The Hand that Trembles

by Kjell Eriksson

  The digger had stopped its enormous shovel. A photographer from the newspaper Upsala Nya Tidning had rushed forward. Sven-Arne Persson had hurriedly left the area.

  Thirty years later he was back on the same street. The area was no longer called Eriksdal except by some older Uppsala residents who still found some value in the old names. Now rows of town houses dominated. Sven-Arne thought they looked like barracks in an internment centre with small exercise yards surrounded by high fences.

  A number of day care children in troop formation marched by on the pavement. A rubbish lorry was driving along on Wallingatan. The sour smell lingered in the air, reminiscent of the canal behind Russell Market in Bangalore. The children screamed and held their noses.

  On the way here, he had stepped out of the taxi at the Central Station, gone in and located the storage lockers that were still in the same place, pushed in his bag, and quickly returned to the taxi, which proceeded to take him to Ringgatan as far up as the Sverker school. For the past hour he had been wandering aimlessly through the neighbourhoods, and now he approached the nursing home with great dread.

  THIRTY-TWO

  The night was long. Sweaty. At half past two he got up and walked over to the window. The sky was clear and starry. Once upon a time, a long time ago, he had loved the silence of the night. Now there was only terror and emptiness in the vaulted heavens, an endless longing.

  On the way to the kitchen he tripped on the vacuum cleaner and fell headlong against the doorpost. A pain seared above his temple and in his shoulder as he landed on the floor. The pain was almost pleasurable.

  ‘I need to vacuum,’ he muttered, and chuckled.

  He rolled over onto his back on the cold floor and stared up at the ceiling. He remembered the dream now. The Magpie had come to him. Her breath was bad but her body warm. She spoke with intensity, almost frenzied, in a foreign language. He knew it was the language of women and did not attempt to understand any of her prattling. Instead he studied her features and noticed for the first time that she was beautiful. She lay on him, her body light as a feather. Had they made love?

  He fumbled across his body and stuck his hand into his underpants, stiffening immediately.

  The chill under his back made him twist his body and roll onto his side. The old rag runner stank of filth. He loosened his cramp-like grip on his genitals and felt about with his hand on the wood floor as if he was trying to find something, then turned his head and stared out the kitchen window. The stars winked at him.

  ‘I could have been happy,’ he said out loud.

  In all honesty he did not understand why his life had taken such a strange turn. He was just a regular guy. Life flashed by so quickly, and he who had existed in the periphery was on the verge of being flung out into space like a powerless package of blood, flesh, and bone. Once he had been in the centre, warmed by people, hearing laughter and voices, but slowly and imperceptibly he had been forced out until one day he found himself alone.

  He had been out drinking the night before. Now he had to pay the price; the ache was like a vice on his forehead. Even though suffering was at his side right now he would soon get up, he knew he would. And again. And again.

  THIRTY-THREE

  The old man was sitting on the side of his bed when Sven-Arne entered the room. He had managed to make his way through the building and up to the third floor without bumping into anyone.

  Ante had heard him coming, Sven-Arne was convinced of it. His door out to the corridor had been open and the old one must have identified him by his footsteps. He had heard his nephew come and go for fifty-one years. That it had been twelve years since last time made no difference.

  He was staring straight ahead, his eagle profile the same as always. His left hand lay on his thigh, veined and lined, the tops of two fingers missing. The wrinkled trousers – were they the same gaberdine trousers he had helped him buy shortly before India? – were stained. Egg, Sven-Arne thought, the old man must still eat an astounding number of soft-boiled eggs.

  Ante fought hard not to show how emotional he was, but the tense jaw muscles gave him away.

  Sven-Arne rubbed a hand over his own face. The muscles above his right eyebrow twitched spasmodically. They had not done so during all his twelve years in India.

  Ante slowly turned his head and looked at his nephew.

  ‘You’re older,’ he said.

  Sven-Arne nodded.

  ‘Twelve years older,’ he said in a rough voice. ‘And that goes for you too.’

  ‘Should think so.’

  Sven-Arne took a couple of steps closer to the bed. He stretched out his hand. Ante grabbed it, pulled him toward him. There was still strength in his arm.

  ‘It was good that you came.’

  Sven-Arne suddenly remembered that December day half a century ago at Rosberg’s, how he had laid his hand on Ante’s as they sat on the roof, Sven-Arne on his uncle’s mittens, which they inadvertently left behind. How Ante for the first time told him about Spain with seriousness. Sven-Arne thought he could remember every word that was said, the bridge they were going to blow up, the Bulgarian miner ‘the Brush’, Ante’s Spanish words shouted across the roofs and woods that must have been a kind of greeting or an urging to fight, for resistance. And thereafter the shots that Rosberg and Ante took, their almost wordless conversation, his own warm milk with the line of cream in the glass and the American alarm clock he received with ‘Rep. alarm’ and ‘Long alarm’ and the seemingly unbreakable mechanism.

  It was as if all of the memories streamed through their fingers. Sven-Arne saw Ante’s hand in his own. Two Persson hands, snow-shovelling hands, plumber’s hands – like a design on a table runner in a Folkets Hus community centre.

  Then he remembered something altogether different and immediately let go.

  He looked around the room. The sight of the crutches, leaning against one end of the bookcase, increased his sense of confusion.

  ‘You still have the crutches?’

  Ante followed his gaze, as if to check that they were still there, and nodded.

  ‘They’re hanging in there,’ he said, and Sven-Arne caught a flash of his ironic smile of old for a second.

  If Sven-Arne in that moment would have been able to turn the clock back a couple of days, he would have set his sights on Ismael’s barbershop and walked back.

  He understood that nothing had changed in twelve years. The old man was the same, as was his sickly pride and Sven-Arne’s disapproval. No, disapproval was too weak, more like revulsion.

  ‘I’ve brought you a present,’ he said, and bent down.

  He wanted to get it over with, hand over his package in order to, yes, in order to do what exactly? Talk about old memories?

  ‘I see,’ Ante said, and tried to look indifferent, but his curiosity made him follow Sven-Arne’s movements intently as he searched in his bag.

  ‘It’s a small thing.’

  ‘It’s the thought that counts,’ his uncle replied, and Sven-Arne gave him a quick glance. He couldn’t tell if he meant it ironically or not.

  Ante stretched out his hand and took the gift. Appropriately enough, the wrapping paper was red. Now Sven-Arne saw that his uncle was moved. How long has it been since someone has given him anything, he thought.

  With clumsy movements and his lips moving soundlessly, Ante finally managed to peel off the wrapping. The cardboard box was of poor quality and the top almost fell apart as he removed it.

  ‘A sickle,’ he said, and got a somewhat uncertain expression on his face.

  Ante sat quietly for a long time and studied the tool, the hand-made blade, and the handle of wood.

  ‘There’s a hammer here already,’ Sven-Arne said.

  ‘What? Oh yes, of course,’ Ante said, bewildered.

  ‘You can hang it up.’

  His uncle nodded. Sven-Arne’s gaze swept along the walls. He recognised everything that Ante had put up: the recognition from the Spanish state, the poster with
the message that Barcelona did not give up, the group photo of a party conference at the end of the forties, and the little photograph of Agnes’s cottage.

  ‘It was a nice present,’ Ante said finally, then put the sickle back in the box and scrupulously packed it all up again. Sven-Arne even had the impression that Ante was going to rewrap the box in the red paper, but the latter put the box on the ground and pushed it off to the side with his foot.

  ‘It was a nice present,’ he repeated.

  All at once Sven-Arne felt extremely tired. It was as if the long trip and the anticipation of meeting his uncle now hit him with full force. He pulled up a chair and sat down. He wanted to say something, tell him something, but most of all he wanted to lie down.

  He looked at the old man, who seemed equally exhausted.

  ‘You still read,’ Sven-Arne said finally.

  Ante looked up.

  ‘Elsa came by,’ he said.

  Sven-Arne did not want to know anything about his wife’s visit or how she was, but forced himself to ask anyway.

  ‘She is in the hospital,’ Ante said. ‘Unconscious.’

  Sven-Arne nodded. Strange, he thought, that’s as far as my interest reaches for this woman I lived with for so many years.

  ‘You are writing your memoirs, I hear.’

  The old man nodded.

  ‘About Spain?’

  ‘Among other things.’

  ‘And more?’

  ‘Everything,’ Ante said. ‘Do you remember Anders Bergström?’

  Sven-Arne did not, but saw from his uncle’s expression that it had to do with Spain.

  ‘I’ve told you about him, I know I have, but you probably don’t remember, probably don’t want to remember. The one from the Workers’ Syndical Union who taught me—’

  ‘How to handle a machine gun,’ Sven-Arne filled in. ‘Now I remember. You’ve talked about so many.’

  ‘It was an old Russian piece that was in the school in Albacete, heavy as all get out. It was a Maxim from World War One. I’m writing about Bergström right now. He went on to meet a strange fate.’

  ‘Wasn’t that true of all of you?’

  He did not want to hear the story over again.

  ‘Bergström was a good shot. He belonged to the Reserve Unit at Teruel and there he froze to death. It was probably twenty-five below zero at New Year’s. I didn’t know anything about it until I was stationed in Morella. It was before I came back to the hospital at the coast, but of course I heard what had happened. There were oranges there. Bergström would have wanted one. He often talked about food, not least oranges. You understand, we missed fruit. We didn’t talk politics as much as one would think, mostly it was about food and how things were back home, what we wanted to do later on.’

  He shot Sven-Arne a quick look.

  ‘There’s only two of us left,’ he said after a moment’s silence.

  Did he mean Spanish veterans or was he referring to the two of them? Sven-Arne decided he was talking about the International Brigades. He knew that the society with the old volunteer republicans had been slumbering for a number of years. The members had fallen away or become too old to manage the organisation. Was it true that only Ante and one other was still alive?

  He had accompanied Ante to a number of meetings over the years. It had always been a remarkable feeling to meet Ante’s old comrades, tremulous old men who once had been battle-ready youths and who for so long had nursed memories of their fight against the Falange.

  ‘Are you still living in Spain?’

  ‘Are you afraid that the truth will come out? Is that why you have returned?’

  Sven-Arne lowered his head, tried to think, tried to get himself to understand Ante, and thereby perhaps himself, but his thoughts went round in circles.

  But Arne appeared to have gathered himself and continued to talk about Bergström and his machine gun. Sven-Arne’s apathy grew. His uncle’s words became a murmur.

  ‘You aren’t listening,’ Ante declared.

  Sven-Arne opened his eyes.

  ‘I’m a little tired,’ he said. ‘I have had a long trip.’

  ‘You’re as mixed up as you were twelve years ago. Don’t you understand that there is no alternative?’

  ‘There are always alternatives!’

  ‘It was justice,’ Ante said. ‘And you know it.’

  ‘Your justice.’

  ‘Our justice.’

  Now he’s going to start talking about class, Sven-Arne thought. The suffering, the burden. As if we aren’t reminded enough about it.

  ‘No, I’m not going to talk about class,’ Ante said, and smiled when he saw the perplexed look on Sven-Arne’s face.

  The old bastard isn’t normal, Sven-Arne thought. Now he’s reading my thoughts.

  ‘I have left the party,’ Ante went on. ‘Oh, come on, don’t look so baffled. I’ve thrown in the towel after seventy years. Not even Hungary got me to go, I didn’t quit with Seth Persson, even though I thought he was reasonable, or with the Holmbergs, even though I knew him so well, and not after Czechoslovakia either. I stayed on when that bitch became chairman and everything was just women’s blather. But then it was time.’

  All at once Sven-Arne’s head cleared. Not in his wildest fantasy would he have imagined that his uncle would leave the party he had been so faithful to for so many years. Granted, it was a party that had changed appearance, from an almost purely working-class membership to a party for all manner of types from the middle class, now with a minister’s son presiding at the helm. But it had been a party that was Ante. The organisation had been his whole life and being.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I realised that it was easier to act as a socialist from without than within a Socialist Party.’

  How much longer does he think he is going to live, Sven-Arne wondered. Is he going to ‘act’ as a socialist here at the nursing home?

  ‘You’re bluffing.’

  ‘Not at all, why would I do that? You drew the same conclusion, didn’t you? Ran off to India to dig in the dirt and that schoolteaching you talked about. Wasn’t it easier to be a Social Democrat there, in the garden and in the school, than in the party? No circulars and briefs that laid out how you should think and act. No high-and-mighty chairman getting applause for every smelly fart he lets out.’

  Sven-Arne could not believe his ears. Had Ante ever had difficulties adjusting to the party’s directives and violent swings?

  ‘You if anyone should know why I left.’

  Fatigue came creeping again, now accompanied by a headache.

  ‘That was just a pretext. You also thought this whole thing smelt like shit.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Sven-Arne said weakly.

  He did not want to go on digging through the past. Maybe he should tell something from his time in India. A small episode, some vignettes from the street or Lal Bagh, or about Lester’s family, anything that could get him to think about something other than his time as an Uppsala politician.

  ‘Doesn’t matter,’ Ante said, and heaved himself to his feet with the help of the walker. A tremor shot through his upper body before he found his balance.

  ‘You are here now, and that makes me happy.’

  Sven-Arne stared at him, dumbfounded.

  ‘Yes, happy,’ his uncle went on. ‘I haven’t had a debate in twelve years.’

  ‘Someone to debate, you mean?’

  ‘We are the same kind, you and I. You are thirty years younger, but you’ve sort of caught up with me. Now you can also start to sum things up. And I don’t have to explain so goddamn much, you know from your own experience what life is like. I don’t want to debate anymore. I want to conclude. Don’t you think I realise what my life must have seemed to those around me?’

  He sank back down on his bed.

  ‘Are you depressed?’

  ‘You are the only thing I have,’ Ante said.

  Sven-Arne looked at him. If the news that Ante had left the party was sensational
to say the least, then this was no less earth-shattering.

  ‘The only thing or the only one?’

  Ante looked uncertainly at him, then his face broke into a smile.

  ‘Both,’ he said. ‘Olars comes up once a year. For Christmas! As if Christmas was anything special. He has a box of chocolates with him every time. I give it to the girls. Olars, he is starting to get old and decrepit…. Do you remember Rosberg’s roof? I remember everything, that is my biggest problem. Most people go on, but I’m still thrashing around in the same muck.’

  Sven-Arne looked at Ante in amazement. During the approximately twenty telephone conversations they had had during the past twelve years – Sven-Arne had called every spring and autumn – his uncle had not said a word that could imply a change of heart. Not even his letters had contained any of this.

  ‘I thought that was your strength.’

  ‘Maybe it is,’ Ante said. ‘You see,’ he went on, and waved his hand in the direction of the books on the shelf, ‘all the words, all the visions, it is as if I can reach out and touch the dreams, I see them before me.’

  ‘Maybe the dreams were unrealistic?’

  Ante shook his head slowly.

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘our dreams were too small. In Spain we dreamt of the defeat of Fascism, violent defeats, we were so young, we wanted to see blood, I admit that. But we also dreamt of culture. We were envious of the knowledge of the bourgeoisie, their sureness, fine words, and carriage. We knew there was something behind it, something that we never reached. Do you understand what I mean? We were proud, of course, but inside us there was the gnawing feeling that we were still poor, as if we were not worth as much. And then we dreamt of women, of course, comrade women, beautiful women in battle.’

  Ante smiled unexpectedly as if he remembered something. Sven-Arne knew he had fallen in love with a woman during his time in Spain, but he had never talked about her other than telling him her name was Irina.