The Rock Blaster

The Iceberg

In the summer of 1912, the Olympic Games are held in Stockholm. The blasters are sitting under the birch trees, discussing the results.

As yet not one of them can imagine that they would ever be able to attend the Games.

This story becomes anecdotal. The fragments are fragments. Oskar lives, is dead, is to be buried, has been buried, lives again. But his reality is always a continuum. There are no gaps there, no cracks, no spaces in the margins. Oskar Johansson’s reality is a matter of the struggle between capitalism and socialism, between revolution and reformism. That has been the stuff of Oskar Johansson’s life. Oskar Johansson regards himself as insignificant, significant, insignificant again.

What were the causes?

What was the political evolution that is Oskar’s life?

1968. Oskar talks about what is happening in Paris, in Berlin. He talks about America. He is sitting in the cabin, a few days before I am due to leave and we are never to meet again. He is sitting in the sauna, it is autumn and the paraffin lamp gives off a warm light. He has just changed the wick and topped up with paraffin. Our faces and movements cast shadows against the wall. We can hear the wind outside, it is pitch black and the waves are rolling against the shore. We hear a faint rumble from the sea crashing against the cliffs on the other side of the headland. The radio is on and we are listening to Dozens Eko. They have stepped up the bombing raids again. The voice on the radio sounds harsh and dry in the room. Oskar is listening. His arms resting on the table.

His head is bent forward. He has his summer cane across his knees, over his blue work trousers. When the Eko ends, the finger presses the button. There is silence. The ocean beats against the island. Then Oskar gives his brief comments about the bombs. He never raises his head. His index finger is still.

“They’re crazy. You’d think the devil really exists, at least when you hear what they’re doing down there. What do they think they can achieve? They can kill a load of people. But there are quite a few of us.”

I get up and we shake hands as we do when I arrive and when I leave. We nod, say that we’ll see each other next year, and I walk into the night. The wind is lashing and tearing. It is dark and hard to see. There is salt in the air.

The story of Oskar is like an iceberg. What you see is only a small part. Most of it is hidden under the surface. That is where the bulk of the ice is, keeping its balance in the water and making its speed and course steady.

The story consists of two strands which run in parallel. A few summers’ worth of events and memories shared with a retired rock blaster. Then we have the course of history, the developments that changed the society in which Oskar lived. He talks about his affinity with the first strand, and ignores the other. It is a fault line where two plates grind against each other, two cogwheels mesh with each other. The two of them reflect the same evolution. They are mirror images of each other. They share a single identity. They describe the features of the society that is Oskar Johansson’s.

Oskar Johansson’s face.

The narrator’s face.

Together they become the story.

There is salt in the air. The wind tears at my eyes and I walk through the forest instead of following the shoreline. It is like walking through a black wall. Bushes and branches beat against my face. The juniper pricks, the birches whip.

It is the early autumn of 1968. The narrator has visited Oskar Johansson for the last time.