When the Snow Fell

by Mankell Henning

  Several times he was forced to pause. Breathe in, breathe out, breathe in again.

  Then he started running.

  If the Greyhound had been there, he would have been able to catch up with her for the first and perhaps the only time.

  He felt he simply had to tell somebody about it. Despite the fact that he wasn’t allowed to. He’d promised.

  Then he stopped dead. There was one person, he thought, who was guaranteed not to gossip. He turned off into a different street, and started running again.

  He was less frightened this time. The churchyard didn’t seem so threatening. He stood in front of Lars Olson’s head stone. Where he had made his New Year’s resolutions. He could announce that one of his resolutions had come true already.

  “I’ve seen a naked woman,” he said. “Sonja Mattsson.”

  The headstone said nothing.

  “I want Simon to be fit again,” he muttered. “I don’t want him to die.”

  He didn’t get an answer. But then, he hadn’t expected one.

  He set off running again. He was on his way home now. Samuel would be sitting with the wireless on, waiting for him. Or perhaps he would have gone to bed and be asleep already?

  But when he entered the kitchen, the black avalanche engulfed him again.

  Samuel wasn’t at home. He had vanished.

  Joel slumped onto a chair and howled out loud. It sounded like a foghorn.

  He didn’t have any strength left. Samuel could drink himself to death, if that was what he wanted.

  But surely that wasn’t what he wanted? Joel was convinced of that. All the time Samuel kept on doing things he didn’t want to do.

  There was a half-empty cup of coffee on the table. Joel dipped a finger into it.

  The coffee was still warm.

  Joel jumped to his feet.

  That meant Samuel couldn’t have been away for long.

  Maybe Joel would be able to catch him before he started drinking.

  Joel grabbed his wooly hat.

  And went out again.

  — TWENTY —

  Joel stood motionless in the street. Holding his breath. He looked slowly in both directions. No sign of Samuel. The starry sky up above was no longer visible. Clouds had come creeping in from nowhere. Perhaps it would start snowing again.

  But the stars couldn’t help him to find Samuel in any case. He would have to find his own way to wherever he was. Without the Plow or Orion as navigational aids.

  Joel racked his brains.

  Samuel seldom returned to the same drinking den several times in a row. So Joel could exclude the ramshackle house by the river where the Crow and the Goblin brothers generally sat drinking.

  Joel was thinking as fast as he could. It would be best if he could catch Samuel before he’d got to wherever he was heading. But where would that be?

  That lonely foghorn was still howling inside him.

  I’ll give him a good thumping, he thought bitterly. I’ll give Samuel a punch on the nose. Knock him over.

  If I had the strength to drag Simon home through the snow, I’ll be up to doing the same with Samuel. And then I’ll tie him down to his bed.

  Joel started walking towards the western edge of town. There were two places in that direction that Samuel could be heading. He walked slowly at first, then faster and faster. When Samuel got it into his head that he fancied a drink, he was always in a hurry. It was as if he had a stomach upset and needed to make a dash for the lavatory. Joel couldn’t know how big a start his father had on him. A cup of warm coffee wasn’t the same as a clock. He walked even faster. The little town was asleep.

  There’s only me, Joel thought.

  Hunting for Samuel. And I’ve solemnly promised to give him a good thumping when I catch up with him.

  Then I’ll drag him home.

  Or maybe I ought to drag him to the rubbish dump instead? Get rid of the problem once and for all? Then I can take the bus to Ljusdal and continue over the oceans to Pitcairn Island.

  He passed by the railway line and sidings, where the big, dark building containing the abattoir was situated. The streetlights were starting to thin out. Joel hurried on his way. He paused at the crossroads.

  Then he saw Samuel. It couldn’t be anybody else. He was on his way to the sawmill. There were a few places there where people used to gather to drink. The police had been called out there once or twice, Joel knew that. Somebody had been stabbed in the arm during a fight. There had been an article about it in the newspaper. Samuel had turned very pale when he read about it.

  The sight of Samuel on the road made Joel feel a mixture of relief and anger. It meant he had caught him in time. Samuel hadn’t yet settled down with a glass or a bottle in his hand.

  He started running. The snow creaked under his boots. But Samuel didn’t hear him. He didn’t notice anything until Joel materialized by his side.

  Samuel paused and eyed him up and down. Then continued walking.

  “Go home, Joel. Stop following me.”

  Joel was in front of Samuel now. Walking backwards.

  “You said you weren’t going to go out drinking anymore. You said that, didn’t you?”

  Samuel didn’t answer. He tried to walk past, but Joel stood in his way. He was angry now. So angry that tears were welling up in his eyes.

  “Come home with me now,” he said.

  “I’ll go home soon,” said Samuel. “I need a bit of a change. I get so miserable sitting at home on my own.”

  “Getting drunk won’t make things any better.”

  “I’ll have a glass or two whenever it suits me.”

  Joel felt as if he were talking to a tree. Samuel simply wasn’t listening.

  He stopped dead. Samuel almost barged into him.

  “Come home with me now,” said Joel. He was pleading.

  “I’ll be home soon,” said Samuel. “Don’t you bother about me.”

  The words echoed like thunder inside Joel’s head. Don’t you bother about me. Didn’t Samuel understand anything at all?

  Joel flung himself at his father and started punching him in the chest. The road was slippery. Samuel fell, and dragged Joel down with him. They landed in a snowdrift. Joel could see the Greyhound underneath him. He remembered how he had gotten her back by poking snow inside her clothes.

  Why not do the same with Samuel? He started rubbing snow into his father’s face. Samuel grunted and growled in surprise. Then he started resisting. But Joel didn’t give up. He thrust more and more snow into his father’s face and tried to poke some down inside his shirt. He kept going until Samuel grabbed him by his coat collar and flung him to one side.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” said Samuel, starting to brush the snow off his clothes.

  Joel attacked him again. He didn’t bother about snow anymore, just hit and punched, and Samuel had to defend himself as best he could.

  Then it all stopped. Joel was lying flat on his back in the middle of the road.

  Samuel had stood up.

  “You can’t lie here,” he said.

  “Oh no?” said Joel. “I can lie here and freeze to death.”

  Samuel bent down, took hold of Joel’s arm and pulled him to his feet. Samuel was strong when he wanted to be.

  “I’ve had enough of all this stupidity,” he said. “Go home. And leave me in peace. I’m a grown-up and I’ll do as I like.”

  “If anybody here is grown up, it’s me,” said Joel. “I don’t know what you are.”

  “How dare you stand here insulting your own father!”

  “I’m not insulting anybody. I’m just telling the truth.”

  Samuel was on edge now. No doubt he was longing for a drink as well. But when he was on edge he could become hot-headed. Joel took a step backwards.

  “Go home this minute,” said Samuel.

  “I’ll burn the house down,” said Joel.

  Samuel was angry. On edge and hot-headed. He tried to grab hold of Joel, who w
as expecting it and managed to jump out of the way.

  “I don’t want to hear another word from you,” said Samuel. “If you don’t go home this very minute, I’ll… I don’t know what I’ll do.”

  “You can always beat me to death,” said Joel. “But who would cook for you then?”

  Samuel made another attempt to grab hold of him. They were dancing round each other in the middle of the road.

  “Say that again …,” said Samuel, threateningly.

  Joel shouted it out so loud that it echoed.

  “You can always beat me to death. But who would cook for you then?”

  “People will hear you,” said Samuel. “Stop shouting.”

  Now he was the one doing the pleading.

  “There’s nobody around to hear,” said Joel.

  Then all the wind went out of his sails. He didn’t have the strength anymore. He felt like a balloon that had burst.

  “Go home this very minute,” said Samuel again. “Leave me in peace. I’ll be back soon. This is the last time. I promise.”

  Samuel turned round. Joel saw his hunched back. Watched him walk away, getting smaller and smaller. Until he was swallowed up completely by the darkness.

  Joel walked home. His head was completely empty. He had no strength left at all. If this was what life was like, he could do without it. No matter what he did, Samuel spoiled everything for him.

  He returned to the house by the river. He’d made up his mind by then. He went up to his room and fetched the mattress and the quilt. Then he dragged the old bed out of the woodshed and placed it in front of the steps up to the front door. When Samuel eventually came home he wouldn’t be able to avoid seeing him. No matter how drunk he was.

  Joel lay down and pulled the quilt over him. It was cold. But he didn’t care anymore. He didn’t care about anything at all.

  He slowly dozed off. And fell asleep.

  Occasional flakes of snow started to drift down onto the bed. Then more. It had begun snowing again. Silently in the night.

  Joel had a dream. It was morning and he opened the roller blind. He could even hear the thwacking noise in his dream. The previous night it had been white everywhere when he went to bed. Now everything was different. He stared out the window in surprise. The sea stretched out in front of him. It was blue and green and glinting in the sunlight. Dolphins were jumping in the far distance. The beach was beneath his window. A fishing boat was heading for land. Brown men were paddling through the breakers. The boat was riding on the crest of the waves. In the stern, by the tiller, was somebody he recognized. It was Simon. Pitcairn Island, he thought. So we did get there in the end. Now I’m on Pitcairn Island. And Simon got better and came along with Samuel and me. He opened the window. Then he heard somebody calling his name.

  When he opened his eyes he couldn’t make out the face in front of him at first. Then he realized it was Samuel. But he didn’t care who it was. He wanted to carry on sleeping. To slip back into his dream again. Something seemed to lift him up. He thought it could be a wave. He floated around in the warm water. Perhaps he was riding on one of those dolphins he’d seen not long ago.

  He slept deeply. Had no desire to wake up. But there was somebody shaking him. He tried to defend himself. But the shaking continued. In the end he was forced to open his eyes.

  Now he could see clearly. It was Samuel’s face leaning down over him.

  “What on earth do you think you’re doing?” said Samuel. “You could have frozen to death down there outside the front door. What would have happened if I hadn’t come home when I did?”

  Joel started to remember. He noticed that he was lying in Samuel’s bed. Down at the foot end he could see the little mat. And he had a hot-water bottle on his stomach. Even so, he felt freezing cold.

  He tried to recall what had happened. He’d got into bed, and must have fallen asleep.

  He looked at Samuel’s face. His eyes were not red. And he didn’t smell of strong drink.

  “You could have frozen to death,” Samuel said again.

  “That might have been just as well,” said Joel. “Then you wouldn’t have had all this trouble.”

  “You mustn’t talk like that,” said Samuel.

  There was a lively glint in his eye now, Joel could see that.

  Joel sat up. He was aching all over.

  “Why did you come back?” he asked.

  Samuel shook his head.

  “I went to where I’d intended going,” he said. “But I suddenly had the feeling that I couldn’t stay. I didn’t know what the matter was. I went home. And there you were in the bed, covered in snow. You could have frozen to death. Can’t you understand that? What would have happened if I hadn’t come back so soon?”

  “Well, what would have happened?” asked Joel.

  Samuel didn’t answer. He just shook his head.

  Joel was tired. He settled down in bed again. He wanted to return to his dream as soon as possible.

  And Samuel was there.

  He’d come back.

  Joel woke up early. He lay in Samuel’s bed and tried to remember what had happened. He was wide awake instantly. He recalled that he had gone to sleep in the bed outside the front door. And almost frozen to death. He felt his body underneath the quilt. He wiggled his toes and clenched his fists. So he didn’t have frostbite. Then he got up and slipped his feet into Samuel’s enormous slippers.

  Samuel was in Joel’s bed. Joel thought that would probably have been a good thing. To change places with each other once and for all. Then he went to the kitchen. He could see through the window that it had been snowing.

  He could see something else as well.

  The old bed was still standing there, outside the front door. And it was white. Samuel had left the mattress there. It looked almost as if somebody was lying in the bed, asleep.

  Joel felt scared. What had he really done? He could easily have been dead by now. Just as dead as Lars Olson. And just as old. If Samuel hadn’t come back when he did.

  Samuel had changed his mind. He hadn’t started drinking again. That was why it was only the mattress still out there, buried under the snow.

  Joel sat down at the kitchen table. Lit a candle. The smell of the wax helped him to calm down.

  He’d often thought that his mum, Jenny, was bound to have smelled like a living candle.

  It wasn’t six yet. Samuel would wake up soon. Joel put the coffee water on the stove. Then he got dressed.

  When the coffee was made he could hear that Samuel was moving about. He came into the kitchen.

  “Coffee’s ready,” said Joel.

  Samuel looked at him.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “Fine.”

  They didn’t say any more about it. It wasn’t necessary. Samuel and Joel could talk to each other in silence just as well as with words. When they really tried. And this was one of those mornings.

  Samuel was dressed, and drinking his coffee.

  “Sara’s not the only woman around,” Joel said. “There are others. And you ought to shave more often.”

  “I know,” said Samuel.

  Joel drank a glass of milk.

  “We ought to get away from here,” Joel said. “There are schools in other places. And there are bound to be forests as well. If you really have to spend the rest of your life chopping down trees.”

  Samuel looked at him. But he didn’t say anything.

  “There might be forests on Pitcairn Island,” Joel said. “We could write and ask, in any case.”

  “Do that,” said Samuel. “I’ll give you the money for a stamp.”

  “How much is it to send a letter there?” Joel asked. “It’s a long way away.”

  Samuel looked worried.

  “We’d better make enquiries at the post office,” he said.

  Joel had another idea.

  “I know what I want for Christmas,” he said. “A postage stamp.”

  “We can’t wait tha
t long,” said Samuel, standing up.

  He placed a five-kronor note on the table next to the burning candle.

  “That must surely be enough,” he said.

  “It’s bound to be,” said Joel. “The world can’t be that big.”

  Samuel left for work. Joel stood in the window and watched him put down his rucksack and carry the bed away. Then he turned round, looked up at the window and waved. Joel waved back.

  He started getting ready for school. The Christmas holidays were not far away now. He wondered what kind of a report he would get for this term. The only thing he could be sure about was his mark for geography. What worried him most was what Miss Nederström might decide to give him for general attendance and behavior. No doubt he could expect some unpleasant surprises there.

  He blew out the candle. Breathed in the smell. Thought of Mummy Jenny. And Sonja Mattsson.

  But most of all he thought of the Greyhound.

  Then he left. For once he was in good time for school.

  AND TIME CONTINUED TO RACE PAST….

  Christmas was approaching. School had broken up for the holidays. Joel had reluctantly allowed himself to be dressed up as a shepherd when they assembled in the church to listen to the headmaster’s boring Christmas address.

  Afterwards, Joel had gone home with his school report in his jacket pocket. It hadn’t been as bad as he’d feared it might be, although it could have been better. Still, he knew that Samuel would be pleased and proud: Joel was one of the top ten in his class. And he had the highest mark of anybody in geography.

  He’d put his report in the middle of the kitchen table.

  Then he’d walked to the hospital to visit Simon. Simon was still poorly, but the doctor told Joel that the chances of his recovering were rather better now. He might even be able to talk.

  “Simon never says much,” Joel had said. “So it will be enough if he can only talk a little bit.”

  When Joel left the hospital, the Greyhound was waiting for him outside. They continued up the hill to Simon’s house and fed the dogs. They did that every day. Joel had been forced to tell Kringström that he couldn’t go to practice the guitar and dust and wash up, not while Simon was ill in hospital. Kringström had heard about what had happened, and said that it was OK for Joel to attend whenever he had time.