In Every Moment We Are Still Alive

by Tom Malmquist

  Don’t say my name like that, it sounds so goddamn formal.

  Okay.

  Are you in pain? I ask.

  It felt important to be able to say that, she says.

  The most important thing is that you’re home, I answer.

  Ludvig left me when I had the brain haemorrhage.

  Ludvig?

  Yes.

  Your ex?

  It was too much hard work, she adds.

  Okay, so there you are, and hard work is a euphemism, I take it?

  He’s just a human being.

  Is that what your therapist said, or what?

  Stop it.

  Are you in pain, shall I get you a tablet?

  No, she says, and goes on: The cyst came because of the laser knife, that’s what the doctors said. She stares up at the bottom of the loft bed but snatches up the duvet over her head when I turn on the bedside lamp. Turn it off, she groans, and I turn it off.

  The laser knife? She scratches at the patient band and answers: I got the headache the day before Midsummer’s Eve.

  But hold on, you said the laser knife?

  Ludvig drove me to Karolinska.

  Okay, okay, you never told me, but I don’t have a fucking clue what a laser knife is.

  Can’t you just listen?

  Okay, I’m sorry.

  I’ll get to that, she says.

  Okay, I’ll be quiet.

  I had a job on the side as a nanny, it just hit me on the way home, I didn’t even dare cry, I was worried that my tear ducts would widen somehow and make the headache even worse, I called Ludvig, he drove me to Karolinska, they admitted me right away, they said I had bleeding on my cerebellum, they said it was an arteriovenous malformation which had developed into an aneurysm, they decided to inject an adhesive…

  An adhesive? I interrupt.

  Yes, in the brain, don’t ask me how or why, I don’t remember, it was going to plug it somehow.

  Okay.

  The risk was there might be disruptions to my sense of balance, worst case scenario was death, I had two rounds of that treatment, neither worked. I interrupt her again and ask:

  Had this Ludvig cleared off by then?

  Why are you asking about him?

  Okay, I’ll let it go.

  Yes, he had, I had Mum living with me at the hospital.

  Fucking disgrace, Karin.

  I didn’t care, she says.

  You didn’t care about what?

  I had other things on my mind, or, yeah, sure, I was upset that he left, but I was feeling so bad, I was so sick.

  You asked me to keep your parents out of your room at the Neurology Ward; you don’t see a connection there, do you? I ask.

  Please, I’m too tired to get angry now.

  Were you about the same age?

  He was two years older, but I don’t want to talk about that any more, it’s not important.

  Not important? I burst out.

  Please, Tom.

  Okay, okay.

  I feel tight here at the back, she says and carefully runs her hand over her neck.

  Are you sure I shouldn’t get you a tablet?

  Is it difficult for you when I talk about it? she wonders.

  No, not at all, or I mean of course it is, but not like that, you didn’t seem to want to talk about it any more, but shall I get a tablet?

  I just don’t want to talk about Ludvig, he’s not important.

  I find it hard to imagine that it’s unimportant, someone leaving you when you’re most in need of closeness and support, I say, and look for her hand to hold. She nods her head a little. Okay, but the laser knife, it sounds like the sort of thing Darth Vader would have under his mantle, I say, placing my hands on my chest.

  That’s what it’s called, she says.

  And it caused the cyst?

  The doctors said it did, yes, she answers, and asks for a sip of water, and I reach for the glass on the bedside table. She drinks and I put it back.

  Which doctors said that?

  The ones who operated on me, the brain surgeons who removed the cyst, she answers.

  Okay, but why did they do that shit in the first place?

  I was dying, she says.

  Jesus, Karin!

  It was considered the least risky treatment, obviously they didn’t know it would cause cysts.

  Is it some kind of laser cutter, or…?

  No, a machine, she answers.

  A machine?

  Yeah, I was screwed into a head frame, are you all right to listen to this?

  Yeah, yeah, but what sort of head frame do you mean?

  It was screwed to my cranium, I had to lie completely still for several hours in the machine while a load of radioactive rays incinerated those sick blood vessels.

  Fucking hell, I say and I want to caress Karin’s hand. She pulls her arm away before I get anywhere near her. She puts a pillow on her stomach. It must have hurt like hell, I say.

  The brain can’t feel pain, she answers.

  I didn’t know that, I say.

  I didn’t feel anything, but it was hard work lying still for so long, the machine made a crackling sound, the laser knife, the sound was a bit like tyres on gravel, so I just lay there and remembered about when I learned to ride a bike. She goes quiet, angles her head, and says: Thanks, Tom.

  Darling?

  For listening, she adds.

  It’s not so fucking weird if I react a bit, is it?

  No, it’s beautiful that you react, it actually reminds me that it’s sad, and I find it touching that you care, thanks.

  No need to thank me, that’s perverse.

  Perverse?

  Actually, yes.

  You’re so rhetorical sometimes; I’m perverse for thanking you? she asks.

  Yes, you don’t thank me when I kiss you, do you, so why thank me for caring? It’s just so curious that you never told me this, I’ve asked so many fucking times, shit, I wish I could have been there, just think if we’d met a few years earlier, you know what, your ex, give me the address of that fucker, I’ll go over to him tomorrow.

  Stop, please, I don’t have the strength for this.

  Okay, forget I said that.

  I don’t have the strength to deal with you taking over my feelings, she says.

  Okay.

  It’s beautiful that you listen, it’s beautiful that you feel things so strongly, but I’ve already gone through what you’re feeling except a hundred times stronger. Yes, it’s true he ran off, but it’s not important, he’s not important.

  Okay, I say again.

  Okay?

  Yes, okay. She sits up in the bed and puts the pillow against the curve of her back. She looks at me in the dark.

  Are you afraid you’ll turn into Ludvig? she asks. At first I laugh but I stop when she seems to get irritated and then I say:

  I’m listening.

  And?

  I’m still here, aren’t I?

  Yes.

  Go on, tell me more now, I say.

  I’ve forgotten what I was saying.

  You’re at the hospital, the machine is crackling, it reminds you of bicycle wheels. She remains silent, and just as I’m about to ask her how she’s feeling, she says:

  I was a late learner when it came to cycling.

  Uh-huh.

  I had been given my first bicycle when I was six, a yellow, shiny thing, white saddle and support wheels, but something felt blocked inside me when I got on it, everything was wobbly, spinning, it was that giddy feeling like when I stood by a steep slope, the other children in our road teased me a bit about it, I felt excluded and angry, in actual fact I thought it was quite enjoyable sitting on the bicycle and slowly pushing myself along with my feet on the ground, trying it at my own speed, but the other children were always there to take the mickey out of me, our flat was in a line of high-rise blocks, Källängsvägen, as soon as one did anything the others came out, they wanted to be with you or watch, I wanted to be left
in peace, then suddenly one day I wanted to do it, middle of July, baking hot, most of the others in our houses seemed to be away on holiday, for several days I had been playing on my own down in the courtyard, many of the children who’d been teasing me the most about the cycling weren’t there, I asked my dad to get the bicycle out of the bicycle shed and take off the support wheels, for some time Mum and Dad had been keeping the bicycle out of sight so I wouldn’t get stressed by it, beside the long gravel path a hedge grew with white flowers that smelled of dust and something sweet, at first my feet couldn’t keep up, I yelled, I laughed, Dad pushed me from behind, he ran as fast as he could to keep up, he held on to the bicycle with one hand, and then in the middle of the gravel track he let go.

  * * *

  —

  The pathologist at Karolinska introduces himself as Gunnar Cronberg. His voice is as drawling as the undertaker’s. I explain why I am calling, and he answers: I know what it’s about and as I said to the undertaker earlier it would not be something I’d recommend. That’s what I was told, but why? Your wife is in very bad condition, he answers. I know Karin is blue, I saw her at TICC, I was there when she died. The body is in a considerably worse state than what you saw at TICC. That doesn’t worry me, I answer. Tom, was it? Yes. Tom, I’m going to put this to you plainly, large sections of skin have come away from the body, there’s blood seeping out and badsmelling fluids, all in all it’s a sanitary problem once you cut the plastic open. You’re keeping her wrapped in plastic? That’s the normal procedure, he answers. Is she not refrigerated? She is refrigerated, but the microbes have nonetheless gone quite far in the process of decomposition, it’s not a pretty sight, not the sort of thing you want to remember. I don’t give a shit if it’s a beautiful sight or not, I want to kiss my wife goodbye. Tom, she doesn’t have any lips any more, and it’s not only that, there’s also a risk of contagion if the plastic is removed in church, there’ll be a terrible stink. In my experience, the microbes seem to get along rather well with patients who have died in ECMO. But she’s only just died. Yes, it’s all gone very fast. Okay, okay, I understand, I won’t disturb you again, thanks for your time.

  I take off my T-shirt and let Livia sit against my skin in the sling. I tear down all the photographs of Karin in the flat. Even the enlargement that was going to be used at the funeral, taken on the afterdeck of the Gotland ferry the summer Livia was conceived. I have decorated every wall with pictures of Karin, but I can no longer look into her eyes. I leave just one, on the fridge, the only one where she isn’t looking into the camera. I was sitting behind her when I took it, it’s an old photo, her hair is held up by hairpins, I can see a bit of her right ear, her back is smooth, her bikini top is tied around her neck. She’s looking out over Vändburgsviken. She is sitting in the sand, which is covered in shadows and sun-dried seaweed.

  * * *

  —

  Even in dense darkness I can distinguish Karin’s footstep. At least when she’s barefoot on the floor in Metargatan. The toilet door closes. I hear her stream hitting the water. Once back in bed she covers her head with the duvet. I feel inadequate, it’s an inadequacy I don’t want to admit to myself, but I understand it, I hate it. By the time Karin wakes me up by sitting up in the bed I have already started dreaming again. I fall back into a slumber, but wake when she starts rummaging about in the hall. I haul myself out of bed and see her by the front door. She’s putting her duffel coat on over her nightie. She’s wearing her blue wellies.

  What are you doing? I ask.

  Going out.

  It’s the middle of the night, it’s fucking winter.

  I didn’t mean to wake you.

  Where are you going?

  Do you really care so much? She tugs at her sleeves.

  What’s that supposed to mean?

  Tom, your moods, I can’t take it.

  Moods, are you serious?

  Why are you so dead set against going to a psychologist?

  Actually, I want to tell you something.

  Go on, do it, tell me I’m a basket case.

  This is so damn stupid, darling, come on, now…—but she backs away when I take a step towards her.

  That’s what you always do.

  Drop it, I say.

  I’m a cunt. I’m retarded. Right?

  Okay, Karin, if you want to stir up the shit then please go ahead, but honestly, I may have said that once or twice, but if so I’ve apologised.

  What an honourable man you are, Tom, such a fine person, really.

  Hello? Where are you? Are you with me here and now, or with that fucking swine who left you in 1998?

  You’re out of your mind, she yells.

  You don’t have to be much of a psychologist to see that somewhere deep inside you miss him. She sighs. If you like I can turn myself into him.

  Stop it!

  Seriously, I’ll be like him, I’ll make myself twenty centimetres taller, I’ll be all cool and bourgeois, I’ll trim my eyebrows and take cocaine, I’ll become an editor, I’ll quote Thomas-Fucking-Bernhard, exactly like him, and then I’ll leave you, just like that fucking swine.

  Are you done?

  No, believe me, I could go on.

  Tom, you’ve got so much to work through.

  You know what, go home and eat snacks with your father.

  Why don’t you go home and have a booze-up with yours?

  Seriously, wait, that was a psychologically relevant question, what fucking year are you in?

  You’re actually not well, she says, and closes the front door in such a calm, composed manner that I convince myself she has carefully thought things through and decided never to come back again. I feel so enervated that I don’t even chase after her. I am so tired that I have to sit down on the floor. I call her up several times. It takes me a while to stand up and go to the window. I open the espagnolette lock and peer into the whirling snow. It’s very cold. After almost an hour Karin calls me back.

  I didn’t hear, I had the phone on silent, she says.

  Where are you?

  In the stairwell.

  What stairwell?

  Ours.

  Here?

  I stayed here.

  Before lunch the next day Karin cuts off her patient band. She does it hastily, almost nonchalantly, as if she has forgotten why she ever wore it. A snow plough drives up and down Metargatan. Karin takes a closer look at the window pane and says it needs to be polished.

  That’s the sort of thing you do in spring, I tell her.

  She walks out of the kitchenette, walks into the hall, gets out her Filofax from her rucksack, looks through it, and asks:

  Can you take off the bandage? It’s time to do it now.

  Don’t they have to do that at the hospital?

  It’s only a bandage, she says, and sits on the bed. I wash my hands and loosen the surgical tape, layer upon layer of gauze. The compress is exposed. Beneath it is a ten-centimetre long cleft in the back of her head, the stitches are black and coarse like cooking string.

  Does it look disgusting? she asks.

  No.

  It looks disgusting, she sighs.

  No, do you want to see? I can get a mirror.

  No, I don’t want to see, she answers.

  By the time Christmas comes round Karin wants to be able to climb into the loft bed. It’s been about four months since she last tried. She makes it up the stool ladder and slides over. She surveys the flat for a long time. She rolls onto her back, gets out of her clothes, and climbs down. She is naked, and moves slowly. She gets out a scented oxblood-red candle from a cupboard in the kitchenette. She puts it on a side plate and lights it.

  Can you hold me? she asks.

  * * *

  —

  Mum sits on the sofa blinking at Livia. She lowers her voice: Your father is on the last medicine. What do the doctors say? I ask, drinking my coffee. They don’t say anything, what are they supposed to say? she answers. I don’t know, hopefully something about
how he is, if it’s a question of weeks or years, I say. It’s as if she doesn’t want to look at me, her eyes dart about, she presses her elbows hard against her sides and, in an almost accusatory tone of voice, says: He has lived with his cancer for almost ten years now, no one has survived GIST for as long as that. I know, Mum, I answer and go into the kitchen, pour the coffee into the sink, and add: This coffee tastes like fucking aquarium water. You’re the one who made it, she points out, and then goes on in a milder voice: You got an aquarium from me and your father on your twelfth birthday, do you remember that? Yes, I answer. You loved your fish, she says. I pull up the strainer plug, tap off the bits of food into the refuse basket, and press it back. Ten years, I say. Yes, she answers. I had just started seeing Karin when we got the confirmation, she came out to me in Huddinge, I say. Yes, Karin was so lovely to you, she says, and kisses Livia on the arm. No, she adds, and looks at me. There is something desperate about her when she goes on: Sweetheart, I’m helping you as much as I can now, you know that, but I have to think a bit about Dad and Bosse too, Dad can’t cope with taking him out any more, he has to have a last walk at ten, the poor thing is deaf and barks at his own shadow, he can hardly walk, I have to carry him between the bushes, he’s been shitting and peeing indoors while I’ve been spending days and nights here with you. Mum, seriously, I can’t believe you’re even bringing up the damn dog in the same breath as Dad and Karin. I’m not making any comparisons between Bosse and anyone else, but while the wretched thing’s still alive someone has to take care of him. Mum, whatever you’re trying to say, just say it. Can’t you let me keep her with me during the nights, she says. Mum, if you can’t be here then so be it. Of course I want to help you. I want Livia here, I say. Tom, I can fetch her in the evening and bring her back early in the morning? I want her here, I answer, and stand by Livia’s basket just as Dad opens the front door. It’s certainly not getting any warmer out there as yet, he says. He’s got a Marlboro butt in the corner of his mouth. He shuffles into the toilet. He doesn’t close the door and there’s a patch of urine on his chinos when he comes out, he hasn’t even noticed. Mum has started looking through her diary. Do you have any ideas for the floral message? Haven’t got a clue, I answer. You leave wreaths by the coffin, usually you write something. It doesn’t matter, I say. We were thinking we’d put something simple, like, You will live on in our memories, and then our names, she says with a look at Dad, and then another at me. That sounds fine, I answer. We’ll go for that, then, she says, and writes something in her little book and then puts it back in her handbag. Dad tickles Livia’s foot and says: Granddad’s little football. He’s pale, his hair has turned white in an unnatural way, brownish sores are spreading across his arms, and his upper neck is scrofulous with little boils. They stay no longer than thirty minutes, and when it’s time for them to leave I have to lift Dad out of the sofa. Mum helps him put on his quilted jacket and hat. She caresses Livia’s forehead, and says: What would we do without you? I ask, when are you coming back? Tonight, I have to take Bosse out before I leave, she answers. Ten? I ask. Yes, expect me then, and I may as well say it now so you don’t forget, tomorrow you have to ask Lillemor for help, we’re going to the Cancer Research Institute, and he gets so tired after that. Will you text me from the hospital? I ask. Yes, we will, she answers. Dad turns around in the hall to say something but in the end nothing comes out. Instead he just lifts his hand over his shoulder and waves at me as if I were standing very, very far away.