by Jessica Lidh
Lasse looked down at Gerhard hugging his knees. “The way we’ve been acting? Our willful blindness? That’s not us. It’s not Sweden. It’s time to act, Gerhard.”
Gerhard waited a long time before collapsing at his brother’s feet. His mouth felt dry, and he didn’t think he was capable of speaking. He remembered Österberg’s apathy and Kjell’s impotence. He was going to be sick.
“So,” Lasse sighed. “You ask where I’ve been? I’ve been here, watching and waiting. I’m going to act, Gerhard. Trelleborg is going to burn, and you can either be the hero or the coward.”
XXX.
When I arrived at Fat Bottoms the next evening, students I recognized from school and other young people crowded the porch and spilled out of the front door. I could hear a steady beat ripple through the air. I’d forgotten that the small coffee shop was hosting an evening of live indie music. I’d built up my courage to confess to Chris I’d made a mistake, and I refused to let my nerves sway me after I’d come all the way downtown. I elbowed my way through the throngs of people and squeezed past the front door. I saw Chris immediately, steaming milk and brewing espresso. He looked like a natural-born barista.
Shouting to him was pointless. The music was too loud, the crowd too dense, and I could tell he was preoccupied with work. I needed to get closer, so I stood behind a thick line of people waiting to put in their orders. Eventually, my foot found the beat.
The music was good. Peeking around the corner, I saw a small makeshift stage and a tall, thin guy with teased black hair crooning into a microphone. Behind him stood a bassist, rhythm guitarist, drummer, and keyboardist. The bass drum had the name “The Ottomans” taped on in black wire tape. Very hip. I immediately liked the band, this scene. I was getting more and more convinced this was where I was supposed to be. Here, with Chris.
The line didn’t move once in five minutes, and I was getting anxious. I was so afraid if I had to wait another five minutes, I’d chicken out, throw in the towel, and retreat back to the house. My phone buzzed in my pocket.
Where are you? Greta texted me.
My face lit up. Of course! So easy!
At Fat Bottoms. Greta, you’re a genius! I love you! I texted back.
I’d had Chris’s number in my phone ever since we worked on the almanac project together. Hey, I’m here, I sent to him. You look busy.
Within two minutes, I saw Chris hand some girls their frothy mugs and pull his phone out of his jeans, checking his new message. Immediately, he looked up. I waved from my place in line, ten people back.
“Hi,” I mouthed silently, smiling broadly.
He looked happy to see me and returned the smile. My heart melted into a molten mess inside my chest. Maybe it was the setting or the music, but he looked the best I’d ever seen him.
“Can we talk?” I hoped he could read lips.
He stared back at me and held up his arms with a “how do I get away from this?” look.
My shoulders slumped. There was no way I’d be able to have this discussion any other day. My bravery was up. Right here, right now. I gestured to the other room, indicating that I’d wait. Chris nodded before getting back to his work. Take it easy, Louisa, I reassured myself. It’s just Chris. So why did I feel like I was falling to pieces?
For another hour, The Ottomans played on. I looked around the coffee shop, people-watching. There were girls with pink hair, ripped tights, and leather jackets. There were peroxide blonds in tight skirts and cowboy boots. There were lots of tattoos and the scent of sweet tobacco—clove cigarettes—hung in the air. There was even a group of intellectuals in Ivy League sweaters and wire-rimmed glasses in the corner. I doubted there was anyone in the coffee shop over the age of thirty. It was quite an amalgamation of people: the hipsters, the college kids, the Ottomaniacs (self-dubbed groupies), and the local misfit high school kids I recognized from Chris’s lunch table. Chris’s ex, Lacey, delivered coffee from the bar. She never once asked me if I needed anything.
By nine-thirty, three-quarters of the crowd had filtered out of Fat Bottoms’s cramped interior. The band started packing up their instruments. Chris wiped down the bar and counted the cash register. He looked exhausted. At ten he finally took a chair at my table, handing me a cappuccino.
“I didn’t know you were coming tonight,” he smiled, leaning back in the chair and lifting his apron over his head.
“I didn’t know I was either.” I shifted nervously in my seat.
“What’s up? I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever.” It was good to hear his deep voice again.
“I know. I’m sorry about that.” I cocked my head to the side and started playing with a divot in the table. I had to pull myself together.
“So,” I began, looking up into his eyes. For a moment, I got lost. Chris lifted his brows for me to continue. “So, last semester, I had this photography project, right? A photography essay. I did mine on my mom, kind of chronicling her life through pictures. Well, mine was the best in class.”
Chris chuckled at my arrogant honesty.
“No, it’s true!” I laughed, too. I was feeling more relaxed. It’s just Chris. “Mine was so good I was asked to show it at a gallery in Philadelphia. The opening is this week, actually.”
“Well,” Chris sounded a little confused why I’d come all the way to Fat Bottoms and waited an hour for his shift to end, only to tell him something seemingly inconsequential. “Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” I continued running my fingers over the chip in the table. “So, here’s the thing,” I inhaled, cautiously, “there’s kind of a gala tomorrow night. Opening night. I wanted to know if you wanted to come. With me. To the gala . . .” My voice trailed off, sounding hesitant.
Chris folded his arms. He stared at me for a couple seconds as I sat in agony not knowing how he’d respond. The Ottoman drummer dropped his snare drum, and the entire room turned to look in his direction. Everyone but Chris and me. We continued our awkward silent showdown.
“Louisa, I don’t really think it’s a good idea.” He sighed, looking indifferent.
I broke our eye contact, directing my attention to a hangnail. I didn’t say anything. I was quietly trying to figure out how to get him to change his mind.
“It’s not really my thing, you know? I’m not a “gala” type of person.”
There was something in the way Chris said gala that sounded antagonistic, like he was making fun of me for even asking. Suddenly, I wanted to be as far from Fat Bottoms as possible. But Chris didn’t stop there.
“Anyway, it’s probably going to be a bunch of stuffed shirts. Not my scene.”
“Really?” I swallowed, my throat feeling hot. “So you think I’m a stuffed shirt?”
“Well,” Chris chuckled, looking around the room. “You’re not exactly inconspicuous here, for example.”
I couldn’t tell if he was purposefully trying to be mean, unjustifiably superior, or just completely unaware. None of the options made me feel very good.
“And what?” Chris continued. “You thought we’d be good together because we both belong to the Maternal Abandonment Club?”
My mouth fell slightly agape, and he diverted his look to something behind me, clearly uncomfortable with his own insult.
“My mom didn’t abandon me, Chris,” I seethed. “She died.”
I waited for him to look at me but he refused. Where was all of his hostility coming from? Had I so utterly misjudged him that I’d fooled myself into thinking he had feelings for me? Was all of this humiliation my fault? Or was there more to it?
“Why don’t you ask Weaver? I thought the two of you were shacking up?”
Bingo. There it was. He knew. He knew he was my second choice.
I bit my lip, realizing that instead of admitting that he was jealous, admitting I’d hurt him, Chris chose to hurt me back. He was used to impressing people with his daring spontaneity and passionate rhetoric. He was intoxicating with his adventures and his philosophies, b
ut he was incapable of voicing how he truly felt.
How long had I been trying to solve the mystery of Chris Harris, chasing the allure, the deep voice, and the bristly chin? But now I was finally seeing him for what he really was: no more mature than Gabe or me. Nor more exotic. Just an astoundingly good actor, playing the role of the misunderstood outsider. There, he’d found his niche. There, he wasn’t afraid of rejection.
But I had rejected him, and he wasn’t willing to give me a second chance. And I knew I didn’t deserve one. I said my adieus to Chris and left Fat Bottoms feeling utterly depressed. Not only was the gallery event tomorrow, but my original date was supposedly bedridden and the torch I’d once carried for Chris felt like it’d been doused in a bucket of cold water. The event I had been so looking forward to was now an obligatory homework assignment.
And to top it all off, I had just discovered that my grandfather had faced far worse choices than I would ever have to make. What was he going to choose? Optimism was the last thing on my mind.
XXXI.
Lasse admitted from the beginning that his plan wasn’t comprehensive—he knew there were holes. He had been trying to work through these snags for the past four weeks. They were the reason he’d been aloof. He had never intended to include Gerhard. The plan was too dangerous to make it a two-man operation, but then he saw that Gerhard was ready.
“I surrender,” Gerhard told his brother when faced with the choice. “I cannot bend to them anymore. They’ve destroyed me.”
“Good.” Lasse placed his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “That’s how you need to feel. That’s how it should feel. Now,” he smiled wickedly, “let’s start a militia.”
Gerhard agreed that a guerrilla army would send a clear message to Germany and the Axis Powers. Sweden could finally answer the Norwegian and Danish calls for assistance with boots on the ground. But there were problems. Could it be done? Did they have it in them? Who to trust? How to mobilize? Neither brother knew where to begin.
Gerhard lay awake, deliberating the flaws in Lasse’s plan. Everything about it seemed to put people’s lives in danger. Every road seemed to lead to failure, and failing was something neither man was prepared to do.
When the solution came to Gerhard, he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of it earlier. Everything seemed so much clearer, the plan so much more possible. The answer came from the heart of the problem; the solution lay on the rails.
Gerhard knew his train: the ride, the route, the risk. He knew how to crash, or, at least how to derail. The rest could be left to fate.
Gerhard shook Lasse awake at three o’clock in the morning.
“I can do it!” he whispered to his groggy brother. “The switch at Mile Marker Two hasn’t been working for over two months. They’ve had to send a man out there to manually shift the track for us. If a train hits that switch going the right speed and the switch hasn’t been shifted . . . no one would walk away from a crash like that alive. That’s how we’ll do it.” Gerhard felt proud. He’d found a way, but he soon was overcome with apprehension. If this works, it’s a suicide mission, said a frightened voice inside him.
“That’s how I’ll do it,” Lasse corrected.
“But—” Gerhard began, “it’s my train.” He’d come up with the plan. He’d thought of it first. And yet, he wondered, was he willing to die for it?
“Gerhard, I’m not going to argue with you. I’ve spent a month coming to peace with my decision.”
“My plan,” Gerhard whispered defensively.
For a moment, he wondered if he would vomit. Were they actually arguing about who would die? Lasse rolled over and propped himself up to stare his brother in the eye.
“I can do it,” Lasse challenged.
The statement was so familiar. How many times had Lasse volunteered to do something first? Something better? And now, it had come down to the ultimate offering. His final sacrifice.
“I won’t let you.” Gerhard clung tightly to his ownership of the plan. He wasn’t going to let his brother do this. He stared back at his brother, his eyes stern.
“Then we’ll do what’s only fair.” Lasse sat up and reached for something on the bedside table. He held up a coin suggestively. It glimmered in the twilight shining from the window. “Call it. Krona eller klave? Crown or hoof?”
“Krona,” Gerhard muttered, annoyed.
He watched as Lasse tossed the coin into the air, caught it, and flipped in onto the back of his hand. Without hesitation, Lasse lifted his palm and exposed the twenty kronor coin. Crown side up.
“So it will be you,” Lasse swallowed, staring at the coin in disbelief, looking ill.
Gerhard felt more than a little queasy himself. “We’ll plan more in the morning,” he whispered, his throat tight in his chest as he crawled back to his own bed, feeling faint.
The twins spent their Saturday morning walking to town. They told their mother they were going to buy her flowers.
Leif and Pontus were down by the shore playing a game of boule. The boys sat a distance from the lawn game and watched to see who would toss his balls closest to the lillen, the smaller target ball. Leif won the first round.
At first, Leif didn’t notice his sons. But after some time he looked up and saw his boys sitting alone on a rock in the distance. Immediately, he knew something was wrong. Something in the boys’ rigid stances, or in their vacant stares. Leif couldn’t put his finger on what it was; he only concluded that a father knew when his sons were troubled. He lifted his hand to wave, but only Gerhard returned the gesture. Very strange. The second round began and, by the time he looked up again, the boys were gone.
The twins walked the streets of Trelleborg, stopping occasionally to look in a storefront window or to greet a colleague on the footpath. At last, they settled on the grounds of the Sankt Nicolai kyrka. In the summertime, the open grasses surrounding the church were dotted with picnickers, and only occasionally did someone enter or leave the church. Lasse and Gerhard were two of a handful of people around. They were glad of that.
“When?” Lasse asked, his tone hostile. He was still sore about losing the coin toss.
What a grotesque thing to be jealous of, Gerhard thought to himself. He addressed Lasse delicately. He wanted no ill will between them in their final days together.
“The route is the same every day. Same times. You will, of course, need time to escape Trelleborg. I imagine they will come looking for you,” Gerhard said evenly.
“Thursday, then? They won’t be able to get up here until at least Monday.”
“Sounds fine. Robert will know about the plan only minutes before it’s executed. He will need to stoke the fire, and jump from the train as I accelerate while approaching the switch. You will need to get to the marker before I do and turn the track. Don’t wait to see what happens. Just go. Have your bags already packed. Once you leave, you won’t be able to come back,” Gerhard had rehearsed this speech all morning. Everything had to be perfect; any flaws in the plan could mean death for both of them.
“And what happens if something goes wrong?” Lasse asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You need an out. If something happens, someone discovers us, you can’t go through with it, anything. Anything to make the crash impossible to carry out. You’ll need an out,” Lasse, apparently, had been doing some strategizing of his own.
“What do you suggest?”
“The train whistle. I’ll be able to hear it from the switch, right?”
“Yes, you should be able to hear it from five kilometers, at least,” Gerhard stated proudly. All his studying of train mechanics had suddenly become the essential bones of their entire operation.
“As you approach the mile marker, blow it twice to let me know to switch the rails. Blow it once, and the plan is off. Blow it once, and we meet back at the house. Okay?”
“Don’t hesitate after I sound it twice,” Gerhard warned.
“If you sound it twice.”
<
br /> They paused. Finally, Gerhard concluded their preparations, “Thursday, then.”
“Thursday,” Lasse agreed.
The plan was set. For the rest of the afternoon, the boys went their separate ways to deliberate their fates in solitude. Neither son remembered to bring Åsa her promised flowers.
Since the beginning of the Swedish rail, there had been only a handful of train wrecks. In 1875, two trains collided head-on in the city of Östergötland resulting in nine fatalities. Then, in 1912, a Swedish train in Malmslätt crashed full speed into an idling passenger train. Twenty-two people died and twelve were severely injured. In 1917, a Swedish train carrying invalid Russian soldiers created a pileup near Soderhamn. Eleven casualties. But nothing compared to what happened in Getå.
On October 1, 1918, in the small town of Getå, near Norrköping, a mudslide covering the train tracks hurled ten passenger cars off the tracks. The cars caught fire instantly. Forty-two passengers and train workers died: some instantly in the crash, others burned alive, trapped inside the fiery cars. The crash reverberated throughout Europe and newspapers the continent over featured the tragedy.
Since entering the profession, Gerhard was well versed in the crash’s history. Workers mentioned the Getå crash on a regular basis, warning against rail-driver delinquency. Gerhard wondered how the Number 7 would compare to Getå. Would newspapers report the crash at Mile Marker Two?
Gerhard woke up Thursday morning and sat on the side of his bed. It’s just another day, he silently convinced himself. For my sanity, it’s just another day. His bones popping and breaking the silence, he reached for his pocket watch on his bedside table. I can’t deviate from my normal routine. He began winding his watch, a habit he’d had for three years: wind the watch first thing, and then briefly again at the station. He felt the weight of the mechanism in his palm, that familiar heaviness he loved. Lasse’s bed was unmade and cold. His brother had kept his role in the plan: wake up, go to the ferries with Leif as usual, and then fake sudden illness and request afternoon leave. From the harbor, Lasse would ride his bicycle to the switch and wait for the train whistle.