Handling the Undead (7 page)

The doctors and nurses talked continuously, soothing-

'Take it easy it will be all right everything is fine take it easy'

-but their eyes were wild. Some of them had cracked. A nurse was huddled into a corner, her face in her hands, her body shaking. A doctor was standing at a sink, washing his hands calmly and methodically as if he was at home in his bathroom. When he was done he took a comb out of his breast pocket, started to comb his hair.

Where is everyone?

Why weren't there more .. .living people here? Where were the reinforcements, the agencies-the things that despite everything worked so well in Sweden in the year 2002?

And Mahler had been here once before. Therefore he knew that the majority of the bodies were stored in refrigerated boxes one floor down. This was only a small proportion. He took a step into the room and fumbled for his camera.

Just then a man broke free. One of the few whom the process of decomposition had not had time to work on. He was big and strong, with hands that looked like they were used to heaving rocks. Maybe a retired and prematurely deceased construction worker. He moved toward the exit on mottled white legs, jerkily as if on stilts of rough-cut birch trunks.

The doctor who had lost it shouted, 'Take him!' and Mahler didn't think, simply obeyed the command and barricaded the doorway with his body. The man moved toward him and their eyes met. His were watery brown; it was like staring into a muddy pool where nothing was stirring. No response .

. Mahler's gaze slid down to the throat, to the small scar above the collar bone where the formaldehyde had been injected and for the first time in this room of horrors Mahler became ... afraid. Afraid of touch, of infection, fingers that groped. Wished that he could pull out his press card and shout, 'I'm a reporter! I have nothing to do

with this!'

He clenched his teeth. He couldn't very well run away.

But when the man came at him he couldn't bear to take hold of him. Instead he simply pushed him away-

get this away from me!

-and the man lost his balance, tumbled to the side and fell on the doctor who had started washing his hands again. The doctor looked up indignantly, like someone interrupted in the middle of an important task, said, 'One at a time!' and pushed the man away toward the wall.

Some kind of alarm started nearby. Mahler thought he recognised the melody of the signal, but had no time to think about it, because at that moment the reinforcements arrived. Three doctors andfour green-clad guards forced their way past him. Stopped short for an instant, exclaimed, 'Jesus Christ, what the .. .' and various other expressions of amazement, then overcame their fear and ran into the room to intervene where they were needed.

Mahler touched one of the doctors on the shoulder and the man turned to him with the expression of someone who was planning to punch him.

'What are you doing with them?' Mahler asked. 'Where are you taking them?'

'Who the hell are you?' the doctor asked and the wallop appeared to came an inch closer to reality. 'What are you doing here?'

'My name is Gustav Mahler and I'm from .. .'

The doctor let out a high-pitched hysterical laugh, and shouted, 'If you've brought Beethoven and Schubert with you, can you get  them to pitch in?' Whereupon he took hold of the man Mahler had pushed, restrained him and shouted out into the room, 'Everyone to the elevators, two at a time! We're taking them to Infectious Diseases!'

Mahler backed out. The alarm continued stubbornly.

When he turned around he saw that the nurse on the floor had also received help. She rose on shaky legs and transferred the woman she had been holding to a guard. She spotted Mahler and her face was distorted into a grimace.

'Bastard,' she spat and sank to the floor again, a couple of metres from the corpse. Mahler took a step toward her, but decided that it was best to let it go. He didn't need to hear more about what a coward he was.

The alarm, the alarm.

The melody was 'Eine kleine Nachtmusik' and Mahler started to hum along. A nice little tune for this chaos. The same one he had on his mobile phone. And the same one that he had ...

He dug the phone out of his bag, staring at the ridiculous thing while it continued to play its cheerful little song. He started to laugh. With the phone in his hand he took a few steps away toward the corridor and leaned against the wall next to a sign that said 'Turn off all mobile phones.' He was still sniggering as he answered.

'This is Mahler.'

'Benke here. Hey, how are things out there?'

Mahler looked back at the autopsy room, at the bodies that were moving in there. Green, blue, white.

'Yes. It's true. They're alive.'

Benke breathed into the phone. Mahler thought he was going to say something funny, thought he should hold the phone up to the room so Benke could hear. But Benke didn't say anything funny. He said slowly, 'Apparently it's happening ... at a number of places. All over Stockholm.'

'They're coming back?'

'Yes.'

They were quiet for a couple of breaths. Mahler imagined how the same scene was unfolding in other locations. How many dead people could be affected? Two hundred? Five hundred? Suddenly he went cold, stiff, asked, 'The cemeteries?'

'What?'

'The cemeteries. The ones who are buried.'

Almost inaudibly, Benke whispered, 'Oh my God ... ' and added, 'I don't know .. .I don't know ... we haven't had any ... ' He broke off.

'Gustav?'

'Yes?'

'This is a joke. Isn't it? You are joking with me. You're the one who ... '

Mahler held up the receiver toward the autopsy room, stared vacantly into space for a couple of seconds, then brought the receiver back to his ear. Benke was in the middle of a monologue, ' ... makes no sense whatsoever, how can it ... here in Sweden ... '

He interrupted. 'Benke. I have to go.'

The night editor in Benke won out over the sceptic. He said, 'You'll get me some shots, right?'

'Yes, yes.'

Mahler put away the phone. His heart was beating wildly.

Elias wasn't cremated. Elias was buried in the ground, Elias was buried in the ground, Elias is at Racksta cemetery, Elias ...

He got the camera out of the bag and snapped a couple of quick shots. The situation had been stabilised, everything was under control. Here, anyway. For the moment. One of the guards, holding onto an old gentleman whose head was bobbing up and down and up and down as if he wanted to say, 'Yes, yes, I am alive!' saw him and yelled, 'Hey you! What are you doing?'

Mahler made a sweeping gesture-
don't have time
-and backed out of the room again. He turned and jogged toward the staircase.

Outside the staff room there was an ancient stick-thin man, fingering the ruffles on his burial shirt. One of the sleeves had come off and the man's mouth was hanging open as if he was wondering how he had ended up in this magnificent piece of clothing and what he should do now that he had destroyed it.

There were several patrol cars parked outside the entrance and Mahler muttered, 'Police? What are the police going to do? Arrest them?'

Sweat was pouring down his whole body by the time he reached his car. The lock on the driver's side was broken and he had to use the full weight of his body against the door to open it. As he did so, the lock ripped out of his hands and the asphalt under his feet rotated ninety degrees, hitting him over the shoulders and the back of his head.

He was lying next to his car, staring up at the stars. His belly moved up and down: deep breaths, like bellows. He heard sirens in the distance, fine music for a newspaperman, normal. But he couldn't go on.

The stars twinkled at him, his breathing steadied.

He focused on a point far beyond the stars, whispered, 'Where are you, my darling boy? Are you there? Or ... here?'

After several minutes, feeling capable of action again, he crawled up, got into the car, started the engine and drove out of the hospital parking lot, toward Racksta. His hands trembled with exhaustion. Or anticipation.

Taby Municipality 23.20

Elvy made up the bed in Tore's room for Flora. The stubborn antiseptic hospital smell had been softened three weeks back by almond-oil soap and detergent. Of Tore there was nothing left. Only the day after he died Elvy had thrown out the mattress, pillows and all the bed linen and bought new ones.

When Flora visited her the next day, Elvy had been surprised that  she'd no objection to sleeping in the room where her grandfather had died so recently, especially in light of her sensitivity. But Flora simply said, 'I knew him. He doesn't frighten me,' and that was that.

Now Flora came in and sat down on the edge of the bed. Elvy looked at the Marilyn Manson shirt that hung to her knees and asked, 'Do you have any other clothes for the day after tomorrow?'

Flora smiled. 'Yes. Even I have limits.'

Elvy fluffed up the pillows, said, 'Not that it matters to me or anything, but .. .'

'The ladies,' Flora filled in.

'Yes. The ladies.' Elvy frowned. 'Or rather, I agree that one should .. .'

Flora laid a hand over hers, interrupting. "Nana. Like I told you. I think it's right to dress nicely for a funeral.' She made a face.

'
Weddings
, however ... '

Elvy laughed. 'One day you'll be standing there yourself,' she said, and added, 'Maybe. Or maybe not.'

Flora said, 'Probably not,' and let herself fall back onto the bed, arms outstretched. She stared up at the ceiling, opened and closed her hands as if she were catching invisible, falling balls. When she had caught ten of them, she asked straight out into the air, 'What happens when you die? What happens when you die?'

Elvy didn't know if the question was directed at her, but answered it anyway. 'You go somewhere.'

'Somewhere where? Heaven?'

Elvy sat down on the bed next to Flora, smoothing out the already-smooth sheet.

'I don't know,' she said. 'Heaven is probably a name we've given to something completely unknown to us. It's simply ... somewhere else.'

Flora didn't answer, catching a few more balls. Suddenly she sat up, close to Elvy, and asked, 'What was that before? What happened in the garden?'

Elvy sat quietly for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was low, tentative.

'I know that you don't share my faith,' she said, 'but maybe you could look at it like this. Put aside God and the Bible and all of that, and think about the soul: a human being has a soul. Do you think that's reasonable?'

'No,' Flora said. 'I think we die and get burned up and then that's it.'

Elvy nodded.

'Yes. Of course. But this is what I think. A person lives a life. Accumulates thoughts, experiences, love, and when she is eighty years old and still has a razor-sharp mind the body slowly begins to falter. Inside that human being is still the same person, just as fully alive and thinking, but the body is worn down, is worn away and at last the person sits there inside crying: No, no, no ... and then it's over.'

'Yes,' Flora said. 'It is.'

Elvy became excited, grabbed Flora's hand and raised it to her lips, kissing it lightly.

'But for me,' she said, 'for me that's completely absurd. Always has been. For me ... ' Elvy stood up from the bed, waved her hands, 'it is completely obvious that a person has a soul. We must have one. To think that we are all-that a consciousness which can embrace the whole universe in an instant should be dependent on this kind of ... ' Elvy swept her hand across her body 'this kind of ... sack of meat in order to exist ... No, no, no. I can't accept that.'

'Nana? Nana?'

Elvy's eyes, which for a moment had been fixed far away, returned to her granddaughter. Elvy sat down on the bed again, clasped her hands in her lap.

'Forgive me,' she said. 'But tonight I was shown proof that the things I believe are true.' She glanced at Flora and added, almost sheepishly, 'I think.'

After she had said goodnight and closed the door on Flora, Elvy began to pace. She tried to sit down in the armchair, picked up Grimberg, read several sentences and then put it away.

That had been one of her projects that she had promised herself she'd take on when Tore was gone: to read The Wonderful Adventures of the Swedish People before she died herself. She was well underway, was already half-way into the second volume, but tonight she would get no further. She was too restless.

It was past midnight. She should go to bed. Admittedly, she didn't need so much sleep these days, but frequently she'd wake up at around four in the morning and have to sit on the toilet for a couple of hours while the urine trickled out of her.

Tore, Tore, Tore ...

Earlier in the day she had been down to the funeral parlour with his best suit, for the service scheduled two days later. Was he lying in the cold storage box at the church now, ready and dressed for his last big day? They had asked her if she wanted to dress him herself, but she had been more than happy to hand the matter over to them. She'd done her bit.

It was ten years since she'd started to make his sandwiches; seven since she'd begun feeding them to him. For the last three years, he hadn't been able to take anything by mouth except porridge and purees, needed supplements through a feeding tube just to stay ... yes, alive. Or whatever you would call it.

Confined to a wheelchair, unable to speak or, probably, think. Just occasionally when she said something to him a glint of understanding flickered in his eyes, only to disappear just as quickly.

She had fixed his food, changed his nappy and his bag, washed him. The only help she received was in putting him to bed at night and getting him up in the morning-for yet another day sitting in his wheelchair unable to move.

For better or worse, until death us do part. She had kept her promise without joy or love; but also without complaint or hesitation, for that was how it went.