Clinch

by Martin Holmén

  ‘Three litres, six each.’ He runs the back of his hand across his moustache. I chew a piece of bread. The number 6 tram rings its bell as it goes by on Roslagsgatan. ‘Eggs on five occasions, sausage on seven, ham on three.’

  ‘We never had ham…’

  Lundin holds up his brown forefinger. ‘Ham on three. You can check it against my accounts with “B-b-bruntell with the Kodak”,’ he says, imitating the grocer’s stutter.

  ‘No need for that.’

  I have a pull at the bottle. Lundin taps his pen shaft against it twice and makes another annotation.

  ‘One hundred and twenty-seven kronor and fifty. Neither more nor less. Exactly on the öre.’

  ‘That’s three kronor less than last month.’

  ‘Three twenty-five less.’

  ‘Much obliged to you.’ I pull the strap off my wallet and open it.

  ‘Even the poor man shall find grazing in my pastures.’

  Lundin sucks his moustache. I wet my thumb and count out the money on the table. The pipes surge whenever someone uses the toilet in the corridor. A bell tinkles: the door of the undertaker’s is being opened. Lundin scrabbles the money together and puts it in his inside pocket.

  ‘See you tomorrow morning, then,’ he says. He puts on his top hat, adjusts the fit of his coat and runs his finger over his moustache again. I nod. He lowers his head as he goes through the door. I take a sip of the coffee and open the snuff-thumbed accounts book. I stay there for a long while, trying to get a grip on the figures.

  A few hours later I’m standing by the window of my corner flat with my notebook in my hand. Dusk is falling over Sibirien. An old bat wrapped in a shawl is thrashing a boy on Roslagsgatan, holding him by his collar and striking at him with her fist. The brick building opposite, where Sailor-Beda has her laundry, catches the dull sounds of the thumps and accompanying oaths, hurling them all back at me. I push my hat away from my face.

  ‘Thieving son of a whore!’

  She lets go of the boy. Sobbing, he drops onto the pavement with a bloodied nose. The old nag gathers up her skirts and apron and resolutely marches south, past Bruntell’s grocery store and Ström’s junk shop.

  I fish a Meteor out of the breast pocket of my unbuttoned shirt and bite off the end. Up in Vanadislunden, St Stefan’s church tolls three times and, to the south, Johannes answers in baritone. Outside, the kid gets up on unsteady legs, rubs his nose and makes off towards Roslagstull. A fat rat darts across the street.

  ‘That old girl had a decent punch,’ I mumble, lighting the cigar and blowing a plume of blue-grey smoke at the window-pane. Outside, the day is dying in a welter of fire. The last few rays of the sinking sun are caught by the golden pretzel over the entrance to Ingemarsgatan’s bakery, from where it reflects against the façade on the other side of the street. In a few hours it’ll be time for me to go to work.

  I go around the big oak desk that faces the hall. The green Oriental rug absorbs the sound of my steps. My wide trouser legs swish against one another. I pass the full-length mirror and hit the light switch next to the kitchen door. The electric chandelier has six tasselled yellow lampshades. Most of them have singed patches. Only four of the bulbs are working.

  I cough drily and go and sit in the armchair by the desk. I take a puff and put the cigar in an ashtray decorated on the base with a hula-dancing figure. Smoke is already hanging heavy in the flat. My very own Battle of Lützen. Grey wreaths are sweeping across the brown wallpaper, trying to brush off the dust on top of the swine leather sandbag that dangles in a corner, and then seeking the hall, where the ceramic wood burner reaches up to the ceiling. The smoke attaches itself to the arms of the chandelier like ash-coloured streamers in a Christmas tree, and caresses the bindings of the books in the little bookcase to my left, where Strindberg rubs shoulders with Dahlin – a working-class author – and Piraten. I’ve read them all, and more still, at the city library a few blocks to the south. Not only tramps spend time at the library.

  I turn on the green-shaded desk lamp and the flat now shows itself off to much better effect. The place is cluttered with souvenirs from my years at sea. Ships in bottles, a short-bladed paper knife of ivory from Kaolack, and a porcelain mermaid sitting on a flat rock from Kirkwall. The walls are bare. Above the wardrobe next to the sleeping alcove is a crooked nail. Behind the wardrobe is a photograph of Branting, which fell down years ago.

  The one-room flat with a separate kitchen has both gas-and wood-burning stoves. On the landing is a room with a toilet, which I share with the neighbours. As far as I know, Lundin is also arranging to put a bathtub in the cellar for general use. I can’t complain. Usually, husband, wife and a pile of children share the same space. Whole families live in what are little more than huts around Stadshagen or Vita Bergen; if you turned over one of the boats pulled up around Årstaviken, there would be a decent chance of running into the man of the house, telling you to close the door as there was a draught.

  The number 6 tram rattles by. I open the top drawer of the desk and, as usual, it gets stuck halfway. I rummage among letters, old newspaper cuttings from Boxing Monthly!, a green scrap of fabric and a lot of other crap that I ought to clear out. I roll out a half-litre bottle of Kron and fill the schnapps glass, which is always ready on the desk.

  ‘Good evening to you, Kvisten!’

  The room-temperature schnapps sends a shudder down my spine as I open my notebook to plan out the route of my jobs. I almost always have plenty to get on with. People are desperate and impoverished and more or less at that point is when I turn up with my ugly mug and nail them. I’ve had a fruitful working arrangement with Wernersson’s Velocipedes on Odengatan for a number of years. When people stop making their monthly payments, I turn up to reclaim the bicycles, and Wernersson pays me off with their deposits. This yields between ten and thirty-five kronor per object.

  This evening’s jobs include three bicycles: a black Monark lady’s, a Pilen gentleman’s and an Adler three-wheeler with a back-loading flatbed. All the addresses are conveniently located in Vasastan. From there I can easily pedal them to Wernersson before I go back to Kungsgatan to pick up the dough from Zetterberg, as agreed. I wonder if he’s swept up the glass from the shattered mirror since last night.

  Outside, the tram rattles past on its way back. I make a note in my book of the bicycle models, the registration numbers and the addresses, put the cigar down in the ashtray and push back my hat. I check my pocket watch. There’s no hurry.

  I sit back and put my feet up on the desk. A coin falls out of my trouser pocket and rolls like a torn-off uniform button across the floor of an officer’s cabin. I close my eyes and smile.

  With sixty-five kronor in my pocket and slightly aching knuckles, I close the door of Wernersson Velocipedes and stroll up Odengatan. It’s raining again, and, on the corner of Standards, a voluptuous redhead stands smoking under a parasol. She follows me with her eyes.

  I hurry my steps past the National Library. A coughing fit is tickling in my chest. As I reach the crest of the slope I can already sense the mighty dome of Vasa Church through the skeletal lime trees. I ignore the cough and jog the remaining distance.

  A vendor on the platform between the tram tracks and the lanes of traffic makes a gesture over his spruce twigs and corn sheaves. He’s had the good sense to dress himself in a thick imitation astrakhan hat and big clogs filled with straw. I shake my head.

  My run sets my heart bouncing in my chest. I post off the completed crossword for the weekly Social-Demokraten competition. I send it because they promise a prize for a correctly solved crossword, but I’ve never got the slightest whiff of cash.

  The bells of Vasa Church chime six times. Just a few years ago there was a dairy farm up here on the ridge, and one could hear the cows lowing at evening milking time. Now there’s only the persistent sound of engines, the growling horns of trucks, shrieking factory whistles and the ringing of trams.

  More and more people on their way hom
e from work are crowding the shelter, and soon it’s about as packed as the Söder baths on Saturdays. A lady in a grey coat that almost reaches her feet shakes the water off her umbrella.

  ‘Oh, what dreadful weather!’

  ‘It’s even worse than snow.’ A bloke in a cap and a long blue shirt under his jacket squints at the rain-heavy skies. There’s soot around his eyes.

  The lady looks him up and down for a few moments. ‘That’ll come along as well, soon enough.’

  Like yesterday I take the number 3 tram to Norra Bantorget and walk the short distance to Kungsgatan. I’ve stopped by Lennartsson’s renowned shoe shop on Vasagatan, and I’m standing there gawking at the window displays when I get an unpleasant sensation in the pit of my stomach. I don’t know why. Something feels wrong, and it’s not just my wet feet.

  Two stints in Långholmen Prison for assault and years of harassment mean that I can smell goons at a good distance. All of my adult life I’ve been hounded by goons. Just wearing a blue collar is reason enough for them to tail you in the park, at public baths, even in urinals.

  I put my newly lit cigar in my mouth, shove my hands in my coat pockets and hurry towards the Kungsgatan junction. I peer round the corner.

  ‘Damn it!’

  I take my Meteor out of my mouth while I’m swearing. The area by Zetterberg’s front entrance is being guarded by two goons in uniform. In the street, a vehicle from the fire department is parked alongside a car with stretchers. In the doorway opposite stands a mixed group of gossips: men, women and little boys. I turn up the collar of my overcoat and stroll forwards.

  ‘Someone died in a fire in the night,’ says a lady in a skirt, jacket and blue cape, apparently a secretary on her way home from work, when I speak to her. ‘Someone called Zettergren.’

  I clench my fist in my pocket.

  ‘Zetterberg,’ corrects a delivery man, clearly in no hurry to get anywhere.

  ‘He lit the gas himself,’ says a grey-haired bloke with a goatee and an elegant walking stick. I think I’ve seen him before but my memory isn’t quite what it used to be. Several people in the group back him up.

  I’ve heard enough. It wouldn’t be the first time that some indebted wretch chose that way out. Quite the opposite. Nowadays, hardly a minute goes by without scores of executives and high-ranking public officials jumping off the edge.

  ‘They haven’t brought him out yet,’ says the lady in the skirt and jacket. Her eyes shine as eyes often do when humans sense blood.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They said they were waiting for the county medical officer.’

  I have a sudden headache. I take the cigar out of my mouth and massage the top of my nose. I shouldn’t have gone in so hard. ‘Should have given the mirror a miss.’

  ‘What was that?’ The old man stares at me.

  ‘You what?’

  ‘You said something about a mirror.’

  ‘I’ll be damned if I did.’

  One of the goons shakes his sabre at a couple of curious kids. A half-full tram passes by, a boy in a Vega cap cadging a ride on the carriage’s back coupler.

  ‘Here they come!’ the lady next to me cries in falsetto. First out, carrying one end of a stretcher, comes a corpulent young man whose tight-fitting trousers stick around his wide thighs. Zetterberg has been covered with a clean sheet. The other bearer is small of stature, grimacing with the exertion, and his face is quite red. I remember the taxing stairs to Zetterberg on the top floor.

  Halfway to the mortuary car, Zetterberg’s arm drops away from the body, falling out and dangling like a pendulum. The signet ring drops off the corpse’s thin fingers and hits the street. It bounces a few times before it stops in the gutter.

  A sigh goes through the spectators. The small bearer seems to swear silently to himself. He bends his legs, rests one of the stretcher’s handles on his knee and reaches for the ring. For a moment the stretcher is on the verge of overturning, but in the nick of time the bloke picks up the ring and manages to get Zetterberg back into balance. The lady next to me is panting with agitation.

  I’ve seen enough. I leave the little crowd. The cold, razing December wind finds its way under my collar and into my sleeves, leaving the skin goose pimpled. My feet are colder than ever.

  The bell on the door tinkles welcomingly when half an hour later I arrive at Lundin’s Undertakers, bending my head as I go in. The premises seem to strain under the weight of the house’s five floors, like a delivery boy under a piano. The office consists of a little tobacco-smelling reception, a desk, a couple of visitors chairs, a telephone and a potted palm tree with brown fronds.

  A woman is sitting with her back towards me. Under her black hat is a grey knot of hair. Her head is bowed and her shoulders shake from time to time, although she doesn’t make a sound. Her long skirt has dragged through the gutter on the way here.

  ‘We can arrange for a more elegant hearse from Frey’s rentals agency if you wish,’ says Lundin in his timid salesman’s manner. He looks her over and nods at the wall-mounted telephone. I shake my head. Out in the street a car honks its horn and a couple of agitated voices are swearing. A gang of excitable boys are causing a racket. I move an invisible bottle to my lips, as if having a drink. Lundin nods again, and the old woman blows her nose sonorously. I start pacing about on the spot.

  ‘And what do we do about flowers?’

  I run my hand across my chin several times and make a dry, smacking sound with my lips. One after the other, the clocks of St Stefan and St Johannes, and Lundin’s American timepiece inside the flat behind him, toll, seven times each.

  Weddings and funerals entitle one to extra rations of schnapps, and Lundin often takes a part-payment for his services in spirits, which he then sells on at high prices or dilutes with embalming fluid and flogs on the cheap. The rationing system, he likes to say, is the best thing to happen to the country apart from the Spanish Flu. He keeps the bottles in the safest place in the funeral home: a child’s coffin in the cool room. I take a deep breath and button up my overcoat.

  The room hardly measures twenty metres square and has no windows. The walls are tiled in white porcelain. The cold is sudden and harsh, and smells of forgotten, foetid flowers. A set of black tails lies on one of the long benches, but on the other are two small, white coffins of the simplest model. Under the benches are spacious basins in which Lundin, in the summer, keeps large blocks of ice under a layer of wood shavings. Beneath each of the basins is a drain.

  The desolate echo of my steps rings out as I cross the rustred clinker floor. I slide my fingers under the lid of one of the child’s coffins. The sweat breaks out of my pores. My hands are trembling, my nails scrabble intensely at the edge. It sounds as if I’m with a Marconi operator on a ship in distress.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Kvisten.’

  I don’t recognise my own voice. The lid opens. Inside the coffin, the bottles lie in neat rows, wrapped in flimsy brown or green paper. I don’t check the manufacturers’ brands.

  A half-litre, I mime at Lundin on my way out and hold up the bottle. He nods. Over the door hangs a white tapestry with the words Order in All Things embroidered in red thread.

  Moments later I’m sitting in my kitchen. On the windowsill lies a dusty, brown-speckled conch shell with six spikes. Flames crackle in the fireplace. Next to the fireplace is a basket of wood and a short axe. A couple of rag rugs from Ström cover the floor. A cigar goes out in the ashtray.

  I sit at the table hectoring myself to get through the half-litre of aquavit. My shirt is unbuttoned and my hair stands on end. The newspaper lies untouched in front of me. I share Social-Demokraten with three of my neighbours. I get to read it last on the condition that the crossword has been left unsolved. The front page announces that the Swedish Match Company is under new management, diphtheria is raging up in Katarina parish, and Hitler and his regiment of scouts are on the rampage in Berlin.

  A jazz trumpet wails from the radio of the spiritual
ist who lives on the other side of the wall. The aquavit sizzles through my system, making the vein on my forehead throb violently. My hands rest on the table between the bottle and my schnapps glass. My trainer always said they were too small in relation to their strength. The scars run higgledy-piggledy across them, my fingers crooked from all the little fractures. My left-hand little finger ends abruptly in a knot of red-streaked skin. Sometimes I still feel a smarting pain where the topmost joint should have been. I still feel iron eating its way through flesh and bone.

  I lift my hand and gaze at the crackled photograph I have hidden underneath it. I close one of my eyes. She had pigtails and a cornflower-blue dress. I know that, I bought her the dress on the same day that I bore her on my shoulders to the photographer. She’s mainly her mother’s daughter: the eyes are hers, also the mouth.

  I fire new life into the cigar with the gold lighter. I read the name engraved on it and remember Leonard’s hand touching my cheek. The empty schnapps glass jumps when I thump my fist on the table. I refill the glass, raise it in a toast, and mumble, ‘Zetterberg! Cheers to you, you damned self-slaughterer! You’ve swindled me out of four hundred and fifty kronor!’

  I throw my head back and chuck down the contents. A dog barks from somewhere up in Vanadislunden. I peer out of the kitchen window. The top of the hill is crowned by the water tower that holds tens of thousands of litres. I imagine the brick building breaking apart, and the water pouring down the hill and washing away the whole district.

  I fill the glass a final time, then pick up the letter from Elofsson, which has been lying on the kitchen table, and read it again. The chair topples over backwards when I stand up. I laugh emptily, regain my balance, and go over to the fireplace. I open the hatch with the fire poker. Heat radiates over my hands. I toss the letter inside and go back to the table. I toast the empty air, and the warmth of the schnapps washes through my chest and stomach.