‘How beautiful it is,’ his mum said.
Tommy looked out over the graveyard.
Small candles were lit all over. A city viewed from an aeroplane. Here and there dark figures moved among the gravestones. Mum walked in the direction of Dad’s grave, the lantern dangling from her hand. Tommy looked at her thin back and was suddenly sad. Not for his sake, or his mum’s sake, no: for everyone. For all the people walking here with their flickering lights in the snow. Themselves only shadows that sat next to the headstones, looked at the inscription, touching it. It was just so…stupid.
Dead is dead. Gone.
Even so Tommy walked over to his mum and crouched down next to his dad’s grave while she lit the lantern. Didn’t want to touch the letters in his name when she was there.
They sat like that for a while and watched the weak flicker make the shading in the marble block crawl and move. Tommy didn’t feel anything except a certain embarrassment. To think he went along with this pretend play. After a minute he got up and started to head home.
His mum followed. A little too soon, in his opinion. As far as he was concerned, she could cry her eyes out, sit there all night. She caught up with him and carefully put her arm through his. He let her. They walked side by side and looked out over Råcksta lake where ice had started to form. If this cold snap kept up you’d be able to skate on it in a few days.
One thought kept going through his head like a stubborn guitar riff.
Dead is dead. Dead is dead. Dead is dead.
His mum shivered, pressed up against him.
‘It’s awful.’
‘You think?’
‘Yes, Staffan told me such an awful thing.’
Staffan. Couldn’t she keep herself from mentioning him here of all…
‘I see.’
‘Did you hear about that house that burned down in Ängby? The woman who…’
‘Yes.’
‘Staffan told me that they did the autopsy on her. I think that kind of stuff is so awful. That they do those things.’
‘Yes. Sure.’
A duck was walking on the thin ice towards the open water that had formed near a drain that let out into the lake. The small fishes you could catch in the summer smelled like sewage.
‘Where does that drain lead from?’ Tommy asked. ‘Does it come from the crematorium?’
‘Don’t know. Don’t you want to hear about it? Do you think it’s too awful?’
‘No, no.’
And then she told him while they were walking home through the woods. After a while Tommy got interested, started asking questions his mum couldn’t answer; she just knew what Staffan had told her. In fact Tommy asked so much, became so interested that his mum regretted having brought it up in the first place.
Later that evening Tommy perched on a crate in the shelter, turning the small likeness of a man firing a pistol this way and that. He placed the statuette on top of three boxes containing cassette tapes, like a trophy. The cherry on top.
Stolen from a…policeman!
He carefully locked the shelter back up with the chain and padlock, put the key back in its hiding place, sat down in the clubhouse and kept thinking about what his mother had told him. After a while he heard tentative steps walking down the corridor. A voice that whispered ‘Tommy…?’
He got up out of the armchair, walked up to the door and quickly opened it. Oskar was standing on the other side, looking nervous. He held out a note.
‘Here’s your money.’
Tommy took the fifty and stuffed it into his pocket, smiled at Oskar.
‘You going to become a regular here? Come in.’
‘No, I have to…’
‘Come in, I said. There’s something I want to ask you.’
Oskar sat down in the couch, hands clasped. Tommy flopped down in the armchair, looked at him.
‘Oskar. You’re a smart guy.’
Oskar shrugged modestly.
‘You know that house that burned down in Ängby? The granny who ran out into the garden in flames?’
‘Yes, I’ve read about it.’
‘Thought you would. Have they written anything about the autopsy?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘No. Well, they’ve done one. An autopsy. And you know what? They didn’t find any smoke in her lungs. Know what that means?’
Oskar thought about it.
‘That she wasn’t breathing.’
‘Right. And when do you stop breathing? When you’re dead, right?’
‘Yes,’ Oskar said eagerly, ‘I’ve read about that kind of stuff. That’s why they always do an autopsy when there’s been a fire. To make sure that there isn’t…that no one started the fire to cover up the fact that they murdered the person who’s in there. In the fire. I read about it in…well, the Family Journal, actually, about a guy from England who killed his wife and who knew about this so he had…before he started the fire he stuck a tube down her throat and…’
‘OK, OK, so you know. Great. In this case there wasn’t any smoke in her lungs but even so the granny managed to get herself out into the garden and run around out there for a while before she died. How can that be?’
‘She must have been holding her breath. No, of course not. You can’t do that, I’ve read about that somewhere. That’s why people always…’
‘OK, OK. Explain this to me.’
Oskar leaned his head in his hands, thought hard. ‘Either they made a mistake or else she was running around like that even though she was dead.’
Tommy nodded. ‘Exactly. And you know what? I don’t think these dudes make those kind of mistakes. Do you?’
‘No, but…’
‘Dead is dead.’
‘Yes.’
Tommy pulled a thread out of the armchair, rolled it up into a ball between his fingers and then flicked it away.
‘Yes. At least that’s what we like to think.’
PART
three
Snow, Melting against Skin
And after he had laid his hand on mine
With joyful mien, whence I was comforted,
He led me in among the secret things.
DANTE ALIGHIERI,
THE DIVINE COMEDY, INFERNO, CANTO III
‘I’m not a sheet. I am a REAL ghost. BOO…BOO…
You’re supposed to be scared!’
‘But I’m not.’
NATIONALTEATERN, ‘KÅLDOLMAR OCH KALSIPPER’
(NATIONALTEATERN IS A SWEDISH ROCK GROUP)
Thursday
5 November
Morgan’s feet were freezing. The cold spell had arrived at about the same time as the submarine foundered, and it had only gotten worse during the past week. He loved his old cowboy boots but you couldn’t fit thick socks in them. And anyway, there was a hole in one sole. Sure he could get some Chinese takeaway for a hundred, but he’d rather be cold.
It was nine-thirty in the morning and he was on his way home from the subway. He had been to the junkyard in Ulvsunda to see if they needed a hand, maybe make a couple of hundred, but business was bad. No winter boots this year either. He had had a cup of coffee with the guys in the office which was overflowing with spare parts, catalogues and pinup calendars, then headed to the subway.
Larry emerged from between the high-rises and, as usual, looked like he had just received a death sentence.
‘Hey there, old man,’ Morgan yelled.
Larry nodded curtly, as if he had known from the moment he woke up this morning that Morgan would be standing here, then walked over to him.
‘Hi. How’s it going?’
‘My toes are freezing, my car’s at the junkyard, I have no work and I’m on my way home to have a bowl of instant soup. How about you?’
Larry walked on in the direction of Björnsonsgatan, taking the path through the park.
‘Thought I’d visit Herbert in the hospital. Coming?’
‘Has his mind cleared up?’
‘No, he’
s like he was before, I think.’
‘Then I’ll pass. That kind of stuff gets me down. Last time he thought I was his mother, wanted me to tell him a story.’
‘And did you?’
‘Sure. I told him the one about Goldilocks and the Three Bears. But no. I’m not in the mood today.’
They kept walking. When Morgan saw that Larry was wearing a pair of thick gloves he realised his own hands were freezing and he pushed them—with some difficulty—into the narrow pockets of his denim jacket. The underpass where Jocke had disappeared came into view.
Maybe as a way to avoid talking about that, Larry said, ‘Did you see the paper this morning? Now Fälldin is saying that the Russians have nuclear weapons onboard.’
‘What did he think they had? Slingshots?’
‘No, but…it’s been there for a week now. What if it had blown up?’
‘Don’t worry about it. Those Russians know their stuff.’
‘You know I’m not a communist.’
‘And I am?’
‘Let’s put it this way; who’d you vote for in the last election? The Liberals?’
‘That doesn’t mean I’ve pledged allegiance to Moscow.’
They had been through this before. Now they took up the old routine in order not to see, not to have to think about it as they approached the underpass. But even so their voices died away as they walked under the bridge and came to a halt. Both of them had the impression it was the other guy who had stopped first. They looked at the piles of leaves that had turned into piles of snow, and that had taken on shapes that made them uneasy. Larry shook his head.
‘What the hell do you do, you know?’
Morgan pushed his hands deeper into his pockets, stomping his feet to keep warm.
‘Gösta’s the only one who can do anything.’
They both looked in the direction of Gösta’s apartment. There were no curtains, the windowpane was streaked with dirt.
Larry held out a packet of cigarettes. Morgan took one, then Larry, who lit them both. They stood there smoking, contemplating the snowdrifts. After a while their thoughts were interrupted by the sound of children’s voices.
A group of children carrying skates and helmets came streaming out of the school, led by a man with a military air. The children walked at intervals of a few metres from each other, almost in step. They passed Morgan and Larry. Morgan nodded at a kid he recognised from his building.
‘Going off to war?’
The kid shook his head, was about to say something but kept on marching, afraid of falling out of step. They kept on going towards the hospital, they were probably having a field trip of some sort. Morgan ground the cigarette under his foot, cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted. ‘Airborne attack! Take cover!’
Larry chuckled, extinguishing his cigarette.
‘Jesus Christ. I didn’t think that kind of teacher even existed any more; the kind who wants even the coats to hang at attention. Are you going to come along?’
‘No, not up for it today. But you run along, if you hurry you’ll be able to fall in step with the rest.’
‘See you later.’
‘Will do.’
They left each other in the underpass. Larry at a slow pace in the same direction as the children; Morgan walked up the stairs. Now his entire body was freezing. Soup out of a packet wasn’t so bad, particularly if you put a dash of milk in it.
Oskar was walking with his teacher. He needed to talk to someone and his teacher was the only one he could think of. Even so he would have switched groups given the chance. Jonny and Micke normally never chose the walking group when they had field trips, but they had today. They had whispered about something this morning, looking at him.
So Oskar walked with his teacher, not sure himself if it was for protection or because he needed to talk to a grown-up.
He had been going steady with Eli for five days now. They met every evening, outside. Oskar always told his mum he was going out to see Johan.
Yesterday evening Eli had come in through his window again. They had lain awake for a long time, told each other stories that started where the other person stopped. Then they had fallen asleep with their arms around each other and in the morning Eli was gone.
In his pocket, next to the old, well-thumbed, worn one was a new note he had found on his desk that morning as he was getting ready to go to school.
I MUST BE GONE AND LIVE, OR STAY AND DIE. YOURS, ELI.
He knew it was a quote from Romeo and Juliet. Eli had told him that what she wrote in her first note came from there and Oskar had checked out the book from the school library. He liked it quite a bit, even though there were a lot of words he didn’t understand. Her vestal livery is but sick and green. Did Eli understand all those words?
Jonny, Micke and the girls were walking twenty metres behind Oskar and the teacher. They passed China Park where some daycare kids were sledding, their sharp cries slicing through the air. Oskar kicked at a clump of snow, lowered his voice and said, ‘Marie-Louise?’
‘Yes?’
‘How do you know when you’re in love?’
‘Oh, I…’
His teacher pushed her hands into the pockets of her duffel coat and cast a glance at the sky. Oskar wondered if she was thinking of that guy that had come and waited for her at the school a few times. Oskar had not liked the look of him. He looked creepy.
‘It depends on who you are, but…I would say that it’s when you know…or at least when you really believe that this is the person you always want to be with.’
‘You mean, when you feel you can’t live without that person.’
‘Yes, exactly. Two who can’t live without the other…isn’t that what love is?’
‘Like Romeo and Juliet.’
‘Yes, and the bigger the obstacles…have you seen it?’
‘Read it.’
His teacher looked at him and gave him a smile that Oskar had always liked before but that he right now found a little disconcerting. He said quickly, ‘What if it’s two guys?’
‘Then that’s friendship. That’s also a form of love. Or if you mean…well, two guys can also love each other in that way.’
‘How do they do it?’
His teacher lowered her voice.
‘Well, not that there’s anything wrong with it, but…if you want to talk more about it we’ll have to come back to it another time.’
They walked a few paces in silence, arrived at the hill that led down to Kvarnviken Bay. Ghost Hill. His teacher drew the smell of pine forest deep into her lungs. Then she said, ‘You form a covenant with someone, a union. Regardless of whether you’re a boy or a girl you form a covenant saying that…that it’s you and that person. Something just between the two of you.’
Oskar nodded. He heard the girls’ voices getting closer. Soon they would come and claim the teacher’s attention, that’s what normally happened. He was walking so close to his teacher that their coats touched, and he said, ‘Can you be…both girl and boy at the same time? Or neither?’
‘No, not people. There are some kinds of animals that…’
Michelle ran up to them and shouted in her squeaky voice: ‘Miss! Jonny put snow down my back!’
They were halfway down the hill. Shortly thereafter all the girls were there and told her what Jonny and Micke had done.
Oskar slowed down, fell back a few paces. He turned around. Jonny and Micke were at the top of the hill. They waved to Oskar, who didn’t wave back. Instead he reached for a big branch on the side of the path, stripping the small twigs off it as he walked.
He passed the reputedly haunted house that gave the hill its name. A giant warehouse with walls of corrugated iron that looked completely out of place among the small trees. On the wall that faced the hill someone had sprayed in large letters: CAN WE HAVE YOUR MOPED?
The girls and the teacher played tag, running down the path along the water. He was not planning to catch up to them. He knew Jonny and Mick
e were behind him. He gripped his stick more tightly, kept going.
It was nice out today. The ice had formed several days ago and now it was thick enough that the skating group could go out on it, led by Mr Ávila. When Jonny and Micke said they wanted to join the walking group, Oskar had seriously thought about rushing home to grab his skates, switching groups. But he hadn’t gotten new skates for two years, probably couldn’t get his feet into the old ones any more.
He was also scared of the ice.
Once when he was little he had been out with his dad in Södersvik, and his dad had gone out to check the fish traps. From his vantage point on the dock Oskar had seen his dad fall through the ice and how, for a terrifying second, his head had disappeared under the surface. Oskar was alone on the dock, started yelling for help at the top of his lungs. Fortunately his dad had an ice rescue pick in his pocket that he used to haul himself out of the water, but after that Oskar did not like to go out on the ice.
Someone grabbed him by his arms.
He quickly turned his head, saw that his teacher and the girls had disappeared down a curve in the path, behind the hill. Jonny said, ‘Piggy’s going to take a bath.’
Oskar grabbed the stick even more firmly, locking his hands around it. His only chance. They picked him up and started dragging him down to the ice.
‘Piggy smells like shit and needs to wash.’
‘Let me go.’
‘Later. Take it easy. We’ll let you go later.’
Then they were on the ice. There was nothing for him to brace his feet against. They dragged him backwards, towards the sauna bathing hole. His heels made double tracks in the snow. In between them he dragged the stick, drawing a shallower line in the middle.
Far away on the ice he saw tiny moving figures. He screamed. Screamed for help.
‘Holler away. Maybe they’ll come in time to pull you out.’
The open water gaped darkly only a few steps away. Oskar tensed all the muscles he could muster and flung himself to the side, twisting with a sudden wrenching motion. Micke lost his grip. Oskar dangled from Jonny’s arms and swung the stick against his shin; it almost bounced out of his hand when wood met leg.