When the Snow Fell

Twelve

Joel woke up with a start.

He had dozed off at the kitchen table while he’d been waiting for Samuel. He didn’t know what time it was. But he could hear footsteps on the stairs. It could only be Samuel. He stood up. Would Samuel be sober or not?

The door opened. Joel felt himself sinking down into his relief like getting into a warm bath. Samuel’s eyes were not red. He wasn’t swaying from side to side. He was late home, but he hadn’t been drinking.

“Are you still up?” he asked in surprise.

Joel wondered how stupid Samuel could get. Did he really think Joel would have gone to bed and fallen asleep before Samuel came home? He felt the need to make that clear.

“How could I possibly go to bed when you were out on a spree?”

“It depends what you mean by on a spree,” said Samuel. “I’ve been at Sara’s place, trying to talk some sense into her.”

Joel waited eagerly for what came next, but Samuel didn’t say anything more. Joel wondered, a bit uncomfortably, if Sara had said anything about his going there as well. He didn’t know how Samuel would react. He didn’t usually like it if anybody stuck their nose into his business. That was one of the things he and Joel had in common.

Samuel hung up his jacket and kicked off his boots.

“What time is it?” Joel wondered.

“It must be turned midnight,” said Samuel. “We’d both better get to bed if we’re going to be able to cope with tomorrow.”

Samuel seemed less miserable than yesterday.

“How did it go?” Joel asked tentatively.

Samuel shrugged.

“She thinks we’re not suitable for each other,” he said. “Maybe she’s right. But I don’t understand why.”

Joel said nothing. Sara had evidently not mentioned that he’d been to see her. If she had, Samuel would have said so by now. Joel had got away with it.

“We didn’t sit shouting at each other,” said Samuel. “I had dinner, and we spoke calmly and sensibly. But I suppose that’s that. We’re on our own again, you and me.”

That’s how it’s been all the time, Joel thought. You’ve had Sara to go home to. I haven’t.

Samuel yawned.

“We can talk more about this tomorrow,” he said. “We’d better get to bed now. We can have the food you’ve prepared for tomorrow’s dinner.”

They carried the pots and pans to the pantry; then Joel had a quick wash and snuggled down into bed.

Anyway, it was a relief. That Samuel wasn’t drunk again.

There was nothing worse than that. Nothing at all.

When Joel arrived at school the next day he had a nasty surprise. Somebody had seen him in the street the previous day. Miss Nederström called him out to the front after they’d sung the morning hymn.

“Why weren’t you at school yesterday?” she asked sternly.

“I was ill,” said Joel.

She turned white in the face with anger.

“How dare you stand there telling me barefaced lies?” she thundered. “The headmaster saw you at the kiosk yesterday morning.”

Joel wondered whether to say he’d been to the doctor’s, but he didn’t. It would be too easy to check that. So he said nothing, just stared down at the floor. Behind him the rest of the class was sitting in tense silence. He couldn’t see them, but he knew that was the case. And that Otto would be smirking.

“You were playing truant,” said Miss Nederström. “And it’s not the first time.”

Joel continued staring at the floor.

“Have you nothing to say?”

What could he say? Nobody would understand. Least of all Miss Nederström. He continued to say nothing.

“You can stay in after school today,” said Miss Nederström. “Go and sit down.”

Joel walked back to his desk. He tried to avoid looking at Otto. He couldn’t bear the thought of seeing that smirk of his.

Still, he was glad he’d remembered to bring the Christmas magazine catalog. He wondered how much Otto would demand for returning it a day late.

He found out during the first break. Otto came storming towards him.

“I want three kronor more,” he said. “You were supposed to return the catalog yesterday.”

Joel handed it over.

“I sold a magazine to my dad’s cousin,” he said. “And I was ill.”

Otto looked as if he was going to hit him.

“You were playing truant,” he said. “You weren’t ill. And I want three kronor.”

Something snapped inside Joel. All that business with Samuel had been too much for him. And all the other things he was worrying about.

He hurled himself at Otto, as if he were trying to force open a door that had stuck. They both fell to the ground. Immediately a ring of spectators formed round them. And then they started fighting. Otto was the stronger, but Joel was so furious that he found himself with strength he didn’t really possess.

They only stopped fighting when the headmaster and Miss Nederström managed to separate them.

Both Joel and Otto received a box on the ear from the headmaster. It was a hard blow and really hurt.

The headmaster glared at Joel.

“Not only do you play truant,” he said, “but when you come back to school you start fighting.”

“He started it,” said Otto.

Joel said nothing. He didn’t feel angry anymore. He just felt tired now.

What he would really have liked to do was to go away. Leave school behind and never come back.

But the outcome was that both Joel and Otto had to stay in after school. Otto for an hour, Joel for two. As they were both bad at handwriting, they had to spend the time practicing.

Otto left after an hour.

Miss Nederström sat at her desk reading a magazine. And Joel practiced his writing. But he couldn’t make the letters look neat.

Eventually she looked at the clock and closed her magazine.

“You can go now,” she said. “But come here first.”

Joel did as he was told.

“I don’t think you would play truant unless there was a reason,” she said. “Are you still going to refuse to tell me why you did it?”

He would have liked to. Explain what he felt like when Samuel came home drunk. But he said nothing. He couldn’t.

Miss Nederström sighed and shook her head.

“I can’t make you out,” she said. “But you can go now.”

Joel went. He ought really to have collected the guitar and gone to Kringström’s flat. But he didn’t feel up to it. He was tired and miserable. He felt lonely and he felt worn out. Life was hard and his boots were too small for him. He went down to the river and walked along the path that followed the riverbank. Paused by the rocks where he used to play a lot a few years back. He hardly ever went there nowadays. He suddenly felt a desire to go back to that time. Life had been hard when he was eleven as well, but in a different way.

It wasn’t as easy to enter a dreamworld now. If he stood staring into the river now he didn’t see any crocodiles. Only logs floating down to the sawmill at the river mouth.

That was in fact the most difficult bit. Not being able to see crocodiles anymore. Only logs.

When he got home he started warming up the food he’d prepared yesterday. As he did so, he made up his mind to go round to Sonja Mattsson’s that evening and collect his mitten.

He had another worry as well. How would he be able to lie out in the open and toughen himself up if Samuel stopped spending the night at Sara’s every Wednesday? That was a problem. Perhaps Samuel would find some body else? In any case, there were three more waitresses at Ludde’s bar.

Samuel came home and he was sober. They had dinner.

“How did it go at school today?” he asked.

“We had a lot of handwriting practice,” said Joel.

Samuel didn’t normally ask more than one question about school. He didn’t today either. And Joel was grateful for that.

When Joel started getting ready to go out, Samuel looked up from his newspaper.

“You didn’t get much sleep last night,” he said. “You must go to bed early tonight.”

“I’m only going to fetch a mitten I lost the other day.”

“Where?”

“I left it behind at somebody’s house.”

“Whose?”

“A friend’s.”

Samuel nodded.

“In case I’m asleep when you come home, I’d better say good night now.”

“I won’t be late.”

When Joel started walking down the street and his boots began chafing against his ankles, he tried to imagine that he was walking along a beach. With palm trees. And it was warm. He searched through his mind for the shipwrecked Captain Joel Gustafson. But he couldn’t find him.

When he came to the building where Sonja Mattsson lived, he paused outside the door and made sure he didn’t need a pee. That was the most important thing of all. Then he took off his wooly hat and ran his hand through his short-cropped hair.

He felt nervous. He hoped something was going to happen. But he didn’t know what.

He went up the stairs and rang the doorbell. When she opened the door she was wearing the same clothes as last time. Still no transparent veils.

“What do you want?” she asked. “Don’t think I’m going to buy any more Christmas magazines.”

“I’ve lost a mitten and I think I must have left it here,” said Joel.

Now came the hard bit. There was a risk that she might leave him waiting at the door while she went to look for the mitten.

“Come in,” she said. “It’s so cold with the door open.”

She closed the door behind him. Joel breathed in her perfume. If he’d dared, he would have grabbed hold of her and lifted her up.

“Have a look, then,” she said. “See if the mitten’s lying here somewhere.”

She left him alone in the hall. Joel found the mitten straightaway. He hid it in a more obscure place. She came back.

“Have you found it?”

“Not yet,” said Joel. “But it must be here.”

“Tell me when you’ve got it,” she said, leaving him on his own again.

The wireless was on in the living room. Joel pretended to be searching, and peeped cautiously into the room. She was sitting on the sofa, painting her nails. Joel watched in fascination. He screwed up his eyes and made her look slightly blurred. He could almost believe that she was wearing transparent veils. With nothing on underneath.

He didn’t know how long he stood watching her, but it suddenly dawned on him that she’d seen him. She stood up and Joel produced the mitten.

“What are you looking at?” she asked.

She didn’t sound angry.

“I don’t know,” said Joel. “But I’ve found my mitten. It was lying underneath a scarf.”

A look of surprise flitted across her face. But then she smiled.

“No doubt it was,” she said.

“I’ll be going now, then,” said Joel.

He didn’t want to leave. But he didn’t have any more lost mittens to search for.

“How’s Digby?”

“He’s fine. His temperature’s normal again now.”

She had already opened the door. Joel was stamping his feet as if to keep warm.

“Is there anything else you want?”

“No,” said Joel. “Nothing else.”

Then he left. On the way home he thought about how well it had gone. Now he could go to the shop and show the fat old women that he knew the new assistant. And no doubt he’d be able to find another excuse to visit her again.

The guitar, he thought. I must start practicing tomorrow.

He was in a hurry. He hardly had time to pause outside the windows of the shoe shop and take another look at the boots he wanted Samuel to buy for him. They were expensive. But Joel knew that there were others that cost even more. Those were the ones he would try on first when they went to the shop together. Say how good they were. But Samuel would have none of that when he heard the price. At which point Joel would try on the ones he really wanted to have. And he would get them. Because they were cheaper.

By the time he reached home Samuel was already asleep. As he walked up the stairs Joel had felt worried again, in case Samuel had gone out drinking. But the snores he heard were like music in his ears.

He sat for a while on the edge of his bed, holding Simon’s guitar in his hands. It was dirty. That was something he hadn’t noticed before. But there again, everything in Simon’s house was dirty. He fetched a rag from the kitchen and started polishing. Before long the guitar was gleaming bright. He leaned it against the wall where he could see it from his bed. Then he crept down under the covers.

The day had started badly. But it finished rather better. Tomorrow he would be at his desk when school started. In the afternoon he would go round to Kringström’s and start playing.

He closed his eyes. Felt how tired he was.

And now he could locate Captain Joel Gustafson. It was easy now.

The storm has abated. The mutineers have been defeated. The lookout has reported that an unusual-looking bird has perched on the figurehead on the bow of the ship. That means they are approaching land.

Despite his painful injuries, Captain Gustafson has gone up on deck. One of his ankles has been injured in the battle with the mutineers. Now the warm wind is blowing into his face. Soon they will reach the shore...

Joel fell asleep.

In his dreams he drifted out into his sea where the breakers were rolling slowly.

Back and forth. Back and forth...