by Will Dean
These Grimberg graves have proper candles, real ones, not electric, and they look like they’ve been lit recently, their wicks still high in their windproof cases. I see recurring names: Gustavs and Cecilias and Ludwigs. At least two of each. And then I notice it.
My heart stops for a few beats.
There’s an area of ground covered with what looks like the top of a barbecue or half an oil drum. It’s smoking from a small chimney at one end. I’ve read about these. Thought we might have needed one for Mum, although in the end the ground in Karlstad cemetery was thawed enough to dig. But up here it’s colder. Up here in Toytown trapped between Utgard forest and hills and frozen rivers, up here in this frost pocket, up here the permafrost runs deep and true and the earth only thaws out properly in early May.
The heating device is connected to two tall propane tanks. The snow’s melted all around and I can actually feel the heat coming off the thing and it’s comforting even though I hate to admit it. This will be where the broken body of Mr Gustav Grimberg, CEO of Grimberg Liquorice, will be laid to rest tomorrow afternoon.
The surrounding graves have also thawed a little. I can see bunches of wilted flowers with black petals, and piles of mussel shells, and on one, a small one, not an ancient one, I notice a stone carving of a toy truck.
It’s like I’ve been punched in the throat.
‘Lilla Ludo,’ it says, and I almost have to turn away, suddenly aware of what I’m standing on. ‘1998-2005’ it says. ‘Beloved and much missed’ it says. ‘Son of Gustav and Anna-Britta and brother of Karin’ it says.
I step back and walk away to catch my breath. It’s cooler over here near the perimeter wall, away from the propane grave heater.
Maybe I wouldn’t feel like this if it wasn’t for Mum, for the fact that I haven’t visited her since the burial. I don’t really believe in it and neither did she for that matter. When someone’s gone, they’re gone. But that little boy’s grave and that warm plot are altogether more haunting.
I take the chocolate from my pocket and snap off a line and it’s hard and frozen solid, but then it thaws on my tongue and the roof of my mouth coats with its cheap cocoa-butter velvet and I feel better. Sugar hits my blood. I take the Leica binoculars from the other pocket and hold them. Should I do this? I’m a reporter and I need to get a grip on the factory death. My last big story. And in a way, doing all that at arm’s length is more respectful than talking to them face-to-face. I’m up here at the end of the building, at the right-hand side as you look from Storgatan. Connected to the back of the old factory building, through the archway, is a modern unit. There are nine or so vintage delivery vans, which I reckon must struggle this time of year, and then the old root barns Lena told me about. You see, a hundred years ago this was an important place. The Grimbergs would buy tons of raw liquorice from far-off countries and have the root bundles shipped all the way to little old Gavrik town to be processed into salt liquorice. Our salt cravings probably date back to Viking times, when everything was salted and brined and preserved underground, that’s what Lena reckons and who am I to argue. She told me once: too much salt and you die, too little salt and you die. I see a person wearing a huge coat walking out from behind the trucks. I think it’s a woman, and the barns look like gallows tonight, small cranes on wooden platforms lit with foggy white light.
I see another figure up in the attic window, maybe two or three figures, all dimly lit by low-watt light bulbs. Rumour is an old woman lives up there, Cecilia Grimberg, dripping with diamonds and pearls, but I don’t know, people like to talk. And I might have once asked why a family like the Grimbergs bother with cheap low-watt light bulbs if they’re so damn wealthy and then Mum might have said, on one of her better days, she might have said, well Tuva, maybe that’s why they’re so damn wealthy in the first place.
I don’t understand the attic window. It slopes at forty-five degrees and it’s not like that through subsidence, it’s like that through design. Makes me uncomfortable. I step away and tighten the scarf around my neck and my cheeks are numb with cold. In the distance I can see tower blocks built in the seventies, families in their cubic living spaces, TV lights flashing from the windows; they’re all warm up there with their beef-mince tacos and their salt liquorice and their wholesome family lives.
I trudge through snow, more aware of the graves beneath the white, more thoughtful of the souls down there than I was earlier tonight, and head back to the ruin. I have an urge to look one more time, a yearning to see that angry spray-paint smiley, so I step inside the ruin and David Ghostwriter Holmqvist is standing on top of the altar stone.
6
He’s dressed in black.
‘David?’
My voice fails me as I try to say his name.
‘David?’ I try again.
He stays at the rear of the ruin, his pale face glowing against the thick stone walls, snow falling between my body and his.
‘I saw you walk up from the street,’ he says, like that’s a good enough reason to ambush me in this twelfth-century church skeleton.
I pad closer to him and the stillness returns; the heavy lead-topped walls holding back the wind like they’ve done for a thousand cold winters.
‘I’m heading home,’ I say, checking the exit. ‘Are you okay?’
He makes a kind of ‘oh, you know’ shrug and I notice the scar above his lip as it lights up in the snow glare.
‘New project,’ he says.
I want to get back out in the open.
‘I’m heading to my car now,’ I say.
He nods and tightens his hat strap and joins me and together we wade through our old boot prints to the entrance of the church ruin, the arch so low we both have to duck to walk through it.
Holmqvist looks up toward the factory chimneys.
‘I’m not convinced it was suicide,’ he says. ‘Such a strange choice of death.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve written several suicides and I’ve researched all the available methods. I’ve read about them all at some length, and an intelligent person would numb with pharmaceuticals and or alcohol, and then choose an exit both clean and final. And, if she or he was so inclined, a method to cause minimal pain to relatives.’
The owl in the tree hoots once and then hoots twice more.
‘Not sure people think that clearly when they decide to kill themselves,’ I say.
‘I’ve come close four times.’ He looks at me, straight into my eyes to judge my reaction, to read me. ‘I was thinking more clearly on each one of those occasions than I usually think, and, as I’m sure you realise by now, I usually think very clearly indeed.’
He steps to the iron gate and swings it open.
‘I didn’t know,’ I say.
‘But you do know what I’ve lived with. You do know I’ve been a pariah my whole life for no reason whatsoever, so you could have perhaps imagined that I’d have researched an available exit, you could have perhaps thought that through?’
We’re on the pavement now, all grey slush and icicles and myriad footprints with what look like the same tread design. That’s what old snow looks like when everyone buys their boots from ICA Maxi.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, and I am. For so many things. Holmqvist was the bogeyman the whole town suspected of the Medusa murders. I mean, Jesus, he was arrested twice despite no real evidence against him. If I thought he was evil I wouldn’t be talking to him right now in front of St Olov’s ruin with not a living soul anywhere to be seen. ‘I noticed you go into the factory earlier,’ I say. ‘I must pay my condolences, too.’
‘No, that was . . .’ and then I can’t hear him because an ice wind has gathered on Storgatan and swept around the front of the factory.
‘What? Say that again.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ he says.
‘What did you say? Tell me.’
‘I said it was business, the reason I visited. Book business.’
He slips a little as
we cross the road by the cop shop so I grab his arm and he kind of pushes me off. Lena has switched on the Christmas lights in the office window. They look ghoulish. If she doesn’t take them down by my leaving drinks next Thursday I’ll have to do it myself.
‘You’re writing about the factory?’ I ask.
‘It’s all hush-hush,’ he says. ‘But to be honest with you it’s a rather exciting project. I expect you’ll hear more in due time when things are officially announced.’
He looks quite smug now, the mole on his Adams apple rising and falling as he raises his chin to smile.
We get to my Hilux.
‘Need a lift?’ I ask. I don’t want to give him a lift anywhere but I need more information. I need material for my last story.
‘I’m parked in ICA,’ he says. ‘Business, then food. The wrong order, but there you go.’
I unlock my truck and climb in and leave the door open and switch on the engine and the heater. ‘Will you be at the burial tomorrow?’ I ask.
He shakes his head. ‘I’m not welcome, and that’s fine, I’ve made my peace with it. A crowd of Gavrik’s masses plus myself is a recipe for disaster. No, I’ve paid my respects to Gustav, and I’ll spend tomorrow working at home.’
I get out and scrape my windscreen and he just stands there watching me.
‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’m off.’
He doesn’t say goodbye or wave or do anything so I reverse slowly, snow crunching under my studded tyres, and pull onto Storgatan. He’s there in my mirrors, the man who wrapped his coat around me to keep me warm until the police arrived in Utgard forest last year, the man who had his German shepherd stand guard to keep the elk and the wolves and the God-knows-whats away from us.
The snowploughs have gone and my dash reads minus fourteen. Storgatan is deserted aside from two men standing outside Ronnie’s Bar smoking cigarettes and tapping their boots together and moving from side to side. February’s hard on smokers. Smoking involves three times as much pulling on gear and pulling off gear than I have to endure, and that’s saying something. There’s a kid in a bright red jacket sitting at a bus stop outside the haberdashery store and he looks about thirteen. His hockey bag is bigger than he is and his stick’s resting against the Perspex wall of the shelter. Winter’s tough for kids and old people, tougher even than for smokers. If you’re an adult, if you’re aged between eighteen and eighty, then you’ll most likely have a nice warm Saab and spend about zero time outside in the elements. But if you’re very young or very old, if you’re the most vulnerable to the cold, if you’re the least able to cope with icy paths and freezing temperatures, then you’ll be waiting for lifts and hiking along unploughed roads to bus stops in your heavy boots and you’ll see much more of winter than you’ll want to or need to.
Damp burger-scented air is rising into the sky above McDonald’s and hanging there like a fast-food cloud. I pull a left and pass ICA Maxi with its frozen pyramids, its growing Matterhorns of shovelled and ploughed snow, its mountains of dirty white that will linger, protected by trapped chill, long after the ground snow has melted.
There’s a Volvo with a trailer parked right outside Tammy’s takeout van like the driver thinks it’s a goddam drive-thru. He’s parked so close he can probably reach out of his window to the food hatch without getting out of his warm car with its Dire Straits CD and its fluffy steering wheel cover. He drives off and I park and jog over to her.
‘He parked up close,’ I say.
‘And who can fucking blame him,’ Tammy says, refilling her toothpicks and napkins, with her white-bobble hat on top of her head.
She mumbles something else but she’s turned her back to me and I can’t hear.
‘When are you closing up?’ I ask.
She turns around with a smile on her face.
‘Five minutes ago. Let me clear away and we can eat in your truck, deal?’
I nod and watch her chop the last of her spring onions. She slices each one into a hundred microscopically thin green-and-white discs with her Japanese Global veg knife. She told me once how much her chef knives cost, even the short-bladed ones, and I thought she was joking. She packs away shrimp and egg noodles, and locks the rings of sliced spring onion into Tupperware boxes.
‘Good night?’
‘Three thousand, six hundred kronor – or about four hundred bucks or more than half a month’s rent or about a tenth of your new hotshot Malmö monthly salary.’
I blow her a raspberry.
‘I’ll need it,’ I say. ‘You have any idea how expensive apartments are down there? I’m going to end up living in a milk carton.’
‘It’s not expensive down there,’ she says as she shutters up the serving hatch. ‘It’s dirt cheap up here and you’ve got comfortable with it. That’s the problem, clear as ice; the locals never leave because they’re locals and they think everywhere else is terrifyingly different and expensive. I was born here – I know. And then every once in a while an outsider like you comes and you get trapped here cos you get addicted to the cheapness.’
She jumps down from the back of her van carrying two white plastic bags and then she locks up and joins me and gives me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
We sit in my Hilux, her in the passenger seat, heated seat medium, me in the driver’s seat, heated seat low, blower at medium speed, the heat focussed on our feet. It’s comfortable. Here with my engine running and my headlights shooting out into an endless snowfield, it is bearable.
‘Like it?’ she asks.
Beef panang curry, hot enough to warm my zero-kelvin heart from all these months of incessant dark and ice; steaming and mingling with perfect rice-cooker white rice and a few spicy crackers. I just smile and make a dumb pleasure noise.
We eat for ten minutes not saying much. A woman skis past us wearing a backpack with a baguette sticking out of it. Yeah, people ski to the supermarket in Gavrik, totally normal, nothing to see here. When the wind turns, my exhaust fumes get blown to the front of the truck so I see the field, the empty flat field that’s as white as meringue, I see it through a grey poisonous fog. Any other time of year it would be unthinkable for Swedes to keep their car engines running, un-fucking-thinkable, we even turn them off at red lights, but in February, especially a February as cold as this one, nobody says a thing. Rules change when the mercury sinks below minus ten.
‘Guess who I saw tonight?’ I ask.
‘Don’t tell me it was that ratshit taxi driver from Utgard forest.’
‘Sorry Contestant Number One, incorrect.’
‘Holmqvist?’ she says.
‘Congratulations you’ve won a brand new snow-blower.’
‘What’s he doing these days?’ she asks. ‘I never hear about him since, you know.’
‘Some new book project apparently, something involving the factory. He’s creepy but he’s not a creep, you know what I mean? Sometimes the weird-looking guy is actually the sweet guy that nobody ever picked for a sports team.’
Tammy bags up her empty plastic container and takes a swig of apple juice straight from a carton.
‘Last time we talked about him we were on our way to see your mum. It was the day after,’ she says.
‘Yep.’
‘If you want me to come with you to visit the grave, I will y’know,’ she says. ‘I’ll stay in the car if you like, but I’ll drive down with you, I’m happy to do it.’
‘Come live with me in Malmö,’ I say. ‘Fuck this place.’
‘Eighteen months of my course left and then who knows. If they need a bridge designing down there, who knows. Careful what you wish for Tuva Moody, it might just happen.’
I give her two thumbs up.
‘Might have to visit Stockholm before then.’
‘Why?’ I say.
‘Little cousin getting bullied. Shitty rich kids taking his bag on his way home from school. He’s having a tough time. I remember when some rat-face guy used to wait for me after class, used to ask for my number, saying he
wanted to be my friend. Scared the hell out of me. Back then my older cousin told that guy in no uncertain terms to back off. So now big cousin Tammy may need to set up some kind of ambush and kick some racist Stockholm butt. Or else just talk to his teachers.’
‘Best cousin ever,’ I say.
She nods her agreement.
‘Many journos here from out-of-town to cover the suicide?’ she asks.
‘Some,’ I say. ‘Recognised a pair from Jonköping but they didn’t stay long. Too cold for them. Too Gavrik.’
I wait around to make sure she can start her car. I’ve had to jump her middle-aged Peugeot three times since Christmas. And then I head back home.
There are final red bills and a post-redirection confirmation in my mailbox along with a card from Aunt Ida, Mum’s sister, not that they spoke. I open it. It’s a Good Luck card and it shows a black kitten playing with a horseshoe on a patch of clover. Four-leaf clover. The kitten has a pendant around its neck in the shape of a wishbone. Her paws are crossed like fingers. No message, just the card.
The entrance mats are sodden with dirty ice-water. I head up to my apartment and take a half-empty bottle of zero caffeine Coke from the fridge and top it up with rum, all the way up, full to the brim, the perfect balance, the perfect dose, and take it to bed. Can you force someone to kill themselves? Why did Gustav jump? To save his family? The factory? His reputation? When is a suicide actually a homicide?
7
I wake and swallow two paracetamols, then a third, and rub cold water into my eyes. I try to put my aids in but my ears are not having it, no sir. I dig out my cream, the serious one, the fatty prescription one, and rub it gingerly into the thin hard reptilian skin within my ear cavity.
What do I wear to a funeral in February? I collapse on my sofa with a coffee and a microwaved cinnamon bun, the centre still frozen solid, to review my options. Black ski/burglar chic is what it’ll have to be, with liberal amounts of underclothes.