Gentlemen (Klas Ostergren) (FO8)

by Klas Ostergren

  ‘Maybe for you, but not for me.’

  ‘Pish posh. Let’s go over to Wimpy.’

  ‘Wimpy?’ I said. ‘Why the hell should we go there?’

  ‘We can have an espresso and feel right at home, as if we were in London.’

  I gave in, and we crossed Kungsträdgårdsgatan and slipped into the bar just as that Elton John tune was playing, the one we’d listened to on our way out to Värmdö. We climbed onto bar stools, unbuttoned our coats, stuffed our caps in our pockets and looked around.

  ‘I feel right at home here,’ said Henry. ‘You can’t imagine how many hours I spent in Wimpy in London. They’ve got exactly the same vinyl everywhere.’

  He carefully pulled out a handkerchief and blew his nose with a loud blast. Then he just as carefully folded up the cloth and put it away in his jacket pocket. I hadn’t thought about it before, but he was the first person I’d seen in years who still blew his nose on old-fashioned handkerchiefs.

  We each ordered a double espresso, and Henry whistled along with the catchy Elton John tune as he took out the little penknife in the burgundy leather case. Absentmindedly he began cleaning his nails, interrupting his manicure now and then to glance at the customers coming in. I thought it was a damned bad habit.

  When we got our double espressos, he took out the silver cigarette case with the initials W.S. on the lid and offered me a Pall Mall. He lit it with an old Ronson lighter and went back to whistling along with Elton John.

  The coffee felt nice and warm in my stomach. That marvellous combination of caffeine and nicotine tastes of the big city, of slow periods in cafés spent quietly leafing through a foreign newspaper and empty dialogues while waiting for something that never happens – it’s the possibility alone that makes the blood tremble.

  A very pimply teenager on roller skates came wobbling in and rolled up to the bar to order a hamburger. Henry was delighted by the roller skates and asked the boy everything there was to know about roller skates today: the manufacturer, price, technology, weather and rinks. The boy politely answered all his questions, stuffed the hamburger in his mouth and left. That was how Henry always behaved in order to gather information; he could actually have become a remarkably proficient detective if he’d wanted.

  The wobbling, pimply boy on roller skates was replaced by a chic woman about Henry’s own age. She lithely slipped onto the bar stool next to him, unbuttoned her trench coat and dropped a silk scarf on the floor.

  ‘Allow me!’ Henry promptly said, and he bent down to pick up the scarf.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said the woman in the purest American English.

  Henry immediately frowned and tried to look irresistible. His eyes suddenly took on that absurd narrowed look. I’d seen that expression before and was intimately familiar with the full routine.

  He hummed along with that monotonous Elton John tune, lit another cigarette from that splendid case of his and cast a furtive glance at the American woman. She ordered a hamburger and a Coke, then took a map of Stockholm out of her handbag and unfolded it over Henry’s coffee cup. He had absolutely nothing against such an encroachment, and he followed with interest as the woman’s index finger strolled from Stadshuset across Gustaf Adolf ’s Square and through the King’s Garden to the corner of Hamngatan and Kungsträdgårdsgatan, which was undoubtedly the location of this particular Wimpy.

  ‘Nice promenade!’ he ventured, in English

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said the American with a smile.

  ‘Are you searching for something in particular?’

  ‘Aren’t we all searching for something in particular?’

  ‘Very profound,’ said Henry the charmer. ‘Very profound indeed. I am a very simple kind of fellow but I meant a house, an address …’

  ‘Well, where do you live?’ asked the American, her mouth full of hamburger, though that didn’t make her look any less chic. She had probably tried that trick before.

  ‘I live here,’ said Henry. ‘Here on Söder,’ he said, putting his stubby index finger in the middle of Hornsgatan. ‘Where do you live?’

  ‘In New York,’ she said.

  ‘Nice, nice,’ said Henry.

  ‘No, it’s not nice in New York. It may be a lot of things, but it sure isn’t nice.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Henry, looking tremendously interested.

  ‘Would you like to show me around the Old Town? I haven’t been there yet.’

  ‘Of course, you must see the Old Town. With pleasure,’ said Henry. ‘You know what?’ he went on, turning to me and reverting to Swedish. ‘I think I’ll go out for a little sightseeing. I’ll see you tonight. Or maybe tomorrow morning.’

  I couldn’t very well object. Instead I wished him luck with all my heart. We parted with a handshake and a wink. Like two English ace pilots on our way to a raid over the German front.

  ‘Cheerio, old chap!’

  ________

  It started drizzling again. Out on the street Henry Morgan, pianist, boxer and charmer turned up the collar of his coat, put on his cap and helped the American woman over a puddle of water on the pavement, all the while chattering away. It was exactly as it should be. I stayed in Wimpy’s for a while, listening to that never-ending song by Elton John, with my eyes fixed on Henry until he disappeared into the King’s Garden, gesticulating non-stop. I could only wish that incorrigible gentleman luck with all my heart.

  That was the last I would ever see of Henry Morgan.

  Now everything started happening very fast. I headed home around dinner-time – after taking a long walk through downtown in the drizzling rain without meeting a soul that I knew – but I wasn’t feeling very well. I bought a little food for dinner and had plans to work. It was high time to go for the final sprint on that damn Red Room and finish up all my commitments before summer.

  When I arrived home around five o’clock, I found Leo sitting at the kitchen table. His upper body was stretched out over the oilcloth on the table, and he was sleeping heavily. He had downed half a bottle of Renat whisky, all in one sitting presumably. I couldn’t shake any life into him. I was furious and my eyes filled with tears as I swore my head off. Suddenly all our work was in vain. As soon as we left him without supervision he had to defy us, just like a child.

  With all the strength of my fury, I grabbed him under the arms and dragged his body into his room. Only then did he come to, muttering, slurring his words, giggling, sulking and thanking me for my help as he told me that he loved me. Then he fell into a deep slumber in his bed.

  I threw together a light meal of frozen meatballs and spinach, made a thermos of coffee and withdrew. I locked the door to the library and sat down at the desk to start sorting through all my papers. Soon I was engrossed in The Red Room, which looked to be quite nicely arranged, in its new incarnation.

  I had no idea that I had seen the Morgan brothers for what is starting to seem more and more like the very last time.

  Approximately twenty-four hours later I tried to open my eyes to fix my gaze on something specific so that I could figure out where I was, but without any luck. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t keep my eyes open because they hurt so much from the light in the ceiling, which was a glaring and vitriolic fluorescent light. Instead I had to listen to the testimony of my ears, and that was slightly more comfortable. I heard the sound of wooden clogs on a linoleum floor, brisk, officious footsteps going back and forth in the corridors; doors slamming, the clattering of metal instruments on steel trays and voices, both male and female, talking about surname, social security number and other data.

  Approximately twenty-four hours later again I awoke in what I assumed was a hospital, the intensive-care ward of a hospital, and I had a hell of a headache. My skull was filled with roaring, exploding, rushing sounds, and I found it was a good idea to keep my eyes closed.

  But someone, presumably an assistant nurse on night duty who had been assigned to my delicate case, had at least noticed my diligent efforts and said, ‘Hello,
Klas. Can you hear me?’

  ‘So I suppose I’m not fucking deaf either,’ I said, slurring my words.

  ‘No, you’re not dead,’ said the nurse quickly.

  ‘I said deaf,’ I told her, annoyed. ‘Would you please hold my hand?’ I went on and instantly felt a warm little hand take hold of mine. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ she said. ‘I just got here. The others said that you fell and hit your head hard.’

  ‘Fell!’ I shouted and tried to sit up, which just prompted more explosions inside my skull. ‘Ay-y-y-y!’ I shrieked, and sank back against the pillow. ‘I’ll be damned if I fell!’

  It sounded as if the nurse suppressed a laugh.

  ‘That’s what your friend said, at any rate.’

  ‘Who? Who was it? What friend?’

  ‘The one you live with.’

  ‘Henry? Henry Morgan?’

  ‘I don’t know his name, but he …’

  ‘… he wears a tie and he lies and talks a mile a minute and his hair is parted on the left and he’s clean-shaven, right?’

  ‘Yes, that must be him,’ said the nurse. ‘He was up here a little while ago with flowers. He left a letter for you. It’s right here …’

  ‘A letter?!’

  That was as far as we got, the nurse and I, because I was suddenly overwhelmed by a strong attack of nausea, making me heave and puke, which she countered very routinely with a kidney-shaped cardboard bowl, which I filled with an embarrassing fluid. Then she wiped the cold sweat from my brow until I once more sank into a deep torpor.

  I awoke again from my trance on the following morning. It must have been the morning of 29 April, and the weather actually wasn’t half bad because strong sunlight was coming through the blinds of one of the many windows in Söder Hospital. This time I was able to take in the splendour with my own, wide-open eyes. The headache had eased up slightly, and I managed to slide up a bit towards the head of the hospital bed. I even had the presence of mind to start fumbling for the lever to raise and lower one end, but I couldn’t find it.

  Only then did I notice the cold air whirling around my ears. It felt as if a moderately brisk breeze were blowing through the room, but of course it wasn’t. With a shiver, and without actually confirming the matter by touching my head with my hand, I realised that I no longer had any hair – I, Klas Östergren, was suddenly bald, or at the very least my head had been shaved. I went through a terrible internal battle until I could no longer contain myself, and I reached up and discovered that I was right – some nasty bastard had shaved all the hair off my head. My thick, in fact admirably thick, and oh-so-beautiful, naturally flowing hair was gone! Hell, I thought, I’ve really landed in bad company now. Furthermore, using my hand I discovered that part of my scalp, which had been completely liberated of any hair, was terribly swollen and covered with a compress. It started aching as soon as I even thought about it. That must have been where the impact of the blow landed.

  Just as I came to this conclusion, a new assistant nurse came into the room. She was pushing a trolley in front of her with a telephone on it.

  ‘Phone call for Mr Östergren,’ she said.

  ‘Great service,’ I said and waited to hear if that idiot Henry Morgan would start offering excuses, but he wasn’t the one on the phone.

  It was my mother, who was both worried and very angry all at the same time. The assistant nurse was laughing, apparently at my humiliating hairstyle, as I made a great effort to use reassuring words to try – in the sacred name of calm – to reconstruct exactly how I had so unfortunately stumbled over the threshold in the doorway and knocked myself unconscious against the fine marble with orthoceratites and other exciting relics from a bygone era. But I didn’t get very far. My mother was of course absolutely convinced that her dear son had been on a binge, and there was no one around who could certify that it wasn’t true. She could believe whatever she liked. We agreed, at any rate, that I was on the road to recovery, and that large parts of my mind were intact, and then I thanked her for the phone call. I was completely worn out from talking. The last thing my mother managed to say was that I ought to move back home with her for a while, and that was only to be expected. That was also the conclusion that I would have preferred to draw.

  Later that day I had the pleasure of meeting the good doctor, who shook my hand and told me that I was suffering from a bad concussion. At first they had posited a hypothetical diagnosis of something called a ‘subdural haematoma’, which meant bleeding just below the membrane of the brain, something that commonly happens to drunks, and it often requires emergency neurosurgery. That was the reason for the assault on my hair, just in case.

  But my hair would soon grow back, and I could thank my lucky stars that my mind was intact. I was getting off with a concussion, which required peace and quiet for at least a couple of weeks, and I was advised to walk up the stairs a bit more carefully in the future.

  That last comment was what really annoyed me. I was ready to punch that doctor and any other damn fool who came in the room with insinuations about how fucking easy it was to take a fall these days when I definitely had not taken a fall, damn it to hell!

  Over and over again I tried to ring Henry and Leo at home to get some kind of explanation, but no one answered. I rang at least thirty times, and the assistant nurse who had to bring me the phone trolley at last got so cranky about it that she let me know that she had other things to do with her time. After the thirty-first attempt, I gave up. The boys were gone.

  ________

  This is what must have happened. I came home from Wimpy and found Leo dead drunk, sprawled over the kitchen table. I dragged the wreck into his bedroom, where he, alternately sobbing and pathetically giggling, passed out.

  Then I cooked myself a dinner of frozen meatballs and spinach, made a thermos of strong coffee, and locked myself in the library. Suddenly The Red Room – after a serious going-over of the material – had started looking really good, and all that was needed was some polishing and a certain modulation of the consummate, final chord of the tragedy. The work was flowing along nicely, and I thought that everything might finally be in place and looking good by daybreak, if only I didn’t get carried away. I had to keep a cool head and not rush things, while I smoked fewer cigarettes and drank strong coffee. And I had to be left in peace.

  But that was exactly what didn’t happen. It must have been around eleven p.m. – I had just taken a break and was listening to the late-night news on the radio – when the doorbell rang. I heard a few muted rings through several closed doors, and I knew that Leo was certainly not going to wake up and go out to the hallway. And Henry was still out with that beautiful American woman who was searching for something, just like all the rest of us.

  I switched on the lamp in the hallway and saw through the glass doors the silhouettes of a couple of men out on the landing. Quite unsuspecting, I opened the door.

  Approximately twenty-four hours later, with a thundering headache, I tried to open my eyes in the intensive-care ward of Söder Hospital. I tried to remember what I had seen, but I hadn’t managed to make out much before everything went totally black and starry. Maybe I did recall a crunching sound and a strange kind of hissing and whining inside my skull. It was like something that I once heard in my childhood when I fell off my first 22-inch bicycle and hit my head on the kerb.

  But this time I definitely didn’t fall.

  ________

  I was undoubtedly both very tired and very confused, because my thoughts were not particularly lucid. I kept doing checks on the status of my brain, formulating difficult math problems that I solved faster than ever. I also recited the succession of Swedish kings without stumbling once, not even on some shaggy Viking. It seemed to me that my brain had actually become more agile after being treated so roughly. Now, long afterwards, I realise that I still wasn’t quite right in the head, because the letter that Henry had brought remained unopened for several days
before I finally decided to read it.

  Henry’s letter was delivered on the day after the bang on my head occurred. He had come home after having ‘partaken of a fortifying aphrodisiac in a bar’, and later that beautiful American woman had administered her cure in her suite at the Sheraton Hotel. Henry learned that Greger, of all people, had found me lying unconscious on the landing, and he had then taken me to the emergency room of Söder Hospital. Greger, being the naïve and trusting individual that he was, had assumed that I had fallen in the stairwell and hit my head.

  But Henry was smart enough to see that there might be a connection between my deplorable condition and Leo’s conspicuous absence. To top it off, Wolf-Larsson, during his usual nightly rounds, had seen two dapper gentlemen dragging a woozy Leo between them out to a waiting car. They had driven off, quite cool and calm, as if it were a matter of a completely legal and welcome transport back to the protective paradise of a locked ward.

  That was the official version, at any rate. Citizen Östergren had for some reason fallen flat on his face out on the landing, and citizen Leo Morgan could no longer be allowed to go free because he was a danger both to himself and the rest of the world.

  But Henry’s letter confirmed my suspicions. He said quite firmly that ‘they’ had come to get Leo, and that I had not taken a fall of my own volition. ‘They’ had made a thorough job of it, probably using a sap – a little leather bag filled with buckshot that would not leave any deep cuts and would make the attack look like a perfectly normal clumsy tumble.

  He also wrote that he had a very clear and definite idea about where ‘they’ had taken Leo, and that this time he wasn’t planning to wait or give in. He was tired of the whole thing and was going to settle it, once and for all. Who ‘they’ were, he didn’t say, nor did he mention what it was he was going to settle, or where.

  In general, that letter was really quite peculiar. Henry was unquestionably good at talking – he could talk his way into anything if he felt like it – but he was incapable of using pen and paper. He was dyslexic, just like the king, as he always hastened to recall.