The Rock Blaster

Magnus Nilsson

Magnus Nilsson was the name of Oskar’s colleague and Oskar moved in with him the year before the accident. Nilsson had an identical apartment to the one in which Oskar had lived. The wooden houses were built on the same plan. Where there was room, they had sprung up, keeping pace with the growth of industry. At first they were on the outskirts, but they then gradually became part of the centre as the towns grew around them. Magnus Nilsson lived in another neighbourhood, and it was there that Oskar moved when he was no longer allowed to stay at home because he had become a socialist. Magnus worked on the same team of blasters as Oskar and he was one of the men who stood looking at the hand among the dandelions. Magnus had always lived in the same apartment. After the death of their parents the children had stayed on there until, one after the other, they moved away and Magnus alone was left. He had never married. He was now forty-five years old and beginning to show signs of exhaustion. He was taciturn, short, and quite stocky. He had a coarse, angular face. His brown eyes were set deep under drooping eyelids and his hair was black and tangled. He was a skilled hand and easy to work with.

It was Magnus who, during a lunch break, asked Oskar whether he wanted to move into his home and share the apartment. The blasters were lying drowsing under the birch trees some distance away from where they were working. They were blasting in preparation for a bridge that was to be built over the railway line.

Without knowing it they found themselves at the back of the very hillock that was to have a tunnel dug through it the following year. A muted, laconic exchange. They are lying on their backs in the grass with their eyes half shut. One of them asks if anyone has been to listen to the agitator.

“Yes. He was good.”

Oskar props himself up on his elbows.

“He said how important it was for us to join the Party. When I got home, Farsan told me I’d have to move out if I became a socialist.”

Magnus lying with eyes shut. Without moving, he says:

“Are you a socialist?”

“Yes.”

“You can move into my place. There’s room. You can have the kitchen to yourself.”

The conversation becomes a dialogue between Magnus Nilsson and Oskar Johansson. The others doze off as soon as the conversation no longer concerns them. One of them falls asleep and snores softly.

“Do you mean it?”

“Yes. You can move in whenever you want.”

After work, Magnus and Oskar go off together. There are twenty-two years and thirty centimetres between them.

A fortnight later, Oskar moves in. With two bundles. One in each hand. He arrives at nine in the evening. Magnus makes them coffee and Oskar makes a bed for himself in the kitchen sofa.

“Locking up won’t be a problem since we come and go at the same time.”

“Decent of you.”

“There’s plenty of space.”

When Oskar left home with his bundles there was silence. His father was not back yet and his mother does not feature in Oskar’s accounts. His sister and brother were there. His sister and brother were not there. His mother was there. His mother was not there.

Then they sit at the kitchen table and carefully sound each other out. They are going to live together. By asking some practical questions they get a feel for one another.

“We’ll have to share everything. It’ll all fall into place as we go along.”

“Can you cook?”

“Well I’ve lived on my own for a long time. I’m happy to go on doing the meals. Nothing to it. Just ordinary food.”

“Do you need to be woken up?”

“Not at all.”

Oskar asks about Elly.

“Naturally. That’s fine.”

“It’ll only be every now and then. The odd Thursday.”

“That’ll be fine. It won’t bother me.”

Oskar asks about other things and Magnus answers. Soon they know each other. Soon they can start to talk.

Oskar talks about Magnus with great affection. There are two words he often uses, alone and exhausted.

“Of course it was very exciting to be living on my own. That’s how it felt even though there were two of us. Magnus was not the sort of person one ever noticed. When we got home from work, we were tired and once we’d eaten and washed the dishes, we went to bed. On Sundays I was out and about. Magnus was always home when I got back. I don’t think he’d set foot outside all day. He sat in his room doing jigsaw puzzles. Or else reading some newspaper.”

As we know, Magnus was a socialist. Sometimes he would comment on something he had heard or read and then he always ended by saying that socialism would change all that.

“Do you really think so? How?”

“Through revolution. It’s bound to happen. It goes without saying.”

“When?”

“Soon. In ten years.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“It goes without saying.”

“I find it hard to believe.”

“It isn’t hard. We’ve been organising ourselves for twenty years now. And all along people have come to a better understanding of what socialism will do for them. As individuals, that is. The bourgeoisie call it murder, but that’s not what it’s about. It’s about getting us more food and better housing and things like that. We need to have a share in the means of production. We can’t let things go on as they are. It goes without saying.”

It goes without saying.

How did Oskar answer? Did it go without saying, or did he really understand?

“But how’s it going to happen? Are we going to fight?”

“We have to! They’re not going to give anything away. If they do, there’s a catch somewhere. Then they’ve tricked us.”

“Fight? How?”

“With weapons.”

“What weapons?”

“It goes without saying. We’ve got to get those who have weapons on our side.”

“The police?”

“Them too. Some of them. Enough of them.”

“Do you really think so?”

“Their lives will improve too.”

“And the military?”

“Well, the soldiers are workers on military service, after all.”

“But what about the captains? The others. The lieutenants?”

“How many of them are there?”

“No, that’s clear, I understand that... But when do we start?”

“When we’re strong enough.”

“How will we know?”

“We’ll know. It’ll be obvious.”

Oskar is lying on his sofa.

Oskar is lying in his old officer’s bed.

He is awake.

“I always liked Magnus. You could rely on him. He was a fine worker. A good mate.”

The trade union’s register of members still exists. They’re listed there. Johansson, Johansson, Karlsson, Lundgren, Larsson, Larsson, Marklund, Moqvist, Nilsson, Nilsson, Nilsson, Nilsson.

There are two M. Nilssons. One of them is Magnus Nilsson.