As soon as the children had gone back to school and Lasse back to work, I headed over to the house. I was wearing several layers of thin woollen sweaters so that I could cope with remaining still for a long time without suffering too much.
What did I do once I was in there?
It’s hard to describe, really. You could call it a confession. I told you everything, and you listened. I looked at you as I talked. You were so good to look at. Like a Greek statue. I caressed you.
No. Not like that. It was pointless, of course, and perhaps that was actually part of the point. I could caress you without it meaning that. I could caress you because you were beautiful, like a statue. I told you how beautiful I thought you were, and that you were mine and mine alone.
Is that sick?
Well yes, I suppose it is. I knew that while I was doing it. I knew I was doing something ugly, something bad. But I said to myself: what crime am I committing? I suppose the closest thing is desecrating a corpse. But how can it be desecration: talking to someone, caressing someone, telling that person how beautiful he is? If that’s desecration, then what is love?
Before everything changed there was really only one thing I did that you could regard as overstepping the mark. On the third day I took Lasse’s shaving things with me and shaved off your pubic hair and the hair on your chest. It bothered me so much, all that hair. I call it overstepping the mark, because it’s something you would hardly have agreed to, given the option.
But you weren’t a person. You were a dead thing, I was the one who had found you, and you looked so much better without all that hair. Completely smooth. No longer almost perfect, but totally perfect.
The knife?
You might think that would spoil the picture, the red handle sticking up out of your chest and breaking the surface of the skin. Equinox. Quite the reverse, in my opinion. It acted like a beauty spot, six letters: mouche. It was all about a fixed point, somewhere for the eye to focus before it moved on to the rest of your beauty.
And, if I’m truthful, I was afraid to pull it out. I mean, I’ve read the fairy tales. The sword is pulled out of the dead king’s body. He turns to stone, crumbles to dust and is gone. So I made a virtue of necessity, called it a mouche and left it where it was.
Your eyes were closed, and I told you everything. I told you things I didn’t even know I felt before I met you, found you. The constant sense of unreality, the veil between me and the world. How I would suddenly feel as if Emil and Johanna were dolls, and not mine at all. How I would be able to see Lasse in bed with X-ray vision, and realise that he consisted of minced beef packed into a bag of skin. A hundred kilos of mince. How I would have to close my eyes.
You lay naked before me. You were beautiful and you listened.
If only things had stayed that way.
It started on the sixth day, a Monday.
I had been forced to leave you alone over the weekend for family reasons. I don’t remember what I did that weekend. I think I baked a big batch of vanilla cakes. Emil and I watched Astrid Lindgren’s Alla vi barn i bullerbyn, which was being repeated for the hundredth time. You just have to grin and bear it.
I was desperate by Monday morning, when they’d all gone. Just to test myself, to discipline myself, I chopped a couple of armfuls of wood and filled up the basket by the fire before I set off. I almost ran to your house, hardly bothering to look around. My heart was beating fast, I think I was blushing.
As always I was afraid something might have changed during my absence. But the snow that had fallen during the weekend lay undisturbed on the drive and there were no marks on the porch. I went inside.
When I walked into your room I stood motionless in the doorway for several minutes. You were lying there with the blanket pulled up to the knife handle. The contours of your body were clearly visible beneath the thin woollen fabric.
A new kind of beauty, but not created by my hand. I was one hundred per cent certain: I had left you naked. On the rare occasions when I had covered you with the blanket, I had placed it over your lower abdomen. I had never covered your whole body. But now the blanket was draped halfway up your chest.
I stood there motionless, listening. There had been no marks in the snow, so there must be someone else inside the house. Someone who had been there all the time.
No point in pretending otherwise: I was scared. Scared and embarrassed. There was someone in the house, someone who had known about my comings and goings, perhaps listened to my confessions. Someone knew more about me than I would wish any living person to know.
I took a carving knife from the magnetic holder in the kitchen and spent over an hour searching the entire house. I opened every cupboard, every wardrobe, every drawer, even if it was actually too small for anyone to hide in. I found nothing, and the impression I had gained on the first day was reinforced: apart from the tipped-over saltcellar, there was nothing to indicate that the house had ever been lived in.
I went back to you and sat down.
‘How did you get the blanket over you?’
That was the first question I asked you. My monologues had never taken the form of questions; I had no interest in speculating about your life among the living. You were simply here.
During the search I had grown hot and sweaty in all my layers. It was as if an extinguishing material, two words, six letters: dry ice had been injected directly into my muscles as you parted your blue lips and uttered three words:
‘I was cold.’
Your voice was weak, hollow, as if it came from far away. My body was suddenly ice cold, I was frozen to the chair. Your lips closed. You had parted them just far enough to allow the words to escape. It was a long time before my vocal cords thawed out sufficiently for me to speak:
‘You can’t be cold. You’re dead.’
Did I see the faintest twitch at the corner of your mouth? The hint of a smile? Your lips opened again, a little further this time. You said, ‘You’re dead too. You’re wearing sweaters.’
‘I’m not dead.’
‘You’re not alive.’
Only now did it strike me as odd that you knew I was wearing sweaters. But then my gaze slid up to your eyes. They were open. Only a fraction, a slightly denser shadow below the eyelid. Like someone having a pleasurable experience, or about to fall asleep. Or someone who has just woken up. I couldn’t see your eyes.
A person’s ability to deal with new situations is a strange thing. You were talking to me. I hadn’t imagined that you would be able to talk to me. But when you did, I accepted it. What else could I do? You’ve made your bed, and now you must lie in it. That’s what my mother used to say. I hated that expression. When I hear myself saying it to my own children I am seized by the urge to punch myself on the nose. But that’s the way it is.
I think you were looking at me from beneath those almost-closed eyelids. I asked, ‘Would you like another blanket?’
‘Yes.’
I fetched the other blanket from the wardrobe and spread it over you. When I had done that, I folded my arms and said, ‘I have no intention of becoming some kind of nursemaid, you know.’
Your head moved slowly from side to side and you said, ‘I don’t need anything.’ Your voice was very weak. I had to strain to hear the words. There was something cheeky, eleven letters: impertinent about the way you said you didn’t need anything. A kind of smugness. I looked at you. Under the blankets you looked more like a normal sick person.
I removed the blankets.
‘In that case you won’t be needing these either.’
I carefully folded the blankets and put them back in the wardrobe. You didn’t object. When I turned back to face you again, everything was as it should be. Your naked, shaved body stretched out on the bed, just the way I wanted it. Perhaps by way of apology I said it again:
‘You can’t be cold. You’re dead.’
‘I understand.’
‘What do you understand?’
‘Nothing.’
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‘Come on, tell me. I’m curious about what you understand when you’re dead.’
You didn’t reply. I gave your shoulder a push, just a little one.
‘Tell me.’
No reply. Your eyelids were closed once more. I sat beside you for a while longer. You were so beautiful to look at. It wasn’t the time for any more confessions. When I got up to leave, you said something I didn’t hear, so I bent down and put my ear close to your mouth.
‘What did you say?’
The lips parted. I was aware of a faint aroma of something like frozen berries. You said, ‘I don’t want you to come here anymore.’
I straightened up.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But that’s not actually your decision to make.’
Your face was so rigid that it was impossible to pick up any kind of reaction. I waited a few seconds for a futile protest. When it didn’t come, I left the house for that day.
From now on I am going to omit all my reaction and speculation on the fact that a dead man was talking to me. Of course I turned the problem over in my head, many many times. You weren’t really dead (of course you were dead. You had spent at least six days lying in a room where the temperature was below freezing), I was mad (I wasn’t mad, there was nothing in my behaviour to suggest that I was mad), I was imagining the whole thing, and so on and so on.
But it was a fact. From now on we will take that as read.
When I got home, earlier than usual despite the hour I had spent searching the house, I was disappointed. Sad. In spite of my hard attitude, your last remark had hurt me. I cried for a while. Then I tried to do some work on a crossword. I had a deadline to meet. It didn’t go well, so I sent an old one from Hemmets Journal to Allers, and vice versa. The one for Kamratposten wasn’t so urgent.
I knew it wasn’t a good thing to do. The crosswords I sent were no more than four years old. The editor wouldn’t notice a thing, but I could guarantee some old bag in Småland or somewhere like that would complain. People with photographic memories enjoy doing crosswords, or so I’ve heard.
Your body was all I could see during the hour I spent sitting at the computer, trying to come up with new combinations of words, witty little secondary meanings. Only your body, your perfect face. You no longer belonged to me. You had taken yourself away from me.
What right did you have to do that?
Yes, the disappointment slowly changed to anger. Anger because I wasn’t good enough for you. Because you preferred to lie dead and alone in that bare room rather than to have me by your side. My secrets and my musings on life weren’t good enough for you, Svensson.
My anger spilled out onto the family, I must admit. Not in the form of outbursts of rage, but rather a simmering discontent, a constant state of irritability. I could be forgiven to some extent because my period was due. That was what Lasse thought, anyway.
I was perfectly clear about one thing: I would never, ever tell anyone about you. You might well have distanced yourself from me, but you were still my secret, and mine alone.
The following morning I put some make-up on. Oh, it makes my cheeks flame as I tell you this, but I don’t want to hide anything. I put some make-up on, made myself look good. The biggest problem with my face is that it’s so flat. My nose is small, with a slight downturn, my lips are thin. The space between my eyes and eyebrows is shallow. My eyes are almost completely devoid of any oval shaping which, combined with the shallowness of the socket, means that they have no depth. And the colour is a watery blue, on top of everything else.
But the value of make-up cannot be overestimated, if it’s done properly. I brought out my cheekbones with blusher, deepened my eyes with shadow and kohl, made my lips look fuller with a lip pencil and lipstick. Covered the spots on my forehead with foundation. I’m not claiming to be some kind of expert but what I do, I do well.
If I were to make an objective assessment, I would say that the make-up made me look twice as good or half as ugly.
I set off.
Halfway to your house I took out my pocket mirror and checked one last time, touched up my lipstick. What was I trying to achieve? I don’t know. Not exactly. If I say it was an attempt to make the situation more sacred it sounds as though I’m dressing things up, nine letters: euphemism, but I think that’s the closest thing to the truth. Like wearing a white blouse to church, making sure the back of your neck is clean.
The first thing I noticed when I got inside was that the bedroom door was open. I had left it closed, but not locked. When I looked in you were lying on the bed with both blankets over you. I took a walk around the house, and you didn’t seem to have done anything.
Hang on a minute. Of course.
The saltcellar was upright.
I laughed out loud when I thought about how the dead rise from their graves to avenge an injustice, to put right something that was wrong when they died. So this was your motivation, the thing you needed to put right: a saltcellar. For the first time I thought you might just be the corpse of a pretty pathetic person.
Your eyes were closed, as before. I sat down at the side of your bed.
‘So you’ve been up and about,’ I said.
After a minute with no response, I got up and removed the blankets. You made a movement with your arm as if to stop me, but it was slow and weak. I bundled up the blankets and chucked them in the wardrobe.
Then you opened your eyes. A little more than the previous day. I could see a glimpse of something not unlike a jellyfish that had been washed ashore beneath your eyelids. Dried slime.
‘You’ve got make-up on,’ you said.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ve got make-up on.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I felt like it, that’s all.’
A twitch of the mouth. I didn’t like that twitch; it made your face change.
‘Share the joke,’ I said.
‘Shit is shit and snuff is snuff, in golden tins as well.’
I waited. The long sentence had clearly taken it out of you, because it was quite a while before you finished off with, ‘An eastern European whore. That’s what you look like.’
‘What do you know about whores?’
‘I know a great deal about whores.’
Call me prudish, call me prim, call me any synonym you like, but I don’t like people talking that way. I really didn’t like it when you talked that way. I didn’t mind you being pathetic, but this wasn’t acceptable.
I took out my make-up bag and as I painted your lips I said, ‘Even. It’s “even in golden tins”. It destroys the rhythm if you say “as well”. Can’t you hear it? There are few things I detest more than people misquoting poetry.’
You had closed your eyes again, and I put a thick layer of pale blue eye shadow on your slightly blue, shimmering eyelids. As I drew my kohl pencil along the edges, if could feel that the eyes beneath really were dried up, hard.
‘Fröding must be turning in his grave. That’s what annoys me so much, you see. Poetry is hard work. A poet can struggle for days, weeks to find the right word. To misquote is to completely discredit his work. It shows a lack of respect towards the writer, a lack of respect towards the language itself. You have no respect. That’s your problem.’
I finished off by slapping far too much orange-tinted blusher on your cheeks. The whole thing was way over the top. You looked like a clown. I took a step back, folded my arms and contemplated my handiwork. You really did look funny. Like a man in a dress, twelve letters: transvestite, only without the dress. I laughed.
‘You have no respect,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to know, but I’m convinced your death has something to do with that fact, in one way or another.’
You didn’t reply. You just lay there like an unsuccessful shop-window dummy.
‘Think about it,’ I said, and turned on my heel.
When I got home I took out the biggest pitcher we had and positioned myself in the middle of the kitchen. I hurled the jug on the floor wi
th all my strength. Then I spent the rest of the afternoon removing fragments of glass from the kitchen. Tiny splinters had ended up in the most unlikely places: in the fruit bowl, behind the radiator, in the little gap between the oven and the cooktop. I had to squint and twist my head at different angles to catch their reflections in the cold sunshine. I tracked down every single one, and removed them. I didn’t cry. I didn’t even have a lump in my throat.
Then I made a really special meal for my family. Coq au vin, but with chicken. You can’t get hold of cockerel. We had a nice evening.
Very nice, actually.
I slept badly that night. Our bedroom is upstairs, and when the wind takes hold of the tin sheets on the roof and bangs them against each other, the vibrations run right through the entire bed frame. It sounded as if someone was trying to get in. I sat up in the armchair with the little reading lamp switched on and tried to concentrate on a biography of Frida Kahlo. The wind didn’t begin to drop until about three o’clock in the morning, and I managed to get a few hours’ sleep.
Lasse and the children had already flown the nest when I got up. I sat in the kitchen with my coffee, feeling a great sense of loss. Lasse had written me a note, as he sometimes did when we didn’t see one another in the morning. ‘See you this afternoon. Thinking of you. xxx L.’ I sat there turning the note over and over in my fingers. I could see his fingers laboriously printing the letters with the thick point of the pencil. He’s dyslexic. That’s funny, isn’t it? Married to me, and he’s dyslexic. He’ll never be able to solve my crosswords.
But the note was spelled correctly.
I went into Emil’s room. Bamse the Bear comics strewn all over the floor, drawings of dinosaurs on the desk, and that smell of a small child that still surrounded his body, permeating his sheets and the air.
Johanna’s room: pictures of Darin cut out of Frida and pinned up on the wall. Maria Gripe’s Tordyveln flyger i skymningen neatly placed on the bedside table, a bookmark with a heart on it sticking out somewhere around the middle.