Good Night, My Darling

by Inger Frimansson

She splashed a little, pretending to swim.

  “We’ll give you some food. What do fish eat?”

  “They eat… worms.”

  Something happened with Justine, she stood straight up like a rod in the barrel and her eyes were wide open.

  “No worms! I’m not that kind of fish! I only eat leaves!”

  “Be quiet,” I said. “Fish don’t talk.”

  We pulled some leaves from the bushes and rained them down on Justine in the rain barrel. She calmed down. Her hair was wet, and her teeth were starting to chatter.

  I don’t know what came over me, what was going on with me; I was just a child, seven years old. I saw the hose hanging next to the wall of the house; I unrolled it and turned on the faucet.

  “You’re going to get more water in your aquarium,” I said to Justine and she began to jump up and down and protest.

  I’ve thought about it since then. I really wanted to see her with water up to her chin, yes even to her mouth and nose. I knew she could drown, but that was something that didn’t affect me. Or rather, it would be interesting to see how that could happen. When people drowned. I pulled the hose to the edge of the rain barrel and began to spray water into it.

  First she screamed and flailed around wildly. I couldn’t stop myself from spraying her right on the head. Water streamed down her face and into the edges of her mouth. Afterwards I thought it must have been really cold. Now the water was up to her chin.

  Jill said, “You should turn off the water.”

  It was almost as if I couldn’t help myself.

  “Turn it off, Berit! Turn it off!”

  When I didn’t react, she went and turned it off herself. Justine was so cold she was shivering violently.

  I walked around a while, thinking. Then I took a stick from the ground.

  I held it a bit over the edge.

  “Look! I’m fishing!”

  Jill ran and got a stick, too.

  “Who’ll get a bite?” I called out. “Who will get a bite first?”

  Maybe I thought that she would grab the sticks and we could pull her out and she could get her clothes back on. But she didn’t do it. She stood there in the barrel and howled. I hit her with the stick, right over one of her ears. Jill looked at me, and then she did the same thing.

  If she only would have cried.

  Then I remember that we heard footsteps on the gravel, and Jill and I threw away the sticks and ran. Good Lord, how we ran, down the hill which is now the meadow of remembrance for those who have been cremated, out the gate and into the forest to the right, and then we threw ourselves into the moss. I don’t think we thought so much about Justine, how she was doing, if we had hurt her. The only thing we were worried about was that she might tattle, that we would get caught.

  She couldn’t sleep. The lit clock on the wall showed it was twelve-thirty. Tor was lying with his face toward her; he was snoring slightly and audibly. She got up. There must be some sleeping pills in the cabinet, once she had received a prescription for Sobril when her nerves were acting up, but she’d never opened the package. Yes, there it was. Maybe the medicine was too old; she couldn’t read the date without her glasses. She popped a few of the small white tablets into her mouth and swallowed them with a bit of water she poured into her toothbrush mug.

  Chapter THIRTEEN

  Hans Peter’s apartment was on Fyrspannsgatan with a view over the cemetery. On All Saints Day, he usually lit two candles and placed them in the living room window. He would stand still for a minute. Outside, the grave votives shone their solemn light. It was the only time of the year that the cemetery parking lot was full. Cars were even parked along Sandviksvägen.

  At that time, with darkness like a cape over city and countryside, it was natural that he thought about his sister. She would have been thirty-eight years old now, probably a happy mother of two children and maybe a preschool teacher or the owner of an organic food store. This was how he imagined her. She and her husband would most likely have a single family house in Stuvsta, near their parents. Oh, his mother would have been happy.

  This morning he woke from the light and the sound of a snowplow driving back and forth, clearing the sidewalks. An ache, almost a real pain, was situated behind his temples. He hadn’t been able to sleep when he came home at five in the morning; he dozed a bit, dreamed strange and sick dreams. What was the time now? Ten-thirty. Might as well get dressed.

  Snow lay over the cemetery like a thick layer of whipped cream. Hans Peter prepared some coffee and made some sandwiches with ham and sliced tomatoes sprinkled with salt and black pepper. Sat at the kitchen table, flipped through the newspaper, Dagens Nyheter.

  Today there was quite a bit about a woman who was going to be executed in Texas. She was called Karla Faye Tucker and she was condemned to death. She was just as old as his sister would have been. Karla Faye Tucker had thick hair and beautiful calm eyes. The article stated that she had been saved and converted. Even the Pope had asked for clemency, but that probably wouldn’t happen. Probably she’d be tied to the stretcher in the death chamber at one in the morning, right when he was sitting behind the reception desk. An executioner would search for the vein in her arm and then, once he found it, inject the deadly liquid.

  You only have one life, and you do with it what you will, he thought. Karla Faye Tucker didn’t understand that until it was too late.

  He still felt down. This happened a few times a year, not a real depression. He imagined that a real depression would be heavier, deeper, more difficult. No, it was a certain kind of weariness. Weary of the rhythm of the days, the standardization of everything.

  Maybe a long walk would help him get into a better mood. He put on his lined winter boots and his parka, which he once received as a birthday present from Liv. It was still around even though the birthday had been a long time ago. It wasn’t all that warm, but it kept out the wind, and if you put on a sweater underneath it, you didn’t freeze at all. He usually sprayed waterproofing on it each time he washed it, and he imagined that it helped.

  Right when he was about to leave, the phone rang.

  It was his mother. He said that he was about to go, anything important, could he call back?

  “It’s your father’s birthday today, Hans Peter.”

  “Oh hell. Of course!”

  “You hadn’t forgotten it?”

  “There’s been so much going on at work. Yes, I totally forgot.”

  “You don’t have all that many relatives to forget.”

  That burned him.

  “I know! I just forgot! It was unforgivable.”

  “He went out early to look for the mail.”

  “Stop it now, Mamma.”

  “Are you coming by for a visit this weekend? We can have a birthday dinner then. If you have time, that is.”

  “Yes, yes, yes, of course. I’ll come.”

  He walked between the bus stops on Sandviksvägen and turned to the left at the gold kiosk. The snow made it difficult to get by in certain places. The cars crept along. The snowplows were out in force, pushing away the snow and sanding the street. He saw a young mail carrier fly past on his heavily burdened bicycle and remembered when he himself had worked delivering mail. Nice that job was over. He was too old for that kind of thing now.

  He would soon be too old for everything.

  He passed by the hill toward the General Bathhouse, which today looked nothing at all like a bathhouse. The snow covered the sand and the piers and lay over the ice so thickly that you could not even see the edge of the beach. It was still snowing, but not too much; it didn’t have the small white flakes that whirled into your eyes and gave you a headache. At least, they didn’t make his headache worse. He pulled his cap further down and followed the beach path toward Riddersvik.

  It would be nice to live here, in one of the row houses with their fantastic views of the lake. But of course, they cost an arm and a leg. And he was a single man. Sometimes he thought about finding an apartm
ent in the middle of Stockholm instead, but he liked nature; he was not really a city person. This was a combination which suited him fine.

  A few years ago, a boardwalk was built along the side of the hill and out over the water like a balcony. It made a short cut to Riddersvik and Tempeludden. He felt closer to nature out here, close to the large willows. When the lake froze, large groups of long-distance skaters came gliding all the way from Enköping or places even farther away. He wondered whether the ice was strong enough to hold, but didn’t see any human tracks, just light paw prints from smaller animals. The bushes had frozen; drowned in snow and ice, they looked like large coral chunks. He leaned out above the edge and observed them. He should have brought his little camera. Why did he never think of taking photos in the middle of winter?

  He heard a sound and saw a woman coming with a large black dog, walking over the bridge path. The dog was strong and she had great difficulty holding on to it. Its shaggy nose was speckled with snow, and the sight was so funny, he couldn’t help smiling.

  Then she stopped, pushed some hair back under her hat. Her face was red and she didn’t wear make-up; her jacket was bright yellow.

  “Nice dog,” he said, but he didn’t know whether he should dare pet it.

  “Yeah,” she said. “It’s my daughter’s.”

  “You going out with him, or is he going out with you?”

  “You could wonder which,” she laughed.

  She pulled the leash and said something which sounded like Freya.

  “Is she named Freya? Like the radio program?”

  “No, her name is Feja. And usually she’s not so stubborn. Just with me… my daughter and her husband are teaching it to be a rescue dog.”

  “Rescuing what, then?”

  “Well…,” she said evasively, “people who’ve gone missing or gotten trapped in a fallen house. Things like that.”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  “But she’s still fairly young, three years old.”

  “Is she a Schnauzer?”

  “Yeah, a Great Schnauzer. She’s in heat now; that’s why she has difficulty listening. But we have to go now. Come, Feya!”

  He stood there and watched them disappear over the hill.

  For the umpteenth time, he thought he should have had a dog.

  If only he had one. Then the two hounds would sniff each other for a while, in the butt, as dogs do; and then he would have continued his walk, just as he was doing now. Up on the right was Ridderviks garden and beneath the hill were all the garden plots; he would have let Bella run loose precisely here. She would have rushed up and down the hill like crazy and rolled around in the snow. Maybe he would have had a stick to throw for her.

  He trudged up the hill where the unusual pavilion stood with its pillars like a temple from a story in Arabian Nights. Black iron railings closed it to pedestrians; they sang like an orchestra when the wind from Lake Mälar whipped through them. It sounded pretty and somewhat desolate. A heavy hook hung from the middle of the ceiling. He wondered if someone had hanged himself there, he could almost see a dangling, swinging body.

  He found her a bit down the hill. She was half lying behind a large tree trunk, and afterwards he thought that if he had had a dog with him, the dog would have sniffed her out at once. As it was, he nearly overlooked her.

  She lay against the trunk of the tree and snow was falling over her. She had brushed it away as long as she could, but now her arms were down on the ground and her head hung to the side.

  His first thought was that she was dead. He stooped close to her and gently touched her chin. It was cold, but she was breathing. Then he placed her on the ground and lifted her legs, thinking this is what you do with people who have fainted.

  A second later, she made a noise and opened her eyes. Her face was as white as the snow around her.

  “Oh, you’re alive, thank God!” he cried, and fell on his knees next to her. She smacked her lips, made some swallowing sounds.

  “You must have fainted. I found you sitting here by the tree trunk.”

  “I was running…,” she said roughly, and then he saw that she was wearing jogging shoes and some kind of jogging suit.

  “What happened? You must have fallen.”

  Now she tried to sit up, and he took her arms and helped her.

  “Take it easy so that you don’t fall down again.”

  She yelped and grabbed her left foot. Lifted herself up with difficulty, holding on to his parka the whole time.

  “It’s my foot… I remember now, it just gave out on me.”

  “Can it hold you?”

  “No, not really…”

  “Maybe you sprained it.”

  “I have an old injury there. That foot often gives out; I should have thought of that.”

  “You’ll have to go to the hospital.”

  “No, it’s enough if you get me home.”

  She was his age, maybe somewhat older. Her voice was light and girlish. He thought that he really couldn’t carry her.

  “If you just let me lean on you…?” she said.

  “Where do you live?”

  “Not far from here. You see the house when you come out on the bridge.”

  She laid one arm around his neck and they started to shuffle and slide away from the tree. It was extremely uncomfortable.

  “If it’s broken, you’ll need a cast.”

  “It’s not broken.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  “Maybe I should… introduce myself. Hans Peter Bergman. I live in Hässelby Strand. I just thought I’d take a long walk.”

  “Well, that’s the end of that.”

  “Not to worry.”

  “My name’s Justine Dalvik.”

  “Kristin?”

  “No. Justine.”

  They had come up to some buildings and a field with horses. The animals wore damp blankets; they pawed with their hooves in the snow and looked like they longed to be back inside.

  “Shall we knock on the door and ask for help?”

  “Oh God, no. That’s just too dramatic.”

  Just then a man came out on the stairs. He looked at them indifferently, and then went to his car which was sloppily parked outside the gate.

  “Hello?” called Hans Peter.

  The man stopped.

  “We need a little help here.”

  He came toward them, opening his hands.

  “I speak badly Swedish.”

  “Not to worry, as long as you can drive.”

  “Can drive. You want drive you?”

  “Thanks, that’d be great. The lady has hurt her foot. We just need a short ride; she lives fairly close to here.”

  They entered the house.

  “Thanks, that was kind of you to help.”

  There was an undertone in her voice, as if she didn’t want him to rush away immediately.

  He said, “I can take a look at your foot for you. I learned some first aid in the army.”

  “Ok, if you want to… Let’s go to the kitchen.”

  There was a large bird on the kitchen counter. It was drinking water from a bowl.

  “Hope you’re not getting the wrong impression,” she said quietly.

  “About what?”

  “Some people are afraid of birds.”

  “It’s just an unusual one. Is it yours?”

  She nodded. He untied her shoes, sitting right across from her, and lifted up her leg into his lap.

  “Isn’t it a bad idea to go running when it’s so slippery out?”

  Color was returning to her face.

  “Obviously,” she said dryly.

  Her foot was strangely shaped with small, somewhat bent, toenails. He thought about something he read once. Women had bent toenails, men had straight ones. He wondered why.

  There was a bit of swelling by the ankle. He held her foot and bent it back and forth a bit.

  “Does that hurt?”


  “A bit.”

  “Then it’s probably not broken. I can wrap it for you, if you want.”

  “Thanks. In my bedroom there’s a cabinet with a few medical items. There’s an elastic bandage there, I think. Do you think you’ll find it? It’s the room with only one bed.”

  He went out into the hall and up the steep stairs. There were two framed posters on the walls from the forties. They were ads for candy. At the top, the hallway opened to a large room filled with books. He cast a glance at the titles, but didn’t dare linger over them. The door to her room was slightly open. The bed was well made, but the floor was dirty with feathers and seeds. A large pine tree appeared to grow from the floor. Then he realized it was placed in Christmas tree stand. Obviously she kept the bird in the same room that she slept in herself.

  “How’s it going?” she called from the kitchen.

  “Where’s the cabinet again?”

  “Left of the window. Do you see it?”

  Yes, there it was. He squatted down and opened it. Lots of bottles and cans, and far to the back, an elastic bandage roll. When he took it out, the bird was behind him somewhere. It sat on its tree branch and made a rasping sound. Hans Peter didn’t move.

  “Don’t be afraid,” she called up. “He won’t hurt you.”

  The bird glowered at him with one eye. It pulled up one leg underneath its belly and clicked with its beak. Hans Peter felt ill at ease. Would it leap at him if he moved? He put up his arm for protection and sidled out of the door. The bird flapped his wings, but stayed where it was.

  “Why do you have that bird anyway?” he asked once afterwards, after he had taken care of binding her foot and warming milk for both of them. He hadn’t had warm milk since he was small. They had moved to the large room upstairs, the one with the books. He had said he was going to leave; in fact, he’d said it a few times already.

  “For company, among other things.”

  “Don’t such large birds feel more at home outside?”

  “Won’t work. He’s too imprinted by humans. If you let him outside, the other birds will attack him.”

  “Have you tried it?”

  She nodded.

  “He flew up to that oak out there. Suddenly the skies were filled with magpies. Some attacked him right away and actually that was lucky; he lost his grip and fell into my arms. Ever since then, he’s been afraid the minute you open a window.”