‘What exactly do you mean?’
‘I don’t know you,’ said Leo. ‘I don’t know how you function. We’ve never really talked to each other.’
‘You’re never home. So that’s not so strange.’
‘You’re scared of me because I was locked up in a loony bin.’
‘I’m not the least bit scared of you. I’ve told you that before,’ I said.
Leo muttered something into his food and poured two more shots of aquavit.
‘There’s something funny about the vibes in here. Have you noticed it?’ said Leo. ‘You’re always defending yourself and Henry. Haven’t you noticed that?’
‘What is it I’m defending us from?’
‘Hell if I know, but you are.’
‘If that’s the case, it damn well isn’t my fault, is it?!’ I said. ‘You come here dead drunk, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but you should bloody well make a little effort. We’ve been cleaning and fixing things up for several days now just to make things a little more bearable. We were actually counting on you.’
‘So let’s drink a toast, then,’ said Leo with exaggerated heartiness.
We drank the aquavit in one gulp and I washed it down with a lager. Leo savoured the taste of the aquavit for a long time.
‘I don’t want you to think that I’m trying to spoil things. It’s just that I can’t stand all this fucking grandeur,’ said Leo. ‘Henry tries to be so fucking grand and clever, and you try to be so fucking grand and clever. I don’t like it.’
‘What do you mean by “grand”?’
‘You sit here on your arse and write all day long like a good little boy. You should go out instead! Go out and have a look around this city. Go out and check out the people who are walking around on this street. Check out their faces and you’ll see what’s going on!’
Leo lit a cigarette and dropped the match in the butter, then he instantly picked it up and scraped off the soot with a knife. At the moment I had nothing to say.
‘Don’t you see what’s going on?!’ he repeated. ‘What the hell it is they’re doing? The newspapers write about some fucking thing called assisted dying. You’re allowed to take your own life just because you’re old; all you have to do is sign a paper. What’s that all about?!’
‘Calm down, Leo. You don’t have to shout.’
‘I am calm, dammit. You’re just scared of me because I was locked up in a loony bin.’
‘I’m not the least bit scared of you.’
‘OK, I’m sorry. It wasn’t my intention to come here and bring you down.’
‘I’m not down,’ I said. ‘But you don’t have to be so fucking aggressive all the time. It seems like you feel threatened.’
Leo snorted again, apparently trying to look superior.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘I’m just spoiling things by being here.’
‘No, you’re not at all. Why don’t you lie down for a while and get some sleep?’
Leo snorted or sneered or just made some sort of noise. He got up from the table and left. I called after him but got no response. I was furious because he seemed to detest me.
After dinner and the argument with Leo, I went to the library to work for a couple of hours, before it was time for the Christmas show on TV. I spent a long time on how Kalle Montanus, Olle’s lad from the country, lay on a bench in a kitchen in a building scheduled for demolition in the Järnet district, down by Erstagatan. Kalle had participated in the whole occupation of Mullvaden and was one of the last ones left. It was now December and very cold, and I re-read the scene in Strindberg’s book in which the older Montanus lay up there in Sellén’s atelier and froze and the floorboards had been used for firewood, and he was reading about food, about mayonnaise, and trying to sleep, but he couldn’t sleep, and he thought about killing himself since it was so damn cold. I tried to imagine how his son would look in today’s clothes, and I started describing his face, his posture, his personal charm and appearance, and I thought I had captured the character quite accurately when, to my great disappointment and horror, I discovered that it was actually Leo I was describing. I was furious again, and I crumpled up the worthless character -sketch and flung it into the wastepaper basket. At that moment the front door slammed, and I went out to the hallway to see what was going on.
Henry lay in the middle of the floor under a mountain of bags, boxes and packages, crowned by an enormous Christmas tree. I heard a heavy panting coming from somewhere under a new Christmas-tree stand, and I dug out my friend, only to find him dead drunk. I then learned, amid a copious flood of implausible excuses and pretexts, that Henry was on friendly terms with at least a dozen Christmas-tree sellers, each of whom had a thermos of glögg, and it was a tradition for him to go around and visit these comrades in his search for the most beautiful coniferous evergreen, otherwise known as a Christmas tree. And obviously that sort of fastidiousness takes its toll.
________
The morning glittered exactly the way it’s supposed to glitter for Christmas Eve, and when I got up Henry was already awake. He had lit the candles on the tree, which we had decorated during the night amid fierce discussion. The flat was fragrant with the smell of resin from the forest and coffee from the kitchen. Henry had made breakfast and was sitting there enjoying his solitude with all the little doors on the Advent calendar now open and the candles blazing full blast.
‘Merry Christmas, young man,’ said Henry.
‘Merry Christmas,’ I said, and we shook hands.
The fire in the kitchen stove was crackling and sparking, and it was quite warm even though frost roses were clinging to the windowpanes.
‘Have you seen the tree?’ asked Henry after I’d poured myself some coffee and sat down at the kitchen table with the morning paper.
‘Of course. It’s magnificent,’ I said.
Henry cleared his throat and looked a bit downhearted.
‘I think you’d better have another look,’ he said.
I could sense that something was up, and so as not to disappoint the Christmas elf I went back to the sitting room to admire the grandeur. There was a traditional straw goat standing under the tree, and on either side of the goat was a present. I sighed, feeling rather flattered, and kicked myself for not buying a Christmas gift for Henry. We had made a gentleman’s agreement not to do so, but I should have known that he could never keep his side of the bargain.
One of the presents was for Leo, and the other was for me. There was a note on each of them with a rhymed verse, signed ‘Birger’s Timely Rhymes’ because the wordsmith down at the Furniture Man had opened a verse workshop that was open every day up until Christmas Eve. It had turned out to be a big hit. People would bring their gifts over to Birger, and then he would slap together a verse for ten kronor, one after the other. He made a ton of money, tax-free. Henry had probably been given a discount, since the verse on my present was not particularly high-class.
When the cold grips the poet’s arm
Something is needed to keep it warm
But he has no girlfriend, he has to admit
So he’ll have to settle for something that’s knit.
Birger’s Timely Rhymes ’78.
Even so, I was moved. And I went back to the kitchen with the present to shake hands with a wide-eyed Henry. I opened the gift. It was a dark brown Higgins cardigan made of good-quality cashmere.
‘You can exchange it if it doesn’t fit, but it’s a good colour for your jackets,’ said Henry.
‘This is too much, Henry, way too much. And you know we said that …’
‘But I wanted to buy you something. I was feeling generous yesterday.’
I put on my Higgins cardigan, and it fit perfectly.
‘It’s just perfect,’ I said, standing in front of the mirror in the hallway. ‘It’s just what I needed.’
‘And that kind of sweater is really warm, believe me,’ said Henry. ‘You can wear it when you’re writing.’
�
��It fits like it was custom-made.’
Henry was pleased with my response, and I wore my new, warm Higgins cardigan all day long. I had a strong feeling that he had put a certain amount of calculation into that Christmas present. When I was growing up we always opened our presents in the evening on Christmas Eve, and when we were really small – so small that only our impatience was big – we used to get an ‘appetiser’ present in the morning that would keep us occupied until the evening. Now it was just the reverse – I had a whole day to produce something to give him in return. And that was probably exactly what Henry had counted on.
Consequently, I went out that morning ‘to buy cigarettes’, which is what people say in this situation. I went down to the NK department store and pushed my way through the chaos of stressed men who at the last minute were emptying their bank accounts. I had very little money left so I opened an account. After various checks and controls I was given a fifty-kronor bonus from heaven. In the men’s department on the ground floor I caught sight of a very sophisticated tie with jazz patterns from Yves Saint-Laurent, Paris. It was a subdued, austere, restrained affair, burgundy with tiny beige musical notes at the tip and several bars of music above, scattered here and there.
‘A very elegant tie,’ said the clerk. ‘Is it for your father, brother, brother-in-law …?’ she went on, making a cute sucking sound through her teeth as she surveyed the sea of shoppers with that type of superior expression that only truly haughty and pompous shop clerks can muster.
‘It’s for a good friend,’ I said.
With the gestures of a conjurer – it looked as if the clerk nonchalantly tossed the noose up in the air – she produced what looked like an ordinary knot, to make the tie even more distinctive. It was undeniably stylish, and I asked the price.
‘Two hundred and twenty-five,’ the clerk said tersely, and again made that cute whistling sound through her teeth.
I decided on the Yves and received an elegant package, in exactly the right shape for a gentleman in his prime. Then I headed home through the city, stopping for a glass of glögg at Stortorget. And I was back just in time for Donald Duck’s Christmas Cavalcade.
________
That evening, after a snack of glögg and nuts while watching Donald Duck’s Christmas Cavalcade, we set the table for three in the dining room. It looked very festive and the room was fragrant with hyacinths. Leo still hadn’t put in an appearance, and Henry replied evasively when I asked him where his brother was.
‘If he shows up, he shows up,’ said Henry with a shrug.
In any case, we set the table with everything we had to offer, which turned out to be a great deal. Henry had made his own herring salad, which was better than anyone’s mother could make. We were quite hungry and valiantly launched into the food. Henry sang a few silly songs, but after a couple of toasts we began casting uneasy glances at the empty plate which, in its own way, was spoiling the symmetry.
‘I know what to do,’ said Henry in mid-bite, nodding at the empty plate.
He went out to the kitchen, opened the window facing the courtyard, and called for Spinks. To our great surprise, we saw something black and lithe actually come slinking across the snow-covered roof. Spinks hadn’t been seen for days, just like Leo. The cat rubbed happily against our legs, purring like a threshing mill. He seemed in good shape.
‘God only knows how he survives, this guy,’ said Henry as he carried the cat into the dining room.
The third plate was now delegated to Spinks. He sampled nearly everything and ate with good appetite. He seemed to share our opinion that the herring salad was one of the best dishes of the year. Henry le chef de la cuisine had doubts about the ham; it was a bit too watery for his taste. Otherwise it was a most successful dinner.
Afterwards we sat down in the armchairs in front of the fireplace with coffee and cognac to digest the food. Henry seemed a little depressed and pensive, as if something didn’t quite add up. At first I surmised that it had to do with Leo, but then I happened to think about the Christmas present I had for Henry. I went to get the very subdued package from NK, and handed him the gift with a recited verse: ‘Here’s something for you from Paris / to hang yourself with in a crisis.’
With great curiosity, Henry eagerly tore off the paper, blushing bright red at my thoughtfulness. The tie suited him to a T. He immediately went out to change ties, making a perfect Duke of Windsor knot, and then he came back, beaming like the sun. The bars of music, the little beige musical notes at the tip, and the burgundy colour were just what he needed.
‘What a little rascal you are,’ he said. ‘Going out to buy cigarettes! Ha! And I actually believed you!’
After that everything went much more smoothly. We lit a fire in the fireplace, drank our coffee and cognac, and of course listened to ‘Silent Night’, with Jussi Björling on an old, worn-out 78 from his grandfather Morgonstjärna’s collection. The crackling and popping just made the music seem even more solemn. And naturally we ended up feeling quite sentimental and weepy. I talked about my childhood and realised that the Christmas tree was actually the only kind of tree that I could identify in the forest. I was a real city boy; the only time I ever went to the woods was when my sister and I went out in the country to steal a Christmas tree.
Henry sighed and groaned at the way the youth of today was going downhill, and he told me long stories about all the Christmas holidays he had celebrated in exile when he was Henry the clerk in London, Heinrich der Barmeister und Schloßdiener in the Alps, and Henri le boulevardier in Paris. Those were the days.
________
Celebrating the holiday was fun for about two days; after that the time started to drag. Sleeping late in the morning, eating, digesting and absentmindedly reading a few classics for more than two days is never a good idea, especially because Henry ‘in his old age’ had discovered Don Quixote and he kept insisting on reading aloud from particularly brilliant passages. We quickly began to get on each other’s nerves, and by the second day we decided to put an end to the Sabbath. It was time to pin up the daily schedule again; we were going to make it through the long and demanding holiday by working.
We went downstairs to scratch around in Greger’s Grotto for a couple of days, just to see if there might be more finds in the detritus and sediment near the western portal. The strange cup that turned shiny when we scraped through the layers down to the metal had lost its lustre. And without broaching the subject in so many words, both Henry and I had realised that its gold content probably wasn’t very high. So he didn’t dare take it to an expert to find out the true value. That’s how I interpreted the situation, although Henry claimed that the reason he didn’t dare do it was because it would create such a stir. People would want to know where they had found the cup, and then we’d have a bunch of nosy journalists after us. And that would be the end of the whole operation.
In any case, we didn’t find any more items, so we went back to other activities. Henry was polishing up ‘Europa, Disintegrating Fragments’, and I was working on The Red Room.
Some time during the days between Christmas and New Year the Prodigal Son returned home. He had a terrible cold. He said that he had celebrated Christmas with some old pals in a cabin out on Värmdö and, aside from the cold, he seemed to have made it through just fine. Henry had a hard time hiding his delight – though for the sake of pride he did try to hide it – and he gave Leo the Christmas present that was still waiting under the tree for him. It was a Higgins cardigan identical to the one I had been given, and Leo accepted the garment amid a great deal of sniffing and coughing and put it on. He seemed very pleased. Then he decided to go to bed, and as soon as he was under the covers, Henry started plying him with hot toddies, a liquid crystal thermometer and comforts such as Spiderman, Superman and other comic books. Suddenly everything was exactly the way it had been before.
But the joy was short-lived. Soon Leo’s cold had spread to everyone in the flat. And this wasn’t some ordinary cold; it
was undoubtedly some awful Asian or Soviet flu. Anyway, it was the worst cold I’ve ever had. By the end of December all three of us were in bed wearing caps, socks and long underwear, surrounded by hot-water bottles, rolls of paper towels, aspirin and jars of Nivea. Occasionally one of us would muster the energy to get up and make tea and a few sandwiches with Christmas sausage and hot mustard, which we couldn’t taste at all, only to collapse back in bed, exhausted.
That was the worst New Year’s Eve of my life. Just before midnight Henry mobilised all his strength to haul himself out of bed in order to mark the occasion by at least being on his feet. He had lined up three stainless steel basins containing Scholl footbath salts next to the window in the sitting room facing the street. He had lit a fire and some candles and brought out a bottle of Opera champagne. He insisted that we too should drag ourselves out of bed to keep him company.
So we lined up three chairs and sat there, each of us with his respective steaming footbath, which wasn’t such a bad idea. At the stroke of twelve the corks and the rockets sketched their pyrotechnic parabolas through the muffled sphere of the winter night. The bubbly seemed absolutely tasteless. I nearly had a heart attack, Leo felt guilty for bringing the illness into the house and Henry tried to smooth over everything.
‘We would have got sick anyway,’ he croaked. ‘This kind of flu always gets you, sooner or later.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ I said, trying to sound chipper.
‘Happy New Year, boys,’ said Henry with a sneeze.
We clinked glasses and splashed our feet in the footbaths, and for a brief time it felt as if the rockets outside in the winter sky, the ringing of the bells and our own disastrous condition had brought us together like three real brothers.
Naturally Henry, at that solemn moment as the New Year was so fatefully rung in, felt obliged to hold some sort of New Year’s speech. He spoke in an incoherent, slurred voice about the times, saying that we were approaching a new decade that would be a good one for all of us. Leo would become a poet again, I would reach the pinnacle of my creative ability and he himself would find success as a composer. If only there would be peace on earth, we had nothing to fear. It was a worthy wish, and we drank another toast.
Gentlemen (Klas Ostergren) (FO8) Page 44