Do you want me to come over to yours. No.
I’d like to.
Maybe later. What have you been up to he asked.
Dewdrops drizzle on the darkling moonlake and stars sting holes in the sky
Tidying up your old girlfriend’s place. Finding letters. She seems to have understood the word mail in her own special way. In a way that meant postie reads the letter first and then it’s the addressee’s turn. I ended the call.
wind goes felom playom.
He called back. I didn’t answer. He left a voicemail. I didn’t listen to the message.
’cause when it does somebodies will die
Either or. Painting or letters. I fetched the box the wine bottle and the cheese sandwiches.
Closed my eyes and pulled a letter at random from the box. Closed my eyes again and pulled the cardboard off the painting.
Closed my eyes and drank a full glass of wine in one breath. It wasn’t much good. Tasted of crap parties.
My tension made itself felt in my stomach. As if breaking into an abandoned house. Climbing on a rotten roof. At any moment your feet might go through the shingles. But I carried on all the same.
The canvas had been stapled onto a wooden frame. I placed it on the lap of the bergère and sat on the sofa.
We were in the chapel. The body of the church was filled with white light. Sunrays coming through the aisle windows reflected off the altarpiece and the figure who knelt in front of jesus the prophets maria and the apostles. The figure was a child with bare dirty feet and wearing a pair of striped pyjamas. A child of war but no barbed wire and no train.
The pews were empty.
There was a sound as if an organ was playing or was that just in my mind’s ear.
The record stuck and then moved on. Stars in skyom dudom delom wind goes felom playom.
Someone came in. I turned the record to play its b side.
John sat down next to me and we looked into the painting. The kneeling child was walking backwards to the door. Turned at the second last pew and caught sight of someone.
Do you remember what you said to me asked john. I shook my head.
He gave us those he had made into apostles and into prophets into evangelists shepherds and teachers.
Among them who are you john I asked topping up my glass. A human being that’s all he said.
But who if you had to choose.
Then I’d be a shepherd. I am the one who watches and waits. What about yourself he wondered.
Evangelist I said. The person who writes. I didn’t know you write he said.
The child kept walking towards the door. Stopped when she caught sight of the person in the pew. She didn’t recognise him. He looked strange. His hands were resting quietly in his lap.
You were the man in the chapel I said. You asked if I was sad.
John looked surprised. No I don’t think that’s how it went. I asked you what had happened. And you told me that the butcher had come for the horse.
John got up. Searched the record and put on an everttaube. While the boat still sails before the heartbeat fails.
No I said again. I said father had killed the horse. And you said you understood why I was sad.
We remember it differently john said. You began to cry. I couldn’t think what to do at first but I gave you a candle. Here I said. Light a candle for your horse.
You took it and walked up to the candleholder next to the altarpiece. But when you looked for matches to light the candle there weren’t any. I helped you out with my zippo. I had to try a couple of times before it lit. Then we placed the candle in the holder. You prayed for your horse. Its name was fingal.
No limerick I said. His name was limerick.
Ok. So it was limerick john said. I put my arm round your shoulders to comfort you. Then I hugged you close to me with both my arms.
If one bright day is your lot be glad at what you’ve got the glimpse of light you forgot.
The curious smell from eskilbrännström’s kitchen came back.
I could see it in the picture now. The fuel fumes from the zippo lighter blended with the smell of his skin and the byre odours that had oozed into the overalls and jackets hanging on hooks in the coldporch.
We stood together at the altar. His hands were on my back. His hands were on my hair. My hands warmed themselves against his chest. How they suddenly slipped inside his shirt. Palms against chest hair. Palms for the first time feeling a man’s skin that was not father’s.
Then you ran I said. You let go of me and hurried down the aisle and out through the church door and when I came outside the yard in front of the chapel was empty.
While the ship still sails before the heartbeat fails while the sunlight still glitters on waves in the wake.
No he said. I didn’t run away. I wish I had. But I didn’t run. I stayed holding you tighter still. Pleasured by the girl’s hands as they explored my body. Inhaled your innocent soapy smell.
In the end you were the one who ran.
Who gave just you sight and hearing made just you hear waves breaking and singing their song
I put the picture back in its brown covers. Switched the record player off.
John was lying back on the sofa. His eyes were closed. I pulled a lock of hair back from his forehead. You’re not to blame for what happened it was my fault just as much I said. I must have been longing for someone and you happened to be there.
Then I tucked him in under a pink blanket and tidied away the wineglass and the crispbread crumbs. He slept or perhaps just thought. The plants needed watering. In the end I went to bed in my girl’s room. I had made my bed afresh that morning. It smelled nicely of sheets dried in the outside air. Georgåbyericson looked the other way. The staircase creaked. I moved over to the side of the bed. John came to lie next to me with all his bodyweight and hair and skinsmell as powerful as ripe hops of an august night.
He was breathing against my mouth. Mouth meeting mouth. Told me something but I tried to silence his mouth but it kept speaking. It said that in the end the man and the girl left the chapel together and took the path down to eskilbrännström’s.
The man had grown hard and rough from relentless work. His back was already bent. He was just twentyfive.
The girl in the striped pyjamas who was once premature was a still a child but older than she looked. Fourteen already. She followed him even after he had told her to get lost. She didn’t want to get lost. She wanted to go with him home to his house at the end of the sideroad. Almost ran to keep up with his fast pace. Tugged at his shirt until they had both climbed the grated iron steps and closed the door behind them.
By now I remembered but there was something about that memory. It tried to escape by twisting like a seatrout fly on a flytying anvil. My memory had somehow bypassed what happened until a month later. When father’s hands were tearing in a rage at my white milkingcoat. My father’s body forcing my panties off. He came with a bellow just as I saw bror closing in with the spade raised above his head.
Then we had lain together on the pullout bed. Geraniums in flower stood on the window sills. One might suppose that I sought nearness. But my body’s needs were driven by raw desire. I licked up sweet words and caresses like a pet cat abandoned at the end of the summer. The door to the bestroom had been left open. One could make out a chest in there. On top of it stood a pair of yellow rubber boots.
Afterwards you told me to go away and never come back. You were moving south soon you said. So I went home. The same way as before. The pyjama sleeve was torn. My feet burned where they had been bitten by the forest. I stopped at the bramble bushes and picked berries saving every second one for bror.
I lived on the thought of you. Endured because I could think about you. But when father charged after me in the byre I stopped thinking about you. You vanished as if nothing had happened.
It sounds strange but I still hardly know who you are but you must have recognised me when we met in the blizzard.
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Of course I did he said.
Why didn’t you say anything then I asked.
We had met before then. A couple of years later he replied. In the shop. You had come by with bror. Bror and I talked together for a while. You and I said hi but your eyes didn’t register me. I thought maybe you didn’t want to remember or perhaps you just didn’t.
Anyway these letters he said. Why don’t we read them together now that we’re here. I have.
No I interrupted him. What katarina and I had between us is nobody else’s business. Not even yours.
THIRTYTWO
We woke late in the morning. The wine had given me a headache. My mouth was dry and sticky. I clambered out of bed and went to the loo. Sat there for a bit wondering about the truth of the story we had told each other yesterday. Had I really gone with him willingly. A man of whom I had absolutely no memory some twenty years later despite his face and build being so striking and unusual that it should be impossible to forget him.
But there was a kind of freedom in not knowing. I wasn’t a righteous person. I was just as pleased with halftruths.
John went home. I started all over again. Made crispbread sandwiches and a cup of tea. Sat down on the bergère and fiddled with the bundle of letters. Pulled off the string and sorted the letters by geography.
Our community was shaped like a cross. The central point was where the shops were and the library the churches the filling station the school they had closed and the eldercare office. The roads that radiated from the centre in four directions went to the smaller villages. To get to our village one turned eastwards. Many tens of kilometres separated the easternmost from the westernmost village. The same was true of the southern and northern villages. Dirt tracks that led to houses standing on their own branched off each one of the main roads here and there.
I arranged the letters as if around a clock face where twelve was north. For form’s sake I counted. Fiftytwo letters. But apart from that I couldn’t see any structure. The addressees seemed unrelated to each other. Katarina had been pilfering at random just because she could. But might have been deliberate in some cases.
I opened the first letter. A postcard for kristinasvensson in northvillage. I knew her. Towards the end of primary school we were in the same class for a couple of years.
The writing looked childish and the message was simple.
Hi my best penfriend. Thank you for your letter. It must be nice for you to go and stay with your granny. Such a pity the weather is bad. It’s lovely here. In the skiing holidays I and my cousins went to sälen. Hope we meet up in the summer. Hugs gabriella.
I put it away.
The next letter was also addressed to a person I knew. Wonder who would write to him. Then I decided to skip letters to other people. They had nothing to do with me. None of my business to read or to deliver.
There were four letters addressed to me care of bror. Three had dates about a month apart. All had been opened and resealed with tape. I felt that the routes to heaven and hell would begin with the same staircase.
Letter one. Date seventeenth march twothousand-andthirteen. Hi mum. If I may call you that. You know who I am and don’t all the same. We do not know each other. Not yet.
I am your daughter. I was born on april first nineteenhundredandninetysix.
First things first. I am not writing to attack you. I have a good life and I am sure you had your reasons for giving me away.
I am writing because I often think about you.
Wonder who you are and hope that we can get to know each other. Here is my telephone number so that you can get in touch with me. Please do!
Love. Diana.
Letter two. Date seventeenth april twothousandandthirteen. You may not have received my letter. I sent it care of bror. He said that was all right.
Perhaps the thought of me troubles you and I can understand that but it would mean such a lot to me if we could meet.
I hope to hear from you.
Love. Diana.
Letter three. Date seventeenth may twothousandandthirteen.
Hi mum. At the time when I wrote the first letter to you I had it in my mind to give you three opportunities to reply. This is my last letter to you. Because you have not answered my two previous letters I assume you do not want to know me. It saddens me so very deeply. I am not sure you can imagine what it feels like. Diana.
Letter four. Date seventeenth april twothousandandsixteen.
Hi jana. Your daughter had tried to get in touch with you as you probably know from reading her letters. As you should have by now. Such a shame you didn’t receive the letters earlier.
This is my revenge on you for ruining the relationship between magnus and me. It was your doing that my son grew up without his parents. And now it’s my doing that hopefully you will never meet your daughter. Katarina.
I ran to the jeep and drove down to eskilbrännström’s. John had just got home. He smiled when he saw me. Was quite unprepared. I hit him in the face with my fist. He lost his balance and fell against a chair. I grabbed another chair and swung it towards his body. One of its chubby handturned legs cut his head. His hearing aid flew across the floor. He hadn’t counted on the power of my fury. He defended himself with his arms. It must have hurt. I hoped it did. I wanted to hurt him. He begged me to stop. I carried on.
You knew you bastard. You had read the letters.
I screamed that I’d kill him and other things.
He got hold of the chair wrung it out of my hands and held my arms down so I couldn’t hit him. I kicked him instead. I wanted to damage him. Not only for diana but for all the secrets he had kept from me. For his lies paintings drinking silence. This is who I was. Longsuffering pliant and obedient until the ultimate limit had been crossed. As it was now.
Calm down he said. Please calm down. He forced his body against mine. Held me so hard I couldn’t wrest myself out of his grip. So I used my heel to stamp on his foot as hard as I could and when his pain response made him relax his hold on me I ran outside. Jumped into the jeep and drove away as fast as I could.
I would burn down her house. Take an axe to her furniture. Knock down the stone on her grave. Everything that had once been katarinakarlssonhansson must go. She was lucky to be dead. But when I tried to open her front door the key seized in the lock and I caved in. Instead of hauling all her possessions out into the yard and throwing them on a bonfire I sat on the veranda and cried. There was no justice. They took my child from me and when I could have had her back a vengeful katarina was next in line to have a go at me.
I dialled voicemail and listened to john’s message. It had been sent last night.
Don’t read the letters before I’ve arrived. Please promise. I’m on my way. Don’t open the letters.
I deleted his message.
I texted fredrik. Sorry but you have to fix the rest yourself. Then I went to my bank page and transferred his money back to the account it had come from. Hung the key on the hook by the door and drove home. Bror’s rehab fee had to be managed some other way.
Still in the car I dialled the number diana had given me. My heart was beating so hard I wasn’t sure if I would be able to speak.
Hello someone answered.
Can I please speak to diana I asked shakily.
Diana. There is no diana at this number. You must have dialled the wrong one. What number did you want. I told her.
The number is correct she said but my name is linda. The phone number is a fairly recent subscription.
Thanks I said and ended the call.
THIRTYTHREE
Bror was sent to an institution for young offenders and learned to booze. I stayed at home with mother and learned to keep my mouth shut.
Kept my mouth shut about my swollen breasts morning sickness growing belly. I hid inside bulky sweaters until concealment was no longer an option.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want the baby. Not at all. I pretended it simply didn’t exist. Giving birth to
father’s child was unthinkable. So it didn’t exist.
I was in my last year at school. Finally I was told to see the headmaster. The school psychologist was there too. They looked pityingly at me. Asked how I was. Did I need help. With what I asked. We’re here to help you right now johanna the psychologist said in that special way these people have of not quite knowing your name. I can come home with you. Does your mother know what’s happening to you. I shook my head. No not mother I said. Jesus is all she has.
A few weeks later I had a sore stomach. Ran to the loo and after quarter of an hour I had to go again. Mother came upstairs to my room and asked how. I said go away. She said your time has come. What time is that I asked. Time to go.
A few hours later a child was born.
She was lying on my chest. She was wet and bloody. Her light downy hair stuck to her head.
The nurse said tiny babies can’t smile.
She did smile.
The nurse said tiny babies can’t see.
She did see.
Our eyes met. Her gaze was as black as outer space.
Then they took her from me. No don’t I said. You’re not to.
They gave me an injection in my arm. Wrapped her in a blanket and lifted her up and carried her away. For as long as I could hear her she cried. She kept crying until I could no longer hear her.
You can’t keep your father’s child. You would hate her mother said.
You can’t become a mother at the age of fifteen. You would regret it the psychologist said.
Give my baby back to me I said.
But my baby was already someone else’s child to care for and to love.
THIRTYFOUR
Autumn had come. Some of us had counted the days like bairns counting the days left to christmas.
The first monday in september we met up in the hunt cabin. It was bucketing down. And still dark.
I had taken lukas to the big kennel. He was circling the cage and whining. Probably knew what was going on. A couple of grey elkhounds were next door. They all came to the wire netting and sniffed oneanother.
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