“It’s a heart attack,” I finally say. “He’s dead.”
I phone a colleague. Hmm—whom? Let me think. That one won’t do; seven years ago I reviewed his dissertation somewhat skeptically in a professional journal . . . That one: too smart. That one, that one, and that one: out of town. That one, yes, we’ll take him. Or possibly that one, or in a pinch that one.
I appear at the door of the waiting room, no doubt suitably pale, and explain in a subdued, controlled manner that something has happened that forces me to close my practice for the rest of the day.
The colleague arrives; I explain what has happened: the pastor has suffered from severe heart problems for some time. He commiserates with me—it was a dirty trick of fate that the death occurred here, of all places—and at my request writes out the death certificate . . . No, I won’t give the pastor any wine; he might spill some, or his breath might reveal that he’d been imbibing, and it could be complicated to explain . . . He’ll have to make do with a glass of water. Anyway, in my opinion wine is harmful.
But if there’s an autopsy? Well, then I’ll have to take a pill myself. It’s an illusion to think one can take on an enterprise of this sort without assuming some risk; I’ve known that all along. I have to be prepared to face the consequences.
Actually the circumstances demand that I myself request an autopsy. No one else is likely to—well, that’s not necessarily true . . . I tell my colleague that I intend to request one; he presumably answers that from a medical point of view it’s quite unnecessary, since the cause of death is clear, but it could be the right thing to do for the sake of appearances . . . Then I let the matter drop. Be that as it may, here’s a flaw in the plan. I’ll have to think it over some more.
For that matter, it’s impossible to plan every detail in advance; chance will play a role no matter what. To some extent I’ll have to count on my talent for improvisation.
One more thing—hell and damnation, what an idiot I am! It’s not just myself I have to consider. Assuming there’s an autopsy and I take a pill and vanish through the trap door and accompany Gregorius across the Styx, what kind of motive will people come up with to explain this strange crime? People are so inquisitive. And when the dead have taken their secrets with them, won’t a motive be sought among the living—from her? That she has a lover will soon be sniffed out; that she must have willed the pastor’s death, longed for it, is the obvious conclusion. She might not even bother denying it. It makes me dizzy . . . And I would have done this to you, you fairest flower of womanhood!
This will drive me to distraction.
But perhaps—perhaps I do have an idea. If I see that an autopsy will be necessary, I’ll have to show obvious signs of insanity well before I take my pill. Even better—well, the one doesn’t preclude the other—I’ll write a letter and leave it open on the desk in the room where I die, a letter filled with ravings that suggest persecution mania, religious obsession, and so forth: the pastor has pursued me for years; he’s poisoned my soul; I’ve acted in self-defense, etc. I can weave in some Bible quotations as well—there are always some that fit. This way the matter will be clear: the murderer was insane. That’s motive enough—no other need be sought. I’ll have a Christian burial and Kristin will have her silent suspicions—well, not always so silent—confirmed. She’s told me a hundred times I’m crazy. She could witness on my behalf if needed.
AUGUST 14
I WISH I HAD A FRIEND to confide in. A friend I could consult with. But I have none, and even if I did, there are limits to the demands one can make on friends.
I’ve always been somewhat isolated. I’ve borne my isolation with me through the crowd as the snail bears its house. For some people isolation isn’t a circumstance in which they find themselves, it’s an innate characteristic. And through this act my isolation is likely to increase; no matter how it ends, whether badly or well, for me the “punishment” will be solitary confinement for life.
AUGUST 17
FOOL! COWARD! IDIOT!
Oh, what’s the point of invective—one has no control over nerves and stomach in any case.
My office hours were over; the last patient had just left. I was standing at the window in the parlor, thinking of nothing in particular. Suddenly I could see Gregorius coming diagonally across the churchyard, headed for my door. Everything went blurry and gray before my eyes. I wasn’t expecting him, I didn’t know he’d returned. I felt faint, dizzy, nauseous—all the symptoms of seasickness. There was only one thought in my head: not now, not now! Another time, not now! He’s coming up the stairs, he’s standing outside the door—what should I do? Out to Kristin: if someone comes looking for me now, say I’ve gone out . . . I could tell by her staring eyes and gaping mouth that I must have looked strange. I bolted into the bedroom and barred the door. And I barely made it to the sink before vomiting.
*
My fears were justified, then—I’m not up to it.
For now is when it should have happened. Someone who wants to act must be able to seize the moment. Who knows if it will return? I’m not up to it!
AUGUST 21
TODAY I’VE SEEN and spoken with her.
I took a walk on Ship’s Isle this afternoon. Just after crossing the bridge I met Recke; he’d come down from the hilltop where the church is. He was walking slowly, staring at the ground, his lower lip protruding, poking aside the gravel with his stick, and he didn’t seem very content with the world. I didn’t think he would notice me, but just as we passed each other he looked up and, instantly transforming his entire expression, gave a slightly forced, hearty, cheerful nod. I went on, but stopped after a few paces: she’s sure to be nearby, I thought. Maybe she’s still up there on top of the hill. They’d had something to discuss and had agreed to meet up there, where people seldom go, and to avoid being seen with him she’d let him walk down first. I sat down on the bench that encloses the trunk of the enormous poplar tree, waiting. It must be the largest tree in Stockholm. As a child I often sat under it on spring evenings with my mother. My father was never along; he didn’t like going on walks with us.
. . . No, she didn’t come. I thought I’d meet her coming down the hill, but perhaps she’d taken another route, or never been there.
I went up the hill anyway, a roundabout path, past the church—and then I caught sight of her, sitting curled up on one of the steps outside the church gate, bent forward, her chin in her hand. She sat staring straight into the setting sun, so at first she didn’t see me.
Even the first time I saw her it struck me how different she is from all others. She isn’t like a lady of the world or a bourgeois wife or a woman of the people, though perhaps that’s what she most resembles, especially now, sitting on the church steps, her blonde hair uncovered and exposed to the sun, for she’d taken off her hat and placed it beside her. But a woman from an indigenous people or one that has never existed, a society where classes haven’t been formed, where “the people” haven’t yet become the lower class. A daughter of a free tribe.
Suddenly I noticed she was sitting there weeping—not sobbing out loud, but silently, weeping like one who has wept so much that she scarcely notices the tears.
I wanted to turn around and leave, but at that moment I realized she’d seen me. I greeted her somewhat stiffly, intending to keep on walking. But she immediately arose from the low step as easily and gracefully as if it had been a chair and came over to me, giving me her hand. She quickly wiped away the tears, put on her hat and pulled a dark veil over her face.
We stood there a while in silence.
“It’s lovely up here this evening,” I finally said.
“Yes,” she said, “it’s a lovely evening. And it’s been a lovely summer. Now it will soon be over. The leaves are already turning yellow. Look, a swallow!”
A solitary swallow swooped past, so close by that I could feel a cool breeze across my eyelids, made a quick turn that to the eye looked like a sharp angle, and disappeared int
o the distance.
“It turned warm so early this year,” she said. “Then autumn usually comes early.”
“How is the pastor doing?” I asked.
“Oh, well enough,” she answered. “He returned from Porla a few days ago.”
“And has he improved?”
She turned her head a bit away and squinted toward the sun. “Not from my point of view,” she answered softly.
I understood. In other words it was just as I’d expected. Well, that wasn’t hard to predict . . .
An old woman came along, sweeping fallen leaves. She came closer and closer, and we walked slowly away, farther out on the hillside. I was thinking of the pastor. First I frightened him with his wife’s health, and that helped for barely two weeks; then I frightened him with his own health and with death itself, and that helped for six. And it helped for that long only because he was separated from her. I’m beginning to think Markel and his Cyrenaics are right: people don’t care about happiness, they seek pleasure. They seek pleasure even against their own best interests, contrary to their convictions and beliefs, contrary to their happiness . . . And the young woman walking at my side with such a straight, proud back, though her head with the mass of light, silken hair was deeply bowed by her troubles—she had done just the same: sought pleasure without caring about happiness. And now, for the first time, it struck me that precisely the same principle determined the actions of the old pastor who filled me with such disgust and the young woman who aroused my infinite tenderness, a muted reverence, as if I were in a divine presence.
The sun was shining more dully now through the thick haze above the city.
“Tell me, Mrs. Gregorius—may I ask you a question?”
“Yes, of course.”
“The man you love—I don’t even know who he is—what does he say about this, about the whole situation? What does he want to do? How does he want things to be? He can hardly be satisfied with matters as they are—?”
She was silent for a long time. I started to think I’d asked a foolish question she was reluctant to answer.
“He wants us to leave,” she finally said.
I gave a start.
“Can he do that?” I asked. “I mean, is he a free man, wealthy, who needs no position or profession, a man who can do as he pleases?”
“No. Otherwise we would have left long ago. His entire future is here. But he wants to make a new way for himself in a foreign country, far away. Perhaps in America.”
I had to smile inside. Klas Recke and America! But I grew rigid when I thought of her. I thought: precisely the same characteristics that keep him afloat here will make him sink to the bottom over there. And then what will become of her . . .
She shook her head, her eyes full of tears.
“Most of all I want to die,” she said.
The sun gradually drowned in the gray haze. A chilly breeze blew through the trees.
“I don’t want to ruin his life, become a burden to him. Why should he leave? It would only be for my sake. His entire life is here, his position, his future, his friends, everything.”
There was nothing I could say to this, since she was quite right. And I thought of Recke. To me the suggestion seemed quite strange, coming from him. I would never have expected such a thing from him.
“Tell me, Mrs. Gregorius—you’ll allow me to be your friend, you regard me as one, don’t you? You don’t mind my speaking to you about these matters?”
She smiled at me through the tears and the veil—yes, she smiled!
“I’m very fond of you,” she said. “You’ve done things for me that no one else could or would have done. You may speak to me about whatever you please. I like it so much when you speak.”
“Your friend—has leaving together been on his mind for a long time? Has he suggested it before?”
“Not until this evening. We met up here shortly before you came. He’s never suggested it to me before. I don’t think he’d even considered it.”
I was beginning to understand . . . I asked, “Has something in particular happened just now . . . to make him come up with that idea? Something disturbing . . .?”
She bowed her head.
“Perhaps.”
The old woman with the broom once again came quite close to us as she swept the leaves. We walked back toward the church, slowly, in silence. We stopped at the steps where we’d met a while ago. She was tired: she sat down on the step again, resting her chin on her hand, gazing into the deepening twilight.
For a long time we said nothing. It was quiet all around us, but above us the wind through the treetops was more insistent, and the air was no longer warm.
She shivered from the cold.
“I want to die,” she said. “I really would like to die. I feel I’ve been given everything I had coming to me in life. I could never again be as happy as I’ve been during these weeks. Rarely has a day gone by when I didn’t weep, but I’ve been happy. I regret nothing, but I want to die. But it’s still so difficult. I think suicide is repulsive, especially for a woman. I despise anything that does violence to nature. And I don’t want to bring him sorrow, either.”
I kept silent and let her speak. She squinted as she looked off.
“Yes, suicide is repulsive. But it can be even more repulsive to go on living. It’s terrible that sometimes the only choice is between what’s more or less repulsive. If only I could die!
“I’m not afraid of dying. I wouldn’t be afraid even if I believed there was something after death. Nothing good and nothing bad that I have done could have been different; I’ve acted as I had to, in matters great and small. Do you remember I once told you about my youthful love and that I regretted I hadn’t given myself to him? I don’t regret it any longer. I regret nothing, not even my marriage. Nothing could have happened any differently than it did.
“But I don’t think there is anything after death. When I was a child I always thought of the soul as a little bird. In an illustrated history of the world my father owned I could see that the Egyptians represented it as a bird, too. But a bird can only fly as high as the atmosphere extends, and that’s not very high. The atmosphere belongs to earth as well. In school we had a science teacher who explained that nothing here on earth can ever escape it.”
“I’m afraid he didn’t get that quite right,” I inserted.
“That may be. But in any case I gave up my bird image, and the soul became more vague to me. A few years back I read everything I could find about religion and such, both for and against. This helped me sort out how I felt about many things, but I still didn’t find out what I wanted. There are people who can write so well that I think they can prove whatever they want. I always thought the one who wrote best and most beautifully was right. I worshipped Viktor Rydberg. But I sensed, I realized that I still knew nothing about life and death.
“But”—and a high, warm color rose in her cheeks there in the darkness—“but in the last few weeks I’ve learned more about myself than in my entire previous life. I’ve gotten to know my body. I’ve come to the realization that my body is me. There is no joy and no sorrow, no life at all except through it. And my body knows it has to die. It can sense this, just as an animal can. And so now I know that nothing awaits me after death.”
It had grown dark. The noise of the city carried up to us more noticeably now in the darkness, and the lamps began to be lit down there along the quays and bridges.
“Yes,” I said, “your body knows that it will die sometime. But it doesn’t want to die; it wants to live. It doesn’t want to die until it is worn out and weighed down by the years, consumed by suffering and burned up by desire. Only then does it want to die. You think you want this now because everything looks so bleak. But you don’t really; I know you can’t possibly want this. Let time pass. Take each day as it comes. Everything can be transformed sooner than you think. You yourself can be transformed, too. You’re strong and healthy; you can become even stronger; you are among th
ose who can grow and be renewed.”
A shiver went through her body. She got up.
“It’s late; I have to go home. We can’t walk down from here together—it would be awkward if someone saw us. You go that way, and I’ll go the other direction. Good night!”
She gave me her hand. I said, “I’d so much like to kiss your cheek. May I?”
She lifted her veil and turned her cheek toward me. I kissed it. She said, “I’d like to kiss your forehead. It’s beautiful.”
The wind caught my thinning hair when I bared my head. And she took it between her warm, soft hands and kissed my forehead, solemnly, ceremoniously.
AUGUST 22
WHAT A MORNING! A slight touch of autumn in the crisp, clear air. And no wind.
Met Miss Mertens on my morning ride and exchanged a few cheerful words with her in passing. I like her eyes. I think there’s more depth to them than is first apparent. And her hair . . . But beyond that there’s not much to add to her list of merits. Oh, I’m sure she has a good little character, too.
As I rode around Djurgården Park, I thought the whole time of her, sitting on the steps up there by the church, staring into the sun and weeping, longing to die. And indeed: if no help arrives, if nothing happens—if what I’m thinking about doesn’t happen—then every attempt to comfort her with words is empty and meaningless; I could sense this myself while speaking to her. Then she’s right a hundred times over to seek death. She can neither leave nor stay. Leave—with Klas Recke? Become a burden, tie him down? I bless her for not wanting that. They would both founder. His prospects here are bright, people say; he has one foot in his department and the other in the world of finance. I’ve heard him called a man of the future, and if he has debts, they’re probably no worse than those of other “men of the future” before they’ve established themselves. He has precisely the degree of talent needed for success—within the right environment, of course; he’s no force of nature. “Make a new way for himself” . . . no, that’s not for him. And she can’t continue living her old life, either. A prisoner in enemy territory. Give birth to her child under that man’s roof and be forced to pretend, lie to him and see his disgusting paternal joy—perhaps tempered by suspicions he doesn’t dare admit to but which he’ll use to poison her life even more . . . No, she simply cannot do that—if she tries it will end in catastrophe. She must be set free. She should make decisions about herself and her child on her own. Then everything will take care of itself; her life will seem full of possibilities and good to live. I’ve sworn an oath, by my soul: she shall be free.
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