He glanced up at the facades surrounding the courtyard, then crouched down and took out a box of matches. He struck one, and the flame that flared up made the shadowy hollows of his cheeks stand out. I slid off the chair and knelt by the window with my nose pressed against the glass, trying to see what he was doing.
His shoulders slumped, as if he had let out a long sigh. Then he dropped the match into the pool of liquid. Flames shot up, casting a circle of yellow light across the snow. The bottle probably contained petrol rather than alcohol, I concluded. The man’s face contorted in a silent grimace of pain, his lips forming a black ellipse.
I looked down and saw that he had placed both hands in the fire and was holding them there. Though there was a pane of glass between us, I would have heard him if he had screamed. But he didn’t scream. There was only that expression of silently endured pain. The flames licked his skin and I could smell burning hair and seared flesh. I couldn’t, of course, but those silent screams had such power of suggestion that it seemed as if I could, and my own hands clenched into fists as if to protect themselves.
In less than ten seconds it was over. The flames died away and the man sat there examining his burned hands for a while, before burying them in the snow with a look of deep concentration.
*
The experiences in the field create an urge to transfer them to this life. A desire to bring the two worlds into one accord.
In the field Lars can live in what he calls his special moment, but on Luntmakargatan he can only re-create the details and simulate the occasion. Is that what he means when he says he’s almost there? Does he mean he’s on the way to bringing those two worlds together?
It is not possible to live and to be as burned as the man in the field is, as he wants to be. In this world he can inflict only minor injuries on himself to retain the feeling, at least in part.
And me?
What about me?
*
During the weeks that followed I would find the answer to that question. The others had been associating with the slime for longer than me, and had got further in their striving to achieve harmony between the worlds.
So wasn’t I put off when I realised this association could lead to incidents like the man voluntarily burning his own hands? Yes, a little. But nowhere near enough to consider giving up the field.
I presume someone has already thought, It’s like a drug, and to a certain extent it is comparable. The rush from a narcotic can evoke visions, insights and a perception of truth. It is rare, though, that the individual concerned can give a coherent description of those visions and what the truth actually means. Literature written under the influence of drugs is usually overblown, dozy and downright bad, regardless of what the author thinks.
I’m not claiming that what I am setting out here is anything particularly eminent, but at least I am trying to be clear, however strange some of the images I have described and am going to describe might be. If you find it impossible to accept this, then I hope that’s because of the nature of the images rather than any obscurity in my style.
To return to the comparison with drugs, there is another reason why I wasn’t put off, and here the analogy is more relevant. It’s the usual mantra cited by anyone who’s tempted by the rush: It won’t happen to me. I won’t get hooked. I’m in control.
*
I had booked a laundry slot for the following day, and I tossed the Palmebusters T-shirt in with everything else. When I stepped outside I saw the overweight woman who had wept and told me how unhappy she was waddling in through the door of the laundry block. She had put on several kilos, and was now morbidly obese. Her body listed and billowed, and her backside was nearly as wide as the doorway. I waited a couple of minutes before I followed her.
There was no sign of her in the laundry room, but the padlock on the shower room was hanging open. I loaded two machines, one with whites and one with coloureds. Before I started them up I stood still and listened, hoping to get a clue about the woman’s experiences in the field. I couldn’t hear a sound. Just like me, she was undertaking her journey in silence. Maybe it was only the Dead Couple who were different. I switched on the machines, went back home to pick up my notepad, then went out for lunch.
Talk of the devil…In the stairwell I met the couple I hadn’t seen for months. If there was anyone who could have scared me off, they were standing in front of me right now.
Both of them were as pale as corpses, and I mean that literally. The epithet I had given them as a result of their manner now also applied to their appearance. The woman’s blonde hair, which wouldn’t have looked out of place in a Timotei shampoo ad a few weeks ago, now hung in lank, greasy strands over her face as she leaned against the wall, gasping for breath. The man’s action-hero air was gone, replaced by what I will simply refer to as decay. Everything about him was drooping, sagging, and he was supporting himself on a huge cardboard box that was on the floor between them.
In spite of the alarming way they looked, I couldn’t help bursting out laughing. According to the writing and the picture on the box, it contained a Grundig colour TV. The man peered at me from beneath a greasy fringe and said, ‘Something amusing you?’
‘No, I just thought you said you’d decided to stop watching TV.’
‘We’ve changed our minds.’
He must have chosen to disregard my eavesdropping from a couple of months earlier, because he nodded at the box and said, ‘Give me a hand.’
Carrying the television had obviously been too much for the woman. She didn’t react as I tucked my notepad into the waistband of my trousers and lifted what had been her end; she just stood there leaning against the wall, wheezing away.
The TV was quite heavy, and we probably wouldn’t have made it up the two flights of stairs if I hadn’t taken most of the weight. When we reached the landing, the man grabbed his doorhandle to stop himself from collapsing. He just had enough air to croak, ‘Thanks.’ No beer or small talk this time. I nodded in response and went back down.
The woman had managed to get up a few steps, clutching the banister as if she were a hundred years old. When I reached the main door I turned around and looked at her, and I couldn’t help gasping.
She was wearing a thin, light coat with a polo-neck jumper underneath. Even so, such a large quantity of blood had soaked through the layers of clothing that the back of the coat showed a stain about the size of a rugby ball. I hurried back to her and asked, ‘Is there anything I can…’
The hand that wasn’t gripping the banister flew out in a jerky, dismissive gesture, and a hoarse ‘Shoo, shoo!’ emerged from her throat, as if she were chasing away a stray cat begging for food at a pavement cafe. I watched as she laboriously dragged herself up a couple more steps; I felt a strong urge to stick my foot out and trip her up, but instead I turned and walked away.
While I was having lunch at Kungstornet I jotted down some speculative ideas about what might have happened to the Dead Couple, but I won’t bother recounting them here, because they were so far off the mark. Their project was far beyond my imagination. I will have to write about it eventually, but until then I will simply note that it was also about bringing the world of the field and our world together. You could say that the field was leaking, and that this leak was very difficult to stop once it had started.
*
It wasn’t until I went down to the laundry block the following day for my slot in the shower room that I realised I’d left the Palmebusters T-shirt behind when I emptied the tumble dryer. Someone had slipped it onto a hanger and hung it on a hook, so the caricature was now dangling there for all to see.
I thought the T-shirt was incredibly ugly and I didn’t want anything to do with it, so I left it where it was. Plus that was a weird thing to do, hanging up a crap T-shirt as if it were an expensive dress shirt. Maybe the person who had found it sympathised with the message? In which case they were welcome to adopt it. I went into the shower room.
What
happened in the field on this occasion would play a crucial role in my life, but just as with the beige duffel coat, I didn’t realise it at the time. I will quote from The Other Place, and after that the tone of this narrative will change, because my way of thinking, or rather not thinking, changed.
*
I love my monster’s body—it is everything I have wished for and missed. I am made of and held together by magic, running like nectar through my veins, and I project a representation of myself that I chop up, set fire to and reassemble before I allow it to dissolve in a shower of sparks, with my neighbours’ shadows as a silent audience.
It’s not enough. I construct Carola Häggkvist, everyone’s sweetheart, and I have her stretched on a rack made of gold until the skin on the crook of her arm splits and I am able to see quivering, bleeding sinews at breaking point and I turn her howls of pain into songs before I put her back together again.
I can’t get there. One last thing is missing. I catch sight of Rebus lying on the grass and draw him towards me. As I sink the hooks on my tentacles into his body I hear the scream of the child. I ignore it and tear him to pieces. The scream falls silent and something I wanted to kill within myself actually dies.
I look around with burning eyes. There is nothing in the field, apart from the neighbours’ shadows and the shredded remains of Rebus. I can do exactly what I want. And yet.
‘What?’ I yell up into the empty blue sky. ‘What?’
I create more magic, more illusions; I give the performance of the millennium in a state of ecstasy which lacks only that last thing, that one last thing.
What?
*
When I got back to my house my entire body was itching; the sensation was worst over the X-shaped scar on my right arm. I scratched both arms until they were covered in red marks, then managed to stop myself. The memory of the bloodstain on the Dead Woman’s back made me clench my fists and lower my hands. I remained motionless for several minutes, as if I were standing to attention, then took out the subway ticket with Thomas’s phone number on it and called him. After seven rings he answered, sounding distinctly irritated.
‘Yes?’
‘It’s John.’
‘Wait.’
In the background I could hear music and several voices, all male. I picked out the words ‘Like, old men in caps’, then the phone was carried away from the noise, presumably using an extension cord. A door closed and the voices were gone. Thomas got straight to the point.
‘You get four thousand.’
‘Why so little?’
‘That’s just how it worked out.’
I sensed that it would be pointless to push the matter, so instead I came out with the real reason for my call: ‘Anything else on the horizon?’
Thomas laughed. ‘Keen, are you?’
‘Very keen.’
‘Well, since you ask…Tomorrow. Have you got a torch?’
‘I can get one.’
‘You do that. I’ll be there at nine.’
The urge to scratch had subsided. With a sigh I took out my magic paraphernalia and practised without any real commitment for a couple of hours. Just after eight I heard a dry rustling sound. The last leaf had dropped off the rosebush. Appropriately enough, Sofia called half an hour later.
She wanted to know what had become of me, which was not a question I could answer. Her voice reached me from a time so distant that I couldn’t be sure whether it was something that had really happened, or just a dream. I couldn’t remember what she looked like—not the slightest detail. Only when I recalled that she resembled Anna Lindh was I able to put a face to the voice on the other end of the line, but that face definitely belonged to the chair of the Social Democratic Youth League.
‘This is pointless,’ I said. ‘I don’t remember you.’
‘What do you mean? It’s only a week since…’
‘I mean exactly what I say: I don’t remember you. I don’t know who you are.’
There was a brief silence, and when Sofia spoke again it was clear that she was fighting back the tears. ‘You forgot your backgammon set.’
I had a vague memory of board games, of sitting with Anna Lindh playing board games, but it had nothing to do with me now, so I said, ‘Keep it.’
A sob. ‘John, what’s happened to you?’
I didn’t like her saying my name in that way. Hesitantly, pleading with a version of me that was no longer relevant. I said, ‘Don’t call me again,’ and hung up.
I sat with my hands resting on my knees, and realised I was smiling. Did Sofia think I was a monster now?
*
If we cannot gather around the light then we gather around the darkness
If we cannot gather around the light then we gather around the darkness.
If we cannot gather around the light then we gather around the darkness.
If we cannot gather around the light then we gather around the darkness.
If we cannot around the light gather then around the darkness we gather
If we cannot around the light gather then around the darkness we gather
If the light cannot gather us then we allow the darkness to gather us
We grate the light and around the darkness gather
Shreds of light and shreds of darkness we gather
Around every house a light around every door a darkness
Etc, etc.
*
The next day I was slightly horrified when I looked at what I had written on my notepad during the night. After repeating the first sentence a number of times, the various permutations went on for four pages.
Yes, I had seen The Shining and I knew what it meant. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But I hadn’t been in an unconscious trance state as I filled those pages, oh no—I had been focused and resolute like someone with a problem to solve, a mystery to unravel. What horrified me was the time I had spent on something that now appeared utterly meaningless. The only insight I gained was the realisation that I must have been a little bit crazy the previous evening.
Too much sitting indoors and silent brooding. I decided to spend the day outside. Away from the house. I felt quite energised as I dressed warmly in my gloves, woolly hat and scarf, and my lovely duffel coat.
I walked for hours, and perhaps a description of our capital city in her winter garb might be appropriate here, but that kind of thing is never going to be one of my skills. I’m not sufficiently interested in buildings, light, atmosphere. I hardly ever notice them.
An old man was sitting fishing through a hole in the ice in front of the City Hall, and from the St Eriksbron Bridge I saw a group of cross-country skiers swishing away towards Karlberg. Some children were building a snowman by the palace, and had amusingly placed a crown on his head. I stopped by Slussen and watched a woman with her dog. They both stood motionless, gazing up at the Katarina Lift. On Götgatan I saw a policeman eating a kebab in a very deliberate, almost coquettish manner.
People in their kaleidoscopic incomprehensibility, the city as a silent stage set. I walked with my hands deep in the roomy pockets of my duffel coat, looking at people and trying not to understand what they were doing and why.
I am a monster. I don’t need to understand.
I walked, I was a monster and at the same time I was one among many, and at that moment it was a much-needed feeling. The itching was lying in wait, but I was holding my own against it. I had lunch at Pizza Hut on Klarabergsvägen. A perfectly normal day as a prelude to an anything but normal evening. I finished it off by stealing a head torch from Åhlén’s sports department.
*
When Thomas knocked on my door just before nine, I was already dressed. The beige duffel coat wasn’t right for the night’s activities, but I had thrown the old navy one away, so I had opted for two jumpers. The top one was a mossy green, with a woolly hat of the same colour. Of course the first thing Thomas said when he saw me was: ‘Hello, Kermit.’
‘Shut your mouth.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Shut your mouth.’
Thomas looked down at the floor, and seemed to be considering whether to cooperate or come up with an even worse insult. Instead he took a step forward and shoved me with both hands, so hard that I fell backwards onto the rosebush, which crashed to the floor. Dried-up thorns found their way through the wool, and the pain brought tears to my eyes. A couple of branches got stuck under my back as I lay there.
‘We don’t use that tone of voice,’ Thomas said. ‘We don’t speak in that way. Do you understand?’
‘But you were the one who…’
‘No, you’re the one who doesn’t understand. Who thinks you’re something you’re not. Can we agree on that?’
I wriggled my right hand to try and extract the thorns from my jumper, and said: ‘No’.
‘What do you mean, no?’
I scratched the palm of my hand and probably pulled a few threads, but I managed to extricate myself and got to my feet. ‘No, we cannot agree that you can say whatever the fuck you like to me and I’m not allowed to respond. We definitely cannot agree on that.’
Thomas gazed at me with his eyelids half-closed and I tensed, ready for another shove or a flying fist. I knew I couldn’t match him, but maybe I could avoid falling over again. As if he’d never even considered such an option, Thomas pushed one hand into the back pocket of his jeans, nodded towards the dead rosebush and said, ‘I see you have green fingers.’
It was quite funny, and I let out a snort of laughter. Thomas shook his head. ‘Okay, so are we ready? Can we go?’
‘Absolutely.’
He took a thick envelope out of his jacket pocket and tossed it on the desk. I pretended I didn’t care, which wasn’t difficult, because I really didn’t. We left.
*
The house we were visiting that night was also on Lidingö, by the headland at Talludden, four stations further on than last time. I was given my walkie-talkie and we set off into a forest, where the wide treetops hid the clear, starlit sky to such an extent that it was pitch dark. We switched on our flashlights; I sensed that Thomas wanted to make a disparaging comment about my head torch, but he refrained. I regarded that as a victory.