“She’s not coming,” said Henry.
“What?” I said.
“She’s not coming to Gennesaret.”
“Why not?”
“I dumped her,” said Henry.
I wasn’t sure what that meant. Unless he meant that he had beaten her to death and thrown her into a canal with her feet stuck in cement blocks, and that didn’t seem likely. Vera Lane had been close to getting that treatment in Darkin III, but I couldn’t imagine Henry doing something like that.
“Cool,” I said, trying to sound neutral.
“So it’s just going to be you and me and your pal. What’s his name?”
“Edmund,” I said.
“Edmund?” said Henry. “Christ, what a name.”
“He’s okay,” I said.
“Sure, sure,” said Henry. “You can’t judge a person by their name. I slipped it to a skirt called Frida Assel once. In Amsterdam. She wasn’t bad, not bad at all.”
I nodded and sat there thinking about all the skirts with strange names that I’d slipped it to.
And all the skirts I’d dumped.
“Let’s keep Mom and Dad in the dark,” Henry said.
“What do you mean?”
“About Emmy not being there. They’ll just worry that we won’t be able to feed ourselves and all that,” my brother Henry said. “But we will. Three guys in their prime.”
“You bet,” I said. “No problem. I’m a wiz with omelettes.”
And then Henry laughed his sharp laugh. It felt good. It occurred to me that when my brother laughed, it was like having your head scratched.
One day during the last week of school we went on a field trip to Brumberga Wildlife Park. I stuck with Edmund, Benny, and Enok the whole time, and even though an all-girls’ team beat us at the quiz by one lousy point and we lost out on the tub of ice cream, the afternoon wasn’t half bad. Enok had just celebrated his birthday and raked in a whole fifty-kronor note from his slow-in-the-head uncle, so we were rolling in it. Enok wasn’t one to hold back. He wolfed down fifty-four Dixi caramels and had to sit in one of the sick-seats on the ride home.
I ate thirty-six Reval sweets myself and felt fantastic.
The next night I had a dream. I was at the wildlife park again and the whole class was standing in front of a large green aquarium with dolphins, rays, and seals. Sharks, too, I think. We were all still and quiet because Ewa Kaludis was speaking. Behind her, the large torpedo-like bodies continued their eternal journey round and round in the green water.
Then I heard Benny swear. He lifted his dirty index finger and pointed and I saw at once what he’d discovered.
My mother was floating by in the aquarium.
Among the rays and seals. My mother.
It made me feel awful. She was wearing her threadbare blue house dress, the one with the faded roses, and she looked swollen and bug-eyed. I rushed over to the glass, waving at her to move to the other side, but she just hung there in the water and stared at us with her sad eyes. It seemed impossible to get her to move, so I turned around. Pressed myself against the glass and spread out my arms, trying to hide her. Ewa Kaludis stopped speaking and gave me a curious look. She seemed disappointed, and I wanted to cry and wet myself and be swallowed up by the earth.
When I woke up it was quarter to five in the morning and I was soaked through with a cold sweat. I thought it had to have something to do with the Reval caramels. I got out of bed and sat on the toilet to no avail.
As I sat there I thought about the dream. It was weird. Brumberga Wildlife Park didn’t have an aquarium, and Ewa Kaludis hadn’t even been on the trip with us.
I couldn’t get back to sleep that night.
Just before I walked into the apartment, Edmund said:
“What’s the biggest difference between two things in the world?”
“The universe and Åsa Lenner’s brain?” I said.
“Nope,” said Edmund. “It’s between my dad and my mom. Just so you know.”
I found out he wasn’t wrong over the dinner they’d invited me to, which I think was meant to be an advance thank you for letting Edmund stay at Gennesaret all summer.
Albin Wester, Edmund’s father, was short and stocky, with limp arms and a rolling gait. He looked like a silverback; a bit worn-out and resigned too. Even though I was anti-soccer, I was reminded of a soccer coach trying to come up with a play during half-time when the team was down 6–0. Upbeat, but somehow unwell. He talked throughout the meal, especially when his mouth was full.
Mrs. Wester looked as severe as a Mora clock draped in a mourning shroud. She didn’t say a word during dinner, but tried to smile every so often. And when she did, she seemed on the verge of cracking, and then she’d hiccup and squeeze her eyes shut.
“Dig in, boys,” said Albin Wester. “You never know when you’ll get your next meal. Signe’s sausage hotdish is famous across northern Europe.”
Both Edmund and I ate plenty, because it was a very good hotdish. I thought of the domestic situation facing us that summer and told Edmund to ask his mom for the recipe.
I knew that kind of thing was considered the height of good manners, and as if on cue the Mora clock cracked open and hiccupped.
“Sausage Hotdish à la Signe,” said Albin Wester out of the corner of his mouth. “Food fit for the gods.”
He smiled, too, and a few pieces of sausage fell in his lap.
“She’s an alcoholic,” Edmund explained afterward. “She has to tense every muscle in her body to get through a dinner like this.”
I thought that sounded strange and said so. Edmund shrugged.
“Eh,” he said. “It’s not strange at all. She has three sisters. They’re all the same. They take after their dad—that man drank like a fish—but the female body can’t seem to take it.”
“Really?” I said.
“You shouldn’t give womenfolk schnapps. Or put gunpowder in their tobacco. It’s too much for them.”
“You sound like Salasso,” I said. “Do you read lots of Wild West magazines?”
“Sometimes,” said Edmund. “But lately I prefer books.”
“I like to mix it up,” I said diplomatically. “How long has she been like that, by the way? Can’t you cure her a little?”
I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the ills of alcohol. My father’s cousin Holger was cut from the same cloth and in fourth grade we’d had a teacher for half a semester who went by the name Finkel-Jesus. He’d sneak drinks from his desk drawer throughout the school day and was fired after he fell asleep in the staffroom and wet himself.
Or so rumor had it.
Edmund shook his head.
“We keep it in the family,” he said. “It’s not officious.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. “But I think the word is ‘official.’”
“Who cares what it’s called,” said Edmund. “Either way, she’s why we move so often. At least, I think so.”
And then I felt sorry for Edmund Wester.
And for his dad.
And maybe I felt a little sorry for Mrs. Wester, too.
We went to see a Jerry Lewis film at the Saga that evening. That was also the Westers’ treat.
“Christ,” Edmund said while we walked home. “Everyone should be like Jerry Lewis. Then the world would be boss.”
“If everyone was like Jerry Lewis,” I said, “then the world would have gone under thousands of years ago.”
“Clever,” he said. “We do need Perry Mason types too; you’re absolutely right.”
“Paul Drake and Della,” I said.
“Paul Drake is really something,” said Edmund. “The way he walks into the courtroom in the middle of a cross-examination and winks at Perry. That’s one heckuva guy!”
“And he always wears a white blazer and black trousers,�
�� I said. “Or maybe it’s the other way around.”
“Always,” said Edmund.
“Della is in love with him,” I said.
“Objection,” said Edmund. “Della is in love with Perry.”
“The hell she is,” I said. “She’s in love with Paul Drake.”
“Okay,” said Edmund. “She’s in love with both of them. No wonder.”
“That’s why she can’t choose between them,” I said. “Objection sustained.”
We went around spouting one-liners for a while.
“Objection overruled.”
“Objection sustained.”
“Your cross-examination.”
“No further questions, your honor.”
“Not guilty!”
Edmund lived further up on Mossbanegatan and I lived down by the sports center, so we parted at Karlesson’s shop. Karlesson’s had just closed for the evening; its green windows were shut and the chewing-gum dispenser was chained to the bike rack and locked with a padlock.
“Did you know you can use broken sausage forks in the gum dispenser?” I asked Edmund.
“What?” said Edmund. “What do you mean?”
I explained. All you had to do was break off a centimeter of the end of the flat wooden spoons they give out with mashed potato. Ice cream spoons worked too, but they were harder to find. Then you pushed the wooden bit into the twenty-five-öre slot and gave it a turn. No problem. Clickety click. Shake shake. Worked every time.
“You’re kidding,” said Edmund. “Are you game?”
We dug around in the trash can mounted to the wall and finally found a sticky ice-cream spoon. I measured and broke it off against my thumbnail. We waited for a gang of giggling girls to pass by, and then we did the deed.
Four balls and one ring.
We each took two balls and Edmund took the ring to give to his alcoholic mother.
“Slick,” said Edmund. “We should come here one night this summer and clean it out.”
I nodded. I’d been plotting to do just that for a long time.
“All you need are the spoons,” I said. “But there are always some on the ground near the hot-dog stands. Herman’s and Törner’s on the square.”
“One of these nights, we’ll do it,” said Edmund.
“Sustained,” I said. “One night this summer.”
Then we said our see-you-laters and went our separate ways.
I knew my brother Henry was an unusual person, but I didn’t know just how unusual until that comment he made one evening; it must have also been during the last week of school.
“Super-Berra is an asshole,” he said.
I was the one who’d brought him up. Or rather, I’d brought up Ewa Kaludis, probably something about her being with Berra.
“Like I said, a real asshole.”
It was a simple statement; it caught me by surprise, so I didn’t know how to respond and we changed the subject and then Henry left for a Maranatha meeting in Killer.
After he’d gone, I wondered why he’d even say something like that, and then I remembered that he’d interviewed Bertil Albertsson once for Kurren, when he’d moved to town in early May.
Super-Berra: an asshole?
I wrote it on a piece of paper and stuck it in Colonel Darkin and the Golden Lamb. The statement had been so remarkable I’d wanted to preserve it somehow.
Later in the summer I’d have a reason to think more deeply about this. A big reason. But I didn’t know that then, and the scrap of paper must have disappeared somehow, because I never saw it again.
-
5
This year was our last real graduation ceremony of primary school.
Some of the class would go on to eighth grade; about half of us would transfer to KCJSS, the Kumla County Junior Secondary School, in the fall. Those of us who hadn’t already quit after sixth grade, that is. It was a waypoint; among other things I would never again sit in the same classroom as Veikko and Sluggo and Gunborg and Balthazar Lindblom.
It didn’t really matter, but I’d miss a few of them. Benny and Marie-Louise, for instance. Well, Benny I’d see in the cement pipe and around town, but I’d never again be able to sit and fantasize about Marie-Louise and her lovely dark curls and her brown eyes. At least not at close range.
But I’d get over it. I’d never really made any progress with Marie-Louise anyway. I was sure there would be other foxy skirts in the secondary school. And if you missed your chance with one, there’d be a thousand more to take her place. C’est la vie.
But how would I live without Ewa Kaludis? This question suddenly—and unhappily—opened up like an abyss. It was as if her breast had stayed pressed against my shoulder since I told her that I was getting my period. Ewa visited our classroom on graduation day just as Brylle was opening the present that the girls had bought him: a large framed picture of a gloomy moose standing at the edge of a forest. Everyone knew that Brylle hunted moose for a week every autumn, and now he was standing there behind his desk staring at the picture, forcing a wide smile.
“I just want to thank you all for the time we shared,” said Ewa Kaludis. “It has been a pleasure teaching you. I hope you have a good summer break.”
By light years, it was the most spiritual thing I’d heard in my fourteen-year-old life. Her hips swayed as she left the room, and an ice-cold hand gripped my heart.
Damn it, I thought. Is this how she’s going to leave me?
The moment was paralyzing. There at my desk, I learned what it was like to lose something invaluable. How it must feel in the seconds before you throw yourself in front of a train.
As luck would have it, no train rolled through the classroom.
“What’s with you?” said Benny when we were basking in the sunshine on the playground. “You look punch-drunk. Like Henry Cooper in the twelfth round.”
“Oh,” I said. “It’s just my stomach. When are you leaving?”
“In two hours,” said Benny. “I’ll get there tomorrow morning. It’s a long damn way to Malmberget. I hope it works out for your mom.”
“I’m sure it will,” I said.
“I’m going down to Blidberg’s to buy a Bonanza shirt,” Benny said. “And one of those red bloody ties—I’ve got to impress the cousins. See you in the fall.”
“Say hi to those damn Lapps and the mosquitoes for me,” I said.
“You bet,” said Benny. “Write to me if it turns out to be a rough summer.”
My brother Henry had already installed himself at Gennesaret. As far as my father knew, Emmy Kaskel was with him, but of course I knew better. The idea was that Edmund and I would cycle the twenty-five kilometers there on Sunday and join them. Henry could’ve given us a ride, of course, but leaving our bikes behind was out of the question. There were plenty of interesting places to explore in the forests around Lake Möckeln. Without our bikes, we’d be like cowboys without their trusty steeds; that’s what Edmund and I thought.
On the Saturday night my father and I visited the hospital again, me in my graduation outfit, Dad in a blazer, shirt, and tie. He never wore a tie at work or around the house, but when he went to the hospital, he dressed up. Even though he took the bus almost every day. I wondered why, but I didn’t want to ask. Not on that day either.
My mother was in the same bed in the same room and seemed mostly unchanged. Her hair was newly washed and looked a little nicer. Like a sort of halo on her pillow.
We’d brought a bag of fresh grapes and a bar of chocolate, but after an hour with her, as we were leaving, she gave me back the chocolate.
“Take it, Erik,” she said. “You need some meat on those bones.”
I didn’t want it, but I took it anyway.
“I hope you have a good time at Gennesaret,” my mother said.
“You bet I will,” I s
aid. “Take care.”
“Send my regards to Henry and Emmy,” she said.
“I will,” I said.
On the bus home, my dad talked a lot about what we could and couldn’t do at Gennesaret. What we should keep in mind and what we absolutely could not forget. The propane and what not. He was trying to hide the note he had in his hand, which my mother must have given him while I was in the bathroom. I could tell by his tone that he didn’t really care about the advice he was giving. He trusted Henry and Emmy. He rambled on out of duty and empathy with Mom. I felt sorry for him.
I really do believe he trusted me, too.
“I might stop by some time,” he said. “And you’ll come to town every now and then, won’t you?”
I nodded, knowing that this was mostly just talk. Things you say to make yourself feel better.
“But I’m working three more weeks. And I’ll want to visit her at the weekends.”
It was strange that he said “her” instead of “Ellen” or “your mother,” as he usually did.
“It is what it is,” I said. “We’ll be fine.”
I took out the chocolate bar—a Tarragona—the one that had been for my mother, but that she’d given back to me. I handed it to my dad.
“Do you want some?” I said.
He shook his head.
“You take it. I’m not in the mood.”
I put it back in the inner pocket of my jacket. We passed through Mosås, past the peat-moss bog where Henry had worked for a couple of summers before he went to sea; I tried to picture Ewa Kaludis’s face, but I wasn’t having much luck.
“If you find the time, tar the boat,” my father said when we turned into town at the junction. “It couldn’t hurt.”
“Will do,” I said.
“The dock isn’t up to much, I suppose.”
“We’ll take care of that too.”
“Only if you have the time,” my father said and hid the paper my mother had given him. “The rest is up to you.”
“Who knows what the future holds,” I said.
“Keep your head in the clouds and your feet on the ground,” said my father.
When we got off the bus at Mossbanegatan, I dropped the Tarragona in the trash can mounted on the bus stop post.
The Summer of Kim Novak Page 4