A summer with Kim Novak (3 page)

I knew perfectly well that I wasn’t a particularly talented comic-book artist, but I felt a certain responsibility to the characters I’d created. If I didn’t write about them and keep drawing them, they would just sit there in the underwear drawer like forgotten marionettes.

Sometimes it felt like a chore. But for the most part—especially when I was on a roll—it was one of the most meaningful things that I did during my entire childhood. Perhaps it felt that way because those were the only times that I managed to leave the troubles of the world behind.

I’d never shown them to another living soul. And I’d never told anyone about Colonel Darkin.

It was that kind of hobby.

I opened an apple juice, took two large gulps. I thought for a while.

‘Goddammit!’ I wrote in Colonel Darkin’s speech bubble. ‘I should’ve known there’d be a catch.’

Henry, my brother, wrote about everything in
Kurren
.

About city-council meetings, speedway contests, and suspected arson. About two-headed calves and siblings meeting for the first time after fifty-seven years. What he didn’t glean from the news desk or from the local area, he found in other newspapers, both Swedish and international. He spent at least an hour a day in the Örebro library skimming the news and sensational headlines from all over the world, looking for leads for his own stories.

He cut out everything he’d written that had made it to print and glued the clippings into large scrapbooks. At this point, during the summer that our mother was going to die, he already had half a dozen he sometimes let me leaf through when I visited his bedsit on Grevgatan. I liked curling up in his sagging bed, which had iron bars on the short ends of the frame, and perusing the headlines. I rarely read the articles, but the headlines spoke to me; at that time I didn’t know that it was usually someone other than Henry who came up with these beauties: ‘Sly Stowaway Sow Travels
200
Km’; ‘Schnapps: Good for Your Blood Pressure’; ‘German Ministers on French Leave in Arboga’.

After I read a great headline, I would close my eyes and try to picture the complicated reality hidden behind it.

Sometimes I could, sometimes not.

‘One thing,’ said Henry, my brother, one day when there was less than a week left of spring semester.

I looked up from a cutting about a fireman from Flen who had fractured both femurs in Frövi.

‘Yeah?’ I said.

Henry studied his cigarette and then put it out in the wet sand inside the monkey’s skull that he kept next to his Facit Privat typewriter.

‘About the summer.’

He’s backing out, I thought. What a tosser.

‘What about it?’ I said.

‘A couple of things, really,’ he said and looked more like Ricky Nelson than ever. Or Rick, rather. I closed the scrapbook.

‘I’m taking time off from
Kurren
.’

‘Mm?’

‘The whole summer.’

‘The whole summer?’

‘That’s right. I’m going to write a book.’

It was as if he were talking about going to Karlesson’s to buy an ice lolly.

‘A book?’ I said.

‘Yep. It has to happen some time.’

‘Oh?’

‘Some people have no choice in the matter. I’m one of those people.’

I nodded. I was sure that he was. I didn’t really know what to say.

‘What’s it going to be about?’

He didn’t answer right away. He put his feet up on his desk, took a gulp of Rio Club from the bottle on the floor and fished out a fresh Lucky Strike.

‘Life,’ he said. ‘The real thing. Existentially speaking.’

‘Aha,’ I said.

He lit his cigarette and we sat in silence. Henry took a few long drags, his shoulder blades resting on the back of the chair. He stared up at the ceiling where the smoke was thinning out into nothing.

‘Good,’ I said finally. ‘It’s cool that you’re writing a book. I reckon it’ll be bloody great.’

He didn’t seem to care what I had to say.

‘Was there anything else?’ I asked.

‘Like what?’ said Henry.

‘You said there were a couple of things. The book, that’s just one, right?’

‘Oh, you’re a devil with numbers, brother,’ said Henry. ‘A right bloody calculator.’

‘At least when it comes to counting to two,’ I said.

Henry laughed. He had a short laugh that was sort of sharp. It sounded cool and I had tried to mimic it, too, but it didn’t really work. Laughs were hard to learn, I had found out.

‘Well, it’s about Emmy,’ said Henry and then he blew a ring of smoke that soared through the room like a sputnik.

‘Brill,’ I said when it hit the wall and dissipated. ‘What about Emmy?’

‘She’s not coming,’ said Henry.

‘What?’ I said.

‘She’s not coming to Gennesaret.’

‘Why not?’

‘I dumped her,’ said Henry.

I wasn’t sure what that meant. Unless he meant that he had beaten her to death and thrown her into a canal with her feet encased in cement blocks, and that didn’t seem likely. Vera Lane had been close to getting this treatment in
Darkin III
, but I couldn’t imagine Henry doing something like that.

‘Oh no,’ I said, trying to sound neutral.

‘So it’s just going to be you and me and your mate. What’s his name?’

‘Edmund,’ I said.

‘Edmund?’ said Henry. ‘Bloody hell, what a name.’

‘He’s okay,’ I said.

‘Sure, sure,’ said Henry. ‘You can’t judge a person by their name. I banged a bird called Frida Arsel once. In Amsterdam. She wasn’t bad at all.’

I nodded and sat a while, thinking about all the birds with strange names that I’d banged.

And all the birds I’d dumped.

‘Let’s keep Dad and Mum in the dark,’ said Henry.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t want them to know that Emmy won’t be joining us. They’ll only worry about us not being able to feed ourselves and what not,’ said my brother Henry. ‘But we will. Three lads in their prime.’

‘You know it,’ I said. ‘No problem. I’m a wiz with omelettes.’

And then Henry laughed his sharp laugh again. It felt good. It occurred to me that when my brother laughed, it was as comforting as being scratched on the back.

One day during the last week of school we went on a class trip to Brumberga Wildlife Park. I stuck with Edmund, Benny and Arse-Enok the whole time, and even though an all-girls’ team beat us at the quiz by one single rotten point and we lost out on the litre of ice cream, we had a pretty rewarding afternoon. Arse-Enok had just had his birthday and had raked in a whole fifty-kronor note from his dim-witted uncle, so we were rolling in it. Arse-Enok wasn’t one to hold back. He wolfed down fifty-four Dixi caramels and had to sit in one of the sick-seats on the ride home.

I ate thirty-six Reval sweets myself and felt brilliant.

The following night I had a dream. I was at the wildlife park again and the whole class was standing in front of a large green aquarium with dolphins, rays and seals. Sharks, too, I think. None of us moved a muscle or said a word, because Ewa Kaludis was speaking. Behind her, the large torpedo-like bodies continued their endless journey round and round in the green water.

Then Benny swore. I saw at once what he was pointing at with his dirty index finger.

My mother was floating by in the aquarium.

Among the rays and seals. My mother.

It made me feel awful. She was wearing her worn blue house dress, the one with the bleached-out roses, and she looked swollen and bug-eyed. I rushed toward the glass, gesturing at her to move to the other side, but she just hung there in the water and stared at us with her sad eyes. It seemed impossible to get her to move, so I turned around, pressed myself against the glass and spread out my arms, trying to hide her. Ewa Kaludis fell silent and gave me a curious look. She seemed disappointed, and I wanted to cry and wet myself and be swallowed up by the earth.

When I woke up it was quarter to five in the morning and I was soaked through with a cold sweat. I thought it must have something to do with the Reval caramels. I got out of bed and sat on the toilet but it was pointless.

As I sat there I thought about the dream. It was weird. Brumberga Wildlife Park didn’t have an aquarium, and Ewa Kaludis hadn’t even been on the trip with us.

I didn’t get to sleep again that night.

Just before I walked into the flat, Edmund said: ‘Do you know what the biggest difference in the world is between?’

‘The universe and Åsa Lenner’s brain?’ I said.

‘Nope,’ said Edmund. ‘It’s between my dad and my mum. Just so you know.’

Over the course of the dinner they had invited me to, I saw that he wasn’t wrong. It was a sort of pre-thank you for letting Edmund stay at Gennesaret all summer, I think.

Albin Wester, Edmund’s father, was short and stocky, with limp arms and a rolling gait. He looked like a silverback. A bit worn-out and resigned, too; even though I was an anti-footballer, I was reminded of a football coach trying to come up with a strategy during half-time when the team was down
6
–
0
. Upbeat, yet resigned. He talked throughout the meal, especially when his mouth was full.

Mrs. Wester looked as severe as a longcase Mora clock draped in a mourning shroud. She didn’t say a word during dinner, but she tried to muster a smile every so often. And when she did, she seemed on the verge of cracking, and then she’d hiccup and squeeze her eyes shut.

‘Have more, boys,’ said Albin Wester. ‘You never know when you’ll get your next meal. Signe’s sausage bake is famous across northern Europe.’

Both Edmund and I ate heartily, because it was extremely tasty. I thought of the domestic situation facing us that summer and told Edmund to ask his mum to give us the recipe.

I knew that kind of gesture was considered the height of good manners, and as if on cue the Mora clock cracked open and hiccupped.

‘Sausage Bake à la Signe,’ said Albin Wester out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Food fit for the gods.’

He smiled, too, and a few pieces of sausage fell in his lap.

‘She’s an alcoholic,’ Edmund explained afterward. ‘It takes every muscle in her body to get through a dinner like this.’

I thought that sounded strange and said so. Edmund shrugged.

‘Eh,’ he said. ‘It’s not strange at all. She has three sisters. They’re all the same. They’re like Grandpa—that man drank like a fish—but the female body can’t seem to take it.’

‘Yeah?’ I said.

‘You shouldn’t give womenfolk schnapps. Or put gunpowder in their tobacco. It’s too much for them.’

‘You sound like Salasso,’ I said. ‘Do you read lots of Wild West magazines?’

‘Sometimes,’ said Edmund. ‘But lately I’ve been reading more books.’

‘I like to mix it up,’ I said diplomatically. ‘How long has she been like that, by the way? Can’t you make her better?’

I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the ills of alcohol. My father’s cousin Holger was of that type and in fourth grade we’d had a teacher for half a semester who went by the name Finkel-Jesus. He drank steadily in the classroom throughout the day and was fired after he fell asleep in the staffroom and pissed himself.

Rumour has it, in any case.

Edmund shook his head.

‘We keep it in the family,’ he said. ‘It’s not officious.’

‘Uh-huh,’ I said. ‘But I think the word is “official”.’

‘Who cares what it’s called,’ said Edmund. ‘Either way, she’s why we move so often. At least, I think so.’

And then I felt sorry for Edmund Wester.

And for his dad.

And maybe I felt a bit sorry for Mrs. Wester, too.

We went to see a Jerry Lewis film at the Saga that evening. The Westers treated us to that, too.

‘Holy shit,’ Edmund said while we walked home. ‘Everyone should be like Jerry Lewis. Then the world would be fab.’

‘If everyone was like Jerry Lewis,’ I said, ‘then the world would have gone to the dogs thousands of years ago.’

‘Clever,’ he said. ‘We do need Perry Mason types, too; you’re absolutely right.’

‘Paul Drake and Della,’ I said.

‘Paul Drake is too bloody good,’ said Edmund. ‘The way he walks into the courtroom in the middle of a cross-examination and winks at Perry. Christ, what a bloke!’

‘And he always wears a white blazer and black trousers,’ I said. ‘Or maybe it’s the other way around.’

‘Always,’ said Edmund.

‘Della is in love with him,’ I said.

‘Objection,’ said Edmund. ‘Della is in love with Perry.’

‘The hell she is,’ I said. ‘She’s in love with Paul Drake.’

‘Okay,’ said Edmund. ‘She’s in love with both of them. That’s not so odd.’

‘That’s why she can’t choose between them,’ I said. ‘Objection sustained.’

We went around saying those lines for a while.

‘Objection overruled.’

‘Objection sustained.’

‘Cross-examine the witness.’

‘No further questions, your honour.’

‘Not guilty!’

Edmund lived further up on Mossbanegatan and I lived down by the sports centre, so we went our separate ways at Karlesson’s shop. Karlesson’s was closed for the evening; its green windows were shut and the chewing-gum dispenser was chained to the bike rack and locked with a padlock.

‘Did you know you can use broken sausage forks in the gum dispenser?’ I asked Edmund.

‘What?’ said Edmund. ‘What do you mean?’

I explained. You simply broke a centimetre off the end of the flat wooden spoons they give out with mash. Ice cream spoons worked too, actually, but they were harder to find. Then you pushed the wooden bit into the twenty-five-öre slot and gave it a turn. No problem. Clickety clickety click. Shake shake. Worked every time.

‘You’re kidding,’ said Edmund. ‘Are you up for it?’

We dug around in the rubbish bin that was mounted to the wall and finally found a sticky ice-cream spoon. I measured and broke it off against my thumbnail. We waited for a gang of giggling girls to pass by, and then we did the deed.

Four balls and one ring.

We each took two balls and Edmund took the ring for his alcoholic mother.

‘Slick,’ said Edmund. ‘We should come here one night this summer and clean it out.’

I nodded. I’d been harbouring that plan for a while.

‘You just have to find the spoons,’ I said. ‘But there’re always some on the ground near the hot-dog stands. Herman’s and Törner’s on the square.’

‘One of these nights, we’ll do it,’ said Edmund.

‘Sustained,’ I said. ‘One night this summer.’

Then we said goodbye.

I knew that my brother Henry was an unusual person, but I didn’t know just how unusual until he said something one evening; it must have also been during the final week of school.

‘Super-Berra is a cunt,’ he said.

I had mentioned him. Or Ewa Kaludis, rather, and so I’d probably said something about her being with Berra.

‘Like I said, a right cunt.’

It was just a statement; I was so surprised I didn’t know how to respond and then we started to talk about something else and then Henry left for a Maranatha meeting in Killer.