She was on a high when she got home; both the talk and the subsequent discussion had been exciting. The focus had been the current watered-down labour organisations versus Meidner’s original vision, the possibilities inherent in collective ownership, the common responsibility that leads to a greater sense of community among people and to happiness in the long term. A wonderful opportunity that was being lost.
‘But,’ I asked her, ‘can people really be together?’
‘What are you talking about? Of course we can. It’s all of us together who build this society.’
‘Well, yes, obviously it’s possible to carry through a project together, but…that sense of belonging, of togetherness, does it really exist?’
‘That’s what people feel when they’re striving for common goals.’
‘But isn’t it like a football team? During the ninety minutes while the match is on, they all want the same thing. But when it’s over, they all go home separately.’
‘I don’t understand where you’re going with this.’
‘Me neither. I just mean…that dream of a greater feeling of community, it’s just a dream. It’s not something that can happen in reality.’
Sofia’s eyes narrowed as she looked at me and asked, ‘How did you vote in the election?’
‘Social Democrat. Your lot.’
‘Why?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t like the centre or the right.’
That conversation was typical of what happened whenever we discussed politics or related topics. I honestly believe that Sofia’s attitude was both healthier and more sensible than mine, yet I still couldn’t bring myself to share it, because I was far too convinced of man’s fundamental isolation inside his own poor head. We are all standing on the edge of an abyss, and we are standing there alone. A solipsism perhaps, but that was my experience of life, and it differed significantly from Sofia’s.
*
And yet we battled on. Sofia usually left early in the morning to go to her childminder’s course in Solna. I slept later, and when I woke I would practise my magic, read newspapers and books, and go for walks in the area around the Traneberg Bridge as I tried to work out what to do with my future.
My job at the Mona Lisa was going okay, but no more than that. Roberto seemed disappointed that my appearances hadn’t led to a surge in bookings, and after a couple of weeks I felt I had to forgo any kind of payment and just work for tips. On some evenings I came away with as little as a hundred kronor.
I still hadn’t given notice on the house in Luntmakargatan. The situation would have been untenable if Sofia had asked for a contribution towards the rent, but she didn’t, and I never mentioned it again. It didn’t feel good, though. The glowing future that had shimmered before me just a few weeks ago was now at best a guiding light in the darkness.
Winter came with repeated falls of wet snow, and I got more and more depressed as the temperature dropped. When Tage Danielsson died in October it didn’t really bother me, although I was a big fan. On the other hand, when the ice hockey goalkeeper Pelle Lindbergh smashed his car into a wall in the middle of November I was upset for several days, even though I’d only seen him play in a couple of matches in the ’83 World Cup.
Why did Sofia put up with me? The only explanation I can think of is that she was just as lonely as I was. We spent the evenings watching TV and listening to music, mostly Depeche. Sofia liked to read aloud from Winnie the Pooh, which was her guide to life. Sometimes we played board games—Mastermind, Yahtzee, Othello, Monopoly. She loved games, and had a whole pile that she had brought from her childhood home, in spite of the fact that she hadn’t had anyone to play with before I came along. At my lowest moments this seemed to me to be unbearably sad.
On my birthday, 2 December, she gave me a special backgammon board made of wood, and I did my best to look pleased, although I knew it was more of a present for her than me. In the evening we went out for a meal and I drank too much wine. Sofia paid.
During the journey home on the subway we sat opposite one another in silence. As we crossed the Traneberg Bridge I looked out of the window at the big snowflakes falling into the water, and I knew that the life I was living was not my real life. In my alcohol-befuddled state I thought I could see two parentheses made of cast iron slamming down on either side of me, trapping me.
It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later that I decided to break free. No, that’s wrong. Like so many other important steps, it was taken without any contribution from me. It was decided that I should break free, and that decision was passed on to me through despair.
*
It was a few days before Christmas Eve. A week earlier Roberto had informed me that he no longer had any use for my services, so I was pretty much unemployed. I had 1200 kronor in my bank account, and a hundred-kronor note and two tens in my wallet. I still hadn’t paid the rent for January. It was some small consolation that I had been booked to appear at the Boilermakers’ Association New Year party, which would pay 1500 kronor.
I wandered restlessly around Sofia’s apartment. The twee neatness felt like a kind of menacing madness just then. The three soft toys on the bedspread, the china bunny rabbits on the chest of drawers, the bunch of dried flowers from her high school graduation, the cassette rack. She knew where every single tape was, even though there was nothing written on the spines.
When Sofia got home from college we made dinner together, and I fantasised about slicing off my fingers. As we ate we avoided talking about Christmas and what we were going to do. We watched a film on TV, and Sofia had to ask me more than once to stop jiggling my leg up and down, because it was getting on her nerves.
Sofia wanted to make love when we went to bed, strangely enough, and I couldn’t do it until I’d asked her to put on her glasses. Then I managed it by pretending Anna Lindh was on top of me, and that I was Olof Palme. Sofia fell asleep, while I lay there wide awake. After an hour she started snoring gently. I couldn’t bear it and a confused plan began to take shape in my head, a way of putting things right. I slid out of bed, got dressed, grabbed a bucket and a wooden scoop and went out into the night.
During that bitterly cold winter I had observed a strange phenomenon. Next to the doors leading into the subway station there was a ventilation drum, from which warm air poured out onto a flowerbed. At the exact spot where the air met the earth, there was a little rosebush, which, encouraged by the heat and the floodlights, had decided to start flowering in its temperate patch, surrounded by snow.
It was just after one o’clock, and I could see that the barriers in the station were unmanned. I started digging. The roots went deeper than I’d expected, and when a small group of travellers came up the escalator about fifteen minutes later, I had barely made any impact. I hid in the shadows, and when they had gone past, I carried on.
It took me just over an hour to dig out the bush and a decent clump of earth, with the help of the wooden scoop. Sweat was pouring down my back as I shovelled earth into the bucket and pressed the bush down on top of it. My hands were bleeding from countless scratches, but I picked up the bucket and hurried home in a state resembling intoxication. I had the rosebush—here I come with my rosebush beneath the glow of the street lamps.
By the time I stumbled in through the door, panting because I’d run up the stairs, my enthusiasm was already beginning to wane. I took off my jacket and boots and carried the bucket into the bedroom, where I placed it on the chest of drawers in front of the bunny rabbits. Then I stood and contemplated the outline of the half-metre-tall bush. It redefined the room, which had probably been my intention. I couldn’t say for sure—it was just something that had to be done.
When I had finished looking I lay down on my side of the bed on top of the covers, without getting undressed. Half-formed thoughts and images ricocheted around in my head like a badly planned firework display. At some point it occurred to me that I ought to rearrange the furniture in the living room, but fortunately I fell asleep bef
ore I could act on that particular impulse.
*
‘What have you done?’
It was still dark outside when I woke up, dizzy from the lack of sleep, and saw Sofia standing in the kitchen staring at the floor, which was streaked with dirt and littered with clods of earth. I rubbed my eyes and muttered, ‘The rosebush…’
‘Yes, I saw it. Why have you brought it here?’
I squinted at the bush, standing on the chest of drawers in its plastic bucket, which did it no favours. It was impossible to explain the compulsion that had made me dig it up, so I simply said, ‘I just did.’
Sofia shook her head. She fetched a dustpan and brush and swept up the worst from the kitchen floor, then said, ‘You can do the hallway. I have to go to college.’
She put on her coat, and when she appeared in the doorway to blow me a farewell kiss, I said, ‘Have you looked at it? The rosebush?’
‘Yes, John, I have. It looks ridiculous. We’ll talk about it later. Bye.’
‘Bye.’
The front door closed behind her, and I lay in bed gazing at the bush. Its tangled, thorny branches with their leaves and the odd flower billowed out from the chest of drawers like a confused train of thought frozen in the moment.
I got up and showered, then stood in front of the misted-up mirror with a towel around my hips. Like the rest of the apartment, the small bathroom was very tidy. Bottles of shampoo, conditioner and moisturiser were neatly arranged on a shelf. From hooks adorned with Winnie the Pooh characters hung three identical towels. There was a liquid soap dispenser covered in a floral pattern, and next to the washbasin was a brand-new body brush hanging from the nose of Winnie the Pooh himself.
I looked at the brush, which was never used, but was there because the space required that a body brush should hang there. From Winnie the Pooh’s nose. I thought about the revolting bathroom in the laundry block. The ingrained dirt, the dim lighting, the cracks in the plaster.
I know.
A tiny dot of calmness grew until it took over my entire body. I knew. There was nothing to be done. However hard I tried, I would never fall in love with Sofia, or be able to live the life in which I now found myself. It was a parenthesis and an escape attempt. I remembered the last words Elsa had said to me: Something else is beginning now. Believe me.
Wasn’t that what I had always waited for, searched for? Something else. For something else to begin, irrespective of what it might be. The chance had been offered to me, and I had recoiled in fear at the prospect. What did I have to lose? I had nothing.
I packed my plastic bags and wrote a note to Sofia, thanking her for everything and wishing her Merry Christmas and the happy life she deserved with someone better than me. The last thing I did before I left the apartment was to fetch the rosebush in its plastic bucket.
Over-burdened with bags and bucket I headed for the subway. When I had got halfway I began to hurry, and by the last bit I was almost running.
It was ridiculous, of course—after an absence of two months a minute here or there was unlikely to make any difference, but I longed for that something else to begin, and was horrified at the thought that it might be too late. So I ran.
When I got off at Hötorget, it turned out that the exit for Tunnelgatan was closed, so I went up the escalator to the central concourse, where as usual I was disorientated for a little while before I found the way out to Kungsgatan.
There was definitely a festive atmosphere. Christmas lights were strung between the buildings, and because it was lunchtime, people were taking the opportunity to shop for presents. Apart from the bucket containing the rosebush, I think I fitted in well as I went round the corner by Ström’s clothes shop and continued down Sveavägen, laden with carrier bags.
A lot of snow had fallen and been trampled by hurrying crowds; it had then been sprinkled with sand so many times that it lay beneath my feet like an extra layer of tarmac. Everything was familiar yet at the same time quite alien; the streets were like old acquaintances you haven’t seen for a long time who suddenly turn up with new clothes and a new haircut. The same but different.
Dekorima had set up their Christmas display in the window. A dummy dressed up as Santa Claus was standing at an easel with a brush in one hand and a palette in the other, busily painting a bowl of oranges adorned with carnations. I started wondering what the connection might be between all this and the birth of Jesus, but my train of thought was abruptly broken off as I turned into Tunnelgatan.
The street that had formed a link between Sveavägen and the tunnel was now dominated by four builders’ huts stacked on top of one another in twos. The sign on the restaurant on the corner was hidden, and to make up for this they had put up a poster on the wall of one of the huts facing onto Sveavägen: Bohemia Bar and Restaurant.
When I had passed the huts, I found out why the builders were there. The whole of the side of my building adjoining the tunnel was covered in scaffolding and tarpaulin. Some of my neighbours’ apartments, including Elsa’s, must have been significantly darker as a result.
There was no sign of anyone working; maybe the builders were on their Christmas break. It seemed to be a renovation project, but why only on the side where the tunnel was? It was impossible not to think back to what I already knew. There had been a movement of some kind, and maybe something had cracked.
My arms were aching as I put down my burdens to key in the entry code. The date of women’s suffrage still worked. I lumbered on, through the stairwell and out into the courtyard. Everything looked the same as usual, apart from the layer of snow covering every surface. There was a well-trodden path between the fire escape, the main door and the laundry block, but in front of my house the thick snow lay untouched. My eyes swept the apartments, the windows, but no faces had appeared, and no one seemed to have noticed my arrival. In a way I was disappointed. Here I am, everyone!
I plodded up the steps and scraped away the snow with my boots before fishing out my key and unlocking the door. A horrible smell hit me immediately, and I staggered back outside waving my hand in front of my nose.
It can be seen as a measure of my determination to return that I didn’t follow my usual pattern and interpret the stench as sabotage or a sign that something terrible was going to happen, but assumed that it was what it was: rotting food in my overflowing kitchen bin.
I took a deep breath of fresh air, held my nose and then tackled the problem. The food scraps had metamorphosed into something else entirely, and the bag dripped all the way to the garbage chute in the yard.
I left the door open to air the house, and went across to the laundry block. There didn’t seem to be anyone inside, and I hesitated with the key in my hand before deciding to wait a while. Better to get myself sorted first, then tackle whatever had brought me back. If there was anything to tackle. Maybe it was over
something else is beginning now
and I had lost my chance. The silence all around me, the sense that everything had turned away, suggested that was the case. With a sinking feeling I went back to my house and unpacked my bags. I placed the rosebush on top of the television. In my current situation it seemed like a friend.
*
When everything was as tidy as it could be, I was suddenly overcome by despair. I was so naive. I had run to the subway as if a wonderful revelation was waiting for me, but the only thing I had actually done was to flee. Not to, but away from. Away from the floral soap dispenser and the body brush hanging from Winnie the Pooh’s nose.
I didn’t have a job, I couldn’t afford to pay the rent, and I had no plan. I wasn’t even back to square one—I was back to square zero. From something to nothing. I really wanted to be a romantic, a seeker, but what was I? An idiot.
As I sat on my chair with my head in my hands berating myself, I heard the door of the laundry block open and close. I leapt up and peered through the blind, but all I could see was the light being switched on. Without any great hopes I pulled on my boots and went
outside; dusk was already falling. It was minus ten degrees, and the snow crunched beneath my feet as I crossed the courtyard, turned the key and stepped inside the laundry block.
Even from the back I immediately recognised the person standing in front of the closed shower room door. The shaven head, the bomber jacket, the boots. The skinhead turned around and nodded in acknowledgement.
‘Have you got a key?’ he said, gesturing towards the door.
Maybe it wasn’t over after all. The room was still secured with the same bar and heavy padlock. Someone had clearly tried to force the bar, but it hadn’t given way.
‘No. What’s in there?’
‘How the fuck should I know? That’s what I’m trying to find out.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s something, and it’s making my dad crazy. Have you got a key, or what?’
‘No, I don’t have a key.’
‘So what are you doing here?’
I could have said that I was there for the same reason as him, but for one thing I had no desire to form a team, and for another I was beginning to see a connection, so I asked as casually as I could: ‘Does your dad live here?’
The skinhead had lost interest in me. He placed the palm of his hand on the door as if he were trying to feel a vibration. ‘Mmm.’
‘Does he usually wear a suit?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘I just wondered.’
I now saw the image that had filled my mind that day in the Brunkeberg Tunnel in a completely different light. What I had experienced was no erotic fantasy, but a father’s longing for his son, the same son who had now turned back to face me, and was standing with his hands by his sides.
‘Are you not a participant in this at all?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘Was it Elsa’s recommendation you be excluded?’