Yes said my brother everyone knows that. Though he didn’t die.
People stared at us as usual. Stopped short and scrutinised the diptych facing them until they realised they were ogling and went back to checking prices and bestbeforedates. It was hardly bigger than a village shop, a small ica grocer’s. We always called the family that managed it the icanders even though it wasn’t their proper name.
The icanders were mum dad and sons. They had been working here for as long as I could remember. By now the youngest son was maybe sixty but he looked the same as always except his hair had thinned. Seeing us enter the shop made him genuinely happy. He knew not to expect returners or newly moved in people. At best some impoverished refugee on a temporary placement. Which was probably why they had never bothered to refurbish or extend the shop. Foodstuffs were still stacked on tall shelves along the walls.
I manoeuvred the trolley trying to think a few days ahead followed by bror who smelled badly and seemed to be in a trance until he suddenly spotted icander senior and stopped at the shelf of tinned food.
Two tins of artichokes please bror said and got a sidelong glance in return.
The artichokes were on the top shelf. Covered in dust like tins stockpiled for an emergency.
The shopkeeper moved the steps along and climbed up. Standing below we could see the treads bending under his body. Mricander wasn’t simply fat. He was huge. His rump shook like a jelly. Sweat poured down his cheeks. Breath wheezed in and out of his massive chest.
Fuck’s sake I whispered you didn’t have to do that.
There was a mean grin on bror’s face when the man came down and handed over the tins.
Here you are he said. Hope they are as tasty as last time.
We put the goods on the counter. Mrsicander said the name of each item out loud when she entered it into the till. Coffee yes. Soap yes. Twelve lemonades yes. Tampons yes. Oranges yes. Otex ear drops yes.
She once worked in a pharmacy down south said bror. So what I said but he didn’t answer. He was focused on glaring at a blanklooking guy who wouldn’t take his eyes off us.
No wonder shopping puts me off bror muttered as he packed the stuff we had bought into cloth shopping bags mother had sewn by hand.
Admittedly I was sometimes amused to see people pay attention to me for just existing. Even though we came from different eggs we mostly behaved just the way people expect from twins. Read each other’s thoughts and spoke in unison.
So what’s the delicious dish you are going to cook with the artichokes I asked when we were back in the car.
His answer was to make a face.
Look seriously I said. Why torment him with your tins. He hasn’t harmed you has he.
And what do you know he replied. Nothing that’s why I ask.
Bror was staring through the window at something. Get over it he said in the end.
I swung into the service station to fill up and buy tobacco.
Are you back home again asked the till girl though I had no memory of having met her before.
You see I heard you slept over at dad’s. Lucky you didn’t get lost in the blizzard she said without looking at me.
Just one of those things I replied. And you are his daughter I asked just to be polite but she was already busy with another customer.
Finn had stopped his johndeere at the diesel pump. Returning to the village was like being back inside the truman show. Everything revolved in the same cycle. People moved from place to place at exactly the same time. Reality was looped like an infinity sign. As were the routines of finn and his tractor.
Cool colour I said as I passed and he startled as if I had intruded on his meditations.
Our jana he said now that wasn’t yesterday. His face had softened when he recognised me. He took a step or two towards me as if wanting to hug me but stopped in his tracks and pushed his hands into overall pockets. Malicious gossip had it he was daft but finn was just a bit of a loner. He kept himself to himself.
I bought it last year he said. You can have a go driving it if you like or just come along for a nice run. I’m going over to olofsson’s to clear out the tank he added and nodded at the gully sucker coupled to the tractor.
Not today I said. But another day would suit me fine.
So you’re staying here for a while.
We’ll see I said and walked over to the car worrying that bror wouldn’t keep upright for much longer. He was propped up against the car door and smoking. I put my arm round his back and talked him into his seat. We’ve got to get to the dump in time too I said.
You mean the recycling centre said bror as he opened the window a crack and lit another cigarette. Yes whatever.
It’s been moved bror told me. Nowadays it’s tucked away next to the sewage treatment plant. Open Mondays and Thursdays seven to twelve. When the week has an even number.
And uneven weeks.
Closed he said.
So we set out homewards instead.
Remember shooting dump rats with air rifles I said to lighten the atmosphere.
Yeah that was great he replied. Until you happened to shoot rogergran in the leg. Who did I said. Not me. Wasn’t that you.
You me you me who cares he said. One of us anyway.
Sure I said. The cowberrygirls gave us a lift home. Roger sat next to you. He was crying and his calf was bleeding. He cried all the way back.
Roger always has been a crybaby bror said.
Once back home we helped each other put away the things we had bought in the food store part of the cellar. It seemed I still thought of the kippofarm as home.
It was messy even down there in the cold dark space where only food and overwintering geraniums had a life. He had come down for more than just fetching onions and potatoes. On the floor stood an ashtray full of fagends and empty beer cans were scattered here and there. It was freezing.
What do you get up to down here I asked.
Try to feel things he said. Sometimes it seems nothing is for real. Then I come down here and sit on the floor and get cold. Well try to feel that I’m cold.
My brother had keeled over and needed help to right himself. I was pretty certain that he kept going on cigarettes and alcohol and didn’t touch food. He was emaciated like a pauper.
Together we gathered the rubbish into the ica bag and then clambered up the steep steps.
It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn’t given henrik a thought. There had been no room for him. I decided to stay for a little longer than planned and went off to reinstate myself in my old girlhood bedroom. Bror leaned against the doorframe watching as I made the bed with clean sheets and put an extra blanket on top. The pink woollen blanket was the same type as at john’s. They must have gone to the same auction.
On the walls okej magazine covers with sexy popstars mingled with childish drawings and pictures that had been hung in my room because they had to hang somewhere. Even my childish ornaments were still in place. Keyrings shells fool’s gold and stones from the seashore placed on embroidered runners that my mother enjoyed making in such quantities they had to be stored in boxes kept in the coldattic.
You can say what you like about her but she was ace at embroidery bror said.
He shifted from where he stood to settle at the foot of the bed. You didn’t come when she fell ill he said. She asked for you and I phoned you. You could have come.
I replied with what I had said when he phoned which was that I never wanted to see her again. Neither alive nor dead.
The wind had grown stronger now and made the walls creak but the room was nice and warm as if it had never stood empty and cold.
It never did bror told me. She stubbornly kept your room warm in case you’d come home again. I thought it was unnecessary but didn’t have the heart to tell her how it was.
How what was I wondered. We pushed our thin strands of hair back behind our ears.
Why did we say mother instead of mummy mum mumsie or possibly siri. I vaguely reme
mbered it had started with a norwegian tv soap but after all these years it’s impossible to call her anything else. It followed that dad became father on the rare occasions we mentioned him at all.
Bror got up and asked if I wanted something to eat or drink. Then went down to his room.
I undressed. Crawled under the shiny red padded quilt and wanted to think about the night in the pullout bed at eskilbrännström’s but instead I thought about mother and that she had never turned off the radiator. Now I was back in my warm girl’s room and meanwhile our mother was lying confined in her carehome bed after a stroke. Maybe sometime I said to myself and turned on my mobile. The lists of calls and messages were both empty.
That jana might phone of course. Or send a text. But what could she say. Hi for instance. Or maybe hi good to meet up thanks for yesterday great paintings hope we meet again.
On the other hand, jana might decide to do nothing of the sort. Especially since she didn’t have his number.
At breakfast the house was still silent and the door to bror’s bedroom stayed closed even though I busied myself with putting food on the table and brewing coffee. I turned up the volume on the weather forecast monotone. It was going to be a nice day. The wind had died down. The dripping roof was a hint of spring.
I found an anorak in the cupboard under the stairs. Then a pair of mother’s handknitted gloves and better still a pair of reindeerskin boots that more or less fitted me. I considered borrowing bror’s tegsnäs crosscountry skis. They were leaning against the veranda rail. The snow was still deep and walking would be tiresome.
The key to the gun cupboard hung on its usual hook. Mostly out of curiosity I unlocked it. Obviously my brother’s fascination with weapons had not cooled. I examined the guns one by one. Weighed them in my hand and touched them. Tested the rifle sights and could not resist a newlooking .22.
I took it with me outside placed the rifle on my shoulder and aimed at a fieldfare. My hands were a little shaky but the stock felt just right and so did the weight of the gun.
Crow is the only thing you can hunt for now. Bror was standing on the veranda.
He kept shifting from one leg to the other. His eyes wouldn’t quite open to the early spring sunshine. There were puffs of stale booze on his breath.
Though there are hardly any crows left either. Not in the forest anyway.
It’s a good gun is it new I asked and he nodded. I thought you liked wooden stocks better.
He shrugged. Shoot us a black grouse.
Despite the thaw the skis rode the snow quite easily. I skied downhill towards a car track through the forest that was cleared in the winter for the holiday homers and where the wild birds liked pecking in the gravel scattered by the snowplough. On my back the rifle felt light. The sun warmed my face. My mind was bright and wideopen to the trees and the flying creatures mostly ravens that were moving among them.
After a couple of kilometres I reached the track so I stopped and listened to the forest.
The trees were snapping with joy that the cold was easing up at last. Sheets of snow tumbled from the branches and thumped to the ground. This was the forest of my childhood. Kippoforest stroked my back with its needlerough arms.
Father had taught us how to hunt. We would walk along with the crew until we were old enough to apply for licences. Then we could join the team.
I ought to have shot the old bastard rather than ramming a hayfork into him. It would have made for a clean death instead of him living on as if nothing had happened. By now I could barely remember how it had happened or at times I just couldn’t. Some memories grow inaccessible. It was like putting one picture next to another with most of them perfectly focused. That one shows him beating up mother that one shows him beating up bror. Then a totally blank picture. Not white but with a glossy sheen like brassopolished metal.
A bird rose suddenly. Bigger than a raven. An alarmed black grouse cock. Cautiously I put a cartridge into the barrel and moved slowly towards a branch at a height that I could rest the gun on.
I had the bird in my sight. Lowered the weapon so that the crosshairs was a little below his chest and squeezed the trigger. Observed the bird’s last seconds of life until it stilled and crashed into the snow.
The long skis kept getting caught in small contorta pines. The bird had landed at most fifty metres away from me but I was still unsure where exactly it was. Taking my skis off and clomping through the snow was not an option. I would sink through the soft crust. All I could do was carry on in the most likely direction and hope the sun would not set too fast in case it took time. I was sweating under the anorak. My heels were rubbing against the sagging socks in my boots. But I had to make sure the grouse was not wounded.
Was this really the right direction I wondered. Another black grouse flew up only a few metres away from me but I didn’t shoot it. It was a hen. A sad thought invaded my predator’s mind. The female bird was looking for her partner or she would never have watched from a perch so close to me.
Then I found the dead cock lying under a solitary fir among all the pines.
I picked it up. A fine specimen of almost four kilograms. I held it to me like a sleeping baby. Its body was still warm.
FOUR
Easter eve. We cooked. Stood next to each other communing in the language of the silent. Chopped veg for a burbot soup. Bror kept topping up his glass of wine. He was becoming steadily more drunk but so far with discretion.
I was plucking and drawing the black grouse. I skinned the body and put it away in the freezer all the time sickened by the smell of the gut as half-digested pine needles oozed into the sink and by myself for being a common poacher.
Are black grouse like swans I asked bror but he only shook his head.
Hand me the garlic he said. And the thyme. Seems life in the city has made you a bit of a wimp. Besides it’s a myth that swans pair off for life. They cheat on each other and get divorced. All birds do. The females pull new males to make sure of goodlooking babies. The male drops in at the next door nest box on the offchance.
We were the same height. We had the same stringy hair and we kept pulling at it and pushing strands back behind our ears. Our pale reddish skin was freckled. It’s a pity that we rarely smiled because our teeth were straight and strong. I wondered what we were like inside. If we still were as similar.
Are you staying here for a long time he said and lifted his glass as if to toast something. How do you mean long I said. I mean are you going to live here.
We stood together in silence. I asked myself what the right and wrong answers might be and if there were any rights or wrongs.
Well now I said defensively I don’t know. I hadn’t told him about my job or about henrik. And he had asked no questions not until now.
There’s a job going in the homecare service he said. Because maria went and died he said. Went and went, I don’t know.
What’s that supposed to mean.
Nothing he replied and hid behind the noise of vegetables sizzling in the hot saucepan.
We ate in silence. It was not an unpleasant silence because I could hear him thinking. He thought about how he had missed me and that he wanted me to live here. We had laid a table in the bestroom. Put one of mother’s embroidered tablecloths on the empire style table and lit the candles in the chandelier.
When he had finished eating bror lit a cigarette and blew a few smoke rings.
Later we started talking. We talked about everything except what was wrecking us.
In the small hours the next morning my dead laptop stood on the table alongside the wine bottles and the small fragile coffee cups and the brandy glasses.
I applied for the post as a homecarer in smalångerparish and clicked send.
They would have to be desperate to employ someone who emailed a rough job application at zeroonefortyfive hours in the night between easter eve and easter day I said brushing crumbs into my hand.
Cheers to the homecare service and cheers to jes
us in his cave waiting for the resurrection bror said.
Cheers to us and churchofjesuschristoflatterdaysaints I replied and staggered upstairs to face the world championship team of nineteenseventyfour. I wasn’t even born in nineteenseventyfour. But I had bought the poster in a flea market and stuck it up with drawing pins. I read the names of the players as if praying.
There was one more thing I had to do tonight.
I keyed in onehundredandeighteen to inquiries and asked to be connected to johnbrännström in smalånger.
He didn’t sound at all surprised. Thank you for everything I burbled. Thank you too. How are things between you and your brother are they all right.
So I told him sensing how tired I was. My back was aching after the skiing and all the important things I had wanted to say to him vanished.
Can we meet again I asked.
Yes.
That was it. I fell asleep but in my mind he had wrapped himself around my bony body. Next I was running in the sewage tunnel soon the water was reaching my waist and I knew there was something I should’ve remembered but couldn’t.
FIVE
It was morning. And then the morning grew late. Then midday. It was afternoon before I sat up on the edge of my bed and stared redeyed at the pale yellow wallpaper. Slowly the night before caught up with me. I had applied for a job and phoned john. I was becoming ensnared in a finelymeshed childhood net and the more it seemed I would stay in the village the more my tapeworm gnawed on the gutfat.
A hangover took over from the anguish. All the footballers georgåbyericson ralfedström ronniehellström staffantapper ovekindvall and their teammates stared down on me. They saw a miserable busted creature sitting on her childhood bed with a string of dribble at the corner of her mouth. The creature fell asleep again and woke when the light was fading into evening.
I made coffee and knocked on bror’s door. Silence in there no snoring and even no sound of breathing when I pressed my ear to the door.
I tidied away the supper leftovers and then cleaned inside some of the cupboards to pass the time. A mantra of tidy clean tidy clean tidy clean tidy clean rang in my head until it cleared enough to make eskilbrännström’s seem possible.
My Brother Page 2