiful. There is a lyncher in every man, for lynchers are only men who are afraid of their own women.
As irretrievably lost as can be, he pulls back his sleeve from his left wrist. As though in a dream, he sees the father’s razor sink into his flesh. Everything is so dreamlike that it doesn’t even hurt. When he drops the razor, he stands there and watches with surreal surprise how the blood slowly fills the wound, runs over his wrist and down his hand, and then falls with heavy drops to the floor. Then Berit screams. Gun and the father see it almost immediately, but first they are just as surprised as he. He hears Berit slam the door behind him, a soft, quiet sound that he has never heard before. Then there’s an almost comical bustle that he doesn’t really understand. These three people are running in circles around each other. He is the only calm one. With a sensation of surprising serenity, he feels his life flowing out of him with every throb of his shredded artery. The onset of death feels so peaceful that he finds their commotion almost absurd. Step after step, he shuffles back toward the door and braces his back against the nook between the door and the wall. He is looking down at his hand the whole time. The back of it is white and beautiful. He is not afraid, because we are only afraid beforehand. Once it has happened, however, we are only filled with expectation.
He is smiling with expectation when they come up to him with towels. His legs start to weaken, but they still manage to carry him. He is gentle and happy, and he can’t understand why the people approaching him are so worried. He has already been dying for an infinitely long time by the time they reach him. He has no sense of time anymore. Everything is happening in slow motion, although in reality it’s happening at a blistering speed. In the dream, he hears someone calling his name, and he sedately stretches out his bleeding arm to the towel – not sensing that this is going to save him. He thinks it’s only nice that Gun has taken his hand in hers. His hatred has drained out of him. His tiger has died from loss of blood. Even the gazelle is dead now. The only thing left is a resigned tenderness. If he could, he would caress all three of them, as their hands support his feeble body and carry him back to the alcove and into Gun’s bed. He is alone with Gun for a second. Smiling, he asks her:
Do you think I’m going to die?
Lie still, she whispers, holding the towel over him.
Then she kisses him. He just lies there with the towel pressed against his wound. Hour after hour passes. The blood begins to slowly seep through the thick towel. He hears the distant sound of frantic footsteps and the slamming of doors. He can’t understand why they are in such a hurry.
People who witness an accident start to feel – once the initial alarm has subsided – a strange sensation of exhilaration that is closely related to joy. Laughter is the only thing missing. All three of them feel this curious joy as they prepare for the ride. They move around as though intoxicated, only without the drunken sluggishness; instead, their movements are quick and precise. When they are ready, they carry him with great strength through the snow and down to the sleds. As they place him gently into the new sled, the father finds the leash on the ground. Then he wraps it around the son’s leg and the sled’s handles so that he won’t slip off.
Very weak yet still filled with the same joyous calm, Bengt can sense everything that is happening. Just before the sled begins to glide over the ice, he hears the father say:
Thirty-two below.
The words sound so familiar, but he forgot what they mean. He simply thinks it sounds beautiful. He quietly repeats the words to himself for as long as he can. Then he gazes out at the ice and the moon. The moon is white and beautiful, but strangely far away. The ice is also white. The air is very warm. Then he closes his eyes and listens to all the beautiful sounds of the night. The night sings with silence. It’s the greatest sound of all. Then there are fainter sounds: the rhythmic slicing of the ice from the spikes; the soft singing of the runners as they race over the black ice; the slight creaking of the kicksled’s wood; the harsh scraping as they pass over granular ice.
The journey goes by in a flash. The sleds glide neck and neck to shore. Gun is pushing Berit, who is not crying. She is very calm and very tired. The trip is endlessly long for her, endlessly beautiful and endlessly long. It lasts an eternity for him, too. He can’t even comprehend distance anymore. To be dying is to be like a child. In the end, you don’t understand a thing: nothing about death and nothing about life, only that all distances are the same and all words are unintelligible – yet beautiful.
The sleds stop below the tall jetty. They wait underneath its shadow as the father runs toward the village. From the shadow, Bengt has a view of the beautiful moonlight. Gun bends down and unties the leash.
Are you cold? she whispers.
No, he whispers back.
He doesn’t really understand what she said; he only sensed it.
Bengt, Berit whispers respectfully, as one does to the sick.
She holds his right hand for a while. Then she leans over and kisses him with her cold lips. Immediately after, they hear the taxi rumbling downhill. Snow chains are wrapped clumsily around the tires. The two women lift him onto the jetty, and he sits between them in the car. They are driving very fast; he doesn’t recognize where they are. The car skids into curbs and his body ricochets between the two women’s bodies; between one soft body and one hard one; between the one that knows everything and the one that knows nothing. He loves them both equally, for he loves everything now. He even loves his father.
It’s thirty-two below, he hears the father saying.
Thirty-one, corrects the driver.
The road is fringed by tall white borders with branches in them. In the beam of the headlights, one neighborhood after the other emerges from the snow and quickly sinks down again. The driver has put some red paper over one of the headlights. Gun dabs a drop of perfume onto Bengt’s lips so that he won’t smell like alcohol. When they near the city, his head begins to clear up a little without costing him any of his bliss. At the toll, he notices the car speeding over a safety island and onto the wrong side of the road to save time. Then he starts to suspect what is happening: he is going to be saved.
But he isn’t sure of it until they swerve up to the foot of the tall lampposts in front of the hospital. When he steps out of the car, he can feel that it’s very cold. It isn’t until then that he is afraid – not so much of what is going to happen but of what he is going to say.
What will I say? he whispers helplessly as the doors open.
But nobody hears him. The corridor is warm and bright, and far ahead is an opened door. He goes through it by himself. The room is enormous and shiny. The cabinets glisten, the instruments glisten, and the operating table glistens. A nurse unbuttons his jacket and gently peels it off him. He manages to lay himself on the table. Then a white lamp hovers over him and shines into his eyes. The nurse takes his arm and gently unwraps the towel. He turns his head and looks at his wound. It is long and very deep. It is also hollow and almost white. The nurse gently turns his head away, so he looks down at his body instead. His shirt is stained brown with blood. He doesn’t really understand why. Then he senses that she is cleaning his hand. It does not hurt.