“Hi, hic,” Edmund said, behind me. He sounded like one of the frogs down by the lake. I opened my eyes and got my tongue and legs going again.
“Hi there, Miss Kaludis,” I said. “I was just going to the john. See ya.”
I sat there a while. Reading the same page of True Stories in an old issue of Reader’s Digest fifty times. I don’t know what was buzzing more—the three-quarter-full, summer-heated drum of shit beneath me or my fried noodle of a head—but I sat where I sat and it took a while. Only when Edmund knocked on the door and wondered if I’d had a shit-thrombosis—a rare illness from the depths of Medelpad—did I pull on my swimming shorts and give up. I opened the door and stepped out into the world.
“Hic,” said Edmund and tried to smile like Paul Drake. “What do you think about this whole shebang? Berra Albertsson … and everything.”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Some brother you have there,” said Edmund cooly, but it was clear that he was more worried than he was letting on.
“He’s out of his mind,” I said.
“Hic,” said Edmund. “You smell like shit.”
Cancer-Treblinka … I started to think, but I’d already forgotten where I’d put Edmund’s father.
“Maybe we should just go for a swim?” I said.
“You don’t have to ask me twice,” said Edmund.
We swam until the sun had fully set and the mosquitoes started to buzz like crazy at the shoreline. Ewa Kaludis and Henry were on the dock, testing it out, and Ewa said that it seemed to be a sterling construction.
A sterling construction. I floated on my back out in the water and my entire body blushed. What would it be like at night?
“Exactly,” said Edmund, splashing around like a goofy seal. “Built to last, hic. No more, no less.”
Ewa Kaludis laughed.
“You’re a funny one, Edmund,” she said.
Then she linked arms with Henry and they went back to the house.
My brother Henry and Ewa Kaludis. She hadn’t taken a swim, even though it had been so hot. Maybe she hadn’t brought a swimsuit with her.
But she did try out the dock. Sterling work.
-
11
Before my mother got sick with cancer she said a number of strange things. It was in the weeks right before the diagnosis; maybe she sensed misfortune coming and wanted to impart some wisdom. A few words for the road before it was too late, I suppose.
“You’re the dove, Erik,” she’d say, looking at me with her mild, watery eyes. “Henry is the hawk; he always manages to come out on top. But you, you we have to look after, you’re the one who has to watch his step.”
These words came to mind when it started to sink in that Henry was involved with Ewa Kaludis. That he was actually with her. I mulled over this idea of the dove and the hawk and, thinking of Berra Albertsson, how lucky it was that Henry was a bird of prey. Because when Super-Berra found out what was going on between Ewa and my brother, well, there were sure to be consequences. I thought so, at least, but I knew what a miserable amateur I was when it came to navigating love’s labyrinths.
And Edmund wasn’t any better at it. Not one bit.
Love is like a train, I’d heard Benny’s mom say. It comes and goes. Maybe there was something to it, but Benny’s mother was probably no expert in matters of the heart either.
But I didn’t really think much about it; it was hard to put words to, and to process. My brother and Ewa Kaludis. Kim Novak on the red Puch. Her breast against my shoulder in the classroom. Berra Albertsson and red-faced Mulle in Lacka Park.
That was more than enough already.
Anyway, we didn’t hear much that night. Nothing that suggested they were in there, doing it at least. The tape deck was on low; Ewa laughed now and again: it had a sort of cooing sound. Henry’s hoarse guffaw rose through the floorboards a few times. Nothing more. Maybe they were just sitting around talking, what did I know? Maybe that’s what you did. When you weren’t in the mood.
Still, Edmund and I stayed awake in the dark. We lay still in our beds, pretending to sleep, until we heard Ewa and Henry say goodbye out on the lawn. A minute passed and then the Puch fired up in the parking area. Edmund sighed deeply and turned toward the wall. I looked at my self-illuminating watch. It was two thirty; it had probably started to get light outside, but we had the blinds pulled down as usual.
Cancer-Treblinka-Love-Fuck-Death, I thought, somewhat dejected.
And Edmund’s dad. And Henry and Ewa Kaludis. No, that was too heavy, as I said. Not worth thinking about.
It was nothing for a fragile dove to trouble his fried noodle with.
“It’s a delicate situation. I take it you understand as much. Delicate.”
From across the dining table, Henry gave us a serious look. First me, then Edmund. We looked back at him with equal gravity and each swallowed a bite of macaroni. It’s much easier to look serious and inspire confidence when your trap isn’t stuffed with macaroni. Especially if you happened to have mixed in too much flour, as Edmund had this time around.
“Of course,” I said.
“Discretion is the better part of valor,” said Edmund.
I had no idea what he meant, but that Edmund, he was full of strange expressions:
Discretion is the better part of valor.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Seh la gehr, said the German.
Not to mention all the Norrlandish.
“Good,” said Henry. “I trust you. But remember: even if you think you know a lot, there’s very little you understand.”
“That doesn’t just go for you. It goes for me too,” he added after a while. “And for everyone else.”
He waved his fork in the air in front of him, as if he wanted to write what he was saying in the void. “We’d be better off, us people, if we could keep ourselves from always having to create a damn context. We should give ourselves over to the fleeting present instead.”
He fell silent and lit a Lucky Strike. Pensively blowing smoke across the dining table. It wasn’t often that Henry let more than one sentence slip at a time, at least not with us, and the effort seemed to have tired him out.
“In the fleeting present,” said Edmund. “I’ve always thought so.”
“How’s the book coming?” I interjected.
“What?” Henry said, staring at Edmund.
“The book,” I said. “Your book.”
Henry took his eyes off Edmund and took a drag.
“Can’t complain,” he said and stretched his arms over his head. “But you’re not allowed to read it until you’ve turned twenty, remember that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s that kind of book,” my brother said.
The hawk protecting the dove, I thought, and then that half-page popped into my head. The one I’d read eight or ten days ago, about the body that fell onto the gravel road, the dense summer night and all that. Suddenly I felt ashamed: as if without warning I had found myself in possession of something that was apparently forbidden and inappropriate for children. I don’t know why. I muttered something in reply, but it seemed a response wasn’t actually necessary, so I started shoveling more macaroni in my mouth.
“I was thinking about visiting Mom tomorrow,” said Henry after he’d stubbed out his cigarette. “Want to tag along?”
I finished chewing. “No thanks,” I said. “I don’t think so. In a week or so, maybe.”
“Your call,” Henry said.
“Say hello for me,” I said.
“Sure thing,” Henry said.
“The soul lives right behind your vocal cords.” That was another one of those strange things my mother said before she was admitted to hospital. “If you listen carefully, you’ll always be able to tell the
difference between right and wrong. Remember that, Erik.”
The day after E-Day (E as in Ewa Kaludis) we rowed through the creek to get provisions from Laxman’s, and I asked Edmund where he thought the soul lived in the body. And about right and wrong.
This seemed to be the first time Edmund had ever thought about it, because he missed a stroke and we glided right into the reeds. It was easily done: the creek seemed to be getting narrower and narrower with each passing day; the cabin owners usually got together and cleared it out once every summer, but it hadn’t happened yet this year.
“Your mom has a handle on right and wrong,” Edmund said once we were back on course. “Of course you know when you’re doing something bad. When you’re being mean to someone or …”
“Or you’ve cleaned out a gum dispenser?” I said.
Edmund turned that over in his head.
“Chewing gum is one of the ills of youth, I’m sure of it. So, cleaning out a gum dispenser can never be completely wrong,” he said.
“But it must be a little bit wrong?” I suggested. “Like stealing planks is.”
“Darn little,” said Edmund. “It’s peanuts compared with … well, if you compare it.”
His sudden solemnity made me understand what he was comparing it to. Neither of us said anything for a while, but then he feathered the blades of the oars, placed them on the gunwales, and started to pat his body down.
“But where the soul lives, devil knows. It moves around. When I eat, it’s in my stomach. When I read, it’s in my head. When I think about Britt Laxman—”
“Enough,” I interrupted. “I get it. You have a nomadic soul; that’s probably because you’ve spent so much of your life moving around.”
“Maybe,” Edmund said, taking hold of the oars. “Have you told your brother about the fight in Lacka Park, how it went?”
“No,” I said. “Why’d you ask?”
“Because my gypsy-soul tells me it’s the right thing to do.”
I was quiet for a bit.
“Henry always comes out on top,” I said. “He’s been to sea twice.”
“Well, then,” said Edmund. “I was just thinking. It’s hot as hell.”
“The long, hot summer,” I said.
“That’s one helluva song,” Edmund said. “It can’t hurt for us to keep our ears to the ground. About Henry and Ewa and what they’re up to. What do you think?”
“White man speak with forked tongue,” I said.
It was one of the best lines I knew. It could be used in any situation, except when you were talking to a native, and Edmund didn’t have anything to add.
“No further questions,” is all he said and continued rowing through the channel of reeds.
A few nights later I woke when Edmund sat up in his bed, gasping.
“What’s the matter with you?” I asked.
“He must have picked her up in the car,” said Edmund. “In Killer. I didn’t hear a moped.”
“What are you babbling about?”
“Listen,” said Edmund and then I heard it, too.
Two distinct sounds.
One was Henry’s bed creaking and groaning. Slow and steady. The other was Ewa Kaludis whining. Or moaning. Or gurgling. I didn’t know which because I’d never heard a woman make noises like that before.
“My, my, my,” whispered Edmund. “They’re going at it so hard the whole house is shaking. I’m going to blow.”
His jabbering upset me.
“Shut up, Edmund,” I said. “You shouldn’t talk like that about certain things.”
Edmund fell silent. Leaving only the sound of Henry’s bed, rhythmically, insistently reverberating through the night. Throughout the house.
“Sorry,” Edmund said after a while. “You’re right, of course. But I’m going to sneak out and have peek anyway.”
“Have a peek?” I asked.
“Sure,” said Edmund. “We can spy on them from the stairs. They don’t have a blind down there. It might be educational. Come on, don’t dilly-dally.”
For the first time in my fourteen-year-old life I had an erection so hard it hurt.
Edmund had probably thought we could each sit on a step and have a look, but that didn’t work. The rickety stairs went up to our room along the gable wall, and across the top of the window in Henry’s room. If we were going to see anything, god-willing, we’d have to stand in the flower bed near the wall with peonies, mignonettes, and a hundred different types of weeds. As stealthily as Indians, we sneaked there, and twice as stealthily as Indians we popped our heads up above the window ledge.
And then we saw everything.
It was like a movie, but there weren’t any movies like that at that time, way back at the start of the sixties. But I had the vague notion that they’d exist in twenty years’ time. Or thirty. Or a hundred; never mind, at some point there’d be films like this, if but for the simple reason that they were needed.
It was a vague notion. The rest wasn’t vague at all.
Ewa Kaludis was straddling my brother. She was naked and her breasts were bouncing as she rose and sank over him. They were half-turned in our direction—well, she was, and that was the important part. They’d lit a few candles, which were stuck in empty bottles; every so often the flames flickered, and the light and shadow danced across her body.
Across her bare face and bare shoulders and bare breasts. Her slender, curvy, shining belly heaving and rolling and the glimpses of her dark sex, which was sometimes hidden by one of her thighs and Henry’s hands.
I think both Edmund and I held our breath for five minutes.
Inside the dimly lit room Ewa Kaludis was making love to my brother; calmly and intently, it seemed; for a fraction of a second at a time we could see her whole sex and that he was in fact inside her, but it was enough. It was so beautiful. So goddamn beautiful I knew I’d never see such a sight again in my tiny, pathetic life. Never ever again. Even though my slim, erect fourteen-year-old dick ached like a broken bone, I started to cry. As softly and quietly as when we’d cycled through the summer night away from Lacka Park, I let the tears flow. Standing there in the weeds, staring and crying. Crying and staring. After a while I noticed that Edmund was jerking off. He’d started breathing with his mouth open, and his right hand shot up and down like a piston inside his pajama bottoms.
I took a deep breath and started to do the same.
Afterward, we crept away. Without a word, we walked over the dewy grass down to the lake. Wobbled out onto the pontoon dock and dived in as quietly as we could, so they wouldn’t hear us back at the house. Pajama bottoms and all.
The water was as smooth as a mirror, warm and soft; I backstroked far, far out and floated on my back for a long while. Edmund had also swum out, but he kept his distance. It was clear we both needed space: two lonely fourteen-year-old boys in the middle of a summer night in a lake warmed by the July heat.
Edmund and I.
We hadn’t exactly lost our virginities, but it was something like that. Something great and mysterious. I’d opened the door and witnessed something I’d been longing to see. Something that was like another country.
And it had been beautiful.
So goddamn beautiful. What else could we have done after that but go float in a lake?
Yes, that’s what I remember thinking.
-
12
We were on our feet first thing the next morning even though we’d been awake for most of the night. Both Henry and Ewa were gone by the time we came down, so we assumed he’d given her a ride in the early hours of the morning. Of course she couldn’t stay away for too long when visiting my brother.
Or so we assumed, so our fourteen-year-old brains reasoned. We didn’t say much at all that morning. Edmund stirred his cereal around the soured milk for five minutes before he h
ad a bite, as usual. He spread whey butter on his toast with ceremonious fuss. As if it were a task of grave importance, like a ground-breaking scientific experiment on which the future of mankind depended. As if spreading any over the crust or leaving a square centimeter unbuttered would cause the whole universe to explode.
I still remember searching for meaning in the difference between our ways of eating breakfast. Me, I usually polished off my toast and chocolate milk in under four minutes. For Edmund, breakfast was a kind of ritual, handled like a priest officiating at a communion service. Not that I had much experience of communion, but I had seen it once—when Henry was confirmed many years ago—and I’d never taken part in anything so slow or dull.
So maybe this difference in our breakfast rhythms meant something. Maybe it was one of those things that revealed the differences in our character, and if one of us had been female instead of male, it would have been impossible for us to live together as man and wife. Completely out of the question.
I had to smile at that last thought. I was only speculating to kill time while waiting for Edmund to finish up that morning. Loose, dumb speculation. Of course I’d never marry Edmund, however much of a woman I became, and I guess these thoughts appeared because I was tired of keeping my mind in check. That’s what it was like inside my head those days. When I was alert and awake, all was well, but when I hadn’t had enough sleep, anything could pop up. Cancer-Treblinka-Love …
In any case, we had beautiful weather on this day too. We lay on the dock reading until mid-morning, and then we went out on the boat. We rowed to Fläskhällen first and played a few rounds on the new pinball machine. We didn’t win a free turn; it was a stingy game on the whole and slightly tilted. When we’d had enough we ate ice cream and rowed out to Seagull Shit Island. We had a backpack full of apple juice, books, and Colonel Darkin. While Edmund tore through Journey to the Centre of the Earth for the fifth or sixth time, I tried my hand at some pretty involved panels. The image of Ewa Kaludis’s breasts bouncing last night danced before my eyes, but however hard I tried, I couldn’t capture it as it had been in real life. I couldn’t even get close. So I decided that there would be no lovemaking depicted in Colonel Darkin. Not now, not ever. It wasn’t my style, and it wasn’t the Colonel’s either.
The Summer of Kim Novak Page 9