Down for the Count

by Martin Holmén

  The sound of cautious steps interrupts my mumbling. The steps stop by the door; the handle is pressed down. A draught of air tells me the door is opening. My muscles tense up under the blanket. I pretend to be asleep.

  ‘Are you awake, Kvist?’ whispers Elin, taking a few steps into the room before coming to a stop. I peer at her through slitted eyelids. A flickering paraffin lamp lights up the wall. I have an annoying, tickling need to cough, which makes me even tenser.

  ‘If you’re not holding your breath, then you must be dead. Go on! Shift up!’

  Cold air sweeps over me when Elin pulls aside the blanket. I’m only wearing my underpants. The bed creaks as she gets inside. The soft cotton of her night slip touches my body. Her matronly bust presses into my back as she makes herself comfortable behind me.

  ‘There’s no need to pretend. I know how you are. It doesn’t bother me, but can’t I lie here with for a bit and warm myself up?’

  She puts her hand on my left shoulder. My muscles unwind like vagrants spreading their bundles under a bridge.

  ‘I suppose you can.’

  We lie in silence for a while, breathing in unison.

  ‘She was my mother, but to you she was more than a mother. Could one put it that way?’

  ‘Don’t know if they’re quite the right words.’

  ‘But something like that?’

  ‘Suppose so.’

  She slides her hand over my upper arm. I feel a tingling in my stomach and my cock comes to life. The feeling hits me like a sucker punch. The taste of Doughboy flashes across the roof of my mouth.

  ‘Do you really think the police are behind this?’

  ‘They’re involved, at least.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  Elin’s breasts heave against my back; her warm breath caresses my neck. My pulse picks up. A couple of pipes are sighing in the wall. I turn on my back, and look at her. The light of the paraffin lamp on the bedside table behind her sparkles in her red tresses. About half a minute goes by. Elin inhales: ‘There’s gossip about you but it’s none of my business.’

  ‘Probably not.’

  ‘Was it something you picked up in the navy?’

  Outside in the street, the distant sound of a passing motor car can be heard. The muscles in my stomach bunch up, as if in preparation for a body punch.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Just curiosity.’

  I quote her mother: ‘The heart is not a carthorse that can be shackled any old way you like.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘It’s not a choice. It’s cost me dear.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s how the world is.’

  Something about the way I put it silences me. I shudder. I used the same words in another situation a couple of days earlier, but I can’t remember what I was talking about. It feels important to remember. I clamp my eyes and rub my battered fists against my forehead.

  Damned memory, more holes in it than a Swiss cheese.

  The bed creaks as I sit up. I climb over Elin and go over to my coat, flung over a chair by the door. The room brightens when Elin turns up the lamp. Keeping my back towards her, I tie an extra-hard knot on the string of my underpants. I get out a cigar and strike a match. My lungs fill with a sense of calm.

  I exhale.

  ‘So it’s not because of my ear?’

  I turn around. Elin hoists her plucked eyebrows and looks at me for an instant, before averting her eyes.

  ‘Your ear? What are you talking about?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  I grunt and take a deep drag on my cigar.

  Next to the lamp on the bedside table is a pile of letters that Elin has brought in. They’re tied with pack-thread, a neat little bundle. Elin follows my eyes.

  ‘They were in that box of clothes from Mum. I mentioned it the other day. Haven’t had the energy to look at them yet. Too depressing.’

  I go over to the table, put the cigar in my mouth and pick up the bundle, bending it and riffling them with my thumb like a deck of playing cards. I untie the bow and check through the envelopes. Most of the letters seem to be about the running of the laundry: receipts, payment demands and letters from various public bodies; but a long way down the pile, I find an envelope that doesn’t look like any of the others. It bears the royal seal, and the sender is the court’s overseer at the palace.

  ‘What the hell!’

  Elin looks up. With a trembling hand I snatch up the letter and open it; it’s typed and dated the thirty-first of August. I remove the cigar from my mouth and read:

  Concerning your personal letter of the third day of this month. Claims already made, and any future claims concerning the matter of compensation from the Court, including all claims relating to members of the royal household, of whatever nature, are rejected.

  TUESDAY 26 NOVEMBER

  Once, in a market in Malaga Harbour, I saw a sailor drunk enough to go head-to-head with a dancing bear. They’d lashed a couple of boxing gloves over the beast’s paws, and put a muzzle over its mouth, to even out the terrible odds.

  I think I was watching with a lad I was friendly with at the time, by name of Jorge. The spectators cheered, the ragged flags whipped in the wind, and the bear roared furiously when the sailor managed to land a couple of left jabs. Halfway into the first round the bear knocked the sailor through the ropes with a massive swing of his paw, and the match was over. In fact the outcome had been inevitable all along, but you had to give the lad credit for having the stupidity to try.

  I think about that sailor as I walk down Dalagatan from Elin’s flat. I button up my coat all the way and fold up my collar. Someone has scraped a large swastika in the morning frost on the cobbler’s window. In the doorway a dirty stray dog lies rolled up like a dark-brown bagel. It’s shivering with cold.

  My trainer used to praise my ability to roll and punch back when I was up against the ropes. In the course of the night, I’ve realised that I have to somehow strike back against my enemy however powerful he is. The gong has sounded, it’s the final round, I’m losing, and my only chance is to go for a knockout. For the sake of Beda, Doughboy, Ida and myself. It’s too late to give up.

  ‘Those swine don’t know who they’re dealing with. Harry Kvist in a magnificent comeback.’

  An armada of workers are cycling down Odengatan on their way to work. Many of them are wearing earmuffs. Several have wound scarves around their heads. They weave in between garishly coloured newspaper vans, and bakery boys’ carts, piled high with their fragrant cargo, rumbling along on iron-shod wheels.

  I wait for ten minutes outside ‘No. 74’, a confectioner and tobacconist opposite the Post Office, until they open. I jog back and forth and glare at the postbox as if it were an opponent waiting in the opposite corner of the ring – just before the referee calls us into the middle.

  I get out my envelope from my pocket; the letter to Ida. It’s been franked and on the back of it is a rust-red stain. Christ knows when I bled on it. I should really have replaced it.

  Clerical workers and nine-to-fivers are gathering at the tram stop on the other side of Odensgatan. I cross Dalagatan. A group of schoolchildren, carrying satchels or just school books roped together with old belts, come running along the pavement. With a tremulous hand I drop the letter into the postbox, which snaps its jaws shut as if trying to bite off my fingertips. Once again I turn towards the tobacconist’s, just as the assistant is tossing out a bucketful of mopping water. I hurry back.

  ‘Good morning!’

  She looks less than twenty years old. She’s wearing a deep-blue dress and looks a little tired, but her make-up’s well done. Her soot-black eyebrows arch boldly over her almond-shaped eyes.

  ‘Thanks. Damned cold today.’

  I stamp my feet and look around – it’s a big shop. On the glass counter is a handwritten sign: ‘Excellent cigars in many price ranges’. Under the glass is a selecti
on of tobacco pouches and zip-up leather purses. On the shelf behind are piles of cigarette cartons and round towers of tobacco tins. The girl nods and smiles. For a moment I think about the widow Lind and her cigar shop. Tomorrow morning is my last chance to act on her offer. After that, she’ll let it go to someone else.

  ‘How can I help you?’

  ‘Twenty Meteors, and a local telephone call.’

  ‘The telephone’s in the cubicle over there.’

  She points at a box at the far end of the room, and I touch my hat in thanks. After closing the door, I place my call and ask the operator to put me through to the police headquarters.

  As I suspected, Hessler’s already at his post. The chief constable seems willing to do anything to avoid his wife and children. I ignore the vinegar-sour tone of his voice and give him the revised registration number. After the call I go back to the counter.

  ‘Was there anything else?’

  The shop assistant’s shiny morning eyes look me up and down.

  ‘Cigarettes, as well. And another telephone call. Local.’

  ‘What brand would you like?’

  ‘I trust you.’

  ‘Many men have made that mistake. So a pack of Bridge would suit you, then?’

  ‘They’re not for me.’

  I take my goods and pay for them, then go back to the telephone box. I hold up my pocket watch and check the time. Ten past eight. I’ll give Hessler another five minutes. If he runs he’ll make it.

  I light a fresh cigar and lean back against the wall with a sigh. I missed Dixie’s evening walk last night and if I don’t ger her out soon the apartment will definitely smell of dog piss.

  If someone from the royal family is involved in this bloody story, I might be able to go to the press with it, but so far I don’t have much to go on. Just a series of remarkable coincidences, and those four-eyed pen-pushers would probably keep things under wraps for the royals.

  I don’t have much care for the newspapers.

  One time they spelled my name wrong. Harry with one ‘r’. I couldn’t understand how a thing like that could happen. But when I telephoned the sports editor he claimed it was a printing error. Damned liar! As if a mistake like that would happen in the printing presses.

  I stand there smoking for a while. A customer comes in: a slender man wearing creased trousers and a scruffy overcoat. I feel I recognise him but can’t quite place his face. He takes off his cap, exposing his bald pate. As he moves towards the counter, he glances in my direction. Just to be on the safe side I acknowledge by touching the brim of my hat.

  The little man stops abruptly. His eyes look as if they’re about to pop out of his skull. He spins around and leaves. The door slams hard behind him. As he hurries by the shop window, I realise who he is. I can’t remember his name but he works as a night porter at Hotel Boden in Klara Norra. I asked him a few questions a couple of years ago and ended up burning his face with my cigar so badly that he pissed himself. I chuckle at the recollection before going back into the telephone box and picking up the receiver. Hessler answers almost right away.

  ‘Why are you so interested in that Rolls?’

  ‘It ran over a dog belonging to a client of mine. She wants compensation.’

  ‘That won’t be easy.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘I waited for you until a quarter past ten last night.’

  ‘Another time, Hessler. Tell me, will you!’

  I hold my breath. A faint echo of women’s voices can be heard from the crossed lines. Hessler rustles a piece of paper.

  He clears his throat, and lowers his voice: ‘The car belongs to a special unit of the city police. Watch out for those blokes. They’re not to be trifled with.’

  ‘Black poplin overcoats, eh?’

  ‘You will take care of yourself, won’t you, Harry? You know I’m fond of you.’

  I spin the lever to break off the call.

  Driving Lundin to Brunkeberg Square to fetch the corpse of a foundry-man by name of Verner Wernström, I’m looking in the rear mirror more than I am the road ahead, but I don’t see any sign of a Rolls. We turn off by Johannes Church, where Döbelnsgatan merges with Malmskillnadsgatan.

  ‘Aim for the telephone tower,’ wheezes Lundin and points dead ahead at one of the strangest constructions in the city.

  I peer up. It looks like the pictures of the Eiffel Tower I’ve seen on postcards, but it’s a stockier Swedish version. The square latticework of steel beams sits on top of the Telephone Company offices and stretches up some fifty metres, with a series of gantries inside the construction, connected by ladders. These days, a gigantic revolving clock advertising the NK Department Store sits at the top of the tower.

  ‘I wasn’t much older than you when they put that up,’ says Lundin, twisting his moustache ends. ‘I always thought it was like a medieval castle with those little cages on each corner, like turrets. Can you see the flagpoles on them?’

  ‘You’ve told me a hundred times before. About your brother and the Motala works and Christ knows what else. What’s the address we’re headed to?’

  ‘In the olden days there were different flags meaning this or that. A white one with a big “H” on it meant there was plenty of herring in the shops but they had to stop flying that one, because once they saw it the old girls wouldn’t stop bloody haggling.’

  Lundin gives a croaking laugh and flicks his left hand in the air, while clicking his bony fingers. The shoulder holster rubs against my side as I turn towards him; it’ll be the first time I turn up armed at a house in mourning.

  ‘Yeah, you told me before. Beridarebansgatan, isn’t it?’

  ‘My brother, bless his soul, was involved in the construction, as you might recall. In those days all the telephone wires in the city stopped here. Looked like a bloody nightmare, a big lace cushion, and when there were so many of ’em that you couldn’t see the sky any more, they buried them instead.’

  I peer up at the tower as we draw closer, and I shudder. The sky’s a dark grey, like the smoke of my cigars. I check the rear-view mirror again. Nothing there except a rubbish truck.

  ‘Apparently his son’s a really decent marksman.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘Ragnar Lundin, my nephew. Took part in the Olympic Games in target shooting.’

  I head for the big water-pump in the middle of the square. I go past it and change down a gear to make a U-turn. More than once I’ve waited here for some runaway lass who needs to be put back on a train to go home. Towards midnight, flocks of cackling whores gather around the pump, their faces heavily daubed, drunk on fusel and cheap wine.

  ‘Up there, by those damned kids.’

  Lundin points me to the right building and I park up. He goes ahead up the front steps and I lug out the clumsy coffin and lean it up against the wall. By a little barred grate to the cellars sits a boy in a sports cap, pumping a fishing line up and down. The City has stopped paying for rat tails, but you can still get a couple of öre from the landlord’s agent with a bit of luck.

  A couple of curious young lads gather around the hearse as if a dog’s been run over. A small one in knee socks and short trousers plucks up the courage to knock on the coffin, then cups his hand to his ear as if to listen for a response, sending the others into peals of laughter.

  ‘Stop that, it’s for Kjell’s dad,’ says a pale, red-nosed lad, wiping his snotty nose with the back of his hand. ‘It is for Kjell’s dad, isn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  I light a Meteor and lean against the wall. An emaciated bloke with white stubble hobbles across the street towards me. His trousers are held up by a hay-bale strap tied in a bow across his stomach.

  ‘Will there be ale at the wake?’ The old bloke bites his thumb knuckle, then takes his hand out of his mouth. ‘Can you get me in?’ He holds out a couple of blue relief coupons usable in NORMA restaurants.

  Might be all right for a little celebratory lunch tomorrow for me an
d Doughboy after his release.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  I take the food coupons and put them in my trouser pocket at the same time as Lundin opens the door and grabs the head end of the coffin. I take the foot end. We lift.

  ‘This bloke here was wondering if he can take part in the refreshments?’

  Lundin shakes his head. I shrug, and then we carry the coffin up the stairs. The skinny bloke’s lips start trembling.

  The hall smells of ten o’clock coffee. I kick at an escaped chicken that comes running down the stairs. My cigar is wedged in my mouth. Smoke gets in my eye, so I clamp it shut. Lundin balances the coffin with the narrow end facing downward, and rings the doorbell.

  ‘The hard part of the job is bringing this thing down. We’ll have the whole team of pall-bearers here for that.’

  Lundin lifts his top hat a tad and mops the sweat off his brow with a white handkerchief. I’m supporting the weight of the black coffin, which is leaning against me; it’s like propping up an old mother-in-law during a wedding waltz. Lundin adjusts his jacket and opens the door; I angle the coffin down and he takes his end.

  Death has released its unsettling sweet smell in the flat, and the bereaved wife has a good deal of grey in her dark hair. Her eyes almost brim over when she catches sight of the coffin, but she closes her eyes and squeezes out the tears into her wrinkles, then wipes them off with a white lace handkerchief. We stand for a while in the hall before she realises she has to let us into the living room.

  The curtains are drawn and everything is resting in the gloomy light of loss. In the adjoining room, four lads of mixed ages sit on a yellow and brown rug. Between them they have a shiny red fire engine made of metal. Scant consolation.

  Next to a big mirrored cupboard, the foundry-worker Wernström lies in a double bed. He’s wearing a long nightshirt. His bloodless lips have already receded, revealing a couple of yellow teeth. He’s unshaven, with red blotches on his face, although otherwise damned pale. There’s still a bit of caster’s soot around his ears. Someone has stopped the wall-mounted clock at a quarter to six. We put the coffin on the cork mat next to the bed and go back down the stairs to pick up the rest of the equipment. I take a deep drag on my cigar.