My Father, His Son

by Reidar Jonsson

  “Ahoy!”

  “What the devil is that? Tuberg’??”

  “Do you want Carlsborg? We have Carlsborg!”

  The Dane was on the horns of a dilemma. He had initiated a conversation about his country’s favorite subject with three dense idiots who couldn’t tell the difference between Tuborg and Carlsberg. What should he do? Continue to act crazy — or try to educate the dumb Swedes?

  “Which one d’you want? We’ve both,” shouted Eight.

  A perfect move on the part of Eight. The Dane would have to answer.

  It took time, however.

  We stopped singing so as not to disturb his concentration. Finally he came out on the deck. Behind the reddish blond beard he looked very young and very close to crying.

  “A Tuborg!” he hollered.

  Everybody in the village let out a cheer that rose toward Africa’s vaulted heaven, and giant treetops bowed to this hurricane of voices.

  “Tuborg! Tuborg!” The triumphant sound was born in the villagers’ happy throats.

  We climbed aboard and drank a few Tuborgs with the Dane. He had made it rather cozy aboard. Eight had turned sensitive, and with a commander-to-commander attitude commented that anybody could develop a fit of insanity in West Africa.

  I agreed with him.

  Everybody was happy except me.

  It took us two days to tow the more than half-mile-long dray of enormous timber. Right before we reached Sapele, my father stood astern, pissing. I sat on the engine room’s skylight, very close to the big tugboat hook. It would have taken but a moment to remove the pin. Then the cable would have flown like a howling whip sternward and cut Johansson in two, right at his protruding middle. I stared at the hook, at the pin, at the cable, and at my father. For nearly four years, I had fantasized about some kind of revenge. But not until this moment had I understood that a human being’s greatest power is goodness. A quality so tenuous and vital that it takes enormous forces to throttle it. My father would spend the rest of his life battling his own goodness, trying to drown it in beer, to wall it up in a bunker, and to suffocate it by silence. But he would never succeed. Not wanting to face the past, he was imprisoned in it.

  After a few days of loading timber in Sapele, we weighed anchor. He stood in the midship aisle. He did not lift his arm in greeting. I did. Then he disappeared into the midship aisle’s black shadows.

  ALGERIA

  1976

  Erik and I climbed up to the tabular surface, red as bricks, covering several miles and set against mountain ranges, cliffs, and ravines. Every rock shimmered, sated with the day’s sun. To the east was the Algerian-Swedish construction. The enormous concrete wall of the dam foundation tied together several cliffs. Walking all over with Erik for about an hour, I slowly began to grasp the scope of the work. To catch and imprison enormous volumes of water behind sufficiently strong armaments, to regulate and control this gigantic reservoir and from it feed irrigation constructions hundreds of miles away in the desert, that was Erik’s job as local boss. He directed people and machines with soft-spoken objectivity, fully conscious that things would happen whenever he set pencil to paper and drew a line.

  Despite all this, there was something helpless and lost over him. My jealousy was totally forgotten when we stood there, face to face. Despite the constant sun, his skin had remained light and a bit ruddy. Something searching and uncertain showed in the pale eyes. It was incomprehensible why Louise, using a multitude of evasive methods, had maneuvered herself down to Africa for the sake of this man.

  When I had arrived at the construction site and asked for her, he had taken my arm with great determination and pulled me away from the noisy camp.

  A quarter of an hour later, I began to understand that it was only in my imagination that Erik had been this great magnet drawing Louise here. It turned out that Louise had never laid eyes on him before arriving at this place. She was the one who came to him, asking for his help. Her sudden desire to have a real talk with me had transformed itself into anxiety. She worried over what I would do then. She had begged Erik to prevent me somehow from coming down to the oasis. The only thing he had been able to come up with was to have me thrown out of the country. At the last minute, she changed her mind and decided to meet me anyhow, although in controlled circumstances and in Algiers.

  I wondered if Erik translated controlled circumstances to mean cross-examinations by police, imprisonment, and ingeniously fabricated house arrest.

  A weak smile glinted in Erik’s pale gray eyes as if expanding on the realities of life to the child in front of him was too much of an effort.

  “I just said that you were a journalist and would criticize the dam construction in Swedish newspapers. That was enough. Unfortunately the Algerians play only one tune on their pipe. Heavy-handed threat or prison. The country is still suffering the consequences of colonial war. Yesterday’s leader and liberator is today’s oppressor. There’s only one opinion here. That nothing must disturb the mutual relations between the two countries. The Swedish loan guarantees are about something else than money for Algeria. Besides, if it’s any consolation to you, I was the one who caught hell in the end. Just for wanting to play the hero and help a damsel in distress. Louise can be most convincing. And she changes her mind quickly, too, since she suddenly conceived the idea to go into Algiers and meet you anyhow. And besides, you don’t look too dangerous.”

  “No more than others,” I said. “Is there any material for an exposé here?”

  Erik left his weak smile right where it was.

  “Possibly human beings’ unfaltering belief that they can play the role of God when it comes to nature. But you’re looking for Louise.”

  With confidently drawn lines in the brick red sand, he sketched a map over the activities of the area: the dam, the engineering camp, that of the Swedish concrete workers, the armada of people, machines, and materials plus the network of roads. Further down on the sketch, a few miles west of the dam, he drew a small circle.

  “And here you’ll find your researchers. They are digging out an oasis. Now and then we give them a hand over there. Mainly to stay in good physical condition.”

  There was nothing condescending in his tone of voice. And yet — the drawing in the sand was not just a geographical description of the different activities. It was also a study in relations of power between the kind of research that I and other social experts are involved in versus the explosive force of modern technology. In his field the future is shaped. In our field we note history. I expressed my thanks and drove on to the oasis.

  I thought back on the last few months. Could anything at all be undone if we backed up in time and geographically returned to Småland, Sweden?

  SWEDEN

  1975

  Once again:

  I awaken early and arouse Jonas. We go fishing. Louise sleeps. When I return from our fishing excursion, I lie down beside her. We make love. She cries. Tears well up as from an underground spring. Then she claims that Axel has raped her. The accusation is so absurd I even believe it for a few hours. I contemplate going to Stockholm to shoot him like the wretched cur he is but am stopped by my father-in-law. Instead we finally get rid of the kittens. One shot suffices. Louise is strangely excited and claims that I liked shooting the kittens. I fire a second shot right beside her. Then she is the one who wants me. By that time, both of us are playing on hitherto unknown strings in our inner selves. But when she declares that she wants a divorce, the early hours of this day become understandable. A welding flame starts to burn in my stomach. Whatever she has said and done has only been meant to cover her own panic.

  That is all.

  Except that I begin to think of Jonas. I immediately see his searching face in front of me. I will lose him. And that loss explodes my reality into chaotic and uncontrollable events. My life’s goal was going down the tube: A connected family as a conclusive symbol that I have succeeded in the very thing that I, according to all social laws, ought
to have failed to do. I have realized how futile it is to try to understand the guilt feelings in connection with my mother’s death, and I have given up the quest for my father’s love. In the meantime I made a career out of a happy family life. Transcending my heritage, and getting past my splintered childhood, erasing as well all my foolish experiences at sea and instead building upon what two other role models, my maternal grandparents, showed me of normal relations — that is what I plan as a gift to my son. No crazy quest through West Africa for him, no nagging questions, no paralyzing fear. I would always be there whenever he needed me. Loyalty. Security. And that time will heal all wounds. Those are watchwords I have been hanging on to in vain, convinced that a human being’s free choice is actually an iron-hard, disciplined expression of will.

  My promises were grand indeed. Only a lonely child could have pronounced them with such arrogance. Having been subjected to betrayal as a child, I could not imagine that as an adult I in turn would be betraying. Of course, twenty years later I should have seen through my arrogance. Instead I have tried to make good my promises, but I have failed and have been forced to feel the self-contempt grow. It overwhelms me all the more when Louise informs me of her definitive decision. She is dead serious, I sense it. My career as family member is ended.

  Those are my thoughts when I, as if numb all through, dig in my father-in-law’s hole and a piercing pain shoots right through my midriff.

  The loss of my son is cutting into me.

  I start to hallucinate and see Jonas at the old millpond. He has drowned. I run with him in my arms, screaming to the whole village that he is not dead.

  By now I am crawling on the mounds of earth around the dug pit. Louise comes running.

  “No! He’s not dead!” Louise yells.

  I wriggle like a tortured worm on a hook and understand that I have been calling out to Jonas all the time. As if he were dead for real.

  It is remarkable. In spite of everything, the pain and the madness, there is nonetheless a focal point of icy observation. I realize that I am trying to wriggle away from the experience of both old and new losses. Still I cannot stop the attacks. I hear and see my surroundings as if from inside a glass jar. My father-in-law goes out and gets the car but suddenly refuses to open the door. The palaver goes on for an eternity. I squirm in pain and try to relieve it by hitting my head on the glass wall. The others are upset. But they’re so small. And unbelievably uninteresting.

  Why don’t they do anything?

  Far away I hear my mother-in-law break something. Glass? All of a sudden, my father-in-law lies there, right by my side. An embarrassed expression has taken over his face and the stench of alcohol is strong. I try to speak to him of the disintegrating effects of alcohol and exemplify it by mentioning all the jungle juice that my father and other West African travelers have drunk. It’s no good to drink. You forget even your own children. Devote your life to bananas instead. It’s so sad one could cry. Or laugh. I try a smile but notice that my father-in-law doesn’t understand a word I am saying. How can he when I keep trying to butt him with my head, hitting his nose?

  I don’t know which one of us is bleeding, and I don’t care if it’s he or I. I have cramps. It feels as if my intestines are trying to jump out right through the stomach muscles. I want to be a man with a harmonious marriage, small, beautiful, and lovable children, and a little dog to walk and philosophize with.

  Finally they get me into the car.

  Slivers of glass. Somebody has broken the side window. I keep squirming. Louise holds my head between her knees and hollers that I must not die. In pain, I nod and agree. That would indeed be terrible.

  Who is driving?

  God in heaven! It’s my mother-in-law! I achieve a temporary relief by imagining all three of us as traffic-accident fatalities before we arrive at the hospital.

  But you do not always get what you imagine. We survive the trip and I crawl into Emergency. There I have to heave my own aching body onto a stretcher. To my surprise the hospital personnel don’t come rushing to my aid. Not even a painkiller is offered in the corridor.

  I have only been in a hospital as a patient twice in my life. Once when I was born and once as a small boy when I decided to come down with polio just to scare the wits out of my father and a mean farmer he had placed me with. The farmer boxed my ears because I had been looking at pornographic pictures in a small viewer. I gave up my paralysis strategy quickly since the nurses were too energetic with their shots.

  I am therefore amazed when no team of doctors comes running to save me. I have to wait for so long that I almost get tired of my illness. Could it be a conscious saving action? Only a healthy person has the strength to wait for hours to be treated. The rest is sorted out in a natural way.

  I want to go to sleep in spite of my stomach pains, but Louise forces me to stay awake and participate in the farce. She is extremely upset when doctors and nurses finally examine me in the corridor. Louise is convinced that I have galloping cancer and demands immediate exploratory stomach surgery. My mother-in-law is rummaging in her handbag. She could be looking for a Bible or perhaps a false beard. Who wants to remain next to a man who is being examined in places nobody would even think of? It is no mitigating circumstance that I am her son-in-law. The situation is indeed distressing. But she must stay there anyhow in order to have something to speak to God about. She has probably read the New Testament’s Epistle to the Philippians. “Beware ye of dogs.” I understand her. But I do not comprehend why all the nurses have to gather around and shamelessly gawk at the doctor’s repulsive and humiliating palpations.

  Finally all the experts agree, in spite of my wife’s objections. I am going into surgery to have my appendix removed. Louise insists that it could not possibly be anything as trite as appendicitis. The situation demands something grand and dramatic. Why not something that compels her to change her decision about a divorce? Amputation of both legs, for instance.

  I can picture Louise in that new role. Pale but collected, fulfilling her mission in life, a true outstanding loner amid her struggling sisters, she stands stiffly erect behind the wheelchair. “She sacrificed her career to take care of her husband.” It plays beautifully. I suggest that they saw off the legs. Everybody has heard of mistakes in a hospital. And what do a couple of legs mean when it comes to continued family bliss?

  Unfortunately, the doctors stubbornly insist on opening up my stomach. I groan hypocritically toward the congregation and whisper for them to do whatever is needed. The nurses roll me into a preparatory room next to an operating theater. Silence. Only my groans and a metallic noise. The knives are sharpened. I must escape. But how?

  The only way out is through the window. I am lucky. The operating rooms are on the first floor. It is difficult to look perfectly normal as I creep away to the taxi station, but people in this part of the country might be used to failed surgery specimens flying out of the surgeon’s window. Nobody even lifts an eyebrow when I crawl away from the hospital.

  In the cab I am hit by a strong longing for my uncle. Why did we not see each other? I could almost smell the old smoke from his pipe when I was thirteen and traveled by cab with him. Like a stranger, I had arrived alone, by train. My mother was dead. We siblings were separated in the final disintegration, left with the obscure idea that our father was busy loading bananas on the other side of the world. And there in Småland I got entangled in a remarkable tomboy’s nets. She could box better than anyone, she was number one when it came to soccer, and she grew so fast one could hear it. Fate or luck or indifferent circumstances put Louise in my path. She was flat-chested at the time and excitingly dangerous with her inky, straight eyebrows under the blond bangs. I remember her as a farmer’s daughter, but she was the daughter of the man who owned the country store. All of that lives inside me.

  “So it goes sometimes,” my father-in-law commented, seemingly unperturbed by my return.

  We sit in the cellar and drink from his bottle of sch
napps. My father-in-law is a first-class enigma. He is the prototype in my essay meant for the prime minister’s eyes. He is the man who simply tries to live and survive, but everybody keeps taking big bites out of him. He is the loser, whatever happens. My father-in-law is the unknown quantity in Swedish politics. He is a man without hope, really, but he votes with the conservative party. Why?

  The stomach pain is toning down, becoming a trembling echo, and I ask where my son is.

  “He’s with your uncle. You know. The one who’s so great with kids but otherwise is an irresponsible sort.”

  I nod and drink. When all is said and done, perhaps it is that simple. I have never been allowed to be an irresponsible sort, even when it would be normal to be such a person.

  ALGERIA

  1976

  Last time 1 saw Louise, which was in Bordj El Kiffan, she was radiant. Now she looked like a rejected ball of dust, pale and resigned.

  What had happened?

  I perceived my visit to be some kind of test I had to take and decided to nod in a friendly way, like a wise old monk, whatever happened. As ill luck would have it, I managed a fiasco straight away. I was completely caught off guard by a sudden insight regarding Erik. When I encountered Louise, I knew what was wrong with him.

  “But he’s an alcoholic!”

  Even though I tried to bite my tongue the moment the words escaped my mouth, they were clear enough. But the regular Louise of old was not there anymore. The new one dug into the sand with her thin feet, smiled, and kissed me tenderly.

  “I know. I’m going to save him.”

  “Does he know that?”

  “No.”

  “Couldn’t you save me instead?”

  I tried to laugh but it sounded as if I had a cough. Behind her the rest of the camp’s inhabitants approached, the usual academic gang. All of them managed to look as if they were seriously considering counting the grains of sand in the Sahara.