A Fairy Tale

by Jonas Bengtsson

  During the intermission I drink orange soda from the bar and I don’t have to wait in line.

  “Is that little boy alone in the theatre?” I hear someone say, but I ignore them.

  After the intermission the stage walls are dark grey and grimy. The family has lost all their money. The table in the middle of the room is dirty. The floor looks as if a thousand muddy boots have trodden on it. Now they live in a basement. The actors look sad and poor, but I don’t quite believe them, they’re hiding too many kilos hidden under their ragged clothes. Sara’s the only one who looks like she knows what it means to go hungry. When she sits on the filthy bed and her back convulses in silent sobbing, I want to climb up on stage and put my arm around her.

  I drink juice, my dad plays pool, and the actors take turns patting me on the shoulder. Kim and Margrethe are sitting at the end of the table. After the show they walked down the street arm in arm. Now they look like old friends again. Kim says something that makes Margrethe laugh and cover her mouth with her hand; he spreads a deck of cards out in front of her.

  “What you did today was impressive,” Sara says to me. “When things go well, actors drink a lot,” she says. “To celebrate. But when they play to empty houses, as we do now, then they drink even more. They argue and they drink. They scream and they shout.”

  I hear a sharp bang when my dad hits a pool ball and it bumps into another ball. Sara looks into the air; I try to follow her gaze.

  “I would’ve been happier working in a shoe shop,” she says. “Selling shoelaces and pressing the toes of people’s shoes when they’re not sure if the size is right.”

  She shudders slightly as if she’s cold, then she smiles and looks at my dad’s back. He leans across the pool table and shoots another ball. I hear it hit the sides and I’m almost certain he pockets it.

  “Do you think he’ll win?” Sara asks.

  “Yes,” I reply.

  We move into an apartment a couple of floors further down. The old man who lived there has died; they found him in a chair in the middle of the living room. Next to him was an overflowing ashtray. The caretaker says that after the man lost his wife, he just sat in his chair smoking one cigarette after another. That was all he did. Once a week the grocer’s delivery boy would turn up with a plastic bag containing a box of crispbread and four cartons of cigarettes. I think the caretaker must be exaggerating until I see the apartment. Every piece of furniture is covered with tiny burns. The walls are yellow and the smell of smoke is so overpowering it makes my eyes sting.

  “We used to worry he’d fall asleep with a lighted cigarette and set fire to the whole building,” the caretaker says.

  We leave the windows open for two days, we walk around the apartment with our coats on, we sleep in them. The smell of tobacco refuses to go away. My dad opens a bag of ground coffee and tips it out onto three plates: one he puts on the kitchen table, another on the windowsill, and the third on the floor in the hall. It’s an old trick real estate agents use to sell properties, he says. Everyone likes the smell of coffee.

  Only old people live in this building. We pass them on the stairs; at night we hear their televisions mumble. It won’t be long before another apartment in the building becomes available, then we’ll probably move again. I hope we can stay here. Just for a little while. Move from apartment to apartment; move whenever my dad feels like it without ever leaving the building.

  Every time we leave Sara’s apartment, the sky has grown a little darker. One day we stay longer and eat with her. From then on we no longer come for coffee, but for dinner. My dad spends hours in her kitchen, preparing food that goes in and out of the oven. We have old-fashioned roast beef, we have lamb chops, borscht, and veal. After dinner, when the red wine bottle is empty, they drink coffee. I sit on the floor with my back against the bookcase as I draw them. I draw the table they sit at, the coffee pot, which my dad says is called a Madam Blå. I draw the ashtray and the smoke from a cigarette Sara hasn’t quite managed to stub out. She laughs at something my dad says. My dad always makes her laugh. Otherwise I don’t think I’ve seen her laugh. Yes, on stage, but that’s because she has to, it says so in the papers that lie in front of my dad. And in the bar with the other actors. But she doesn’t fool me. I’ve seen people slip on the ice in winter, get up with grazed palms, and laugh, No, they’re fine, it’s nothing.

  I draw my dad as a zebra sipping coffee from a tiny china cup. I draw Sara as a lioness. I’m about to draw her mane when I remember that lionesses don’t have manes.

  “We deserve a little something with our coffee.” Sara walks over to the bookcase where I’m sitting. “I got this after last night’s show.”

  She takes a bottle from one of the shelves. Then she looks down at my sketchbook. My first thought is to hide it; my dad is the only person who has ever seen my drawings, and perhaps she’ll get mad because I’ve drawn them as animals.

  “Mind if I have a look?” she asks.

  I hesitate before handing her the sketchbook.

  “That’s really good,” she says, and my dad beams with pride. “Why don’t you try drawing us while we’re on stage?”

  I’ve a charcoal pencil in my hand. Not too hard or too soft. The red glow from the emergency exit sign lights up my paper. Should it become necessary, I can sharpen my pencil halfway through Act One. That’s when Olga gets bad news and drops the teapot.

  I draw the two Janus masks mounted above the stage, then I draw tables and chairs, the pitcher with water, and the display cabinet. I can feel my palms getting sweaty, as though someone is looking over my shoulder. I know I can draw dragons, trolls, strange animals whose shape I can decide. I’m good at buildings and trees with lots of leaves. I’ve drawn cowboys, but I always focus on their guns. Drawing real people is difficult. The actors on stage keep moving. They walk and talk, they fling out their arms before disappearing off stage. I close my eyes. Like a camera taking a picture. Then I draw them as they were. A single moment. The hand raised, the mouth open. I draw as much as I can remember before putting my pencil down.

  The next day the actors stand in their usual positions and I carry on drawing. Raised eyebrows, palms open.

  I draw six days in a row. Sunday is our day off. We go to Sara’s for dinner. I don’t look at the drawing; that would be cheating. And I think I’m also worried what I might find. On Monday I’m back in the theatre with my sketchbook, sketching in the glow from the emergency exit. I put the last few lines on the paper; the drawing is done. I don’t look at it until the intermission. The stage might be a little too big. The folds in the curtain could be more accurate, but then again they change every night. Then I look at the actors. They look like people, but they’re not. They stand far too still. Like stuffed animals, their eyes look like glass beads. I scrunch up the drawing, throw it into the garbage among the empty cigarette packets and plastic cups.

  I tell my dad I’m not feeling very well. He has his coat on; we’re going to the theatre. I tell him not to worry about me, I just want to stay in bed, I’m tired. When he has gone I lie there staring at the ceiling. I hate that piece of paper. It’s underneath me, as far under the bed as I could hide it.

  My hands move under the blanket, draw lines in the ceiling. I try to stop.

  The next evening I’m back in the theatre with my sketchbook on my lap. I’ve made up my mind that it’s the last time I’m going to draw. I no longer care about likeness; it’s not as if anyone will ever get to see this drawing. I draw so hard that the pencil goes through the paper. So hard that the point snaps and I have to find my pencil sharpener. An older man turns around and looks at me, but I ignore him. I’m not drawing the actors; I’m only drawing their movements. The head is the last thing I draw; eyebrows, mouth, and eyes no longer matter. The table, the chairs, and the samovar, I know they’re about to be knocked over soon and then they, too, will be in motion. I draw without looking at the paper,
I draw through the whole of Act One and when we reach the interval, my wrist aches. During Act Two I just watch them talk. I don’t want to draw any more, it’s over. The easel my dad gave me, there must be another use for it. We could hang clothes on it.

  I’m sitting on the barstool drinking apple juice; the straw makes a slurping sound near the bottom of the bottle. My dad asks if he can please see my drawing. I hand him the sketchbook. He can look at it now and then neither he nor Sara will ever ask me to draw again. My dad puts down the sketchbook on the bar in front of him, his hand finds the beer glass, he empties it. He taps the ash off his cigarette without hitting the ashtray. Then he waves over the bartender and pushes the sketchbook towards him. Perhaps to teach me a lesson, like house training a puppy by pressing its head into its mess. The bartender looks at the drawing. He has tattoos on his forearms, a ship with tall masts and a naked lady. The tattoos have been made by someone who really knows how to draw. I bite my bottom lip and try not to cry.

  The bartender looks up at me.

  “Can I buy it?” he asks.

  I nod; of course he can buy it. He can have it for free. He can tear it up and throw it away if that’s what he wants.

  “Please, would you write your name on it?”

  I write Peter in the bottom right-hand corner. The bartender opens the till and takes out a banknote and puts it in front of me. Then he tears the drawing off my sketchbook with great care and puts it up on the mirror behind the bar.

  My dad keeps pointing to the drawing for the rest of the evening.

  He says, “My son did that.”

  People stop, they look and smile. But no one laughs.

  That night when we walk home, the banknote is in my pocket. I can feel it against my fingertips, the kind of thin, slightly stiff paper that can only be money. I know I’m never going to spend it.

  A couple of hours before the performance my dad and I are alone in the auditorium. My dad has a long wooden pole with a metal hook in his hands; he uses it to adjust the stage lights, nudging them a little to the right, a little to the left. He takes a couple of steps back, fiddles with them a little more before he’s satisfied. He takes down some lights to replace the light bulb or attach new filters or gels. Gels are thin pieces of plastic that you put in front of the light bulb. They come in red, green, yellow, or blue. One night, during Kim’s long monologue in Act One, my dad showed me how they work. It’s when the country doctor says that life always happens elsewhere. My dad let me dim the yellow and red lights. Kim grew very pale, he looked like he’d eaten something that disagreed with him or had received very bad news. Kim kept on speaking; he still had many words to go.

  “Why don’t we try green?” my dad suggested.

  He put my hand on another button; I was allowed to turn it up slowly. Kim looked as if he wouldn’t get to the end of his speech before collapsing. Possibly never leave the stage alive.

  My dad raises the pole towards the stage light again; this time he’s on tiptoes. “Why won’t the damn thing . . .”

  I sit with my feet dangling over the edge of the stage. I remind myself not to whistle. There are rules. You’re not allowed to wear your coat on stage, either. Both bring you bad luck.

  I hold up a gel in front of my eyes. The whole world turns blue. We’re in the middle of a snowstorm.

  The door at the end of the auditorium opens and the theatre manager comes running in. He sprints down through rows of seats. Polar bears are on his heels. Panting, he asks if my dad has heard the news, heard about the critic. My dad shakes his head, carries on working with the pole and the light in the ceiling. The theatre manager says that it might just be a rumour, but he has heard that Erik Schmidt is coming to review the show tonight. The theatre manager wipes his forehead with his shirt sleeve.

  I find the red gel and hold it up to my eyes. That’s better: The whole world is red now. We’re surrounded by flames, no wonder the theatre manager is sweating. He says it’s important that everything goes smoothly and jumps up and down on the spot to avoid his shoes catching fire. I feel sorry for him and find the green gel.

  Now we’re inside a humid jungle. Big birds with long crooked beaks perch in the treetops above us. The theatre manager’s voice drowns out their chirping.

  “Tonight everything must be perfect, it must be absolutely perfect,” he says, wiping his forehead with his sleeve; again he grins nervously and hurries back up the aisle. His feet sink into the soft forest floor. He reaches the door without being eaten by predators.

  My dad turns on the lighting desk one button at a time until the whole board is buzzing. If he’s nervous, it doesn’t show. He does everything he always does: he puts out the book, he flicks through the pages to make sure they’re in the right order. The cigarette packet and the lighter are in place next to the ashtray.

  I, too, have my comics ready on the floor beside me. I switch my flashlight on and off a couple of times.

  My dad brings each lamp up and down to make sure that none of the bulbs have blown while he adjusted the lights.

  Sara enters.

  “With lots of luck for your final performance,” she says, and kisses my dad on the back of his neck.

  “Is it really that bad?”

  “Erik Schmidt either loves or hates a show. He’s not going to like this one.”

  Sara takes a cigarette from the packet on the table. “Everyone has been saying, ‘If only the critics would come, if only we got some reviews then the show would sell out . . .’”

  My dad takes her hands in his. He usually has something to say in any situation, but now he’s quiet.

  “I only hope someone’s prepared to sleep with him.” Sara laughs a little too loud. “Someone from the cast, the theatre manager, Kim, anyone. Otherwise we don’t stand a chance. As long as he gets . . .”

  Then she looks over at me. I get very busy rearranging my comics.

  Sara turns in the doorway, forms her hands into a cone, and says in a stage whisper to my dad: “As long as he gets laid! Laid! Laid! Laid!”

  I hear the sound of her heels down the narrow passage.

  My dad checks the tape recorder, making sure the tape is in the right place. Then the door opens again and Kim enters. He wears a grey woollen vest over a baggy white shirt.

  “The country doctor’s here,” he says, and laughs. “Where’s the patient?” His doctor’s bag clinks as he sits down on the chair next to my dad. “I can’t stand being in the dressing rooms. Everyone’s going crazy. Margrethe is crying into her lap. Mikael is walking around in circles. I’m scared he might hit me if I should bump into him.”

  Kim takes two beers out of the doctor’s bag. He puts one in front of my dad and takes a cigarette from the packet on the table.

  My dad has told me that people get nervous if you don’t drink with them. They clink the bottoms of the beer bottles against each other.

  “We’re going to get slaughtered,” Kim says, taking a deep swig of his beer. “Completely slammed.” Then he smiles. “But if you know that failure is the only option, then there’s really nothing to be scared of.”

  Kim empties the first bottle and finds another one. When he has finished that, he grabs the handles of the doctor’s bag, which still clinks.

  I stay in the lighting box during the performance. It feels wrong to go down to the auditorium. My dad and I once saw a car crash and he told me that I must never rubberneck. That I should just carry on walking if I can’t do anything to help. I’d really like to have seen the theatre critic, to know what someone like him looks like. Someone who can make grown people cry and sweat.

  I read comics about the man who can make himself invisible. He fights a giant spider that throws road signs and cars at him. I can hear the actors on stage. Today they speak faster and louder than they usually do.

  After the performance Sara returns to the lighting box. Th
e other actors left without talking to each other; they were out the stage door before the last members of the audience had even left the theatre, she says.

  My dad offers to walk her home, but she says she’ll take a taxi while she still has a job.

  The white envelopes lie in a pile on the dining table.

  My dad wanders around the apartment, takes a banknote out of his jacket pocket, and discovers another one that has hidden itself in his shirt pocket. A third one has been used as bookmark.

  He shakes a shoe and I hear coins rattle. Then he borrows one of my pencils. He drinks coffee while he arranges the money in small piles, coins and notes separately. He writes numbers on a piece of paper in front of him. I know this math problem: How long can we manage before he needs to find another job?

  A rapping on the door wakes me up. Seconds later my dad appears in the doorway to my bedroom.

  “Get dressed,” he says.

  When I come out to the living room, the camp bed has been knocked over. My dad quickly pulls a sweater over his head and rushes over to the table, where he sweeps the money and envelopes into a carrier bag with his forearm. Some coins end up on the floor, but he doesn’t pick them up.

  “Don’t forget your winter coat,” he says, as loudly as he can without raising his voice.

  He grabs the clothes that lie nearest, throws them into the suitcase on the floor. I manage to add a couple of comics before he slams it shut.

  My dad has opened the door to the back stairs when we hear Sara’s voice.

  “Wakey-wakey,” she calls out.

  My dad freezes. Then he reverses back through the door and puts down the suitcase. He lets her in. Sara hasn’t been to our apartment before, but we walked past it once and my dad pointed it out to her and told her we lived there. He quickly shut his mouth and I could tell from his face that he regretted it. Now Sara stands in our living room taking little steps on the spot. Her eyes are wide open, the cigarette in her mouth is unlit and bent.