Wonderful Feels Like This

by Sara Lövestam

  Her hands are shaking as she opens the envelope. She thinks, Alvar Big Boy Svensson, did I ever tell you you’re the best old man in the whole wide world? Did I ever tell you? Or did I forget?

  If she closes her eyes, she can hear his old fingers pluck a bass line as if he were still just a boy.

  Some day you will meet

  The friend you need

  Don’t wait … time doesn’t allow

  Many moments for the dance.

  — CHAPTER 36 —

  It’s as if Alvar is with her. She’s listening to Ella Fitzgerald and there’s a family with children across from her. They’re eating sandwiches. The girls are looking at her with round eyes and she puts one hand on the largest of her suitcases. Yes, these are my suitcases. Yes, I’m traveling all by myself.

  But not all by herself, because, in a way, Alvar is with her. He’s seventeen, and as she gets on the train, so does he. A heavyset man of about fifty offers to help her with her luggage, but she’s able to wrestle them into the luggage racks herself. She and Alvar find her place together, since it’s not the forties any longer and all the train seats are numbered and have comfortable upholstery. She sits at seat 22 and checks her ticket again. She shoves her hand baggage against the wall by her feet.

  Nobody is curious about why she’s going to Stockholm. They’re not staring at her electric bass guitar case or the other case she has with her. They don’t exclaim: “Please, play something for us!” They’re all looking at their phones and run their fingers over shiny screens. All the music they could ever want in the world comes through their earphones.

  She wishes someone would look at her smaller case. She would say, “This is my clarinet.” She wouldn’t be lying. She’d be just like Erling. “I got it this summer as a graduation present. But I didn’t know it right away.”

  * * *

  Steffi didn’t realize she was getting a clarinet when she got it. It was in its case propping up the envelope she’d just picked up. She was too busy thinking about the old man who was not in his room to realize what it was. She didn’t know why he was not in his room, but his empty armchair and perfectly made bed didn’t feel right and she wanted to run home and pretend she hadn’t even noticed. But this letter was for her. She opened it with a breaking heart. The handwriting was in cursive and somewhat shaky, but if she read slowly, she could make it out.

  Congratulations on your graduation!

  This is your clarinet. Put it together and go to the visitors’ room.

  Then let’s see if Erling’s Trio can’t come back to life!

  Your friend, Alvar

  The lump in her throat dissolved at once and she felt excited as she snapped open the case and pulled out the shiny black parts of a brand-new clarinet. She was so nervous, she fumbled as she assembled the pieces. She wet the mouthpiece just like Jake had taught her and produced her first note, which sounded so much better than the old clarinet that she had to laugh.

  She realized, as she walked through the hallway, why it seemed so quiet. There was nobody around. Neither old ladies with canes and walkers nor old men with gaping mouths. Not even resolute nurses with hearts of gold. The Sunshine Home was empty.

  Karin was at the door of the visitors’ room. When she saw Steffi coming, she called something into the room and soon Steffi heard Alvar’s familiar voice.

  “Povel Ramel once wrote … all of you know Povel Ramel, don’t you, even if you’ve forgotten everything else?”

  An energetic murmur came from the visitors’ room, in response. Steffi had now reached the door. She saw that all the tables had been lined up against the wall and all the residents of the Sunshine Home were lined up in their chairs and wheelchairs. Even all the staff was there.

  “As Povel Ramel once said: This old guy is still singing! Or, in our case, still playing!”

  It was hard to tell if the audience members, all with hair in various shades of gray and white, were laughing at his joke or at his enormous clown smile. Alvar told a few more jokes and then wrapped a chivalrous arm around Steffi’s shoulders. “Our soloist on the clarinet is Steffi Herrera, a young star rising in the sky of jazz, as Topsy Lindblom would have said. Let’s all give her a warm round of applause!”

  The applause in the Sunshine Home was much different that the one class 9B had just given Sanja a few hours ago. Nobody yelled, nobody whistled. If they had tried to whistle, they might have suffered lack of oxygen. But it was a round of applause given by hands that once had put up blackout curtains, hands that were raised in fists against the German occupation of Norway, hands that had comforted small children who had grown up and now were even retired. These hands had stuffed thousands of sausages, cut down thousands of trees, gently touched the cheeks of their own children and elderly relatives, as they themselves slowly began to acquire wrinkles on their own faces. Now they were clapping for her.

  Alvar gave her a wink as she came up to the piano. Then he looked to the right. “On my other side, we have a real virtuoso on the piano!”

  Anita laughed and twisted on the piano stool and Alvar added a few more words: “Anita Svensson, Sweden’s answer to Nina Simone and Duke Ellington together! Watch out, folks, this is one jazz crazy girl!”

  The crowd was smitten by Alvar’s enthusiasm, and one of the old ladies started to clap again.

  “Why are you using that Stockholm accent, Alvar? We know you’re here from Björke!” called out one of the gray-haired ladies. Many people laughed.

  Alvar picked up his string bass, and in the curved posture he probably would never have been able to do in his advanced age, except that it was so familiar to his body after all the decades of playing that his body took to it naturally, he was ready to play.

  “Ladies and gentlemen! Erling’s Trio! Steffi ‘Hepcat’ Herrara, Anita ‘Jazz Crazy’ Svensson, and myself, Alvar ‘Big Boy’ Svensson, would now like to play for you our version of ‘How High the Moon.’”

  * * *

  Steffi leans her head back. The train has already passed Kristinehamn and through the window she sees a cormorant landing on a lake and quietly swimming on. She smiles as she thinks of Anita’s back and her curly white hair that bounced as she hit the keys. Her fingers didn’t always hit the right notes, but she’d never forgotten the chords.

  One thought strikes Steffi, and she pulls out her notebook from the outer pocket of her bass guitar case:

  That old lady may be mixed up but we get her glimmers.

  Holds a thought for a few seconds, but a melody forever.

  She writes quickly and almost illegibly and the lyrics come easily, as her muse is with her. In the future, when this song is played on the radio, she’ll call Alvar and tell him to tune in.

  She’s always been a jazz crazy girl of highest class.

  Her feet no longer on the ground and her heart is full of jazz.

  Steffi can already hear the walking bass line.

  SWEDEN, VÄRMLAND, AND JAZZ MUSIC DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR

  Stephanie Herrera, Class 9B

  The Second World War began in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland. War did not break out over the entire world at the same time, but it was still called a “world war” because so many countries were parts of alliances that fought one another. Sweden was neutral, which means that Sweden did not officially take part in the war. But it was still difficult to be neutral, because all the countries around Sweden were fighting.

  Because Hitler decided to send Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals to concentration camps in order to either work them to death or kill them outright, Danes and Norwegians often helped these people escape from their countries and into neutral Sweden.

  Many Germans were in Sweden during the Second World War. This was because when Germany attacked Norway, the German troops were allowed to travel by train through Sweden. Some people think that Sweden wasn’t really neutral because we let the Germans through to Norway. The relationship between Sweden and Norway became very bad because of this. When German
y successfully occupied Norway, the relationship between Norwegians and Swedes got worse.

  One thing happening in Norway at this time was the rise of a Norwegian politician named Quisling. He was working with the Germans and he took power in Norway after Norway was occupied. The Norwegians were afraid of the Germans and despised the Swedes, but, most of all, they hated Quisling.

  Since Värmland lies right on the Norwegian border, people felt that the war was nearby, even if Sweden was neutral. Many Swedish soldiers were stationed at the farms, ready to protect Sweden if we were attacked. At the same time, German soldiers were on our trains, and there are elderly people still alive today who say they could see Germans on the other side of the border. They were so close that you could wave to them.

  There was a nervous atmosphere in Sweden during this time. People were afraid that Sweden would be attacked, and many people did not want to talk about the war at all while it was still going on.

  People tried to live their normal lives, but nothing was the same. There wasn’t any gasoline, for example. It was forbidden for individuals to drive cars between 1939 and 1945. You had to either find a car that took wood gas or stop driving. So there weren’t that many cars on the roads during this time, and in Stockholm, many people rode bikes or took the streetcar instead.

  It was also difficult to find various items such as coffee. People drank a great deal of coffee in Sweden before the forties, but all of a sudden there wasn’t any. This was difficult for many people. You got thirteen grams of coffee per person per week. You could buy it with a coupon. These coupons were used for all kinds of things, like sugar, meat, and cheese. This was the most difficult part of the war for most people in Sweden.

  Once, the Swedish military shot down a German plane, even though it was probably just lost on the way to Norway. This happened in Torsby, very close to Björke. Another time, a bomb fell in Stockholm. It was the evening of February 22, 1944. You could hear the boom throughout the city. The next day, all the papers said that war had come to Sweden and people were terrified. Today we think the Soviet Union bombed us, but we still don’t know why. Some people think it was because Sweden had jailed a Soviet spy named Vasilij Sidorenko. Others think the bomb was a mistake and the plane had intended to bomb Finland. At any rate, nobody died and no other bombs were dropped.

  A new style of music had come to Sweden during this time. It was called jazz music and it came from the United States. Since the United States was in the war starting in 1941, there was a great deal of propaganda against jazz music coming from Germany and others who were against the United States. They wrote in the newspapers that jazz music led to loss of morals in the youth and they also wrote many racist things about Jewish people and black people. Everything they thought was bad, they tried to tie to jazz music, but the young people never stopped listening to jazz.

  The best jazz music was smuggled into Europe on gramophone records. Sweden also had its good jazz musicians, such as Arne Domnérus, Gösta Törner, Alice Babs, and lots of others who would play at Nalen and the Winter Palace in Stockholm. They were inspired by American musicians like Artie Shaw, Lucky Millinder, Glenn Miller, Barney Bigard, Duke Ellington, and Charlie Parker. After the war, many American jazz musicians came to Stockholm and played with Swedish jazz musicians at Nalen. For example: Lucky Thompson, Donald Byrd, Sonny Rollins, Quincy Jones, and Thad Jones.

  One source I spoke with told me that this was a lively time in spite of the fear about war. I am going to finish my essay with a quote from him: “It was wartime in Europe and war is always a reminder of death. If you are always confronted with death, you want to live life to the fullest. That’s what we did with jazz music. When I look back to the time of the Second World War, jazz music is what I remember best.”

  Good work, Steffi! You’ve brought together different events from the war with individual experiences. I don’t see some specific terms, such as “rationing” (the term for the limits on food and other items) or “through traffic by special permit” (used for letting the Germans travel through Sweden). The last paragraphs about jazz in Sweden don’t really belong with the rest of the text, but you managed to bring it into context. Grade: Satisfactory

  HISTORICAL NOTE ON SWEDISH JAZZ MUSICIANS

  Jazz music arrived in Sweden from the United States after 1910 in the form now known as “ragtime.” Jazz music spread through recordings and tours of American musicians throughout Europe. In the twenties, many people interested in new music discovered “free form” jazz. The strong elements of improvisation and the new syncopated rhythms contrasted starkly with traditional Swedish music. Many conservative people at the time hated jazz music, but musicians and young people felt they’d discovered something new and exciting.

  During the thirties and forties, jazz and its many variations, especially “swing,” took hold. Dance halls were filled with young people jitterbugging. Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington were two of many jazz greats who came to Sweden and played with Swedish musicians. Swedish jazz was heavily influenced by America, and the jazz scene reached its peak during the fifties. The National, nicknamed Nalen, was the heart of the jazz scene. All the international stars played there, and many Swedish people discovered at the Nalen the new trends in exuberant dance and musical styles.

  During the sixties, interest in jazz music waned as rock and roll claimed a bigger spot in the hearts of young people throughout the world. It was the end of the heyday of jazz music, but Swedes never lost their love for jazz. New Swedish jazz musicians keep appearing on the scene and experiment with, improvise, and continue the inheritance of jazz music into the future.

  Povel Ramel was a magician with words, known throughout Sweden for his intricate lyrics. He assembled variety shows that have become an unforgettable part of Swedish music, comedy, and entertainment, and he was also an excellent jazz pianist and composer. He was born in 1922, and his father was a lawyer and his mother was very supportive. He had a happy childhood until his parents died in a car accident in 1937. Povel Ramel took punning to a new level and added it to his passion for music, especially jazz music. On YouTube and other video sites, you can find his video “Var är tvålen” (“Where’s the Soap”), where Povel and his friends sing about a missing bar of soap.

  Alice Babs had her big breakthrough with the film Swing it, magistern! (Swing It, Teacher!) in 1940, when she was seventeen years old. She was in over twenty movies, often musicals, and worked with Charlie Norman (still called Charles during the forties) and Duke Ellington, who was a great inspiration for Alice. Alice Babs was born in 1924 and died in 2014. On YouTube, you can find her music video from the movie Swing it, magistern!, which is about a few young people who provoke their more conservative peers by singing and playing jazz music.

  Thore Ehrling was born in 1912 in Stockholm. He started a jazz band while he was still in school and had a long career as a trumpet player and bandleader. He studied at the music conservatory in Stockholm and started his own orchestra in 1938. Thore Ehrling’s Orchestra became known for their concerts at the open-air museum Skansen, and from 1943 onward, he was commissioned by Sveriges Radio to produce regular telecasts of modern dance music.

  Arne Domnérus played the alto saxaphone as well as the clarinet. He led an orchestra and received the nickname “Dompan.” At the age of seventeen, he played at Nalen and became an international figure with his work with the Swedish orchestra, known as the Paris Orchestra. When the American Charlie Parker visited Sweden, he played a few concerts with Arne Domnérus. This collaboration was talked about for years within the Swedish jazz world. Later he also played with the trumpet players Clifford Brown, Art Farmer, and Quincy Jones.

  Gösta Törner was one of Sweden’s best jazz trumpet players. He was born in Söder, Stockholm, in 1912. He received his first gig when he was seventeen and led his own orchestra. In addition, he played with the Paris Orchestra in 1949. During the fifties, Gösta Törner played at famous New York nightclubs. He was inspired by Louis Arms
trong, Bix Beiderbecke, and Bobby Hackett. During the sixties, interest in jazz waned and Gösta Törner had to support himself as a security guard and as a caddy for a golf club.

  Casper Hjukström, born in 1911, was a saxophonist and composer who played in all the major Swedish dance orchestras. He even played with Povel Ramel and Alice Babs, and he made a number of recordings with his own sextet. He was born in Sorsele, in Lappland, the most northern part of Sweden, but moved to Stockholm—most likely so he could devote himself to jazz music.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank Povel Ramel and my family for brightening my teenage years.

  A great thank-you to Lasse Odenhall, for your boundless knowledge about jazz, jazz musicians, and instruments! Without you, Alvar would have played “Indiana” in the wrong key. Thank you, Sofia and Anna, for asking the right questions. Thanks, Mattias, for all the books about Povel Ramel. A special thank-you to my publishers around the world for your confidence in me and in my books—for the English translations, Flatiron Books and Allen & Unwin. Thank you, Laura Wideburg, for translating this novel into English with great commitment—especially for taking the time to translate lyrics and finding the right slang and music terminology! Translating Povel Ramel into any other language is in itself an impossible task.

  Last but not least: thank you, children and teenagers, sitting in schools all over the world, thinking about chords, shading, pi, medieval aesthetics, adverbs, metaphysics, Neanderthals, lace-making, chromatics, and making flambés, instead of letting schoolyard pecking orders get to you. Your time will come.

  Recommend

  WONDERFUL FEELS LIKE THIS

  for your next book club!

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