A summer with Kim Novak

by Håkan Nesser

  Somehow. I just didn’t know how.

  ‘It’s good that you have each other, boys,’ said my father.

  ‘A burden shared is a burden halved,’ said Edmund.

  We ate rhubarb cream for pudding; my father wondered if I felt like coming along to see my mother, but I explained that Edmund and I had some things to take care of. He was fine with that, and we all left Idrottsgatan together.

  My father, to catch the bus to Örebro. Us, to pay a visit to the fiancée whom the murdered handball star had left behind.

  But first we procrastinated for two hours.

  We spent the first in the culvert and smoked the four loose Ritzes that we’d bought at the kiosk at the station when we passed through Hallsberg.

  The second we spent sitting on a bench in Brandstationsparken fifty metres from the yellow-tiled villa on Hambergsgatan.

  We weren’t really sure what we wanted to talk to Ewa Kaludis about. The closer we came to the moment we’d be face-to-face with her, the colder our feet got. We didn’t seem to want to admit it to each other, but I saw that Edmund was at least as jittery about seeing her again as I was.

  Because Ewa Kaludis might be keeping a lot to herself. She might know things that maybe it was better for two fourteen-year-old admirers not to know.

  On the other hand, she might very well need our help; that was why we had embarked on this gentlemanly relief mission. When all was said and done, there was nothing to suggest that she and my brother Henry had had any contact with each other in the week since the murder—at least, that’s what we thought after looking at the situation forward, backward and sideways.

  Neither of us wanted to come to a definite conclusion.

  On the other-other hand (and maybe this was what gave us our courage) there was a good chance that she wouldn’t be home at all on a day like this, and that we could return to Gennesaret with our self-esteem intact and our task unaccomplished.

  When the Emmanuel Church’s clock struck half five, Edmund sighed deeply.

  ‘Sod it,’ he said. ‘We’re going to ring her bell. Now.’

  And so we did.

  18

  ‘Erik and Edmund,’ Ewa Kaludis exclaimed. ‘So good of you to come. It’s been … no, actually, I don’t know.’

  We could hardly comprehend that we were actually inside Ewa Kaludis’s home. And that she lived in this gleaming tiled mansion. She and Super-Berra; well, Super-Berra didn’t live here any more, but you could definitely feel his presence. Framed diplomas hung on the walls and most of the shelves of the large bookcase in the living room were filled with trophies and plaques that testified to what an outstanding athlete he’d been. The coolest one hung above the TV. A huge photograph of Berra Albertsson shaking hands with Ingemar Johansson. They both wore ties and were giving the camera crooked and world-weary smiles, so you could tell beyond a shadow of a doubt that these weren’t just any old nobodies. I felt a little ill when I looked at the picture; it sort of flickered inside my head.

  Otherwise, Ewa was clearly happy that we were there. She seemed to have been expecting us. When we’d finished staring at the trophies she led us straight through the house to the back patio where there was a table with a parasol and four chairs. She invited us to sit and asked if we wanted squash and cake.

  We did, and she disappeared inside the house again.

  ‘What a pad,’ said Edmund.

  ‘Mm,’ I said.

  ‘Did you see Ingo?’

  I nodded. Then we sat in silence and held on to the sun-warmed armrests, which were made of a fragrant, dark brown wood, trying to adapt to our surroundings. It wasn’t easy. Certainly none of my friends’ houses, at least the ones that I had visited, had been anything like this, and the tingling in my body and Edmund’s grew stronger the longer we sat, waiting, feeling small. I peered furtively through the balcony door. It was remarkable. Large expanses of floor without any furniture. No specific function. A glass table. A tree in a huge clay pot. An odd painting with triangles and circles in red and blue. Bloody remarkable, actually.

  And it all looked as though it had been picked up from the furniture factory last week. I glanced at Edmund and saw that he was having similar thoughts. This place was something else. Berra and Ewa Kaludis were of a different species, and I felt dispirited. As if the distance between myself and Ewa was once again insurmountable.

  As if it ever could have been surmountable.

  I’m not sure what I meant by that. My thoughts wandered and spun, and I bit my cheek and decided I was a self-involved git, sitting here thinking these daft thoughts. Circumstances being what they were.

  Ewa returned with a tray that held a jug, glasses and a small plate with pieces of chocolate hedgehog slice.

  ‘So good of you to have come,’ she repeated and sat across from us. ‘I’ve been so worried … didn’t know what I … what I should do.’

  She still had traces of his fists on her face. Around her eye it was yellowish with patches of blue and her lower lip was swollen and still bore the scab.

  ‘Well, we thought …’ said Edmund. ‘… that we’d pop by. While we were in town anyway.’

  ‘And hear how you’ve been,’ I added.

  Ewa poured the yellow squash for us.

  ‘It’s … I don’t understand it,’ she said.

  I wondered what it was she didn’t understand, but I didn’t say anything.

  ‘We’re sorry for your loss,’ said Edmund.

  Ewa looked at him with surprise, as though she hadn’t quite understood what he’d said.

  ‘Loss?’ she said. ‘Oh, that, of course.’

  I reached over and took a piece of hedgehog slice. I wondered if she had made it herself. And if so, had she done it before or after the murder? It tasted pretty fresh, but I assumed that they had a freezer, so it could be either-or.

  ‘Have you seen Henry lately?’ I asked.

  She shook her head.

  ‘Not since … No, not since.’

  ‘Oh?’ said Edmund. ‘No, that’s probably just as well.’

  Ewa sighed deeply, and it was only then that I realized just how worried she was. When I dared to look at her more closely I saw that her eyes were bloodshot, and I guessed that she’d been crying. Fairly recently, too.

  ‘Does he know?’ she asked. ‘Does Henry know you’re here?’

  ‘No,’ Edmund and I said simultaneously.

  ‘Hm,’ said Ewa Kaludis, and I couldn’t tell if she thought it was for better or worse that Henry hadn’t sent us.

  Maybe she’d been hoping that we had a message from him, maybe not. There was a pause while we ate cake and drank squash.

  ‘It wasn’t good between us,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t good between me and Berra. You must be wondering.’

  ‘Well,’ said Edmund.

  I said nothing and tied a shoelace that had come undone.

  ‘It couldn’t have carried on, but it didn’t have to end this way. I feel sorry for Henry; it’s all my fault. If I’d only known … even in my wildest imagination, I couldn’t have pictured this …’

  ‘There’s so little we can be certain of,’ I said.

  ‘Man proposes but God disposes,’ said Edmund.

  ‘I don’t know how I didn’t see Bertil for who he was until it was too late,’ Ewa continued. ‘How could I not have known it was wrong from the start? When I met your brother, I realized how mad it all was. Dear God, if some things could be undone.’ She paused and ran her fingers over her swollen lip. ‘Still, I did love him once. If only you could turn back the clock, just one time.’

  I saw that she was talking more to herself now than to Edmund and me. Her words weren’t meant for the ears of fourteen-year-old boys, I could tell, and while I was thinking that, I also felt sorry for Berra Albertsson.

  Apart from him being dead, that is.

  It couldn’t have been much fun to be loved by a woman like Ewa Kaludis and then wake up one morning to find that love gone.

 
Even though this only flew through my mind in a split second, I suspected it was one of the few truly deep thoughts I’d had lately.

  One of those questions that need to be revisited.

  If it’s better to be loved and then unloved, or not to be subjected to it in the first place.

  That’s the ‘clincher’, as I think they say.

  ‘I wander around here not knowing which way is which,’ said Ewa Kaludis. ‘I’m sorry I’m talking to you like this, I’m not myself.’

  ‘We understand,’ said Edmund. ‘Sometimes you’re really stuck in the muck, and you don’t know how to get out.’

  Ewa didn’t answer. I cleared my throat and plucked up the courage.

  ‘Were you there that night?’ I asked.

  She took a deep breath and looked at me.

  ‘In Gennesaret?’ I clarified.

  She looked at Edmund and then she answered.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I was there.’

  ‘Do the police know?’ I asked.

  She leaned back in the chair and folded her hands in her lap.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘The police don’t know anything about Henry and me.’

  ‘Good,’ said Edmund.

  ‘At least I think they don’t,’ Ewa added. ‘But send my regards to Henry, will you? Give him a message from me?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘What should we tell him?’

  She thought for a moment.

  ‘Tell him,’ she said. ‘Tell him that everything will be fine and he shouldn’t worry on my behalf.’

  I didn’t think this was how she was really feeling, but I still committed it to memory.

  Word for word, her message to Henry, my brother.

  Everything will be fine and you shouldn’t worry on Ewa Kaludis’s behalf.

  Before we left, she hugged both of us. Her bare arms and shoulders were warm from the sun and I found the courage to hug her back properly. I took a long sniff and breathed in the scent of her skin, and a cloud of Ewa Kaludis unfurled in my head.

  It felt fantastic. The swelling cloud suffused me and held the Incident and Cancer-Treblinka and everything else unpleasant at bay for a few hours. Only when we rode past Laxman’s did the cloud dissipate. It was immediately replaced by a cold emptiness in my stomach.

  As though it was gripped by an icy fist.

  So, maybe, I thought, maybe it would have been best not to inhale Ewa Kaludis.

  Maybe it would be easier to sit on the loo for the rest of my life and forget about putting myself out there. Maybe Edmund’s theory about the soul wasn’t so crazy after all. It was easy to find, if you could be bothered to pay attention and try to feel for it.

  Here, on this rough potholed path between Åsbro and Sjölycke, my soul was at the centre of my heart.

  It seemed to travel to where it hurt the most. Who knew why.

  Henry still hadn’t returned when we arrived back at Gennesaret, and that was just as well. I’d have to have a serious talk with him, both about what Rogga Lundberg had said and about our visit to Ewa, but for the moment—in the fatal emptiness beyond that fragrant cloud—I was so downhearted that I couldn’t face it.

  Edmund wasn’t in much better spirits. We ate a few bland hot dogs with bread—no mustard because there wasn’t any left—took a quick dip off the dock and went to bed.

  ‘This doesn’t feel good, Erik,’ said Edmund when we had turned off the light. ‘How could a brilliant summer like this one go so wrong? So goddamn wrong.’

  ‘Let’s sleep on it,’ I said.

  19

  ‘Let’s take the boat out,’ said my brother Henry, and so we did.

  Henry rowed and I sat on the thwart. It was another sunny day with a lot of wind; we approached the waves aslant en route to Seagull Shit Island. Henry missed a stroke now and again and I realized I was actually a much better oarsman than he was. He insisted on smoking while he rowed, which of course made it much harder for him. When we were about one hundred metres from the island, he lifted the oars out of the water and took off his short-sleeved sweater.

  ‘We need to have a chat,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I suppose we do.’

  ‘I didn’t know it would turn out this way.’

  ‘Neither did I.’

  He lit two Lucky Strikes and handed one to me.

  ‘Like I said, no idea.’

  I nodded.

  ‘What did Rogga Lundberg want?’

  I told him about the conversation with Rogga Lundberg and while I talked Henry was running his hand over his stubble and looked even more sombre. When I finished he sat in silence for a spell, staring out at Fläskhällen, where we were slowly drifting.

  ‘Would you say his behaviour was threatening?’ he asked.

  I thought about it.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I thought so. I think he only wanted to take advantage of you somehow.’

  ‘Good,’ said Henry. ‘Good on you, brother. You can already read people. That’s not bad for your age; most people never learn. Rogga Lundberg is an asshole. Always has been.’

  ‘Like Berra Albertsson?’

  Henry laughed.

  ‘Not quite. A different kind. There are many types of asshole, and the trick is to know what kind you’re dealing with.’

  I nodded. Henry fell silent again. I leaned over the edge of the boat and caught a wave with my hand. I rinsed my face. Henry watched me and then did the same. It wasn’t much, but I felt more equal to him than ever before. I cleared my throat and looked away. I knew I was blushing.

  Henry drummed his fingers on his knee.

  ‘Anything else?’ he asked.

  ‘We visited Ewa yesterday.’

  For a moment, he looked quite surprised.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘She sent a message.’

  He raised an inquisitive brow.

  ‘We were supposed to tell you that everything will be fine and you don’t have to worry on her behalf.’

  Henry nodded and sank back into his thoughts. Then he cleared his throat and spat in the water.

  ‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘It was nice of you to visit her.’

  I wondered if I should tell him that she had seemed worried, but I decided not to. No need to add to his burden. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

  ‘Well, that settles it,’ said Henry after another silence.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  ‘Rogga Lundberg,’ said Henry. ‘If Rogga knows about Ewa and me, then the police probably ought to know, too.’

  ‘I was thinking of suggesting that,’ I said, because I had been.

  ‘There’s no reason to put your destiny in the hands of someone like him. Remember that, brother. When you have to tell the truth, you have to. There are no shortcuts, and you have to do it yourself. Do you know where I was yesterday?’

  I shook my head. ‘No.’

  ‘With the police.’ He laughed his short, sharp laugh. ‘I spent the whole afternoon at the police station in Örebro with Detective Superintendent Lindström and two other detectives. They couldn’t agree on whether to let me go or not, but in the end Lindström decided that I could. But I’m barred from travelling.’

  ‘A travel ban? How does that work?’

  Henry shrugged.

  ‘I can’t go off anywhere, have to stay close to home … So, it’s just as well that I talk to them about Ewa.’

  I thought about it.

  ‘Before they find out from someone else,’ I said.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Henry and splashed a fresh handful of water on his face. ‘Before some asshole or other tries to earn a few bob. I wonder if that bastard’s been to see Ewa as well.’

  ‘She didn’t say anything,’ I said.

  ‘No,’ said Henry. ‘Let’s hope that he hasn’t had the chance.’

  He took hold of the oars again. A few seagulls came flying our way, shrieking. Henry cursed at them; then he took a long, serious look at me before he began to row.<
br />
  ‘I don’t like talking about this,’ he said. ‘And I know that you don’t either. But it had to be done. Do you think we know where we stand now?’

  ‘I think so,’ I answered.

  Before Henry set off he gave me and Edmund seventy kronor for the shopping. Every last cheese rind in the larder had been eaten, so we were sorely in need of provisions. On top of that, once Henry was at the police station, he might not return to Gennesaret—if they’d been unsure of him yesterday, then he’d hardly be better off after admitting to having relations with the deceased’s fiancée.

  It was just like a Perry Mason story, Edmund and I concurred, when I told him about the conversation.

  Except that Perry himself was nowhere to be found.

  We took the bikes out that day, spent every last sausage-coin at Laxman’s and on the way back Edmund told me more about his real dad.

  About how he used to cry.

  ‘Cry?’ I said. ‘What do you mean, cry?’

  ‘When he was hitting me,’ said Edmund. ‘Or after. When he was done. Sometimes, anyway.’

  ‘Why did he cry?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Edmund. ‘I’ve never understood it. He would sit on his bed and whimper and say that it hurt him more than it hurt me, and that I’d understand when I was older.’

  ‘What were you supposed to understand?’

  Edmund shrugged so sharply that he lost his balance and almost fell over his handlebars. He regained control of the bike and swore. ‘How the hell should I know? Why he had to beat me up, I suppose. As if there was a reason, but that I was too young to understand … that he was hitting me against his will somehow. As if something were forcing him to and he couldn’t resist it …’

  We pedalled in silence.

  ‘Why would you hit somebody on purpose and then cry about it?’ I said. ‘That’s strange.’

  ‘He was sick,’ said Edmund. ‘There’s no other explanation. Sick from worms crawling around and eating up his brain or something like that.’