In due course, as the glasses are emptied, the voices get louder. It’s getting properly crowded, people are standing or sitting in double lines along the walls, but around us there’s still room to swing a cat: one of the few advantages of a bad reputation and a prison haircut. Lundin refills our glasses and clears his throat.
‘Sometimes it was difficult to know which of them was most addled, Petrus or Beda.’
‘Neither one of them had a completely clear head.’
‘She was a compulsive liar. Everything was a fairy tale to her. You remember her stories, my brother? Those kings and barons and other members of the gentry who visited her at night? How they praised her fine laundry and well-formed feet?’
‘She wasn’t out of her mind, though. And neither is Petrus, just a touch simple.’
‘A bit? With that skull? A typical criminal physiognomy.’
‘That’s irrelevant.’
I stumble over my words. The alcohol courses through my veins. I’ve been off it, I used to be able to handle ten shots and more.
‘They say he sneaked up on her while she lay sleeping. Crushed her skull with a heavy iron.’
I shrug. Lundin looks at me. He has a bit of amber-coloured jelly in his moustache, from the pig’s trotters.
‘How do you know that?’
‘That was what they said.’
‘Did you bury her?’
‘Someone else was called in for that, thank God.’
The accordionist can’t hold himself back any longer. Not everyone has stopped eating, but the first notes of a waltz start ringing out. I study the way his fingers wander across the keys. It’s been a long time since I heard music.
Lundin hands me yet another filled glass and we knock it back.
I raise my voice: ‘Petrus may be a bit retarded but he’s no murderer.’
‘You should have seen her towards the end.’ Lundin shakes his head slowly. ‘Cancer everywhere, bed-bound the whole time. Her skin completely yellow. You could see the skull under her skin. I suppose he didn’t know any better, that damned youth. I think he got that way from too much pleasuring himself.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘Långholmen, I suppose?’
I shake my head. The violinist gets his instrument out from the case and falls in with the waltz. A couple of blokes stamp out the rhythm until the floorboards start complaining. Wetterström and his wife are the first on the floor, and before long two other couples are keeping them company in a whirling dance. Wallin rises out of his chair and howls at the ceiling, like an excitable hound. The schnapps has pressed itself out of the pores of his skin, making his face chafed and red. He’s a big drinker: from time to time he boozes until he sees little men. Another bloke seizes hold of his epaulettes and tugs him back into his seat.
‘She made me promise…’
‘What’s that?’ Lundin cups his hand behind his ear. ‘Promise what?’
I shake my head. There’s a tightness across my chest. A dozen years ago it all went to hell and my boxing career came to a sudden end. I moved to Roslagsgatan and Lundin and Beda were the only people who welcomed me. Lundin, because no one else dared live above an undertaker’s shop. Beda, because she didn’t know any better. Or maybe she knew better than most. Her coarse hand against my cheek and her soft words still live on in my memory: ‘Kvisten can’t do nowt about who he is. The heart’s not some old nag you can harness any way you like.’
I shiver with unease and look up. The dance has already turned wild, there’s shouting and commotion, and a scramble for the three young women soaring across the floor so their colourful skirts billow out around their slender waists. Their legs are exposed right up to their knees. The old men pretend they’re looking in another direction. Nilsson from floor five knocks the filth out of his harmonica and holds it up to his lips.
Lundin brays into my ear: ‘Promise what?’
‘Nothing.’
I put the plate on the floor and push it under the chair with my foot. I take out a Meteor, bite off the end, blow off the tobacco fragments from my lips with a spurt of spittle. I loosen my tie and run my finger around the inside of the collar.
‘He who makes no promise makes no sin.’
The music stops abruptly after Lundin’s godly words. There’s cheering and applause. Now the banjo player has also joined in, and someone stamps out the beat of yet another melody. The widow of the Lapp, a gnarled old woman with small eyes dark as pieces of coal, legs it out of the door in her reindeer moccasins, her apron loaded with stolen deposit bottles.
One of the young women, the brunette, separates from her girlfriends and places herself in front of Lundin with her back towards us. She has arranged her dark hair over one shoulder. On the nape of her neck sits the clasp of a golden chain. On the other side of the room, the other two blonde girls stand tittering and whispering among themselves. A couple of blokes have to turn around sheepishly after drumming up the courage to ask them for a spin.
‘As I mentioned earlier, you can work off some of the debt.’
Lundin has raised his voice to make himself heard over the music.
‘I’ve also set up a couple of matches with Lindkvist at the Toad. And Wernersson may have a couple of jobs for me.’
‘He’s been on the telephone.’
I grunt. Wernersson’s Velocipedes is my main employer. I reclaim bicycles that have been bought on credit, when payments aren’t made. There’s a welter of impoverished sods who put their hopes on an expensive delivery bicycle, thanks be to the Lord. Every recovered unit can net me in the region of forty kronor, if I’m really lucky.
‘Once I get my advertisement in the daily newspaper, the wheels should start running smoothly again, as ever.’
‘A toast to that!’
We clink our glasses and drink our shots. Lundin has the hiccups, his long, rangy body is jerking, and his face is a deep scarlet.
The girl in front of us turns around and smiles. She has slanted white teeth at the front. Her red-painted lips are full, and her plucked eyebrows accentuated with scorched cork. She leans towards me. I pull my hand over my close-cropped skull and try to arrange what little hair I have left.
‘I hear Kvisten is a real swell at dancing. That right?’
For a few seconds I stare into my empty schnapps glass before I look into her green eyes, shiny from booze and tobacco smoke.
‘That’s right.’
The emptiness in my head chases away the music for a moment, neutralises the cheerful cries, Lundin’s hiccuping, the sound of the dancers’ heels against the floor, the ringing of glasses and the slamming of cutlery and crockery.
‘But the bloody dog. I have to walk the dog before it gets dark.’
The sounds of the party come back, full force. The girl purses her red lips.
‘Course you do,’ she hisses, tossing her dark hair as she turns around. She elbows her way across the dance floor.
Her girlfriends laugh soundlessly, their mouths like black holes. I clench my jaw but do not say anything.
She’ll be called all sorts of names for what she’ll do tonight in her drunken state. I have another shot and put the glass down on the floor. I lean forward, my elbows on my thighs. The music stops but restarts before the applause has ebbed away. Another foxtrot. Slower, this time. I regain my breath and give Lundin a poke on the knee.
He jerks to attention as if I’ve just woken him up. I stare down at my hands, my fingers crooked with fractures, the scarred knuckles flattened. I’ve spent half my life trying to retrain myself to twist my fist at the moment of impact, using the bony ridge instead, but my muscle memory wants to do it another way. You are who you are: sometimes it hurts, nothing can be done about it.
‘I’m thinking of taking a lodger. To halve my rent costs.’
I caress myself soundlessly over my well-shaven chin. The barber, Nyström, and his soap-girl, did a thorough job this afternoon. Lundin stops hiccuping.
‘Any
one particular in mind?’
I nod at the floor.
‘Doughboy. A lad. Met him inside. He’ll be out in a week and I want to help him get back on his feet.’
There’s a glugging sound as Lundin pours another glass. Cigarette smoke hangs heavily in the air. The smell of food has been replaced by a reek of tobacco, aquavit and sweat.
‘There’ll be talk.’
‘There already is.’
Lundin hums. I notice that I’ve been holding my breath for a while. I exhale. The brunette has said yes to the grammar school boy. She’s laughing as they glide past. His hand slowly slides down her back. He risks getting a proper slap any moment now.
‘Do what you like. You do anyway.’
Lundin picks up his snuffbox and, with a certain amount of difficulty, kneads together a solid plug and shoves it under his lip. I fidget with my jacket. In the inside pocket is my letter from Beda.
‘Who’s taken over the laundry?’
‘Beda’s? No one, as far as I know. It’s been empty since it was put on the market.’
I stand up and have to support myself against the back of my chair when I lose my balance. I put my hat on, hang my overcoat over my arm and pick up the half-full bottle of Kron from the floor.
‘So soon?’
I nod.
‘Too many people. Not used to it. And it’s time for Dixie’s walk.’
Lundin gives me a nod and raises his snuff-brown fingers towards the brim of his hat. I do the same and turn towards the exit.
‘Brother!’
I turn around again.
‘Don’t go back inside for a while, not this time.’
Grinning indifferently, Lundin’s head drops onto his chest. I laugh out loud. The Jewel pushes her stocky little bloke out of my way as I stumble out into the cold November night, bottle in hand.
In the asphalted courtyard I can make out the yellow-painted latrine huts and the outhouses in the dark. I press the palm of my hand against the smooth pointing of the house wall and sway slightly as I feel my way to the door leading out of the courtyard, some three or four metres away. It’s cleared up. The stars seem to be dancing a quadrille across the night sky and I take deep breaths to purge my mind. The clean evening air mixes with the smell of refuse and excrement. I accidentally kick an empty bottle which clatters across the yard. A door slams somewhere.
The dark stairwell between the street and the courtyard smells faintly of coal fumes and turpentine. Drunkenly I pant, reaching for the wall. Slowly, my eyes grow accustomed to the darkness. Somewhere ahead of me there’s a scraping sound, and I look up. A damned night light in this entrance would not have done any harm.
‘As dark as a tomb.’
I take a few breathless steps and tumble into a soft body. Someone sighs deeply. I bounce back a full metre across the marble floor before I regain my balance.
‘Watch out, will you!’
My voice is hoarse from the schnapps. I squint, trying to focus. The features of a large man slowly emerge from the gloom of the stairwell: pronounced eyebrows, a rough-hewn nose riddled with gaping pores, full lips and broad, strong shoulders that completely fill his coat. It’s Rickardsson, the gangster who lives up by Roslagstull. Working with the Scythe Man, the ugly fuck is part of Ploman’s inner circle and controls a large share of the vodka trade in Vasastan. Lundin pays the swine ten per cent every month so he can pursue his own business in peace. Every time we bump into each other in the street he sizes me up as if he’s challenging me.
‘I’d say Kvisten’s had a drop too much.’
‘None of your damned rat poison, you can be sure of that.’
I hiss the words out of the corner of my mouth, like a cobbler with his gob full of tacks. I take a small step towards him, grinning as if we’re in opposite corners of the ring.
The whites of his eyes seem almost yellow in the darkness. He holds up his left palm. I catch sight of a wedding band on his finger. With his other hand he quickly opens the single button of his coat and folds open his overcoat and jacket. He’s not wearing a waistcoat either. From his waistband, the butt of a revolver sticks up like the head of a hammer from a carpenter’s belt. He puts one hand on it.
‘Let’s take it easy now, boy. Shall I help you home instead?’
For an instant, an image of Doughboy and his flea-bitten neck flashes before me. I stop, still grinning.
‘Has Rickardsson got so old that he needs a crutch for support?’
‘No trouble now. Take a bit of fresh air. Maybe I can take you for a stroll round the park.’
Rickardsson gives me a wide berth as he leaves. His expensive rhinoceros-hide boots ring out on the floor as he backs away into the courtyard. He has folded up his trouser legs so that the heels can be seen better. I grunt and show him my back as I continue on my way. Damned weakling to rely on his shooter like that.
The door creaks. An Ardennes mare harnessed to a gig clatters by on Roslagsgatan. The driver sits there all black and stiff, the reins in one hand and the whip in the other. The whiplashes show up as pale streaks across the horse’s glistening, sweaty hindquarters. One of the grey-painted ambulances of the Epidemic Hospital drives slowly northwards. I bumble along in the same direction. The light is still falling across the pavement from Beda’s old laundry. I put my cigar in my mouth and quicken my step.
I’m left standing for a moment outside Lundin’s undertakers. His sign squeaks unpleasantly in the faint breeze. I look up at the dark façade and get the feeling that the entire house is about to fall down on me. I gasp and stumble backwards into the road.
‘It’s been a good while since… Kvisten had a taste of the strong stuff.’
I sway to and fro, staring up at the clear, starry sky. It reminds me of the darkness of the packed crowd during a fight, pierced by hundreds of glowing cigarette ends and wide-open eyes.
‘Harry Kvisten Kvist… in a… magnificent comeback.’
I laugh and close my eyes. I hold up my arms into the air, spilling booze from the open bottle over my shirt front, while I jog clumsily on the spot.
For an instant I am there again: the darkness calls my name.
Dixie’s claws sound against the cork mat as I take her lead down from the hook next to the mirror. It’s time for a walk.
The faint tones of yet another waltz make their way into the street from the tenants’ shindig in number 41. The cold tears at my vodka-drenched shirt breast. I hear the far-off sound of laughter and chatter.
‘The schnapps in there must be flowing like butter in the Sahara.’
The cold November evening startles me out of my stupor. It’s blowing so hard that the cigar in my mouth burns at twice its normal rate. For a long while I stand on the other side of the street, keeping my eyes on the laundry. There’s no sign of that mysterious shadow.
Dixie whines and pulls, but I drag her along. We walk towards the Veterinary Institute and take a detour over the Johannes School’s yard. Dixie starts panting and her limping gets worse.
I put my hand in my pocket and finger the letter from Beda. I don’t have much of a sense of recall at the moment, but I remember my promise to the washerwoman, and words are there to be honoured. I have failed to keep a promise I made to someone I cared about one too many times already. Never again.
I hold the letter up in the light cast by a street lamp, and stare at the date. If old man Ström was right, Beda only wrote it a few weeks before she died. We cross to the opposite pavement before I drag Dixie back south again.
Up in Vanadislunden St Stefan’s Church strikes nine times. From the train station towards Albano, a freight train lets out a shriek. The air smells of burning spruce.
We are almost home now. Across the deserted street, Lundin’s shop sign is banging in the wind. Suddenly the pale light, falling over the pavement outside the laundry, is turned off. A bell tinkles, a door creaks and slams. I stop; my heart misses a beat.
Only a few metres in front of me, a figure with an up
turned coat collar is hunched over the lock. He has a walking stick hooked over his lower arm. The silver hilt glitters in the dark.
‘Bleeding lock!’
The man curses, tugging at the key. His voice is deep. He’s still not seen me. Soundlessly I tie Dixie’s lead around a drainpipe. There’s a click as the lock clicks into place. The man in front of me sighs and tries to pull the key out. I glance around once, making sure I’m alone. Quickly I take off my tie and fold it up in my coat pocket before I charge at him. I move quicker than I have for years.
I twist the man round with a hand at his collar before I thump him into the laundry door. Dixie barks. The drainpipe rattles when she tugs at the lead. The man roars and pumps his arms up and down. Somehow he manages to whack me just under my eye with the silver hilt of his stick. The pain surges through my head like a piercing wolf-whistle.
My fingers quickly work their way up to his throat. His yelling comes to an abrupt end when I give him a squeeze and at the same time twist a left hook into his liver. It’s not an especially hard punch. My knuckles connect with his bottom rib. I let him go and the fucker goes down on all fours.
His hat rolls off and ends up in the gutter. His pocket watch falls out of his waistcoat and dangles under him like a pendulum. He gasps and coughs. Viscous threads of phlegm trail out of his mouth, like the tentacles of a jellyfish. I put my foot on his neck and press his face into the pavement. He still has too little air in him to yell. He starts fumbling with something, then holds out a black wallet.
I take my foot off the man’s neck. I turn towards the laundry and try to get the lock open. It gets caught and I have to fiddle with it for a moment before it releases. The man on the pavement thinks he can crawl off. He’s turned his arse towards me. I take aim and drive home my boot between his legs. Only now does he protest. He falls onto his side and yells, with his hands on his crotch and his legs drawn up into a foetal position. I hastily look around before grabbing him by the shoulder of his fur-trimmed overcoat, then drag him inside backwards. On the way in I hit the light switch.
Down for the Count Page 4
