The Hurricane Party

by Klas Ostergren

  And a crook who, with astonishing dexterity, unrolled a piece of cloth with little pockets for stolen cutlery might be told: ‘It was the entire Clan. The entire Clan!’

  Hanck became a new figure in the nightly street scene. He had lived a conscientious life that had come to a brutal end and was plunged into a dense darkness. Day and night had become reversed. After days of artificially induced sleep, a sleep that was anything but restful and was brought on by chemicals, he would head out for the pleasure district, where he quickly won a reputation for being a confused and unpredictable person. He encountered the same scepticism that he showed towards others. He was aware that in the eyes of other people he belonged to the most desperate of the lot, those who had no sensible reason for being there, those who neither earned money nor spent any.

  He devoted himself to a different type of bargaining. He had passed through the period of shock and denial. Moments of clarity and insight alternated with periods of great confusion. He tried to persuade himself that his son was away, but this was countered by an equally strong belief that it would be possible to win him back, to set up some sort of business connection, pay a price and regain the life that had been wasted. And what was needed for that was funding, a good deal of money, but above all a gun.

  There were still a few machines on the shelves in his workshop. Hanck devoted several alert hours to servicing and inspecting them so that he ended up with two completely functioning machines. He could sell them and use the money to buy a weapon. In his mind he pictured a handgun, a pistol.

  But he knew very little about the matter. Of course he could approach any thief or pimp or gang member. He saw them everywhere. But he didn’t trust any of them.

  The shopkeeper shared his grief. He was the one who uttered that very word: ‘Grief.’ Hanck didn’t think of himself as grieving. A dignified, quiet grief was foreign to him, exotic, enticing, like some distant travel destination. He wasn’t ready for that yet.

  ‘My whole life has gone dark,’ he said now as he sat in the shopkeeper’s premises. The family had gathered around the table in the shop’s inner sanctum – the owner, his wife and their red-haired daughter. They were all grieving, they even wore mourning bands, as one last obsolete tribute to the ‘marvellous boy’.

  ‘What can we do for you, Hanck?’ When no answer came, they repeated the question over and over. ‘What can we do for you, Hanck?’

  He was inconsolable and difficult to reach. The only words he could muster were about his life going dark. He said it in the same tone of voice each time, almost bombastically and yet at the same time with astonishment. As if each time were the first.

  It made the shopkeeper and his family think that his mind had also gone dark. So when he finally asked for one thing, a gun, a firearm, the shopkeeper was unwilling to offer his services. A gun should not be placed in the hands of a person with such a clouded mind. But when Hanck, suddenly clear and lucid and like his old self, threatened to leave with his machines and dispose of them elsewhere, the shopkeeper had to relent. He promised to see what he could do.

  It took less than an hour to procure a firearm, ‘a venerable old revolver’ with the appropriate ammunition. The provenance of the gun was unknown, and Hanck was advised to test-fire it, regardless of what he planned to use it for.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I just want it. So I can mourn.’ Even though this was an incomprehensible statement, no one in their world had any right to question it.

  So he boarded the boat, which after a three-hour trip and a few dozen stops at docks along the route, would put in at the islet where the inn was located. He was prepared, revved up. He had test-fired the gun as the shopkeeper had advised him to do. The only place he was able to find that was sufficiently isolated for such an exercise was the remote, windblown field.

  He went out there in the pouring rain and discovered that the old man’s decrepit cabin was now abandoned as well. The old man must have finally passed away, having eaten or drunk himself to death. After the lavender-clad men had done their job, vandals, hooligans and berserkers had been there and emptied the shack. There was nothing left; the doors and windows were gone, the floor torn up. Even the empty vodka jars were gone.

  Hanck loaded the revolver with two bullets. He held the gun with both hands and aimed at a reddish-brown spot on the wall. He was four paces away. He fired. The recoil was less forceful than he’d expected. He missed the target but was close enough. He fired another shot, this time using only one hand. He didn’t hit the centre of the spot this time either, but he was satisfied. The gun worked. He was able to fire a shot, kill, injure, frighten. That was the only thing that mattered.

  The boat ploughed through the muddy channel along the strip of land, past the bare cliffs, the rocky hills with crevices where stately old merchant villas had once stood, summertime diversions for those who had been rich long ago. Glass verandas, towers, huge greenhouses in sun-scorched gardens. Many of the houses were still covered with decorations, jigsawed trim and borders, a style that was called gingerbread. It merely looked like curlicues to the uninitiated, but those who were more knowledgeable recognised the shapes from artful patterns on rune stones from the Viking era. The old merchants had boasted of this heritage, a pre-Christian inheritance from the great saga age, those long-ago days when people offered sacrifices to the gods who granted ample harvests, fertility in marriage, good fortune in battle, and cures for disease. The occupants had sat in the shadows of their own trees, refreshing themselves with ice-cold punch and dreaming of a more carefree brutality.

  At each dock someone got off; no one got on. There were fewer and fewer passengers on board. By the time the last bay was traversed, surrounded by low skerries polished shiny by the sea and naked like the gleaming backs of petrified prehistoric animals, Hanck was alone on board.

  The inn stood on a windswept skerry in the outer archipelago, with a cluster of houses that had huddled in the wind since time immemorial, the haunts of fishermen, seamen and smugglers; later the meeting place for lusty pirates, who eventually, during the most brilliant of eras, came under the protection of the king.

  Big black clouds passed, heading east. It started to rain as soon as Hanck stepped onto the dock. The boat turned round, stopping only as long as necessary. It would soon be dark, and lights were already burning in a number of hovels on the cliffs across from the dock.

  He had seen her from far off, while they were still out in the bay – a woman standing at the very end of the dock, gazing out at the boat, as if she were waiting for someone. But Hanck was the only one left on board, aside from the captain and the deck-hand who put out the gangway.

  Hanck stood on the foredeck as the boat approached the dock. He met the woman’s eyes. She smiled at him, a radiant smile, as if he were expected, eagerly awaited.

  As soon as he stepped off the gangway and the rain started falling, she came towards him, excited and impatient.

  ‘It’s you!’ she said. ‘You can’t fool me!’

  She was young, perhaps around twenty-five, dressed in a cape with a hood. Her bare legs were stuck inside a pair of rough boots as if she had flung on her clothes in great haste.

  Her hair was covered with blood.

  She threw her arms around him. Hanck pulled himself free, took a step back on the dock, and said, ‘I’m sorry, but I think you’ve made a mistake.’

  But the young woman opened her eyes wide and said to him, ‘So what are you calling yourself today?’

  Hanck didn’t want to mention his name. He said, ‘I’m just a guest.’

  ‘I’ve hidden away all the fly-swatters for your sake. You’ve crept over me all those nights. You’ve licked at me.’

  Hanck didn’t know what to say. If he’d been expecting any kind of reception, it was something quite different from this. The young woman seemed under the influence of something, even more confused than he was, and he didn’t want to tangle with her unnecessarily.

  ‘You must think
that I’m someone else,’ he said.

  ‘Stop it,’ she said. All suspicion was gone; she was convinced that Hanck was the right person, the one she was waiting for. She moved close to him again, took his hand and slipped it inside her cape. ‘Feel . . .’ she said. ‘I don’t have anything on underneath. It’s cold.’

  Hanck pulled his hand out, drew back, making a wide arc around her, trying to head in another direction. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m just a guest here. You must be waiting for someone else.’

  He took a few steps along the path up from the dock and promptly encountered two other women who had come from the village. They were a little older than the woman with the bloody hair, and more properly dressed.

  ‘Don’t think you can fool me!’

  One of the other women stopped, turned to face Hanck, and said, ‘Is she being difficult?’

  Hanck shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘She’s a bit confused,’ he was told.

  ‘You fucking goat!’ screamed the woman with the bloody hair. ‘Cunt-fly!’

  Hanck turned around just in time to see her receive a punch in the mouth. ‘That’s not something we say to strangers!’

  ‘Can’t you see?!’ shrieked the confused woman. She refused to be hushed. ‘Can’t you see him?!’

  The two other woman cast a quick glance at Hanck and managed to give him a conciliatory smile.

  ‘Maybe we should throw you in,’ said one of the woman.

  ‘Is that what you want? Do you want us to throw you in?’

  ‘I’ve had him in my crotch all week!’

  ‘We’re going to have to throw you in!’

  One of the two level-headed women turned towards Hanck and, perhaps in a show of friendliness, tried to include him. ‘Or what do you think?’

  ‘About what?’ said Hanck.

  ‘See for yourself,’ she said then and turned back to the confused woman. ‘You think it’s him? He would have done it himself; he would have thrown you off the dock and laughed.’ She turned to face Hanck again. ‘And who are you?’

  ‘I’m just a guest,’ said Hanck.

  ‘Have you booked a room?’

  Hanck shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I was thinking of staying only one night.’ He let his gaze sweep over the bay where the boat was heading for home. ‘Maybe two.’

  ‘There are rooms at the inn,’ said the woman. ‘Just keep following the path and you’ll find it. We need to take care of our sister.’

  Hanck nodded his thanks for the information. He assumed that the three women on the dock represented a third of the innkeeper’s nine daughters. Toby hadn’t said much about them, but the little he had mentioned made it sound as if they were quite wild.

  Hanck headed up the rocks and ended up walking among the houses when the path turned into a lane. The inn was in the middle of the village; it was the biggest building on the island. It stood on an ancient site and had been rebuilt and expanded at various times and in various styles.

  Behind the front desk in the lobby stood yet another sister. She wore a name badge: Kolga. Hanck greeted her and said, ‘I was told by a woman down on the dock . . .’

  This sister seemed to be of a different disposition, and she wasn’t at all sure that they had an available room. She would have to look into the matter very carefully. With a worried expression she typed on a machine and double-checked in an analogue ledger.

  Hanck had the impression that she was just play-acting, or that she wanted to demonstrate something. The lobby was quiet and deserted, he couldn’t hear a sound from anywhere, there wasn’t a single person in sight. He thought it possible that he was the only guest; it was an ordinary weekday in the middle of the rainy season.

  Finally the woman was able to tell him that they actually did have a room. With a view. She asked him how long he was planning to stay.

  ‘Just one night,’ he said. ‘Maybe two.’

  She asked him how he would like to pay. He said that he could pay cash, in advance. She gave him a pleased smile in reply, but it was only fleeting because she started asking him for personal information. Hanck lied about absolutely everything, and he wasn’t particularly surprised when the machine accepted all the details. It should have reacted, realised that the information was false. But there were no objections. Hanck had the feeling that the machine wasn’t even hooked up, and he thought he had seen through this Kolga. It gave him a refreshing advantage as her questions got more and more intrusive.

  She asked him, in a cold and businesslike manner, about the state of his health.

  Hanck replied, ‘It’s good, thanks.’

  He received a doubtful look since he had answered so freely.

  The woman at the front desk clearly felt that he owed her an explanation. ‘It’s for our treatments,’ she informed him.

  ‘I’m not sure that I want any,’ said Hanck.

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘I’m just here to rest.’

  ‘A good treatment can be very restful.’

  ‘I’m sure that’s true,’ said Hanck. ‘But maybe we could just leave that question open for now.’

  ‘By all means,’ she said.

  Hanck’s relative lack of interest in such services was noted in the machine, and he immediately regretted his decision because it might seem odd and draw attention to himself. He said, ‘But if it’s included in the price . . .’

  The woman named Kolga reacted to his remark just as he’d hoped. Her face lit up, instantly erasing all doubt.

  He didn’t care for her. On his way up to the room he decided that she was a liar and that he couldn’t expect to get any worthwhile information from her.

  The room was satisfactory. The carpet covered the whole floor, the bed was soft and wide and made up with sturdy sheets. The wardrobe had hangers, and Hanck hung up his clothes, the best that he owned. In the bathroom there were several towels and a big new bar of soap. He set down his toiletry case made of genuine animal leather which he’d once received as a Christmas present from the shopkeeper. It opened by means of an ingenious lock and had room for hygienic articles and pockets for a large assortment of pills.

  The view was exceptional: twilight over a leaden grey bay, the silhouettes of black islets and skerries in the outer archipelago. And beyond that the sea began.

  On the wall was a viewing screen that was voice-activated. Hanck said, ‘TomBola.’ The screen blinked on, and he saw the gigantic woman eating a stuffed baguette as she read the day’s story. As bread crumbs and big scraps of something that looked like meat dribbled over her enormous bosom, she read with great feeling a newly written installment about Jesus. Hanck said ‘off ’ and the screen went dark and silent again.

  There was a brochure with pictures of various rooms at the inn: the bar, the restaurant, the breakfast room and other facilities for various kinds of recreation. There was a beautiful library. And room service. ‘Our chefs are at your disposal around the clock.’ There were examples of what they could provide. Toby was in the picture.

  Hanck put down the brochure with shaking hands. He was overcome with rage. He clenched his jaw so tight that his teeth were about to crack. Blood vessels burst, everything went fuzzy before his eyes. He began to flail his arms blindly, lashing out at whatever he could find until his knuckles split open and he became aware of the pain.

  He came to his senses and found himself kneeling in the middle of the room, his knuckles stinging and bleeding. He looked around. There was blood everywhere, but nothing was broken.

  He held still for a moment to calm himself down, felt his breathing become more regular, listened for any sounds, whether anyone had heard anything. But it was quiet, dead quiet.

  He got out an undershirt, soaked it in water, and wiped off the bloodstains on the walls and furniture. When all traces had been cleaned up he wrapped the wet shirt around his right fist and sat down on the edge of the bed, exhausted.

  He wept. He just let the tears come, gushing out of him. He s
obbed, bawled, blew his nose on the wet undershirt.

  He stayed sitting there until the weeping stopped, leaving him with a tremendous, warm sense of calm.

  He realised that he was lucky this had happened while he was alone in his room, that no one needed to see this man who was suddenly so beside himself with anger, a furious, unrestrained anger. Yet it had erupted there when he was all alone, maybe precisely because it was no longer unrestrained. Maybe he was in the process of learning to control it, releasing it only in seclusion. It was not intended for just anybody.

  He felt quite calm, but he took a pill just to be sure. An ‘Autobahn’ that should keep him on an even keel for the next few hours.

  A little while later he went down to the bar, having dressed for the evening, with his tender, swollen right hand stuck in the pocket where he had put the revolver.

  The bar was empty. He climbed onto a high-legged stool, noticing the smell from an old drain or from rotting plants. He wasn’t sure which.

  ‘A drain,’ he heard behind his back. ‘In case you were wondering.’

  Hanck turned round. Here was yet another sister, wearing a sealskin cap and a gown that glittered like fish scales.

  ‘Bora, that’s me!’ Moving in an amusing, almost frantic manner, she took up position behind the bar. ‘It’s the same thing every year. You should smell me instead. Try it . . .’ She leaned across the counter so that Hanck could take a sniff. He took a deep breath and brushed the tip of his nose against her cheek. She smelled good, spicy. Presumably some exclusive perfume.

  ‘Nice,’ he said.

  ‘You think?’ she said. ‘Don’t come and tell me that you recognise it.’ That wasn’t what he meant. ‘Special delivery . . .’

  ‘Does that go for the vodka too?’ he asked.

  ‘That depends on how much you want to pay.’

  ‘That depends on what I get.’

  ‘It’s shit. All of it,’ she said. ‘It’s the ice that’s costly. Do you want the two-thousand, four-thousand, or six-thousand-year-old kind?’