Do you need money? he asks.
No.
Why have you come, then?
I live a hundred metres away, sometimes I pass by. He gouges at his teeth with a toothpick, levers open his lean jaw with his fist. With his eyes half-closed he stretches his lips back, then studies the bloody toothpick in the glare of the chandelier and puts it on the table.
There’s food in the fridge if you want some, he says.
Thanks, I’m fine.
How are you getting along with the ladies?
Dad, Ellie and I just broke up. He shuts his clippings book and gets out his pack of Marlboro. All the articles Dad ever wrote are cut out and carefully glued into these large, heavy ledgers, from when he was sixteen and wrote short notices for Eskilstuna-Kuriren to the years when he was writing headline articles for Expressen. His clippings books take up metres of shelving in his study. He plugs in a cigarette and stands up with his cryptic smile, the one that’s always made me want to crawl into his arms, and in his laboured English he quotes one of Tom T. Hall’s songs: Friends are hard to find when they discover that you’re down.
I shower for probably an hour when I get home, then sit on my bed and study my birdlike legs beneath the bath towel. They’re as skinny as Dad’s but not as evenly brown as his, just lifelessly pale and ugly. I have got water in my ears, which causes a sort of tinnitus. I even out the pressure and shake my head. I fetch cotton buds and I sit back down on the bed. I even out the pressure again but the sighing in my ears doesn’t go away. I listen to it so carefully that in the end I start to pick up a structure: there’s an interval, a seven-second-long dull sound blast, which then disappears for fourteen seconds. Then it starts again. The sighing ebbs away. Only the sound blasts are left. Thousands of sirens from far inside my head.
* * *
—
I answer my mobile in a driving rain that blows in under the umbrella. Livia is babbling into the south-westerly wind. She waves her arms, it looks as if she’s opening her mouth and poking her tongue out at the heavy drops. It’s Karin’s haematologist, Franz Callmer. He explains that he usually gets in touch with the family after someone has died. It’s easy to start brooding on what really happened, maybe you have a bit more distance to it now, it’s common for people to build up questions, he says. Yes, I suppose it is like that, thanks, I answer and break into a run towards the front entrance of the hospice, leaving behind the temporary shelter of a garage roof. In real terms it’s best to meet, he says. That could be difficult right now, I answer. You’re thinking about your daughter? It’s not only that. How is your daughter? Livia is fine, thanks. Livia, yes, I can at least tell you that acute myeloid leukaemia is not hereditary; I know this very well, my mother had AML, so that was the first thing I looked into when I became a doctor. Do we know where AML comes from? I ask. We don’t know for certain, in Chernobyl there were reports of many cases of AML, also in Japan after the radiation from the atomic bombs. And it’s been shown that people handling benzene have developed AML, that’s the sort of thing you have in petrol stations. Could Karin have got the leukaemia from the laser blade? No, he answers. I thought you just said you weren’t sure where AML came from? I know enough to say that it was not caused by a laser blade; environmental factors are usually the main reason for most of our cancers, the chemicals we release are absorbed by animals and plants, which we then eat, hereditary factors obviously play a role as well. Tom, you seem to have a few questions. Wouldn’t it be better if you wrote them down and then came here so we can talk under more relaxed circumstances? By the way I can’t hear you very well either, you keep cutting out. I’m at a hospital, my father is in a palliative ward. What did you say, did you say palliative ward? Yes, at Stockholm’s Nursing Home. Has your father been sick for very long? He has GIST, I answer. Did you say GIST? Yes, GIST. Gastrointestinal stromal tumour? Dad calls it his Alien, it weighs in at two and a half kilos. It’s a type of sarcoma, does he have it in his stomach? he asks. How did you know that? They usually get lodged there. How long has he been in treatment? Ten years, I answer. Well then, he’s hung on for a long time, how old is he? I stop in a secluded waiting hall, abstract art on the walls, marble floors, a sofa in blue leather. I shake the water off the umbrella, work my feet out of my sandals, and sit down. Livia starts chewing my finger, she has no teeth but there’s force in her jaws. Sixty-six, look, thanks for calling, it’s very considerate of you. I can see you have other things on your mind, how are you coping with all this? Even grief has its lowest point, I answer. I should also just add here, GIST is not hereditary either.
I get myself a cola from the one café in the hospital, Restaurang Huss, and then hurry up to Room 404. I get my MP3 speakers out of my rucksack, put them on the table, and put on Tom T. Hall’s ‘Old Dogs, Children and Watermelon Wine’. Mum is sleeping in the armchair. She’s snoring. I take off Livia’s clothes and put her next to Dad. He holds her and watches me while I hang up the wet garments on the radiator.
* * *
—
The radio with the broken aerial is on the mantelpiece. It’s been broadcasting the quarter-finals of Wimbledon all day. The door is held open by a hasp, windows towards Båtstigen, and the giant pines absolutely silent in the wind, the manured fields, damp and mould, between the pines I see Lake Henaren and the wet floating pontoon.
These last few years my father has been ghostwriting Björn Borg’s tennis commentary in Expressen, and before every important tennis championship he gives Expressen his own opinions in the other man’s name. In practice I’m the one who’s been ghostwriting the articles lately, because Dad is so weakened by his illness that he has difficulties using his fingers.
Okay, what about this, then? I say, reading aloud from the document in Dad’s computer: When I was twenty-five years old I dropped out of top-flight tennis, well, twenty-five, old or young, just cross out what doesn’t seem right, I was fed up with tennis, tennis was blah blah blah. Dad interrupts:
No, you can’t write that, blah blah blah, he wouldn’t express it like that.
The parties, the injuries, Loredana? I point out. Dad rubs his arm and mutters to himself:
Blah blah blah.
Dad, I’m trying to write like you when you’re trying to write like Björn Borg. He puts down the newspaper and groans:
You’re making me break out in a sweat, with you it’s always nought to a hundred in a blink. He grimaces at the empty fireplace, which hisses a little in the draught, and says: All right, then, heck, let’s go for it.
I finish the piece and write Björn Borg at the bottom. Dad checks through the text with the surly scrupulousness of a proof-reader. Finally he says:
I’ll call and okay it with Ice Man.
His shoulders tremble as he picks up his mobile. Borg doesn’t answer right away, he never does. Dad leaves a message on the voicemail and then, with a whistling sound in his throat, he stands up.
Goddamnit, he pants and grabs his flies, whips out his penis, pinching it with his right hand. He hurries over to the kitchen door, he’s dripping. Standing on the threshold, he pees onto the lawn. It’s not a barrel of laughs, you know, having a leaky bit of tagliatelle like this, he says, turning his head towards me and adding: There was a time when I could bounce out of bed on my morning hard-on.
Borg calls back after twenty minutes and they chitchat for a while. Dad reads out the piece. In the middle of the text he stops himself and takes off his glasses. The right-hand earpiece gets caught behind his ear for a moment, and he blinks to stop the other earpiece going in his eye. He recites with exaggerated clarity: Blah blah blah. He repeats:
Blah blah blah. He adds: I could goddamn swear you said something along those lines to McEnroe some time? Dad presses the tip of his tongue to his upper lip. He puts on his glasses and slaps his hand against his knee, bursting out laughing. Classic, Ice Man, bloody off the chart, you’re going to get shedloads of mail again; Björn Borg, the internationally respected columnist. Dad gives
me a thumbs up. I slip out of the kitchen door and then hear Dad’s laugh ringing out all the way to the cellar in the garden. I get myself a cold beer and lie on the sunlounger.
Hi, darling, says Karin when I call.
Is everything all right?
Yeah, fine, I just wanted to check, I get off in Malmköping, right?
Are you joking?
I always forget, she answers.
Yes, in Malmköping, we’ll come and pick you up, call when you get to Södertälje.
I’ve bought a bottle of wine and some flowers, will that do?
They’ll just be happy to have you.
Is it too much, maybe it’s enough with flowers?
Stop it now, it’ll be great.
Oh good.
I miss you, I tell her.
I miss you too, but we’ll see each other tomorrow.
I get so sentimental when I’m here, now they’ve moved to Tanto this is the only thing still left that feels like home.
Yeah, that’s how I feel about Gotland, she answers.
Exactly, okay, I’ll call later to say goodnight, I just wanted to check on you that everything was fine.
Can’t we just say goodnight now? I’m already in bed.
What’s the time?
Eleven, she replies.
Oh shit, I thought it was nine, okay, goodnight darling, I miss you, it’s so damn difficult getting off to sleep without you, I went off at two o’clock and then woke up in a panic at four because you weren’t there.
Darling, it’s just one night.
It’s more than enough to make you weep, I point out.
How’s Thomas?
Okay, it’s just that he looks so fucking old, he looks like he’s eighty.
You say that every time you see him.
I don’t need to talk about it, call me when you wake up, goodnight.
Are you annoyed?
No.
Sure?
Yes.
I just meant it’s something you get sad about, his looking so old, she says.
Don’t forget to call me right away when you wake up, I answer.
What if I wake up early? she asks.
If you wake me up it’s a good morning as far as I’m concerned.
Darling, I’ll call, love you.
Love you.
So…Malmköping? she asks again.
Yes, get off in Malmköping, I have a long beard, a dirty baseball cap, I’ll be waving like hell, you’ll recognise me.
Dad is sitting there looking out towards Båtstigen when I come back into the cottage.
How long has Mum been out with the mutt? he asks.
She left when I started writing, maybe an hour? Dad points at his jacket hanging over the back of one of the kitchen chairs and says:
Can you get me my wallet, inside pocket? He’s had it for as long as I can remember, awkwardly large, of dark brown leather. He takes something out of a compartment. At first I think it’s a receipt but it’s a faded and folded piece of lined paper. He holds it up, giving it a little shake. Do you remember this? he asks.
What is it? The corners of his mouth start twitching.
I was sixteen when I wrote it, he says.
Sixteen?
Yes, he answers.
I can’t say I remember it, I can only recall two letters, the one you wrote so Mum got a job, and your fan letter to Hitchcock.
You’d make a good private detective, the letters to Hitchcock and to Grandmother’s boss were posted, I did it myself, I couldn’t possibly still have those letters; I just said it was you who wrote the letter.
Me? I exclaim, no, you said you wrote it.
No, I did not.
What do you mean, no? That’s what you just said.
Did I? he says, scratching his ear.
Yes, you said you wrote it.
My head’s spinning today, in which case I made a mistake.
Anyway, what is this letter? I ask. He unfolds the paper, looks at it, and says:
You’d dropped the hockey, you wrote that I no longer existed for you ever since the gambling scandal, Lia had just finished with you, isn’t that right?
What is that letter? I ask again.
You’ve always had a sense of drama, he says.
Okay…
From the TV-Puck Tournament to that liver problem you had at that bar, and then your forged passport, don’t you realise I still remember all that?
Clearly you do, I answer.
Have you ever listened to anyone? he asks.
I was eleven when I had to carry you to bed and console Mum, don’t give me this shit. He folds up the paper, puts it back in his wallet, shakes his head, still apparently amused by the situation, but not in a disdainful way, he’s genuinely amused. Have you been keeping that in your wallet all this time? I ask. He rubs his knuckles against his palm, then he presses his hand against his shinbone, puffing, and then with sudden determination he gets to his feet and stands next to me. His shoulders are swinging. It’s as if he’s unsure whether he’s allowed to hug me, so he doesn’t, instead he just pokes my cheek. He does it clumsily, his fingers are bent into a hard stump.
Tom T., the ghost of ghostwriters, he says.
* * *
—
The first grown-up book I decide to read is a Swedish translation of a French polemical text entitled A Book on Suicide: Motivations and Techniques. I find it in a second-hand bookshop by Mariatorget. The title attracts me. I pay thirty-five kronor for it, but only leaf through it. I can’t make head or tail of it, it’s riddled with unusual words that I don’t have the energy to look up. Allegedly written by two Le Monde journalists in the eighties, it contains many tips on how to kill oneself without excessive and unnecessary violence, such as swallowing a cup of apple pips. The pips contain a substance that can release a fatal dose of hydrocyanic acid. That afternoon I pedal along on Mum’s bike through working- and middle-class areas, villas and terraced houses with dry lawns and garden figurines made of porcelain and plastic. It’s a public holiday. No one’s about. But now and then there’s a light left on in an empty kitchen or living room. Not unusual in these parts of Huddinge. The timer plugged into the socket is supposed to create an illusion of someone being at home, which might deter burglars. I fill my rucksack with apples and cycle home.
Later that evening I jog down to Huddinge Station, a commuter train pulls in, I hide my face in my hood and slip through the revolving barrier. From Södra Station I walk down to Riddarfjärden and stop on an unlit quay. I’ve left my letter of farewell to Mum and Dad on the kitchen table. I squeeze the apple pips in the freezer bag. All night I sit there, leaning against a bollard, listening to the lapping of water against the granite blocks.
* * *
—
My father wheezes, I struggle to hear what he’s saying. The white blanket with purple stripes is drawn right up to his chin and his dry-as-leather, brown-black face feels increasingly lifeless and inaccessible to me. He asks me to go and get him some cash from the cashpoint on Sankt Eriksgatan. Get some wine for Mum and Laila, and two copies of Expressen and an Aftonbladet, he adds. I can pay, I reply. You don’t have any money. I can afford a couple of newspapers and a bottle of wine, I answer. No, he says. Yes, I can. Don’t be ridiculous now, he wheezes. I pick up his wallet from the bedside table, peer inside it, run my finger over the bills, and say: You have fifteen hundred in cash. It’s good to have, he answers. Do you want me to pay with your Visa so you can keep your cash? Yes, do that, he answers. I buy the newspapers and wine in Restaurang Huss; I smuggle the bottle out under my jumper because the waiter looked murderous when I asked if I could bring the wine up to the room. I sit in the stairwell between the second and third floors, and I look through Dad’s wallet. My letter is between two business cards, I recognise it at once, I rip it up without reading it and throw the scraps of paper in the bin outside the elevators, then I just stand there. Why has Dad carried the letter with him for twenty years?
&
nbsp; Mum pays me no mind, she sits motionless in the armchair, her heels on the footstool, staring at Dad. Livia, wearing nothing but her nappy, is asleep on her. I leave the newspapers and the wallet with Dad. He’s also sleeping. I put the bottle of wine on the window sill among the cut flowers from relatives, colleagues, and friends. I read a few of the cards. We could have had another twenty years, she says. Mum? I’m so heartbroken, Tom, what am I going to do without him? It’ll work itself out, Mum. It seems only yesterday he came up to me at Maxim, on Drottninggatan, that was the in place in the seventies, he lied about his name and said he was a private detective, do you know what made me fall for him? No, I answer, unable to stop myself from smiling a little. His smell, he smelled so nice, she says. How did he smell? I ask. He smelled of Thomas. You know, Mum, I remember the smell of Lypsyl and newsprint when I slept between you, I can’t have been much older than five. He always used Lypsyl, she says. Mum, you have slept next to each other for forty years. He was away a lot, if it wasn’t the Olympics it was some World Championship, but he always called, several times each day, I felt safe with him. Yes, Mum, he was there for you. He was. And you’ve been there for Dad, always, I say. She looks at the flowers and answers: And then there’s this, all the journalists and their damn reminiscing, their trips, their drunken nights, and all the sportsmen, it feels as if they are taking him away from me, it feels as if everyone is taking Thomas away from me, sorry, I’m so confused. Mum, he’s your Thomas, you’ve lived with him for forty years. Yes, darling, you know, don’t you? She takes down her legs from the footstool and says: Can you take her? I want to sit with him for a moment. I move to the armchair with Livia. Mum puts the side of her head against his mouth.
* * *
—
I haven’t spoken to my counsellor since she went on holiday in early June. Hello, Tom, it’s Liselotte, am I calling at a bad time? No, I’m sitting on a blanket with Livia, she’s chewing a rubber giraffe; how have you been? I’ve had a nice relaxed time, she says, I’ve spent hours reading DN every morning, that’s the sort of thing you value at my age. It sounds good. And you were planning to go to Gotland, weren’t you? Yes, exactly, but I think it might be better if we get in touch another day, if that’s okay? Yes, of course, if that’s how you feel, we can arrange a new time right away if you like? I don’t know. How are you, Tom? I don’t think I have the strength to talk today. It’s good you say that, shall I try to call the same time next Tuesday? My father is unwell, I say. I remember, how’s he doing? It’s been a real roller coaster with him, he was so bad at Karin’s funeral that he had to be helped around her coffin, but at Midsummer he was fairly sprightly, I spoke to him on the phone, he’d had a shot of schnapps, him and Mum were at their country place in Dunker, I just blurted it out and said I was feeling like shit, he answered: Tom T., there’ll be other trains. Yes, but Tom, how was your Midsummer? I was on Lidingö with Sven and Lillemor, I wanted to be close to Karin’s grave, Lidingö was completely deserted, mainly I just read. You had enough peace of mind to read? I didn’t have to think about my own shit, I lay in the grass by Karin’s grave, it was beautiful, the trees, the water, I read all day, all evening, sometimes Livia woke up, I fed her, I played with her, I had time to get through several books, that was my Midsummer, have you ever read Sebald? No, but the name sounds a bit familiar. His novels come up now and then in the arts pages. That might explain it, she says. In one of the books he’s sitting in a hotel window looking out over a park where all the trees have blown down in a storm, men with machines are digging them up by the roots, sawing up the trunks and driving them away, the park is turned into bare hectares of turned-over soil, he sees little tufts of grass coming out of the mud, he writes, whose seeds have remained, who knows how long, deep down there. That was lovely, you know, she answers. I’m just so tired, it makes no difference that Livia is sleeping through the night now. Tom, that’s perfectly normal, remember it’s only been four months since you lost Karin, and in the midst of all this you’ve become a father. The woman in charge here says he won’t live through the night, I reply. It takes a while before Liselotte answers: Sorry, are you talking about your father now? Yes, I answer. I didn’t realise it was so critical, are you with him now? I’ve been here for three days, I answer. Tom, being there must stir up painful things for you? My mother, I say. Yes, your mother? she answers after a while. It’s difficult to talk, I say. Yes, I understand, take your time. It’s so hard seeing how sad she is, I say. Yes, oh yes. She holds the back of his head, she gives him fruit squash through a straw, she’s there from the time he wakes till he goes to sleep. He’s as weak as that? It feels like that’s what she’s done all his life, all he could do was talk and write, Mum had to do everything else. I think I recognise that, maybe it’s something to do with their generation? I’m glad I came here in time, it’s good to just sit there and watch them, they laugh a lot, and then they put their foreheads together, I’ve decided to remember them like that.
In Every Moment We Are Still Alive Page 20