Clinch

by Martin Holmén

  ‘Ekerö trees! Come here for your Ekerö trees!’

  Brunkarna, the skiving gang boys from Observatorielunden, follow every potential customer with their sledges, ready to offer home delivery for fifty öre. This is their patch and damn any kid from Vasa Park who dares come down here.

  The Christmas tree is Doris’s idea. Arm in arm, we weave our way through the vendors. Dixie would rather stop and sniff every tree. The young fascist’s collection box rattles desolately. Doris wears a double-breasted coat with padded shoulders, full-length trousers and a hat that might look better on a bloke. The bargains don’t interest her; she’s after the most expensive tree she can find. I’m not bothered about the Christmas trees, I’m constantly scanning the crowd. Luckily the German creep is a head taller than average. If he’s also wearing the bowler hat I should be able to catch sight of him before he finds me.

  In the end she decides on an Ekerö tree. A Salvation Army soldier with a guitar sings ‘I Know a Door That Is Open’ in the distance.

  ‘I want a krona.’ The boy we’ve hired wipes his nose with the back of his woollen mitten.

  ‘A half-krona seems to be the standard rate.’

  ‘All the way to Sibirien? Never, sir! A krona, not more nor less.’

  ‘Okay. When we get there.’

  The boy struggles to get the tree on his sledge. Doris, standing opposite me, takes my hands. In the middle of the triangular plaza she goes up on her tiptoes and kisses me full on the mouth. Our hats collide and mine ends up on the floor after scattering snow over my shoulders. Her mouth tastes slightly of cognac. She squeezes my hands hard.

  ‘I love your smell,’ she whispers into my ear. ‘When I come home I go directly into my bedroom. My dresses smell of you, smell of Fandango and cigars, and I hang them up in a special wardrobe. I’m going to bottle the smell of you until Christmas is over. And I like the way you take me; God, it’s been years since anyone took me like that.’

  The stallholder winks at me over Doris’s shoulder. The Salvation Army soldier changes to ‘Far from God You’ve Wandered Long’. Quickly Doris caresses my cheek and kisses me again before she turns to the boy.

  ‘Are we ready to go?’

  We wander homeward through falling snow. Her arm rests on mine. The boy struggles with the tree in front of us. The display window of the toy shop on the corner of Norrtullsgatan has almost misted up completely. Outside, the kids stand in line, their eyes sparkling with Christmas present dreams, and their snotty noses pressed to the glass. Doris holds onto me when I lose my footing on a patch of ice under the snow. A mare with a snow bell works her way towards Odenplan with yet another batch of trees on the wagon.

  ‘Where do you want to eat tonight?’ Doris squeezes my arm and leans her head against my shoulder.

  ‘I’ll put my trust in you on that score.’

  ‘Maybe we should go to the cinema?’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘It would be nice. Lordy, it’s been a while since I last went out!’

  We slip and slide down the hill and are just passing a couple of little boys outside the old geriatric home next to Metropol Restaurant when there’s a loud bang, without any prior warning, behind our backs. The German caught me off-guard, after all. I could do with a pair of eyes in the back of my head.

  Doris squeals as I push her into the doorway on our left. I throw myself in after her. Dixie whines as I haul her in. Doris beats my chest, her eyes wide open with fear. I give her the leash. She opens her mouth but stays silent.

  The distinctive smell of gunpowder is stinging my nose. I already have the Husqvarna in my right hand. With a racing heart, I click a bullet into the chamber, then carefully peer around the corner to see a group of boys behind us lighting a few more Russian bangers and rockets.

  Our tree delivery boy has stopped some ten metres further ahead. He wipes his nose with his woollen mitten. Panting, I lean against the door. Doris stares at me. I make the pistol safe and look into her eyes, which have filled with tears. Dixie lies cowering in a corner of the doorway.

  ‘It’s time someone really explained what’s going on!’

  I nod and put the Husqvarna back in its holster. ‘A damned mess, that’s what’s going on.’

  She takes my arm and again we step out into the falling snow. I’m trembling. I pick up Dixie and try to shush her. Our boy goes back to pulling his sledge in front of us. Maybe he didn’t see the pistol. I put Dixie down and light myself a Meteor.

  ‘Tell me anyway!’

  I sigh and choose my words well. I understand I have to calm her down.

  ‘A couple of weeks ago I was helping a client, a certain Elofsson, collect a debt from a bloke known as Zetterberg. Nothing unusual about it.’

  The smell from the tobacco roaster further down the street hangs heavy in the December air as we pass Sveavägen. Doris walks along stiffly, her eyes fixed on the ground.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I did what I was supposed to do. Three people can back up that I was on Kungsgatan – a widow, the neighbour and a prostitute saw me leaving the scene.’

  We stroll down Odensgatan. A telegram delivery man athletically throws himself off the number 4 tram and dives into a house entrance. Dixie has cheered up. She lunges at snowflakes and snaps into the air.

  ‘The prostitute, do you know what her name was?’

  ‘What difference does it make?’

  Doris lets go of my arm. ‘I do think I have the right to know, don’t you?’

  ‘Her name is probably Sonja,’ I tell her with a nod and a sigh. ‘Unfortunately Zetterberg was beaten to death with a bricklayer’s axe only some hours later, and the goons started taking an interest in me.’

  I put my cigar in my mouth and my hands in my trouser pockets. The snow creaks under our steps.

  ‘Thanks to the widow I was released, and that was the only luck I had. Even so, the goons seem to think I’m the one who killed Zetterberg. I’ve turned Klara inside out looking for Sonja, without success.’

  Doris considers me. ‘Are you in trouble?’

  I shrug. ‘Then a few days ago I had a bite. Sonja had borrowed a telephone over at the Toad, if you know where that is?’

  Doris shakes her head. She bites her lower lip.

  ‘A betting shop in Klara. I got hold of her telephone number from there.’

  We pass the Oden Bazaar and our boy turns off into Roslagsvägen with the tree. I remove the cigar from my mouth. Not far from the junction, a run-over mutt lies in the gutter. I blink away a snowflake that’s found its way in under my hat.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘That was the day we met. The trail led to a hostel in Old Town. When I went there, a bloke with a pistol turned up and shot at me. I managed to get away on Mälaretorget.’

  ‘The Market Murderer.’

  ‘Exactly. The same man who killed Zetterberg. The same man Sonja and the widow saw when he was leaving the house on Kungsgatan.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘How else does all this make sense?’

  ‘What does he want with you?’

  ‘I must be getting close to something big, but I don’t even know what it is.’

  Outside widow Lind’s cigar hut on the corner of Frejgatan stands a sooty snow-lantern with a burned-out paraffin candle. Our Christmas-tree boy checks the numbers above the door and keeps going.

  ‘To begin with, I was combing the whole city to find this Sonja, but it doesn’t seem as pressing any more. And the police should get their hands on the real murderer soon.’

  Doris threads her arm under mine once again, and squeezes it hard. ‘Where might she be?’

  ‘Sonja?’

  Doris nods.

  ‘The police will find her soon enough.’

  ‘But where is she?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Was she beautiful?’

  ‘Bowlegged.’

  ‘But beautiful?’

  ‘Not like you.’

>   We reach my house. The boy leans the tree up against the wall, then takes off his cap and stands there holding out his hand. It’s sticky with resin and red-pricked with pine needles. When he gets his krona, he bows.

  After the boy has gone, Doris works her way into my arms, standing on her tiptoes, kissing and hugging me. Her body is trembling.

  ‘Are you cold?’

  Dixie throws herself around, snapping at the air. The snow gets caught in her silly beard and bushy eyebrows.

  ‘Let’s not think about that any more now,’ whispers Doris in my ear. ‘Help me up the stairs with the tree instead. Let’s go to the cinema tonight.’

  She kisses me again. Dixie spins her lead around us. The metal of the pistol presses painfully into my ribs.

  I’ve always liked the smell of weapon oil. I’m sitting at the kitchen table in my trousers and singlet, cleaning my Husqvarna. I’ve just worked out how to take it to pieces and now I’m sitting there with the various components spread across a newspaper next to an empty food box from NORMA. It’s been years since I last did this.

  The draining board is full of dirty coffee cups, wine glasses, a bottle of Hoffman’s drops for bad nerves, a hot-water bottle for stomach aches, a small glass bottle with a brownish medicine for rheumatic pain and pots of fragrant creams for God knows what. Across the chair backs, soft silk slips have been slung, and no less than two fur coats. On the table is a pair of electric perming tongs, which can be plugged directly into the wall if you’re brave enough. Doris goes home to change her clothes once or twice per day, and brings back more stuff every time.

  I hold the Husqvarna’s barrel up to the light. The groove looks good. This pistol has not been fired many times. Earlier that day I went to Wigfors’s Weapons to purchase thirty new bullets. When I get the chance, I’ll do some target-shooting at Lill-Jansskogen. I’m an awful shot: my hand trembles too much, my eyesight’s too poor.

  Dixie bounces up from her place under the chair when the door handle moves. I quickly pick up the photograph of my daughter, which I’ve put on the table, and return it to my wallet. Dixie yaps happily and Doris makes a fuss of her in the hall.

  ‘Good girl! Yes, you’re such a good girl!’ She’s in a good mood. Often she hardly notices the dog at all. It bodes well.

  Her heels dance across the cork mat when she comes into the kitchen. She’s changed into an evening dress of black silk, which drags along the floor. A white fur reaches to her waist. The beauty spot is on the other cheekbone. She’s holding a large paper bag in her arms, and a bouquet of flowers. I don’t know what they are. I put away the revolver parts.

  ‘Christmas tree decorations.’ She kisses my cheek and puts the bag on the kitchen table. She smells of cognac and perfume. ‘Do you have a vase?’

  ‘Look in the cupboards.’

  The cabinets open and close repeatedly. ‘Up there! Can you reach it?’

  I stand on my tiptoes and manage to grab the deep-green vase. I give it to Doris, who fills it with water and tries putting the flowers in.

  ‘They’re too long. You have a knife?’

  ‘In the drawer.’

  I call for Dixie, who comes trotting along straightaway. She slides to a halt on the rug, bunching it up as she does so.

  ‘Watch this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bang!’ I point my forefinger at Dixie, who immediately throws herself onto her back with her legs in the air. Doris laughs, clapping her hands and tossing her head back, showing the gap between her teeth.

  ‘That must have taken you a bit of time.’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘I’ll say. She’s impossible to train. Absolutely impossible. I should never have started giving her paté for breakfast.’ Doris laughs again and fluffs up her hair before she starts arranging the flowers in the vase. ‘You really are funny, Harry. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed as much with anyone as I do with you.’

  Dixie and I repeat the trick. I go to the larder to cut her a thin slice of smoked sausage as a treat.

  ‘That’s not the latest, is it?’ Doris points at the newspaper on which I’ve been oiling the weapon. I shake my head and nod at yesterday’s copy of Social-Demokraten in the window. She leafs through it from the back page. ‘We could make the eight o’clock show. What would you like to see?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘What’s this?’ She taps at a newspaper page, on which I have circled a classified in aniline pen.

  ‘AB Nordic Travel Agent,’ she reads. ‘Gothenburg – New York. M/S Kungsholm departing on 22/12. That’s tomorrow.’

  ‘We could be in America before New Year.’

  I give Dixie the bit of sausage. Doris cackles.

  ‘America?’

  ‘I was thinking we could run away together.’

  ‘You’re mad! The cinema will do me just fine!’

  ‘Calm down, Doris, I’m only horsing around. It’s like my trick with Dixie. Watch this!’

  I point at the dog again and shoot. She rolls around, legs in the air, but this time her tongue flops out of her mouth as well.

  ‘You two!’

  Doris slips into my arms, tittering. I calm my breathing and embrace her.

  ‘Sweets, get your sweets here!’ cries a uniformed boy with a pillbox hat on his head.

  It’s the end of one screening, with another soon to begin, and, in the half-light of the Palladium foyer, a thousand people are exchanging places. A porter gesticulates wildly with his torch, as if trying to direct the horde single-handedly. The weak beam of light flies through the dense tobacco haze hanging under the ceiling. A couple of young women in three-quarter-length evening dresses give us odd looks and whisper among themselves. One of them is wearing gloves reaching up to her elbows. Both wear green eye shadow. Behind one of the columns, a young man gets a loud slap in the face when he tries to kiss his girl.

  I am standing there holding out Doris’s fur coat for her, my hat between my teeth, when a spotty teenage boy with a grammar school badge in his hat approaches with a slight bow.

  ‘Excuse me, could I trouble you for a moment?’ He holds out a pad and a fountain pen.

  ‘No trouble at all.’ Doris scribbles in the pad, and adds with a laugh: ‘Just a pleasure.’

  I wait there with her fur coat until she puts it on. The boy bows again, then shakes her hand.

  ‘He was hardly born when your films were around.’

  ‘Ah, it happens all the time. Some movie fan remembers me. It’s not so very strange. Or maybe you thought he was coming over to you?’

  I grunt. Doris laughs again.

  ‘You should never have stopped. If they still remember you.’

  Doris doesn’t answer, but I feel a poke of her elbow: ‘Watch out, here comes Signe Rudin.’ She fires off her most magnificent smile at an elegant lady in a fox-fur muff and a long fur coat, who’s heading directly for us.

  ‘Who?’

  Doris leans in closer to me. ‘Good God! Who wears a muff nowadays?’ She rolls her eyes. I put on my hat and fumble around for a cigar.

  ‘Wasn’t she in Uncle Frans?’

  Doris doesn’t have time to answer. At last I find a cigar.

  ‘Doris! How nice!’

  ‘Well hello there, it’s certainly been a while!’

  The two ladies hug each other. Signe Rudin glances at me. I recognise her long, aristocratic nose and dark eyes.

  ‘So you’re out amusing yourself. Where are Ludvig and Leo, then?’

  Doris laughs and puts her hand on her arm.

  ‘Do you know, I decided to go out on my own tonight. Not very respectable, perhaps, but what’s one supposed to do?’

  I light my cigar.

  ‘You should have called, my dear. You know how people talk when they see an unaccompanied lady.’ Mrs Rudin throws me another glance. Her teeth are white and even when she smiles.

  ‘My driver,’ says Doris, nodding at me over her shoulder.

  I blow out a heavy c
loud of smoke.

  ‘Driver?’ The old bat coughs a little.

  ‘I’ll go and bring the car, then.’

  I blow out another blue-grey cloud of smoke. Doris laughs sharply and shakes her head. I get out the car key and rattle it in front of the ladies before turning my back on them and walking out of the foyer. Doris’s laugh rings out clearly even as I am walking through the front doors. I’ve started suspecting that she has a whole armoury of different laughs, but she usually only deploys this particular high-pitched variety when there’s a bloke around. Not that it makes any difference; there isn’t a jot of sincerity in any of them.

  The middle of the five glass doors opens with a metallic sound. Outside it’s freezing, the falling snow sweeping down. On the pavement, a shivering bloke in a grey sheep’s-wool cap is holding a placard that says, TRY MUNKEN’S DELICACIES. A young man without an overcoat approaches. His coat sleeves are rolled up and he wears a straw hat even though it’s midwinter. The skin on his face is flaming red in the cold air.

  ‘Buy a song from an unemployed man.’ He holds a little paper leaflet in his blue fingers. I shake my head and march off through the whirling snow, scratching my groin. Behind me I hear the monotonous sound of wheels clattering across the joints in the rails as a train lumbers into Central Station.

  The car is parked on the other side of Vasagatan. I turn up my collar and hold it in place with one hand as I jog down Kungsgatan. A weather vane screeches in the cutting wind. One part of me would like to drive off and leave Doris here, just to see if she knows how to hail a taxi.

  ‘Who was that?’ I ask a little later as we’re passing Zetterberg’s house. Snow is coming down chaotically from all directions. I sit with my nose pressed close to the windscreen, trying to stay on the right side of the tram track. The snow ploughs will have plenty to get on with tomorrow.