Handling The Undead

by John Ajdive Lindqvist

  She had been wrong. Completely wrong, and that was the reason she was humming. Elias was dead. Elias wasn’t gone.

  She opened the blankets a little, letting in a bit of air. Elias still smelled bad but not like in the beginning. As if whatever it was that. smelled bad had been… used up.

  ‘What is it you are afraid of?’

  No answer. She flapped the pyjama top Over his stomach and a puff of stale air was released. When the clothes had dried she would change him. They lay on the rocks until the Sun sank into the sea of Aland and the cooler breezes began to blow in. Then Anna carried Elias inside again.

  The bedclothes smelled mildewed, so she took them out and hung them in an alder tree close to the house. She found an empty kerosene lamp and filled it with fuel for the evening. Checked the fireplace by lighting a sheet of newspaper, placed it on the hearth. The smoke came in. The chimney had probably been closed off. Maybe a bird had built a nest.

  Anna made a couple of caviar-spread sandwiches in the kitchen, poured a glass of lukewarm milk and walked out and sat on the rock. When she had finished eating the sanwiches she walked down to the water’s edge to examine the large, silver-coloured object, halfconcealed in the grass, that had caught her eye a couple of times.

  At first she did not understand what it was. A large cylinder covered in holes. Something you tossed into the air, took a picture of and claimed it was a UFO. Then she realised it was the drum of a washing machine, that it had been used as a fish safe.

  She walked along the shore, found an empty tube of shaving cream and a beer can. The clouds were starting to get pink and she thought Mahler would be coming soon.

  To get a better view of the sunset, as well as her father, she walked to the cairn on top of the hill behind the house. The view was fantastic. Even though the hill was only a couple of metres higher than the house, it gave her a clear view over all of the nearby islands.

  Seen from the side, the mass of evening clouds became one big fluffy blanket draped over the low islands, reflected in a sea of blood. To the east there was nothing between the watcher and the horizon. She understood perfectly why people had once believed that the world was flat, that the horizon was an edge beyond which the great Nothingness lay.

  She listened. No engine sounds.

  When she stood here like this with a view of the whole wide world, it seemed incredible to her that her father would even be able to find his way back here. The world was so infinitely vast.

  What is that?

  She trained her gaze on a cluster of trees and bushes in a hollow on the other side of the island. She thought she’d seen something moving there. Yes. There was a rustle, and a flash of something White that disappeared again.

  White? What kind of animals are white?

  Only animals that live where there’s snow. Except cats, of course.

  And dogs. Could it be a cat? Forgotten or inadvertently left behind. Maybe it had fallen off a boat, managed to make its way to land.

  She started to walk toward the hollow, then stopped.

  It had been larger than a cat. More like a dog. A dog that had fallen off a boat and… gone wild.

  She turned and walked quickly back to the cottage. Paused outside the door and listened one last time. It had to be past eight o’clock, why didn’t her father come?

  She went in, closing the door behind her. It slid open. The lock was gone. She took a broom and threaded it through the handle, jamming the end up against the wall. It was worthless as a lock, but an animal would not be able to get in.

  The more she thought about it, the more anxious she became.

  It wasn’t an animal. It was a person.

  She stood at the door and listened. Nothing. Just a lone blackbird trying to sound like a lot of other birds simultaneously.

  She could feel her heart, insistent, pumping faster and more emphatically. She was getting worked up Over nothing. It was just that she was alone with Elias and couldn’t get away from here-it was putting ghosts in her head. There’s no problem balancing on a piece of wood ten centimetres wide when it’s lying on the ground, but hoist it up ten metres off the ground and sheer terror sinks its claws in. Even though it’s the same piece of wood.

  It was a gull, probably. Or a swan.

  A swan. Yes, of course. It was a swan that had nested on land.

  Swans are big.

  She calmed down and went and checked on Elias. He was lying with his head turned to the wall and appeared to be looking at the troll painting, just a dark rectangle against the wall in the dusk. She sat beside him on the bed.

  ‘Hello sweetheart, how is everything?’

  The sound of her own voice filled the silence, chasing it away. The anxious feeling in her chest stilled.

  ‘When I was little I had this kind of painting by my bed. Except it had a troll-daddy and his daughter, fishing. The girl was holding the rod and the father who was-this big-and clumsy, and covered in warts, he was teaching her how she should hold it, holding her arm carefully like this to show her. I don’t know if my mum knew how I stared at that picture and how I thought or fantasised that I had a father who would do that with me. Who showed me what to do and who was so close, standing behind me and was big like that and looked kind. All I know is that when I was little I wanted to be a troll. Because everything seemed simple for the trolls. They had nothing, and yet they had everything.’

  She rested her hands in her lap, looking straight at the painting-Whatever happened to it?-recalling how she had kneeled in her bed, tracing the outline of the troll father’s face with her finger.

  She sighed, looking at the window. A painted balloon was floating outside. She gasped violently. The balloon was a face. A swollen, white face with two dark slits for eyes. The lips were gone and the teeth exposed. She stared at the face as if turned to stone. The nose was just a hole in spongy, white flesh and it was a face made of floury dough with a lot of big teeth stuck into it.

  A hand rose and was placed on the glass. Even this was corpse white, swollen.

  She screamed, deafening herself.

  The face drew back from the window, in the direction of the door. She jumped to her feet, hitting her hip against the corner of the table but felt nothing, reached the kitchen—

  Mummy?

  – and took hold of the door, holding the handle.

  Mummy?

  Elias’ voice, inside her head. She braced herself against the wall, pulling on the handle as hard as she could. Someone had grabbed it on the outside. She was resisting. The thing on the other side was jerking on it.

  Dear merciful God, don’t let it come in don’t let it

  Mummy what

  don’t let it

  is it?

  It was strong. She sobbed when the door hit against the frame.

  ‘Go away! Go away!’

  She could feel the dead, mute power through the handle as the creature monotonously pulled on the door, wanting to get in to her and Elias. Terror made her throat a single tensed muscle. She turned her head stiffly toward the kitchen, looking for a weapon, anything.

  There was a small axe under the kitchen counter, but she couldn’t let go of the door to grab it. The creature was pulling harder and when the door opened slightly she could momentarily glimpse the whole of the body. It was white and naked, lumps of dough thrown onto a skeleton, and she understood.

  A drowned man. It’s a drowned man.

  She laughed breathlessly as she continued to resist, getting more glimpses of the creature’s dissolved, fish-eaten flesh.

  The drowned ones. Where are they?

  In a flash she saw the whole sea filled with drowned people, all the accidents of the summer months-how many? Floating white bodies, scraping against the bottom. Predatory fish, eels that ate through the skin and gorged themselves on the innards.

  Mummy!

  Elias’ voice was frightened now. She could neither rejoice at the fact that he was speaking to her, nor comfort him. The only thing
she could do was resist, stop the thing from entering.

  Her arms were starting to feel paralysed by the continuous pulling, the strength required to hold out.

  ‘What do you want? Go away! Go away!’

  It let go.

  The door banged shut one last time and some slivers of wood broke off, fluttering down to her feet. She held her breath, listening. The blackbird had stopped singing and she heard rapping sounds on the rock outside. Bone on stone. The creature was leaving.

  Mummy, what is it?

  She answered.

  Don’t be afraid. It’s leaving now.

  The whining started, like a fleet of small boats approaching across the bay, coming closer. More than anything Anna wanted to scream, Stop it, leave us alone, go away to everything that seemed to want to get at them, but she did not dare for fear that it would frighten Elias. Elias quickly pulled out of her head and the whining died away.

  Anna jumped back from the door, grabbed the axe and took up her post again. She listened outside. Nothing to be heard. The axe slid in her sweaty hand. During the whole episode she had not felt the drowned one inside her head for an instant, and that scared her even more. With Elias there was always a shimmer, a presence. The drowned man was silent.

  When the blackbird resumed its song, she dared to leave the door and go in to Elias. She stopped in the door opening, dropping the axe.

  The drowned man was standing on the rock outside the window, looking in. She carefully lowered herself down and took up the axe again, as though it were an animal that might be startled by the slightest movement. But the drowned one stood still.

  What is it doing?

  It couldn’t look, it had no eyes. Anna sat on the edge of the bed squeezing the axe hard, sitting at an angle so that she could not see the thing outside the window. She’d be able to hear if it moved again, though. It was the most repulsive thing she had ever seen. She could not think about it, was not permitted to think about it-as if there was a finely balanced switch inside her head, poised to flip and catapult her into the darkest insanity.

  She stared at the troll picture on the wall; the kind troll-man with his big comforting hands. The little child. And she thought:

  Daddy, come home.

  Kungsholmen 17.00

  They had found a spot in an overgrown thicket along the beach at Kungsholm, halfway between their apartment and the parliament building. David assumed it was against the law to bury animals in the city without authority, but what could they do?

  Before they set out they had made a cross from some pieces of string and skirting board. Magnus himself had written BALTHAZAR with a felt pen. David stood guard while Magnus and Sture dug a hole in the thicket large enough for the shoebox.

  From this smaller perspective, David thought he could understand the purpose of a burial. Magnus busied himself with the box and the flowers that would be added to it, the construction of the cross satisfied him in a way that words and comforting on their own could not. He had cried a great deal on his way back from the Heath, but as soon as they reached the apartment he had started to talk about the funeral and what they should do.

  Even David and Sture had become completely absorbed in the project; they had not yet said a word about what happened. What Eva had done and what it might mean could not be discussed with Magnus there, needing all their attention. But one thing you cou lei say for sure: Eva would not be coming home. Not for a long time.

  The hole was ready. Magnus opened the lid of the box one last time and Sture hurried to shift the rabbit’s head into place. Magnus stroked the fur with his finger.

  ‘Goodbye little Balthazar. I hope it will be good for you.’

  David could not cry anymore. What he felt was rage. A hopeless, compressed rage. If he had been alone he would have shaken his fists at the sky and screamed at it. Why Why Why? Instead he sank down next to Magnus and put a hand on his back.

  It’s his birthday for fuck’s sake. Couldn’t he have had… just one day.

  Magnus put the lid back and placed the shoebox in the ground. Sture handed him the shovel and he shovelled earth and more earth until the box disappeared from view. David sat absolutely still, staring at the shrinking pile of dirt, the hole filling up.

  If it… comes back…

  He clapped a hand over his mouth, forcing his face not to contOrt in howls of laughter, as he imagined the headless rabbit digging itself up and crawling zombie-like back to their apartment, dragging itself up the stairs.

  Sture helped Magnus put the tufts of grass back, pat them in place and bang the cross into the ground with the shovel. He looked at David and they nodded at each other. It was doubtful whether the grave would stay intact for long, but it was done.

  Everyone stood up. Magnus started to sing, ‘The world is a sorrow-island… ‘ like he had seen them do in All of us on Saltkrakan and David thought:

  This is the bottom. Now We have reached rock bottom. We have to have reached the bottom.

  David and Sture laid one hand each on Magnus’ shoulders and David -could not shake the feeling that it was really Eva’s funeral they were enacting.

  The bottom. It has to be…

  Magnus crossed his arms over his chest and David felt his shoulders draw together, shrinking, as he said, ‘It was my fault.’

  ‘No,’ David said. ‘It was certainly not your fault.’

  Magnus nodded. ‘I was the one who did it.’

  ‘No, little one, it was… ‘

  ‘Yes, it was. I was the one who thought, so Mum did it.’

  David and Sture exchanged looks. Sture bent down and asked, ‘What do you mean?’

  Magnus wrapped his arms around David’s hips and said into his stomach, ‘I thought bad things about Mummy and that was why she got angry.’

  ‘My darling boy… ‘ David crouched down and scooped Magnus into his arms. ‘We were the ones who should have known… it is not your fault.’

  Magnus body was wracked with sobs and the words gushed out of him.

  ‘Yes, because I thought…I thoughtthat 1… because she was only talking so strange like that because she didn’t care about… and I was thinking that I didn’t like her, I was thinking that she was ugly and that I hated her even though I didn’t want to because I thought she was going to be like normal and then she was like that and that’s why I thought it and when I thought it… when I thought it, that was when she did it.’

  Magnus was still talking as David carried him back to the apartment, did not stop until he lay in his bed, his eyes red and his eyelids heavy.

  His birthday…

  After a while his eyes closed and he fell asleep. David tucked him in and went out to Sture in the kitchen, collapsing onto a chair.

  ‘He’s finished,’ David said. ‘He’s completely finished. These past few days… he hasn’t slept much at night and today… it’s too much for him. He can’t… how’s he supposed to handle this?’

  Sture didn’t answer. After a period of silence he said, ‘I think he’ll manage. If you do. Then he will too.’

  David’s gaze travelled across the kitchen and fixed on a bottle of wine. Sture looked in the same direction, then back at David, who shook his head.

  ‘No,’ David said. ‘But it’s… hard.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sture said. ‘I know.’

  Haltingly, with long pauses, they talked about what had happened at the Heath but reached no conclusions. The area had been in uproar since they left. It seemed unlikely that visiting would’ be reinstituted for a long time. David went and checked on Magnus. He was sleeping deeply. When he came back to the kitchen Sture said, ‘This thing that the doctor asked about. The Fisher.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s…’ Sture pulled a finger along the table top as if he was tracing

  back along a timeline, ‘pretty strange. Or completely natural. I don’, know which.’

  ‘What is it, then?’

  ‘Well, you know her books. Bruno Beaver. Do you have one
here?’

  They had a little box with gratis copies of each and David picked

  out the two books, laying them side by side. Sture turned to a page in Bruno the Beaver Finds His Way Home and pointed to! the place where Bruno finally found the spot where he was going to build his house, only to discover that the Waterman also lived, in the lake.

  ‘This Waterman,’ Sture said and pointed at the blurry figure, down in the water. ‘She met him. I started telling you about it out there, but…’ He raised and dropped his shoulders. ‘When she almost’, drowned. Later… quite a few days later she told us that there had been… well, that there had been some kind of creature down there with her.’

  David nodded. ‘She’s told me about that. That it was like that was the thing that had come to take her. The Waterman.’

  ‘Yes,’ Sture said. ‘But then…I don’t know if she remembers, she’s told you, but when she was little… she called that creature the Fisher.’

  ‘No,’ David said. ‘She never said that.’

  Sture idly turned the pages of the book. ‘Whenever we’ve talked about it since she grew up she’s always called it the Waterman or just That Thing, so I was wondering if she’d…forgotten.’

  ‘But now she says the Fisher.’

  ‘Yes. I remember that she… We encouraged her, thinking it might be good for her, that she drew a lot of pictures of the Fisher at the time, after it had happened. She was quite an artist even then.’

  David went to the hall closet and brought back a box of old papers, magazines, drawings; the objects that Eva had chosen to keep from her childhood. It felt good to have something to do, something to investigate. He placed the box on the kitchen table and they hauled out text books, photographs, beautiful rocks, school year books and drawings. Sture lingered over certain items, sighing deeply at a snapshot of Eva, maybe ten years old, with a large pike in her arms.

  ‘She was the one who got him,’ he said. ‘All by herself. I just helped her with the net.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘It was a… nice day.’

  They continued through piles. Many of the sketches were dated and it was not hard to see that Eva would one day become an artist. Even as a nine-year-old she was drawing animals and people much better than David would ever be able to.