The Rock Blaster

Oskar Johansson

Oskar was born in Norrköping in 1888. He was the third of five children. Three sisters and two brothers. Elsa, Karl, Oskar, Anna, Viktoria. Elsa and Viktoria died young. He never saw Elsa. By the time Oskar was born, she was no longer even a sad memory. When Oskar was seven, his father came out into the backyard one day looking serious, took Oskar gently by the arm and told him to come indoors. His mother was sitting in the kitchen crying, and his father told Oskar that Viktoria had fallen down the steep drop behind the houses and that she was dead. So Oskar had to stay indoors for a while and be sad.

Later they stood around the little hole in the graveyard and his father tried to comfort his mother by saying that they did not need any more children. Three were enough.

“I don’t really remember that much of my childhood. What we used to do. There was nothing special about me. I played the same games as all other children. Had the same clothes. Sometimes they were whole, sometimes torn. We played in the backyards. Running around and shouting at each other. We chased cats when we found them. We pushed one into a hole under the privy in the yard one day and blocked it up with pieces of wood. It was white. I think it was called Putte. And I ran to school like everybody else. There was nothing unusual. Sometimes I ask myself what I thought of back in those days. It might be fun to remember. But I don’t. I suppose most of the time I just ran around and screamed along with the rest of them. We clambered out over the planks, climbed back in again, went home quickly to get some food, and then charged around the backyards. There were four or so of us boys who stuck together. One was called Oskar, like me. We pretended to be brothers. His father ended up hanging himself, and I think his mother went and did the same thing a few years later. But there was never anything special about me. I played like all the others. The same games.”

One day, in the third summer, there is someone sitting next to Oskar outside the sauna. When I arrive, he nods.

“I’m Karl.”

Oskar gives a little smile.

“He’s my brother.”

“We haven’t seen each other for a long time.”

Then they sit on the wooden bench and look out over the water and talk. Karl is only there for the day. A boat comes to fetch him. He has to go back to an old people’s home somewhere. The brothers shake hands, Karl walks carefully out along the planks, climbs into the boat, which reverses out, turns around and disappears behind the headland.