A woman in a light bodice sits down three seats in front of us. She takes out a compact mirror and powders her red cheeks. I hold out the photograph and Hasse takes it.
‘Her name is Ida. My daughter.’
The words catch in my throat. The tram wheels thump hard against the rail points, and so does my heart against my ribcage. I squeeze the cigar near enough in two between my index and middle fingers.
‘I never let them go hungry, not for a single day. We had food and fuel in winter. Every morning by the stroke of six I was unloading down at the harbour. I had my Friday binges, and they say that the last dram brings the first smack, but we never quarrelled, her mother Emma and I, and I never hit her, even with an open hand.’
The letter from America is burning in my pocket.
‘Get lost, you damned tramp!’
The bloke five seats in front of us swings his rolled-up newspaper at the vagrant, who shuffles back a couple of steps. Hasse is sitting as stiff as a bargepole but the photograph in his fingers is quivering slightly.
‘They were my blood kingdom.’
I don’t even know if that’s a real expression. I look out the window. We are approaching City Hall, with its turrets steadfastly towering up into the bright summer evening sky. From the corner of my eye I see Hasse take out a handkerchief with his other hand and bring it to his face.
‘Don’t blow your nose, for God’s sake. It’ll make those blue bruises under your eyes go black.’
Hasse obeys. I notice two men changing a street light outside Kungsholm Church.
‘They travelled to America in autumn ’23. I was supposed to join them a couple of months later as a professional boxer. That was the plan. Written in the stars it felt, from what people said.’
The stench of sweat and poverty makes me look up again. The tramp is extending his filthy paws, holding a few badly sharpened razor blades and a poorly forged mortgage deed. His brown eyes are weary from hardship and humiliation. I shake my head and suggest with a cursory nod that he go back down the gangway.
‘Just one match.’ I force the words out. ‘A big international gala at Cirkus. A yank by the name of Kid Brownie.’ I sigh. ‘He was unbeaten, like me, but no great threat from what I understood. Mostly a formality before the professional contract could be signed.’ I scoff and mumble: ‘That fucking Kid Brownie.’
A slim middle-aged man jumps on at the Seraphim Hospital. He is dressed in trousers with well-pressed creases and a straw hat. He has tied a long-sleeved jumper around his neck. He has an elegant air about him, and he looks like has come straight from a tennis match, though he doesn’t have a racket as far as I can see. He grabs hold of one of the ceiling straps a few metres in front of us and starts to whistle.
The tram picks up speed along Stadshus Bridge, which is practically empty in the July heat. There is usually a lot of congestion around here at this time of day but not now. I fix my gaze on the jagged silhouette of Strömbadet bathhouse and the spires and towers of Riddarfjärden. A seagull on the bridge railing spreads its wings as if about to take off, but doesn’t.
‘You can never get away from yourself,’ I mutter into the sootstreaked window. ‘Some things are beyond your control, like schnapps, or the weather.’
I suck on my bottom lip but resist the impulse to rip off the scab. The tram swerves slightly to the right and the wheels screech against the tracks.
‘My main sparring partner during training was a youth from Birkastan. Early twenties, like me.’ I glance at Hasse. ‘And just as lonely.’
The photograph flutters like an insect wing in his uninjured hand. His teeth strain a whistling breath.
‘It was something I learnt as a lad. At sea. It took. Once ashore, I tried to rid myself of the habit, but I couldn’t fucking do it. It is what it is. It isn’t something you can just force yourself to stop just like that.’
We follow the quayside and overtake a lorry loaded with crates of bottles. Two blokes on bikes are getting a free ride, with one hand on the handlebars and the other on the side of the lorry. For one moment I shut my eyes. The memories flash through my brain. I grimace.
‘Three days before the match my trainer caught us in the dressing room. And that’s all I have to say about that.’
The words clump together like porridge. Hasse’s hand is shaking as though from fever. I swallow twice and clench my fist so hard that I mash the cigar. The discordant tones of the whistling man slice through my ears.
‘Within a few hours word had spread to half the city. Soon the damned gossip column of Fäderneslandet got wind of the story.’ My mouth is twitching spasmodically like a retard’s. ‘I didn’t save those clippings.’
My moist eyes dart around the carriage. That damned fitness fanatic is still whistling. Only a madman would play tennis in this heat. I blame all this talk of progress. It makes people obsess over vitamins and idiotic antics. Progress and the heat. People never used to take time off in the middle of summer to devote to leisure activities.
‘Going into the ring again was out of the question. And sure enough I was dismissed from the harbour as well.’
The vein in my forehead is throbbing. I punch my fist against my thigh.
‘A man has to work for God’s sake!’ I bellow.
The man stops whistling. The woman with the powder compact and the man with the newspaper stare over at us.
I look past Hasse’s head. The clear summer evening is extinguishing nearly all the light from the pale neon sign of Centralpalats. I remember how people would whisper about me when the scandal came out, and how their eyes ground me to dust. Self-hatred spread like pus in a knife wound and it took years to recover.
Hasse returns the photograph and I put it back in my wallet. We travel in silence staring straight ahead. The carriage’s irregular jerks make our shoulders touch. We rattle past Norr Bridge.
The Bumpkin with the maggots is nowhere to be seen. I hope he didn’t come to any harm beyond the fright I gave him.
We get off at Kungsträdgården to change. I’m going north and Hasse is going south. I strike a match, finally able to smoke a Meteor. My lungs fill with singeing smoke and calm.
In the park on the other side of the street the National Socialists have drummed up another gang. I used to sit here in summertime and stare at the bare-chested sailors who would saunter around with swaying walks and curious eyes.
Times are different now.
Labourers with hands stiff from chalk dust and cement rub shoulders with elegant gentlemen wearing suits of the latest fashion. A few brown-shirted blokes in boots stand in a line with a wide stance, left hands behind their backs, and the right holding blue-and-yellow swastika flags. They are guarded by about thirty coppers, despite the ban on political uniforms. The fish rots from the head down and it is no secret that priests and policemen and half the officer corps have embraced the doctrine.
Some sort of mini-Führer stands in front of the gathering and rattles off some rubbish about the Jews. God only knows what is so bad about the Jews. They stay open for their loyal customers even on a Sunday and none of them has ever shouted insults at me.
Not that I know of, at least.
Not like other people in this city.
Out in the country there is animosity between the villages, because one earths up their potatoes on a different date, or plants their seeds in a different way from the next village over. At the Friday dances, these trifles start fights between the farmhands, fuelled by fusel and malice, that can get so vicious that some of the lads are never the same again. Since Gabrielsson’s murder a similar sickness has infected the city, and when one group gets angry, the same anger soon spreads to their enemies. I distinctly remember the priest himself calling it a spiritual epidemic when I visited him for the last time, some time in November.
Hasse and I stand shoulder to shoulder and look at the gathering. I let my eyes stray to the statue of Karl XXII. The warrior king conquered and died with his boots on before the age of
thirty-five. I would have preferred that. I have barely achieved a thing in my thirty-nine years.
Between the tree trunks and the lemonade kiosks in the park, I spot Hasse’s tram come chugging along. I take a puff that almost devours half the cigar.
‘I continued to fight for my bread and butter, in backyards and alleys, with the crowd as the ring rope,’ I say straight out into thin air. ‘Sometimes I was so drunk that I had no recollection of it the following day, except for the bruises and broken fists. Often on an empty stomach. There wasn’t much choice.’ I glance at Hasse, who is staring at the National Socialists. ‘Going to America was out of the question.’
The youth clears his throat and gestures towards the park.
‘If this continues we’ll end up like Spain.’
I shrug my shoulders. The number 10 veers around the bend and works its way quickly towards our stop. Hasse extends his hand and I take it. Our eyes meet for the first time since the fight. A decent bruise is growing around his left eye.
‘I owe Kvist my thanks.’
The tram rings its bell as it pulls up. I don’t want to let go of his hand.
‘I never had the opportunity to pick myself up and come back,’ I say.
Hasse bites his bottom lip and nods dumbly.
‘Stuff this defeat, and spit in those bastards’ faces next time.’
From the corner of my eye I see the disembarking passengers float around us like shadowy spectres. The conductor calls for departure. Hasse jumps aboard and works his way farther down the carriage. I back up a few steps to try to catch sight of him through the back window but I can’t. I grunt.
Another person disappearing from my life. I already know that he isn’t coming back. This is how it ends.
The same damned story every time.
I swear weakly to myself and tramp over to the platform for the number 6 home to Sibirien.
As the son of a whore, I’ve had to survive on my own, and since my trainer left me in the lurch, there haven’t been many people with the guts to stand by my side.
I let my gaze wander from the palace to the other side of the water and over the rocks of impoverished Söder. High up there, among the worn-out apartment buildings, the tumble-down little shacks, the places of worship and beer cafés, Katarina Church watches over her flock. The occasional white cloud rises from the factories. I sigh and put a cigar between my lips.
Never accomplished shit. Nothing of lasting value anyway. Every street I have walked down has been a dead end. That’s just how it is.
I never went to any of his sermons, but I heard that Gabrielsson always wove some humour in to make the congregation laugh. Lord knows they rarely laugh up in Katarinaberg otherwise, where the children are many and the need is great. There was a certain tenderness to the priest, and anybody who wanted to could bask in his warmth. Even a bloke like me. He didn’t whip virtue into the bratty kids either; he wasn’t like the others, who preach patriotism and fear of God instead of forgiveness.
The Skeppsholmen clock tower peals across the water, calling the sailors home for the evening. The familiar sea air fills my lungs. It reminds me of the old salty me. With one exhalation I rid myself of all the self-doubt from the boxing club and stand up straight. Like hell am I going to let them defeat me with their taunts and abuse.
I look up. A little farther along the platform, one of the brown-clad National Socialists is glaring at me with a sneer.
‘What the fuck are you looking at?’ I raise my fist at him. ‘Get lost before I put you into a coma for so long that you’ll wake up in an outdated uniform!’
I puff angrily on my Meteor. I have no idea what’s going to happen but I feel a surge through my veins.
‘You’ve still got it in you, Kvisten.’
Nothing to lose. It is time. I’ve still never taken a count. I’ll show those bastards.
The time for revenge is now.
A gust of wind comes through the window and cools my sweaty upper body as I sit on a wooden chair staring out onto the street. I have Harlock’s Swedish–English dictionary in one hand, a notebook in the other and a pen in my mouth. A fully packed seabag leans against the wall, containing a change of clothes and the new suit from Herzog’s. I can get it pressed when I arrive.
With a final glance out on the street I return my attention to the book and flick from the letter A to P.
‘Press,’ I mutter to myself. ‘It’s the same in both languages. I can remember that.’
I stare out at Roslagsgatan again, and wait. Nisse’s Eva toddles slowly up Ingemarsgatan on the way to her bakery. Kullberg locks the door to the haulage company on the other side, glances up at my flat and catches sight of me. He rushes off down the pavement, heading south.
Another poor devil I’ve been too hard on in my time.
I put the dictionary down on the windowsill and thumb through my notebook. Some of the words, like ‘apple’ and ‘animal’, I knew already. Others, like ‘address’, ‘automobile’, ‘alibi’ and ‘aquavit’, look more or less the same as in Swedish, but plenty of the others look impossible to pronounce.
I hear raised voices on the street and lean out of the window. The air is still hot and carries the stench of sun-heated rubbish. When I was up in the loft earlier looking for my old seabag, the walls smelt like resin under the metal roof.
‘A strike? When the confirmation suit needs paying for on top of everything?’
One-Eyed Lasse’s old bat is standing down on the pavement giving her husband a talking to. God knows where the stevedore got his nickname, considering the fact that he has both peepers fully intact. I don’t know the wife’s name, but the fact that her only wedding dowry was a guardsman’s child with a cleft palate is common knowledge in these parts, as is her stern temper. Maybe that’s the kid who has grown old enough to leave the nest.
‘Do you want us to work our fingers to the bone for a lower wage than we got before?’
‘You’re just following the others like a dog!’
‘I’m a union representative, for God’s sake!’
‘And you get sod all for that.’
My gaze moves northward up the street: nothing but a shuffling vagrant dragging something along past the house where asylum nurse Wallin hanged himself last autumn.
Or whatever it was that happened.
‘They are shipping over three hundred riff-raff from the harbours of England. Am I supposed to work opposite them?’
‘Oh, you…! When one of us dies I’ll finally be able to open that café.’
The old bag picks up the sides of her skirt and storms south. One-Eyed Lasse slouches after her, and I sigh with relief. The fewer people who see me talk to Rickardsson the better.
The church bells chime eight o’clock. Somewhere in the house a woman laughs and outside in the courtyard the door to the potato cellar slams shut. I take out my watch and check that it is still working properly.
He should be going for his walk soon. It’s not only my broken rib that is making my chest ache: it is clear that I have to choose between my little girl and Rickardsson.
‘Life is harder than any cock.’
I lean out of the window again.
I can’t see him yet.
The skinny vagrant is laboriously dragging a dead mutt past Kullberg’s on the other side of the street. He is holding its body by the hind legs. There is a cloud of dust and flies around the mongrel’s crushed skull, and small accumulations of blood on the pavement show where the bum has paused for a breather. I can’t see any rifle. He probably smashed the mutt’s head in with a rock or a sturdy cane.
I sigh.
It was bound to happen sooner or later. There isn’t exactly a long life expectancy in Rickardsson’s field of work, and judging by his clothes, his family will probably have a healthy inheritance to look forward to. There is nothing I can do for him. It is how it is. I will have to continue dancing alone for a while yet.
My eyes rest on every blood pool along the p
avement, and I imagine him stumbling home, leaking like a sieve, groping along the house fronts on the other side of the street.
I put my schnapps glass down on the photograph and pick up the Husqvarna. I open the magazine, see that it is empty, slot it back in and raise the pistol. The comfortable weight of the weapon tugs at my arm muscles. The front sight sweeps across the street, stopping in turn on the golden pretzel outside Ingemarsgatan bakery, old man Ljung’s back, then to Bruntell’s general store, where the manager has put up a sign saying ‘NO JEWS OR HALF-JEWS’, before I let it merge into the paintwork of a black Plymouth that is slowly driving northward. The bonnet is open to prevent the engine from overheating.
I glance back at my timepiece. Don’t trust the bastard. It was as still as eternity itself for over half a year before it started ticking just as adamantly as ever. The hands say five minutes past.
My thumb trembles as I fold down a page corner in the notebook. I strike a match and thick cigar smoke billows out through the window. I shut my eyes and try to conjure up that distinct aroma of Aquavera, sweat and snuff that can only come from a Swedish man. I am going to miss it on the other side of the pond.
‘I could take a hectogram of Ljunglöf’s snuff to sprinkle the bed sheets with.’
I chuckle to myself and glance over my shoulder to see if Dixie has heard. She hasn’t. She is dead.
There is nothing keeping me here. It’s just like Ma says: it’s only a question of making a respectable exit, in one way or another.
I look back down at the street with emptiness in my heart. The tram transports four passengers up to the turning point. The occultist starts up his evening practice with a slow, moody melody, similar to the one he performed when I was giving Rickardsson a good hammering.
I won’t need my hard fists tonight; I’m relying on my wits. Albertsson did always say that a good boxer needs a good head on his shoulders.
And I was damned good.
I raise a dram. As soon as I meet my match, everything falls apart. I down the drink and run my fingers over my short hair.
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