Yuppies had started flashing their Rolex watches around on Stureplan, and the credit market had been deregulated, enabling people to borrow until they went under. Appropriately enough, a change in the law converting rental properties to a right-to-buy option meant that there was something to buy with the borrowed money. The Socialists’ membership numbers plummeted.
Song lyrics had changed: they used to be about the transformation of society and what we can build together, and all of a sudden they were about nothing. Symbols tossed around without a thought, la-la-la, oh-oh-oh. Meanwhile, literature focused mainly on man’s basic isolation in an indifferent world, while the communal experience of sitting in a cinema was in the process of being replaced by loneliness in front of the video-player.
Anyway. Even if I didn’t think about all that while it was going on, I can’t have avoided being affected by and part of a Zeitgeist that declared the collective no longer valid, and looked to the individual. To be able to experience the direct opposite within this Zeitgeist, to be together in the deepest sense, was worth a great deal. Everything, in fact.
I’m not trying to make excuses for myself, and yet this is a speech in my defence and a plea for understanding. If you’d been in my shoes. At the same time I realise it’s pointless, because the experience that forms the basis for the whole thing is impossible to convey. It’s a waste of time, I’m on a hiding to nothing, but still I keep going.
Here, in an abridged form, are the notes I made during the first day of the year 1986.
*
We are together in the field, seven people. Only Lars’s field body is entirely based on his everyday body, a version of himself that is ten years younger, and so deeply and quietly happy that he is very different. I feel his happiness and share it. Such love for his wife, his child, and for life itself, such fragile, beautiful gratitude.
Next to me is Elsa. I know it’s her, in spite of the fact that she’s virtually unrecognisable. Maybe I should be afraid. I try out the thought: ‘This is horrific,’ but it means no more than ‘This is grass, this is the sky.’
Her body is deformed from carrying other bodies, children’s bodies. The skin hangs in pouches from her skeleton, and in these pouches are children of different ages. They crawl around, up over her belly and breasts. One arm swells to the thickness of a tree trunk as a child forces its way in beneath the skin. I can see the contours of its face as it slithers down towards the elbow.
The children giggle, growl, purr as they move around one another inside Elsa’s skin like puppies playing under a blanket, and her body is in a state of constant flux.
‘Hi Elsa,’ I say.
‘Hi John,’ Elsa says, and I catch a glimpse of a blonde fringe as a giggling little head tries to push its way up through her throat, only to sink back down into her chest. Elsa’s gaze travels over my monster body and she smiles. ‘There you are.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Here I am.’
Behind her I can see the burned man, Gunnar, running around the field screaming. A whiff of something similar to the smell of a barbecue reaches my nostrils and I inhale deeply, because it brings me into contact with him and who he is.
I am so happy.
*
At this point I am going to leave out the rather verbose descriptions of Åke and Susanne’s field bodies. To me they were vitally important, of course, but as a reader you haven’t got to know them in the ordinary world. There might be an opportunity to come back to them later on, but for the moment I will just say that Åke was a version of Conan the Barbarian or a Spartan warrior with an enormous sword, while Susanne was a little girl, perhaps six years old, as pretty as a doll and with long blonde hair.
The key point is that I not only saw these people and their field bodies, I also felt them and instinctively knew what they meant and wanted to communicate, and all this happened simultaneously. My attention didn’t shift from one to the other—no, they were all with me at the same time, and it was this sense of community that took my breath away.
In spite of the fact that you have met Petronella only in passing, I would still like to quote from The Other Place and describe her field body, because it has a role to play in this narrative.
*
You might think that Petronella would be a curvaceous film star or something along those lines, in the same way as Åke is a warrior. But the field is all about truths, not wishes. What we think we want is not necessarily what we do want.
If Petronella is fat in the ordinary world, here she is a flesh-mountain. It’s hard to grasp how she can even stand up, because her belly hangs down and covers her legs all the way to her knees. She is naked, her breasts sagging towards her navel like overstretched sacs filled with lard. Her skin glows with softness and wellbeing. Her face is embedded in layer upon layer of rolls of fat, and somewhere deep down are her eyes, glittering with joy and mischief.
In a way that I understand when I am there, but cannot put into words, she has crossed a line and become something else, something attractive and undeniably sensual. Something you want to be with.
*
The fireworks had died away to a sporadic flicker in the sky when we returned to the laundry block, red-eyed, frozen stiff and sated with stroking. No one said anything, because nothing needed to be said. Åke and I each opened a bottle of champagne and poured everyone a glass. We toasted the new year and drank, then sat around for a while, exhausted by intimacy. Once again Elsa was given the chair.
After a long silence, with everyone lost in thoughts that belonged only to the process of thinking in that moment, Petronella gestured towards the T-shirt and said, ‘It’s this’—she waved her hand, encompassing everyone in the room—‘that’s missing.’
In our different ways, we were all suffering from the lack of community feeling that was prevalent in society; in spite of his promises, Palme had been unable to fix it. But none of us had suffered more than Petronella. In the field I had got to know her story in so far as my brain was able to process it, as it flowed together with everyone else’s.
She worked as a teacher in a school that was steadily getting worse and worse. The atmosphere among the staff was appalling, and for the past year Petronella had been subjected to constant bullying because of her weight. She had signed herself off on the grounds of ill health for a while, but had been forced back to work because the social security office refused to accept her size as a valid reason for absence.
I knew that she was a binge eater. She was capable of buying a Princess cake and consuming the whole thing while flicking through fashion magazines and weeping. I couldn’t have condemned her even if I’d wanted to, because I understood her feelings. I knew her story and I knew that was how it had to be. I didn’t even feel sorry for her, because pity is a form of judgement.
In the same way I was aware that the others also knew me. My lonely childhood, the bullying and my unreasonable fantasies of success. And the shoplifting, the night in the cell, the incident with the snow shovel, the attack on Dekorima’s Christmas window display. Yet they regarded me with eyes that were more than kind. If we know and understand everything about another person, it is hard to judge them. Whether this is a good or a bad thing is another matter.
I stood up and stretched my stiff limbs, leaned against the doorjamb and contemplated the thing in the bathtub, our saviour and our means of transport. I thought I could see a change, and I beckoned Gunnar over; he was busy picking flakes of dead skin off his hands.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘Don’t you think it’s a bit…paler?’
He stepped into the shower room, rested his hands on his thighs and lowered his face towards the surface.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, maybe.’
Others came in and looked. The difference was small, but it was definitely there. The blackness had faded almost imperceptibly, and had lost something of its deep, oily lustre. We speculated as to the reason, but couldn’t agree on anything. We knew so much about each other and so little abo
ut the field.
With one exception: Lars. I had seen his field body and been given access to his feelings, but at the same time there were elements that were unclear. It was like watching a film in a language that you speak only moderately well. You can keep up with what’s going on and get involved with the characters, but the reasons behind their actions are slightly fuzzy. They explain themselves, but you don’t quite understand what they say.
I didn’t know whether Lars’s consciousness was hiding parts of himself, or whether something about his character was responsible for the situation. He was the one who had been least moved by the collective experience, and although he had joined in with the group hug, he had been the first one to pull away. His expression was as dour as ever when he stood up, thanked us for a wonderful evening and headed for the door.
I followed him out into the courtyard, touched his arm and asked, ‘How are you?’ He was the only one I could ask: I knew exactly how everyone else was.
He turned to me and said, ‘What you’re getting up to with Thomas—don’t do it any more, please.’ I was about to respond, but he held up his hand and went on: ‘I know exactly why you’re doing it. Of course. But I’m still asking you to stop.’
Regardless of the fact that there were blank spaces on my map of Lars, he was closer to me than anyone in the world, just like my other neighbours, so there was only one answer I could give: ‘Of course. I promise.’
‘Good. Thank you.’
He slowly walked across the courtyard to his door, and I went back to the others. It turned into a long night; we finished off the champagne, then carried on talking while we emptied the thermos of coffee too. There was a lot to talk about, because even if the field gave us a great deal of knowledge about one another, that didn’t mean that every detail was in place. There were lots of questions, and totally honest answers. Anything else was impossible.
*
It was gone three o’clock in the morning when I got back home, euphoric and exhausted. The last thing we had decided was that from now on, everyone in the group had a free choice when it came to how we would travel. Alone, with someone else, or as part of the whole group. We spent ten minutes compiling a list of phone numbers. I stuck it on my wall, then sat down on the chair and looked at it. My people.
The combination of coffee and euphoria meant that I couldn’t sleep, in spite of the tiredness. I sat down cross-legged on the floor, grabbed my doctor’s bag and tipped out the contents, then went through the wallets one by one. As I said, my total haul was 6200 kronor. There were also luncheon vouchers worth 800, and forty US dollars. Plus three condoms, so maybe yet another aspect of the company’s New Year party had gone wrong for someone. If it was a company.
I put the money, the vouchers and the condoms in my desk drawer, then dropped the wallets into a plastic carrier bag, along with the hip flasks. Much too easy to identify. I added all the gloves, except for one pair, then I went and threw the bag down the rubbish chute.
I laid out my mattress and made up the bed. I lay down and contemplated the list of phone numbers. My people, my nearest and dearest. I could call any of them at any time. Just as I was considering contacting someone, possibly Åke or Petronella, the phone rang. I scrambled out of bed and picked up the receiver.
‘Hi, this is John!’
‘Goodness me, you sound better.’
I hadn’t heard from the busker for over a week, and had assumed he’d forgotten about me or given up on me.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m fine now.’
‘Pleased to hear it. I just wanted to wish you Happy New Year. I’m heading south. Like the birds.’
‘I haven’t seen you in the tunnel for a long time.’
‘Didn’t you say Sigge had arrived?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, I’m not going to stand there if he’s arrived—are you crazy?’
‘But I heard you once after…’
‘After what?’
‘After it happened. You were playing ‘Somebody Up There Must…’
‘Well, yes—that’s Sigge’s song. Among others. You get caught up. So now I’m heading south, as I said. All the best to you.’
I didn’t have the strength to protest or even ask him to explain—I just sat there with my head against the receiver as the line cut out. I was too tired for any more questions, but if I’d had time to say anything before he disappeared, I would have asked if we could sleep together one last time. Now I had no choice but to cope on my own. Eventually I managed it.
*
New Year’s Day began with the phone ringing once more, at ten o’clock in the morning, and the conversation with the Minister of Fun unfolded. After telling him a string of lies I hung up and fell back into bed. Vague, disjointed memories of the previous night passed through my mind. I fell asleep with a smile on my face, and didn’t wake until two.
I had taken on a task that was to be carried out at around five o’clock. During the conversation over champagne and coffee, the question of the Dead Couple had come up, among other things, because their project threatened to draw attention to our secret. You can’t just wander around town bleeding. They had declined to take part in the gathering, and we knew very little about them.
Elsa had explained something that I didn’t know. If you were transported to the field soon enough after another person, then something of that person lingered in the field as more than a shadow, perhaps until the blood had all been used up. The Dead Couple were booked into the shower room at four o’clock on New Year’s Day. Because I was the one who brought it up, and because I also had a good view of the laundry block, I had offered to follow in their footsteps and try to work out what they were doing.
I made coffee and ate a couple of cream cheese sandwiches that tasted divine. I hadn’t eaten since lunchtime the previous day—the Boilermakers’ Association hadn’t had the sense to offer me anything. I counted the money once more, and for the first time in ages I felt financially secure.
Just before four I saw the Dead Couple enter the laundry block. No bloodstains on their clothes this time, but they were leaning heavily on each other, dragging themselves along like two condemned prisoners on the way to their execution. I sat by the window and waited.
My head was still woolly after the gathering, my thoughts idly circling around the connection between the busker, the child and ‘Somebody Up There Must Like Me’. I might have nodded off for a little while, only to wake up with a start when the door of the laundry block opened and the Dead Couple staggered out. No blood this time either, of course. The slime would have taken everything. The bleeding in the stairwell was connected to their project in the ordinary world. I watched them as they made their way to the door leading out of the courtyard, one step at a time. As it closed behind them, I ran down to the laundry block.
The remains of the previous day’s party were still there, and I downed half a glass of flat champagne before I opened the padlock and went into the shower room.
The Dead Couple hadn’t tidied up after themselves. The knife hadn’t been washed, and there was blood on the floor next to the bath. As I was standing by the basin rinsing the knife, the door opened and Petronella came in. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Can I come with you?’
‘Of course. But we’d better hurry.’
We knelt down by the bathtub, side by side. I made a cut in her forearm and she made a cut in mine. We looked at one another and smiled, then pushed our arms down into the blackness.
*
The first thing I see is Petronella’s fat lady, standing next to me and swaying. Her arms look short, as they are forced out to the sides of her pear-shaped body. There is a shimmer to her skin, as if it has been strewn with glitter. She is perfect in a way that cannot be carried across to an earthly existence.
But there is another figure, and to my surprise it is indeed one figure, not two. The sky is growing darker, in the midst of an unnaturally rapid twilight, falling towards the night. Soon there will be
only shadow.
My first impression was wrong. The figure is both two and one, a symbiosis in the making. It is not possible to recognise the Dead Couple’s features, because their faces have blended. One of the woman’s nipples has melted into one of the man’s. The other has pushed its way through the hand the man has laid over her breast, and now sits on the back of his hand like a dark red abscess. She has one arm thrust so far down his throat that his lips, half of which are her lips, are sucking her elbow. Their legs are entwined, sharing so much skin that it is impossible to say which leg belongs to which person. The man’s penis has disappeared somewhere among the layers of flesh.
They are constantly moving. Tiny, tiny movements, twitches and spasms, as muffled sounds emerge from their throats. It is erotic in a way that is beyond what we think of as erotic. Petronella and I stand side by side, watching the creature as the scene fades to black and becomes a shadow.
We turn to face each other. Petronella lies down and I conjure up an abnormally long sexual organ, which allows me to find my way under the rolls of fat and into her body. I writhe around over her star-strewn skin, create tentacles and lift myself above her like a spider, swaying.
It is not intercourse in that sense and does not bring the pleasure associated with sex—it is a union that must be sealed. Beauty and the Beast, Esmeralda and Quasimodo. Or the other way around.
*
When Petronella and I returned to the shower room, we sat with our arms resting on the side of the bath as the other-worldly pleasure slowly left our bodies.
‘John?’ she said.
‘Yes?’
‘Could you touch me, just…touch me?’
I shuffled closer and embraced her, gently stroked her back where the strap of her bra was buried in the subcutaneous fat. She shut her eyes as I ran my fingers over the back of her neck and her throat, and she was as close to me as my own skin; the sweat in the creases beneath her chin was my sweat too.