Clinch

by Martin Holmén

  Next to the grand piano sits a young man in a black wool suit, his hair slicked severely back without a parting. His tie shines a deep yellow against his white shirt. He holds a glass of wine in his hand and taps his foot lightly at the floor. He has white socks and he can’t stay in beat.

  At a little table next to the young man sits a couple. The man is about ten years older than the woman. She’s wearing an evening dress buttoned asymmetrically, with a fur-lined collar and a beret, even though she’s indoors. Gazing demonstratively over the man’s shoulder and out of the window, she looks utterly bored. Meanwhile, he’s reading a newspaper.

  Doris waves at a slim, slightly hunchbacked waitress who’s probably taller than I am. Her spectacles are hitched onto her pinafore sash. At first she gives us a friendly smile, but it quickly fades. I stare out of the window while Doris conveys her wishes.

  ‘It’s so beautiful here! I want to eat in here! I don’t want to eat in the dining room! I want to eat in here!’

  ‘Yes, miss.’ The waitress’s eyes flicker, she curtsies and soon returns with a couple of menus.

  Behind our table, half-obscured behind a palm, sit two young women without male company. Both of them have their hair in a bob, also false eyelashes and evening dresses cut low across their backs. They titter and whisper among themselves. I glance through the menu. Some of it is in French. The liveried cigarette boy walks around with jaunty strides.

  ‘Don’t worry about them,’ says Doris.

  ‘Who do you mean?’

  ‘Oh nothing.’ She slides her finger across the menu. ‘I’m absolutely having the sole gratin. What are you having?’

  ‘Medallion of venison.’

  ‘Oysters as a starter? Have you had oysters?’

  ‘I’ve spent a quarter of my life at sea. What do you think?’

  I wave over the same waitress. She holds her spectacles in both hands as I’m ordering. Doris picks up her handbag. She has already calculated what the feast is going to cost. Just like yesterday, she hands me a wad of banknotes under the table. I transfer the money to my wallet. Sonja’s card from the boutique on Kungsgatan falls out and lands on the soft carpet. I pick it up, then drop the wallet into my inside pocket.

  The pianist changes to something more upbeat, the girls are still tittering. A waitress pours a smidgeon of red in my crystal glass for tasting. I knock it back with a nod and she fills the glass.

  ‘No one has an elasticated wallet any more,’ Doris whispers while the waitress produces another bottle. But Doris doesn’t taste her white wine, just gets right to it and fills her glass. ‘You look like a horse dealer at market. I’m going to buy you a proper wallet.’ She lights a cigarette without using the cigarette holder.

  ‘I like it.’

  ‘You want to look like a horse dealer?’ She laughs squeakily at her own joke.

  ‘I like it the way it is.’

  Doris knocks off the ash with her forefinger. Most of it ends up on the white tablecloth.

  ‘Sorry,’ she whispers. ‘Now I was horrible again. Old habits, you know how it is. Let’s forget about it.’

  The oysters are brought in with lemon and special knives. I watch Doris and then try to follow her example. After a few botched attempts I finally manage to munch down the mess. I like the taste. I like the consistency as well, the way the pulp grows in your mouth. Pieces of shell crunch between my teeth, sort of like when you’ve bitten off someone’s ear.

  Doris has four of them. I eat the rest of the dozen. I’m kept pretty busy with the oysters and the knife. We don’t talk much. Once we’re done, a waitress comes swanning in to clear the table.

  ‘Harry Persson sauce,’ says Doris and clinks the HP bottle with her gold lighter, before lighting another cigarette.

  ‘You said you didn’t know anything about boxing?’

  ‘Well surely everyone knows about HP?’

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘I met him several times. He made a few films after he retired from professional boxing.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And Ernst Rolf sings about him in that funny song!’

  ‘“The Kid with Chocolate Inside”.’ I pat my jacket. I’ve left my cigars in the overcoat.

  ‘That’s right!’ Doris offers me a cigarette and gives me a light before going on: ‘Did you ever meet in the ring?’

  ‘No, he boxed ten or fifteen kilos above my weight, but the newspapers liked making comparisons. I’m hungry. Those blasted oysters didn’t help. Won’t that food come soon?’

  ‘It’ll be here soon enough. Why did they compare you? If you weren’t going to fight anyway.’

  ‘Same first name, same year of birth, the most promising boxers of our generation and all that. It was all set up.’

  ‘If you’d put in a bit more elbow grease you might have become a pro as well.’

  The main courses come in on trays, to be put in our laps. Doris changes the position of her cutlery. I do the same. For an instant, the angled blade of her silver knife reflects her beauty spot.

  ‘Did it annoy you, what I said about your wallet?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  I get started on the meat. It’s so tender that it hardly needs chewing. Maybe it could do with a bit more salt and pepper. Doris lights another cigarette and spills ash all over the table again. She doesn’t touch her food.

  ‘Would they go back into the dining room and fetch us some salt and pepper?’ I look around for a waitress.

  Outside the window, an old Ford applies its brakes, the rear-end slides across the street and gets stuck in a snow drift. The girls at the table next door draw a collective sigh, raise their voices, and point.

  ‘Yes of course, just ask.’

  Doris crushes her cigarette in the ashtray, tastes her food and pours more wine.

  ‘My son is spoilt.’ Slowly she shakes her head. ‘First he was expelled from Lundsberg and then he rode my favourite mare so hard that she skewered herself on a fence at the cross-country club. Before he even got his driving licence he stole my Packard and sold it. Did you know I grew up with four siblings in a one-room flat on St Paulsgatan and had to take care of my simpleton brother? Every morning my father got up at six to go out to Ropsten. He was a paraffin delivery man. I’m not concerned about what sort of wallet you have. Forget it.’

  ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That you’ve come up in the world. Your story. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of.’

  ‘Sometimes you’re pretty funny, Harry! A bit enigmatic.’

  The driver of the Ford gets out, takes off his cap and scratches his hair with the same hand. A waitress appears, tops up my glass and brushes the cigarette ash from the table into her palm. She disappears before I have time to tell her what I want. Doris smiles.

  ‘Yes! You’re exactly like the masked man in Dans la nuit.’

  I don’t know what she’s going on about. I nod listlessly and try to make eye contact with another waitress on her way towards us. Doris puts down her cutlery on the edge of her plate. She lights yet another cigarette.

  ‘Could I just ask you…’ I start with my fork in the air, but the waitress has already moved on to the next table.

  ‘And God how I slaved at stage school,’ Doris continues. ‘I spent my nights sewing, then went to school on weekdays and at the weekends I worked as a catwalk model at Marga Fashion Salon.’ The waitress passes our table on the way back. ‘Salt and pepper!’ says Doris.

  The waitress curtsies and rushes off. Outside the window a couple of blokes are trying to push the Ford out of the snow drift.

  ‘And then you started making films?’

  ‘Yes, Stig Göthe gave me a couple of leading roles. The best-known of them is probably After Midnight, which was a bit scandalous and very successful.’

  A memory glimmers somewhere in the depths of my mind: ‘Well hello, girls, this is all very lively!’

  ‘E
xactly.’

  ‘Was that when you met Mauritz Stiller and Sjöman?’

  The owner of the car, after finally managing to dislodge it, drives off. The tramp is still standing there with his cap in the snow. The tram pulls into its stop in a cloud of fine powder snow. A group of people, all warmly dressed, come welling out, several of them also dragging large suitcases, or holding piles of parcels.

  ‘Victor Sjöström. You’ve done your homework, haven’t you?’

  ‘And then Steiner.’ I’m mopping up the sauce with a bit of bread when the waitress finally brings the seasoning rack. Doris holds out her hand and stops her.

  ‘We’ll have the bill instead. Put a Lafite on it. And your finest cognac, and a couple of bottles of soda.’ She consumes half of her cigarette in a single drag and releases a large cloud of smoke over the table. I peer greedily at her sole, left untouched on her plate.

  ‘Excuse me, miss, but I don’t think…’

  ‘I’m sure it can be arranged. Talk to the head waiter, tell him Mrs Steiner sends her regards.’

  The waitress curtsies and leaves without a sound. I put my fork into the sole and swiftly transfer it to my plate. Doris places her hand on my thigh.

  ‘So you see, Harry, we’re the same sort, you and me. I don’t care what kind of wallet you have.’

  I don’t want to be reminded of the whole Zetterberg mess, so I take another route home and take aim for the spinning NK clock up on the telephone tower by Brunkeberg Square. Doris sits there looking out of the side window. The snow is coming down heavily. The compartment is filled with the rhythmic sound of the double windscreen wipers, and the glass is misting up on the inside. I’m behind a police pursuit motorbike with a sidecar on Malmskillnadsgatan, so I take it easy, keeping one hand on the white knob of the gear stick and another on top of the steering wheel, a Meteor between my fingers.

  We pass Oxtorget. In the summertime, the carriage drivers often sit here playing cards in the evenings. Now it’s utterly deserted. In front of us, the illuminated skyscrapers rear up on both sides of the bridge.

  ‘My husband lost out on his bid for those, you know.’ Doris nods at the buildings, but I don’t know what she’s talking about.

  We cross the bridge over Kungsgatan and drive up towards Johannes’s chapel. As we approach its green-scarred sugar-loaf dome, a bloke on the pavement outside the fire station waves cheerfully with his walking stick. Doris buries her face in her hands. I turn left and go round the churchyard.

  The same sort. Sure.

  I drop Doris outside my house and drive off to find a parking space. The banks of snow between the road and the pavements are as tall and wide as the foaming wake of a steamer going full speed ahead through a choppy sea. The odd caretaker here and there is already busy with a shovel. At five o’clock tomorrow morning, hopeful casual labourers will gather outside the job exchange for the chance to hack at the snow and shovel it away after the snow ploughs have done their rounds. I make a couple of loops by Roslagsplan and finally park in the playground of the elementary school a little further up the street. I shove my hands deep in my pockets and hurry home.

  There are crackling sounds in both the ceramic burner and the fireplace as I’m hanging up my overcoat in the hall. Dixie jumps at my legs, yapping in welcome. She’ll have to wait. Just like on that first evening, Doris sits with her legs up on my desk. The only difference is that this time she’s kept her shoes on.

  ‘You took your sweet time. I’ve already had a couple of glasses.’

  When she smiles, the gap in her front teeth is briefly visible between her deep red lips. Her clothes lie in a pile by the desk. Little pools of water gleam on the cork mat where she walked. On the table are two wine glasses and a half-empty bottle. Her black slip has slid up her legs, so that I can see her pale, spindly thighs where the stockings end.

  Taking a mouthful, I nod at her. She pulls up the silk fabric a little further. She is naked underneath. A couple of grey hairs gleam like silver thread in the black bush where her thighs meet. Only a couple of nights ago she was utterly unknown to me. I have not possessed a woman for years, but before that, the ones I saw wore big cotton nightshifts to look their best between the sheets. I’ve already got used to her. Anyway, her body is a bit like a boy’s.

  I put my glass down, push back my hat and pull her into my arms. Gently I kiss her and slide my hand into the warmth between her legs. She lifts her arms as she pulls off her slip. Only now do I notice that she somehow removes the hair in her armpits.

  ‘Do you shave under your arms?’

  She takes my cheeks between her hands and tries to kiss me, but I move my head away.

  ‘Everyone does, nowadays.’

  I respond to her kiss. She breathes hard. I toss away my hat, loosen my tie and wriggle out of my jacket. I run my tongue along her throat. Her red nails claw into my neck. I fumble with her girdle and stockings but she stops me.

  ‘You want to keep them on tonight as well?’

  ‘Quiet!’

  The buttons of my new shirt scatter in all directions when she tears it open. One of them tinkles against the wine bottle on the desk. I grab her upper arms, pick her up and toss her at the bed. Her bottom bounces against the mattress and then she falls flat on her face. There’s a smacking sound when her kneecaps hit the floor. For a moment she stays, immobile, on all fours. Her hair hangs down over her face. She whimpers.

  I pull her up on her feet. Her arms wrap themselves around my neck. She kisses me greedily. The springs groan when we fall down into the bed with me underneath. The sheets are as cold as burial shrouds.

  Her mouth and lips work their way down the ship tattoos on my chest and make a detour to the bruise that the weight of the pistol has caused against my ribs, before she follows the dark string of hair that bifurcates my stomach. Her fingers shake as she unbuttons my fly.

  With one hand between her own legs and another round my shaft, she starts sucking me. If Steiner hasn’t been touching her for years she’s certainly been practising elsewhere. She feasts on me and makes a show of it. I put my arm behind my head so I can get a good look.

  Pink rouge runs between her breasts. My cock vibrates like the needle of a tachometer. When she moves her mouth away, a thin string of saliva hangs like spider’s web between the glans and her lips. Around the shaft runs a deep red ring from her lipstick. Her chestnut brown eyes meet my gaze as her hand moves up and down. She’s left-handed – it occurs to me that she always switches her cutlery around when we eat out.

  She straddles me. This is quite another sort of wetness than I am used to, hot and slithering. Slowly she starts forming circles with her hips. Her fingers taste of a woman’s sex. She pants with increasing urgency and a few droplets of sweat emerge, gleaming, on her neck. Her eyes look up at the ceiling and her nostrils widen like a mare going uphill. When I look at her body, flexing in a backward arc that tightens her ribs against her skin, it doesn’t strike me as that of a woman who’s ever been pregnant. Her fingers clutch the skin above my knees. I think she’s close. For a few moments it feels as if I’m about to soften.

  ‘What time do you have to be back with your husband?’

  The neat breasts stop swaying for a moment. She bends forwards. ‘You bastard,’ she hisses.

  The sweat sprays as she hammers her fist into my chest. I grab her hips and thrust hard in and out of her. She keeps hammering at the full-rigger tattoo and swearing at me. For a few seconds we find exactly the same rhythm and very briefly it feels as if we have melted together.

  ‘Yes,’ she cries. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’

  I take hold of her buttocks, part them and soften up her boy’s opening with a wetted finger. Lundin bangs his broom at the ceiling.

  ‘If he could see you now, eh? Old man Steiner?’

  Her brown eyes spark up. She raises her fist again. Pain fills my head like a white light when she thumps the bridge of my nose. My eyes fill with tears, blood spatters around us as I try to control
it. I heave her onto the floor. She lands on her back with a thump. One of the eyelets holding up her stocking snaps. She loses a shoe.

  ‘The same sort,’ I hear myself wheeze as I step out of my trousers.

  She nods while she slides a half-metre backwards on her elbows. ‘The same sort!’

  She lies flat on her back, parts her legs and starts rubbing herself between her white thighs. I kneel before her, put my hands behind her knees and push her thighs up. I spit on my cock and guide it into her anus. She squeezes her eyes shut and turns her head away. I feel her cramping up around me. Her jaw grinds under her skin. I hold her arms above her head. Our upper bodies are sticking together. Her pointed hip-bones jab into me. She’s making sounds as if she’s crying.

  Thick, viscous strings of blood from my face tremble over her and hook into her hair and eyelashes. We’re drenched in sweat.

  It tastes and sounds and smells like home.

  The city has braced itself for Christmas. Across the shopping thoroughfares, strings of decorations have been put up with big stars and shining Christmas trees. In the dairy hall, all the cheeses suddenly have red wrappings, and the tobacconists change their usual sheets of bookmarks for bigger ones with angels. The Santa Bus drives around collecting food for the poor. Vending machines spit out stamps with Christmas motifs. Even the booze smugglers keep the peace. Over the holiday period the demand for strong beverages is so immeasurable that there is space for everyone, whether big fish or small. Anyway, the frost has gone too deep into the ground and the inlets have frozen, so corpses become a problem.

  It’s mine and Doris’s last day together for a while. I’m swollen around my nose and a little red scab runs across it. Every time I see it I am reminded of the boy in Bellevueparken. I wonder if he has a scar from our last meeting.

  It’s snowing. Odenplan has been transformed into a small forest of Christmas trees. A black-dressed youth league fascist is rattling his collection box at the edge of the square. The sounds of blokes chopping at the trees with their axes to make them stand straight on their wooden feet mixes with the deep-throated voices of the chanting stallholders, their breath rising above them like smoke from the fuselages of Atlantic liners. Fires crackle in oil drums. The air smells of fire, pine resin and exhaust.