by Håkan Nesser
I think I read the text five or six times. Maybe because I thought it was good, but also because it was so unexpected. Unexpected and eerie:
comes at him from behind, suddenly and immediately, stopping at just the right point. A step on the gravel, no more than one, hand tightly gripping the shaft, and then a brief fatal blow. When steel meets skull the sound that is born is mute. The reverse of a sound, audible because it is more silent than silence, and when the heavy body unites with the earth the summer night is dense and smiling enigmatically; everything slips into everything else and
He’d stopped there. I twisted the roller back, feeling like a thief in the night. As Benny’s mother would say.
Cancer-Treblinka-Love-Fuck-Death, I thought. What sort of book are you writing, brother Henry?
It took a few days to plan our night raid on Karlesson’s shop, and on Thursday, the day before Midsummer’s Eve, we did the deed. Henry had apparently decided to stay home that night, but we said that we had something to do under the cover of night and soon after nine we were on our way. Henry didn’t seem bothered.
‘If you get up to no good, make sure you don’t get caught,’ he said without looking up from his typewriter.
We took four apple juices and a French loaf as provisions, and just over ten kronor, so we could each buy a sausage special at Törner’s on the square before he closed at eleven.
At first all went as planned. It was a gusty night; a headwind was blowing over the plain, but we pulled into the square in Kumla at around quarter to eleven. Rain was in the air and there was barely a soul on the street. After we’d eaten our sausages and drained our apple juices, Törner sputtered home in his catering van and we started to look for spoons. When we’d finely combed the square we carried on to the rubbish bins outside Pressbyrån by the station and around the other sausage stand in town: Herman’s by the tower block. By midnight we thought we had enough: fifty-three pieces. If you could expect about three balls and one plastic jobbie per go, it would all add up to one hundred and fifty balls and fifty-three jobbies.
But we couldn’t possibly manage to chew all that gum and there probably wasn’t more than that in Karlesson’s dispenser anyway. We pedalled cautiously south along Mossbanegatan for the last two hundred metres. We didn’t meet a soul. Not so much as a cat crossed our path. It began to drizzle. We could look forward to working undisturbed under the cover of night, no doubt about it. I buzzed with anticipation, and Edmund was giddy with excitement. We braked in front of the slumbering shop.
There were two handwritten notes on the empty glass container. On one it said ‘Broken’, on the other ‘Not in serviss’. Karlesson wasn’t known for his spelling.
I stared at the dispenser for a few seconds. Then I saw red. I wasn’t normally one to lose the plot, but I couldn’t contain my rage.
‘Bloody fucking Cunt-Karlesson!’ I screamed and then I kicked the iron pole that the glass jar was mounted on with all my might.
I was only wearing flimsy blue plimsolls and the pain that shot up from the now broken toe was so intense that I thought I was going to faint.
‘Calm down,’ Edmund said. ‘You’ll wake the whole town, you nutter.’
I moaned and slid down the wall of the shop.
‘Aw, hell, I think I broke a toe,’ I whined. ‘How the hell can the sodding dispenser be broken tonight of all nights? It hasn’t been broken in three years.’
‘Does it hurt?’ Edmund wondered.
‘Like the devil.’ I forced the words through my clenched teeth.
But the first wave of bright white pain was already abating. I pulled off my shoe and tried to wiggle my toes. It didn’t go well.
‘God’s finger,’ said Edmund after watching my wiggling for a moment.
‘What?’ I said.
‘The fact that the dispenser is kaput,’ said Edmund. ‘It must mean that we weren’t supposed to raid it tonight. It wasn’t meant to be, you know. God’s finger. That’s what it’s called.’
I had a hard time being interested in anyone’s finger with my toe hurting so much, but I suspected that Edmund had a point.
‘Is there another dispenser in town?’ he asked.
I thought about it.
‘Not outside. They have one inside Svea’s, I think.’
‘Hmm,’ said Edmund. ‘What should we do?’
I tried to put my shoe back on. I couldn’t, so I shoved it in my rucksack and opened an apple juice instead. Edmund sank down next to me and we each took a sip.
And then the police car arrived.
The black-and-white Amazon came to a halt right in front of us and the driver rolled down the window.
‘What are you two doing?’
I was speechless, even more speechless than when I’d stood before Ewa Kaludis in Lackaparken. More speechless than a dead herring. Edmund got up.
‘My friend hurt his foot,’ he said. ‘We’re on our way home.’
‘Is it serious?’ asked the police.
‘No, we’ll be fine,’ said Edmund.
‘You can have a lift if you need one.’
‘Cheers,’ said Edmund. ‘Maybe another time.’
I stood up to show that everything was indeed fine.
‘All right,’ said the police. ‘Get on home now, it’s late.’
And then they drove away. We hung back until their red taillights were out of sight. Then, Edmund said: ‘See? God works in mysterious ways. Now tell me, is there another dispenser in Hallsberg?’
We made off with 166 balls, 45 rings and 20-something other invaluable plastic thingies from the chewing-gum dispenser by the train station kiosk at Hallsberg. It went smoothly; the clock on the station building read five past two when we were done and my toe didn’t hurt at all any more. It was stiff and swollen and numb, but what did that bloody matter when you had a week’s worth of gum?
Edmund didn’t try to conquer Kleva that night. Instead, we walked all the way up the hill, which took quite a long time because of my broken toe. Over the next few days, I’d learn that it was much easier to cycle than to go on foot.
During the last stretch, from Åsbro and through the forest, rain began to pour, and by the time we tossed our bikes aside up by the parking space, we were exhausted. In addition to Killer and a few of the Lundins’ old motorbikes, a moped was parked there. A red Puch. If I hadn’t been so wet and tired, I might’ve recognized it.
When we reached the house, the rain stopped. The sun was on its way up and one of Henry’s ties was knotted around the flagpole.
9
On the afternoon of Midsummer’s Eve, both of our dads came out to visit for a few hours. Mr. Wester was on top summer form; in addition to herring and new potatoes he brought a bundle of blue and yellow paper flags and an accordion. The weather was quite nice; we ate at the table out on the lawn while he serenaded us. ‘The Rush of the Avesta Rapids’, ‘Afternoon at Möljaren’ and a couple more I didn’t recognize. As well as one of his own songs called ‘For Signe’.
As he played it, tears welled in his eyes, and I noticed that there weren’t any women around. ‘We’re out’, as Karlesson said when you wanted something he didn’t have in stock.
Five men celebrating Midsummer as best they could, and I tried to play a little time travel game with myself. What would it be like in ten years? Would my father and Edmund’s father be all alone then? Would Henry have settled down and had a family? And Edmund? It was hard to imagine Edmund with a wife and children. Four wee Edmunds with broken glasses and six toes on each foot.
And what about me?
‘It’s tragic,’ said Edmund’s dad and put the accordion aside. ‘As with life, so with summer. It’s only just begun and suddenly it’s autumn. Tragic.’
But then he laughed out loud and helped himself to more herring and potatoes.
‘Truer words were never spoken,’ said my father.
Henry sighed and lit a Lucky Strike.
They left us around five, our fathers; th
ey’d only borrowed their colleague’s car for the afternoon and were both working the evening shift at the prison. Edmund’s dad suggested that they pick nine different types of flowers to place under their pillows, but my father wasn’t particularly amused by the idea.
‘We already know which women we’ll be dreaming of,’ he said with a half-hearted smile. Then they waved farewell and walked up to the clearing where they’d parked the car.
Edmund and I had decided to check out Fläskhällen, where they usually celebrated Midsummer by raising a maypole, dancing and the whole kit and caboodle. He’d be damned, Edmund said, if Britt Laxman didn’t turn up at a place like that, and as soon as we were done with the washing up we climbed in the boat and rowed away. When we were out on the lake, Edmund said: ‘Were you awake at all last night?’
‘Awake?’ I said. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, maybe you heard something.’
‘Heard what?’
Edmund stopped rowing.
‘Your brother, of course. And that bird, whoever she is. They were going at it.’
‘I see,’ I said and tried to sound disinterested. ‘No, I was sleeping like a log.’
Edmund looked at me hesitantly and we didn’t speak for a while.
‘Shall we switch places?’ I asked when we’d gone about halfway.
‘No, no,’ said Edmund. ‘You need to rest your toe.’
‘My toe isn’t going to be doing the rowing,’ I said.
But Edmund didn’t relinquish the oars and we neared the music from Fläskhällen, I rested on the stern thwart, running my hand through the water, trying to not think about what’d gone on during the night.
Or the morning, rather. We hadn’t gone to bed until after three and then not a sound had come from Henry’s room.
I couldn’t really get my thoughts in order; while it was certainly arousing to know that my brother might’ve been having sex with a girl right beneath our floorboards, it was scandalous somehow, too. As if Edmund had unearthed a shocking family secret. As if I should feel ashamed of what Henry was up to. Of course it was bloody useless to think along these lines, I’d be the first to admit that. If there was one thing in this world I envied it was the ability to find yourself a girl and get it on. That was sort of what life was all about, wasn’t it?
I slipped my whole arm into the water. I tried as hard as I could to think about something else, but it didn’t work, like I said. Edmund rowed along, carefree, and didn’t seem to be trying to think of anything else. Quite the opposite.
‘This is a brilliant summer, Erik,’ he said as we approached the channel of reeds. ‘In every way. It’s probably the best I’ve had.’
I was struck by how much I liked Edmund. There were two weeks left until the Incident, my mother lay dying of cancer, I had broken a toe, but yes, it was indeed a brilliant summer in every way.
So far.
Neither Edmund nor I thought that Midsummer at Fläskhällen was in any way a brilliant affair. Sure, Britt Laxman may have been the first person we caught sight of when we pulled up in the boat, but she was clearly being escorted by a red-haired bloke wearing sunglasses and winklepickers, and we could tell that we weren’t going to get much joy there. A few drunken lads in sporting kit were sitting around drinking coffee spiked with moonshine. A three-man band was taking a breather when we arrived, and they really should have spent the rest of the night on a break—an accordion, a guitar and a double bass that seemed to be strung with old rubber bands. Four couples pretended to dance, some with clogs, some without, some with the music, some without, and a few scattered groups of people around our age messed about listlessly trying to look like President or Mrs. Kennedy. We played a round of golf and tried to get off with two giggling Jacqueline-alikes from Skåne, but they soon retreated to their families’ caravans, which were lined up over in the camping area.
The campsite wasn’t exactly large, but it was by no means full: four caravans, as many sagging tents and a half-dozen cows who either had got lost or had been brought there as lawnmowers by the farmer, Grundberg, who also ran the businesses at Fläskhällen beach.
Inside the cafe was a new pinball machine. It was called a Rocket 2000; we tried our best to have a go, but a gang of youths from Askersund who had arrived on mopeds seemed to have a flood of one-krona coins to pour into the machine. In the end we decided to postpone the game. Soon after we saw that Britt Laxman and the red-haired boy were sitting down by the fire on the beach, grilling sausages on the same stick, so we gave up and rowed back to Gennesaret.
My father had taught me that there’s no point being stubborn when the odds are against you, and Edmund agreed wholeheartedly.
‘When the going gets tough, the tough get going, you bastard son of a mosquito-slag,’ he’d said. He’d told me that was the kind of thing you said man-to-man deep in the forests of Hälsingland, and I had no reason not to believe him.
When we were out on the water, Edmund confided in me. He started with a question.
‘Have you ever been beaten up? I mean really beaten up.’
I didn’t think so, I said. I’d never been given more than a slap or a horse-bite pinch or an accidental blow to the solar plexus. Or a few whacks with Benny’s hockey stick after I sat on it and broke it by accident.
‘I have,’ Edmund said gravely. ‘When I was little. By my dad. Lots of bloody times.’
‘Your dad? What are you talking about? Why would your dad—?’
‘Not him,’ Edmund interrupted. ‘The other one, my real dad. Albin is just my stepdad; he married Mum when my real dad disappeared. Cor, how he let rip … on Mum and me. Once he hit Mum so hard she lost her hearing.’
‘Why?’ I asked. I didn’t know what else to say.
Edmund shrugged.
‘He was like that.’ He thought for a moment. ‘You never forget. How it feels. How … how scared you get, lying there, waiting. Waiting is almost worse than the beating itself.’
‘I understand,’ I said. ‘Is that why your mum is an alcoholic?’
‘I think so,’ said Edmund and dipped his glasses in the water to rinse them clean. ‘He drank like there was no tomorrow, and taught her how … but she was born with a pedigree. Grandpa drank enough for an entire platoon.’
‘Where is he now, your real dad?’
‘No idea,’ said Edmund. ‘He disappeared when I was five and a half; Mum refuses to talk about him. Albin came into the picture quite soon after.’
I nodded.
‘Violent people are bloody awful,’ said Edmund as he put his dripping glasses back on. ‘I can’t stand people who prey on the weak.’
‘It is bloody awful,’ I agreed. ‘You shouldn’t have to stand for it.’
Henry was gone by the time we got back and we spent the rest of the night playing Chinese chequers and chewing gum. We came up with our own variation where we played using balls of chewing gum. There was something about chewing your opponent’s gum if you jumped over it, but we never quite settled on the rules. We went to bed early; we hadn’t slept much the night before, especially Edmund, and we couldn’t care less about putting flowers under our pillows and all that romantic nonsense.
I drew a few panels of my comic before I fell asleep, and Edmund wrote a letter to his mother at Vissingsberg. He hadn’t been happy with his previous attempts, and now he was trying a lighter, more masculine approach. When he was finished, he tore the page right out of his notebook and handed it to me.
‘What do you think?’ he said chewing his pen.
It read:
Mornin’, Mum!
I’m having a gay old time out here. I hope you’re sober and are as happy as a clam. See you in the autumn.
Your one and only Edmund
‘It’s great,’ I said. ‘She’s going to frame it and hang it over her bed.’
‘I think so, too,’ said Edmund.
Not a single sound came from the downstairs that night, not even from the tape deck, but at some poin
t toward the morning I woke to the sound of firecrackers being shot off and rockets being launched over at the Lundins’. Apparently, they were having some sort of family gathering; we hadn’t heard a peep from them for two weeks, but it was just like them to announce themselves in this way. And on Midsummer’s Eve, too.
Anyway, I soon fell asleep again, and then I had a strange dream about Henry getting his tie caught in his typewriter. He was frantically pounding on the keys trying to get free, but with each line the tie was pulled tighter. In the end—when his nose was practically on the roller—he called for help. Well, it was more of a hiss because he could barely breathe. I cut off the tie, and as thanks he hit me and explained that it was a bloody expensive tie and I had ruined an entire chapter.
Even as I was dreaming, I thought it was strange, and when I woke up I was still mad at Henry. It was rotten of him to hit me after I’d saved his life. It didn’t matter if it was a dream or reality: it was unfair.
But when I got up, he was already sitting on the lawn, writing and smoking. In just his pants and without any sign of a tie; it must have just been one of those dreams that had got out of hand. Meaningless, no matter how you twisted it and turned it around. I went out to him.
‘How’s it going?’ I asked. ‘With the book.’
He leaned back and squinted at the sun, which had just broken through the clouds.
‘Rolling along,’ he said. ‘It’s rolling along, little brother.’
And then he laughed that short, sharp laugh of his and went on clattering.
I hesitated before I asked, ‘Did you find yourself a new girl?’
He typed until it pinged at the end of the line.
‘I’m working on it,’ he said and looked thoughtful. ‘Yes, I am. There’s a lot I’m working on.’
I couldn’t figure out what he meant, so I asked.
‘It means everything,’ said my brother, and then he laughed again. ‘Everything.’