Why does it feel so unpleasant when you wake up after having been drunk? You just want to disappear and not remember what has happened. Do you regret that you have drunk, or do you regret what you have said and done when you have been drunk? I don’t know.
We rode with two guys in a Dodge. Nothing special happened. They had spirits and we drank some, and then we got out into town again. Kicki got mad because I couldn’t walk properly. She arranged for us to go with two other guys. When they were going to give her a lift home, I got out into town again. I stood in the entry to Wolrath’s and smoked. All the lights were off in the store windows and almost no cars were still out. Down by the traffic lights a taxi had stopped for a red light, but otherwise the street was empty. I didn’t know what to do. It was cold and nobody came. There wasn’t any place to go and warm up, either, because all the stores were closed. It felt so unjust and unnecessary that it was warm inside the stores when there was no one there.
It’s exaggerated and ridiculous to remain behind in town when almost everyone has gone home. It feels degrading. The guys who drive by look down on you, and no one thinks that you are worth picking up.
I don’t know how much time had passed when I saw a police car come cruising by on the street. I got scared and felt my heart beating harder, and when the car slowed down and stopped, I became totally stiff. What did they want? What would they do? I didn’t dare to look, but I saw out of the corner of my eye that one of the cops got out and went around and onto the sidewalk. I could almost not breathe when he came nearer.
“How are you doing?” he said and stood in front of me.
He was rather young and had a black leather jacket on.
“I’m doing fine,” I said and hoped that he wouldn’t notice that I had been drinking.
“Why are you standing here?”
“Isn’t it permitted?”
“Yes, of course it is. But wouldn’t it be better if you went home?”
The cop car was a black Opel with a search light on the roof, and the other policeman sat behind the wheel and glared at me. I didn’t know in which direction I should look.
“Do you possibly have identification on you?”
“No.”
“What’s your name?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Well, I think it does.”
“Why?”
“There are so many young girls that disappear...”
“But I haven’t disappeared.”
“Where do you live?”
“In Vilan.”
“I see. How do you get there at this time then?
“I don’t know.”
What should I do if they wanted to give me a lift home?
I got uptight just thinking of it.
But I hadn’t needed to worry.
“Yes, we thought it looked like you didn’t feel quite well and thought it would be best to stop and check that everything was all right,” he said.
“I see.”
My throat ached so much that I almost couldn’t swallow.
“But don’t stand here and freeze any longer now. Try to get home instead.”
Then I almost screamed. What would he have done if I had started screaming? But I never dare to do as I feel. I’m so cowardly.
And that was all.
“Excuse us that we disturbed you and bye-bye,” he said and saluted and left.
I went with a guy in a Ford Corsair. He played “Baby Love” and offered Sticks chewing gum and smokes. I was freezing even though I was hot, and my head and throat ached, but I still let him do what he wanted. He pulled up my sweater and took out my breasts and kissed them. I don’t mind very much when they carry on with my breasts. It’s worse when they want to kiss the whole time, because some of them are so disgusting. I didn’t even like Lasse’s kisses.
I don’t think it will ever feel again like it did before to walk on Svartbäcksgatan. At least not when I’m sober. And I don’t feel the same Christmas atmosphere that I did when I was little. Everything just changes and disappears. Now Christmas is just a wait for the holidays to end, so that I can go to town again. Because on Christmas Eve nobody is out. That’s when everybody is home with their families and watches “Donald Duck” on TV and drinks mulled wine and eats the Christmas ham. Very funny, I must say! If you could at least get drunk. But that’s impossible. You just have to wait.
Monday, 21 December 1964
When E-L and I were out we met two boys in a VW and they were rather pleasant. But E-L wanted to get out again and was so disorderly. (I can’t help wishing that she would be the way she was before she started drinking and before she met Lasse. I wish that she would come back.) But I didn’t allow myself to be persuaded to go with her (I knew she just wanted to get out to hunt for spirits), but I was on the contrary successful in getting her to stay, and then we went with them all evening. My boy was called Inge and he was a bus conductor. He asked me if I wanted to come with him to the movies on Wednesday and said that he would call. A Swedish film called “Dear John” has started now, and we could possibly go to see it. It’s based on a book by Olle Länsberg, about whom there was a lot of writing a while ago. Yes, he who lives will se. (If he calls me, I mean).
Friday, 25 December 1964
“Now we have lights here in our house, Christmas has come, hopp tralalala!” Father, he drinks in days before Christmas, but on Christmas Eve he is sober and kind. This is how it has been in all the years before and this is how it was this year, also. Things are a little tense before, but it has always sorted itself out for Christmas. I can’t remember him ever being drunk on any Christmas Eve.
Papa is the one who gets the Christmas tree and the evening before Christmas Eve we bring it in. Then he and I decorate it. We join hands with that, while mamma cooks the ham and things like that. When we are finished, we eat warm ham sandwiches, and mamma wraps Christmas presents and writes some rhymes for the labels and seals the packets.
For Christmas Eve, grandma always is with us, and sometimes Stig, Anita and Anders as well, bringing Christmas presents with them. We put all the parcels under the Christmas tree and then I’m the one who hands them out after “Donald Duck” is over on TV.
After opening presents, we eat. We have way too much food in my opinion. There are meatballs and pickled herring and ham and liverwurst and sausages and brawn and whatnot. And boiled ling. I like that. And mamma and grandma want rice pudding, but that they have to eat themselves, because nobody else wants it. The leftover rice we usually remake into orange rice pudding.
In the evening we lit live candles in the window and ate fruit and cracked nuts. And grandma drank mulled wine, even though it’s alcoholic. She is a Pentecostal and is not permitted to drink such, but she thinks mulled wine tastes good, so she drinks it. And it’s good for the blood stream, because it stimulates blood circulation, and she needs that for her angina.
I got a fancy nightgown from papa for a Christmas present. It’s light blue with white lace. He had gone out and shopped for it himself. Mamma and I are the ones who mostly shop for everything, but this year he got a whim and went out to buy this nightgown for me.
From Stig and Anita I got jewelry (a gold chain with a four-leaf clover), from mamma I got a pair of gloves and money and from grandma a book.
I usually save money the entire year, and then shop for Christmas presents with what I have managed to save up. It isn’t very much money, because I don’t have so much to save, but I buy something for everyone, and I’m careful to choose something that they will like. This year papa got a cigarette lighter (that was completely too expensive), mamma a little bottle of eau de cologne, Anita a book, Stig a smoking pipe rack, Anders a puzzle and grandma a manicure case.
Sunday, 27 December 1964
Yesterday we went up to Toje and asked if he had any spirits to sell (but he hadn’t), and then we went out into town. We stood in front of Wolrath’s where warm air blows up, and then Staffan (Anita’s ex) and one of his mat
es came along. (“Staffan var en stalledräng, vi tackom nu så gärna!”) Yes, and we went with them, and they offered us spirits at his mate’s apartment. Each of us got a so called busgrogg and it was a strong drink, it really was, and then things became a little foggy, so to speak. And E-L became so awkward and fussed about everything. But at first it was rather pleasant, because we sat by lighted candles at the table and ate figs and nuts while we smoked, drank and played cards. It was pleasant until E-L got drunk and started talking about something she had read in the newspaper about a 16-year-old girl who had been raped and drugged by pills by a 20-year-old guy. I don’t know why she was going on about it. Because something similar could happen to us, possibly. We could be unfortunate and come up against some real lunatics. You don’t think it will happen, even though you know it’s possible. You think you will manage to avoid it. And until now, we have.
Pop was mad as hell when he realized that I was going out, but if he thinks I will sit at home and stare any longer just because I have been sick, he’s got it wrong. What I do is none of his business and it feels disgusting when he interferes.
Kicki and I went to a guy we know and asked if he had any spirits for sale, but he said he needed it all for himself. He was supposed to go to a Christmas ball in Funbo IOGT and was changing clothes when we came. So we went out into town again and there we met two guys in a Zephyr who said that they had liquor at home. Kicki knew one of the guys and we went with them.
At first we drank and played cards. Then the guys fell out, and the one I was with threw an empty liquor bottle into the TV so the screen cracked.
The guy Kicki knew was a lot older than we are and he had been together with her sis’ once. When Kicki went home he accompanied her for a bit and I went out into town, because the other guy was also too drunk to drive. I went over St Olofsbron, which they’ve opened now, and up to Svartbäcksgatan. I was drunk and everything felt fine. The lighted garlands which hang over the street glittered and were reflected in the asphalt. In every second garland there is a star in the center and in the others there are two by the sides, and it’s so damn excellent when you see them in a row. They light up the whole street. Though in some windows the lights were off and it was dark.
I stopped in a gateway and lit a cigarette. I couldn’t manage walking farther and didn’t know what to do. When a car, in which they were playing “You’ll Never Walk Alone”, drove by and I heard Gerry and the Pacemakers sing, it felt like I wanted to lie down on the ground and never get up again.
“When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high and don’t be afraid of the dark,” he sang.
On New Year’s Eve Lasse is going to Rune Ek’s variety. If I go there as well, I may see him one last time. But I don’t know if it would have any meaning. I don’t know the meaning of anything at all.
When the cigarette was finished, I walked on again. “Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart, and you’ll never walk alone.”
They only lie.
Torkel is probably in Austria now, if he isn’t at home with his parents in Linköping. I said he could send me a postcard from Austria, but he never got my address, and he probably wouldn’t have sent me anything anyway. He’s also gone. Everyone is gone.
It was almost empty in the street. A black and white police car drove by, and when I saw the cops who sat in the front seat and stared out over the street without seeing anything, it felt as if I hated them.
Then a Mercedes stopped, and the guy who drove rolled down the window and said:
“Are you going home?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Hop in then!”
And I did.
Monday, 28 December 1964
Wieviel Uhr ist es? (Quelle heure est-il?) It’s half past five. I wonder why E-L still hasn’t called. She was going out again yesterday evening, but I didn’t see her, even though I went out for a little stroll myself. I had not thought about going out, but I regretted my decision and took the bus downtown and hoped that I would find her there. And then, when I was walking there contemplating about whether I should go home again, a car pulled over, and who was sitting in it if not – yes, guess who? Yes, Lasse! He came there driving, and when he stopped and asked me where I was going, I said like it was, that I was going home, and then he offered to give me a lift. I was a little doubtful, considering E-L, but it’s over between them, and he could give me a lift home in any case. And I have always been a little curious about him. Already the first time we met, I realized that he and I had the same attitude. I felt we were in agreement on that E-L must come in the car and be taken care of. That Leffe was drunk and nobody to count on, and E-L was drunk and gone from this world, so I knew it was Lasse and I who were in possession of the common sense and had to see to it that E-L came off the street and into the car before she got herself into trouble. So now, when he stopped and started talking to me, it was like getting a chance to find out about what our kindred spirits feeling included. When I climbed into the car I understood that it could be more than his only giving me a lift home. Not that I would have let him go as far as ever, but I was not negatively disposed to the possibility that it could be more than only talking. And he didn’t drive me directly home. First, we went for a drive in town, and I had nothing against it, because then I could look for E-L at the same time. We were towards Gamla Uppsala, by the railway, and there he stopped and embraced me. We also kissed a little, and then he began to stroke my back, and he unbuttoned my bra. That I didn’t object I think was because of what I felt the first time we met, that it could just as well have been he and I. I was curious about how it would have been if he had chosen me instead. And it’s over between them. But if the truth is to be known (and it is), I regret a little and think that I possibly shouldn’t have done it, because I feel that I must tell E-L, and that isn’t going to be easy. I understand that she will be sad when she finds out that I have ridden with him. In any case, she won’t be happily surprised and say: “You don’t say! How fun! You must tell me about it! What did you think of him?” That isn’t what she is going to say! She could do that about someone else, but not about him. So I’m a little uneasy, because I don’t want us to come apart. After all, she is the one who means the most to me.
Why doesn’t she call? She said yesterday that she would. I hope she hasn’t come up against something bad. But in her case the risk is probably higher that she has done something to harm herself. Drunk too much or tried to take her own life, or… My God, just think if she saw us yesterday, and that was the straw that broke the camel’s back! What if she were in town somewhere and saw me sitting there with Lasse in his car! But if she were in town I think I would have seen her. Though she could also have been sitting in a car. And then she saw me and Lasse and thought that all was going to pieces and went away and took her own life! No, it can’t be! But I must get to know if she is at home. I must call. But how will that be? I ring and ask for her, and her papa says: “No, she isn’t home. Do you possibly know where she is? Because she hasn’t been home since yesterday afternoon.” In that case, what do I do? Go to town and look for her? Go to the police and report her missing? (But that ought to be up to her parents and not to me, I think.) Or should I sit at home and wait and become crazy not knowing? No, I’ll probably go to town and ask if there is someone who has seen her. I can call Lasse and ask him to come and help me, ha, ha! And then we can sit there in his car and be worried and concerned about what may have happened. What makes me the most uneasy, is that I no longer feel quite certain of that she couldn’t do something to herself. Why in the name of heaven don’t I? Is it she or I who have undergone a change? Why don’t I know, all of a sudden? She carried on and talked about not going home... But I took it just as the usual drunken talk. I didn’t listen especially carefully. And she hung herself out the window. I thought that that was also such a thing she usually does when she is drunk and wants to attract attention. I didn’t take it seriously. But what if it were? What if it were an at
tempt to expose what she had decided to do? And then yesterday, when she saw me in the car with Lasse, that became the triggering factor! But if she hadn’t come home, I think her parents would have called me and asked if I know where she is. So she is certainly at home. That she hasn’t called, doesn’t have to mean that she has taken her own life. I don’t know why I suddenly got that idea.
Originally published in Sweden as Hoppa in då!
by Anamma, Gothenburg, 1998.
© Ulla Bolinder 1998
English Translation © Eric Swanson 2016
Cover: Ulla Bolinder
Cover photo: Uppsala Bild
Upplandsmuseets bildarkiv
Förlag: BoD – Books on Demand GmbH, Stockholm, Sverige
Tryck: BoD – Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt, Tyskland
ISBN: 978-91-7569-427-6
Hop in Then! Page 26