by Håkan Nesser
‘What do you mean?’ I said.
‘They’re similar,’ said Edmund. ‘Yours has the cancer and mine has the bottle.’
‘They’re not at all alike,’ I said. ‘They’re bloody different.’
I was irritated and Edmund noticed, because when he started talking again, he’d changed his tone.
‘She’s drying out this summer, my mum.’
I only vaguely knew what he meant.
‘Drying out?’
‘Vissingsberg,’ said Edmund. ‘The whole summer. She’s going to learn to live without alcohol; she’s done it several times already. That’s why it’s so good that I can be out here with you. Didn’t you know?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But I don’t see why it matters. If we’re going to talk, let’s talk about something else.’
‘Okay,’ said Edmund.
I knew he would have preferred to keep talking about his alcoholic mum, but I didn’t fancy it. Instead we lay there and listened to the rest of the summer hit parade, smoked the last Lucky, and then we rowed back to Gennesaret to eat bangers and mash and to deck ourselves out for the night ahead.
We’d figured out that if we ate enough at home we wouldn’t have to spend our cash on hot dogs in Lackaparken. So we ate the whole fifteen-pack of Sibylla; Edmund eight, me seven. And six portions of instant mash. I felt queasy afterward, but Edmund said he was on top form. We took a quick dip off the side of the boat—the floating dock wasn’t yet finished and it was tricky getting in from the shore—bunged Brylcreem in our hair, pulled on clean nylon shirts and rode off on our bikes through the woods.
It wasn’t more than five kilometres from Gennesaret to Lackaparken, but we took a few wrong turns and it was an hour before we arrived.
This early summer evening was like early summer evenings were at that time. Fragrant and rich with promise. Filled with nearly equal measures of lilac, jasmine and moonshine. At least around Lackaparken. We agreed that it was daft to spend three kronor on the entrance fee and parked our bikes a fair stretch into the woods. We made sure to chain them together, as well; it would be awful if some drunkard stole our bikes and we had to walk home in the middle of the night. You never knew.
Outside the entrance we bumped into Lasse Crook-mouth, whose parents had a cottage in Sjölycke. Crook-mouth was a bit older than we were, had left Stava School a few years back and his nickname came from his deformed head. Part of the lower half of his face was just sort of missing and when he spoke it looked as though he was trying to whisper into his own ear. I didn’t know him particularly well. No one did; he usually kept to himself, whether that was because of his appearance or something else, I don’t know.
‘Mad Raffe is on duty,’ he said, looking worried and even more deformed.
‘Oh, bollocks,’ I said.
When Mad Raffe was working it was hard to get in without paying. Here and there, you could force your way through the decaying wooden plank fence that surrounded the fairground—especially behind the stinking so-called ‘conveniences’ in the most densely wooded corner—but Mad Raffe was known for his ability to tell at a glance which visitors hadn’t paid the entrance fee. Because this was probably his only talent, he made the most of it. He was especially intimidating and stubborn when he found an under-age kid who couldn’t show him a valid ticket. Not to mention heavy-handed. That’s why he was so often hired as a security guard; I could hardly imagine him taking payment for it, either. The uniform appeared to be payment enough. Whatever the case, there was no point in arguing with Mad Raffe; saying you had paid but lost the ticket was just about as futile as talking back to the police when you were caught riding your bike without lights.
‘Are you going to pay?’ wondered Lasse Crook-mouth.
Edmund and I dug into our pockets and counted our cash.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Are there any people in there?’
‘Masses,’ said Lasse Crook-mouth. ‘Sod it. I’ll chance it. Don’t have any money anyway.’
Edmund and I arrived at a compromise. I would pay, and Edmund would hang back with Crook-mouth behind the urinals. Mad Raffe didn’t really know who Edmund was because he was new in town, but he knew me more than well. He’d kicked both Benny and me out of Tajkon Filipson’s World Famous Funfair at Hammarberg’s field just under a month ago.
This logic proved to be sound. A half hour later, Mad Raffe came up to us three as we were messing about in front of the shooting gallery. Edmund slipped away and I triumphantly took out my yellow ticket and Lasse Crook-mouth was kicked out with a ruckus.
‘You bloody shithead, you should have yourself committed!’ he shouted when he was a safe distance down the road.
Mad Raffe just grinned and packed more dipping tobacco into his mouth. He rolled his yellow eyes, straightened his uniform and slipped into the crowd, on the hunt for new victims.
Duty above all.
I’d only visited Lackaparken twice before, both times the previous summer. There wasn’t actually much for Edmund and me to do there. We weren’t quite in the right age bracket to partake in the dancing, snogging and drinking.
But there was more on offer—flashes of what life would have in store in a few years. In addition to dancing and snogging, that is.
Like the poker tent. We made a beeline for it as soon as Lasse Crook-mouth was out of the picture. The smoky den was crowded with dozens of local talents trying to beat poker pro Harry Diamond and his wife Vicky Diamond. They were quite the attraction. You could feel the heat of their sins burning in your trousers as you neared the tent.
The game was a kind of stud poker; Harry played against three or four others at a time and Vicky dealt. She handled the deck as though she had been born with it in her hands, and it was impossible to tell if she was dealing from the top or the bottom. When the game was at a critical point, she’d lean so far forward that her burnished breasts threatened to spill from her dress, and then no one could keep their eyes on what she was doing with the cards. Everyone playing the game knew this trick, but it made no difference. Your eyes were drawn to her tits and you got taken for a ride, that’s how it went.
This evening we watched Big Anton, Balthazar Lindblom’s older brother, lose fifty kronor in less than fifteen minutes, and a fat egg-seller from Hjortkvarn storm out of the tent, promising to return to cut the bollocks off Harry and the baps off Vicky.
After the poker tent, we went to the arcade. There were only eight one-armed bandits under the sagging tarpaulin ceiling, but still we managed to lose our two kronor fairly quickly, and it was when we emerged from the tent, feeling pretty down, that we saw Ewa Kaludis.
She was standing by herself between the arcade tent and the dance floor, smoking a cigarette. Her dress was white, her bag hung nonchalantly on her shoulder—it was white as well—and I knew right away why she was alone in this sea of people.
She was simply too beautiful. Like a goddess or a Kim Novak. You can’t fly too close to the sun, and everyone who saw her on that summer’s eve knew it. The park had started to fall into shadow, particularly where the glow of the lanterns didn’t quite reach, and Ewa Kaludis was standing in one of these darker spots. But the darkness made no difference; still, she sparkled—as if she were an angel or painted with one of those luminescent colours that Mr. Jonsson used to paint snowmen on the window of his toy shop for the Christmas display in December.
We stopped in our tracks, Edmund and I.
‘Huh,’ said Edmund.
I said nothing. I shut my eyes tightly and mustered the courage to walk up to her. The seconds felt like an eternity, and when I reached her, I felt much older.
‘Hi, Ewa,’ I said with more nerve than Colonel Darkin and Yuri Gagarin put together.
She lit up.
‘Well, hello there,’ she said smoothly. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’
Her warm welcome rendered me speechless, but Edmund was only two steps behind and came to my rescue.
‘Of course we are,’ he answered.
‘Has Madam been left to her own devices?’
I felt a strong pang of envy that I hadn’t come up with that line myself. Masculine and protective yet cheeky.
She laughed and took a drag of her cigarette.
‘I’m waiting for my fiancé,’ she said.
‘And where’s he got to?’ said Edmund.
She shrugged, and at that moment Berra Albertsson emerged from the dark together with Atle Eriksson, another handball player. They had their arms around each other’s shoulders and were making a show of laughing at something. It was clear that they’d gone behind the tent for a piss and a drink. Berra let go of Atle and put his arm around Ewa Kaludis instead. And then he looked our way.
‘And who are these babies?’ he asked.
Atle Eriksson laughed so hard a mist of schnapps blasted from his mouth.
‘Erik and Edmund,’ said Ewa Kaludis. ‘I got to know them at Stava. They’re lovely boys.’
‘I’m sure they are,’ answered Super-Berra, pulling her closer to him. ‘But now we’re going to bloody well dance. Cheerio, you little shits!’
‘Goodbye,’ Edmund and I said in unison. And then they disappeared. We stood there, watching them go.
‘What a prick,’ said Edmund. ‘I don’t know what she sees in him.’
‘Neither do I,’ I said. ‘Who knows what goes on in women’s heads?’
‘He makes you want to punch him in the face,’ Edmund added.
‘Exactly,’ I said.
We wandered about Lackaparken for another few hours, noting that Britt Laxman clearly had something else on that night, and got rid of what little money we had as slowly as we could. Candy floss. The Chocolate Spin ’n’ Win. A Loranga soda and a bloody expensive waffle with whipped cream and raspberry jam.
Just as we were about to make our way back to Gennesaret, we realized that we weren’t the only ones that night who wanted to punch Super-Berra in the face.
On the whole, there hadn’t been many fights, but the time had come: it was in the air. Edmund and I had just been behind the dance floor polishing off the last of the three Lucky Strikes I had pinched from Henry when we stumbled upon the whole gang.
Or rather, the gangs. Those who were going to fight and their right-hand men. On one side, Super-Berra, Atle Eriksson and a few staggering handball players. On the other, a cocky, red-faced man whom I’d never seen before. He was tattooed from head to toe and looked like a killer. And his corner men: half a dozen of just about the same kind.
‘I’m going to give you what for, you fucking handball monkey!’ slurred the red-faced one and tried to pull himself free from his corner men.
‘Calm down, Mulle,’ one of them insisted. ‘Of course you can go a few rounds with that golliwog, but we have to lay low first … the police, you know.’
Mulle nodded in a practised way. I didn’t understand what he meant by ‘golliwog’; Super-Berra did have dark, short-cropped hair, but he wasn’t exactly black.
He was silent. He seemed calm and collected, and when everyone was shielded from view by the tent, he handed his striped blazer to one of the handball players, ceremoniously rolled up his sleeves and simply waited. Legs akimbo, with his guard up and wearing a crooked smile. His knees were slightly bent and he swayed, gently rocking from side to side, his hands loosely clenched. I realized that I was holding my breath and that Edmund was pressed up against me, grinding his teeth in anticipation. Other than the two gangs, Edmund and I were the only onlookers; the site of the bout had been carefully chosen, no doubt about it. I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. The night air was full of the smells of summer and schnapps. I wondered where Ewa Kaludis was now. ‘Twilight Time’ spilled from the dance floor, and it was getting late.
And then Mulle’s companions released him. He let out an impressive roar—‘Aaarrgh!’—tucked his head and charged at Super-Berra. Even in the heat of the moment, I knew this was a terrible move. All Berra needed to do was step to one side—‘sidestep’ as it’s called in boxing—use the opponent’s own momentum against him, and then knock him down.
And that’s exactly what he did, but he didn’t stop there. The florid Mulle bent double like a clubbed ox after that first punch, but then Berra lifted him up by the collar and gave him three or four more whacks before turning him around and bashing his head into the ground twice, with all his might.
My stomach lurched each time Mulle’s head suffered a blow, and when it was done, I noticed a pall of silence had fallen over the fighters. Both Mulle’s companions and the handball players were frozen and staring, and when Super-Berra straightened up and gestured for his blazer, Atle Eriksson handed it over without a word. Then they turned their backs on Mulle and walked away.
Solemnly. Like after a funeral. Edmund and I also slunk away. I felt ashamed for some reason and so did Edmund, I guess, because neither of us said anything until we’d left the park behind us and were unlocking our bikes.
‘Christ, that was grim,’ Edmund said and I thought I detected a slight tremble in his voice.
‘And unfair,’ I said. ‘Bloody unfair. You don’t hit a man when he’s down.’
As we cycled back home through the woods, I thought about where Ewa Kaludis had been during the fight and if that was how you won over a woman like her.
By being like Berra Albertsson?
I remember that I shed silent tears as we trundled through the mild June night.
Yes, it was the middle of the night, the rear wheel of Edmund’s bike chirred and I cried quietly without knowing why.
8
On Sunday, my dad came to visit. He didn’t stay long because he’d got a lift from Ivar Bäck, who was supposed to help someone in Sjölycke with their TV antenna.
We sat outside on the lawn for an hour anyway and ate the watery strawberries that he’d brought with him and we talked. But not much. My mother was relatively well, my father said. She was going in for another series of tests. It would take a few weeks. Perhaps a month.
And then we’d see.
With age comes wisdom.
Henry offered to drive our father home in Killer when he went into town later that evening, but our father just shook his head.
‘I’ll go with Bäck,’ he said. ‘It’s simplest that way.’
Afterward, Edmund asked what he meant by that. Why it was easier to go with Bäck.
I shrugged.
‘He thinks Henry drives like a madman,’ I said. ‘He can barely stand being in a car with him.’
When my father was on his way, I noticed that he hadn’t asked after Emmy Kaskel. Maybe Henry had told him after all.
‘Mate,’ said Edmund when he’d finished reading Colonel Darkin and the Golden Ewes. ‘This is really something. You’re going to be a millionaire.’
I’d finished Colonel Darkin and the Golden Ewes before we went out to Gennesaret, and I’d brought it with me, along with a new notebook. For a rainy day, or if the fancy struck.
The fancy struck, but it was impossible to keep the comic-drawing a secret from Edmund. After some deliberation, I’d left the notebook out with the other books half by chance, and it wasn’t long until Edmund spotted it. And it wasn’t much longer until he read it.
‘It isn’t any good,’ I said. ‘You don’t need to pretend.’
‘Not any good!’ said Edmund. ‘It’s the best bloody thing I’ve seen since Nan got her tits caught in the mangler!’
This was a saying from Norrland and was meant to convey the highest praise and appreciation. I was suddenly so happy that I had a hard time hiding it.
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Sod off, you herring milt.’
This was another saying from Norrland.
My desire to draw certainly had something to do with what had happened on Saturday night at Lackaparken. I needed to draw and tell a story about a woman like Ewa Kaludis; the desire made me ache. Maybe I wanted to throw a few punches back—but in a cleaner way than in the fight between Super-Berra and Mulle. The day aft
er, we’d started to discuss how Mulle might be feeling, but both Edmund and I got the chills when we thought about what his face must look like now. Not to mention how his head must be feeling.
In any case, there were a few rain showers on Sunday evening, and while Edmund was lying on his bed trying to write a letter to his mother in Vissingsberg, I drew the first panels of Colonel Darkin and the Mysterious Heiress.
As the evening unfolded, I remember thinking how pleasant it was.
The more the summer progressed, the more my brother Henry was consumed with his existential novel. He was almost secretive about it. He often slept long into the day, got up and took a dip in the lake and sat down by the typewriter with coffee and a cigarette. Ideally out on the lawn by the wobbly garden table, weather permitting. Which it did, for the most part. When the question of supper arose, he almost always bowed out of kitchen duty and tossed Edmund and me five or ten kronor to take care of it: fetch provisions, cook and do the washing up.
It didn’t bother us. Though money was tight, our basic needs were met, and it was nice to be able to buy an ice cream now and again. At Laxman’s or by Fläskhällen. Or a few loose cigarettes; we couldn’t always be nicking them from Henry, even if he would probably never have noticed.
After dinner Henry would disappear in Killer, and at least two out of three evenings Edmund and I were in bed before he returned. Sometimes I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of the Facit’s staccato clatter and the tape deck playing Eddie Cochran. The Drifters. Elvis Presley. He had recorded ‘Wooden Heart’ on several places on the tape. When the music ended, the birds singing in the bushes under the window took over. Sometimes I asked Henry how it was going with his book, but he never felt like talking about it.
‘It’s going,’ he’d say and take a drag from his eternal Lucky.
It’s going.
I was vaguely curious about what he was writing, but he never left any papers out and I didn’t want to ask him more than once. One night, just after he’d driven away in Killer, I happened to catch sight of a sheet still in the machine on the desk. There were just a few lines on it; I cautiously sat down on the chair and turned the roller up a few notches so it would be easier to read.