I don’t have a choice, I have to, I’m out of money.
Yeah, we noticed.
I know…
It’s fine, Tompa, you’ll return the favour when you’ve got bread, but May, six fucking months away?
That’s not very long when you’re working on a book.
Shit, Tompa, you’ve been working on it for an insane amount of time. I only wrote one long essay at high school, I wouldn’t want to do that goddamn thing again, it took two months, that’s long enough as far as I’m concerned.
After hugging Stefan by the taxi on the junction of Hornsgatan-Ringvägen I hurry home through the sleet and get straight in the shower. Karin is asleep.
I grab a bottle of wine from the fridge and sit at my desk. I have been working on my book for three years, twelve hours a day. It’s a documentary novel about a murder in Huddinge, a suburb of Stockholm. I spread police photos of the crime scene over the table and look through the paper-clipped bundles of pages from the police investigation, two thousand in total, packed with annotations and scribbled Post-it notes. On 15 June 1991, a dog owner found a naked dead man in a cave by Lake Orlången. His chest was gouged open down to the bone, his face mutilated. As children we spoke of it as the murder in the cave. It took months before a pathologist was able to identify the man as twenty-nine-year-old Mikael from Huddinge. Cause of death: bleeding from exterior wounds. In the Muslim, Christian, and Jewish faiths Michael was the foremost of the Archangels, the good Angel of Death, he was sometimes called; the name comes from Hebrew and means: Who is like God?
In due course the team of investigators presented a theory: Mikael had paid twenty thousand kronor for assistance to end his life. It had been a sort of mercy killing but without any mercy. A colleague at the post office in Klara was detained but released by Huddinge District Court on the grounds of insufficient evidence. Mikael had periodically gone to the psychiatric clinic at Huddinge Hospital. He was plagued by suicidal thoughts and felt alone. He told his psychiatrist that he had entertained the idea of taking his own life but lacked the courage to carry it through. The psychiatrist wrote out a referral for supportive therapy with a welfare worker and gave him a prescription for thirty Mallorol tablets. In the welfare officer’s notes it is revealed that Mikael longed to have a girlfriend. He had never had one, and he believed that his anguish would gradually disappear once he did. Mikael’s mother left him when he was a child and moved to a town in Norrland. This had been traumatic for Mikael. It was difficult for him to talk about it. Mikael had a good relationship with his father but didn’t like his stepmother. There was a note from the welfare officer about a telephone conversation between Mikael and his mother. She was going to visit Mikael in Stockholm, and he was looking forward to it. The train pulled into Central Station. Mikael looked for her along the platform. A week later he received a letter, in which his mother apologised for not coming. She wrote that she had had to babysit for a friend. According to the notes, Mikael had no contact with his mother between 1986 and 1989. In that period, he became obsessed with the idea of finding a girlfriend. My theory was that the longing for his mother became such a source of inner anguish that Mikael transformed it into a more manageable desire for a girlfriend. The forensic technicians felt that Mikael’s nudity was voluntary, there were no signs of struggle, he had undressed himself and lain down in the cave. I studied the photographs of the triangular opening in the rock and thought about the naked, blood-covered body. Mikael had apparently gone back to his mother’s womb.
Are you working? asks Karin. She’s standing in the hall.
Shit, you scared me.
I was just going to the loo, did you have a good time?
Yeah, it was good, but it’s always double-edged meeting up with old friends like this, it’s so long since you last saw them. Karin is wearing flimsy knickers and a faded black vest top. Her breasts have become heavier.
Yeah, I know what you mean, she says. On the one hand you feel safe as houses, on the other hand they see you as the person you used to be, not the person you are. Because, you know, you change.
Yeah exactly, I say, sipping some wine.
Are you really going to drink more now?
There was this guy there, fucking nasty piece of work.
Okay, but does that mean you have to drink?
Can’t you just ask me what happened?
Okay, she says.
Well, ask me then.
All right. What happened?
He said something about my clothes, I confronted him.
Confronted him?
He was like an ape in a suit, but nothing happened, although I’m capable of letting myself go like I’m on fucking autopilot.
Jesus, Tom, I’m glad I’ve never had to see that…it only seems to happen when you’re with the guys, though, no?
Yes, I think so, yes, that’s probably right.
Don’t you ever wonder why that is?
I’m still a bit shaken, to be honest. I won’t be able to show my face in town for like a week, I think the bastard might have actually been some kind of criminal. I don’t get it, I had a real fucking panic attack in the shower when I came home, the shakes, I was just shivering, I had to sit down and do some work.
Why, though?
So I could think about something else, I answer.
Yeah, but why did you panic in the shower?
What does that matter?
I was only asking, she says.
I happened to be standing in the shower, I suppose I relaxed a bit.
But why in the shower?
What the hell, it might just as well have happened in bed.
Okay, she says.
I’ve never been someone who looks for a fight, I don’t just hit people, well, I mean, it did sometimes happen when I was playing ice hockey, I add, turning my chair towards Karin. Why do you never say you love me? She looks surprised. Don’t look like that, it’s an important question.
You’re drunk, Tom.
I often tell you I love you, I point out.
I do love you.
I’m looking forward to being a father.
That’s good, she says, sitting on the chair by the wall. Were you at Folkbaren the whole time?
Yeah, we ended up having quite a bit of cava, David knows the bartender, you know. David got so smashed, he wanted to go on to Riche, but he couldn’t put it in words, he just pointed, and we knew what he wanted.
Was he that drunk?
No, I’m exaggerating, me and Stefan were most drunk, then Hasse, David was just a bit merry, and a bit tired, he had a cold as well.
Karin turns her head and says: Please, can you put away those photos, they’re unpleasant. I just don’t understand where you get the energy for this, no wonder you have nightmares.
This is my workplace.
We have to live here as well, she says.
I pile up the photos and put a file on top of them and say:
All my friends have children, and yours too, it’s strange.
What do you mean?
I don’t know.
Are you going to work for much longer?
No, I’m mainly just thinking, I’m not working.
That is working, isn’t it, for you anyway.
I can’t go out like this any more, I don’t have time. You go to bed and I’ll be along in a bit.
Karin carefully scratches her thighs with her nails, then says quietly:
I’ve been thinking.
And?
I already asked you, but I didn’t get an answer at that point, she adds.
About what?
I was reading online about testing your amniotic fluid and I ended up looking at an essay by Peter Singer.
Who?
The philosopher?
Oh yeah, him, yes, yes, I know.
He’s written a lot about euthanasia and children.
Oh dear, okay, but what was the question I never answered?
I want us to agree that we’ll kee
p the child even if it’s not healthy.
Yes, but we already talked about that.
So we’re of one mind?
We’re of one mind.
I don’t want to have the amniotic test tomorrow, she says.
So let’s not do it, then, just don’t think Singer is someone I’m big on, I’ve hardly read him.
You’re in favour of euthanasia, aren’t you? she says.
I’m not in favour of it and not against it either, fuck it, it doesn’t matter, we’re of one mind when it comes to Scrunchie.
Maybe it was stupid of me to bring this up now that you’re drunk, maybe you’ll change your mind tomorrow.
What the hell, sometimes you talk to me as if I was a fucking idiot, seriously, why would I change my mind tomorrow?
You’re right, sorry.
Hey wait, you have to listen to this, I say, and start searching on the computer.
She sits down again. As long as it isn’t anything from the book, I can’t handle it, she says.
No, it’s not mine, this is properly good, I answer. I plug the speaker into the computer and say: Shhh, Professor Longhair, ‘River’s Invitation’.
Darling, it’s three in the morning.
Shhh, I exclaim.
Darling, not so loud?
Properly good, shhh.
Tom, please, turn it down.
Scrunchie wants to dance, come on now.
You’re such a nut, she sighs as I pull her onto her feet.
Scrunchie loves the rhythm.
No, Scrunchie’s asleep, Scrunchie hasn’t moved for several hours, she answers.
I put my hand against Karin’s stomach and say: A good rocking motion, it’s like a cradle.
Who are you? she asks.
Who do you want me to be?
Darling, we’re going to the Maternity Unit tomorrow.
Seriously, feel my hips, I say as we sway.
* * *
—
Coach Henri and the assistant Lasse lift me out of the rink and drop me at the far end of the bench.
Shit, Malmquist, you’re fifteen and you smell of piss, that’s fucked, mutters Henri.
That was stupid of me, I answer. I don’t have time for this, he says and hurries back to the door by the subs’ bench.
Huddinge Hockey’s B-team juniors have their changing rooms in Björkängshallen’s pine-green cabin. Lasse leads me to my place by the fan heater in the corner. I use a Stanley knife to cut through the adhesive tape around the chin guards. My right ankle is grotesquely swollen. Last time we played against DIF in a league game one of their heaviest players body-checked me in the middle of the hockey rink. I had to be carried off on a stretcher: Concussion. The guy was more than one metre ninety tall and forty kilos heavier than me. This time I took him out. He went crashing down by the boards but got up straight away and slashed me across my ankle with his club blade. I tossed my gloves away, got him down on the ice by grabbing his helmet cage, and started feeding punches into his kidney.
Lasse sits next to me and stares at my calf. Damn it, Malmquist, we have to get that damn swelling down, Jesus, he says and gets the freeze-spray. Put up your pins, he adds. I lie down on the floor. He grabs my ankle and sprays my calf, then wraps a compression bandage round it tightly and rests the foot on the bench. Just lie there, take twenty, then you can go home. He goes back into the ice rink. I can hear the announcer’s voice through the walls, and the buzz of voices from the stands. There’s snuff stuck to the ceiling, some of it has probably been there since before I was born.
Dad has waited for me. He stubs out his cigarette on the tyre and opens the car door.
Where’s Mum? I ask.
She wanted to go home.
Is she cross?
She’s worried you’ll hurt yourself.
Thanks for waiting.
I had a suspicion you might have trouble walking.
I get into the front seat. He closes the door and says:
Off the record, you did the right thing. He won’t dare injure you again, you’re a tough little bastard.
* * *
—
We walk along a small road behind Hornsgatan. Scaffolding covered in green netting obscures the walls of the little hospital. In the same building as Eken Midwives there’s a residential care home known as the Maria Rehabilitation Centre for people with substance abuse problems. There’s always some flotsam of humanity in the elevator, clinging onto the handrail just so he can stay on his feet.
Our finances will work themselves out, I tell her once we’re on our own.
Really? asks Karin.
My writing grant will keep us going until June.
And then?
I’ve told you, I’ll look for a job.
Sorry, she says.
I can understand your anxiety, but it will sort itself out.
I hope so, I’ll be on maternity leave, she says and then stops herself. Scrunchie’s moving, she says, and I quickly put my hand inside her long black quilted coat. It was really strong that time, she smiles.
The little hooligan, kicking his poor mother.
No, Scrunchie doesn’t kick, Scrunchie just moves. Across from the lift is a brownish red steel door with a sign on it: Eken Midwives. A strip of bright red tape across the terrazzo tiles of light-coloured cement indicates that shoes aren’t to be worn inside. Bright yellow walls, furnishings in a combined style of hospital and pre-school. Our midwife, Sissi, has still not appeared by quarter past two. I while the time away in the waiting room by flicking through children’s books. On the sofa next to us sits a woman with a baby in a car seat. On the other side of the room sits a woman who can’t decide which of her stick-like thighs she should put on top of the other, or which of the women’s magazines she ought to be reading. She doesn’t look pregnant and she’s probably no older than twenty. Much like Karin’s, her eyes keep gravitating to the baby.
Karin, the midwife calls out. Sorry, we’re understaffed today. She shakes hands with me.
I’ve been here before, I say.
Oh yes, so you have. She’s about fifty or so, petite, with attractive features framed by blonde hair. Her room is full of thank you cards, photos of mothers with their children. She looks out of the window and says as she sits down at her desk: We’re relocating soon, for now you’ll have to excuse all the commotion of the builders, it’s probably more of an annoyance to me than to you. A thundering noise comes from the walls and floor. It annoys me that she only looks at Karin while she’s giving us advice about our future as parents. Then she smiles at me and says: Many fathers feel a bit left out in the early stages. She emphasises the importance of being there for the mother all the same.
And also for the child, I hope, Karin interjects.
The midwife laughs and answers: Of course.
She puts on her reading glasses and glances between her computer and a sort of revolving cardboard calendar.
We don’t want to do the amniotic fluid test, says Karin.
The midwife takes off her glasses and answers: Well, it’s not mandatory, it’s up to you.
Good, so we’re agreed, then, I say.
The midwife creases her nose at me and says: As I said, it’s not obligatory.
We don’t want to do it, repeats Karin.
Okay, so we’ll skip it then, says the midwife as she replaces her reading glasses and peers at the computer screen. Karin, you started taking Niferex because of your iron deficiency, do you feel less tired now? she asks.
Maybe a bit.
And your itchy palms?
That’s gone, Lergigan is helping, says Karin.
Oh that’s good, well, so we’ll just do the ultrasound scan now, she says and stands up.
Karin lies down on a PVC-covered bench and pulls her jumper up over her stomach. The hands that touch her have done this many times before, there’s an instrument panel with lit-up reddish yellow buttons, the midwife squeezes out a mint-blue lubricant. She moves the nozzle over Karin
’s stomach while turning a lever with her left hand. A little womb figure appears on a monitor next to Karin’s feet. The midwife takes a long time over her business without saying anything.
Is it all looking okay? I ask.
There’s a little bit too much amniotic fluid, but that’s normal, she answers and informs us that this could be the reason for the abnormal growth curve of the foetus. Karin has grown dizzy from lying down. She wants to sit up.
Is it a boy or a girl? I ask.
That’s hard to say now, I better not guess, she answers and tries to catch Karin’s eye.
It’s easier to come up with a name if you know the sex, I point out. She grimaces a little at me and hands over a strip of ultrasound photos.
Thanks, says Karin, looking at them, smiling, holding them up to me, and then tucking them into my shoulder bag.
I stand in front of a fishtank in the corridor while Karin sets up the next appointment with the midwife. I tap the thick glass, the fish seek their way towards the sound with wide open mouths. On the wall by the exit is a poster with educational photographs of babies sleeping in a variety of positions; a caption reads: Sudden Infant Death Syndrome and Preventive Advice. Karin has sat down on an ottoman made of black-and-white sheepskin to take off her shoe covers. I read the poster.
What does it say? asks Karin.
It says that Sudden Infant Death Syndrome happens before the baby’s six months old, it’s rare, only affects one in six thousand, the best advice is to let the child sleep on its back. Shit, one in six thousand isn’t actually that uncommon.
Don’t talk like that, says Karin.
On Hornsgatan, drivers accelerate through the traffic lights, there’s a number 4 bus, some cyclists. People are hidden inside their quilted jackets, hats, and scarves. Just as it always is in winter, apart from the roadworks. Diggers have turned the tarmac upside down. In the right-hand lane is a long, two-metre deep trench filled with snow, sand, and steaming pipes. The roadworks have narrowed the pavement. It’s so cramped between the house wall and the pedestrian barriers that Karin and I can’t walk next to each other. I have to shuffle behind her, with one arm holding hers. The December sun is strong. I can’t see Karin for a few minutes. Every time I try, I get dazzled, and I have to look away or close my eyes. But I feel her.
In Every Moment We Are Still Alive Page 8