Clinch

by Martin Holmén

  ‘Shouldn’t they be at their school desks? It isn’t even lunchtime. No discipline.’

  ‘Until tribute comes to Judea, and the obedience of the peoples.’

  ‘Give your piety a rest, you old hypocrite!’

  ‘I take it my brother has been to Bondegatan?’

  ‘First I was going to get a litre for her father. Kron if you’ve got it.’

  ‘You know where it is.’

  ‘I’d rather you get it if you don’t mind.’

  Lundin stands up and closes every other button in his jacket. If I know him, he’s trying to avoid wear and tear on the buttonholes.

  ‘People are desperate for a life beyond earthly existence. That’s why the old girls stand in line to see the spiritualist up the street. They live in hope. But the bad news, I have to announce, is that there are no ghosts. I should know, if anyone.’ He caresses his grey moustache.

  Lundin disappears and soon comes back with a bottle wrapped in light green crepe paper. I take it and nod by way of thanks.

  ‘You want it put on the tab?’

  ‘And a pack of matches.’

  Lundin sits down and pulls out a desk drawer. He finds a box and tosses it over. It rattles when I catch it with one hand.

  ‘So I hope my brother gets hold of her old man, then. And then let’s see if he’s as bowlegged as his daughter.’

  ‘And has something to tell,’ I reply, with my hand on the door handle. ‘It’s the only lead I have.’

  ‘Good luck!’

  The clock chimes and I am back on Roslagsgatan. With the bottle under my armpit, I strike a match. There’s almost no wind. I light the cigar and look around.

  The kids haven’t dared come back. The widow Lind from the tobacconist’s further down the street nods as she passes with a box of food from the NORMA restaurant under her arm. She has draped a dirty grey shawl over her head and shoulders. In the corner of her mouth is a short, fat cigar.

  ‘My only lead,’ I mutter to myself.

  I button my overcoat all the way up and shove my hands into my coat pockets. I hear Lundin’s hacking cough inside the door. The coal delivery man’s cart is still there, its shafts pointing up into the air like the arms of someone drowning.

  A couple of hours later I’m standing at the crossroads towards Folkungagatan, watching the pavers at work. They tore up Götgatan for the sake of the Metro and now they’re at it again, putting it back together. The workers are in teams of five, with one foreman. Their hammers ring out into the sunset. Stone splinters fly through the air like grey sparks. On my right the paving stones are already in place, but to the left the gravel road continues all the way to Skanstull. A worker sits on a steam excavator, watching the others. That special smell of iron imposing itself on stone mixes with the smoke of the trucks. The blokes are on their knees, their shredded fingertips wrapped in rags. The foreman’s voice, gravelled by the road dust, cuts through the rhythmical hammering: ‘Keep it up! No one goes home until we’ve filled the quota!’

  I have new light boots made of sports leather and a long black overcoat with heavy lapels. I also found myself a bargain at PUB’s hat department, a black thing with a low crown, a narrow brim and a broad grey band, for eighteen fifty. In the bag between my new boots is the old overcoat and the bottle of schnapps. My other shoes had to go straight in the bin. I get out a Diplomat, bite off the end and light it. If I’m to get through Christmas I have to urgently contact Wernersson to see if he has any more bicycles for me.

  ‘Damn it, Larsson. Were you one of them what built the Tower of Pisa? Can’t you see, it’s bloody out of shape?’ the foreman shouts at an old man, who sits up on his knees and throws out his arms.

  A boy approaches, pushing a pram filled with coal, which he has most likely nicked from the barges by Söder Mälarstrand. God have mercy on any kid from Söder who comes home without something flammable at this time of year.

  I look around. Outside NORMA, on the other side of the street, a couple of dockers are milling about, trying to pick up some lunch company by three o’clock, when the restaurant is on full ration. Further off, a lanky bloke in a bowler hat is checking prices in the window of a gentlemen’s outfitters. Overhead, a single-engine aircraft is writing an advertising message across the sky, but there’s too much wind to be able to read what it says.

  I have a puff. Although the cigar is twice as expensive as a Meteor, it tastes sour.

  A coarse-limbed draught horse, its two-wheeled cart loaded with paving stone, weaves its way through the workers. Steam shoots out of its distended nostrils, as if from a locomotive. I’d never get into an underground train. The mere idea of it is utter lunacy.

  I toss away my half-smoked Diplomat. As I turn off towards Stora Teatern, I notice a street kid snapping up the cigar and blowing on the glowing tip.

  The matinee is Tonight or Never, the same show as at home in the Lyran. The newspaper boy outside the cinema tries to make himself heard above the hammer blows. Somewhere from under the ground, a whole team of blokes start singing a work song. The boy raises his voice even more.

  ‘Murder on Götgatan,’ he roars. ‘The son the perpetrator!’

  I slow my steps and stop.

  ‘Read all about it in Svenska Dagbladet! Everything about a murder, just a few streets away!’

  ‘Is there a crossword?’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s the trickiest one in the whole country, if you know what I mean.’ The boy smiles.

  I take out a one-krona piece and give it to him. He puts it in his pocket and folds the newspaper over his arm while he’s counting out the change. I raise my hand.

  ‘Keep it.’

  ‘Right you are.’ He hands me the newspaper.

  ‘A carpenter on Bondegatan. The daughter has flown, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Well that’ll be old Ljungström on Bondegatan, just a few blocks down.’ A high-pitched signal in short pulses interrupts him. ‘Hold on, the moles are letting off dynamite again,’ he cries.

  ‘You know the street number?’

  ‘No, but check around. The old gossip girls will know all about it.’

  I write down the information in my notebook before I open the newspaper. The international competition for amateurs against Poland ended 8-8. Vangis Eriksson won the heavyweight title with a knockout.

  The detonation rolls like thunder across the open sea. The vibrations run through me, sending ripples to a corner of my newspaper.

  I wander down Götgatan until I come to a small gathering of people on the corner of Bondegatan. There used to be a cinema here, but nowadays the bottom floor seems to be some sort of warehouse. A dark woman wearing a soiled stripy pinafore and a man’s jacket stands pointing at some cement medallions on the façade.

  I stop. Slightly to one side stands an elegant, greying gentleman with a goatee and spats. He sticks out among these Söder locals. I have a sense that I have seen him before, but I can’t place him. It’s odd how certain memories take off and fly away right away, while others have to be lugged about like heavy putting shots.

  The smell of malt from St Erik’s brewery further up the street hangs over the area. I give an urchin a poke with my elbow. He’s a pale-faced kid of about ten, with a big bandage around his throat and two water-filled buckets at his feet. Copper for the drinking water and zinc for the rest.

  ‘What’s happened here?’

  ‘Signe spilled a lick of coffee over herself,’ says the pinafore woman in a shrill voice. She has a foreign accent. When she turns around I can see that her eyes are swollen red with tears under her joined eyebrows. ‘Even during the war we had enough to go round!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, back then we used chicory, of course! Not real coffee! But still!’

  The boy fidgets. Maybe the old nag is his mother.

  ‘We roasted acorns too, they fetched five öre for a half-kilo. Me and the kid next door picked them like mad.’ A worker of more or less my own age has
involved himself in our conversation. Sweat has painted clean stripes on his dirty face at some point today. Friday pay-day’s half-litre bottle sticks out of the pocket of his tatty coat. He’s got a unica box in his hand.

  ‘Acorns? Pffft! And now she’s offering coffee to our Lord the Father.’ The woman puts up two fingers and makes the sign of the cross across her bust.

  ‘Gas,’ says the wage slave, swilling his saliva and gobbing between his dirty boots. Both of his upper front teeth are missing.

  ‘Damn if I believe that.’

  ‘Straight up, sir. The son put it on.’

  ‘Acorns,’ mutters the bag. ‘Not Signe. Never.’

  I get out another Diplomat, bite off the end and light it with a match.

  ‘I’m looking for a carpenter here on Bondegatan. Ljungström.’

  ‘Bloody rubbish.’ The worker snorts. ‘Excuse me, mister! You mean old Ljungström? The builder. Dalecarlian?’

  ‘Precisely.’

  The flame goes out in a thick cloud of smoke, and the singed matchstick ends up on the pavement.

  ‘Avoid that one. Ljungström needs fifteen hammer strokes on a two-inch nail and still the sod ends up all crooked. The best carpenter in Söder is Jakobi, on Nytorget.’

  ‘Still, it’s Ljungström I’m after.’

  ‘I don’t know his street number but the district is called Timmermannen.’

  I nod and get a Diplomat from my coat pocket. The wage slave inclines his head slightly as he takes it. His hand is rough and callused as it touches mine, and for a moment we measure each other up. He raises his eyebrows and nods affirmatively.

  People move out of the way as I make my way through the little crowd. On the other side of the lane, two street urchins sit tightly pressed together in a doorway: a boy and a girl. The girl has wrapped a blue scarf around her head. Her dirty brown curls hang down over one eye. The boy holds a piece of string in his shaking hand. On his forehead, a set of red, clawed flea bites are fighting for space. The string leads to a forked twig, holding up a wooden fruit box, under which the December wind stirs among some breadcrumbs. The city pigeons of Söder are hard currency in these times.

  I find the name almost at once while searching the doorway of a yellow building with badly applied pointing further up the street. I look around a few times. Over the course of the day I’ve had a vague feeling that I’m being watched, and I wonder if the goons have put a tail on me. They wouldn’t need much of a reason. I shake off my unease and push the door open.

  It’s two floors from the top. My new boots are chafing a bit. On the way up I have a coughing fit, and I spit on the stairs. In front of the door marked ‘Ljungström’ lies a folded-up jute sack on which to wipe one’s feet. I give the door a decent tap with the joint of my forefinger.

  The apartment smells of liquid soap. The wife of the house has the same slanted eyes as her daughter, and she could be anything between forty and sixty years old. She has a scarf wrapped around her head, and she wipes herself on her apron before she shakes hands, with a little curtsey. From inside the flat there’s a loud sound, like a window being slammed.

  I peer over her shoulder. In the hall, some rag rugs have been rolled up and left on a firewood bin. A big bed is folded up against the wall. Most likely they rent out the hall. There’s a scrubbing brush on the floor. They’re normal, subservient people; poor and hardworking. For a moment I think of the lady on Kungsgatan yesterday. This one couldn’t possibly be anywhere near as angry.

  ‘I’m looking for your husband.’

  ‘He’s down in the workshop. In the yard.’

  Her Dales dialect doesn’t sound quite right. I nod, touching the brim of my hat in acknowledgement, and I’m just about to leave when she grips my arm with surprising strength. I look down at her wrinkled hand.

  ‘Tell him to come in and eat. I can heat it up for him.’ Her voice breaks and her grip tightens.

  At least they have a wall-mounted clock; I can hear the seconds ticking by in there.

  Her eyes seem in danger of welling over. I nod, alarmed, then free myself of her grip, back out into the stairwell and quickly close the door on her and her weeping.

  The courtyard isn’t paved. The weather has hollowed it out and created small hills and valleys in the gravel. If it rained, one would have to jump the pools on the way to the shithouse in one corner. Between a couple of cowering, knotty trees runs a tangle of empty washing lines.

  Two filthy little girls disappear into the house dragging a basket of firewood. One industrial worker in four is unemployed. There’s certainly no shortage of waitresses or seamstresses sewing pockets or buttonholes at a piece rate. In a few years, they may find positions as maids in Östermalm, with a weekly wage corresponding to what Sonja pulls in from one half-impoverished bloke. That is, if they’re prepared to work from daybreak to late at night.

  I need a snifter. I take out my half-litre and look around.

  At the far end of the yard, under a bare apple tree, is a small peeling shed with a roof of tar paper and a lopsided, rectangular window.

  I walk up to it and knock on the door. It glides open. The lock is broken. I step into the gloom.

  The little workshop smells of timber and resin. The earth floor is covered in wood shavings. A variety of tools lie scattered across the workbench, including chisels with handles of black string and a handsaw. On the far wall are two pictures. One of the King, smiling. The other of Christ on the cross, not smiling. Under the pictures is a wooden chair with a broken back, a spade without a handle, and an old dowry chest. A small, unpainted chest, about a metre in length, rests on two sawhorses. A wood-cutter’s axe has been left on the lid to stop the rats getting in.

  On another broken chair sits a man, his chin slumped against his chest. He’s wearing clogs without socks, rough-spun trousers and a workman’s shirt, yet he doesn’t seem cold. His dirty, callused hands are curled up in his lap. A mottled light seeps in through the window, illuminating his legs.

  I take off my hat and find myself an overturned three-legged stool by the door. I pinch my front creases and sit next to the carpenter, who doesn’t notice me. We remain silent for a while. I rest my lower arms against my thighs, my hat balancing on one knee. My boots squeeze my feet even though I’m not moving, my overcoat is tight across my shoulders. I send Sonja a thought, then straighten my back, clear my throat and glance at him. There’s a clicking sound when I break open the screw-top lid. A mouthful of schnapps tumbles through my body. I have another. A crack runs diagonally across the dirty pane of glass. It holds together, but only just. I tap his shoulder with the neck of the schnapps bottle.

  ‘Just bought schnapps.’

  He takes it and, after putting away a decent gulp, sends it back. I wave my hand dismissively, and he helps himself to another. I feel the heat of his fist when I get the bottle back.

  ‘My condolences.’

  He glances quickly at me. I keep looking straight ahead. It’s best that way. He looks back down at his clogs.

  ‘She’s gone, now I have no one to follow me,’ he mumbles.

  I pick up some of the wood shavings from the floor and crumble them between my fingers. They smell good. I have another sip. My stomach has grown accustomed now. The schnapps is warming. Looking at him once more, I realise I can’t ask about Sonja.

  ‘Your wife is waiting upstairs with the food.’

  I stand up. He remains seated, shaking his head. I dust my hat.

  ‘No one to follow me,’ he repeats.

  I take a deep breath: there’s no air in here. The carpenter shakes his head. With a nod, I put the bottle on the small chest in front of him. The bag rustles when I get out my old overcoat. I drape it over his shoulders and pat him on the shoulder a couple of times. I don’t want to see him cry.

  One of the girls is still out there in the yard. Quickly she pulls her finger out of her nostril when I leave the shed. It’s growing dark now. The afternoon smells as if it’s going to snow aga
in. The wind sighs softly, like a paraffin flame under a tin lampshade.

  I hop across the yard and reach the door. The rusty handle feels rough through my thin Nappa leather gloves.

  My new hat is pushed back when, momentarily, I rest my forehead against the door. The coldness of the handle is a comfort to my trembling hand.

  ‘There’s a policeman waiting up there,’ says Lundin when I look in, for the usual reason, about an hour later. He offers me a bottle of Skåne Akvavit and I take it.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Nervy type. At least you’re properly dressed, my brother.’

  I nod. So it’s neither Olsson nor Berglund. Lundin makes another entry in his ledger.

  ‘Did anyone call?’

  ‘Wernersson. Did you find her?’

  ‘I found her father. You got anything other than aquavit?’

  ‘Did he know her whereabouts, then?’

  ‘It wasn’t the right moment to ask.’

  Lundin nods and pockets his accounts book. ‘Sneaky little whore.’

  ‘Mind your language.’

  ‘She did it, and you know it.’ He caresses his moustache.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘She killed him. That’s why she’s keeping her head down. Cherchez la femme.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Let us go down and create confusion in their language, so that the one does not understand what the other is saying.’

  ‘What are you going on about?’

  ‘It’s from the scriptures.’

  ‘The other bit.’

  ‘French.’

  ‘I heard that much. What does it mean? And have you got anything else? OP at least, if it’s got to be aquavit.’

  ‘It means she killed him.’

  ‘Do you have anything else?’

  ‘Don’t keep the lawman waiting.’

  Lundin points upwards with his chin. I sigh and drop the bottle into my inside pocket. Lundin pulls at his lapels and puts his hand on the door to the ice room. I nod goodbye to him and walk out.

  The soles of my new boots dampen the sound they make on the stairs. Social-Demokraten is lying outside the door. At the top of the front page someone has scrawled four digits in blue ink. It looks like a telephone number. For a short moment I’m left standing with my hand on the door handle before I take a deep breath and go inside.