Shadow

29

It is early morning. Already before I wake I know that I am happy.

‘George,’ she whispers, and her lips graze my ear. ‘The spring has come, I can smell it through the window. Come!’

Sonja takes my hand and wants to pull me along to everything that is waiting. I open my eyes and she laughs.

If the gods can feel envy, I should be careful.

Don’t take this away from me, I pray silently.

But never so that she hears.

We pack the basket and go down to the water. Spread out our blanket and eat breakfast. The boy has left his cap at home and rolls around in what had been brown and dead, places where the green has now awakened to life. I lift him onto my shoulders and gallop through the springtime air till he almost chokes with laughter. She is sitting on the blanket and laughing. A little dot far off in a red dress.

Afterwards he sits on her lap and eats biscuits. I serve coffee in mismatched cups. The boy catches sight of something that only children can see and walks off a little way from us. She keeps a watchful eye on him.

I lack nothing, I think. She is well again and I lack nothing.

But after I have thought this thought, it sits down between us on the blanket.

The thing we never talk about.

She takes my hand as if she too sees the unwelcome guest. As so many times before, she replies before I even ask.

‘I never fell,’ she says. ‘I just sank.’

‘I am here with you.’

I stroke her cheek.

‘It is through you that I breathe. It is with your legs that I walk. Do not leave me, George.’

‘I will not leave you.’

She looks at the boy.

‘Man and woman can make promises to each other. They know what the words mean, that they apply to here and now, and can always be renegotiated.’

‘Not mine.’

She takes my hand in hers.

‘A child believes in the words. I believed my mother when she said that she would never leave me. How can one promise a child something when one does not know if the promise can be kept?’

She looks at the boy again.

‘I love him. Why is that not enough?’

Kristoffer put down Torgny’s book. He was still in bed, although it was already afternoon. He had been reading excerpts from The Wind Whispers Your Name, sometimes just lying still and staring at the ceiling. The text was only bearable in small portions. His hidden world – for all those years it had been available at the library.

Unwillingly he tried to adjust his identity. From half and hopeful to whole and meaningless. For three years he had fought to be deserving of justice, believing that the world was ordered so that goodness would be rewarded. He had tried to set a good example, elevating himself above the average and doing his best to make the world better. Decided who his ancestors ought to be and took pains to live up to them. He had come to terms with his alcoholism, battled his demons, unaware of its hiding place in his own gene pool.

The truth that had sneered behind his back.

Keep fighting, you little fool, soon enough you’ll be knocked to the ground.

His megalomania must have provoked the universe. His belief that some people were naturally superior because of their genes. And obviously if that was the case, he was one of them. A gigantic finger had finally landed on his head and pressed him down like a drawing-pin.

He raised the book to his face and inhaled the odour. It stank of cigarette smoke and old dust. His mother had been loved. It was some consolation to know that. Sometimes the words indicated that he had been too, but it was harder to believe, since he had already lived through the end of the story. The reality did not mesh well with what Torgny had imagined.

The injustice he had been subjected to could not be forgiven. Her illness was not sufficient excuse. Someone must have seen how things were, someone who could have chosen to intervene and prevented thirty-five wasted years of uncertainty. Four months had passed between the day they had left Torgny and the day she abandoned him. Many people must have encountered them during that time and realised how ill she was.

No one had come to their rescue.

He heard the letter-box rattle and the post dropping onto the hall floor, but he didn’t have the energy to get up. The sound of the postman’s footsteps faded away. He turned his head and looked at his computer. Not even his play seemed important any more. The people he most wanted to impress would never be sitting in the audience.

His eyes went to the cognac bottle.

With a heavy sigh he got up and tightened his dressing gown around him. He saw the post lying on the doormat but let it be. Instead he sat down at his desk. For a long moment he sat there with his hands in his lap, then he opened his laptop.

He heard the sound of an incoming e-mail.

Finally a sign of life from Jesper.

He opened it but found only a web link. He clicked on it and the page started to download. It took an unusually long time, and he drummed his fingers impatiently as he waited, then dialled Jesper’s number. This time the voicemail didn’t even pick up. All he got was an odd flat tone as if he’d dialled incorrectly.

On the screen the page was finally loaded. He went out into the hall and poked his foot at the pile of mail. A flyer from a takeaway restaurant, a bank statement and a handwritten letter. He picked up the letter and went back to his desk. Kristoffer clicked on play and the video started. An image of Jesper sitting in his flat. Kristoffer recognised the wallpaper in the background.

‘My name is Jesper Falk. Thank you for watching this video and confirming my hypothesis that most people have forgotten what obligations are involved when one is born as a human being.’

Kristoffer put down the letter and leaned back. It was good to see him – something reliable amid all that had changed.

On the screen Jesper waved some hundred-kronor bills.

‘This is five hundred kronor. I’m going to give it to this guy. Here you are!’

Jesper gestured to someone who was off to the side behind the camera. The next moment a head appeared, face hidden by a black ski mask. A pair of blue eyes looked out from the holes, but Kristoffer didn’t recognise them.

‘Wave a little and show everyone you’re happy.’

The anonymous man waved.

‘I bought him for five hundred kronor so that he would put this video up on the Internet. Everybody can be bought. Some are a bit more expensive, others cheaper. Have you thought about your own price? All right, you can go and sit down again.’

The man vanished, and judging by the direction Kristoffer guessed he’d gone to sit on Jesper’s bed.

‘Now to the topic at hand. I’ve written a novel entitled Nostalgia – A Strange Feeling of Manageable Sorrow. Remember that title. It took me seven years to write, and now an excellent publishing company has decided to publish it. Naturally I’m overjoyed. Because there are some important things in my book. I wrote it because I want it to change the world. Because things can’t go on like this any longer. Don’t you agree?’

Jesper looked for approval towards the masked man.

‘Even he agrees.’

Kristoffer couldn’t help smiling. Jesper had finally worked out a way to promote his novel.

‘Like all authors I believe my book is particularly important, and like all authors I hope you’ll choose to read what I’ve written. But here, a major problem arises. How can I get you to choose my book over all the others? You can see for yourself, I’m pretty ugly. I’m not going to be livening up any glitzy magazine spreads or TV talk shows. I don’t know any celebrities. I’m a damn good writer but terrible at talking, so that’s why I have a cue card here that I’m reading from.’

He looked down at something below the frame of the video.

‘So, the book will be released on the fourth of March. Don’t forget that, the fourth of March. Nostalgia – A Strange Feeling of Manageable Sorrow. Write it down. Okay? Now, back to the major problem.’

The cue card was now visible at the bottom of the frame.

‘About 4,500 books are published in Sweden each year. So how am I going to get you to notice mine? There’s only one way. By getting the media to write about it as much as possible. And how will I manage to do that?’

Jesper paused, as if somebody might answer his question. Then he continued.

‘Some people think that newspapers write about what’s important, because they have a duty to keep you informed, but that’s not true. Most newspapers write about what they know you want to read. That’s the only sure way to get you to buy their paper. So you’re the one who decides what you want to hear about, what sort of news should take priority. You’re the one who has the power. Each time you open your wallet and buy something, you’re saying “hello” and “okay” to what you’re buying and to the person who will be getting rich from your purchase. So I checked a few tabloid headlines to see what you like to read about. That’s when the next problem came up.’

Once again he glanced at the cue card.

‘I’m not a hit man or a paedophile, I’ve never raped an old woman, never tortured any children, I’ve never fucked on TV or been on a reality show. I don’t have silicon breasts, have never participated in a gangbang, have never run through the streets naked. I don’t even take dope. I’m a completely normal guy. Well, okay, I know I’m pretty ugly, but still. How the hell could I manage to become interesting enough in your eyes for the media to want to write about my book? I thought about it for a while, and then I came up with this. I already know that this web site is going to break records for the number of hits, and my novel will be mentioned on every news-stand all over Sweden, because you love stuff like this. All of you watching this right now are the reason why this is the best way for me to get my book out there. All of you who heard the rumour and who know what’s going to happen, and still you choose to visit this site and look at this shit.’

His eyes narrowed and he pointed into the camera.

‘It’s precisely for people like you that I wrote my book. And if you don’t read it after you’ve seen this video, go fuck yourself!’

Jesper paused and leaned back.

‘Don’t forget I’m doing you a favour. I’m doing this to remind you of what it is you’ve forgotten.’

He raised his hands to his throat.

‘The only thing that could go wrong now is if Paris Hilton buys another Chihuahua and my book gets knocked off the front page, but I have to hope for the best.’

He fiddled with something inside his collar, and when he took his hands away he had a thin plastic band around his neck. One of those used to seal packages. One end went into a little opening at the other end, and little ratchets along the plastic prevented the band from being loosened once it was pulled tight.

‘Remember now, Nostalgia – A Strange Feeling of Manageable Sorrow. On sale fourth of March. My name is Jesper Falk and thanks for watching.’

Jesper pulled on the band as he stared into the camera.

Kristoffer jumped up so quickly his chair tipped over backwards.

The camera zoomed in. The plastic band cut into Jesper’s neck. His eyes burned like lasers into the camera lens and into the viewer. Frantically Kristoffer’s hands raced over the keyboard in search of the button that would stop what was happening. He grabbed his mobile, rang the familiar number, but got the flat tone again. On the screen Jesper’s face had become distorted, the determined look gave way, and after he blinked repeatedly the camera lens released him and turned in the direction in which the masked man had gone.

Kristoffer began to sob. What he was seeing was unbearable. Jesper had asked for his help, had wanted to talk about his panic about promoting the book. Kristoffer had brushed him off; in his jealousy he had deleted his message. He hadn’t even let Jesper in when he was standing outside his door. He covered his face with his hands and closed his eyes, but they opened of their own accord, and he was forced to see the terror of death in Jesper’s eyes as his fingers vainly tore at his neck, trying to get the plastic band off.

The wail from Kristoffer’s throat could not be stopped. He was exploding inside, and all his pent-up despair ripped loose. To the sound of his moans, Jesper’s head slumped forward and hung there. The picture went black and all was for ever too late.

A car horn beeped in the street. A neighbour flushed a toilet.

The last thing that had remained intact had now cracked.

Nothing he thought, nothing he felt, was important any more.

Four steps to the bookshelf. With fingers that had never forgotten, he yanked the cork out of the cognac bottle. No matter what the cost, he appealed for mercy.