Autumn, winter, spring. Nineteen sixty-eight to sixty-nine.
Oskar leaves the island at the end of October. The oak trees are bare and there is snow in the air. The boat comes to pick him up at ten o’clock. The engine thuds and the man helps Oskar with his suitcase. Oskar closes the door, locks it, and puts the key into his pocket. He is wearing a gray overcoat and a hat. The fisherman helps him into the boat. Oskar sits on a bench down in the cargo hold. All you can see sticking out is his hat and part of his forehead.
The boat backs out, turns, and disappears around the headland.
It is a Sunday. His son is there to meet him at the harbor on the mainland. Oskar settles into the backseat of the large American car. It vanishes up the hill. The gravel is hard and cold under the wheels.
He sits at the kitchen table in his apartment on the ground floor. It is quiet. Distant sounds from the street barely touch him. The kitchen clock ticks. It is a quarter past seven. He has his coffee cup in front of him. A plate with cookies. A carton of milk. The wax tablecloth is beige. The winter cane, the black one, is lying on the table.
He turns his head and looks straight at us. There is a scraping from the letter box and a thud against the hall mat. He gets up, takes his cane, and starts to walk out of the kitchen. He keeps close to the wall. He brushes past the sink, the closet, the doorpost, and he bends down to pick up a whole lot of papers of different colors scattered all over the floor by the front door. Then he hobbles back to the kitchen. When he bends down, he squeezes the cane into his right armpit and presses it firmly against his body. Then he swaps over, puts the pieces of paper under his armpit and holds the cane with his finger and thumb.
He is sitting by the kitchen table and looking through the day’s mail. All advertising leaflets. He looks at them, one by one.
Some of them.
Algots’s autumn range. Young people in stiff poses, prancing about in variously colored empty rooms. Cold, forbidding tones. The pictures show them jumping around in grotesque capers and challenging Oskar with looks that say:
Buy me.
Be warm and safe this autumn.
Buy me.
Buy me.
This week’s special at Domus. Delicious broilers, rock-bottom prices.
The stencil is messy and blurred.
And don’t miss the chance to visit our sports department. Our winter range offers many exciting novelties.
Oskar on skis.
Oskar on skates.
Oskar on a winter walk.
ABF’s adult education program.
Our mission statement is…
Needlework or English.
Creative drama or university-level Spanish.
With the course booklet in hand, Oskar looks out of the window. The garbage truck thunders past.
I buy my own food.
I do my own laundry. There isn’t that much of it.
I do my own cleaning.
Then he sits in front of the television and looks at a school program. High school physics. He watches intently. He nods when he has understood. He does not think that all is long over and done with. He is still very much a part of it, Oskar Johansson, even though he is now nearly eighty.
His birthday. The newspaper says he is turning eighty. But there is no picture.
They sit around the table in the living room. Two large cakes have been cut. Steam rises from coffee cups. Oskar is wearing a white shirt and a tie and a black jacket. The children are sitting there, all three of them, the daughters with their husbands and the son with his wife. They chat among themselves while Oskar sits and listens. The presents are on the table.
A gray sweater. A pair of slippers. Sunglasses, polarized ones.
Or. Oskar sits alone at the kitchen table, wearing his blue work trousers. The coffee cup, the cookies, and the glass of milk. He is turning eighty.
Or back to the previous scene.
“Would you like more coffee, Pappa?”
“I’ve had enough, thanks.”
“Go on, have some more. It’s your birthday after all.”
“A little more then.”
“You’re looking so well. Have you had a good summer?”
“Yes.”
“Have you heard that I’m going to open a branch in the town where she lives?” The son points at one of his sisters.
“Blimey.”
“That would make it my third one.”
“And is business good?”
“It is. So far, at any rate.”
The camera’s flash cuts through the room. The son is taking pictures. The daughters sit on either side of Oskar. Then it is time for them to leave. They get up, smooth down their dresses, straighten their hair with the palms of their hands. Smile and laugh. Bend down for a quick hug. Straighten their hair again.
“Thanks, Pappa. You take care now.”
“Thanks to you too.”
“We’ll write soon.”
“Drive carefully.”
The door closes. It’s quiet. The clock ticks. Oskar goes and lies down on the bed. He is tired. He looks straight up at the ceiling.
The days.
The coffeepot. The cookies. The morning newspaper.
The advertising leaflets. The occasional letter or postcard.
Do some housework, stay clean. Sit in front of the television.
Lunch. Coffee again.
Shop if necessary. Rummage around in drawers. Straighten a mat.
Sit by the window.
Television. Coffee again.
Undress. Lie and look at the ceiling. Sleep, sleep.
“Of course I suffered and felt stupid and lonely because of my injuries. If I hadn’t met Elvira, I don’t know what I would have done. I couldn’t bear to see myself in a mirror and I was revolted by the sight of my mutilated arm. Then I also got that weird sensation. That I sort of felt my right hand even though it wasn’t there. It was dreadful. Some nights I would dream that everything was as it should be and then I’d wake up in the morning and begin to scream and go all funny. If I hadn’t had Elvira, I don’t know how things would have turned out. I kept myself to myself and in some way felt embarrassed. But I didn’t give up. I learned quite quickly to get by with my finger and thumb. It’s not as hard as people think. It seems difficult when you’re imagining it, but when you actually have to do it, it works itself out. It must be worse to be blind or deaf.
“But I don’t know how I would have managed without Elvira. She gave me self-confidence, which is what I needed. Not pity, but kicks up the backside. In any case you get used to it. After four or five years I never again felt awkward because of my handicap. You see, there was just so much else that was important at the time, as I’ve told you. It was not until I got old and Elvira passed away that I started getting irritable again. But I suppose that was because my body was beginning to give out in other ways too. I don’t feel that I’ve been handicapped, though. That’s not how it seemed to me. Ever. And I was just as ugly before it happened. Although of course I’d never wish all this on anyone else. When I read about accidents where people have been maimed in different ways, or when I see what the bombs can do, I know what it’s like for the victims. And not everybody is lucky enough to meet an Elvira straight afterward. But there was always something else that was more important. And there still is, I suppose, but gradually I’m beginning to be out of it. Old age isn’t much fun. You become a different sort of underdog. There’s so much one has to put up with. But one always manages.
“Much is to Elvira’s credit. But my character and my convictions were also important. I still hold those beliefs, but there’s a limit to what one can do.
“At least I don’t talk aloud to myself. Many lonely people do. I wonder what they have to say to themselves. I hope it’s something fun.
“If I was young, I’m sure I’d do it all again. I would certainly have believed in the same cause. There’s nothing extraordinary about socialism, let’s face it. Once you’ve worked out how everything hangs together, it’s actually obvious. Then everything else is wrong and strange. Is there anything more crazily illogical and unreasonable than capitalism? I don’t think so.
“Socialism is nothing special. And neither am I. So we probably go well together. Elvira sometimes said that she thought we did. And then she laughed, of course. As always.
“I wouldn’t want to have been born as anything else. That’s not what matters, after all.
“Whether you like it or not, you’re a part of it. Just spit into the ocean once. And then you have all the eternity you need.”
Oskar.
A strange old boy who lives in an old army sauna.
He usually waves when you go by. He’s only got one hand and one eye.
You should see his index finger. It’s this thick.
He probably sits out there, drinking akvavit. It must be an awful mess. Who tidies up after him? And I suspect he never bathes.
I wonder who owns the land he’s living on.
He’s a great old man. He used to be a rock blaster and had a terrible accident. But he’s a cheerful soul anyhow. He’s a nice old boy. And he looks after himself. He’s happy in his sauna, they say.
Oskar on the ground floor.
Oskar’s son owns that big laundry business, you know the one?
He has two girls too.
His wife is dead.
He turned eighty just recently.
He does his own shopping.
“He walks with a cane.”
“But he’s so handicapped.”
“He always says hello.”
“I hear him when he takes out the trash.”
In the middle of November, he is admitted to the hospital and his right leg is amputated. It is the only way they can stop the gangrene. He lies in his white bed and a few days before Christmas he suffers his first stroke. It paralyzes him and he cannot talk. In the afternoon on Christmas Eve his children come to visit him. They stand around the bed. Oskar looks at them. His mouth has become locked in a stiff smile. They pat his cheek, stroke his hair, touch his two fingers. Then they leave the ward.
“Poor Pappa.”
“Let’s hope he won’t have to lie there too long.”
“It would be best if he could die.”
“Some go on like that for ten years. He has a strong heart, after all.”
“There’s hardly anything left of him.”
“It’s terrible to see.”
“We must be prepared for him to die at any moment.”
“We must call each other.”
“I’ll come back here as soon as I can.”
Out through the hospital entrance. Bare ground, Christmas Eve. Darkness falls.
“Merry Christmas, then. Love to everyone.”
“You too.”
“And we’ll call.”
“Yes. Where do you need to go? I can give you a ride.”
“You don’t have to.”
“My car is right over here.”
The assistant nurse is sitting by the bed, feeding him. It is Christmas Eve.
The second stroke comes one day in April. The bowl of porridge tips over onto his chest and Oskar is dead.