In Every Moment We Are Still Alive

by Tom Malmquist

  Evening has fallen when we get to Båstad. We take a taxi from the little train station to Kungsbergsvägen 25, the same two-storey house with the saddle roof we rented last year. On previous trips we rented other houses, always close to the beach and the Atlantic wind, it feels good being near the harbour, I like lying at the far ends of the jetties catching crabs with a net, I can stay there for hours looking at the water ascending towards Hovs Hallar, or the wake of the ferry between Torekov and Hallands Väderö, but I lied to Mum, I can’t swim at all, I run over the tiled bottom of the Malen Baths shooting my arms into the water and pretending I’m Matt Biondi, and if I like I can go with Dad to the Press Section at Centre Court and shake hands with the tennis stars, I hate seeing how Dad looks up to them, how he makes a note of everything they say and how he drops his shoulders and smiles at them, they’re no better on gravel or grass than I am on ice, and I tell them that, they laugh and say I’m entertainingly bolshie, Dad takes me aside and whispers:

  Tom T., learn to keep your mouth shut, listen, let others talk themselves silly.

  The taxi driver lifts Mum’s suitcase out of the boot. The ground-floor lights are on but the curtains are drawn. There are a few sticks and some yellowish-green pollen on Dad’s company car, a red Honda Accord, parked in the drive.

  Tom, wait for me, Tom, listen to me, wait, Mum calls out after me, but I continue to the fenced-in lawn and sit in the hammock. She hurries after me and hisses: You never listen, do you?

  I’m just sitting down, I’m tired.

  You’ve been sitting all day, she says, putting her suitcase down on the paving stones. She peers at the windows.

  So what happens now? I ask.

  We do what we came to do, she answers as she walks determinedly to the door, rings the doorbell, opens it, and calls out: Thomas, we’re here now, we’re coming in.

  * * *

  —

  Final respects are paid in Högalid Church. Scarred, brown marble flagstones, lanterns suspended from chains, a gloomy beamed ceiling. I tuck Livia into the pram and lean against a sheet metal cupboard with ‘Emergency Defibrillator’ stamped on it. Hans and Harriet, Börje and Ammi, Göran, Laila, my aunt and cousins from Eskilstuna, Sven and Lillemor, my friends Hasse, Stefan, David, Alex. They stand in a huddle of heavy, dark woollen overcoats, cigar cases, the odd hip flask. A disappearing generation of newspaper men, big ears, pockmarked noses, proliferating eyebrows, flabby skin hanging in folds down their throats, eyes that seem to be missing their eyelids and are filled with judgement. Hard gentlemen who seemed to me, even when I was a child, to be of another age, another world. One of them stands with his back to me talking to three other elderly journalists or newspaper editors. I hear him say in a voice with a marked Stockholm dialect: The most refined roasting in newspaper history, without any doubt, carries the signature of Alf Montán, he had seen Ragnar Frisk’s film Åsa-Nisse Flies Through the Air and he gave it a single crossed-out star, he only wrote three words: ‘Enjoy your flight.’ Their laughter sounds like smokers’ coughs. A couple of younger journalists wearing flimsy suits are standing around another tall table making small talk. That was in the seventies, wasn’t it, Jamaica, in the middle of a match in progress against Peter Fleming, which was when Borg turns to Malmen on the stand and calls out: Malmen, this will be over in a minute, order a tray of piña colada, see you in the hotel room in twenty minutes. Another one answers: It’s so freaking cool, they were mates with the stars in those days, imagine all the stuff that never got printed, whores, drugs, fights, shit, we’re stuck behind the crowd control barriers with the kids. Stefan, Hasse, and Alex stand next to me. David is talking to my aunt a little further off. Tompa, says Stefan. Yes, I answer. Sorry for saying this, but this stirs up a lot inside, I remember when my mother passed away, it was a while ago, but shit. Yes, I answer and turn to Alex: Stefan’s mother, Monica, always brought Stefan in the pram when we were living in Mossbrännevägen when our dads were covering the world championships or Olympics; Janne is a legendary Expressen photographer. I know, I know Janne, answers Alex. His bald head is hard to miss, says Stefan, looking over at his father, who’s talking to Börje and Göran. Stefan became obsessed with my NYPD patrol car, I say, and Stefan grins. I go on: I started hiding it from him, that car was a present from my dad, I didn’t want to share it with Stefan, I didn’t want to share it with anyone, Mum and Monica always managed to find it, Mum wanted me to be generous. I was so anxious as a kid, says Stefan, I didn’t want to come along unless I was allowed to play with that police car, and I add: In the end I buried it in the garden, then Stefan got the car at his thirtieth birthday party, I’d been hiding it from him for twenty-five years. Alex and Hasse laugh but Stefan looks a little upset. What’s up, Stefan? I ask. I spoke a bit with Göran earlier, he answers. Who’s that? asks Hasse. One of Thomas’s best friends, an old journalist at Expressen, I mean him, Dad, and Börje have been colleagues on the newspaper for donkey’s years, answers Stefan. Uh-huh, says Hasse. Did Göran say something unexpected, or what? I ask, and Stefan responds: When did his wife pass away? Anna-Karin, must have been the early nineties, I reply. So a long time ago, then, says Stefan, then adds: The way he talked about her it’s as if it was only yesterday that she was put in the ground.

  Lillemor moves forward tentatively, says hello to my friends, hugs me, and then bends over the pram. The princess is sleeping, she says, and looks at me. Four months and already an old hand at all this, she adds. Thankfully she’s unaware of what’s happening, I answer, glancing at Stefan, who’s keeping his eyes on Alex and Hasse as they move through the crowd. Well, I guess the important thing is to keep your eyes firmly on the road, avoid looking into the ditch, she says. I don’t know, at least there are flowers in the ditch, there aren’t any on the road, I answer. In the summer, yes, but not in the autumn or winter, she says, and goes on: I can’t stop myself, I have to touch her. She takes Livia’s hand between her thumb and index finger. She looks up at me again: Sorry, I couldn’t control myself. She’s your grandchild, I say. Sven stands in front of me and pats me on the arm and shakes his head. I look at him, because I’d like him to say something, and then he says: The ceremony was beautiful. Yes, I answer. One of the younger journalists strides up and asks something about the gambling scandal but I don’t have time to work out exactly what he’s asking, because at the same time Lillemor says that she and Sven are going to slip off home while there’s a break in the rain. The journalist is tall, with a shiny pageboy hairstyle, and he says: Maybe it’s a hard one to answer, but that game fix in the table tennis world championships in Birmingham in 1977, that was a big fucking deal, your dad was the first one in the whole world to expose that. He has a staccato delivery, abrupt movements, his eyelids twitch. Sorry, I’m not really with it today, what are you asking? I respond. I get it, he says and looks around behind him. No, it’s fine, what was your question? I’m probably disturbing you, he says. What was your question? I was asking which was your dad’s biggest story, what do you reckon? The gambling scandal, I answer. Shit, there was some rough stuff there, I heard, bodyguards and all that? Afterwards we had bodyguards, also before, Dad had a talent for provoking people, I say. I suppose you hung out with him a lot when he was working? he asks. Yes, absolutely, I’ve been all over Europe with him, and the USA, tennis, golf, ice hockey, football, Formula 1, everything, I saw and heard a lot—he said he’d rather go out with a Romanian tank than watch Lisovskaya shot-putting, he referred to the wife of a colleague of his as Downpour, and he described one sports journalist in Skåne as a fivefold gold medal winner at the four-hundred-column metres for the talentless. Shit, that’s just so Malmen, like, he was such a bloody smooth operator, I have to get this down, he says and gets out a little writing pad from his inside pocket, jots down a few lines, and says: We had four pages about Malmen, well, I guess you must have read them, but we wanted to feature a page or so about the funeral as well, no big deal, but oh yeah, J-O Waldner picked Malmen didn’t he, sorry, I
mean your dad. He’s also Malmen to me, I throw in. Really? he asks. To a degree, I answer. Cool, but that thing with J-O about his gambling addiction, that was massive. He didn’t want to talk to anyone apart from Malmen, a billion Chinese sports fans practically did the splits at his say-so, J-O is like a demigod over there. Sorry, it’s been a long day, I need to collect myself a bit, I say, checking the locking mechanism on the pram chassis. I get it, shit, I’m pretty emotionally spent myself, I can understand you’ve got other things on, but we’re going to the Press Club later, just so you know, Malmen’s son is always welcome, he says. Thanks, I answer. He taps me on the shoulder and says: I’ve heard about it all, it’s fucking terrible, unimaginable, and now your dad. Thanks, I answer and barge my way through with the trolley, weaving between the high tables before I get stuck behind a vicar and a photographer with an Expressen wasp emblazoned on his waistcoat. I look for my snuff tin in my jacket pocket. The photographer twists a wide-angle lens onto his Nikon. The vicar points at the glass panel above the entrance and says: It’s a P combined with an X, those are the first two letters of Christós in Greek. Damn, look at that, says the photographer and casts a harried glance at the door without apparently taking much note of the Christ monogram, being more concerned with getting a picture of the funeral guests. The vicar turns towards the nave and lets his scraggy arm hover in the air as he continues: There we have Torhamn’s crucifix, the largest one in the Nordic region, we have thirty-two metres of headroom here. The large crucifix hangs on the wall above the altar, simple, in matt earth colours, strangely calming. Mum sits largely invisible on a stool by the piano and stares at the wreaths. She’s wearing a black dress, boots, and a blouse as white as her hair. She holds two fingers on her left wrist. I imagine she’s counting the intervals between the beats of her heart, as he taught me to count the distance between lightning and thunder. The officiating clergyman stands slightly behind her, watching an audio technician who’s squatting and hauling in a cable by the microphone. One of the elder gentlemen holds out his hand towards me. He doesn’t relinquish his strong grip when he says, in a low voice: My condolences for your grief, your father was one of the most important sports journalists of his generation. Thanks very much, thanks, I answer. He lets go of my hand, nods, and puts on a black fedora, which he’s been carrying under his arm. He wanders off towards the main door, using his umbrella as a walking stick. I back away, focus my gaze at a downward angle to avoid eye contact with anyone, and push the trolley towards the choir. The runner has been invisible to me until now, I bend down and touch it, it’s made of coarse nylon, cerulean blue, sky-blue like Karin’s nightie. I sit down with the trolley next to me, a couple of rows behind my mother and my father’s light-coloured oak casket.

  Fifty milligrams of Lergigan no longer help, I always wake up too early. I shine the light from my phone at the cot. Livia is sleeping with her hands behind her head. She’s breathing serenely. I kick off my duvet, my underpants are wet with urine but the sheet is dry. A smell of ammonia. I stand in the shower with my hands pressed to the tiles. I fetch new underpants from the linen cupboard and fill a Duralex glass with water. Most of Dad’s vinyl is still in cardboard boxes. The coal-black record shelf looked so vulgar in the flat that I had to paint it white. I sit on the sofa and drink the water. There’s no one to call at half past two on a Monday morning. My eyes adapt to the darkness. The narrow hall with the metre-high stacks of books on one side and the hat shelf with the anchor hooks on the other. Karin’s duffel coat on a coat hanger. I put it in the clothes cupboard and close the door. Tomorrow I’ll probably hang it back up again. I bring my leg up and fold out my little toe, the cut from my athlete’s foot is suppurating, my toenails have become dirtily yellow and porous. I fetch the Tupperware boxes from the fridge. In one is cucumber salad, in the other potatoes, in the third one Mum’s ossobuco made from knuckle of lamb, tomatoes, white wine, olives, sprigs of thyme, laurel leaves. I eat it cold. Leaning against a flower pot is the photograph of my father and me in Cassis, we’re standing in the lit-up harbour surrounded by the famous rocks and the night. I didn’t want to be in the photo, I’m pulling a face. In a lot of the photos Mum took of me and Dad in the eighties our eyes are red because of the flash, I’ve read that it’s the blood vessels that are visible, which doesn’t happen on modern cameras thanks to red-eye reduction. I lie down on the sofa with Italo Calvino’s novel Under the Jaguar Sun. His original intention was that it should be entitled The Five Senses, and be arranged in five parts, one for each of the senses. He never managed to finish the manuscript before he died. Three parts were completed: taste, hearing, and smell. I’m too anxious and tired to make any notes. The camping mat is petrol-grey and made of foam plastic. I bought it for Karin to exercise on during her pregnancy, she never did. I pull it out on the floor next to Livia and throw down my duvet and pillow. I thread my hand through the bars.

  * * *

  —

  You tell me it’s seven degrees outside and I answer that the milk is starting to run out. Not long after you come down from the attic with a cloth bag full of wool and tell me that the moths were shimmering like silver up there. You want to write a children’s book about this moment and your cautious enthusiasm unnerves me—the way you tag maybe or but we’ll see onto the end of every sentence. I never told you about the squirrel on Mossbrännevägen, I’d forgotten about it myself, of course I hadn’t really forgotten it, I just hadn’t thought about it for a very long time, but this morning, when I was singing Alice Tegnér’s song about the squirrel for Livia it suddenly pushed its way through my memories. I am three or four years old, the squirrel lies under the pine in the ditch by the road, I try to wake it, I go and get my mother from the potato field, in my mind at least she’s wearing some sort of iridescent shawl that changes colour in the light, she’s younger than I am today, she bends over the squirrel and says: We can’t wake it up.

  I have got rid of the television, I have cancelled the newspaper subscriptions, I read the books that you bought and think about the underlined bits every few pages, I quickly flip through the news on my new smartphone, I can hardly deal with it any more, I hear the screams and the wailing sirens, even a minor forest fire thousands of kilometres away makes me feel frightened, immediately I start imagining the birds being burned to a crisp as the heat rises and engulfs them.

  I have a nude image of you, heavily pregnant in the shower, your right arm inserted into the gushing water, your fingers splayed, your eyes looking up, your breasts large and heavy, and your belly, like a Venus figurine, I step out of my clothes and walk up to you, into my origin, into my incompleteness.

  Your love of me in its rawest nakedness was when you said: You talk a lot about what sets you apart from your father, have you never thought about how you are like him?

  At times I go back with him to the hot-dog stand in Huddinge Shopping Centre, to the picnic bench by the dog roses, we have Sausage Special with Boston gherkins and we drink refrigerated Pucko, it’s wordless between us and even when I try to ask him something it gets drowned out by the noise we make as we eat. Only you know me, you understand why in the middle of the night I watch the bonus material of Michael Haneke’s The White Ribbon, the making-of documentary, a sequence in which the director instructs one of the actors about how he wants him to open a barn door and discover that his father has hanged himself from the roof beam, the instruction only lasts a few minutes but it terrifies me into calmness.

  I have started sleeping Pompe again, I lie on the floor next to Livia’s cot, she wakes me at five every morning, pokes at me curiously, and in case I go back to sleep she pulls me hard by the nose and laughs so infectiously, so incomparably, that it’s impossible to get annoyed. I have told you what Dad used to call me and Mum at the summer house, how he raises his fist and shakes it in the air. I want him to hit me, touch me, but he only rails and threatens, he has never hit anyone, he’s afraid of violence, he’s fascinated by violence, he’s got several decades of
championship bouts in heavyweight boxing, one and a half metres of VHS cassettes, he says that no one before or after fought more beautifully than Cassius Clay. I’m a hard bastard and stand in my skates and shorts in the garage and practise left jabs and right hooks against the brick wall, my knuckles toughen up, my wrists get thicker, and this must have been the same summer that you buried your guinea pig Sofie at Skyttevägen and discussed the poem you had written for her with your parents. Even today it is not unusual for me, when I’m feeling really bad and the words of consolation do not present themselves, to punch the wall as hard as I can.

  Mum and Dad do not go back to Båstad after his collapse and a year or so afterwards they buy the summer place on the boat path. Dad feels good in Sörmland, his home country, the fields, the mixed woodland, the funnel chanterelles, the mosses, the rusty-brown pond; I miss the Atlantic wind but I adapt myself. I steal a bottle of Koskenkorva and sit on the pontoon with my father’s copy of the Swedish Academy Glossary, the pages smell of cigarette smoke, the sound of bush crickets, the bright night sky like an enormous reading room, and I learn two new terms: papillary lines and protuberance. Mum sold the country place the other day, she gave it up quickly and cheaply, she needed the money.

  Just risen from the bed your scent is at its strongest, you stay in the kitchenette, you stretch and look out at Metargatan, moments later I get into the bathtub, where you are, the water overflows, your toes against my thighs, knees sticking out of the foam, you look at me and tell me there’s a unique kind of reality in the presence of death, a reality that erodes all protection until one is forced to confront life without any hope of mercy, I didn’t understand you, I understand you, but you no longer exist, it’s a nothingness beyond consciousness, and I have learned to live in an expectationless coolness.