“This dung beetle,” said Konrad, “this beetle shouldn’t be here at all. It’s African. A very pretty specimen, actually.” He gave it a piece of cookie to wrestle with.
Cornelia entered the office with a new chair. At the same time, the light by Miss Sycorax’s number started blinking. Arvid considered not picking up. But Cornelia sat down and put her headset on, and Konrad tore himself away from the dung beetle, and there was no longer an excuse not to work. He pushed the button.
“Operator.”
“Hello,” said the flat voice.
“Yes, hello.”
“I want to be put through to Arvid Pekon,” said Miss Sycorax.
“Arvid Pekon,” Arvid repeated. His finger flicked the mute switch up and down.
“Arvid,” said his voice.
—
A slap woke him up. Cornelia’s round eyes were staring worriedly into his. She turned her head to look over at Konrad’s looming silhouette. They grabbed Arvid’s arms and dragged him up into his chair.
“You had us worried there,” said Cornelia.
“You fainted,” Konrad explained.
“What happened?” asked Arvid. The buzzing in his head made it difficult to hear the other two. His face tingled.
“Oops. Head between your knees,” said Konrad.
“What happened?” asked Arvid of the linoleum.
“You talked to 3426 for almost an hour and then you fell off your chair,” said Cornelia.
“But I took the call just now.”
“No, you’ve been going on for an hour.”
“What did I talk about?”
Cornelia was silent for a moment. She was probably glaring at him. “You know we don’t listen to each other’s calls.”
“Yes,” mumbled Arvid to the floor.
A hand landed on his shoulder. “You should probably go home,” said Konrad.
“I think I have to talk to the manager,” said Arvid.
—
The door to the manager’s office had an unmarked window of opaque glass. Arvid knocked on the glass. When there was no reply, he carefully pressed down the door handle and stepped inside. The room was smaller than he remembered it, but then again it was only his second time in here. There were no shelves or cabinets, just the enormous mahogany desk that covered most of the room. The desk was bare save for a telephone and a crossword puzzle magazine. Behind the desk, doing a crossword puzzle with a fountain pen, sat the manager in her powder-blue suit and immaculate gray curls. She looked up as Arvid opened the door and smiled, her cheeks drawing back in deep folds.
“Egyptian dung beetle, six letters?” said the manager.
Arvid opened his mouth.
“S-C-A-R-A-B,” said the manager. “Thank you.” She closed and folded the magazine, put it aside, and leaned back into her chair. She smiled again, with both rows of teeth.
Arvid waited.
“You have neglected to log three calls this month, Arvid,” the manager said. “Subject 3426 at 2:35 p.m. on March 15; Subject 3426 at 1:10 p.m. on March 21; Subject 3426 at 4:56 p.m. on March 30. Why is this, Arvid?”
“I’m having a bit of trouble,” Arvid said, and shifted his weight from side to side.
“Trouble.” The manager was still smiling, cheeks folded back like accordions.
“I think I may be having a nervous breakdown.”
“And that’s why you haven’t logged your calls.”
“This is going to sound insane,” said Arvid.
“Go on,” said the manager.
Arvid took a deep breath. “Subject number 3426…”
“Miss Sycorax,” supplied the manager.
“Miss Sycorax,” Arvid continued, “has been making some very strange calls.”
“Many of our subjects do.”
“Yes, but not like her. Something’s off.”
“I see.”
“Eh, I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe I need some time off.”
“If you think you’re having a nervous breakdown, Arvid,” said the manager, “I’ll book an appointment with the company doctor and let him decide. We need to know if it’s a workplace injury, you know. Oh, and do talk to Cornelia. She’s the union representative.”
“I will.”
“All right, Arvid. Go on home. I’ll have the doctor’s office call you this afternoon.” The manager smiled at him with both rows of teeth.
—
At the switchboard, Konrad and Cornelia were back at work. Cornelia was doing her best to ignore a little army of ants marching in a circle around her desk. Konrad and the dung beetle, on the other hand, seemed to have become fast friends. The dung beetle was rolling a sticky ball of masticated cookie crumbs.
Arvid sat down in his chair and stared at the terminal. After some hesitation, he put his headset on. Then he put a call through to Miss Sycorax.
“Hello,” said Miss Sycorax after the third ring.
“Hello,” echoed Arvid.
“Hello.”
“This is the operator,” Arvid managed.
“Oh.”
Arvid took a deep breath. “Who is this Arvid Pekon you wanted to be put through to?”
At the other end of the line, Miss Sycorax burst into laughter. The sound made Arvid cower in his chair.
“It’s a funny name,” she said. “Pekon, it sounds like a fruit. Like plums or pears. Or like someone from China. Or like a dog breed.”
“Who is Arvid Pekon?” Arvid repeated.
“There is no Arvid Pekon,” Miss Sycorax replied.
“Yes there is!”
“No there isn’t. I thought there was, but then I realized I was mistaken.”
Arvid disconnected and tore his headset off.
“I’m right here!” he yelled at the cockroach on the in-box. “Look!” He banged his fist on the desk so hard that it tingled. “Would I be able to do that if I wasn’t here?”
Something crackled. He looked down at his hand, which was lying in shards on the desk. The tingling sensation spread up his arm, which shuddered and then exploded in a cloud of dust.
“Where did Arvid go?” Cornelia asked Konrad a little while later.
“Who?” Konrad was looking at a ball of cookie crumbs on his desk, having no clear idea of how it got there. He popped it in his mouth.
Cornelia shook her head. “I don’t know what I’m on about. Never mind.”
“Coffee break?” said Konrad. “I’ve brought Finnish shortbread.”
Brita’s Holiday Village
5/29
THE CAB RIDE from Åre station to Aunt Brita’s holiday village took about half an hour. I’m renting the cottage on the edge of the village that’s reserved for relatives. The rest are closed for summer. Mom helped me make the reservation—Brita’s her aunt, really, not mine, and they’re pretty close. Yes, I’m thirty-two years old. Yes, I’m terrible at calling people I don’t know.
I didn’t bring a lot of stuff. Clothes and writing things, mostly. The cottage is a comforting old-fashioned red thing with white window frames, the interior more or less unchanged since the 1970s: lacquered pine, green felt wallpaper, woven tapestries decorated with little blobs of green glass. It smells stale in a cozy way. There’s a desk by one of the windows in the living room, overlooking Kall Lake. No phone reception, no Internet. Brita wondered if I wanted a landline, but I said no. I said yes to the bicycle. The first thing I did was bike down to the ICA store I saw on the way here. I stocked up on pasta and tomatoes and beans. I found old-fashioned soft whey cheese, the kind that tastes like toffee. I’m eating it out of the box with a spoon.
“Holiday village” is a misleading expression; the village is really just twelve bungalows arranged in two concentric circles with a larger house—the assembly hall—in the middle. The dark paneling, angled roofs, and panoramic windows must have looked fresh and modern in the sixties, or whenever they were built. The wood is blackened now, and the windows somehow swallow the incoming light, creating caverns unde
r the eaves. I’m a little relieved to be staying in the cottage.
Brita said that before she bought the holiday village, back when they were building it, the old man who owned the cottage refused to leave. When he finally died, the cottage was left standing for private use. It’s much more cozy, anyway. I’d feel naked behind those panoramic windows.
5/30
I got up late and unpacked and sorted music. I’ve got a playlist with old punk and goth for the teenage project, an ambient playlist for the space project, and a list of cozy music, everything in order to feel at home and get into the mood and avoid writing. Did some cooking. Rode the bike around until I was tired. Found an old quarry. Tried to go for a swim in Kall Lake and cut my feet on the rocks. Bought goat whey curd. Finally, I couldn’t avoid it anymore: writing.
So I have two stories I want to do something about. First there’s the science fiction story about child workers in the engine room of a spaceship. It’s a short story, really, but I’d like to expand it into a novel. I know you’re not supposed to worry about form or length—it’s a guaranteed way to jinx the whole thing—but I’d really like to. I like the characters and their intense relationships, like Lord of the Flies in space.
The other story is a pseudo-biographical thing about a teenager growing up in the Stockholm suburbia of the 1980s, during the heyday of Ultra, the tiny house turned punk headquarters. I suppose it’s a cooler and bolder version of myself. Also, older. I was too young to ever hang out at Ultra. It had already burned down by the time I discovered punk. I used to go to Ultra’s next iteration—Hunddagis, the club housed in an old day care center for dogs. I still remember the punk aroma: beer, cigarettes, cheap hair spray, and day-old sweat.
So, that’s what I’ve been doing: writing down a bunch of teenage memories and transposing them onto a little older and bolder version of myself, and it’s just slow and boring work. I had a go at the science fiction story instead, but it wouldn’t happen. I ended up shutting everything down, realized it’s now one o’clock in the morning (actually it’s one thirty now), and I’m going to bed.
5/31
I took a walk through the village this morning. Things that look like white, plum-size pupae hang clustered under the eaves. They’re warm to the touch. I should tell Brita—it’s some kind of pest. Wasp nests?
Biked to the quarry after coffee, gathered some nice rocks—very pretty black granite. Went home, made pasta with chickpeas, tried to write. Writing about punks at Hunddagis doesn’t feel the least bit fun or interesting. Mostly because I’ve realized what a lame teenager I was. I was always home at the stroke of midnight; I didn’t like drinking mash; I didn’t have sex. I read books and had an inferiority complex because I was afraid to do all that other stuff. I don’t know anything about being a badass punk rocker.
It’s the same thing with the story about the engine room kids—what do I know about child labor? What do I know about how kids relate to each other under circumstances like that? Not to mention, what do I know about spaceships? I’m talking out of my ass.
So there I am. I can’t write about what I know, and I can’t write about what I don’t know. Better yet, I’ve told everyone that I’m staying in Åre until I’ve finished THE NOVEL. I somehow thought that saying it would make it happen.
Hang in there for another couple of weeks. And do what? Try some more. Go on biking trips and eat whey cheese.
6/2
I’m taking a break. I’ve scrapped everything I was working on. I rented a car and drove west over the border into Norway, where I bought ice cream in a lonely little kiosk. When I was a kid, I thought the sign in Norwegian that said åpen, open, meant apan, the monkey. It was the most hilarious thing ever.
I had my ice cream and looked at the Sylarna Mountains and the cotton-grass swaying on the bog. There was a thick herbal smell of mountain summer. Little pools and puddles were everywhere, absolutely clear, miniature John Bauer landscapes. I considered going on to Levanger, but it felt too far. I went for a swim in Gev Lake on the way home. It was just like when I was little: warm and shallow enough that if you walk out into the middle, the water only reaches your waist. Tiny minnows nibbled at my feet.
6/3
I’m having coffee in the little cabin on Åreskutan’s Summit. It’s a clear day, and I can see the mountain range undulating in the west, worn blunt by the ice ages. Mom once said that when she was a kid, there was a leathery old man who every morning hiked all the way up the mountain with a satchel full of coffee thermoses and cinnamon rolls that he would sell in the cabin. This was before the cableway, somewhere in the 1950s. The old man had done that since time immemorial, even when my grandmother and her sister were kids and dragged baking troughs up the mountain to ride them down like sleds.
6/4
I went for a walk in the holiday village. I became a little obsessed with the thought of stuff you can do when nobody’s looking. Build a pillow fort outside cottage number six. Streak howling through the street. I was thinking specifically of howling when I spotted the pupae. They’re the size of my fist now. That was fast. I forgot to tell Brita. Of course, I had to touch one of them again. It felt warmer than my hand.
Went shopping in Kall, had a cup of coffee, bought the newspaper, went past Brita’s house. I told her about the pupae. Her reaction was pretty strange. She said something about the pupae sitting there in summer, and that I should leave them alone. That’s why she’d put me in the cottage outside the village, so that the pupae would be left in peace. Yes, yes, I said. I won’t do anything. Do promise you won’t do anything, said Brita, and suddenly she was pleading. They have nowhere else to go, she said; you’re family, I can trust you can’t I? Yes, yes, I said, I promise. I have no idea what she’s on about.
6/5
I dreamed that there was a scraping noise by the door. Someone was looking in through the little side window. It was human-shaped, but it sort of had no detail. It was waving at me with a fingerless paw. The door handle was jerking up and down. The creature on the other side said nothing. It just smiled and waved. The door handle bobbed up and down, up and down.
It’s five past ten. I’ve slept for almost ten hours.
I went into the village to check if the pupae had grown, but all that remains are some empty skins hanging under the eaves. So that’s that.
6/6
There’s a knock on the door and someone’s waving at me through the side window. It’s a middle-aged man. When I open the door, he presents himself as Sigvard and shakes my hand. He’s one of the groups of tourists who live here during the summer. They’ve rented all the cabins, and now they’re throwing a party, and they’ve seen me sitting alone in my cottage. Would I like to join them? There’s plenty of food for everyone. I’m very welcome.
The party takes place in the little assembly hall. People are strolling over there from the other cabins. They’re dressed up for a summer night’s party: the women in party dresses and lusekofte sweaters tied over their shoulders, the men in slacks and bright windbreakers. Inside, the assembly hall is decked with yellow lanterns, and a long buffet table lines one of the walls. The guests are of all ages and resemble one another. I ask Sigvard if they’re family, and Sigvard says yes, they are! It’s a big family meet-up, the Nilssons, and they stay here a few weeks every summer. And now it’s time to eat.
The buffet table is covered in dishes from every holiday of the year: steak, roast ham, tjälknul, hot cloudberries, new potatoes, patés, pickled herring, gravlax, lutefisk, seven kinds of cookies, cake. I’m starving. I go for second and third helpings. The food has no taste, but the texture is wonderful, especially the ice cream mingled with hot cloudberries. Everyone seems very interested in me. They want to know about my family. When I tell them that Brita is my great-aunt, they cheer and say that we’re related, then; I belong to the Anders branch of the family. Dear Brita! They love her! I’ll always be welcome here. Everyone else here belongs to the Anna branch: Anna, Anders’s sister and the eld
est daughter of the patriarch Mats Nilsson.
When we’re done eating, it’s time to dance. The raspy stereo plays dansband music: singers croon about smiling golden-brown eyes, accompanied by an innocent and sickly sweet tune. Everyone takes to the dance floor. Sigvard asks me to dance. This is like a cliché of Swedish culture, I say without thinking. Yes, isn’t it, Sigvard says, and smiles. He holds me close. Then I wake up.
6/8
I started writing again. Throwing the old stuff out worked. Something else has surfaced—it’s fairly incoherent, but it’s a story, and I’m not about to ruin it by looking too closely at it. It has nothing to do with teenage trouble at Hunddagis, or Lord of the Flies with kids in spaceships. It’s about my own family in Åre, a sort of pseudo-documentary. Some mixed memories of my grandmother’s and mother’s stories of life up here, woven together with my own fantasies to form a third story. Above all else, I’m having fun. I refuse to think about editing. I write and stare out over Kall Lake.
The dreams are a sign that things are happening—I keep dreaming about the same things, and it’s very clear, very detailed. It’s the same scenario as before, that is, Sigvard knocking on the door and taking me to the assembly hall. We eat enormous amounts of food and dance to dansband classics. I talk to all my relatives. They tell stories about Mats Nilsson’s eldest daughter and how she started the new branch of the family when she married and moved north from Åre. I don’t remember those stories when I wake up.
6/13
I started with Mother’s stories, continued with Gran’s generation, and am working my way back in time to form a sort of backward history. I wrote about the war and how Great-Gran smuggled shoes and lard to occupied Norway. Then I wrote about how Gran met Grandpa and moved down to Stockholm. Right now Gran is a teenager, it’s the twenties, and she’s making her first bra out of two stocking heels because she can’t afford to buy a real one. She and her sister are getting ready to go to a dance in Järpen. It’s an hour’s bike ride. I’m looking forward to writing the story about my great-great-grandfather who built a church organ out of a kitchen sofa. Some things you can’t make up.
Jagannath Page 5