Sture scooped up the rabbit in his enormous hands. ‘Do you have the cage?’
‘My mother’s bringing it over.’
Sture stroked the rabbit’s ears. His nose was redder than when David had last seen him and there was a network of veins under the skin of his cheeks. David caught the smell of whisky, probably from the night before. Sture would never under any circumstances get behind the wheel drunk.
‘Would you like some coffee?’
‘That would be good, thank you.’
They sat down at the kitchen table. The rabbit was still resting in Sture’s hands, secure and vulnerable. The tiny nose was twitching, trying to comprehend the new place that it had come to. Sture drank his heavily sugared coffee with some difficulty, one hand otherwise occupied. They sat quietly in this way for a while. David heard Magnus moving in his bed. He probably had to go pee, but didn’t want to get up and break the enchantment.
‘She’s much better,’ David said. ‘Much better. I talked to them last night and they say she… there have been great strides.’ Sture slurped some coffee from the saucer.
‘When does she get to come home?’
‘They couldn’t say. They’re still working it out and… they have
some kind of rehabilitation program.’
Sture nodded, said nothing and David felt dimly idiotic using their language to defend their actions, becoming some kind of spokesman.
But the neurologist he had spoken with had been vague when David asked the same question: When will she get to come home?
‘It’s too early to say,’ he had answered. ‘There are still some… problems that we should discuss tomorrow. When you’ve seen her. It’s difficult to convey over the phone.’
‘What kind of problems?’
‘Well, as I said…it’s difficult to understand if you haven’t… experienced it. I’ll be at the Heath tomorrow. We’ll take this up again then.’
They had agreed to meet early. The Heath would open at twelve o’clock and David was planning to be there before that.
There was another quiet knock on the door and David went to let his mother in, with the rabbit cage. She had-to his amazementtaken the news of Eva’s accident relatively well, not smothering him with excessive pity as he’d feared.
The cage looked good but there was no sawdust. Sture said that newspaper was just as good and cheaper. He and David’s mother set about furnishing it as David stood beside them, the rabbit in his hands.
He and Eva had joked many times about how they ought to fix up their parents, two lonely individuals. The idea foundered on its impracticality; they were far too unlike and both cemented into their respective lives. Now, as he stood watching them whisper and tear up newspaper.and fill a bowl with water, it no longer seemed so unreasonable. For a moment their roles were reversed: they were a couple, he was alone.
But I’m not alone. Eva will get well.
The gaping hole in her chest.
David blinked hard, opened his eyes and concentrated on the rabbit, which was nibbling a shirt button. If it hadn’t been for Eva’s accident there would not have been a rabbit. Both he and Eva thought it was wrong to keep animals in the city, caged. But now…
Magnus deserved to be happy. At least on his birthday.
‘We are so happy, ha hal
That you are born, fallera!
That you were born, fallera!
On just this day!
Hurray hurray!’
David felt a lump in his throat as they entered Magnus’ room. Magnus wasn’t curled up and sleeping, or pretending to sleep. He was lying ramrod straight on his back with his hands on his stomach, looking gravely at them, and David felt as if he and the others were performing for an audience that was refusing to play along.
‘Congratulations, darling.’
David’s mother was the first one to reach the bed and the serious look in Magnus’ eyes softened when the packages were laid across his feet. For a while he seemed to forget. There were Pokemon cards, Legos and movies. Finally they brought in the cage.
For a while, David had been afraid that Magnus had decided simply to humour them but there was no mistaking his enormous, unfeigned joy as he lifted the rabbit up into the bed, stroking its head and kissing it on the nose. The first thing he said after he had cuddled it for a while was: ‘Can I bring it to show Mummy?’
David smiled and nodded. Since the day after the accident, Magnus had hardly mentioned Eva and when David fished a little he had realised that Magnus resented Eva for disappearing. As if Magnus himself saw that this was an unreasonable attitude and was ashamed of it, he refused to talk about Eva at all.
Therefore: if he wanted to bring the bunny, he could bring the bunny.
Sture rubbed Magnus on the head and asked, ‘What do you think it’s called?’
Magnus answered immediately, ‘Balthazar.’
‘I see,’ Sture said. ‘Lucky that it’s a boy.’
The cake was brought in. David had bought a ready-made marzipan cake in a bakery and Magnus said nothing about it. Coffee and hot chocolate were poured. The munching of the sugary treat, the silence between the mouthfuls would have been difficult to bear if it hadn’t been for Balthazar. He hopped around on Magnus’ bed, sniffing the cake and getting cream on his nose.
Instead of talking about Eva, whom they couldn’t talk about, they talked about Balthazar. Balthazar was the fifth living creature: Balthazar replaced Eva. They laughed at his antics, discussed the challenges and joys of
rabbits.
After David’s mother had left, David and Magnus played a couple of Pokemon matches so that Magnus could use the new cards. Sture followed the game with interest, but when Magnus tried to explain the complicated rules he shook his head.
‘No, that’s too hard for me. I’ll stick to snap and gin rummy.’
Magnus won both of the matches and went into his room to play with Balthazar. It was half past nine. No more coffee could be drunk without courting indigestion and they had almost two hours to kill before they could set off. David was about to suggest a game of snap, but felt it would seem contrived. Instead he sat down emptyhanded across the kitchen table from Sture.
‘I see you’re performing tonight,’ Sture said.
‘What? Tonight?’
‘Yes, or that’s what it said in the paper anyway.’
David took out his calendar and checked. 17 August. NB 21.00. Sture was right. He also saw to his dismay that he had a corporate gig in Uppsala on the nineteenth. Mission: to joke, clown, make people laugh. He rubbed his face.
‘I’ll have to call and cancel.’
Sture’s eyes narrowed, as if he were squinting at the sun. ‘Should you really do that?’
‘Well you know, standing up there and… prancing around. No. I can’t.’
‘Maybe it would be good for you to get out a little.’
‘Yes, but my routine. It’ll be like having a mouth full of rocks. No.’
He could have added that a fair percentage of the audience would know what had happened to him after the story on TV4. The dead woman’s husband performing. Most likely Leo had already cancelled him but forgotten to pull the ad.
Sture interlaced his fingers on the table. ‘I can watch the boy if you like.’
‘Thanks,’ David said. ‘We’ll see. But 1 don’t think so.’
Bondegatan 09.30
Saturday morning the doorbell rang at Flora’s apartment. Maja, one of her few friends from school, was standing outside. She was a head taller than Flora, maybe thirty kilos heavier. On the lapel of her army surplus greatcoat there was a button that said, ‘I bitch & I moan. What’s your religion?’
‘Come out for a bit; she said.
Flora was happy to. The apartment felt breakfast-stuffy, the smell of toast an unhappy reminder of absent harmony. In addition, Flora only really smoked when she was with Maja-and she had a hankering to smoke.
They strolled aimlessly on the street as Maja lit up the fi
rst of the day and Flora took a couple of puffs.
‘We’ve been talking about doing something at the Heath; Maja said, and held out the cigarette.
‘We?’
‘Yeah, the group.’
Maja belonged to a sub-group of Young Left-mostly girls—
who considered themselves creative. When cafe magazine had their tenth birthday party on a boat, Patricia had poured out ten buckets of wallpaper paste on the docks in front of the gangplank and put up a sign, ‘WARNING! SPERM!’ The guests had been forced to wade through the grey-white mess until, with some effort, it was scrubbed away.
‘What kind of thing?’ Flora asked and gave the rest of the cigarette back. She had had enough.
‘It’s just…’ Maja said and pointedly averted her gaze from a girlygirl in white linen pants who was out on a morning walk with a Maltese terrier,
‘it’s sick what they’re doing with them. First they use them as some kind of guinea pigs and now they’re going to herd them into a bloody ghetto.’
‘Sure,’ Flora said. ‘But what’s the alternative exactly?’
‘Alternative? It doesn’t matter what the alternative is. This is wrong. Society can only be judged… ‘
‘… by how it treats its weakest members,’ Flora filled in. ‘Yes, I know, but… ‘
Maja waved her cigarette impatiently. ‘There’s never been a weaker group than the dead.’ She gave a laugh. ‘When was the last time you heard the dead speak up for their rights?They have none. The authorities can do what they want with them, and that’s what they’re going to do. Did you read that thing in DN, what the philosopher-bitch said?’
‘Yes,’ Flora said, ‘and I get that it’s wrong. I agree with you, so calm down. I’m just wondering…’
‘You can wonder later. You identify the wrong, you do something to put it right. As soon as there’s something new, you have to work out who has the power to make use of it. Let’s say they do come up with an antidote to death, OK? What do you think they’ll use it for? Make sure the population of Africa can live forever? I don’t think so. Let every black person die of AIDS first, and we’ll see what we can do with Africa after that. You’ve got to understand that the spread of AIDS is largely controlled by American pharmaceutical companies.’ Maja shook her head. ‘Ten to one they’re out there sniffing around the Heath too.’
‘I’m planning to go out there when it opens,’ Flora said.
‘Where? The Heath? I’ll come with you.’
‘1 don’t think you’ll get in. Only family… ‘
‘That’s the kind of thing I’m talking about. How are you going to prove that you’re family, then?’
‘I don’t know.’
Maja put out the cigarette by rolling it between her index finger and thumb. She stopped, cocked her head to one side and squinted at Flora.
‘And what reason do you have to go there, anyway?’
‘I don’t know. 1 just… I have to go. Have to see what it’s like.’ ‘You’ve got a thing about death, haven’t you?’
‘Hasn’t everyone?’
Maja looked at her for a couple of seconds and then said, ‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘No.’
Flora shrugged. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’ Maja grinned and sent the butt flying in an arc towards a rubbish bin. Amazingly, it went in. Flora applauded and Maja put an arm around her shoulders.
‘Do you know what you are?’ Flora shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Pretentious. A little bit. I like it.’
They walked around and talked for another couple of hours. Then they parted and Flora took the subway to Tensta.
Taby Municipality 09.30
‘We have to take the chance to argue our case when there are this many people gathering.’
‘But will anyone listen to us?’
‘I’m certain they will.’
‘How will they hear us?’
‘They’ll have loudspeakers.’
‘Do you think we’ll be allowed to use them?’
‘Let me put it this way: when Jesus drove the moneylenders out of the temple, do you think he asked permission? Excuse me, do you mind if I push this table over?’
The others laughed and Mattias folded his arms across his chest, pleased. Elvy was standing with her head resting against the door post, watching them in the kitchen, discussing the day’s strategy. She did not take part. The last couple of days she had been feeling weak. It came from sleeplessness and the sleeplessness came from doubt.
She lay awake at night and struggled to hold on to her vision, to stop it from fading and receding into the jumble of images. Tried to understand.
Their only salvation is to come to me…
After the modest success of the first evening, the fishing for souls
had stalled. Once the first shock had died down and it appeared that society was in fact capable of handling the situation, people were less willing to come on board. Elvy had only participated that first day. On the second day she was too tired.
‘What do you think, Elvy?’
Mattias’ round, childlike face turned toward her. It took Elvy a couple of seconds to understand what he was asking. Seven pairs of eyes watched her. As well as Mattias, the only man among them, there was Hagar, Greta, the neighbour woman and the other woman who had come the first evening. Elvy could not remember her name. Then there were two sisters, Ingegerd and Esmeralda, who were friends with the nameless woman. They were the ones who were here for the morning meeting. Other sympathisers would join them later.
‘I think… ‘ Elvy said. ‘I think…I don’t know what I think.’
Mattias frowned. Wrong answer. Elvy absentmindedly rubbed the scab on her forehead.
‘You’ll have to decide what you think is best and then… that’s what we’ll do. I think I have to go and lie down.’
Mattias caught up with her outside her bedroom door. He gently
grabbed her shoulder.
‘Elvy. This is your conviction, your vision. That is what we are here for.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘Don’t you believe in this anymore?’
‘Yes. It is just that…1 don’t quite have the energy.’
Mattias put his hand on his cheek, his gaze sliding over Elvy’s face. From the cut to her eyes, back to the cut.
‘I believe in you. I believe you have a mission, an important one.’
Elvy nodded.
‘Yes. It’s just that…I don’t quiet know what it is’
‘Why don’t you lie down for a while. We’ll take care of this. We’re leaving in one hour Have you seen the flyers?’
‘Yes.’ Mattias stood there, waiting for something more. Elvy added, ‘They look very good,’ and went to the bedroom, closing the door behind her. Without undressing, she crawled in under the bedspread and pulled it up to her nose. Her eyes wandered around the room. Nothing was changed. She held her hands up to her eyes.
These are my hands.
She wiggled her fingers.
My fingers. They’re moving.
The telephone rang in the hall. She could not be bothered to get up and answer. Someone, perhaps Esmeralda, picked up the receiver and said something.
There is nothing special about me.
Was it always like this?
The saints, the ones who had fought and died in the name of the Lord, Francis dancing eagerly before the pope, Birgitta burning with a holy fire in her cell. Did they have such doubts? Were there days when Birgitta thought she had misunderstood something, that she had made the whole thing up? Times when Francis just wanted to send his disciples away with a ‘leave me in peace, I have nothing of value to say’?
There was no one to ask, they were all dead and settled into legend, their humanness long gone.
But she had seen.
Perhaps there were others who had seen, thousands through the ages. Perhaps what set the saints apart-the holy women and men-was that they he
ld fast to what they had seen, not allowing their realisation to fade and
die, but they held on, held on and refused to let go, saw forgetfulness as a tool of the devil and held on. Maybe this was the secret.
Elvy took hold of the bedspread, squeezing it hard.
Yes, Lord. I will hold on.
She shut her eyes and tried to rest. By the time her body finally
started to relax, it was time to go.
Koholma 11.00
Elias had made progress. Great progress.
The first day he had not shown the slightest interest in the exercises from the book that Mahler tried to go through with him. Mahler had held out a shoe box and said, ‘I wonder what there is in here?’ and Elias had not moved, either before or after he opened the lid and showed him the little stuffed dog.
Mahler had put a brightly coloured top on Elias’ night stand and set it in motion. The top spun itself out and then fell to the floor. Elias did not even follow it with his gaze. But Mahler kept going. The fact that Elias reached out for the bottle when it was brought to him indicated that he was capable of reacting, if he had a reason.
Anna did not object to the training program, but showed no enthusiasm either. She sat with Elias for hours; slept on a mattress on his floor. But she did nothing concrete, Mahler felt, to improve his condition.
It was the remote-controlled car that broke the ice. The second day Mahler put in fresh batteries and directed it into Elias’ room, hoping the sight of the toy he had been so fond of would bring something in him to life. It did. As soon as the car banged into the room something happened to the way Elias held his body. Then he followed the car in its journey around the room. When Mahler brought it to a stop, Elias put his hand out for it.
Mahler did not give it to him, he let it drive around a couple more times. Then what Mahler had been hoping for happened. Slowly, slowly, as if he were wading through mud, Elias started to get up out of bed. When the car stopped, Elias halted for a moment, then continued to make his way up.
‘Anna! Come take a look!’
Anna came up in time to see Elias drag his legs over the edge of the bed. She clapped her hand over her mouth, screamed and ran over to him.
Handling The Undead Page 21