Gentlemen (Klas Ostergren) (FO8)

by Klas Ostergren

  At these elegant openings red wine and snacks were served, and Maud glided around offering acidic comments on Art, because the only one who still counted was Pollock, and Swedish imitators could never come up with anything new, at least according to Maud. Henry the art critic had a certain weakness for this type of modern art, and he couldn’t comprehend why Maud was in such a hurry to find something new. That’s how the quarrel would start, and it could often develop into a grand drama, which was particularly appreciated by the artists but much less so by the gallery owners, who worried about their customers and providing a peaceful setting for purchases. At certain events Maud sometimes even threw glasses or china at her young lover, because when it came right down to it, jealousy was all that lay behind Henry’s pleas. He was convinced that Maud was only out to show off and display her charms, a claim that had some truth to it. And that lent a certain fervour to his arguments. Yet Henry’s zealously invoked affinity with modern painters was based on his desire to find equals, bohemians, chosen Creators who could love a woman in a much more serious fashion than wealthy businessmen who travelled around the world and kept their mistresses at a safe distance. Maud knew exactly what Henry’s intentions were, and she could also tell that the general public – the vultures, the hydra that always came to gallery openings to spear an olive and get a little tickle – also understood what Henry meant.

  After these confrontations Henry would slip and slide through the snow, and land in a snowdrift, just waiting for Mercy, for Maud to forgive him and rescue him from certain death, or at any rate from pneumonia. He waited for her to take him home, heat up some broth, and put to bed her pianist, artist and art critic. And in the early morning whisper a reconciliation.

  ________

  It was during that spring that Lily Beglund sang ‘When it’s sunny spring and you’re seventeen, there’s so very little that you mean.’ And as much as Henry understood about Great Jazz and Great Art, he knew very little about Great Love. Like the betrayed girl in the song, he had shed his childhood cloak of innocence that had protected him from accusations and responsibilities. He now had only a few paltry years left as a teenager, and he already felt that he was a full-grown man.

  One afternoon in April he went over to have a talk with the Military Enlistment Board. Since he had passed all the physical tests with such exceptional prowess and could not be classified as mentally incapable, he and the powers-that- be had agreed that his talents might be best put to use in the form of some sort of commando activity. The boxer Ingemar Johansson had been a commando in the mountains, after all. For his part, Henry would prefer to be stationed out in the archipelago, as a coastal commando. The officers in charge were delighted, and the matter was settled. They had no idea what they had done.

  On that memorable afternoon he rang Maud because he wanted to have dinner with her. Spring was in the air, and he was in high spirits, naïve as Sven Dufva, the loyal and courageous soldier in Runeberg’s epic work, whom he had always resembled. He and Maud had been together for a year now, and the occasion needed to be celebrated with the proper pomp and circumstance.

  Maud was home from work, and she insisted that he come over. She told him on the phone that she had something important to tell him. She sounded serious, resolute and anxious. Henry was hoping that she had taken his suggestion about exchanging rings under consideration, and then taken the chance of her lifetime by deciding to agree. That would be a suitable gift for their one-year anniversary.

  Maud wore a sombre expression when she opened the door. She looked as if she’d been crying. Henry hung his coat on the rack, which tilted against the wall. As a surprise, he took out a bag of salty liquorice that had cost two kronor fifty at Augusta Jansson’s shop. Maud smiled and seemed touched.

  ‘Henry,’ she said. ‘I’m pregnant.’

  Henry felt a slightly dizzy sensation pass through his head, and he sat down on the sofa in the living room. Seriously and solemnly he lit a cigarette and said, ‘I’ll ask them to delay my military service right away.’

  Maud couldn’t help laughing. ‘You’re marvellous, Henry. I thought the first thing you’d ask would be who the father is.’

  Henry hadn’t thought that far ahead. His first and immediate thought was how he was going to make ends meet financially. ‘Is that what you think about me?!’ he said. ‘That’s not very nice.’

  ‘A girl never knows,’ said Maud. ‘And you’re always so jealous. But it’s not going to be a problem.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve already made an appointment with a doctor. The day after tomorrow. He’s a good doctor.’

  Henry realised what she meant, and he collapsed like a sack, as if the air had been knocked right out of him from a sharp blow to the solar plexus.

  ‘Are you relieved?’ asked Maud.

  ‘Don’t you understand anything?!’

  ‘Now don’t get upset. It’s already been decided. We’ve come to an agreement.’

  ‘Who’s “we”?’

  ‘Willie and I,’ said Maud, lighting a cigarette.

  Henry felt sick to his stomach. He didn’t want to hear that name mentioned right now, and particularly not in such a familiar form as ‘Willie’.

  ‘So you went to him first?’

  ‘Henry, you’re only eighteen …’

  ‘To hell with that. I can take care of this. Don’t give me that jive about my age!’

  ‘Calm down,’ said Maud patiently. ‘You don’t have to get so upset about this. First of all, I’m the one who’s making this decision, all right? And I don’t want to have a child right now. There are a lot of things I want to do first, and I want to be free for a while longer.’

  ‘So you can keep playing around with guys like me!’

  ‘Don’t be silly! Try to be sensible.’

  ‘Try to be sensible!’ repeated Henry. ‘That’s cold and cynical, that’s what that is.’

  ‘You’re being horribly immature by getting so upset.’

  ‘I’m not immature at all. I want to take responsibility for this,’ said Henry, trying to sound serious. ‘I finish school in a month. I’ll look for a good job and then there’s no more to be said about it.’

  ‘There’s not going to be any discussion, Henry. I’m glad that you want to take responsibility, I really am, but … Not this time.’

  ‘How can you even talk about “this time”?’

  ‘Henry,’ said Maud, putting her hand on his knee. ‘You’re more upset than I am. But there’s nothing special about this. It happens every day, everywhere.’

  ‘It’s special for me,’ said Henry. ‘Very special.’

  ________

  For Henry this was something enormously special, but he knew that he would never be able to persuade Maud to carry the baby to term. Once she had made up her mind, she wouldn’t change it.

  As he told me sixteen years later, this wasn’t just about a woman who went over to some cold physician’s office in the city and let a doctor remove a growing organism from her body, after which she went home, took a few pills and spent several days in a trance-like sleep. This was also about a young man who was forever denied the opportunity of growing into an ordinary, decent citizen.

  ________

  Beneath the surface of bitterness and reproaches Henry felt that something much more serious was going on with him than with Maud during that spring. It didn’t happen in an abortion clinic; it happened inside Henry. He said that it felt as if he would never wish for anything ever again, whatever that meant.

  On that afternoon when they were supposed to be celebrating their one- year anniversary and instead Maud told him that she was planning to have an abortion, the party ended with Henry leaving. He slammed the door behind him in a show of wounded pride and drifted around the city like some feverish Dostoyevsky character. Thoughts kept swirling through his mind, and he already knew that the battle was lost, but he still refused to give up. He had to direct these seemingly invincible forces a
gainst something. He couldn’t just make do with humbling himself and asking Willis to forgive him so that he could make a comeback as a boxer with double training sessions down at the Europa Athletic Club. That wasn’t enough. He started really focusing on W.S. He pictured that fucking Adonis face in the middle of the sandbag, and he rearranged the features exactly as he saw fit. For Henry, W.S. had a visage full of already redeemed promise of creative power and enterprise within the business world, which was flourishing like hell. And very soon that corporate magnate would undoubtedly be one of the top executives in the kingdom of Sweden. How would Maud look then? For the foreseeable future would she be gliding around in drawing rooms, nonchalantly seeking support from a dry martini and greedily watching young men who desired her, adored her, worshipped her, as if she were some symbol of eternal youth?

  If there was some evil, hidden power operating in this affair, then that power was Wilhelm Sterner. When it came right down to it, he was the one who was acting irresponsibly. When Henry finally had a chance to show that he wasn’t just a buffoon, a fool who could never take responsibility for anyone other than himself, and hardly even that, he was refused that opportunity. The little embryo of a decent life was flushed away in a clinic behind closed curtains.

  The initials W.S. had become an invocation, a mysterious anagram, a cryptic code, a warning signal. Henry hadn’t been in contact with Maud for several days, nor had she tried to get hold of him. She had spent most of the time lying down and sleeping since the procedure. Henry was simply standing in the doorway across from her building. He discovered himself there in the dim entrance, in the stairwell, which smelled of stacks of old newspapers and the nauseating odours of fried food. Exactly the way many murderers and other criminals were said to wake up to a new kind of consciousness after committing the deed, Henry in some sense became acquainted with himself as he stood there, pressed into the doorway. He couldn’t explain how he had ended up there, or why. He became aware of his own breathing, the beating of his heart, as if recognising an old childhood friend, or a sibling that he’d had all his life but had never met.

  A few solitary people came out of her building, but they weren’t worth any further attention. Around nine that night – it had been a lengthy springtime dusk and now it was very dark – W.S. came out of the door. Henry recognised him at once, even though he’d only seen his face in a photograph. As soon as W.S. started down the street, Henry stepped out and proceeded to follow the man. Henry wanted to get close to him, watch the way he moved, and find out what he was going to do after spending a couple of hours up in Maud’s flat that night.

  W.S. had quite a springy gait. He was wearing a dark-blue overcoat, a hat with a very wide brim, and thin shoes, presumably Italian. He was very elegant and hopped lightly over the snowdrifts that hadn’t yet managed to melt. Down near Birger Jarlsgatan he took out a cigarette and lit it. Henry watched as the lighter illuminated his face, and he tried to recall how many silver lighters with the initials W.S. he had pawned. He couldn’t even count them all. Doesn’t the man ever get tired of buying new paraphernalia? he wondered.

  The man walked across Engelbrektsplan down to Stureplan, and went into the Sturehof bar, or pub as it was called in the English manner. Henry waited outside in the cold for a long time, then grew tired and went home. He had neither the money nor a sufficient amount of courage to go inside the pub himself.

  By the third evening the whole process had become routine. Henry the shadow had the pattern down pat, just like a real detective. He would slide out of the entrance opposite Maud’s building to follow in the tracks of W. S. He even dared whistle softly ‘Putti Putti’, sauntering along with his hands in his trouser pockets and his collar turned up. Once he was even about to dart forward to light a cigarette for W.S. with the man’s own lighter. But he stopped himself.

  On this particular evening he gathered up his courage and went inside the Sturehof right behind his prey. He even found a place at the bar next to the man he was shadowing. Only then did the excitement set in, the dazzling stimulus of the hunting dog. It was only by summoning all his strength that Henry could control himself; he was that close to throwing himself on the man, putting his hands around his neck, and squeezing so tight that the cartilage would snap under his fingers. But Henry fixed his eyes on the bottles behind the bar and took deep breaths. He tried to figure out what sort of smell W.S. had. Did he smell of Maud? Had he used the aftershave lotion that stood in Maud’s bathroom? But Henry couldn’t smell anything.

  W.S. took out a cigarette and Henry was careful to do the same. ‘Light?’ he asked, turning towards W.S. and holding out the man’s very own lighter.

  ‘Thanks,’ said W.S. ‘A Guinness’, he went on, speaking to the bartender.

  ‘Sure thing,’ said the bartender. ‘And you?’

  ‘The same,’ said Henry, even though he didn’t know what a Guinness was.

  Henry watched W.S. in the mirror behind the bar. The man looked exactly the way he should, which meant very good. Even though he moved in a light and springy manner, there was something heavy and massive about him. Henry assumed that this was what Maud called ‘the weight of experience’.

  W.S. took the evening paper out of his coat pocket and started leafing through it absentmindedly. He laughed over a report about the Swedish twist championships, which were being held at Nalen. ‘I suppose I should learn to do the twist, just to keep up with things,’ he said to no one in particular.

  ‘I wouldn’t give an öre for the twist,’ muttered Henry.

  ‘I thought all young people were dancing the twist lately,’ said W.S.

  ‘I detest dancing,’ said Henry.

  W.S. laughed again and gave Henry a long, lingering look, as if something had suddenly dawned on him. Henry got a bit jittery and tried to figure out whether Maud might have a picture of him too, but he doubted it. He couldn’t be identified. W.S. simply had a steely glance, and it would take a sledgehammer to break through it. But there was nothing malicious about it; instead, his eyes held a certain curiosity, a sympathetic interest. Maybe it was this very look that was behind all his success with both women and businessmen.

  Under his antagonist’s gaze, Henry felt a bit weak and less spiteful. Or it might have been the strong, dark Irish brew that was making him good- natured and weak. In any case, he felt quite calm and composed sitting there at the bar. He was no longer afraid of what he might suddenly do. Well into his second Guinness, Henry started talking with W.S. about the spring and the weather, and then they introduced themselves.

  ‘Wilhelm Sterner,’ said W.S. very correctly.

  ‘Peter Moren,’ said Henry, holding out his hand.

  Not a blink betrayed the least suspicion or any sort of reaction that a liar such as Henry – in this situation – always tries to trace in his quarry. The slightest little scent of suspicion would have made Henry retreat, but W.S. scrupulously played his part, schooled in diplomacy and business under Wallenberg as he was. Henry would later – when he thought back on that meeting and told me the story – never understand how someone as ice-cold and calculating as that man was, sitting there on the bar stool and playing along, could have any sort of fear or dread of death, as Maud had claimed. W.S. seemed to be the steadiest man in the whole business world.

  ‘I can offer you another beer, if you’d like,’ said W.S.

  ‘That’d be great,’ said Henry. ‘I’m really broke.’

  ‘I’m not,’ said W.S. and ordered another round of Guinness. They drank a toast and W.S. asked Henry what kind of work he did. Henry came up with carpenter because he’d filled in doing some construction work for a couple of summers and knew more or less what the job involved. W.S. seemed very interested, and of course he was familiar with that type of work. He knew how the construction business operated, and they both agreed wholeheartedly that contractors could be confidently optimistic since so much demolition was going on downtown.

  Henry and W.S. went through one topic afte
r another, and Henry wasn’t sober enough to realise how he was being drawn into a dead-end where an experienced and accomplished businessman wearing an overcoat stood waiting with a Luger drawn.

  ‘I’ve got to run now, Henry,’ said W.S. all of a sudden, slipping down from the bar stool. ‘But I suggest that we meet up at Maud’s flat tomorrow evening. There’s a lot we need to talk about, don’t you think?’

  Henry didn’t even manage to think up a reply before W.S. was gone, leaving him sitting there with his shame, surprise and bottomless fear. There was no longer any talk of esprit d’escalier. Now it was just plain panic.

  ________

  The celebrated count and soldier Moltke supposedly laughed twice in his lifetime. The first time was when his mother-in-law died; the second time was during a ceremonial visit when he caught sight of Waxholm’s fortress, Oscar Fredriksborg.

  This was one of Henry’s favourite stories, and in his version it was given somewhat greater dimensions than the way I’ve presented it. Listening to Henry’s memories of his military service could be quite tedious, and I don’t intend to spend much time on this period.

  On the other hand, Henry could have a good laugh at himself when, in August 1962, he stood in the sunshine that came pouring down over the courtyard, burning the back of his neck and making him sweat copiously. The standard bearers were marching to attention, the dust was swirling in the sunlight, the pounding of the drums reverberated like shock waves and ricocheted off the fort’s walls. The command sounded and the entire company of commandos and coastal artillerymen stood at attention.

  The colonel read the Soldier’s Creed, and it felt solemn and serious and incredibly important. The archaic endings on the words resonated of Karl XII, progress, honour, honesty and responsibility. These young men, including Henry Morgan, wearing their khakis and drilled in standing at attention through long days of rigorous exercises at Rindön, bore a heavy responsibility as they were now about to begin their military instruction, to be trained as elite soldiers, be assigned wartime stations, code names and, for at least the next twenty-five years, would be prepared to turn out if things started heating up – when things started heating up.