Clinch

by Martin Holmén

  ‘Hello.’ He adjusts one of my dark locks with his forefinger. As he leans towards the bar, he brushes his crotch against my knee. I smile, spin back to the bar again, and run my hand down his lower back, over his muscular buttocks and the backs of his thighs.

  ‘Are you here with anyone?’ He smiles, showing his white teeth.

  ‘I’m waiting for a good friend. Zetterberg. Do you know him?’

  The boy shakes his head. He rattles one of the empty glasses on the bar. I look up at the price list. My lone five-kronor note is burning the inside of my pocket. He follows my eyes.

  ‘Broke, right?’ He smiles and takes a sip of my drink before putting his hand on mine.

  I shrug. The orchestra kicks in again. ‘I’m a good friend of the Steiner family.’

  The boy chuckles. ‘That could have bought you the whole bar a couple of years ago. But now? Hardly!’

  With another smile, he empties what’s left in my glass. Again he presses his crotch against my leg as he manoeuvres himself past.

  ‘Merry Christmas, anyway,’ he whispers in my ear, kissing my neck.

  I close my eyes, and for a very short moment everything disappears: the sound of the music, laughter, clinking glasses. It’s rather like when you take a really hard blow on the jaw. The world around you slows down, reduces itself to a tiny, silent, black point, and then quickly expands, all while you’re falling back onto the ropes.

  The best thing to do in a situation like that is to take your opponent in a clinch, but when I open my eyes, the boy has already disappeared onto the dance floor. With a sigh, I slip off the stool.

  *

  I’m back in Berzelii Park where the evening began a few hours ago. The cold air stings my face. I still feel that kiss lingering on my skin. The plain-clothes policemen are still in position by Nybroplan. They keep out of the way, but write diligently in their notebooks. It has started snowing again.

  The drinks have changed my timidity into longing. Recruits of all regiments are reeling about in the park, now almost completely steeped in darkness. They’re doing their best to make an arse of the Swedish Armed Forces. Most have already sold some of their equipment for booze. A few of them are drinking straight from the bottle. Others have already vomited down their rough felt uniforms.

  ‘We have fire, we have meat, we have cups and we have schnapps to cheer us up,’ drawls a conscript whose moustache is encrusted with frost.

  A couple of young girls who surely don’t even have hair between their legs stand by the drinking fountain taking shallow puffs on their cigarettes, ready to offer themselves to the first bloke who can buy them a drink or two. Gang boys, too young to be admitted into drinking establishments, have drunk themselves into a state of foolhardiness and are walking around looking for trouble. A couple of well-dressed elderly gentlemen are hovering about, trying to establish contact with the conscripts. There’s much laughter and toasting. I lock the bicycle with a chain and walk a few metres into the park.

  ‘Look over there! A boy for Kvisten.’

  He’s one of the navy lads, seeming a bit lost standing there by himself, under a tree next to the waterfront. He’s already mislaid his hat. Pity, I like it when I can read the name of their ship as they balance on their knees looking up at me.

  Our eyes meet. I smile. He smiles back. I raise my eyebrows. He loses his footing.

  Between us, under a streetlight not far from me, a horse guard accidentally topples into a sailor.

  ‘Damn well watch yourself, you bastard!’

  The Christmas peace is over. Curses sail neatly through the night. The sailor gets a shove and before long they’re tumbling about on the ground. The snow flies around them in a fine powder. The glow of the lamp puts a sparkle in the snow crystals, and the fighters are enveloped in bright cloud. The sailor gets the upper hand, straddling the chest of the other and snapping his nose. There’s a loud crunching sound. An elongated jet of blood gushes from the bridge of his nose, painting a perfect red line in the snow.

  ‘Modin’s in trouble again!’ four or five horse guards call out, and come to his aid.

  The girls start screaming with excitement. One of the guardsmen puts his boot in the sailor’s face. He’s out of the game before he’s even hit the ground. They’re on him like a pack of famished dogs going at an injured rat. Within seconds, they’ve formed a kicking circle around him.

  The assault picks up pace. One of the guardsmen stands on the sailor’s chest, then jumps on his face. I puff some life into a Meteor. The plain-clothes goons blow their shrill whistles but it’s too late – the fight takes hold, grows like a tumour through the rings of spectators, and before long some fifteen boys are involved, mostly because they’re drunk and simply can’t be bothered to move out of the way when someone bumps into them. Swear words and bottles fly through the air. Hatred issues from their mouths like smoke, and violence is no longer pretty this night, violence is nothing more than a blessed jumble of feet and fists and sobbing. The boys claw and hiss desperately at each other, like a litter of kittens in a jute sack on their way to the river.

  Suddenly I can’t see my boy any more. I stand on my tiptoes, then jump up and down, in the hope that he has not been drawn in.

  I find him on the other side of the bundle. He’s backed away and stands there peering over the top of the chaos of bodies. The fight starts moving in his direction, like a whirling tornado of snow with a hint of navy blue, uniform grey and blood red. It’ll suck him in before you know it. I flap my arms.

  ‘Hello!’ I holler and wave, cap in hand. A weeping guardsman with vomit and blood over his chin and chest comes stumbling towards me. I hold out my hand to stop him wiping himself against me, but he doesn’t pause. I put on my cap and give him a left hook. The force of the impact shoots up my shoulder. Body fluids splatter around him like a pulse of lava. I step over his body and take off my cap once again.

  One conscript rams his head into someone’s stomach, and they both fall to the ground. For a second there’s a gap offering a view of the other side. The young man sees me. He waves back, looking relieved. I point towards Bern’s at the southern end of the park. He nods.

  We meet outside the entrance. From Bern’s comes the sound of tinkling piano music, while, in the park, there’s only churning violence. The police are still blowing their whistles.

  ‘You can be my Virgil.’

  The boy has green eyes. His cheek is soft to the touch. I run my hand over his hair. He smiles, slightly insecurely. His washed-out blue collar droops over his nautical blazer.

  ‘You’ll give me a bob or two, won’t you?’

  ‘Of course you can have a bob, my lad.’

  I pull the elastic off my wallet and press the seaman’s fiver into his hand. On his wrist, the name Linnea is written in green-black ink. It could be his girl, but when it comes to salty lads like these, it’s just as often the name of some old sea-going crate.

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘It’s the going rate.’

  ‘But I thought…’

  I hold my wallet open and show him. ‘It’s all I’ve got. In my time you were lucky if you got half that.’

  He nods. I take the five-kronor note out of his hand and tuck it into his breast pocket.

  ‘Right, then.’

  ‘I’ll follow a bit behind.’

  I nod and walk briskly towards the harbour on Södra Blasieholm. As I walk along, I slide off a handful of snow from a window ledge and press it against my left knuckles. If I’d had a few more kronor I could have bribed the guard at the royal stables to let me use one of the loose boxes, but now we have to stay outdoors. The Husqvarna thumps rhythmically against my ribs, but my heart beats even faster. I look around. My sailor is following five or six metres behind me. Grevsgränden opens up towards the water. It’s still clear and starry. The ice knocks against the quay.

  We pass the Grand Hotel and the Automobil Club. I can hear the seaman stumbling along behind me. On the other side of
the water, the houses of Old Town are lined up like a colourful band of reservists with dirty, ochre-coloured uniforms. The black, yellow and red banner sways over the German Legation. I stop and wait for him to catch up.

  ‘Behind here.’ My voice is gravelly as I gesture for him to follow me into the little park behind the National Museum.

  The snow hasn’t been cleared, but, judging by the footprints, we are not the first to make use of the park this evening. The boy slips in the snow and starts swearing. We manage to make our way to the back, and I point across the water towards Skeppsholmen and smile at him.

  ‘You’re almost home.’

  He nods. I indicate that he should go behind the hedge against the façade of the museum.

  There’s already a bloke with another sailor in the dark, narrow space between the bushes and the wall. The sailor leans against the façade with his trousers halfway down his thighs. He moans every time the bloke behind him thrusts into him.

  ‘There’s space here for more.’ The bloke gives his sailor a quick breather before he gets to it again.

  My sailor starts pacing on the spot. ‘Not the stern thruster.’

  ‘Okay.’ Damn it!

  I start pulling at his blazer, getting the buttons open and sliding my hands under his jumper, over his completely smooth chest. He wriggles. I press him up against the wall and lean in to kiss him. He moves his face away. I grunt. He breathes in. I unbutton his rough, tight trousers. He’s already standing to attention. I’m disappointed; this one’s nowhere near as well-endowed as Leonard. I grunt again. He pants.

  ‘Shall I wank you off?’

  I nod. He finds me down there, beneath my trousers and underpants. It’s unbearably cold. He starts moving his hand up and down. I could just as well be with a woman. He holds it too softly. He pulls the foreskin back too hard.

  ‘You enjoying that?’ he whispers close to my face, his breath smelling slightly of vomit. I turn my face away. I think about the boy with the slicked-back hair on Kommendörsgatan earlier. I grab the sailor’s hair and press his face against my neck. The bloke next to us starts groaning, but my cock is softening.

  ‘You like this, don’t you?’

  ‘Stop!’

  He carries on. The vein in my forehead is pulsating hard. I grab his blue collar.

  ‘I said stop!’

  I move his schnapps-reeking face close to my own. With a whimper he totters back against the wall.

  The disappointment wells up from my stomach. I feel as if hunger is setting in after a week of fasting, although my jaw muscles are too swollen to chew. I stumble out of the bushes, pulling my trousers up.

  ‘Damn it!’

  Anger thumps in my veins. The snow crunches under my feet as I remove my tie, fold it up in my pocket, and rush past the Customs House. I come up on Hovslagaregatan and go around the corner. Squeezing the Husqvarna against my body with my arm, I run along the water’s edge, back up towards Berzelii Park, passing the Strand Hotel. It’s worryingly quiet, and I swear loudly again.

  The park is deserted. The goons probably managed to get a gang together and break up the fight. Bits of military kit lie strewn across the area. The snow has taken on that trampled, bright yellow colour that one associates with the usual Christmas slaughter. Here and there in the snow, uniform buttons stare up at me like cat’s eyes. I kick a bloodstained sailor’s hat into the air.

  I feel it in my whole body. To hell with Zetterberg, Sonja and the German creep! Back to Doris, Wernersson’s Velocipedes and runaway farmers’ daughters.

  I’ve had enough.

  From the undertaker’s premises below, one can hear the heavy blows of a hammer as Lundin tacks on the lid of a coffin. It’s getting dark outside. I leave the lights off and watch the sunset, just as I used to do in the olden days. In a minute I’m going down to pick up a suit from Beda. In half an hour I’m meeting Doris for a Christmas smorgasbord.

  My lungs sting me when I inhale too deeply on a cigar. I haven’t bought her a Christmas present. Even though I’ve left my two-line classified ad about ‘detective assignments and other discreet services’ on a rolling basis for the last few days in Landsbygdens Folk, Social-Demokraten and Stockholms-Tidningen, my letterbox has remained empty.

  I stand in front of the mirror, the pinstripes of my brown suit hardly visible in the gloom. I scoop out a sizeable amount of pomade from the pot and pull my fingers through my hair before combing it. I shut one eye to shield myself from the smoke.

  Really I should go and get a haircut at Nyström’s, even though he’s a terrible barber and usually has a cigarette dangling between his lips as he works, dropping ash on your head at regular intervals. I keep going there because he’s just around the corner and he’s also one of the few barbers in town that sells Fandango.

  I slip the comb into my breast pocket and take a deep pull on the cigar. Leaving the Husqvarna in its holster on a hook in the hall, I put on my overcoat and push the door open.

  Good Templar Wetterström from two floors up is standing just outside the door in the stairwell, ready to knock. He couldn’t look more surprised, not even if I’d caught him red-handed with a bottle. He has a water-combed parting in his hair. His wife stands beside him, holding a brown paper bag spotted with grease stains. Both are in their Sunday best.

  In the gloom behind them stands Nilsson from number 5, with his cauliflower ears, a green knitted scarf and black box calf boots. He fidgets as Wetterström clears his throat. His wife pokes him with her elbow.

  ‘Season’s greetings.’

  ‘Oh, well thank you.’ I put my cigar in my mouth and get out my wallet to see if I can find the receipt from the laundry.

  ‘So, you probably had your Christmas lunch with Lundin this year?’

  ‘It usually ends up that way.’

  ‘Yes, I see. And the heating is working like it’s supposed to in your flat?’

  ‘I haven’t had any problems.’

  ‘No, Lundin is good in that way. When it comes to the heating.’ Wetterström nods.

  I find a box of matches and give it a shake.

  ‘You’ll have a bit of ham, won’t you?’ Mrs. Wetterström holds out the paper bag.

  I stare at it. Her husband takes it in his hand. I strike a match, puff at the cigar, blow out a thick plume of smoke and put the spent match back in the box.

  ‘Yes, we brought you a bit of ham. It turned out very nicely this year.’ He holds out the bag.

  Nilsson stares at his slippers behind them.

  I put away the matchbox and take the bag. ‘Much obliged.’

  ‘And thanks to you also. We’ve been asked to see if you’ll come to the New Year’s bazaar this year.’

  ‘New Year’s bazaar?’

  ‘You could bring Lundin along as well,’ his wife interjects. ‘And maybe your lady friend.’ Wetterström stares at the door frame. ‘If you’d like to. And if she would.’

  ‘Right. Well, I’ll ask her.’

  ‘New Year’s Eve, from lunchtime at the back building, number forty-one. If you want to contribute in some way you can let us know.’

  ‘Thanks, I’ll ask.’

  ‘Well, we hope to see you then.’

  The little congregation troops off up the stairs. I stand there for a moment with the bag of ham in my hand, taking a few puffs on my cigar. It’s all Dixie’s fault. Ever since I started dragging that fat little dog about, people around here are quite transformed.

  I’ve only just locked the door when Nilsson comes sneaking back.

  ‘I hope you can excuse them,’ he says, tugging at his earlobe. ‘They’re going potty about that bazaar.’

  ‘Not a problem.’

  ‘And, I was going to ask, you were a sailor, weren’t you?’

  ‘For quite a while.’

  ‘Did you go to Africa?’

  ‘It wasn’t unheard of.’

  ‘Right, so I wanted to ask. Are they as beautiful as on the coffee tin? The Negro girls?’

&
nbsp; ‘Even more beautiful.’ I take the cigar out of my mouth.

  He puts his hand across his mouth and sniggers. ‘Even more beautiful!’ He slaps his thigh and takes a couple of waltz steps. ‘Thanks.’

  He’s still sniggering as he goes up the stairs. I shake my head, close the door and get out my keys.

  A flimsy mist hangs like fine-carded wool over the block. The temperature has risen slightly. I dodge one of the ambulances from the Epidemic Hospital as I cross the road.

  On the corner stands the uncrowned king of the yo-yo, demonstrating his tricks to a bunch of kids. He’s a head taller than the others, and wearing proper long trousers. With a crooked smile at them, he sends the yo-yo into a spin. As I understand it, this year it has to be the Kalmar twist.

  Slightly to one side of the kids, a tramp stands frozen to the spot, staring listlessly at the sky. He’s bearded, and has crocheted together his multi-coloured rags. On one foot he wears a spat, on the other a cigar box.

  Beda, in a large-patterned floral apron, comes out to meet me with the black suit hanging over her arm. She rubs her eye.

  ‘Here’s the suit.’

  ‘Thanks. And season’s greetings.’

  ‘Thanks, and the same to you!’

  ‘Things will get better now, you know.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I had a visit from Doctor Jönsson…’ Beda smiles.

  ‘The doctor’s for the death certificate.’

  ‘They say I have cancer. Of the eye. They’re removing it.’

  I nod. The suit hangs heavily on my arm. The words freeze in my throat.

  Beda smiles again. ‘We’ll see if it’s spread.’

  I nod again, put my cigar in my mouth and massage the bridge of my nose.

  ‘I’m sure it’ll go fine.’ I offer her the bag of ham. ‘Here, have some ham that’s left over.’