Gentlemen (Klas Ostergren) (FO8)

by Klas Ostergren

  Basically this miracle also had its explanation. Verner Hansson had ended up staying with a family with two teenage daughters, who nearly laughed themselves silly at the sight of the square, pimply Swede who seemed as if he were a hundred years old. Soon they were evidently seized by a hysterical creative zeal, which they directed at poor Verner. Over a period of several hectic days, he underwent a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde treatment like no other. The girls threw the boy into a bathtub and burned his disgusting clothes in a barrel out in the yard. In passing they also saw to it that he lost his virginity. And that did it. Verner Hansson found a new crack in our reality, an opening to another world, known only to those who were select co-conspirators. And there is reason to believe that he devoted an intense amount of attention to this opportunity during his six weeks in Bournemouth, and that the girls got good value for their efforts.

  Of course this Viking Verner brought back a number of records from his conquests in the West. First and foremost, he had Please Please Me by the Beatles, and when that record started playing at full volume down in Verner’s flat, nothing was ever the same again. Mrs Hansson just about had a stroke, of course, and she couldn’t get over the fact that it had cost a small fortune to transform a rather odd but at least conscientious boy into an even odder and not at all conscientious young man. It was in every sense a poor trade.

  But the transformation was both inevitable and contagious. Soon Leo and a good number of other lads from school were also listening to the Beatles, and Verner had even started to smoke – that seemed to go along with his new style of haircut and the ‘boots’ on his feet.

  Naturally Verner’s metamorphosis made a deep impression on Leo, as it did on everyone else who knew him. The young Morgan suddenly started spending entire weekends going back and forth between the radio – he kept trying to tune in to the Top Forty – and the bathroom – where he secretly combed his fringe over his forehead, curving his locks along his eyebrows, and studying himself in the mirror from all directions. One day, completely without warning, he left the bathroom with his fringe combed down. The hair hung over his forehead, and it felt a bit strange but absolutely essential. He would never capitulate. Elvis and Tommy were nothing to Leo. He was of the new school. Pop was now in. The loose stones that would soon become an entire landslide had started to roll.

  ________

  ‘Let’s hand out wings / at every street corner / there is never anyone who dares / to touch the innermost sky’, wrote the poet Leo Morgan, and that was precisely what happened. There was actually an endless number of young souls who dared to touch the innermost air that filled everyone’s lungs with the power to scream. The finely tuned phrases are in fact an expression of a tremendous ecstasy that demanded its tribute in a fringe hanging over their eyes, a black polo-neck, jeans and basketball shoes on which it said ‘BEATLES’. The names ‘BEATLES’ and ‘STONES’ were almost everywhere now, and in the spring of ’64 Leo Morgan placed his herbarium in double plastic bags inside a wardrobe because he no longer wanted to look at it. All that belonged to his childhood, and the former child-star had now become a teenager.

  Henry the clerk found himself in the middle of the hornets’ nest in London, England. He had a job at Smiths & Hamilton Ltd, doing work that Greta and Leo never fully understood. It had something to do with some sort of correspondence. He had also been to Berlin; there he had listened to jazz, seen the dreaded Wall, and God only knew what else the boy had been doing during his year in exile. Greta wondered whether he would be coming home soon, and after several weeks Henry wrote that he was living with a ‘girl’ named Lana, and that he was very fond of the creature. In reality, this Lana was almost as old as Greta and could hardly pass for a ‘girl’, but Henry very deliberately told a lie, just as he had always done in order to reassure those closest to him.

  But, as mentioned, London was the heart from which the new blood was spreading to all the repressed youths in the world who were in the possession of a good-sized weekly allowance. A whole industry had arisen to produce articles that in one way or another could be associated with pop music, the Beatles, and the new way of being. There were shirts, scarves, socks, underwear, posters, books, records and albums intended for worshipping their idols, and Henry sent home a cartload to cheer up his little brother.

  That was how Leo happened to become the proud owner of a Beatles shirt made of orange velvet several months before the craze spread to Sweden. This meant that with one stroke he became something of a desirable quarry for a number of girls with good hunting instincts. And besides, Leo was so sensitive; he wasn’t as tough and cruel as most boys were. Leo wrote poetry, after all, and he never seemed out to get inside. He and Verner started getting invitations to parties, and they went to them. Previously this had never even come under discussion; they preferred to keep to themselves with their clubs and their experiments. But now times had changed. Girls invited them to parties with beer and popcorn and dancing in dark rooms. That was where most of the boys tried to get inside, which meant sticking their hands under the girls’ jumpers, squeezing their breasts, and panting ‘491’ in their ears – everyone was thinking about that scandalous book.

  But Leo wasn’t like that. There was something a bit George Harrison about him. John was the toughest, Paul was the sweetest, George the most romantic, and Ringo was just plain ugly. Leo was most like George, and when he danced a slow dance, such as ‘Love Me Do’, he never tried anything – nor was he a particularly good dancer, and no one had ever seen him do the twist – but he seemed a little more sensitive than all the other boys. And it was this sensitivity that made the girls fight over him. Otherwise a certain delicacy of feeling or modesty can be a disadvantage for a boy, a real impediment, but it wasn’t that way at all, because the very point of the Beatles was that they weren’t as rough as the old rock and roll bands. The Beatles may have looked unkempt and intense on the outside, but inside they were soft and romantic, just like Leo.

  One of Leo’s devoted admirers was named Eva Eld, and that was a name that a poet had to fall for because ‘eld’ means ‘fire’ in Swedish. Eva Eld often gave parties at her house, and since her parents were very well-to-do, they were always quite proper affairs. A number of snobbish guys wore ties, and some of the girls wore long dresses. They danced the foxtrot to the sweetest tunes by the Beatles, and Eva’s mother provided plenty of roast beef and potato salad and lagers and sodas. Leo knew how to wrap this devoted female around his little finger, and he also knew that her father had a well-stocked bar. It didn’t matter if he dragged along Verner and five other young louts; Eva would forgive anything, since she thought she could see through that harsh shell that Leo tried in vain to create for himself. She thought she could tell that he loved her, and in an unguarded moment when she tried to kiss him on the lips, he looked so surprised, as if he hadn’t believed that anyone would ever want to kiss him on the lips. He once asked for her photo, which he put in his wallet, where he had previously kept the autographs of the TV stars Lill-Babs, Lasse Lönndahl and Gunnar Wiklund. These graphological monstrosities had long since disappeared. Eva Eld was better; she reminded him a little of a film-star photo that he had once had. He just couldn’t remember which one.

  He’d had lots of filmstar photos, and Henry had also let him take hundreds from his collection, since he had grown tired of such childish things. They were now all in a box in the attic. Some time during that cruel spring he must have sneaked up to the attic all alone, taken out that particular box, and begun searching for the filmstar who looked so much like Eva Eld. He swiftly and systematically went through the neat stacks of twenty-five photos each, held together by two elastic bands that crossed in the middle. Doris Day, Esther Williams, Ulla Jacobsson, Tyrone Power, Tony Curtis, Robert Taylor, Clark Gable, Catarina Valente, Alan Ladd, Brigitte Bardot, Humphrey Bogart, Scott Brady, Sophia Loren, James Dean, Burt Lancaster, Kim Novak, Gregory Peck, Pat Boone, Tommy & Elvis, Ingo & Floyd – all those extraordinary names fluttered past, rem
inding him of the first spring days when the snow had melted from the pavements, leaving behind a slew of sand that steamed and smelled in a very special way. And in the midst of that steam stood all the kids, trading filmstar photos, skipping rope, playing hopscotch and twirling hula-hoops that they’d bought at Epa. That was all so outmoded and uninteresting now. This spring smelled very different. It smelled of cigarette smoke and perfume. And her name was Rosemary Clooney, by the way, that filmstar who looked so much like Eva Eld.

  THE CLERK

  (Henry Morgan, 1964–65)

  Be my Boswell!’ was a standing exhortation from Henry Morgan, and a writer isn’t about to say no to a couple of good yarns handed to him totally free. As anyone can see, Henry’s path to Paris presented various obstacles and obscure delays, in some cases just beyond the outermost limits of reason. But it was also obvious that sooner or later he would end up in London, Dr Johnson’s own city, where every master of the art of conversation ought to quench his thirst and wet his whistle. The story about Henry the clerk starts some time near the end of 1963.

  Mrs Dolan never knocked on the door – she kicked at it with her shoe because she was always carrying two or three breakfast trays on top of each other, and she didn’t have a free hand. But then she never had any hands free, because Mr Dolan was an unusually lazy boarding-house manager. He had adopted Andy Capp as his household god, and even though he did get up early in the morning, it was only to sink into an easy chair in front of the TV in the lounge.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Morgan,’ said Mrs Dolan. ‘What kind of a world is it that you young people are taking over from us?’ she asked with a sigh. ‘Now they’ve murdered the murderer too. But I suppose it’s just as well. He didn’t look very bright, that young Oswald.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Henry, sleepily.

  ‘Have a nice breakfast, Mr Morgan.’

  Mrs Dolan vanished as quickly as she had appeared. She was the talkative type, but she never intruded unnecessarily. Henry liked the woman, and the favourable feeling was mutual. By now she had allowed him to move upstairs to one of the best rooms. It was on the top floor of the building with a view over the rooftops, and you could just catch a glimpse of some of the trees in Hyde Park if you stood on the windowsill and craned your neck. Henry had tried it.

  He’d been in London for a couple of weeks now. He’d started looking for a job but hadn’t found anything yet. He had quite a bit of the money left that the one-armed Franz had given him in Berlin. Although it felt rather like blood money that he hadn’t earned. It was dirty goods.

  His stay in Berlin as Henry the secret agent, alias Bill Yard, as well as his departure had been chaotic, to say the least. He had followed the astonishing advice from W.S. and run off, high-tailing it out of there. He didn’t understand any of it, nor did he want to. He had even tossed Verena Musgrave’s silhouette into the canal. It was one of those rare times when Henry admitted to fearing for his life. He couldn’t imagine going back to Copenhagen, returning as a huge failure and fool because he wouldn’t be able to explain something that was inexplicable. Occultism and rhinoplasty were not Bill Yard’s strong suit.

  So he took the first train he could get out of town, which happened to be the London express. He had exchanged his money for British currency and ended up with a good five hundred pounds, which would last him quite a while. But Mr Morgan was an enterprising young man of twenty-one, and he had no desire to rest on his laurels. He wanted to find a job, to do something. He had grown restless; he was tired of being a tourist or lying around with his hands clasped behind his head and whistling monotonous tunes with his eyes fixed on the hotel ceiling.

  On this particular morning he gobbled down his breakfast and then put on the roomy white coat he had bought in a second-hand shop in Kensington. He carried the breakfast tray downstairs to Mrs Dolan in the kitchen. She thanked him for his help. She said that Mr Morgan was the most courteous guest she’d ever had since the Norwegian, who had arrived just after the war. In her eyes all Scandinavians were Dag Hammarskjöld heroes to a greater or lesser degree. She felt sorry for all the Scandinavians. The Danes and the Norwegians had been occupied by Hitler, and the Finns had the Russians at their backs, while the Swedes still looked so woeful.

  ‘Someone must have done harm to your people some time in the past,’ said Mrs Dolan. ‘That’s why you all look so melancholy. But not you, of course, Mr Morgan. You don’t look a bit woeful. You have a glint in your eye, and soon you’ll find a job too. It will work out, it will all work out.’

  ________

  An unreal city. The yellow smoke crept through the alleyways, rubbing its back against the windowpanes, and under the brown fog of a winter dawn, a crowd flowed over London Bridge …

  He spent over a year there, and I have no intention of recounting all the football matches Bobby Charlton played that he saw, or all the solitary walks he took along the Thames as the fog swept its barges across the water and the rain quietly sighed above the pavements and he slipped into pubs to warm up with a Guinness and a whisky, which was precisely what someone absolutely should be doing if he’s a hero in London and also in a novel at the same time.

  And of course there’s time for all that yellow smoke that crept along the alleyways, and of course there’s room for the right man at the right time to walk into a pub and talk about life and death and all that yellow smoke. Henry entered a pub long after Kennedy was shot and missed the broadcast on TV – that alone was some feat – and it went just as badly with Oswald. But Henry picked up everything in a matter of seconds, and he was instantly engaged in a discussion about the CIA and Kennedy and Cuba and Khrushchev. And the lads in the pub might very well have taken this tie-wearing Swede for a cabinet minister or at the very least a dry academic with political science as his speciality.

  Henry’s unique ability to talk the shirt right off anyone he happened to speak to meant that he obtained permission to work in London and that he was hired for a great job in an office where he was supposed to handle the correspondence with Scandinavia. The Englishmen came and went as they pleased at the offices of Smiths & Hamilton Ltd, which was in the paper business, primarily from Finland and Sweden. And that suited Henry just fine. On top of everything, there were at least half a dozen girls that were easy on the eyes at S&H Ltd.

  And there wasn’t really much to do each day. The correspondence flowed as quietly as the Don, and Henry would do a little here or there, depending on how the spirit moved him. The bosses thought he was a real find who had learned the business very quickly. They slapped him on the back, promising gold and riches, provided he did his best to learn a bit more. But Henry didn’t have all those ambitions that bosses in general are looking for. This was merely a way station, a stop on the road to Paris.

  ________

  But London was Swinging London, and during the spring of 1964, when Cassius Clay became the world champion in boxing, the Beatles became world champions in their own right. All of London, Great Britain, and the entire world went Beatles-crazy. ‘She Loves You’ was spinning in every jukebox, and A Hard Day’s Night was playing at the cinema, a film that Henry the clerk found rather superficial. The whole pop scene was rather superficial. Although he couldn’t resist sending home a couple of records and some accessories that Leo ought to like. There were T-shirts and posters with pictures of John, Paul, George and Ringo. And Henry wondered how tall Leo was now, whether he had grown at all. Sometimes he longed for home so damned much. It was especially hard on various holidays, but that was never any reason for him to fail to observe the Sabbath. Henry always observed the Sabbath and even the most minor of holidays marked on the calendar by resting, eating and longing.

  He didn’t have much time for pop. Henry was a jazz pianist and, like a number of other jazz fans who were a bit frightened and desperate, he would sit in the cellars, listening and following wherever the avant-garde led. The crowds in the jazz clubs were getting smaller and smaller, and Henry could already see that in
a strange way he was out of step with the times. Henry Morgan had been passed by; he was actually the least modern person imaginable. When people of his age began heading for Carnaby Street to clothe themselves in the garments of pop, Henry Morgan was still walking around wearing his old tweed jacket – well, he did buy himself a new one in London – and his pullover and tie. The girls at the office nagged him about loosening up a bit, telling him it was definitely old hat to go around looking the way he did, but they had no effect on him.

  Henry was and would always be a cheerful outsider. Through the efforts of Colin Wilson, an outsider had become a type that was ‘in’ among intellectuals and jazz musicians, and an outsider could definitely not be cheerful. He was someone who brooded and never really managed to fit in; he was shoved aside, he kept his distance, and if things got really bad, he might end up so far on the periphery that he would take his own life, just like the former pianist in the Bear Quartet had done. He was a true outsider.

  But this whole European odyssey that Henry was on had nothing to do with searching for something or trying to find out the true meaning of life and existence, as the deep-thinkers with Sartre would have said. Henry wasn’t looking for anything; he was fleeing from something. But even his flight soon came to an end. In London he had practically forgotten that he was a deserter and Maud’s eternal lover. In short, he had taught himself how to live, and he was so damn curious about everything that he kept on going. He wanted to see more, to see so much that he couldn’t take in another thing. He wanted to see, hear, smell, taste and burn up everything in his path. That was why so many perceived him to be a uniquely bold young man who at any time might become a hero, given the proper situation. They were wrong. Henry was merely like Runeberg’s Sven Dufva character, endowed with an unquenchable thirst and appetite for life.