by Håkan Nesser
I got on my knees on the floor and examined Edmund’s dirty left foot. He was right. Almost at the base of the big toe I could see a small, delicate scratch, thin as a pencil mark and not more than a centimetre long.
I nodded and crawled back into bed.
‘Cheers,’ I said. ‘I just wanted to see.’
‘No worries,’ said Edmund and pulled his foot back under the blanket. ‘Do you want to see the other one, too?’
‘No need,’ I said. ‘Did it hurt?’
‘What?’
‘When they took them away?’
‘Dunno,’ said Edmund. ‘I was asleep. I mean, I was under. But it ached after. I was only six.’
I nodded. How in the world anyone had found out that he’d had twelve toes, if the eleventh and twelfth had been removed that long ago? He hadn’t lived in the town for more than a year.
There was only one explanation. He must have told them himself.
At first I thought this was strange, but the longer I lay there thinking about it, the more unsure I became.
If I’d had twelve toes would I want to tell people about them? Maybe. Maybe not.
I didn’t reach a conclusion and that bothered me. I don’t know why.
Like almost every night that followed, we fell asleep to the sound of Henry’s typewriter and to the sound of Henry’s tape deck.
Elvis. The Shadows.
Buddy Holly, Little Richard, the Drifters.
And to the gentle scratching of tree branches against the window when the wind from the lake blew through the forest.
It felt good.
Almost too good, but then I was being selective. I was filtering out anything that wasn’t within reach when we fell asleep at night or when we woke the next morning.
6
On our first few days at Gennesaret, we surveyed our kingdom. By sea and by land. Möckeln was four kilometres across, and that could be seen on the map. When rowing the boat, measures of distance felt pointless. Wherever you were going, it would take the time that it took; the important thing was to conserve your energy so you didn’t wear your arms out before you got there. In the summertime, there was never any need to rush; time was an ocean one thousand times the size of Möckeln: you did as you pleased.
There were really only three destinations on the lake. Near the middle was Tallön, a barren islet only a couple hundred square metres in size where the seagulls liked to shit. Really there wasn’t much there but bird shit, rocks and the ten knotted pines that grew in a circle in the centre, which had given the place its name. Well, the name it had on the map. Edmund and I called it Shit Island—or Seagull Shit Island: that rolled off the tongue better. With a normal wind it took one session to get there; by ‘session’ we meant that it was too short a trip to bother taking turns at the oars.
It took just about as long to get to Fläskhällen, a small beach with a cafe and twenty metres of sandy shore on the north end of the lake. From Gennesaret you could also take the gravel path through the woods, and it was much faster by bike than by boat.
The third destination for a boat trip was Laxman’s supermarket in Åsbro. You expected it to take up half of an afternoon if you were doing the shopping—and of course you would be. If you were lucky, Britt would be in the shop. She was also a Laxman, was around our age, and known for being flighty. I wasn’t sure what that meant; nor did I know how flightiness was expressed, but she had those glittering eyes and those plump lips and Edmund said he got a boner just thinking about her.
I didn’t like it when Edmund discussed his feelings so plainly. Even if I unabashedly acknowledged that certain things also gave me an erection, it was a private matter. You didn’t just talk about it willy-nilly. Eventually Edmund got the picture. Edmund was good at understanding awkward and sensitive things.
Whatever the case, we agreed that the hours it took to row to Laxman’s and retrieve provisions were well spent. We drifted past the area crammed with summer cottages, and the jetties, keeping an eye out for girls of suitable size, even if there rarely were any, and then carried on to Mörk River. It was a lovely river. The reeds grew so tall and dense that in some places they were separated by only a metre-wide channel. It was better if you didn’t meet a motorboat in this narrow, verdant passage—and Edmund and I both thought that our trips down this river could definitely be compared to a slow and steady infiltration of the Amazon’s swampy jungle.
After a few days, we made an arrangement with Henry whereby we would be doing all the shopping, and as long as the summer lasted—before what happened happened—Edmund and I made the Mörk River journey every second or third day. We took turns rowing, of course. The one who was oarless rested on his belly in the bow of the boat and, with his senses on full alert, he kept an eye out for beaches and watched for the first sign of an approaching crocodile in the quaggy water.
Or a water snake. Or Indians.
Or he thought about Britt Laxman.
‘The Log Cabin on the Lingking River,’ said Edmund on one of our first expeditions. ‘Have you read it?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Damned good book. It reminds me of this. It’s a grand summer, Erik. Shit, I hope it never ends.’
‘Of course it won’t,’ I said. ‘Toss me a liquorice stick.’
‘Ay ay, Captain,’ said Edmund. ‘Do you think that Miss Laxman would be interested in a boat trip some time?’
‘White man talk crazy,’ I said. ‘Laxman is really religious. I’m sure she’s chained up behind the counter.’
‘Hmm,’ said Edmund. ‘We’ll have to take firearms and a metal saw next time. I can tell she’d be willing to satisfy a young man’s every need.’
‘With age come wisdom,’ I said. This was a sign that I wanted to change the subject, and right on cue Edmund changed tack. As I said, he was perceptive. Uncommonly perceptive.
Between Gennesaret and the Sjölycke summer resort, there were two so-called real homesteads.
The first, the one that was closest to us, was a red shanty down by the edge of the lake, overgrown with reeds, alders, raspberry thickets and nettles.
And a lush broad-leaved forest, as my father would say with a knowing smile that I never fully understood.
When the house was in use, it was inhabited by one or more members of the Lundin family, but it was often empty, because the male Lundins were usually locked up for something or other and the female Lundins were whores or nude dancers or madams and were more at home in an urban environment.
The most famous Lundin was Evert, who had stabbed a cop half to death when he was only a young boy, and later had moved on to bank robberies and arson, as well as racking up numerous assault charges. As far as I could tell, he preferred to assault women, but if there were none to hand, beating up pensioners or children would do. It was said that he was illiterate and never learned to tell left from right, no matter how hard he tried. This said a lot about the Lundin family.
You could say we shared a parking spot with the Lundins, because neither their house nor Gennesaret could be reached by car. Instead, there was a small clearing up the road where cars, bicycles or mopeds were parked. Then you had to walk along an uneven path for the last hundred metres. One hundred and fifty, if you wanted to get to the Lundins’. In the other direction, of course. There was a big difference between the Gennesaret path and the Lundin path.
Just as with the narrow and wide ways in the Bible, my mother had once explained.
But the Lundin path was both uneven and narrow, so it wasn’t really a direct comparison. The other so-called homestead was an old soldier’s cottage that lay on a bend past the winding gravel road that ran through the woods, set a good way up from the lake. The Levis lived there, an old Jewish couple who had survived Treblinka and who didn’t interact with other people. Once a week, they rode down to the village on an old tandem bicycle with a cart that they loaded up at Laxman’s with supplies for the next seven days.
At the
time I didn’t really know what it meant to have survived Treblinka, but I knew that it was too awful to talk about.
No one spoke of it, not my father, not my mother, or anyone else. It seemed as if it might’ve been better to have died in Treblinka than to have survived it. When I rode past the peaceful cottage in the woods, I thought that perhaps this is what the world was like. Some things were so bad you shouldn’t even try to wrap your head around them. You had to just leave them be, preserving their invisibility and the silence enveloping them with the words you were forced to put to them.
The world, for all its good and evil, was far bigger than we knew, that I understood, and this fact made me feel both strangely calm and terrified.
I don’t know why.
‘What’s the matter with your mum, really?’ Edmund asked one afternoon after we’d cycled to Fläskhällen and bought ice cream. We sat by the grey picnic table above the sandy beach, which was empty because it was a cloudy day.
I bit the chocolate coating off my ice-cream bar before I answered.
‘Cancer,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ said Edmund, as if he understood. I don’t think he did. Cancer was one of those words. Like Treblinka. Like death. Like fuck.
I didn’t want to talk about them. Love? I wondered. Does that belong?
And as we sat there licking our ice cream and looking at the graffiti on the table—all the hearts and the Cock and Cunt and Bengt-Göran 22/7/1958—I chanted the words in my head, the whole ditty.
Cancer-Treblinka-Love-Fuck-Death.
I understood that all this existed in the world. Existed, existed, existed; and from then on—that whole summer—the chant came to mind occasionally, just those five words, like gibberish. No, not gibberish; more like a kind of incantation against something I understood, but didn’t want to understand, I think.
Something shameful, perhaps, that the whole world—not just me—was also ashamed of. The plaster-language.
Especially when we cycled past the Levis, of course.
Cancer-Treblinka-Love-Fuck-Death.
I needed these words. Sometimes I wondered if it was a sign that I was going mad.
‘Your brother Henry,’ Edmund said one afternoon. ‘What’s he writing?’
‘A book,’ I said.
‘A book?’ said Edmund. ‘Like Introducing Rex Milligan?’
It was part of the library of books he had brought with him. We’d both read it a few times already, and agreed that it was a real treat.
Introducing Rex Milligan by Anthony Buckeridge.
‘No,’ I said. ‘It’s something else, I think. Something serious.’
Edmund wrinkled his forehead and took off his glasses. He’d got them new for the summer and they were still in one piece, even though almost a whole week of holiday had already gone by.
‘There’s nothing wrong with being serious,’ he said. ‘I’d probably feel more at home in the world if people were a bit more serious.’
I’d never heard anyone our age say anything like that, not even the boffins in our class, but when I thought about it, it actually made me happy.
‘I guess I would, too,’ I said.
It was also worrying.
‘But seriousness shouldn’t be taken too far,’ said Edmund after a while. ‘Then you’d sort of get stuck in it.’
‘Like in a swamp,’ I said.
‘Exactly like in a swamp,’ said Edmund.
And that was that.
During the first week out at Gennesaret the weather was varied, but mostly fine. The day we rowed to Seagull Shit Island and spoke in two-word sentences it was scorching, and we dived off the boat and from the island.
‘Intolerable heat,’ said Edmund.
‘I agree,’ I said.
‘Fancy rowing?’ said Edmund.
‘Yes, please,’ I said.
‘Swim now,’ Edmund said.
‘Me, later,’ I said.
The rules were simple. Every statement had to consist of two words: no more, no less. We alternated each line. If you wanted the other to be quiet, you kept quiet.
‘Water cools,’ I said.
‘Only feet,’ said Edmund.
We’d sat down in a crevice where the stones at our backs were slanted at an accommodating angle. Our legs dangled in the water. Picnic basket within reach. Transistor radio on. Dion, I think. And Lill-Babs singing ‘Klas-Göran’.
‘And legs,’ I corrected him.
‘Cools legs,’ Edmund agreed.
‘Yes, exactly,’ I said.
‘A sandwich?’ asked Edmund.
‘Not yet.’
‘Thirsty, then?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Cheers, brother.’
‘Cheers, you.’
‘Good life.’
‘Yessir.’
‘One word!’
‘Two words!’
‘Yes … sir?’
‘Yes, naturally.’
‘Not yessir?’
It was my turn and to mark that I was tired of splitting hairs, I kept quiet. After a while Edmund started to cough in such an exaggerated way that I was about to say ‘Shut up!’ but I managed to stop myself. Instead I sat a long while with my eyes closed facing the sun and controlled the silence between us.
I felt as though I had power over something I couldn’t actually have power over. Words. Language.
It felt strange, too. Just as it did when you thought too hard about something.
‘Your father?’ I asked without opening my eyes.
‘My father?’ said Edmund.
‘Has magazines?’ I said.
‘You mean?’ said Edmund.
‘Special magazines,’ I elaborated.
Edmund sighed wearily.
‘Special magazines,’ he said.
I considered his tone.
‘My apologies,’ I said.
Edmund stretched one foot up to the sky and spread his toes. The delicate scar made a rare appearance.
‘No need,’ he said.
‘Stomach rumbles,’ I said.
‘Mine, too,’ said Edmund.
Henry came up and woke us on Saturday morning.
‘I’m going to town,’ he said. ‘You’ll be fine here; there’s bangers and mash for dinner. I’ll be late, so you’ll have to fix it yourselves.’
‘What are you going to do?’ I asked.
Henry shrugged and lit a Lucky.
‘Got a few things to take care of. By the way …’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you going to Lackaparken tonight?’
‘Perhaps,’ I said. ‘Why?’
Henry took a few drags and seemed to be thinking.
‘We need a signal,’ he said.
‘A signal?’ said Edmund.
Edmund didn’t usually get involved when Henry and I were talking, and Henry looked at him with mock surprise.
‘If I pull,’ he said.
‘Aha,’ I said.
‘Oh, right,’ said Edmund.
‘Listen,’ said Henry after taking a couple more drags on the fag. ‘If there’s a tie around the flagpole, that means you go right up to bed if you come home later than I do. Okay?’
Edmund and I looked at each other.
‘No objection,’ said Edmund. ‘A tie on the flagpole.’
‘Right then,’ said Henry and disappeared.
He left a swath of smoke and irritation behind him in the room. We lay there, waiting for it to disperse. We heard Henry slam the door downstairs and walk up the path.
‘Your brother doesn’t like me,’ said Edmund after a few minutes.
I didn’t know how to respond to that.
‘Of course he does,’ I said. ‘Why wouldn’t he?’
‘It’s fine,’ said Edmund. ‘You don’t have to pretend.’
Cancer-Treblinka-Love-Fuck-Death, I thought. Why would I pretend?
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I said and went to sit on the loo.
7
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We hung around for an hour down by the Sjölycke jetties the morning of that first Saturday, but it was mostly adults and kids splashing about and pissing in the water, so around noon we rowed out to Shit Island.
I had nicked six Lucky Strikes from some of Henry’s many open packets, and we lay there surrounded by bird shit, drinking apple juice and smoking while we listened to Sveriges bilradio, a radio show for motorists, and the summer hit parade. It was as hot as ever and the skin on Edmund’s back was already starting to peel. We played the two-word-sentence game, but soon tired of it, and then we didn’t really talk about anything.
As I said, this wasn’t a problem with Edmund. We reclined and smoked, sharing cigarette after cigarette and passing the bottles of juice between us. We were almost like an old married couple who had no need to say anything to each other at all.
No pressing need, anyway.
On the whole, it felt pretty good.
‘Do you think about your life?’ asked Edmund after we’d lain in silence for a few minutes listening to ‘Young World’ with our eyes closed in the sun, digging it, with the waves lapping at our calves. Edmund and I both thought that ‘Young World’ was a hit, no doubt, almost on par with ‘Cotton Fields’.
‘My life?’ I said. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, what it’s like,’ said Edmund. ‘If you compare it to others’ lives, for example.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I guess I tend not to think about that.’
‘If it could’ve been different somehow,’ Edmund went on.
I waited before I said: ‘You only have one life. The one you have. I don’t see what good it would do to fantasize about anything else.’
Edmund drank some juice and scratched the bridge of his nose, as he did when he wasn’t wearing his glasses.
‘I mean, what if you had different parents?’
I didn’t answer.
‘How’s your mum doing?’
‘The cancer,’ I said after a while. ‘It is what it is.’
‘Is she going to die?’ said Edmund.
‘No one knows,’ I said.
‘Us and our mums,’ said Edmund and laughed.