Four weeks left till his deadline. The play suddenly felt very far away.
‘Yes, maybe, thanks.’
‘We’ll talk more about things after the funeral. I’ve been in touch with the family who employed her as a housekeeper during her working life, and they’ve promised to help out with the funeral arrangements. It’s the Ragnerfeldt family, by the way. If you like, I can give you the phone number of the son in the family, Jan-Erik; he’s the one I talked to. If you’d like to ring him and ask a few questions, I mean. I did ask them if they knew of you. They said no, but at least you might be able to find out some more about Gerda Persson.’
He sat up in his chair. All the information was whirling past, seeking a foothold. He had an inheritance from Gerda Persson, and had finally found Mamma, but then hadn’t after all. Instead, he had inherited from Gerda Persson, whom he didn’t know and who was not his mother but who was probably the one who had been sending him money and knew that he existed, and then on the periphery there was Axel Ragnerfeldt. The greatest of the great. A man who almost didn’t seem real, he was so brilliant.
He jotted down the phone number for Jan-Erik Ragnerfeldt, and they said goodbye. But to ring up the world-famous author’s son seemed inconceivable.
Because what would he say?
His confusion was still there. Even more questions than before had taken shape. But a possibility had also arisen. The gate to his hidden world was standing ajar, a little gap had been opened. He just wasn’t sure whether he actually dared go inside.
There was only one thing he was sure that he wanted.
To find an explanation that would bless him with the ability to forgive.
‘W
hat the hell is this?’
Alice put down the crossword puzzle she was working on and looked at the piece of paper in Jan-Erik’s outstretched hand. Without ringing the bell he had let himself in with his own key. She had managed to feel glad that he had come. The feeling had lasted until he appeared in the doorway and she saw the expression on his face. With shoes and coat on he was now standing on the other side of the living room table. There was something threatening about him, a rage she had never seen before. His unusual behaviour made her nervous. She reached for the paper and he stood there looking at her, as if wanting to observe her reaction. With unwilling fingers she unfolded the paper. It took only a second for her to see what it was.
She closed her eyes. Lowered her hand with the awful report and cursed Axel, who hadn’t had the sense to throw out something that could only cause pain.
‘Why the hell didn’t you tell me about this?’
What could she say? Nothing. What had happened had happened, but the lie they had chosen. Perhaps to be able to endure. A barrier had slammed down at first then all these strange feelings had surfaced to keep the pain away. What could not be admitted under any circumstances without allowing madness to take over.
‘Answer me!’
‘I’m trying.’
She had done all she could to forget. Made an effort to
take long detours around details when the memory came too close. Spent aeons of time trying to suppress the remorse about not having understood how serious things were. But certain voices are never silent. They’re still there, far away in the din. Nobody was ever whole after losing a child, especially not if the child died by her own hand. What could not be acknowledged at first had taken years to arrive. The conversation with her daughter that had never managed to get started, but which would now remain lost for ever. The thought of all the tiny, tiny steps that had been taken. The certainty that all the choices she had made, none of which was especially reprehensible, had added up and led to what could never be changed for all eternity.
She took off her reading glasses and placed them on the arm of the sofa.
‘We don’t know why.’
Jan-Erik shifted position, waiting impatiently for her to continue.
‘What happened? Did she leave a note?’
Alice shook her head, rubbing her hand over her face. No, she hadn’t left a note. Only a message clearer than any words could ever have expressed.
‘But you must have noticed something before, surely? Something must have happened, or why did she do it? She couldn’t have simply decided to hang herself from one day to the next without something happening, could she?’
‘Don’t you think I’ve asked myself that question? That I’ve cursed myself because I didn’t understand how bad things were?’
‘How bad were they?’
She sighed and put the paper down on the table. Took one of the embroidered sofa cushions and put it on her lap. Involuntarily her finger began tracing the intricate pattern.
‘We never got a real answer. It came out of the blue, she was suddenly changed beyond recognition. She’d been acting the same as always, but one morning she simply refused to get out of bed.’
Alice tried to remember. Gather up all the bits that she had so conscientiously banished. All at once she realised that it was all intact, that the details were still there as if they had only been in a deep freeze.
It had been a beautiful morning. She’d been in an unusually good mood, sitting in the kitchen drinking her coffee. The garden had been bejewelled with glittering new snow, and the sheaves of grain that Gerda had set out were full of little birds. She had thought that Axel’s gesture might be a turning point. That even he had finally realised that everything was untenable. She had viewed his initiative as a sign that he was making an effort.
‘We were in the city the evening before and went to the cinema, Axel and I. You know how he would never do anything like that. It was even his suggestion.’
They had seen
Face to Face
by Ingmar Bergman. It was so rare they did anything together, shared any experience at all. Whenever he left the house it was on literary business: readings and banquets as guest of honour, and she went along only because it would attract attention if she didn’t. Those occasions were merely reminders of her own failure. At home Axel was hardly ever seen, locked in behind the door to his office. But that evening he had suddenly suggested the cinema, despite the fact that there was only an hour to go before the show began.
‘I was eating breakfast in the kitchen when Gerda came and told me that Annika was still in bed. We thought she was already at school. I remember that it was past ten o’clock.’
Alice had left the kitchen and gone to her daughter’s room. Pulled up the blind with a snap and torn the bedcovers off the girl. She thought Annika was ruining everything, just when she finally felt a little joy for a change. She got a lump in her throat when she thought about it. The way she had scolded and scolded but got no reaction.
‘At first I thought it was just something to do with puberty, that she was just lying there out of sheer spite. Being difficult.
But after a while I realised it was something else. She seemed closed off, as if she didn’t even hear what I was saying.’
The days that followed: the worry; the frustration. Axel said nothing, withdrew, as if he didn’t want to be involved in what was happening.
‘I tried to talk to her, I really did. I asked her if something had happened, but she didn’t say a word. She just lay there staring at the wall.’
Tears, so long bottled up, were spilling out along with the words. She remembered how she had tried and tried but finally lost patience. Gerda had cautiously suggested they should call the doctor, but Axel thought it was a family matter. And her vacillating between the desire to get help and the shame that their daughter was behaving like someone who was mentally ill.
Jan-Erik went over to the window, turning his back to her as if he wanted to be spared seeing her tears.
‘How long did she lie there like that?’
‘Four or five days. Gerda and I took turns looking in on her at night. Then one evening she suddenly began eating again, and naturally we took it as a sign that she was getting better.’
She needed a drink but knew that this was not the time. Jan-Erik seemed to have calmed down a bit, and she didn’t want to provoke his wrath. It had frightened her.
‘Afterwards I realised it was because she had made up her mind.’
‘Didn’t you ever talk to her friends? Did they not notice anything? What did they say at her school?’
Early on the lie had been formed. The fear that what had happened in the Ragnerfeldt home might cause a scandal had prevented them from asking any questions. The hit-and-run accident had been given as an explanation at her school as well, and it thus became the official truth.
‘They hadn’t noticed anything.’
Alice looked down at the cushion on her lap.
‘Where did she hang herself?’
She couldn’t stand it any longer. She got up and went to the kitchen. Blew her nose first on a piece of kitchen roll to create a diversion, and then quietly took the bottle out of the cupboard and unscrewed the top. When she turned round, Jan-Erik was standing in the doorway. Without a word he went over to the plate rack and got a glass. He took the bottle out of her hands and filled the glass to the brim, draining it in a single gulp and then setting it down on the worktop.
‘So, where did she hang herself?’
Maybe they should have got a divorce. One’s hand doesn’t linger on a hot-plate that sears the skin. But the soul was allowed to atrophy slowly without relief. Naturally she had considered it then, as a last desperate attempt to have some influence. But only briefly. One did not get divorced. It was as simple as that. Even if there was reason enough, there were other things that were more intimidating. She had few friends, and all contact with her parents and siblings had been broken off, so where could she turn? As Mrs Axel Ragnerfeldt she at least enjoyed a certain status.
All the sacrifices she had made to maintain the illusion.
If only she had understood how unhappy Annika was. If only she’d had the ability to look beyond her own pain, to see that there were others to consider. Perhaps then everything would have been different.
‘She hanged herself in Axel’s office.’
Jan-Erik collapsed on a kitchen chair and put his face in his hands. She filled the glass he’d set aside and brought it gratefully to her lips. She took a large mouthful and tried to defend herself against what her memory had set loose, everything that was now running amok. Jan-Erik sat motionless; only his shoulders moved in time with his breathing.
It was Axel who found her. Annika had carefully unscrewed the light fixture in the ceiling and stood on Axel’s desk. His scream woke her. On the way downstairs, fumbling to tie
her dressing gown, Alice realised that the belt was missing. The sight of her daughter with the belt as a noose round her neck was eternally etched in her memory.
She filled the glass and knocked it back. No, that was enough of that. This was not something to dwell on. Thirty years had passed and nothing could be undone. Drowning herself in guilt would do no good. She had done the best she could under the circumstances.
She put the bottle back in the cupboard and went over to the sink to rinse out the glass.
‘Yes. That’s how it was, so now you know. The best thing for all of us is for this to remain within the family. It’s not something we should go round talking about.’
Jan-Erik’s shoulders stopped heaving. Slowly he straightened up. She wished she could escape the look that he gave her. Then he stood up, went into the living room and fetched the piece of paper. Without saying a word he went out the front door.
Alice looked at the clock. The TV programme she was waiting for would be starting soon. Why dig up old memories now? They were better off left alone.
She went back to the sofa and reached for the remote.
I
t is by describing love that we rob fear of its power.
Kristoffer stood in front of one of the gravestones in Katarina cemetery and read the inscription. He’d had to get out of the flat. He was restless and needed to get hold of something to keep his fear at bay. He knew what his body was longing for.
The odd thing about alcohol was that it could be used for so many purposes: to forget, to intensify a mood, to relax. To celebrate, go to sleep, be content, warm up, cool off, escape, find inspiration.
To summon courage.
Of all the drugs he had used, alcohol was the one he found most deceptive. Insinuated into and accepted in every environment, always available, enthusiastically promoted by the state and establishment. He was well aware of the discomfort he caused each time he said ‘No, thank you.’ The status these words conferred. People didn’t want to have sober witnesses when they let go of their inhibitions; a guilty conscience sitting next to them, looking on.
He had read something once that stuck in his mind. He recalled the lines pretty much word for word, since he thought he’d found an explanation and maybe an excuse for his own earlier behaviour:
Since the human being as a
species is extremely vulnerable, he must always be ready to defend
himself. The human brain has increased in size during evolution.
Consciousness is a refined defence system – a constant state of
alertness that watches the surroundings to discover possible threats.
Our strong sense of fear explains much about human nature and
civilisation.
Sometimes he thought this fear might be the explanation why alcohol was so tempting. To be able to shut down the warning system for a while and relax. To numb one’s brilliant consciousness. In all cultures intoxicants are used; only the types are different. If one discovered an isolated tribe in a remote jungle, there were bound to be certain leaves or roots that could be chewed or smoked to achieve the desired intoxication. In the Western world alcohol had been chosen as the legitimate drug.
Sometimes he thought that evolution had made a mistake in developing such an advanced brain. Why else would so many people feel the need to numb it? Yet we see ourselves as being the crown of creation with a superior intellect and the ability to show empathy and moralise. Perhaps humanity was at a critical stage: intelligence had made it possible to eradicate the planet, while deep inside everyone was governed by powerful fears and primitive desires; an immense ongoing conflict hidden inside everyone.
Right now he was missing the solace of alcohol. For a long period it had been his best friend and ally, the one thing that had been allowed to take precedence over everything else. It had helped him to rob the fear of its power.
But on the gravestone before him it said ‘love’.
That sort of love, he was not familiar with.
He often took walks in the cemetery, even though he had no real reason to go there. He found it peaceful, and not even his fear of the dark kept him away. There was nothing to fear in a place where death already resided. There was only calm, and everything in comparison became small and surmountable. He was not even sure whether he was afraid of death. Sometimes he envied people who had lived their lives and were now allowed to rest. Not that he longed to die, but neither did he feel particularly keen to live. He envied
the dead because they avoided the responsibility of continuing to struggle. They had escaped having to maintain the will to go on.
Rich, poor, good, evil, ugly, beautiful, smart and simple – the same fate awaited all. No matter how fast one ran, it was impossible to escape.
All those names and dates on the gravestones. Some of the people resting below had been dead for hundreds of years, but their memory had won out over wind and weather. Only the special ones were allowed to have their graves undisturbed and the stones left in place, the ones who were of importance. The graves of ordinary people were cleared out as they were forgotten, and their last resting place became someone else’s. His goal was to be one of those who were left, one of those whose names were allowed to remain and remind new generations of their existence. He would be one of the special ones, one of those who had excelled, who had done something of significance. A true survivor.
Then death would no longer be able to get to him.
Herein lies that which belonged to the earth. Faithfully loving,
eternally reunited.
The man had died in 1809, his wife in 1831. No one was now alive who had known them. And yet he was standing here 175 years later and knew that they had existed.
He liked reading the messages on the gravestones and found them consoling. He would wander among the well-tended graves with flowers that were constantly replaced, and those graves that no one cared for any longer. Time came and went and priorities changed; stones with one engraved name stood next to a blank space waiting for the spouse still living. He wondered how it felt to stand there, knowing that one’s name and a date would some day be etched there, and one would never see the result. He felt a flicker of jealousy that they at least knew where they belonged.
He continued along the illuminated gravel path, lured by
the glow from the floodlights in the corner of the cemetery where the newer graves were located. On the way he passed several large stones with the inscription ‘Family Plot’. One of the most beautiful phrases he knew.
Eternally reunited.
He had not been without offers. He was good-looking and had been considered, at least as long as he was drinking, to be interesting enough to spend time with. Now he no longer knew. He didn’t frequent places where prospective speculators could show their interest, since that most often occurred under the influence of alcohol. But back then, when he was still participating in the mating dance of nightlife, he had seldom gone home alone. He had experienced sex so many times he eventually grew weary of it, but he hadn’t really known love. Whenever something was about to develop, he had declined and returned to his waiting.
For the answer to who he was.
Then his life could begin.
His ringtone began to play in his pocket, and he took out his mobile. He recognised the number at once.
‘Kristoffer here.’
‘Hello, it’s Marianne again. You know, it occurred to me that a Torgny Wennberg RSVP’d for the funeral. I thought that if he knew Gerda Persson, then maybe he knows more, and you might want to contact him. I don’t have his number, and I can’t get online right now, but maybe you could check it out yourself. There can’t be too many people with that name.’
‘Torgny Wennberg?’
‘Yes.’
‘With a W or a V?
‘I can’t check right now but I’m pretty sure it’s a W.’
‘Okay. And he’s coming to the funeral, you said?’
‘Yes, at least he said he was.’
‘I’ll check it out then. Thanks for calling.’
Torgny Wennberg. He added the name to the address book
in his mobile so he wouldn’t forget it. Now he had those palpitations again. The feeling of wanting both to know and yet not know.
He had reached the new graves. Many of the dead resting here were children. Several graves were decorated with toys, pretty shells, teddy bears and small heart-shaped stones. There were almost always candles burning.
Eternally loved.
Words that appeared again and again. The endless care with which they looked after their beloved children’s graves. The thought of his own parents. How deep their pain and despair must have been if the only possibility remaining to them was to abandon him.
A cold wind swept over the cemetery and made the dry leaves whirl around. He pulled his duffel coat tight at the neck and decided to head for home. There he heated up a vegetarian lasagne in the microwave and sat down in front of the computer. With his dinner beside the keyboard he began to search. There was no turning back now; the door was ajar and he would never forgive himself if he missed the chance to step inside. He started with Torgny Wennberg. His name produced 313 hits. He clicked on the first one and was taken to the Workers’ Movement Archive. The heading was
From our collections
–
Torgny Wennberg (b. 1928), forgotten
proletarian writer.
He skimmed through the text.
Torgny Wennberg was born in Finspång, Östergötland county. His
father was a metalworker. Wennberg began as a metalworker at the
age of 14. Early on he began to write stories. In 1951 he debuted
as a writer with the novel
It Will Pass.
The next year he moved
to Stockholm.
Torgny Wennberg is best known for his novels about the metalworkers
in Östergötland.
Keep the Fire Burning
is considered one
of his best works, published in 1961. Wennberg has also written several
plays for the stage and radio.
At First It Hurts
was his last proletarian
novel; later books can instead be characterised as relationship
novels. His last novel,
The Wind Whispers Your Name,
was
published in 1975 and portrays a man’s downfall after a love affair.
Wennberg has published a total of twelve prose books and eight pl
ays.
Kristoffer printed out the page. He went to another search engine, typed in the name and got a hit. There was a Torgny Wennberg living in Hantverkargatan. Kristoffer wrote down the phone number. He went back to Google and searched for Axel Ragnerfeldt. The name produced 1,000,230 hits. He hopped from page to page, reading a little here and there. He already knew much of the information. He had read all his books, some of them in school and the rest on his own. He added Gerda Persson to the search box but got nothing. Deleted Axel Ragnerfeldt and searched only for Gerda Persson and got 205 hits. It was impossible to tell which of them might be about the Gerda he was looking for. For the next hour he read selected pages about Axel Ragnerfeldt. Most of the hits led him to publishers and booksellers all around the world; there were also student projects and theses, but very few gave any clues to his private life. His wife Alice Ragnerfeldt was also a writer, and he spent a while reading about her books. Her last book was published in 1958, but from what he understood she was still alive. Many of the links were about the foundation that was established in Axel Ragnerfeldt’s name. He read about a children’s home in Chile and several clinics in Africa.
A true survivor.
The food on Kristoffer’s plate had grown cold. He went to the kitchen and put it in the microwave. Standing at the sink he shovelled down the last of the food then rinsed the plate. He wondered whether Axel Ragnerfeldt would come to the funeral. Whether he would have a chance to meet the great icon. Jesper would be green with envy. He pondered over whether to invite Jesper, but rejected the thought at once. Even though it would be his first funeral, and the occasion was definitely out of the ordinary, he would rather
suffer through it alone. As he usually did. The alternative was to tell Jesper the whole story, but his sense of shame felt like a barrier. The truth would put him in an unbearably vulnerable position, increasing the distance that Jesper had already created between them. It would prove once and for all that Jesper was his superior.
Because
his
parents had chosen to keep him.
Kristoffer went back to his computer. Jan-Erik Ragnerfeldt produced 768 hits. Most of them were information about lectures.
Jan-Erik Ragnerfeldt will speak about his famous father
and his writings.
A lecture the very next day at 7 p.m. at the Västerås Theatre. He leaned back in his chair and read the information again. Not that far away. It would be easier to meet him there in person than to pick up the phone and ring. He glanced at the dark windows. He wasn’t sure he could handle letting all his questions pile up and then ask them for the first time at the funeral. It would be better to get a general sense of him and be a bit prepared. He had no idea how Jan-Erik would react.