I settled the dog and borrowed the jeep. It wasn’t far. Just downhill through the crossing and turn right into the track.
The yard looked deserted. The house was dark but he might be painting or sleeping. I couldn’t remember if we had set a time to meet.
He didn’t open the door. It was locked. People around here rarely locked the door. If they did for some reason the key was hung on a nail near the door or else they left it in the lock. But there was no nail and no key and the door stayed locked.
I stood outside a door listening for signs of life for the second time that day.
The farm had been built on a low ridge with the forest at its back and with the bakehouse and byre at an angle to the house. A tractor had snowcleared the yard all the way to the outbuildings.
I almost slipped as I crossed the yard to the byre. It looked well cared for. No sign of burnt haystacks and children killed by smoke. I turned the wooden bar that held the door shut and stepped straight into the byre smells of my childhood. Cow stalls and chains on welded rings. The remembered calf stalls strewn with straw as my inner eye could still see them. Bull calves just a few days old separated from their mothers and condemned to slaughter. I heard them calling out to the cow. The cow replying from a bit away. I put my hand inside so the calves could suck on my fingers. And then he came. Father in farming overalls his belly pulling at the buttons. Black heavyboots and his broad back that always seemed to say the calves must go.
Get on with it. Settle the beasts.
My eyes adjusted to the failing daylight. The milking parlour the barn sanctuary that should always be clinically clean had large spiders’ webs spreading over the walls and dirt blown in from outside formed drifts on the floor.
The white coat dangling from a nail had turned grey with age.
A worn sweater with frayed cuffs lay forgotten across the back of a chair. The milk cans were lined up. Hung on the wall nearby the milking machine with its sucking teat cups that were put on the udders. If the cows had to wait for too long they complained in chorus.
I felt tugging inside my own breasts. I imagined the anxiety of having to stand there, tethered and waiting for release from the backed up milk by a hungover farmer who vented his bad temper on the animals.
We had an understanding the animals and I. How often I had whispered into their silky ears that they should kick him to death. Just as they had whispered to me. There’s a hayfork with sharpened tips.
I saw john before he saw me.
He fumbled forward in the dusk. Stumbled on something and swore. I slipped out from the shadows. We were close in the narrow milking parlour and I picked up something about the scent of his body. When I sniffed all I got was his skin. Not dry shit smell of cowpats that had never been cleared out. He pulled me closer. Our anoraks rustled against each other. My hands found a way in under his jacket. Quickly searched his body. My fingertips took snaps to keep as memoryimages. His tense arms shoulder neck the uneven skin over his temples and my fingers twisted into his hair.
He lifted me up. My legs hooked around his hips. His harelipscarred mouth against mine and our tongues swirled in chaos. His eye glowed in the dark because outside the day had become night and the stars must be glowing too.
Everything was craggy and hard and rough even his tongue but from the bulk of his body tenderness flowed into mine turning me into a newborn calf with a ravenous muzzle. Did it hurt did he hold me too tightly could I draw breath. He wouldn’t let me go and I didn’t want to be freed. When the inescapable cold caught up with us we walked back to the house. The moon had risen. It followed us across the icy yard.
Where were you I asked later when we were lying in the pullout bed examining each other’s faces as if we had just been born.
In the hayloft he told me.
The place that burnt.
Yes. Then I heard sounds and found you. Or perhaps you found me.
I didn’t know you had a child.
No. How could you have he replied. What about you he asked and now I had a choice. I could say no and carry on as I was. Or I could say yes and let light fall on a part of me that didn’t exist.
I was drawn into the warmth and struggled with my thoughts. Touched strings that wouldn’t stop vibrating but all the same my brain was ticking over. Busily at work as ever. It hardly ever took a break. Now it was thinking about father and also about a child.
We started kissing again. That night we kissed so much that the unpractised skin of our lips opened up in sores and then we kissed still more. And his sex and mine. Chafed and painful but drawing new strength from saliva and body fluids from overflowing wells.
We slept afterwards or did we I don’t remember. In our sleep if there was any his body was so close warm and sweaty that I lost all sense of who was I or you.
I would remember that night. Take it out to hold like a fragile fabergé egg.
You and I he said. A binary weapon.
SIX
It grew lighter. I didn’t need to check the time to know it was four o’clock. The tapeworm was hungry and I crawled gently out of bed not to disturb the sleeping man. I stood there for a while looking at the black curls on the pillow as if at the image of an angel. One image of many. Casual contacts that came and went without names and faces.
A bathroom had been wedged in under the stairs. I found a tshirt to use as a nightdress. Sat down on the black bakelite ring and tried to collect my thoughts but didn’t get very far. The tapeworm kept up lowlevel gnawing however hard I tried to focus on neutral things like cleansingsoap colgate stomatol almawin cleaningfluid shavingfoam and timotei shampoo.
Peeing was sore. It hurt between my legs and my entire pelvis ached. Cautiously so it wouldn’t make a sound I opened the bathroom cabinet to find out what a man like john might want to keep out of sight but it was a disappointment. No jostling of products on the shelves no thrilling medicines or exclusive women’s perfumes. Just a solitary bottle of oldspice a packet of toothbrushes from the coop and a barber’s razor with a motherofpearl handle. The bathroom could do with a really thorough clean. My fingers were itching to start but the outdated black floor tiles were freezing and I longed to be back in the warm bed.
He was lying on his side with his head resting on the elbow of his bent arm. His strange kafkaeyes followed me as I walked from the bathroom to the sofa. He shifted a little to make room for me. The contrast between the frosty bathroom and his warm body was like a shudder. I was pressed against his body. So hairy everywhere. Curly hair on his head chest legs arms stomach. Even his feet were covered in hair like some kind of primate. Hair tickled my nose. It caught in my mouth. A little lower down I felt his penis grow against my stomach. The fingertips of his free hand lightly stroked my skin. It was a pleasure different from the sudden warmth after the chill. This took time. An eternity before they found my burning sex that wanted more however badly it ached.
I had a child I said afterwards. I don’t know where she is. She was adopted at birth because it was the best thing to do.
Best for whom he wondered.
For mother I suppose and for me too. I was very young and couldn’t look after her. A child to look after a child.
We must have fallen asleep a little after that. We woke to banging on the door and bror’s voice shouting that he wanted it opened. Demanded. His words in the car on our way to the shop had stayed with me. You know nothing about john. Now they came to mind again.
Is there bad blood between you I wondered and realised that john was about to tell me something but that he instead decided to get out of bed. He pulled his jeans on but in daylight his nakedhairy torso made him look like a gorilla who’d prefer to be on all fours.
Coming he shouted impatiently at the door. I locked myself into the cold bathroom.
Where is she bror said in an agitated voice and I hesitated about how to answer him.
Cool down john said. Jana is a grown woman who makes up her own mind.
Jana is fragile and s
he doesn’t need you my brother shouted at the top of his voice and banged on the bathroom door.
Fragile. What was that all about. I ought to have come out and calmed him down but at the same time I was curious. What would they shout at each other next. They shared knowledge of something I didn’t know so I stayed and said nothing.
Was that my brother sobbing or was it john.
It was bror.
You killed her he wailed. You’re such a bastard. You should have died.
John did not speak. Didn’t defend himself didn’t explain. I unlocked the door and stepped outside. And there. Wrapped in john’s arms bror leaned weeping against his chest. It was like an out of body experience and I was looking at myself. Maria he sobbed my maria. Probably with his mouth full of black curly hair.
As the storm died down john loosened his hold. He had a scratch along his arm and it was seeping blood. Bror held something in his hand. Not knife but a corkscrew.
I wrested it out of his sweaty grip and said what were you trying to do. Jump at him with a corkscrew. Bror stared at the floor his hair falling in greasy strands across his face.
Are you coming home with me he said.
I’ll drive you back john said and bror didn’t argue. Allowed himself to be led down the steps and into the jeep.
I was left standing in the hall still unable to get my head round what had happened.
Maybe lay a fire I thought. Make coffee.
The ancient kitchen was baffling. Only a woodburning range not even a fridge. The handle sticking out through the tiles above the cooker had to be for the upper vent. I opened the different doors on the range. Tried to work out where the wood was meant to go. The lowermost seemed logical. I poked a couple of logs inside and poured on a slug of citifolks kindling. The fire took almost at once. As it burned I fed it with more wood. Warmth was spreading slowly across the cold floor and entering the walls.
When john came back the kettle had just boiled.
He opened a trapdoor in the floor and pulled out butter and cold meat. How was bror I asked but he didn’t answer.
Maybe I was speaking to his deaf ear.
We sat down together for a while. Considered our shared experiences in silence. What had been and what would happen next. I poured myself another cup of coffee. John slurped from his saucer. Held the basket with soft flatbread and nodded meaning have some more to eat. Pushed the butter dish closer to me.
There’s some skyr if you’d rather.
Bror I said. I didn’t know how to follow up. Maria.
Maria is my daughter’s mother and she was once my wife but she was also your brother’s lover as well as many other men’s he said. Andreashorn found her behind the sawmill. It was last summer and at first it looked as if she had fallen asleep in the grass. She was lying on her back her hands clasped as though praying but when he came closer he realised she was dead.
I could see the place in my mind. Knew precisely where it was and that she must have been found in the clearing with the birch next to the abandoned building. Long ago we had carved messages for the future into that birch so nothing would be forgotten. All the same I hadn’t even thought about the old birch until this moment.
We sat facing each other at the table in john’s kitchen and the rawness between my legs forced me to perch on the edge of the chair. There was a humming noise in my ears and his opaque eyes wouldn’t leave me so I just pushed my hair behind my ears several times and asked who had taken her life.
No one knows. Probably she took her own life. It was said that I did it. It was said that your brother did it. That other people did it. It was even said that finn did it though nobody actually believed that. It could have been anyone. She had a way to make men feel chosen john said and let his finger run along the inside edge of the snuffbox to collect enough for a last pinch. She pulled them into her web like a black widow spider and killed them every time she had caught a tastier prey. Figuratively of course.
You too.
Yes me too but at least I got petra. But others like your brother. He didn’t finish the sentence.
It’s the reason why emelie disappeared if you didn’t know already he went on. Bror hasn’t worked since and if nothing changes he’ll drink himself to death. He’s even been kept out of the hunting team.
I didn’t like the tone of his voice when he talked about bror and those eyes of his that wouldn’t budge once they had started to see. He reached across the table to grab my hand but I snatched it away. I had better get ready to go home I said and stood. My brain took unkindly to messy notions alleged murderers and all lack of clarity. So I told his back as it put more logs into the range that I think it’d be better if we didn’t meet up anymore.
I didn’t do it said his back and I do want to see you again. He turned to me. Bent over me and breathed against my temple. Stroked my arms that were feeling cold again. I let it happen. Let him pull the tshirt over my head and his hands cup my breasts and then lift me up and place me on the bed. He took his own clothes off and then I asked him to lie down on me with all his bulky weight and come inside me while I pulled his hair hard to hurt him and he came with his whole gorillalike body that I didn’t want to share with a corpse.
You are beautiful he said afterwards. Your soul is old.
I leave everyone in the end just like maria I said.
We kissed in the doorway. I asked if he minded my taking a picture to remember us by and he stared earnestly into the eye of the camera while I tried to smile.
Then he put into words what I had not wanted to think about.
I don’t believe your brother did it either.
SEVEN
Monday morning is monday morning wherever one lives in the world. Not that it helps. The jarring sound of my mobile rang out so near my ear I had to reply to shut it up.
Is that janakippo asked the female voice at the other end of the line. This is märitljungqvist from the elderly care service in smalånger local council. You have applied for a post with us and I would like to meet you as soon as possible.
When the call finished and we had agreed a time for the interview I crawled back into bed with the phone and scrolled until I had the image of us in the hall before I went home. I ought to end this. Send him a text or use some other cowardly means to avoid any suggestion I wanted him. Then I remembered the byre and the memories it had stirred and the relief that it was he who had caught me in the milking parlour and not father in his green overalls with popping buttons down the front.
Before I went to the council branch office I went along to the sawmill and before that I had drunk coffee in the kitchen with bror. I told him as was true enough that he ought to find help to stop drinking but that there was nothing wrong with him it was me who was fragile and slept with men who weren’t right for me.
When my questions touched on maria and emelie he got up suddenly and locked himself in his bedroom.
I got out of the car and felt that spring was in the air. My feet sank into the slush and I hoped I remembered right about where the open wellhead was relative to the cottage. At first I recognised nothing. The clearing that used to be overgrown with saplings and small firs was not an old clearing anymore. It had been tidied and the weeds cut back.
The size and age of one tree made it stand out among the others. This was the birch of my childhood and it stood where john’s and bror’s and everybody else’s maria had died with her hands clasped in prayer.
I clomped over to the tired birch. Compared with other trees a birch’s life is short and this one too was grimly destined to pass on soon. The uppermost branches had already died. It would fall over in the end or else lightning would do for it. My hand ran down over the carved childish letters that were still legible despite time. I read our names as the blind read braille. Bror’s then mine and then magnus roger katarina johan tony daniel and andreas all inside hearts pierced by arrows.
The names brought back memories of untroubled summer days. Cheerful kids carving
names into the birch by the smalånger sawmill.
Just as I had long ago I now put my arms around the tree until I lost track of whether I was hugging the tree or the tree was hugging me. From the outermost edge of my blurry field of vision I saw another much more recent carving. John it said. John heart maria.
A cloud covered the sun. I had an appointment to go to. Feeling uneasy I followed my own footsteps back to the car. When I drove past the lane to eskilbrännström’s farm I forced my eyes to look straight ahead and accelerated. The tapeworm wanted an afternoon snack.
The anguish I felt made me need a shit. During the job interview my mouth moved automatically. Expressed gratitude for the opportunity to work with the council’s most needy dependents in their remote houses reached by potholed dirt roads. Despite my never having worked for the homecare service and having only a vague idea of what might be required.
You will start tomorrow said märitljungqvist. We get together here in the office and the lists and sets of keys are handed out. You are mariabrännström’s replacement. She was a warmhearted and appreciated person. You might not find it easy added märitljungqvist. And as she held out her soft hand in goodbye she added but we have no other applicant at present.
I used the office toilet. Washed my hands and looked at myself in the mirror for some time. My face looked the way it used to but somehow not. What I had felt at the sawmill gradually vanished and john’s hands on my body came back. There was something about him that I couldn’t refuse. I took a selfie in the mirror and sent it. There was never a reply.
The following day at seven o’clock on the dot I was seated in the meeting room with my new workmates. I recognised some of them from my last years at school.
The talk was going as usual. The weekend had been extralong with an added day off. Family demands mixed with leisure. As usual whenever family life came up as a subject I had nothing to contribute. Manless childless and contextless that was me. I listened aimlessly and politely until the first questions came my way.
My Brother Page 3