When the Snow Fell

by Henning Mankell

  It had started snowing again. A mass of snowflakes were cascading down to the ground.

  — FIVE —

  Miss Nederström looked at Joel.

  It was the following day. When Joel was feeling fit again.

  But the look she gave him didn’t suggest that she had discovered a secret. She simply asked him if he’d been ill. And he said he had. They had already sung the morning hymn by then. Joel had held his breath when Miss Nederström sat down at the harmonium and started pedaling. If the sound that emerged was not musical notes, he would faint. He grabbed hold of the desk with both hands. As if he’d been in a boat as a big wave was approaching. His classmate Eva-Lisa, the Greyhound, was standing beside him, grinning. But there was no way she could know. She usually grinned at anything slightly different. Joel grabbing tight hold of his desk was enough for that.

  But Miss Nederström showed no sign of suspecting him. That was the main thing. So Joel’s secret visit to his classroom would remain a mystery. Unless he himself decided to reveal what had happened. Perhaps on his ninetieth birthday, in 2035. But Miss Nederström would already be dead by then. Lying in the churchyard under a heavy stone, just like Lars Olson.

  Then the school day began. And it began well. The first lesson was geography, and that had always been Joel’s best subject. Especially if Miss Nederström talked about far-distant countries and people. But that day it was about Scandinavia. That wasn’t as enjoyable. Even so, Joel listened carefully. It always seemed to him that Miss Nederström also bucked up when they had geography.

  That morning he was suddenly struck by the amazing thought that she had once been young as well. Had sat at a school desk just like Joel. And perhaps she had thought that geography was her favorite subject.

  That was one of the hardest things for Joel to cope with. Imagining old people being the same age as he was. And that applied not least to Samuel. Joel had some times looked at pictures of Samuel as a boy about the same age as himself. He could see that it was Samuel. But it was hard. It somehow seemed to be somebody else he was looking at. When Joel looked at those pictures of Samuel, he wondered how he was going to change as he grew up. What would he see in the mirror in fifty years’ time? Not to mention a hundred? He imagined himself going to the photographer’s in 2044, the year before he might be going to die. An old man with a long white beard. But without a hunched back. That was something he was never going to get, as long as he lived. He had made up his mind about that. That New Year’s resolution would last for the whole of his life, and be repeated every year.

  Time passed quickly. When they started the day with geography, it was as if the whole school day braced itself and then shot off over a surface of smooth, shiny ice. Even the boring religious studies lesson could have the occasional exciting moment. This particular time Miss Nederström talked about John the Baptist, who’d had his head cut off and placed on a plate. And Salome danced and was given the head as a reward. Miss Nederström told them that Salome had been very beautiful, and had danced wearing transparent veils. Joel reckoned that must mean she had been more or less naked. Or transparent through and through. The Greyhound giggled. Joel assumed that must mean he was right.

  He sat watching the Greyhound without her noticing. She had started to change. Developed breasts. Joel often found it hard not to take hold of her. Especially her breasts. Sometimes, when he leaned over to reach something, he tried to brush against her. But she was on her guard. Not only could the Greyhound run faster than anybody else, she could also growl and show her teeth.

  Joel started dreaming. About the new shop assistant at the grocer’s, dancing behind the counter, dressed in transparent veils. But the fat old ladies didn’t see a thing. It was only Joel who noticed what was happening. Then Ehnström himself appeared behind the counter. On a tray that usually held strings of sausages was a head. Still the fat old ladies didn’t see a thing. Only Joel knew what was going on. The head looked like that of Stationmaster Knif, and was still wearing his uniform cap.

  He still hadn’t stopped dreaming when school was over for the day. Somebody asked if he wanted to go and play in the horse dealer’s paddock. There might be enough snow to make a slide. Joel would have loved to go, but he said no even so. There was something he had to do that couldn’t wait.

  Joel stayed in the playground until the Greyhound had gone home. The person he was going to visit lived in the same block of flats as she did. He didn’t want her to know that he was going there. She would only start gossiping about it, and she was as good at gossiping as she was at running.

  Joel walked up the hill towards the place where the musician and womanizer Kringström lived. Kringström was the person he was going to visit. He was bald and fat and had his own orchestra. Joel had been to see him the previous year. He’d wanted to learn to play the saxophone. He could still recall how Kringström had stared at him, with his glasses pushed up onto his forehead, surprised to hear that Joel didn’t want to play the guitar like everybody else.

  But now Joel had changed his mind. That was why he was on the way to Kringström’s flat.

  A rock idol had to be able to play the guitar.

  He continued up the hill. There was no sign of the Greyhound. He couldn’t see her anywhere ahead of him.

  He still wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do, become a rock idol or a trailer salesman. Presumably being a rock idol was more fun. Prancing round a stage with a guitar in your hands. Singing “Hound Dog” into a microphone. And in front of the stage a cheering and whooping mass of people, most of them girls who were dying to pull off your clothes or handfuls of hair.

  But there again, he imagined it would be hard going, never being left in peace. Always having to be photographed. Never having time to sit back on his bed, dreaming.

  He wondered if a rock idol would ever have time to act like a child again. That worried him. He’d have difficulty coping with that.

  Selling trailers was different altogether. It was actually Samuel who’d put the idea into his head. They’d been having dinner in the kitchen. Fried herring, Joel could still recall. He’d ventured to ask Samuel if they’d ever be able to afford a motorcar.

  “I doubt it,” Samuel had said. “But you might be able to hit upon a way of earning lots of money.”

  Joel hadn’t risen to the bait.

  “I suppose you earned a lot of money when you were a sailor?”

  “No way!” said Samuel. “But we used to spend a lot of time at sea, where there was nothing to spend our money on. So we’d saved a fair bit by the time we came back ashore.”

  Joel could see that as his dad said that, he started thinking about Jenny. He’d met Joel’s mother while he was a sailor. Samuel’s face clouded over. It seemed as if Joel’s dad was floating away into the clouds. Maybe he looked a bit angry as well. Joel sometimes wondered if Samuel also hated Mummy Jenny—because she’d put him to shame by running away.

  Joel changed the subject. He went back to what they’d started with. Money. How could you best earn a lot of money.

  “Tell me who earns lots of money,” he said.

  “Trailer salesmen,” said Samuel.

  Joel was surprised by the reply. But Samuel went on to say:

  “Ten years from now, every Swede will have a trailer to hitch onto the back of their car. Trailer salesmen are going to get rich.”

  But we won’t be buying a trailer, Joel thought. Or at least, if we do, Samuel and I will have to become horses and pull it.

  What’s the point of having a trailer if you can’t afford a car?

  As usual at such moments, Joel felt very angry. His anger was always lurking in the background, to emerge whenever he thought about how little money they had. He and Samuel were poverty-stricken. Despite the fact that there were supposed to be no poor people in Sweden anymore. But then his anger was transformed into a guilty conscience. Samuel toiled and slaved for all he was worth. He couldn’t possibly try harder than he did.

  Af
ter that conversation in the kitchen Joel spent ages thinking over what Samuel had said. That was how they would be able to afford a car. If Joel sold enough trailers, they’d be able to afford it. They wouldn’t have to pull the trailer themselves.

  But it was only now, when he’d made his New Year’s resolution, that he started to think seriously about the matter. He’d have to make up his mind. Rock idol or trailer salesman. It would be a difficult choice to make.

  There were lots of difficulties. But obviously, the main one was that Joel still wasn’t even fourteen. Perhaps there was a law saying that anybody who wasn’t allowed to ride a moped wasn’t allowed to sell trailers either. Perhaps also there was an age limit for rock idols. How old had Elvis been when he first started? Joel decided to ask Kringström. If anybody knew, he ought to. Even if everybody knew that he hated rock ’n’ roll, and preferred to play something slow and relaxed like a foxtrot.

  Joel had reached the top of the hill. There was the block of flats that Kringström lived in. Still no sign of the Greyhound. Joel noted that Kringström’s big black van was parked outside the front door. That meant he was at home. Nobody had ever seen Kringström walking through the streets if he could avoid it. If he had to go anywhere, he always took the van. There was a corner shop over the road from his front door. Kringström even went there by van.

  Joel walked up the stairs and rang the doorbell. Kringström answered it. As usual, he had his glasses pushed up onto his forehead.

  “You were the one who said he wanted to learn how to play the saxophone,” he said, and was obviously offended. “But nothing came of it.”

  Joel had prepared an answer.

  “The dentist said that I shouldn’t play wind instruments.”

  There wasn’t a jot of truth in that, of course. There was nothing wrong with Joel’s teeth. But Kringström seemed to believe him. It hadn’t been difficult for Joel to lie. There were different kinds of lies: white lies and black ones. And then some that Joel thought were gray. This was a gray lie. It didn’t affect anybody, and it solved the problem. And it also closed down unnecessary conversation even before it had started.

  “I want to learn how to play the guitar instead,” Joel said.

  “I thought as much,” said Kringström. “That’s what I thought a year ago.”

  Kringström let him in. Joel remembered the flat from last year. It was like stepping into a music shop that somebody lived in. There were records everywhere. Mainly 78 rps. But some new LPs had arrived since Joel had been there before. Kringström slumped down into a shabby old armchair and pointed to the other chair. That was for Joel to sit on. As far as he could see, there were no other chairs in the flat, apart from a Windsor-style chair in the kitchen. But on the other hand, there was an apparently infinite number of music stands scattered over the flat in every conceivable place. There was even one in the bathroom. Kringström evidently liked to practice new music all the time. Even when he was on the lavatory.

  “What did you say your name was?” Kringström asked.

  “Joel Gustafson.”

  Kringström looked surprised. So he’d forgotten.

  “And you want to learn to play the guitar?”

  “I’ve been thinking about a career as a rock idol.”

  Kringström stared at him in astonishment.

  “You mean to say you regard that screeching and whining as a career?”

  “All Elvis Presley does is sing.”

  Kringström gestured impatiently with one hand.

  “Don’t talk to me about that man,” he said. “He ruins young people’s taste for music.”

  Joel realized it would be best not to protest. He didn’t want to risk Kringström’s throwing him out. The most important thing was learning to play the guitar.

  “So you want to be a rock idol,” said Kringström in disgust. “And what had you thought of calling yourself?”

  “Snow Elvis,” said Joel without hesitation.

  “Good Lord,” said Kringström, shaking his head.

  “But first and foremost, I want to learn to play the guitar,” Joel said.

  “I’ll think about it,” said Kringström. “Come back in a few days’ time when I’ve had time to think about it.”

  Kringström had other things to do now. Joel left the flat and went back down the hill. At least the worst was over now. With a bit of luck Kringström wouldn’t turn him down. Before too long Joel would also be able to winkle out of him all the secrets you needed to know in order to become a rock idol. Not least how old Elvis Presley had been when he’d made his debut.

  He speeded up as he walked down the hill. There was something else he wanted to do before going home to prepare dinner. He wanted to call in at Ehnströms Livs to make sure that the new shop assistant was still there. That she hadn’t simply been something he’d dreamt about.

  As usual there were lots of old women jostling with each other inside the shop. But it didn’t matter today, as Joel wasn’t going to buy anything.

  She was still there. And now that he observed her from a distance, he could see that she was beautiful. He could very well imagine her dancing in transparent veils. He could feel his body becoming excited at the thought. All the strange things going on inside him that he still hadn’t managed to work out. Sooner or later he’d have to talk to Samuel about it. Even if he wasn’t at all sure that his dad would be able to give him any answers.

  But the shop assistant was still there. He still didn’t know what she was called. But he’d find out. And where she lived as well.

  One of the fat women bumped into him.

  “Mind what you’re doing,” she said angrily. “Do you have to stand right behind me?”

  “You’re nothing but a Hound Dog,” said Joel cheekily.

  Then he marched out of the shop.

  He hurried home. It had been a good day. He’d done everything he’d planned to do.

  The very next day he would start shadowing Ehnström’s new shop assistant.

  But before that he had another important thing to do.

  He must meet Gertrud. The young woman who lived on the other side of the river. And didn’t have a nose.

  He would go and see her that very same evening.

  — SIX —

  The railway bridge loomed ahead of Joel.

  It was lurking there like a petrified dinosaur. The moonlight glistened in the enormous iron arches.

  Not so long ago Joel had tried to climb up one of the arches and gotten stuck. In the end, Samuel had come to the rescue.

  Joel shuddered at the thought. If he’d fallen, he would no longer be alive. He’d be like Lars Olson. A skeleton six feet down in the cold earth, with a stone over his head. Joel Gustafson. Died at the age of eleven.

  He was on his way over the bridge to Gertrud’s house. He both wanted and didn’t want to think about death. If you thought about it, it was like beckoning it to come. You shouldn’t fondle death like you stroked a cat. You should be as wary of it as of a lion in the jungle. But at the same time, the thoughts insisted on forcing their way into his mind. It was difficult to keep them out.

  Joel had decided that death was more difficult to understand than life—which was complicated enough. It wasn’t possible to imagine yourself as nothing. To think that you could no longer think.

  And moreover, you’d be dead for such a long time. That was the hardest thing of all. Lars Olson had already been dead for twenty years. That was longer than Joel had been alive. But there were lots of people who’d been dead for hundreds of years.

  If only you didn’t need to be dead for so long, Joel thought as he contemplated the railway bridge.

  Then it might have been tolerable.

  He looked up at the moon. It was seven o’clock. He’d had dinner with Samuel. Now he was on his way to Gertrud’s. It was several weeks since he’d seen her last.

  He braced himself and started running over the bridge. It was easier to get up speed if he imagined that he was
being chased. There were lots of possible pursuers he could think of.

  He imagined a cavalry of fat old women riding behind him on horseback, wielding their carrier bags like swords and clubs.

  He came to the abutment on the other side of the river. The fat old women disappeared from his mind. He turned onto a little road that followed the river to the left, and came to Gertrud’s house in its overgrown garden. It contained a rowan tree and some currant bushes. Her windows were lit up. She was at home.

  Joel got his breath back before pulling the leather strap hanging outside the door. A music box started playing inside the hall. That was the signal they had agreed on. Then he heard Gertrud shouting for him to come in.

  Joel didn’t know how many times he’d visited Gertrud’s house, but it was a lot. The first time was that unfortunate night when he and Ture had dug up a frozen anthill and thrown it through her kitchen window. But that was a long time ago. Ture didn’t live here anymore. Gertrud and Joel had become friends. Not all the time. They had fallen out the previous year, when Joel had tried to find a husband for Gertrud. But that was all over now. All done and dusted.

  Gertrud was a remarkable person. It wasn’t simply that she didn’t have a nose. Only a hole in her face that she hid behind a handkerchief. Or a red clown’s nose when she was in the mood. She had lost her nose as a result of an operation that had gone wrong. Now she lived by herself in this house on the other side of the river from Joel. She had turned thirty, and sometimes told Joel she was beginning to feel old.

  Gertrud was like no other person Joel knew. He knew that people used to talk about her behind her back. About her wearing strange clothes that she made herself. About her having a stuffed hare in a birdcage and a toy train in an aquarium. But most of all about her saying whatever came into her head, and what she thought about things. Despite the fact that it was usually exactly the opposite of what other people thought.