We finally get around to going inside, and at first it looks just like always. Dad’s clothes hanging there in the hall, his cap sitting there on the shelf, all dented in and dust covered. And when we go into the kitchen I don’t notice anything different there, not at first. Only the longer I stand there listening to Lydia’s hiccups, the emptier it begins to feel. The door to the old man’s room, that don’t open up suddenly. And he don’t amble out with his suspenders dangling at his backside. And the calendar on the wall — nobody’s bothered to change the date since he stopped breathing. It says October 8, so it seems he got around to tearing the old one off on that last day. Lydia’s hiccups just keep coming as Ulrik slams shut the stable doors and that useless radio fellow stands there lost in the middle of the room, holding the bag I gave him like it’s some kind of bomb. When the whole thing gets too unbearable, I mention how empty the place feels. “You can tell something’s missing,” I say.
And that just sets the waterworks going, ’cause now Lydia sits down on the kitchen bench and sobs something awful as she rifles through her handbag looking for a handkerchief. The radio dealer says he’ll just put the bag down in the cellar for the time being, and right then I come mighty close to saying I know just how many bottles should be in that bag when I check it again, but I hold my tongue, ’cause that would really open up Lydia’s floodgates. And truth be told, it ain’t so easy to keep my own feelings from coming out, ’specially when I sit down next to Lydia and she lays her head on my shoulder. But then her tears stop flowing after a while and she starts griping.
“Just as everything was beginning to go so good for us. Just when we got to where we could think of opening our home and having him come live with us, when we could’ve started helping him out with money, Dad has to have his life cut short.”
Yep, she sounds pretty damned inconvenienced that the old man went and died on her before she had a proper chance to do him a good turn. So of course it’s a shame for Lydia, a crying shame. And I tell her so.
“You’ve always had bad luck, Lydia,” I say to her. “When it finally got so you could afford a place in the nursing home for Mamma, she went ahead and died on you. And now at last when you could have taken the old man in, he up and dies. It’s a queer thing, Lydia, how anybody could be so damned unlucky as you! Now when you finally get so goddamn good and comfortable that you can maybe afford to loan your brother some money to pay for your nephew Yngve’s schooling, I imagine I’ll go and die on you too!”
Lydia’s hiccups stop all of a sudden and she glares at me — no mistaking the fury in her eyes. She’s on her feet in a flash and then out through the kitchen door, her rolls of fat quivering with rage. Going out to piss and moan to the radio dealer about what a beast of a brother she has, I’m sure.
I figure it’s best I keep my head low for a while, so I go into the old man’s room and shut the door to be on my own for a bit. Of course, this is where I had my last evening together with him two summers ago. It’s kind of a closed and dusty room. Still, right here on this very couch is where we sat side by side. I remember the window was open at first, and how he got up and shut it so that nobody could eavesdrop on us. The old man did grow more mistrustful the farther he got up there in years. Ulrik’s right about that. Feels funny now, sitting here remembering earlier times like this, ’specially when I think how I’ll probably never come back to this place. Laying on the table in front of me is the newspaper, folded back to the page with the old man’s death notice. It’s a big one, alright, so at least Ulrik didn’t try to skimp this time. He must’ve remembered how I lit into him over Mamma’s notice, which was a little piece of nothing. Practically needed a hand lens to make out the itsy-bitsy print in that little square. Ulrik, he just shirked off the blame and said, “How am I supposed to know what it’s gonna look like when the paper comes out?” But it was just plain old stinginess, that’s all.
“Oh, so you’re in here, huh?”
Ulrik has peeked his head inside the door, looking a bit suspicious. Probably thinks I’m hiding out in here so I can steal a few swigs from my pocket flask on the sly. And Lydia is right on his heels, though I don’t get as much as a glance from her. She got more than she bargained for already, I figure. Not like they’re coming in here looking for me anyway. They’re looking for the old man’s clock, the cuckoo clock he carved by hand when he was younger. It’s hanging right here over his sofa bed. He was always so proud of this clock. First-time visitors that stopped by always had to come into this room and admire it. And he always wound it himself. The key he kept locked up in a cupboard so no one else could get their hands on it. It was only ’cause he liked me so much that I once got to wind it up when I was little. But he was drunk then, and just before I wound it I remember him saying: “Listen good! You wind that too tight, you little bastard, and believe you me — you’ll be sorry!”
It ain’t like Lydia can brag that she’s ever wound the clock before, nor Ulrik for that matter. And to be honest about it, neither of them is saying anything like that. But Ulrik is telling Lydia — and me too, I suppose, if I care to listen — how that clock stopped the very night the old man died. “If you can believe that. At just the minute he stopped breathing.” All three of us look at the clock. Half-past one. Or twenty-three minutes past one, to be exact.
Lord God! The size of Lydia! I just can’t understand how she could let herself go like that. She’s gotten so fat since Mamma’s burial that she can barely get through the door. But in she comes anyway and plants her legs right in front of the old man’s bed, saying, “If you can’t get the clock going, Ulrik, then we can get Nils to do it. I’m sure he can sort it out. Nils is so good with mechanical instruments.” Nils being her fella, of course. She’s gotten so important she can’t call him Nisse like everybody else. Next time I see her, if I ever do again, he’ll probably be Mr. Johansson. Ulrik and I look at each other. If nothing else we’re in agreement over that: that clock’s gonna stay just the way it is — ain’t no way that clock’s getting wound again, least not till the old man is laid to rest.
I hear someone rustling up food in the kitchen. Turns out the farmer up the road has sent his oldest girl over to help Ulrik out for a few days, and I can see now that she’s a looker. Like Frida when she was at her best. I put my hand on her arm, sort of gently, while she’s standing there at the stove flipping pancakes, but Lydia’s eyes practically burn right out of her skull when I do that. The woman is too much. The girl don’t sit down to eat with us at the table. Instead she looks through a magazine off in the corner. A little brännvin wouldn’t be out of place with the meal, but the radio fella, he don’t look much like he’s up for it, so I decide to keep the thought to myself. Nobody says a word while we’re eating. Seems like nobody’s got the nerve. Finally I say it’s a hell of a nice car Nils has got for himself.
And Nils, he lights right up at that. So a little nip might not be out of the question after all. But then that goddamn Lydia pisses all over that fire before it has much chance to catch. She thinks I’m trying to pull his chain or something.
“Not all folks spend every last penny they make on liquor,” she says. “That’s why some people can afford to get nice things now and then.”
That one I just have to take on the chin, even though I haven’t said a single thing about drinking since I set foot in the house. I’ve been shamed before, plenty of times, but never in front of an outsider like that. That’s a hell of a way to treat your own! The girl don’t look up from her magazine, but she took it in alright. You can tell. So here I’m getting an early taste of what kind of hell it’s gonna be to be stuck here a whole evening with this crew. I could fire back at Lydia and ask her who it was that sent the old man money for dipping tobacco for eight long years, who it was that sent Mamma dresses when she was in need. And if anybody feels like taking account, I’m more than ready to draw up the ledger. But it ain’t worth riling things up like that. It would never end.
After dinner I head d
own to where Ulrik stashed the wreath box in the cellar. There’s a few more of them on the cellar floor. Ulrik’s own and Lydia’s. And Lena, she sent one too. Not like I want to be small about it or anything, but the one Lydia and Nisse bought is a shitty little excuse for a wreath. Couldn’t even spend some money on a decent ribbon, from the looks of it. Ulrik’s is a real farmer’s wreath, but that just goes to show what you can get around the village here compared to the little market town. Lena only sent flowers, but they’re pretty ones. Can’t hold that against her, stuck in a sanitorium for almost half a year now. She’s got no way of paying for a wreath. There’s nothing here from our little brother Tage, but I’m sure he’ll be carrying his with him when he comes on the night train tonight. Then there’s Mamma. I’m probably the only one that’s thought about her. I got her a little bouquet of flowers. I take it out of the box now, ’cause I mean to bring it to her at the churchyard this evening. From the bag I grab a three-quarter-pint bottle of brännvin, the good stuff, and stick it in my jacket. Not like I’m going to visit Doughboy or anything, but you never know what old friends you might run into when you’re out and about, and it’s nice if you have a little something you can offer them.
When I get back upstairs they’re all sitting there at the table like they’re in church. The poor neighbor girl is washing up with nobody lifting a finger to help her. So I grab a dish towel to help her dry stuff off. “Don’t bother with the charade,” Lydia says. “So many stories about you have made the rounds hereabouts, there ain’t a self-respecting girl in the parish would accept the kind of help you’re ready to offer!” And this girl counts herself among the pure of heart, I guess, ’cause her face flushes deep red, and she yanks the towel away from me with a short “No thank you!” And I’m left standing there like an ass. God only knows what they’ve been saying about me while I was in the cellar.
Anyways, I tell them I’m heading off to pay Mamma’s grave a visit with my flowers. But I can see right away this troubles Lydia.
“Well, Knut dear,” she says real quick. “I’m sure Nils can drive us all there.”
And damn if she ain’t intent all of a sudden on visiting Mamma’s grave too. But really she just don’t want me to go off on my own ’cause she’s worried things might turn out like last time. Not that she’s concerned about me, mind you. She couldn’t give a shit. No, it’s the gossip she’s worried about. I mean, I’m sure there was a fair share of that last time round, with me going off and getting plowed the night before my own Mamma’s burial. But I don’t give a rat’s ass how Nils feels about that and the same goes for Lydia. And right now Nils is out in the shitter, so before he gets back I slip out the door in record time and take the shortcut straight across the near field so I don’t run into him on his way back.
Christ! What a lovely family! Can’t even trust a man to go visit his own mother’s grave. Ulrik just had to spit his poison at me, of course, as I was ducking out the door: “Now don’t forget the rake and the watering can. Oh, that’s right — you can get them right there at the churchyard … if you ever make it there.” If I ever make it there! What the hell they think I’m gonna do with this bouquet, chuck it in the river? Eight crowns I laid out on it! So don’t tell me I ain’t doing right by my folks! If the rest of them showed the same kind of consideration, then maybe I could tolerate their abuse a little more.
It’s pretty nice out for October. I’ll say that. Up near the woods a heap of cast-off potato plants is burning in the field. It looks like the Wiklunds got themselves a harvester. It’s sitting there next to the barn. If Ulrik had a little more gumption he’d go in halves on that harvester to keep from working himself ragged. I suggest stuff like that every time I come home. But if Ulrik wants to slave himself to death, who am I to tell him otherwise? There’s leaves on the road, and it’s getting darker. I pick up my pace so I’ll get to the graveyard before the dark really sets in. In one of the windows of the parsonage I can make out the minister himself, sitting there smoking a pipe. A man of the cloth smoking! I don’t know why, but that just seems funny to me. It’s an easy walk, this one, along the road. But not for the blacksmith. He’s staggering practically from one side of the road to the next, and soon enough he’ll end up in the ditch. That man don’t know how to stay sober. Otherwise he’s a nice enough fella, and he was one of the last to see the old man alive. I should really have a word with the tin knocker, though, before I go back to Stockholm. Hitting the bottle hard together for old time’s sake is one thing, but letting the old man ride off like that by himself, in his condition — well, I’ll have some words for the tin-knocker about that when I see him, that’s for sure.
There’s not many people out. But they’ll have dancing over at the Pavilion tonight, even though it’s the middle of October. Says so on a poster anyway. That’s something I might have gone and done myself if the old man hadn’t just died. Mini-golf? It’s a little too dark for that. What’s the point of paying one fifty if you can’t even see the holes? Anyway, I keep to the right side of the road and head in through the gate at the churchyard. It ain’t hard to find the family plot, and that’s a good thing ’cause soon it’ll be too dark to read the names on the stones. Our plot is right near the dead room, just outside the door, actually. At Mamma’s funeral we carried the coffin past the open grave and into the church and then marched back there with it again. I was swimming in my own sweat, but it was the middle of July then. A heat wave.
On top of the grave is a vase with rotten flowers in it. Sure looks like Ulrik ain’t putting himself out much looking after it. Don’t look like the gravel’s been raked in a while. But I’ll have to let it stay that way for now, ’cause it’s getting too dark to see good. It looks kind of nice though, with the new flowers I brought. I don’t think anyone would argue with me over that. As late as it is I can hear them hammering down inside the dead room. Crazy ideas start running through my head. Quit your goddamn hammering! I think. You might wake the old man! Crazy stuff like that. It’s the coffin’s trimmings they’re working on now, I’ll bet. The errand boy from the nursery sticks his head out the door for a second, but he don’t recognize me. Just as well. I don’t have a mind to look in there on the old man, not this time of night. Once they get the head stone put up over Mamma’s grave — Mamma’s and the old man’s grave I should say now — I figure it’ll all look pretty decent. Good location too, the best in the place really.
It’s dark now. The wind sifts through the leaves with a hiss, creaks through the church roof. Should I go somewhere? Maybe sit at the café for a while? I might run into some folks I know. Probably not a bad idea to show my face for once while I’m back here. Otherwise people talk. Say things like: “That Knut, he’s so goddamn full of himself now that he lives in the city. Can’t bother to spend any time in the village except when he’s passing through on his way to the train.”
Or Doughboy’s place. I could always stop by there. But then it can’t be like when Mamma was buried. That time I dropped by Doughboy’s to borrow some brännvin to make up for the bottles my little brother Tage broke. Next thing I know I’m out half the night. Who the hell knows how many places we got around to before I made it home that night? Things can get a little wild over at his place, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t mind hearing about the old man, though. It was Doughboy, after all, that come up behind him in his car and almost ran him over when the old man crashed his bike. So I could head over there just to hear about the old man, whatever he can recall. And if Lydia and Nisse and the rest of them want to get all bent out of shape about it, well, they can go right ahead. What regard did they show the old man when he was alive? Now that he’s lying on the other side of that door over there, they carry on and make a big production of everything. Nobody but me troubled over him when he still drew breath. Sent money every month for eight years. I’d like to see how much small change Lydia squeezed out of her purse for the old man. Yeah, it only makes sense for me to go and get the story from Doughboy the way it r
eally happened. Don’t care if it’s the last thing I ever do for the old man. I don’t plan on letting him down now. I’ll get to the bottom of things. And who better to ask than the fella that helped carry him in from the road? I’ve got to remember to thank him for that. Yes, it’s the right to do, going over and thanking him proper for what he did for the old man. That’s the least a man in my situation can do.
So I shut the gate behind me and fish around in my pocket for a cigarette butt under the streetlight. And as I’m lighting up I can see a car coming my way, almost like it’s looking for somebody, crawling along the road so close to my side that its lights wash out the churchyard wall. When it gets up alongside me the car stops. Then the door opens and what do you know? It’s Doughboy.
“Climb in, friend,” he says. And I do, of course, ’cause there ain’t anybody I want to see more than him right now. Him and only him.
“I went by your house,” Doughboy says. “And that sister of yours, she told me you come here to the churchyard. So I say ‘Maybe I’ll go over and catch up with him there.’ And her face looked like it was ready to explode when I said that, so I just got the hell out of there.”
Sitting there in the front seat, I can’t help getting irritated. Everybody knows goddamn well it was Doughboy that helped the old man in to the nurse’s. The least Lydia could’ve done was thank him for the good turn he did. Doughboy turns on the high beams, and the road opens up before us, white like a dance floor, and off we go. He must have put on some aftershave — it smells good, like sitting in a barber’s chair. This is an awful nice car, runs very smooth. That Nisse’s car sure as hell don’t have anything on it. But some folks just have to be better than the rest.
Sleet: Selected Stories Page 17
