by Håkan Nesser
This is not going to be an account of what has happened in the past, these unstructured notes – no more than what is necessary in order to understand the present. In so far as I have any ambitions at all, that is just about as far as they go. You write – and read – in order to understand things, that’s something I’ve often tried to convince myself about. There is a lot that I shall never understand: recent happenings have proved that more conclusively than I might have wished, but surely one should try to throw a bit of light on things? I’ve started to do that far too late – but you ought to do something while you’re waiting for death to carry you off, as one of my colleagues used to say on particularly bleak Monday mornings at the Monkeyhouse. Although I’m beginning to get confused already, words and times are becoming unclear. Back to Sveavägen in Stockholm, exactly one month ago. Eugen Bergman.
‘However it turns out?’ said Martin, as if he had failed completely to understand the indulgent irony in what the publisher had said. ‘Can I remind you that I’ve been sitting on this material for thirty years. If your bean-counters can’t grasp the value of that, there are bean-counters in other publishing houses who will.’
‘I’ve already said that we shall publish it,’ said Bergman with one of his wry smiles. ‘And you’ll get your advance. What’s the matter with you, old chap? I can assure you it will be translated into seven or eight languages without further ado. They might even put it up for auction in England. Get on your bike, for God’s sake – you have my blessing. And the deadline will be the end of April next year. Mind you, I’d quite like to read bits of it before then, as you know.’
‘Fat chance,’ said Martin, then nodded at me: ‘No bastard gets to read a single word until it’s finished.’
It was time to leave, that was obvious. We’d been no more than ten minutes in the room, but needless to say everything had been prepared meticulously in advance. Bergman has been Martin’s publisher for twenty years, and is one of those old-fashioned, solid-as-a-rock types. That’s what Martin always used to say, in any case. Every new contract – there haven’t been all that many, only six or seven if I remember rightly – has been confirmed in Bergman’s office. Sign on the dotted line, shake hands, then sink a drop or two of amaro from one of the slightly worse-for-wear little glasses he keeps hidden away in one of his desk cupboards: that has always been the routine, and it was the routine that Friday afternoon at the beginning of October as well.
The sixth, to be precise. An Indian summer day if ever there was one, at least in the Stockholm area. I’m not quite sure why Martin had insisted on my being there, but presumably because it was a rather special occasion.
If so, it wasn’t difficult to understand why.
To celebrate the fact that we were still together. That the turbulence of the last few months had not been able to undermine the solid base of our marriage. That I stood behind my husband, or wherever it was that an independent but good wife was expected to stand. By his side, perhaps?
And I admit that ‘insisted’ is not the right word. Martin had asked me to be present, that was all. Eugen Bergman has been a good friend of both of us for many years, even if we haven’t actually been socializing together very much since the death of his wife, Lydia, in 2007. So it was not the first time I had visited that messy office of his in Sveavägen. By no means, and on most of my visits we had drunk a few drops of amaro.
When we left the publisher’s Martin announced that he had several other meetings booked in, and suggested that we should meet at Sturehof about six o’clock. Although if I preferred to go straight home I could have the car, as taking the commuter train was no problem as far as he was concerned. I said that I had already arranged to meet this Violetta di Parma who was going to stay in our house while we were away – something he ought to have known as I had mentioned it in the car on the way to town that morning – and that Sturehof at six o’clock would be fine for me.
He nodded somewhat absent-mindedly, gave me a quick hug then continued walking along Sveavägen in the direction of Sergels Torg. For some reason I remained standing there on the pavement, watching him weaving his way through the crowds of unknown people, and I remember thinking that if I hadn’t happened to get pregnant when we spent Christmas with his awful parents thirty-three years ago, my life would have turned out differently from the way it did. So would his.
But that was a thought about as banal as an itchy finger, and it lacked significance or comfort.
I enrolled in the Department of Literary History in the autumn term of 1976. I was nineteen, and my boyfriend and first love Rolf enrolled at the same time. I studied literature for two terms, and I might have continued longer if Rolf hadn’t been killed in an accident the following summer, although I can’t be certain of that. I kept feeling at regular intervals that studying literary texts through a magnifying glass was not my true calling, and although I passed the exams without much difficulty – albeit without achieving top marks – I convinced myself that there were alternative arenas in which my life could take place. Or however you might like to express it.
Rolf ’s death was naturally a crucial factor. He was the one of us who had been a bookworm enthralled by literature. He was the one who would recite Rilke and Larkin at night after six glasses of wine, he was the one who took me to seminars organized by the Arbetarnas Bildningsförbund – the Workers’ Educational Association, or the ABF as it was called – and the Asynja book club, and he was the one who would spend the last few kronor he possessed on half a dozen second-hand copies of Ahlin, Dagerman and Sandemose at Rönnell’s antiquarian bookshop rather than ensuring that we had enough to eat over the weekend. We never got as far as pooling our financial resources – and if we had done it would certainly not have been without its problems.
But in the middle of August 1977, Rolf fell to his death fifty metres down a cliff in Switzerland, and so we never got round to considering such a venture. I abandoned my literary studies and after a few months of mourning, during which I spent part of the time living with my parents and the rest working as a night receptionist at a hotel in Kungsholmen, I signed up for a sort of media studies course at Gärdet in January, and that was the direction my career took. I was given a job by Swedish Television eighteen months later, and that was my workplace until three months ago – apart from two sessions of maternity leave and an occasional project at some other institution.
It feels odd, being able to sum up one’s life so simply; but if you miss out your childhood and all the things you thought were so important at the time, it’s straightforward.
Barely a year after Rolf ’s death I went to a garden party in the Old Town. It was the middle of July 1978. I somewhat reluctantly accompanied one of my fellow students on the media studies course, and that was the evening when I met Martin. I was the one who was reluctant, not my fellow student, and that had been the way of things throughout the year. I was not in mourning for just one death, but for two. An old one and a new one – I shall come back to that later – and dealing with one’s sorrow is by no means a simple matter.
It turned out that I had actually met Martin before.
‘Don’t you recognize me?’ asked a young man who came up to me, carrying a large plastic mug of red-coloured punch. He had long, dark hair and Che Guevara on his chest. And was smoking a pipe.
I didn’t. Didn’t recognize him, that is.
‘Try erasing the long hair and Ernesto,’ he said. ‘Lit studies a year ago. Where did you go to?’
Then it dawned on me that it was Martin Holinek. An assistant lecturer in the department – or at least, he had been while I was studying there. We hadn’t exchanged many words, and he hadn’t taught any of the courses I had attended, but I certainly did recognize him once the penny had dropped. He was reputed to be a young genius, and I think Rolf had talked to him quite a lot.
‘That business of your boyfriend,’ he said now. ‘That was absolutely awful.’
‘Yes, it was,’ I said. ‘It
was too much for me. I just couldn’t carry on studying as planned.’
‘I’m very sorry,’ he said. ‘Have you managed to get back on your feet again by now, more or less?’
That was not a matter I wanted to start going into, even if it seemed to me his sympathetic tone of voice was genuine, and so I asked instead about his links with the garden party crowd. He explained that he actually lived in the same block and knew most of those present, and so we started talking about the Old Town, and about the advantages and disadvantages of various districts in Stockholm. The suburbs versus the town centre, that kind of thing. We somehow managed to skirt round the fact that it was a matter of class and nothing else – or at least, that’s how I remember it. Then when we sat down to eat at the long table, we ended up next to each other, and I noticed to my surprise that I was enjoying it. Not just Martin, but the whole party. Everybody was happy and unassuming, there were lots of young children and dogs around, and the early summer weather was at its absolute best. I had been rather antisocial ever since the accident, kept myself to myself and wallowed in my gloomy thoughts – and I think this was the first time since the previous August that I laughed spontaneously at something. It was probably something Martin said, but I don’t remember.
But I do recall what he said about Greece, of course. As soon as the following week he was going to board a flight to Athens, and then continue by boat from Piraeus to Samos. Western Samos, on the southern side. He would spend at least a month there in a sort of writers’ collective: he had done the same thing last summer, and when he spoke about it I realized that it had been a stunning experience. Needless to say they were all high for much of the time, and all kinds of weed were smoked, he admitted that readily – quite a few of those present had their roots in California – but nevertheless everything was devoted to literary creation. A writers’ factory, if you like. He wasn’t able to explain exactly what happened in detail that first evening, but everything was concentrated in or around a large house owned by the English poet Tom Herold and his young American wife Bessie Hyatt. I knew who they were: Herold had published several collections of poetry despite the fact that he couldn’t be more than thirty, and Bessie Hyatt’s debut novel, Before I Collapse, had been one of the previous year’s most talked-about books. Not just in the USA, but all over the world. The fact that it was considered to contain various keys to the complicated relationship between her and Herold did its reputation no harm.
Of course I was impressed, and of course I could see that Martin Holinek was proud of being a part of such an illustrious gathering. For a specialist in literary history it would mean that, for once, he could hear things straight from the horse’s mouth – instead of having to plough his way through endless masses of discourses, analyses and essays that attach themselves to every writer’s output, like mould in a badly ventilated cellar. I didn’t know what Martin’s academic research was concentrated on, but if he was working on a doctorate it was more likely that he would be devoting his studies to something Swedish, or at least Nordic.
But I never asked him about that, and a few years later when we were married and living in our first shared flat in Folkungagaten, that collective in Samos was the only thing I could remember clearly from our first conversation.
Looking back, I doubt if we actually discussed much else.
I was employed by Swedish Television because I was good-looking and could speak clearly.
One of my male bosses – in worn-out jeans, a black jacket and with the makings of a dapper little beard – summarized the appointment procedure in those words a few months later. Several of us had gone to one of Stockholm’s pubs after work – I don’t remember which – and since he had been involved in that procedure he suggested that I might like to accompany him afterwards to his five-roomed flat in upmarket Östermalm, and listen to some of his unique Coltrane recordings. I declined the offer on the grounds that I was not only happily married but also pregnant, and if I’m not much mistaken my place was taken by a jolly, red-haired colleague who had presumably been awarded her contract on the same well-established grounds as me.
Be that as it may, the Monkeyhouse became my workplace. That was what Martin and I used to call the television centre all the years I worked there – just as our name for the university he worked at was Intensive Care, or sometimes the Sandpit. I read the news for several years, was hostess for various unmissable discussion programmes, and then shortly after the turn of the century started working as a producer. I could still speak clearly, but my looks had undergone the subtle change that maturity brings and were no longer considered to be ideal for the screen. As another male boss with a dapper beard explained to me on one occasion.
However, for the whole of my adult life I have grown used to being greeted by people completely unknown to me. In the supermarket, in the street, on the underground. The harsh truth is that half of Sweden recognizes me; and even if it was Martin who dominated those headlines in May and June – I have no wish to take that distinction away from him – no doubt my name and my face played a significant role when it came to assessing the news value.
But I didn’t resign from the Monkeyhouse. I merely applied for a year’s leave of absence – a request that was granted in two minutes without specific comment by Alexander Skarman, who was temporarily in charge of such matters during the summer holidays. It was the middle of July, and hotter than it ought to have been in a house occupied by renowned primates. He stinks of Riesling after his lunch, and comes from an established and loyal media family, although he is by no means a mogul or even especially gifted. He was wearing a linen tunic-shirt and shorts. How times have changed . . . Sandals and filthy feet.
I had not given any motive for my application, nor was that necessary given the circumstances.
‘From the first of September?’ was all he said.
‘I’m on holiday in August,’ I reminded him.
‘You are a very well-known name, you know that.’
I didn’t respond. He suppressed a belch, and signed the form.
Our children, Gunvald and Synn, rang a few times during the summer – not several times, just a few – but it was not until well into August that either of them came to visit us. It was Synn, who flew in for a three-night stay from New York. ‘Are you going to leave Dad now?’ was the first thing she asked me, and in among the mass of repressed emotions in her voice it was the expectation that I heard most clearly. She and Martin had never really got on well together, and I assume that what had happened seemed to her a positive step forward in the hopes she had been harbouring ever since puberty.
But I informed her that I would not be leaving him. I tried not to sound too definite, said something to the effect that time would have to take its course, and then we would see what happened. I think she accepted that. I don’t know if a private conversation took place between father and daughter during the twenty-four hours she spent in our house. Martin said nothing about that in any case, and I’m sure he thought it was a good thing that she didn’t stay any longer.
I haven’t seen Gunvald since last Christmas. The intention was that we would stop over in Copenhagen on our way south and call in on him, but after the Poland business happened that was out of the question. Or perhaps it was not really the intention that we would do that: perhaps there was some sort of agreement between Martin and Gunvald, I sometimes think that is the case. A gentleman’s agreement not to meet face to face, and no doubt that wouldn’t be a bad idea. I have the feeling that in the circumstances it would be in the best interests of our children for us to leave them in peace.
I write us, but I suppose I ought to reduce that to me.
Perhaps leave them in peace for good, come to that – I must admit that is a thought that has become more pressing during the autumn. But quite a lot of thoughts have behaved like that. The difference between a day, a year and a life has shrunk very noticeably.
3
The first morning was grey and chilly.
>
Or at least, it was chilly inside the house. The smell of ingrained mould was very noticeable in the bedroom, but I told myself I was going to learn how to live with it. The house has only two rooms, but they are quite large and the windows in both of them face in the same direction: southwards. That is where the moor begins, and on the other side is a rough and moss-covered stone wall that encloses the plot on three sides. Out on the moor the ground slopes gently down towards a valley that I assume continues all the way to the village – but the dense mist that has settled over the countryside this morning makes it difficult to work out the topography.
Especially when viewed from my pillow. Dawn had barely broken, and neither Castor nor I were particularly keen to fold back the duvet and leave behind the comparative warmth that had built up inside the bed during the night.
Sooner or later, of course, one needs to relieve oneself, and this morning was no exception. Castor normally seems able to last for an eternity without emptying his bladder, but I let him out even so while I crouched shivering on the icy-cold toilet seat. When I had finished and went to let him in, he was standing outside the door looking reproachful, as he does for much of most days. I dried his paws and provided him with food and water in the two pastel-coloured plastic bowls I had found the previous evening under the sink. His usual bowls were still in the car – I hadn’t bothered to unpack in the dark.
Then I put on the kettle with tea in mind, and managed to get a fire burning. The uneasiness that had been bubbling away inside my head gradually dispersed, thanks to the heat and the underlying feeling of well-being that was trying to establish itself, no matter what. A truth much deeper than conventional civilization and modern fads presented itself: if you can keep a fire going, you can keep your life going.
In other respects the house is as devoid of charm as its owner. It provides the rudimentary basics, nothing more. Refrigerator and stove. A sofa, an armchair, a table with three chairs and an old-fashioned desk in front of the window. A rocking chair. Nothing matches. Quite a large picture of ponies out on the moor hangs just to the side of the sofa. A smaller embroidered tapestry with six lop-sided trees looks as if it has been made by a child.