I changed perspective again. It pleased me very much to describe the scene. I could’ve told the story ever so many times.
He hasn’t heard that bror has crawled out from the dunghill fetched a big spade and crept up behind him. I can see it. I watch as he raises the spade over his head. Bends his knees a little for balance and then slices through father’s head with it. A bit like when you split wood.
It isn’t a bad way to die. He hasn’t time to think or feel.
Now there isn’t much more to say I said.
Later that day one of the policemen was replaced by a psychologist.
The psychologist’s language seemed odd. She held her head sideways and asked questions in a special soothing voice. I met her dead gaze and pushed bror’s knee to warn him.
The policeman looked ill at ease most of the time.
The psychologist wanted to know if we had planned to kill father. And if mother had joined in the plot. We should realise that it’s most unusual to kill a parent. A family tragedy.
But specialvoice didn’t get anywhere. She was replaced by a corduroysuit. He stayed silent most of the time and let the policeman get on with the questioning but if the interrogation became too intrusive he said wait a minute to the policeman and asked the question in a different way.
What could we tell him that was not already told and noted down.
Specialvoice had said we were emotionally disturbed. Corduroysuit said we were in shock.
The policeman was after facts.
All we wanted was to go home.
Home I thought. Our home but without father. A home to which father would never return. A home where no one pees his bed from thursday to sunday. Mother will surely have sorted the byre out already. Hosed the brain substance off the floor and scattered straw. Emptied the bottles of booze and the cans of beer down the drain and thrown them in the rubbish. Perhaps she might even have had time to get rid of his clothes.
When it dawned on me that I’d never have to meet father again the relief was so great I burst into tears. Corduroysuit said to pause but the policeman wanted to go on. He took my weeping for a confession. He asked if I had allowed father to have his way with me so that bror would have a chance to kill. By then corduroysuit said enough for today. You are talking to a child he said.
Bror sat with his arms crossed looking down at the table. In the end the police asked why he had done it and then bror looked up at him and took his time to answer.
I don’t know he said.
We had not reached the age of criminal responsibility.
Whether I had tried to kill father with a hayfork remained unproven. It amounted to my words against the healthcare services. They said father had stumbled and stabbed himself. However it was incontestable that bror’s blow with a spade had caused father’s instantaneous death.
I was thrilled every time I thought of his split head. A masterstroke. Like a perfect onehanded blow with a samurai sword.
THIRTY
I was sitting on the veranda in the sun. The wind had died down. The birds twittered. The clegs bit. I missed john.
We had not seen each other since the funerals. Apart from the drive back from the hospital. I wasn’t even sure what I missed. His body. So possibly biological and nothing more.
His painting was still untouched inside its wrapping of brown cardboard. The battalion of drunkards stood to attention where I had left them.
I sat on the steps of my childhood home and wondered about life until I concluded that pondering was pointless.
Man proposes god disposes as mother used to say. For the present there were reasons for staying in smalånger. Letters that must be read. Bror must get well. The john story must reach an end.
And what about maria. She was a mystery and I was no detective but wherever I went and whoever I talked to she came crowding into the scene. I was in competition with a deceased person. Jealous of a corpse. Maria’s power over people had not faded just because she had died.
I smeared jungle oil on my wrists and neck. Decided not to bother about the car and walk through the forest to saraoppalia. There was a track more like an old horsetrail leading to small plots at the edge of the forest and heathland. In the more distant past it had been a trader’s path linking smalånger and other villages in the area. These days it was mostly used by huntsmen. Nature had taken over. Tree seedlings and stiff grasses scratched my legs bared in shorts after a long winter and unused to walking. The track followed the lower reaches of afta hill going northwards and would eventually join the village road at a crossing and then continue westwards.
On the way I stopped at one of the playgrounds of my childhood. The forest was moving in here as well. I tacked between prickly small firs that hit back with elastic branches. By now the old byre was almost completely hidden. It had once been a standalone byre without a farmhouse.
The really exciting thing about it had been that it was full of things. It had been hard to get at because even then the roof had collapsed. We got in through the old dungtrap. Crawled over dried cowshit and heaved ourselves up into the main section with the cattle stalls.
Our greatest find had been a bundle of letters dated nineteen-hundredandtwentyone. The oldworld handwriting quivered with desire and reading turned us on the same way as the sexy bits in the readers’ letters printed in the adult mags that father kept in a box shoved out of sight in the coldattic.
I carefully rounded the open well but now as then I couldn’t resist lying down with my head over the edge to look into the black abyss. Shout something into the hole to hear it answer. Throw a stone to hear it break the surface with a plop.
The roof was completely gone now and the walls were caving in as well. Where the gate had once been the ground was oddly free of nettles and I stepped over the rubble to have a look inside. I used my phone torch to search for traces of the past. Once my eyes had become used to the obscurity I realised that the furniture was still there. Handcrafted worn beautiful and forever captured under a ruined building. Rain and snow would continue to do their work and in the end all would vanish and no one remember what had been.
I picked a few handfuls of wild raspberries and tramped on. The forest air was suffused with the scents of fir resin and bog myrtle. Aching nostalgia for what nature took intersected with my gratitude for what it gave. I was only a few hundred metres from the village road when I discovered the car. Once I had reached the top of the slope I saw there were two cars parked so as to be out of sight.
Someone was sitting in one of the cars. He didn’t look like a polish berrypicker and the thais always went about in groups in minibuses. When I came alongside the car he climbed out.
Janakippo he said. Fancy seeing you. It wasn’t yesterday.
Jakobstenvall. I hadn’t thought about him since I was a child. He was a few years older than us. His elongated body and protruding ears were unmistakable though.
What are you doing here I asked looking around. The cars seemed to be full of things.
I live here he said.
So you aren’t still living in the house in the new clearing I said. No you heard me right. I live here. And what about you he went on. They say you’ve come back home.
That’s right enough. For now at least. Later I’ll see.
What are you waiting to see he asked.
I thought of something to say. Like I had wanted very much to come back but wasn’t sure I’d stay. It was almost true. At least the last bit was.
So your staying or going has nothing to do with john.
Why should it have to do with john I replied.
Just a thought he said. Would you like a cup of coffee. It’s freshly brewed.
I said thanks that’d be nice out of sheer curiosity. And to avoid standing still any longer. We were too close both to the river and the hasa moorland. Guaranteed breeding grounds for mosquitoes and midges.
Jump in he said and pointed at the front seats. It was surprisingly cool inside the car. He handed
me a mug of steaming hot brewed coffee.
Sorry I haven’t got any cake. Visitors are few and far between and I’m a diabetic.
Jakobstenvall had always been apart. He would say strange things when he was a child. Things that children didn’t say. He preferred to be with grownups. I couldn’t remember ever talking to or playing with him.
We sat in silence while we waited for the coffee to cool down. How long have you been living here I asked.
I suppose it is getting on for four years he said. Maybe even five.
It must get cold in the winter I said. And lonely.
Yes. But I cycle to the village library every day. And to the garage. Perhaps you’ve met petra. John’s daughter. She works there. We usually get on. You might say we’re going out together.
What about the second car I asked to get him off the goingout idea.
It became too tight in one so I picked up another one. For free. The gearbox is useless but that doesn’t matter. The luggage space is just fine as a kitchen and the backseat works as a kind of bestroom. Sometimes when I feel like a change I sleep in the front seats.
I thanked him for the coffee and said I had better get on.
It was nice to speak with you janakippo he said. Come by some other time. I’d like that.
When I passed the other car I saw that he really had done the backseats up as a bestroom with pictures and ornaments. There was even a small chandelier in the rear window. Taped to the speedometer was that photo of maria.
THIRTYONE
Katarina’s upstairs floor was warm and stale. The potplants in the bedroom were drooping in the sunlight. I wondered if they should live or die. She had plants everywhere often in pots standing on the floor. Some of them like the palms and cactuses wouldn’t mind dry conditions but others would. In any case the plants hadn’t harmed anyone. I carried them outside into the shade and watered them.
I got it into my head that someone had been here. A chair had been moved. The bathroom cabinet was empty but I wasn’t sure if it had had things in it before. A rolledup rug was leaning against the wall in the hall.
The letters were still in their box. I took it downstairs and put it on the kitchen table.
I spent the rest of the day clearing up and tidying. It was a straightforward job. Thoughts came and went but nothing meaningful. The sorted heaps grew. Rubbish bags piled up on the veranda.
When we were children magnus lived in the same house as katarina. Magnus had been given a prefix just like nicenora bigsture raiderragnar. He was hunkymagnus.
Hunkymagnus had many siblings. His parents spoke finnish. They cleaned themselves in the sauna.
Katarina and I had been competing for his attention ever since the autumn when we were fifteen. Sometimes he chatted with us. Sometimes not. Not was more usual. It was almost summer again before something happened.
Hunkymagnus was more into football than girls. The days went by without him caring much for either of us and that was allright. But a few weeks before the end of summer term I went down with the flu. When I was back at school magnus and katarina were a couple.
My jealousy was boundless. It invaded my whole body and made it shiver as if I were feverish. I couldn’t bear looking at them. Looked away pretended not to listen whenever katarina.
She even wrote me a letter that I never opened.
They walked around school hand in hand. Sat next to each other in the classes. Kissed in front of everyone and were so in love the teachers didn’t know where to look. It was touching.
Inside me endless waves of emotion rose fell back rose again. What I felt must be expressed. I wanted to be liked a lot. Especially by magnus. And I wanted magnus to like me a lot in order to hurt katarina.
So I started a rumour that she had done it with andreas. Andreas who had been in love with katarina for ages agreed to back the story if I paid him.
Naturally it couldn’t be proved but it couldn’t be disproved either. No smoke without fire. I was the fire. It was burning high. Soon katarina would go up in flames too like a mayday bonfire at gallow’s hill. I almost felt sorry for her. She refused to go to school for months and she had changed when she finally returned towards the end of the last year. Not only her body but everything about her way of being had transformed from a child’s into a grownup’s.
She accused me of having ruined her life. So who started acting out I said.
I had originally planned to go back the same way but the prospect of going back past jakobstenvall’s car homes made me uneasy. I locked katarina away in my mind and set out on the usual track towards the centre of smalånger village.
I was thirsty after the cleaning and the walking so I went into the ok filling station to buy a fizzy drink. And a hotdog because I was there. I stood at the counter. Ate the hotdog and drank portello. The doorbell pinged as people walked in and out.
Petra had the late shift that evening. She came across and sat down with me for a while.
You wanted to talk to me she said stirring a couple of sugar-lumps into her coffee. I hope it isn’t to do with dad. I can’t cope anymore with being his gobetween.
Are you usually I asked and she nodded. It happens. He doesn’t half mess things up.
Your mum I began uncertainly just to probe her reaction. Petra responded unmistakeably. Something restless came over her. She got up to fetch a napkin.
If this has to do with your brother I simply don’t know she said. Besides and I mean it I don’t give a monkey’s who she went with. The question seems more like who she didn’t go with.
Customers came and went. I waited at the till and asked if we could meet up one day. She could come over to ours or else I could. I wrote my mobile number on the corner of a free smalånger map and gave it to her. Text or phone me. I’m at work monday tuesday then off until sunday.
Why would you even want to she asked. I’ve got mates already. Of my own age.
Maria is apparently my halfsister I said. That makes the two of us relatives. Niece. Aunt.
I didn’t mention that we were related in other ways as well. I never spoke to strangers about diana.
She said nothing to that. Only stood there for a while. Then irritation returned to her face.
I don’t believe it she said. I would’ve known.
Maria herself didn’t know I said.
So it’s like only you know and nobody else she said.
Your dad told me. You can ask him. By the way I ran into jakobstenvall when I walked up to katarina. He mentioned you. Said the two of you were going out together.
He’s a nutter she said and sighed. Turns up here every day. Buys a coffee and then just sits and stares at me without saying anything.
But also never does anything I asked.
No he has never done anything at all. Why do you ask.
No special reason I said but thought of the mariaphoto he had put up on the old volvo’s dashboard like an icon on an altar.
To get to kippofarm I had to walk for a couple of kilometres uphill. I was trying to work out why john was the only one who knew that maria was one of father’s. Possibly father had told him just wanting to brag. Or it could simply have been a pack of lies.
Asking john was the only way to find out but he might not tell. From him you mostly got facts you didn’t want to know. The messenger who always brought bad news.
I was going to open the letters as soon as I got home. But first I took a bottle of wine from bror’s store and fixed myself a few crispbread sandwiches with smoked cheese.
The box stood on the table. I couldn’t make up my mind to begin. I wandered around the house. Threw a few towels into the laundry basket. Dusted the bestroom dado rails. Used my fingernail on a candlewax spill on the dining table and kept at it until the wax came off. Tried to gather my thoughts and think ahead like a rational person. Now and then I went to the kitchen for another sip of wine. I hadn’t been drinking for quite a while and was already feeling the effect.
I felt like som
e music. A dusty record collection was kept next to the seventies stereo music station. Jameslast everttaube svenbertiltaube abba hootenannysingers religioussongs thevikings and much more. Recordings that would never again be the right listening choice.
I went for alfhambe. A melancholic track. A song in molom.
Now the hares are aleaping in meadowgrass so white.
I sat down on the sagging old sofa. The springs poked into my back.
Now the redkite are slipping into a snowyrosebush.
Not that we ever sat on it when we were bairns. The wear and tear must have been caused by the heavy bodies of father and his friends.
In long spells full of worries my body in molom goes.
As low sunbeams over skerries are fading in the night.
When you looked more closely at the sofa it was actually quite nice. Covered in winered velvet and sweeping in a shallow semicircle. Poor sofa I said how you must have suffered.
I chose to sit there because john’s painting still in its brown-cardboard wrapping was propped up against the bergère armchair that matched the sofa.
Stars in skyom dudom delom wind goes felom playom
I found john’s number.
Hi he said long time no see.
Hi I said. Listen that painting you gave me. What is it about.
Can’t you see for yourself he asked.
I don’t know. I haven’t opened the parcel yet. He breathed at his end but didn’t speak.
Hello. Are you still there I asked. Yes.
Allright. Never mind. Another question. How did you find out that maria was our sister.
He breathed at his end but didn’t speak. Hello. Are you still there I asked.
Yes. Have you been drinking he asked.
Yes. But just a glass or so.
You sound tipsy.
I’m not tipsy I just want to know.
I understand he said. Why haven’t you looked at the painting he asked.
Because it scares me to think that you might have painted something I had managed to forget. I’m growing more and more grateful for the few things I can’t remember I said.
My Brother Page 13