I didn’t realise that it was ladies’ choice until I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and sure enough, there was the black-haired woman in the blue Charleston dress.
‘Would you like to dance?’ she asked me simply.
‘If I can,’ I said, once again feeling Henry’s damned shoe striking my shin. ‘I hope it’s a slow dance.’
Fortunately the band played a tender tune with ‘heart’ and ‘soul’, and the singer’s phrasing had that nasal sound, rolling all his ‘r’s. He had a sort of standard Swedish enunciation, dance-band style, the plainest of dialects. I couldn’t help laughing at his rolled ‘r’s, and the woman I was dancing with asked me what was so damn funny. I explained it to her, but she didn’t find it at all amusing.
But the dancing part was going well. We glided smoothly and easily across the floor, managing to avoid any collisions with a bunch of louts who were romping about, shouting and yelling to each other.
The woman’s name was Bettan, and we leisurely danced five long dances in a row. We were hot and a little sweaty when we went back to our table. Henry was evidently out on the prowl. I asked Bettan if she’d like to sit down for a while, and she said yes. We chatted a little about this and that, and Bettan turned out to be a very pleasant woman. She was single at the moment. She had two children and lived on Dalagatan. Not far from here, she said.
Henry soon returned to the table. He’d been playing roulette and had won, so he promptly offered us drinks. He introduced himself to Bettan with the greatest courtesy, clicking his heels and kissing her hand, and the lady accepted. She wanted a gin fizz.
Henry immediately struck up a conversation with Bettan, like the proper gentleman he was. He found out all sorts of things about her, without appearing to be either curious or indiscreet. Bettan liked Henry too, and it turned out to be a marvellous evening. She danced with both of us – she loved to dance – and she had a stamina that nearly killed us two reasonably fit boxers.
Later in the evening Henry also managed to find a female companion on that sultry autumn night – I couldn’t really see who it was – and Bettan and I were feeling the urge. She had no time for circumlocutions, insinuations or diffident, semi-articulated phrases about sleep and bed and good night. It was straight to the point and full steam ahead:
‘You’re coming home with me now, aren’t you?’ she said, as if a refusal would be unimaginable, an insult.
‘Of course I am,’ I said. ‘I just have to tell Henry.’
My good friend was in the middle of some intense groping with an enormous woman in a sequined dress. I shouted in his ear that I was leaving.
‘Sure,’ he said, giving me a wink. ‘See you in the morning.’
‘Here’s fifty kronor!’ I said, stuffing a banknote in his pocket.
Bettan worked as a secretary for a big company, and she had green fingers. Plants were her hobby, and the whole flat smelled like a jungle in the tropics. It was filled with plants, and she knew the name and price of each of them. I’ve forgotten all the names, but I did learn that plants could be bloody expensive. She claimed that she could sell some of them for several thousand. Maybe she meant the full-grown palms flanking the sofa group in the living room.
‘Would you like anything? Tea or wine, or …?’
‘A cup of tea would be nice,’ I said, following Bettan out to the kitchen.
On the wall was a pinboard with a school lunch schedule tacked up along with addresses and messages for the kids. There was also a picture of some lads that I liked at once. The boys were in their early teens, as punk-looking as they come. One of them had carrot-coloured hair; the other’s was purple. They looked like little trolls.
‘Lovely boys,’ I said.
‘They’re not as bad as they look,’ said Bettan.
‘Do they play in a band?’
‘Of course,’ said Bettan. ‘It’s called The Piglets.’
‘Great name,’ I said. ‘I’d like to see them.’
‘We can look in on them, if you want.’
We opened the door a crack to the punk trolls’ room, and there they lay, sleeping with their bushy purple and carrot-red hair, which stuck out like gauze from their heads. The one with the carrot hair looked almost like an albino, with his pallid skin and pale eyelashes.
‘Could I buy one of them from you?’
Bettan started to laugh and closed the door so as not to wake the trolls.
‘You wouldn’t be able to stand it. You should hear them practising here at home. The only solution is to flee.’
We had tea in the jungle in the living room, and Bettan talked about her plants, or rather to her plants. Then it was time for bed.
‘You’re the youngest lover I’ve ever had,’ said Bettan in the bedroom.
‘Am I a lover?’
‘Of course, what did you think?’ said Bettan, undressing me as if she were my mother.
‘You have sons and lovers,’ I said.
‘I have to, otherwise I couldn’t stand it,’ said Bettan. ‘Just take it easy now.’
‘I promise.’
_______
Henry le charmeur had just shaved – to keep up a proper appearance he had to do it several times a day – when I arrived home on Saturday. The kitchen table was cluttered with the remains of breakfast for two. I poured myself a cup of lukewarm coffee, sank down on a chair and leafed through the newspaper.
‘So how was your night?’ asked Henry during a pause in his merry whistling serenade.
‘Excellent,’ I said. ‘Although there was a hell of a commotion this morning.’
‘Did her old man come home?’
‘Not at all. There isn’t any old man,’ I said.
But it had been a bad morning, all the same. It started when I woke up to a hellish noise when the two punk trolls started practising on electric bass and drums, making the whole building shake. Bettan was already dressed and made-up, alert and lively. She wanted to drag me along into town to do some shopping, but I had such a fucking headache from the punk rock music that I couldn’t even eat breakfast.
‘OK then,’ said Bettan. ‘Just give me a call sometime,’ she said, kissing me on the lips. She wasn’t the least bit sentimental, and I suppose that women of her age don’t have many illusions. That’s just how it was.
‘How about your night?’ I asked Henry.
‘I’m in love again,’ he sang in English, looking starry-eyed and amorous. ‘She’s in the bathroom, putting on her make-up.’
‘I see,’ I said. ‘A Valkyrie?’
‘Yes, sir.’
We didn’t have a chance to exchange any more code words before Henry’s new love appeared in the kitchen. She was a good-sized morsel in the middleweight class, about thirty-seven years old, wearing a long dress with sequins, high-heeled shoes and thick baroque make-up.
‘Hi,’ she said, sticking out her hand. ‘Lola Lilac.’
‘Hi, Lola,’ I said. ‘Nice name you have. My name is Klas.’
‘Hi, you little cutie, ha, ha, ha,’ roared Lola, her voice shrill and sexy, to put it mildly.
Now it looked as if the night’s activities had given Lola and Henry some diffuse sort of telepathic connection, because it took only a single exchange of glances for them to start giggling discreetly at something. I had no clue what it was. They were just like two teenagers who had been necking out in the cloakroom and were now extremely proud of their exploits and wanted everyone to know about it, though they didn’t come right out and say so. Everything was implied, using little gestures and long, pining looks.
But Lola wasn’t one of those overly romantic types, and she came steamrollering into the kitchen to take over.
‘All right, boys,’ she said, pushing Henry away from the sink. ‘I see you’re a couple of typical bachelors,’ she went on as she started gathering up the dishes. ‘I’ll take care of this.’
Lola rushed around the whole kitchen like a white tornado swathed in sequins, scolding Henry and cursing
me for being so messy.
‘Oh, you damn bachelors,’ Lola kept repeating over and over again.
Now and then she would take a break in her important duties to plonk herself down on Henry’s lap and give him a kiss. They sat there cooing like two turtledoves, giggling and pinching each other on the cheek.
‘My little rooster,’ said Lola.
‘My little lambkin,’ said Henry, pinching her flesh, which made the woman jump up with a howl.
All that cooing was making me feel a little sick, so I left them to it. Even though I closed two doors, I could still hear Lola Lilac’s voice echoing from the kitchen as she, filled with meddlesome officiousness, proceeded to give Henry advice and tips on how everything in a household should be handled.
‘Oh yes, you damn bachelors,’ she said over and over again.
After a while there was silence and a couple of doors slammed. They had gone into Henry’s bedroom, and after a few more minutes I once again heard her voice.
‘Ohhh, Hennnryyyy … oh … oh …,’ she cried lasciviously from the bedroom, piercing four doors.
They must have gone at it for a couple of hours, until it was time for Lola to run home. By that time I had ensconced myself in the library to work for a few hours; it was the only way to ease my hangover. But it wasn’t easy while Lola Lilac’s randy panting was thundering through the whole flat, even though I had turned on the radio.
Finally Lola stuck her hairsprayed head in the door and shouted, ‘Toodleoo, cutie’, and disappeared, delighted and satiated by her lover Henry Morgan.
When peace was at last restored, Henry the sybarite came in and said that he was in love, head over heels in love. He even looked younger, in spite of a sleepless night. He was clean-shaven, and the bags under his eyes had paled, erased by Lola’s torrents of kisses.
‘And she has such a beautiful name,’ said Henry. ‘Lola Lilac …’ he repeated a few times, as if tasting the words, reliving the memory of her fleeting kisses. ‘I’m going to write a little song for her,’ said the man in love as he carefully closed the door. ‘A sweet little song’, I heard faintly from the corridor.
I was actually rather sceptical about Henry’s passion. Lola Lilac was a bit too crude, and I assumed this was a matter of a short-lived aberration. Later the man would wake up from his intoxicated state, regretting what he had done, said and promised, and she would be extremely difficult to deal with. Henry Morgan was just that sort of man – it was no surprise.
By noon Henry’s song was finished. It was called ‘Lovely Lola Lilac’, and when I heard the light, breezy melody and the mincing, coquettish lyrics, I had great difficulty picturing the meddlesome middleweight tornado in the long sequinned dress, high heels and thick make-up who only a couple of hours earlier had blown through our flat.
‘Nice tune,’ I said. ‘Very nice tune. Although I wonder if you’re not being a little bit too romantic. Lola seems … to have both feet on the ground, so to speak, like—’
‘Don’t bring me down, Klasa,’ said Henry, sounding disappointed. ‘Why do you always have to bring me down?’
‘I have no intention of bringing you down. Maybe I’m just too hungover.’
Henry draped himself over the grand piano and groaned. He sighed heavily, and I could see that it was already over. Henry had buried his face in his arms resting on the piano, and I could hear him crying, sobbing quietly, in resignation. The keys were wet between C and F.
I sat down on the sofa and sighed too. This was truly a day of fuming and fretting in a hung-over vale of tears.
‘Please forgive me if I was a little insensitive,’ I said. ‘I suppose I should have held back a bit.’
Henry nodded.
‘’Sallright to mmmtend hmmmmwhile …’ he grunted down at the piano.
‘I can’t understand a word you’re saying.’
Henry raised his head and looked out of the window at the dirty grey of Hornsgatan. He turned towards me and tears were running down his cheeks.
‘It’s all right to pretend once in a while,’ he repeated. ‘Surely we’re allowed to pretend once in a while.’
‘Of course,’ I said.
Henry pulled out a newly pressed handkerchief, blew his nose, and then in the middle of it all, he started chuckling.
‘They’re all so ruthless,’ he said, snuffling. ‘They’re all so damned honest and forthright …’
‘Who do you mean?’
‘Lola said that she was married and that she loved her husband and her kids more than anything else on earth. She wasn’t lying – I could tell she wasn’t. No, by God, I’m never going to fall in love again. And by the way, I’m not in love now either. I was just pretending, to see how it felt, you know. It’s been such a long time.’
‘Same here,’ I said. ‘It’s been a fucking long time.’
Henry started plinking at the piano again, significantly more calm and composed, with less feigned delight. It sounded as if Mozart were trying his hand at the blues. Henry was playing much more honestly, and I sank back in the sofa, closed my eyes and listened.
‘I’m in the mood for Maud,’ Henry sang in a low voice. ‘I’m in the mood for Maud,’ he wailed like some genuine black blues singer.
I realised that he was going to be gone for a while. He would take off that very evening. Lola Lilac was merely a reminder of Love.
Another period of diligent work ensued in the sanctuary that we had tried to create in the flat: several hours at the typewriter, a few hours in the passageway and then quiet, chilly autumn evenings in front of the fireplace. I voluntarily kept to my schedule, in spite of the fact that Henry was away visiting Maud for a couple of days.
Now and then I would go down to the passageway to dig. Greger and Birger were on duty but, as I mentioned, they did very little work. Mostly they sat around bickering and drinking dessert wine. Birger was in the middle of a long new poem, and he had a hard time concentrating. Greger had to push the wheelbarrow.
‘A person has to live too,’ said Birger when I came down to the cellar one afternoon. ‘A person has to live even when he’s working, don’t you agree?’
I concurred.
‘Greger is a simple man, you know,’ said Birger as Greger moved off, groaning as he pushed a full wheelbarrow. ‘He’s a bit naïve, but damn pleasant. He’s always willing to help out, you know. Always. But he’s a simple man.’
‘Nobody I’ve ever met has been particularly simple,’ I said.
‘No, that’s true,’ said Birger amicably. ‘Exactly, and that’s what I say in my new poem. “Simplicity is just Maja’s way / of scattering the black marsh / as twilight overtakes the day / and life appears so harsh,”’ Birger read aloud.
‘Neat rhyme,’ I said. ‘Pure Hjalmar Gullberg.’
‘Thanks,’ said Birger, sticking out a grimy hand.
‘Is there any left?’ asked Greger when he came back.
‘Left of what? If it’s dirt you mean, there’s plenty more!’
‘Of the sweet stuff. That’s what I mean,’ said Greger.
Birger poured another glass of dessert wine, and we had a little nip in reverent silence.
‘So, have you made any progress?’ I asked.
‘Dammit, my boy,’ said Birger emphatically, ‘we’ve done more than half a yard this morning alone.’
‘We’ve been working like dogs,’ said Greger. ‘The only problem is that we get so filthy, and it hurts my spine, right here, in the small of my back …’
‘Just listen to him!’ said Birger. ‘It hurts your spine! You’re just putting us on; you’re a damn actor, that’s what you are, Greger! A fucking Garbo!’
And so it was that Birger told me about the time he had spent with Garbo. He claimed, you see, to have lived in the same building at Blekingegatan 32 where Greta Gustafsson once lived. The fair Greta had pushed Birger in his pram during that great year of peace, 1918, and he remembered her perfectly because she was both a bit shy and quite forward all at the same t
ime. Greta took little Birger over to the church, Allhelgonakyrka, and sat down on a bench in the cemetery to lick a lollipop, and the little tyke got to lick it too. Birger had licked the same lollipop as Greta Garbo! Later, of course, he could never recognise his nursemaid in all those films that Hollywood made with the girl from Blekingegatan. She was transformed, ruined, spoiled. There was nothing left of the girl with the lollipop at Allhelgonakyrka. The time is out of joint.
‘But I’ll tell you this,’ said Birger. ‘As soon as we find the gold treasure, someone is going to pop right over to America to pay a visit to Greta! Make no mistake about it. She’ll remember me – she has to.’
‘You’ve been saying that for fifty years now,’ said Greger.
‘All things come to he who waits …’ said Birger.
The guys brushed off the dust and dirt from their clothes and turned over the shift to me, all the while fervently palavering about whether Garbo was recognisable or not up on the cinema screen. Presumably they continued that discussion for the rest of the day.
A few more days passed in this manner, and then Henry came back from his sojourn with Maud. One morning he was suddenly standing in the hallway, nodding and asking me whether there were any letters for him.
‘Just from Hagberg in Borås, I think.’
‘Have you come up with the next move?’
‘I think we’d better do it together.’
Lennart Hagberg in Borås was apparently feeling threatened by that ingenious castling, and generally we could feel quite pleased with our strategy.
‘Leo is going to owe you a big debt of gratitude after such a brilliant game,’ said Henry. ‘Chess is the only thing he has ever mastered in his life.’
_______
It was the All Saints’ Day holiday, and we were supposed to mourn our dead. Or rather: we were supposed to honour our dead, as Henry expressed it.
I’ve never been much of a churchgoer, although I’m very religious, which is a different thing altogether. Henry’s face fell when I told him that I had never been confirmed, had never attended a church service, and that I had also withdrawn my name from the state church. He couldn’t comprehend how anyone could live such a thoroughly secular life. He was no first-rate theologian, but as an arch romantic and eschatologist, he did have some feel for the liturgy. I was in complete agreement that there was a certain emotion to the rituals, but for my part that wasn’t enough.
Gentlemen (Klas Ostergren) (FO8) Page 9