I heard mother whimper but never cry out. Her restrained sobbing stuck in the throat like a clump of gall all the while father took and gave what he saw as his rights.
By then. When they had got to the endgame and one side had suffered blood loss but survived I made bror come upstairs with me. We crawled into my bed put out the light and told each other about our real parents who had lost us and were still trying to find us. They lived somewhere exciting like ume or maybe even stockholm. In one of the rooms in their house they kept the unopened christmas and birthday presents from all the years we had been kippos. We were waiting for a miracle.
It was our turn on saturday. Mother woke us at five thirty in the morning always saying the same thing.
Hiding her bruised face with a headscarf and sunglasses. Pretending she was going to visit in a better class of place. Are you two both lying here. Haven’t you got rooms of your own. Your dad is waiting in the yard. Get dressed now and out you go.
Bror tried to refuse. Hid under the blanket. When mother pulled it off him he started crying. Said he didn’t want to.
Your will is growing in the forest she said.
Go out meant go into the byre. Mother and father were small-holders or weekend farmers as city folk called it. We couldn’t live off the land alone but it helped to keep us going. Five cows a few pigs calves and a horse.
Every saturday father said the horse would be mincemeat.
But I thought when you die we’ll use your scalp for a saddle pad.
We had set jobs as befits underlings. First shovel the muck out of the cow stalls then spread straw. Then it was feeding time for the calves. The calves with just one tail would grow up into heifers but the ones with an extra tail would die soon and were kept separately. We heard their frail voices mooing for the mums. Out of father’s sight we were their mum. Father had no truck with pampering.
Next was the turn of the pigs and the horse.
We were chatting together the animals and us. Whispered about father’s friday and were answered with long licks from a rough tongue. Nothing feels safer than a muzzle.
In father’s opinion bror was a feeble weakling who should try harder to be more like a man and the way to go was physical work and to put up with a whipping from time to time.
In father’s opinion I was a feeble weakling who should try harder to be more like a woman and the way to go was practising womanly skills such as milking cows and other teats.
When bror was busy in the pigshed father dragged me into the milking parlour and closed the door with the hook. Put down his bucket pulled me close so my nose was buried in his belly that was bulging out between the buttons in his green farmer’s overalls.
You know I care for you don’t you said father. His hands held my head. Now you just do as well as you do with them udders and I promise that brother of yours won’t get a hiding.
My childish fist pulled and milked until gluey drops were oozing into my palms but the smell was the worst.
His mouth was sour with stale booze. His skin was sweating urine. The fluid coming out of his teat stank of ammonia.
Even though he had promised that bror wouldn’t get hit the blows rained on him anyway. And even though father hardly ever kept his promises I would hope to the last moment that I could save my brother.
I went to stand next to the horse while I listened to the sounds of the beating. The horse told me if I just get the chance I’ll kick him to death.
On sunday father was rested and ready to return to the port and his troublesome workmen. We stood on the veranda to wave goodbye.
Every time I prayed to god that he’d die before next friday.
TEN
I stood in a pool of my pee in john’s bestroom unable to take in what he was saying. The warmth of the liquid around my feet was soon gone. I didn’t hear him when he said that he would never hurt me and that I mustn’t be afraid of him. He just got angry because he didn’t want to show his pictures before they were ready. He didn’t want to scare me. All he wanted was for me to understand.
I asked if I could leave now and he reluctantly let go of me.
He offered to show me his painting but there was nothing more I cared to see. I pulled his vest off and let it fall over the puddle.
Then I went back to the kitchen to find my own clothes.
They had been folded and put on a chair. I dressed quickly. Pocketed my mobile noting that it was already twentyfive to seven.
He was moving around me. Stroked my back and wherever else he could reach. Tried to make things better and said how sorry he was and that he had never met a woman like me.
The clear morning air felt liberating. I jumped into the jeep and turned the starter key. Turned again and still nothing happened. The engine didn’t come to life.
The bonnet rose with a click. I tugged at a few random leads hoping that some inexplicable gap might close again. Tried the key. Nothing.
Ill luck he said as he bent over the innards. He too tugged at a few leads. Twisted a lid and told me to try to start it.
Nothing.
It’s the battery. I’ll drive you. We’ll use the tractor.
Or I could walk I said thinking that I ought to phone work.
He walked down to the tractor shed and I slouched after him.
What was it with me that made me always bend to the will of others.
It was an elderly machine and the cabin was narrow. The only way I could squeeze in was to sit between his spread legs just as in the past father had taught me to drive while I sat with his belly pressed against my back.
John’s hands stayed on the wheel and even though we were so close I sensed the warmth of his body as if from a distance. I had created it. What with the bestroom and the painting and peeing myself and john. Notes of oldfashioned genuine disappointment were ringing out in the tractor cabin.
The diesel engine roared its way to the office of the local homecare service and I knew I’d be late. He swung in to stop in front of the entrance just as my colleagues were leaving for their daily round. They stopped and stared. Said things to each other and nodded.
Jana he said and grabbed my hand before I could shut the door. Don’t take on he said. They know nothing.
About what I said pretending I had no idea what he meant.
About maria. They’ll say that I did it. They want a whipping boy even though just about everyone carries some guilt. Maria wasn’t exactly popular.
I’m already fed up hearing about maria I said.
That I can understand. I’ll pick you up at quarter to five.
No need I said. I’ll walk home. See you then he replied.
The women in my workteam were scattering. I went inside to collect my list and sets of keys. Märitljungqvist was cross and didn’t seem to believe in the flat car battery.
It’s only your second day and you’re already late. Don’t make a habit of it.
It is my second day I thought and you should just be grateful that I’m going to put up with this for a few more days.
The same round. The same people more or less. Ingelahansson’s nappy lay next to her in the bed. She asked for maria. I helped her to get up and though she protested led her into the shower. More protest as I showered her wrinkled crotch with warm water and used plenty of soap. She leaned against me enjoying it.
I even found the time to change her bedlinen and stuff the washingmachine before ingelahansson’s halfhour was over. When I left she waved and looked happy.
My fourth call that day scared me. He lived in our part of smalånger. Allanberg. I would have guessed he’d be dead but seemingly he wasn’t. Like the decent pigs human swine also have a remarkable capacity for survival.
His unpainted timbered house was near ours but higher up and a bit into the forest. I parked on the strip of snowcleared ground and knocked before I entered. He was sitting on a chair in the kitchen with an oxygen cylinder next to him. His skin was as grey as the stains on his trousers.
There was nothing left of the allanberg who never missed a chance to armwrestle. If there had been a wife I didn’t remember. Nor that his house had hardly any furniture in it or that some of the walls were papered with newspapers.
He looked at me without any sign of recognition. His long yellow nails were tapping against the tabletop. When he spoke a solitary tooth in his lower jaw bopped up and down.
So it’s a new one now he said. Ah well true the old one went and died.
Lack of oxygen meant that he hissed the words. I’m to be showered today he said and removed the nose clip that held the gas feed in place. When he got up I saw he had a prosthesis replacing his right leg.
What happened to your leg I asked hoping it had been something that hurt really badly but he didn’t answer me.
The decayed body sat on a shower stool. Waited for the home service’s tender hands that would give it a wash. I put on double plastic gloves. The bathroom stank of used nappies and soiled clothes but all that was still more bearable than the pong from his infected gums.
Haven’t you got a washing machine I asked but he didn’t answer.
He seemed unwilling to answer any questions so I stopped. Later when he was back in his armchair with the oxygen tube back in his nose and I was just about to leave he spoke after all.
I know who you are janakippo. And that brother of yours. If he’s even alive. You’ve always been right miserable critters. Not the proper kippo line. Your father was a different sort. A man to reckon with. Died far too soon.
This time I didn’t answer but I thought. Reflected on how comforting it was that it wouldn’t be long now before advanced lung cancer would seal off his body’s orifices for ever.
When I stepped outside the sky was blue and the sun warm. Never had air tasted better. And I had ten minutes to spare as well so I turned into the drive of my childhood home.
Bror was doing a crossword puzzle in the kitchen. Something about him was different. He had showered and seemed sober.
I bent down and gave him a hug. It was like hugging myself.
How’s the homecare service he said and looked up.
Bloody awful and good at the same time. The other carers hate me but the work is going all right. Something happens when I visit the oldies. They’re lying there all helpless and for once I know exactly what I need to do. No more and no less.
He smiled a little and scribbled a word. Beat, four letters.
Now since you’ve come by. What about allanberg is he still alive. He is I told him. He asked the same about you.
They say he’s loaded.
Do they now I said that’s new.
Bror I said. Can’t you tell me about maria. It’s tiresome to keep hearing things about her without knowing who she is. Was.
He looked up and asked how long he had. Four minutes I told him.
For three and a half minutes he sat staring out through the window. Small birds dived towards the birdtable. Pecked at the suet balls and shot away into the tree for protection. Then he turned to me with a sad expression.
Maria was our sister.
I had had no idea.
Who told you I asked even though I knew already.
ELEVEN
The birds of spring sang and the smalångerstream rustled. Where the road went under the efourbridge it was flooded. A firm promise of spring.
Even the hessiancovered elderlyservices office was bathed in light. Pale wintry faces were eating packed lunches and comparing notes.
I had brought a couple of sandwiches and washed them down with water.
Seems you’ve taken over from maria both her job and her man said jeanette or whatever her name was.
Five days earlier I wouldn’t have known who maria was. By now everyone kept returning to this insubstantial spectre who apparently was also our sister.
My excited workmates were talking across each other but I had already stopped listening. This was one of my talents. At quarter past eleven I got up, a quarter of an hour before the break ended.
Went over to the whiteboard and rubbed out my name. I don’t like betting I said but this morning her nappy was on her.
Then I picked up my list and drove along to the first client of the afternoon. A demented woman in her eighties who had turned the electric hob up to six and burned her wrist. Now she was in tears sitting on the edge of the bed.
I cooled her wrist with ice and called the nurse just in case. Then we sat down together on mrsjohansson’s pullout bed and sang an easterhymn. Christ the lord is risen today hallelujah! all creation join to say hallelujah! raise your joys and triumphs high hallelujah! sing you heavens, and earth reply hallelujah!
It is so strange she said. That he was crucified and died and was buried and got out of his grave on the seventh day and was resurrected in the clearing by the sawmill.
The day continued as it had begun with little variation other than firm or loose bowel movements. The last visit of the day was once more to katarinakarlssonhansson.
She was awake and looked brighter than last time.
Hi she said and smiled. Great to see someone normal for a change. I’m so fucking fed up with the usual run of homecare service crones she said. How do you stand working there. I mean you’re some kind of artist aren’t you. I wouldn’t take a job in the homecare service if it was the last place on earth. I’d rather take a cleaning job for the maintenance company.
Her rant was interrupted by a fit of coughing. I patted her back. Her spine seemed to give under the palm of my hand.
I really don’t mind at all I said as I made up two glasses of squash.
I felt awkward but for katarina everything was just as it always was. I turned her slight body on its side to clean her private parts with baby wipes. Even her pubic hair had fallen out after the cell poison treatments. She looked like a prepubescent child.
I’ll die soon you know that don’t you she said as I fastened the tapes on the new nappy. I’ve been going that way for many months now. It is too fucking awful to die before you’re even forty and I agreed with her. It felt as if we were talking about something else. Like how awful to be unemployed before you’re forty or how awful that the post office has closed.
Your husband then I asked. Where is he.
You mean fredrik. When I fell ill he went off to germany for a new job. His story was that the car company had moved him against his will.
Then we started to talk about our childhood and pretended that everything happening in real time had nothing to do with us.
I’ve been to see the birch I said. Her forehead wrinkled.
We carved our names in it and you can still see them. What happened with the others I asked. All I know is that tony died.
He had something wrong with his heart katarina said. He died in his sleep. Daniel disappeared to somewhere down south I think. I don’t know anything about johan. Andreas is married to sanna she was two years younger than us and hannesbjörk’s sister. They have three children. All called something than begins with a. Alexander anna and alice. Hannesbjörk too has lots of kids and they begin with f. Felix felicia fanny and frej.
All these names. Visiting the old folk was just the same. Interminable stories about people alive or dead and known or unknown who had all done something and said something or died from something. It made me long for the city.
That I was getting to know things about unknown people implied that they knew things about me.
Still it seemed the gossip about maria being our sister hadn’t reached katarina.
What do you know about maria I wondered. Bror claims she’s our sister.
I haven’t heard that one she said. Our erik would be the dad then is that what you mean.
Yes I said.
It sounds weird said katarina. Maria was of course quite a lot older than us. I guess your dad was boasting she went on and I agreed.
Though it could just as well have been john trying to unnerve bror. I neither wanted a new sister nor to know more about f
ather’s flings. Both of them were dead now. Rest but not in peace I thought from old habit.
She was here you know. Just a few hours before she died. I had just come back from chemo and felt like shit. She seemed stressed. Went through the moves faster than usual. Normally she was unhurried. One of these annoying people who don’t get on with things.
And she kept glancing through the window now and then. Listened by the front door.
I didn’t know maria all that well but the talk going around about her was something else. They said she only slept with married men. Like all the married men in the village. Can’t think what fun she got out of that. How’d you fancy having it off with allanberg she said and we burst into coarse laughter.
Then she looked at me for a long time and her eyes seemed to scrutinise me.
Maria reminded me of you a bit. Well of your worse sides at least.
What do you mean by that I said thinking about our neverending childhood duels.
Katarina looked directly at me. Because she didn’t even have eyelashes it was harder to avoid her eyes. Surely you remember how rotten you could be. Somehow manipulative. You were always a step ahead and pushed me around.
No I don’t remember any of that I said. That jana doesn’t exist. Today’s jana is really flexible and does as she’s told.
Just like you were then katarina said. Always offering to help in order to get as close to your victim as possible. Maria was just the same. But then, she was a looker as well so there you had nothing in common.
This was a typical katarina aside. I had no comeback.
Anyway she went on. Half an hour later maria left and I must have been the last person who saw her alive well apart from john. Apparently he met up with her at the garage. At least that’s what petra said when she came to see me.
It was the end of my working day so I drove to the service office and got there in time. In passing I informed märitljungqvist that mrsjohansson had burned herself on the cooker and shouldn’t have a cooker.
A home without a cooker she said. How would that look.
My Brother Page 5