I’m still in a bad mood when half an hour later I walk into the Toad, the betting shop in Klara. The place smells of horse harnesses and tack-boxes. Along one of the long walls, two drivers with swaddled legs peruse the large blackboard, on which the odds are written in chalk. One nudges the other with his elbow when I come in. They peer over at me. I don’t know if they recognise me or if I just look like an old lag.
Behind the wooden counter at the far end of the room sits an old man with white wisps of hair around his ears. He’s wearing black armbands over a white shirt, and half-frame spectacles. He plasters a smile across his face. I tip my hat at him. His name is Lindkvist; he seems to have aged more than the years that have gone by since I last saw him.
The cashier is busy with a posh-looking bloke in a topcoat and gaiters. The receipt makes a thwacking sound as he skewers it on a five-inch nail that’s been hammered up from beneath the desk. The customer makes a farewell gesture and walks out. One of the drivers leans forward and whispers something into the ear of the other. The lid of the counter slams. The old man quickly limps up to me and offers me his hand. I engulf it in my own, with a good shake.
‘Kvisten!’ beams Lindkvist. ‘I thought you’d take me up on my proposal, but I never thought it would take you years to make your decision!’
He aims a punch with his right hand and taps me gently on the shoulder. I let him get on with it.
‘His Majesty’s pleasure.’
‘Oh, is that it? But now you’re out? And in need of funds?’
‘Mm…’
‘In fine shape, it seems to me?’
‘It’s the pitch-black solitary confinement cells in Långholmen. They pour the rye porridge into a hog trough leading into the cell. You have to fight the rats for it. Does wonders for your figure.’
‘Fancy that. When will you be ready for a fight?’
‘I want to get a haircut and a couple of drams, so… tonight?’
The old man laughs. The drivers have finished their discussion. One of them comes up to the counter.
‘Still undefeated?’
Lindkvist smiles ingratiatingly.
‘He’s never even taken a count. He was already hard to beat as a child.’
‘Three matches with a week between each? The first with two opponents?’
‘A hundred per match. Half up front.’
I claw at my throat.
‘I have to pitch you against decent younger blokes, or no one will bet against you.’
‘They probably won’t remember.’
‘They’ll remember all right. We’re putting on a match a week until Christmas. Advent matches. The legendary Harry Kvist makes a magnificent comeback.’
Lindkvist slaps his hands together in the air and looks up as if he’s seeing the words written on a banner right in front of him.
‘No gloves. Keep fighting until one man hits the floor.’
A memory flashes across my mind: a Christmas gala at Cirkus in 1922. I don’t remember the name of my opponent. I was at the peak of my career and I utterly destroyed him before he was knocked out, and had to be carried out feet first. A year later my life had gone to pieces and I was standing, hat in hand, begging for soup from the Salvation Army.
I pick up my notebook and flick through it until I find a blank page. I spit on my aniline pen and write down the dates.
‘Until the other bloke is on the floor.’
‘Is that something we could influence?’
I shake my head.
‘Once I tried a rigged bout, and look how it ended.’
I hold up my left hand. Where the last finger should be there’s a stub with a red-streaked knot of skin. Räpan, the old smuggler king on Söder, removed it with a pair of pliers and a mallet when I broke an agreement some ten years ago.
Old man Lindkvist sucks in air between his lips.
‘How do I get hold of you?’
‘I live above Lundin’s, the undertaker in Sibirien. You can telephone me there.’
I write down the number, Vasastan 4160, on a page in my notebook, tear it out and hand it to him. The old man folds the slip of paper and tucks into one of the breast pockets of his shirt. He produces a cigar from the other.
I accept the cigar and bite off the end. Lindkvist offers me a light and I puff it to life. I look around the shop.
‘You used to have an assistant. A red-haired lad?’
‘I had to get rid of him. He couldn’t be trusted.’
‘I don’t suppose you need a new one, do you? I know someone who might suit.’
‘Not at present.’
‘Who have you got taking care of debts?’
‘The National Socialists. The Reaper, Rickardsson and his gang. Ploman’s blokes.’
‘Nazis?’
‘That’s what people call them.’
‘How much do they charge?’
‘Twenty.’
‘I charge fifteen.’
‘I’m not going to argue with the Reaper for the sake of a five per cent discount. To hell with that.’
‘I see.’
The old man nods.
‘The legend, Harry Kvist, a magnificent comeback,’ he repeats.
I grin. An unctuous smile spreads across Lindkvist’s face again, and we shake hands. When I release his hand he takes aim again with another right-hand punch at my shoulder. I quickly dart forward, roll under his arm and come close to his furrowed face. A quick left jab and the old man would be stuck to the wall like a damp patch. He smells of sweat and tobacco. We grin at each other.
I’m back.
In the foyer at the undertaker’s there’s a bottle of Kron on the desk. My favourite brand. There’s a note in front of the bottle:
Brother, welcome back to freedom. This litre of spirits is a welcoming gift, no need to pay for it. The bloody dog awaits you up the stairs. See you at the residents’ party at number 41.
I twist off the bottle top and take a couple of big mouthfuls. Still shivering with pleasure I walk through the office and flat, emerging into the stairwell. As I move along I have time to take another mouthful. Damn, how I’ve missed this.
A dank smell hits me as the front door glides open. Dixie’s claws scratch against the cork mat. She whines excitedly. I crouch in the dark hall, stabilise myself with one hand against the wall and hold out the other to her. She licks it.
‘You could also do with a visit to the barber’s, dearie.’
Dixie hasn’t had a trim for nigh on two years, and she really isn’t much more than a fuzzy ball of black fur. As she makes a few joyful spins, I notice that she’s limping. She yaps and lies with her belly facing up, playing dead.
My knees click as I straighten up. I hit the round, black Bakelite light switch and peer at the buzzing lamp. Awkwardly, Dixie spins around, and gets back on all fours. I hang my jacket on one of the brass hooks, toss my hat onto the hat shelf and, passing the big full-length mirror in the hall, almost stumble over Dixie, who’s buzzing around my legs. I go into the narrow kitchen. For a while I look at the thick layer of dust which has settled over the little drop-leaf table and its two chairs.
The double window facing onto the courtyard is so covered in soot that you can hardly see through it, and the rag rugs from Ström’s jumble shop are coated with dog hair.
‘This place needs a clean before Doughboy moves in.’
I have another few gulps of the Kron, then put the bottle down on the draining board and go up to the window, unhooking the latch and opening it by pushing with my wrist.
There’s a cat meowing in the yard and Dixie laboriously scales one of the chairs to make her way onto the table. She points her cropped ears and gazes out fixedly at the November evening. Down in the courtyard you can make out the dark protuberance of the potato shed and the row of latrines. No one uses them any more, not since Lundin installed water closets in the stairwell.
I root through the top kitchen drawer for gas tokens but don’t find any. I come across an unfamiliar object and pick it up. It’s a cigar trimmer. I stare at it. Where the hell did that come from? I have no memory of ever having bought one.
The vodka is starting to spin in my head. With a sigh, I pick up a couple of clumps of wood from the basket beside the cooker. I pile them up with an eighteen-month-old issue of Social-Demokraten and light the fire with a phosphor stick. The wrought-iron hatch chimes dully and hollowly as I close it.
I fill the small copper saucepan with water and put it on the ring. Dixie yelps and I pick her up from the table and put her down. She limps ahead of me into the main room, disappears into the hall and takes her post by the front door.
‘Calm yourself, doggie. Just a minute…’
The prison smell has lodged in my clothes. I leave the kitchen, take off my shirt and singlet, and throw them on the big oak desk. Dixie whines desolately. I find yet one more dry cigar in the desk drawer, stick it in my mouth and place myself in front of the mirror with my palms pressed to the wall. The tattoo of a full-rigged ship on my chest breaks through the hair as if it’s cutting through dark storm swells.
The hard labour of Långholmen and its spartan diet has near enough returned me to my old physical shape. The flesh around my upper arms, shoulders and chest is firm and clearly defined. My skin has a prison pallor, but my trunk is almost flat. I run the flat of my hand across my broad nose and scarred face.
‘…magnificent comeback. Harry Kvist…’
I totter slightly as I walk out of the hall, passing the large, square ceramic wood-burner with its blue-relief pattern, and open the dressing-room door. The light comes on automatically. The smell of mothballs and gun oil fills me as I step inside. I put the cigar in my mouth, bring down a shoebox from a shelf and give it a slight shake. The heaviness and a rattling sound indicate that the Husqvarna and the shells are still inside. With a smile I recall being given the pistol by a doting commanding officer during my military service, as thanks for some pleasant moments we shared.
I put the box back on the shelf and slide my hand over the clothes on the hangers. I have six decent suits hanging there, arranged in dark to light colours; also more than a dozen shirts. I choose a broad silver-coloured tie to match a dark-grey pinstripe shirt with a fixed collar.
I close the door behind me. On the way to the window I pass the sleeping alcove with the wide wrought-iron bedstead. Bedded with proper feather and down bolsters. I briefly spare a thought for Doughboy in his hard prison bunk. That boy. Beautiful in a way that almost awakens a desire to bruise him. I close my eyes to see him more clearly. He fills my senses with a subtle, but powerful joy.
‘Seven days. If there’s one thing Kvisten knows about, it’s how to wait – he’s hardly ever done anything else.’
I stand by the window, putting on my shirt. Roslagsgatan lies steeped in darkness, almost deserted. A stray dog hobbles southward past Bruntell’s general store, but it stops for a moment and sniffs the air before heading off in the other direction. A bloke in a felt hat and hunched shoulders is zigzagging along in a northerly direction. I think it may be Wallin, the psychiatric nurse. I have the hiccups, and I belch sourly. I’ve been off it for a long time and the spirits’ve already made a mess of my head.
Down the hill on Ingemarsgatan comes Nisse’s Eva, the baker’s wife, hurrying along with a tray of smooth buns. The party is in the offing.
I slide on my tie and knot it with a certain amount of trouble. The street dog limps through the semi-circle of light spilling onto the pavement from Beda’s laundry. I remember how Beda used to pat me on the cheek when I came to pick up my suits. The way the skin of her hand used to be chapped and the nails cracked after too many years in the washtubs. I shake my head.
That old girl was damn well made of dynamite. She walked her own road, didn’t care about gossip or slander, always kind to each and every person she met.
I bite off the tip of my Meteor. The match scrapes against the strip and, for a moment, I can see the reflection of my scarred mug in the window. I puff some life into the cigar and kill the flame with a jet of grey-black smoke. I have another pull at it. Out of the corner of my eye, I sense a shadow speeding across the floor of the laundry down below.
I clench my fists, raise my eyes and gaze into the darkness. My lungs are smarting from the heavy cigar smoke. The shadow does not reappear.
I exhale, I shiver, I stumble.
‘A cup of java, that’s right. Should clear the head and see off the ghouls.’
Back in the kitchen, the water is boiling on the stove. I put aside the pile of letters, take the saucepan off the ring and throw in a couple of generous scoops of ground coffee. After it has brewed for a bit, I find a cup and pour the coffee into it with a tot of schnapps, then I go back to the window.
I stick the cigar in my mouth and start going through the letters. None from America. I grunt.
One of the envelopes has no postage stamp and lacks a full address.
I see the words ‘To Kvisten’ pencilled on it in wonky letters. I hold up the letter against the remaining daylight and grunt again.
Again I see the shadow moving about inside the laundry.
I take a few big gulps of java, break the seal of the envelope and open the folded paper. The words stick in my mouth as I read out loud:
The 1st of September
Dear Mistr. Kvisten.
The thing is in the autum you prommised to take care of my Petrus. Its all goin to be over with me one of this days but theres no way of agetting away from a prommise. Not that I wold think such a thing off Kvisten. I have seen to it theres a monthly bob or too for Petrus so Kvisten wont have to fork out for him but if he cold make shure sommetimes that no one takes avantage of him it wold be good. Hes kind harted and does what hes told if he understands you.
As ever
Beda Johansson
‘Brother, how the hell can you turn up at a party with such an objectionable hairstyle?’
Undertaker Lundin beams at me, displaying his tobacco-stained fangs. He’s a tall, lanky bloke of about seventy. Always dressed in a black three-piece suit and a high top hat. A couple of grains of snuff stick to his bushy white moustache. His handshake is firm and hearty.
‘Nyström didn’t have a lot to work with.’
I smile, pulling my hand through my hair. Lundin nods, still beaming. I put a fresh Meteor from widow Lind’s cigar shop in my mouth, and adjust my tie. I am wearing a pinstripe chocolate-brown suit. It’s about a size too generous about the waist now, but the jacket sticks to the outline of my shoulders like tar to a hull, and coming home today on the tram I read that waistcoats are no longer worn in America, so I left mine behind. Looking around the premises I start wondering if I’ve done the right thing. You shouldn’t ever believe all the rot you read in the newspapers.
The meeting house of the tenants’ association in the yard next door measures about five by seven metres. The walls are plastered and whitewashed but tobacco smoke has turned them yellow after years of meetings and parties, although there’s a pleasant enough smell in there of food and liquid soap. A couple of the trade union blokes have draped their red banners over one of the walls.
Along one of the short walls the old girls of the quarter have laid out a spread on a trestle table with a long white runner. My gob starts salivating when I let my eyes wander over the goodies. The dishes are overflowing with herring salads, ribs, jellied pig’s trotters with beetroot, grilled potatoes, parsnips and carrots, no less than six kinds of brawn, and pils from the München Brewery. In large zinc vats under the table, I catch the glimmer of schnapps bottles, enough for ten ration books. Maybe Lundin, the local schnapps baron, has contributed something to the tally. With a touch of luxury, they’ve been put on ice.
A haphazard collection of plates from several families have been piled up at the far end by the wall. There’s a silver jug; nickel silver, of course, but still. Everyone on our block seems to be here for the big party of the autumn, and it’s already getting crowded. Bruntell, the general-store owner from the other side of the street, has positioned his Kodak so that he can preserve the table for posterity. He’s put on weight around his waist since last time I saw him, and got himself a ludicrous little postage-stamp moustache. Ström, the jumble dealer, drags another zinc vat of ice across the floor, and peers warily in my direction, even though I have already apologised for kicking his arse this afternoon. Wallin runs his hand down his asylum staff uniform and shifts his weight to his other leg. He’s guarding the schnapps glasses, lined up at one end of the table.
Nilsson, the sheet-metal worker from number 5, paces the floor from side to side with his hat in his hands, as confused as a tenant farmer in a water closet. The Good Templar, Wetterström, and his wife are hanging up colourful lanterns. They are both wearing Sunday best and Wetterström has a water-combed side parting.
Probably it’s Johnsson from the Oden-Bazaar down on the corner who’s supplied the lanterns. Johnsson peers cautiously in my direction. A few years ago I was compelled to give him a proper beating to set him straight. He was never quite himself after that. He limps now. He went cock-eyed too. There’s another click when Bruntell takes a photograph. Lundin gets out his accounts book, looks up the letter K and runs his snuff-yellow finger down the page. He hums.
‘One thousand, nine hundred and twenty-seven kronor and fifty öre.’
A droplet of sweat frees itself from under Lundin’s brim and runs down his furrowed cheek like a tear, then gets caught in his moustache. His left hand is shaking so badly that he drops his accounts book. He grabs his fist with his other hand and holds on tight.
‘As much as that?’
I pick up his accounts book for him.
‘Rent, radio licence bills, dog food and porter.’
‘Porter?’
‘She wanted porter for breakfast.’
‘You’ve been giving Dixie beer for breakfast?’
‘You can work some of it off. I’ve got myself a motor, but I’m still short of a pall-bearer. My hand won’t quite do what it’s supposed to do.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘My health’s a bit iffy these days. I get a prickling sensation in my legs and it’s hard getting out of bed in the mornings. Dragging stiffs down a lot of stairs is out of the question.’
‘Porter? Why porter?’
‘It’s bracing.’
‘It’ll abort a foetus.’
‘Only if heated up.’
The door opens and a trio arrives with a violin, an accordion and an American banjo. The man with the violin nods in my direction. I have no memory of having seen him before, but as I really don’t have much of a memory about anything at this time, I nod back. Eckman, the managing director of the cement company, tinkles a glass and shuffles into the middle of the room. His hair is oiled, his lips are thick. It must have been five or six years since he left number 41 to move into a house in Djursholm, but he’s still invited every spring and autumn to the house party.
‘Meine Damen und Herren,’ the managing director begins, with a jovial laugh.
The murmur of voices immediately dies down, only for the door to be thrown open and a pair of heels to come clattering over the wooden floor. A young bottle-blonde woman makes her way inside. A few of the old girls give her the evil eye. The blokes in the quarter call her the Jewel; the old girls call her the Mannequin. She has a small child hanging on her arm and a rough-hewn dark-haired man in tow. He looks like Gunnar Turesson, who I fought in ’21. A short, squat Western Geat, a fairly decent slugger but he liked to fight dirty. He tried to rip my eyes out with his glove straps during the clinch. Strong enough to tear a telephone directory in two, they used to say. I decked him in the third round. The swine only woke up a month later, and he never came back after that. A part of me envied him. I’d rather have ended my boxing career like that.
The Jewel blushes and smiles assuagingly, while keeping her eyes on the floor. The buzz of voices starts up again. Her bloke removes his cap.
Managing Director Eckman clears his throat: ‘As I was saying, meine Damen und Herren…’
‘When did the minx have a child?’
I gesture towards the Jewel. Lundin caresses his luxuriant moustache and leans towards me. The wrinkles around his eyes deepen as he squints to get a better look.
‘After a lot of faffing about they got married. The daughter came along pretty quickly after that, weak from the very start. Of course the hags stood around at Bruntell’s counting the days but, as I understand, it all added up.’
‘There you are, then.’
‘She’ll be studying fashion, apparently. Quite different from how it used to be when she was driven home by gentlemen in taxicabs every other night. Her bed linen filthy after two days, that’s what people said.’
‘Bloody gossip-mongers.’
‘Bruntell’s wife claims she saw her hanging up nappies to dry in the attic a few weeks earlier than the official date, but you know what she’s like.’
There’s a burst of applause. The managing director makes a shallow bow and gestures at the smörgåsbord. A rising din of voices follows.
I hook onto Lundin’s sleeve and set course for the overflowing serving dishes. He limps along behind me. People get out of our way as we plough forward. With a decent haul of food each, and glasses of cold schnapps in our hands, we find a couple of chairs by the door. I get stuck in, with the plate on my knees, tearing the flesh off the greasy ribs with my teeth and unloading dollops of potato into my mouth. The warmth of the schnapps sluices through my upper body, sending shivers of pleasure down my spine. In a corner, three girls are eating standing up. Now and then they look over in our direction and titter. Two of them are blonde and look a lot alike. They’re all dolled up, wearing brightly coloured dresses. A boy with the Secondary Grammar School badge on his cap is waiting on them, mixing grogs of pure vodka and sugared soda.
‘Just two people missing here.’
‘So you know about it, brother?’
‘Ström told me.’
Lundin puts down his plate between his feet and waves his finger at a little boy in shorts. He gets out a five-öre piece from the mirrored slot in his snuffbox, and points at the vats of schnapps bottles. The boy darts off between our neighbours and comes back before long with a litre of Kron.
There’s a snapping sound as Lundin breaks the seal. He fills our glasses to the rim and we knock back the shots. At regular intervals the door beside us opens, bringing a whiff of the row of the shit-houses in the courtyard. More people turn up. The women have taken off their aprons for a change, and altered their dresses. The blokes are wearing their Sunday trousers. Their little lads are wearing sailor suits; the girls have pink or red bows in their liquid-soap-washed hair.
In due course, as the glasses are emptied, the voices get louder. It’s getting properly crowded, people are standing or sitting in double lines along the walls, but around us there’s still room to swing a cat: one of the few advantages of a bad reputation and a prison haircut. Lundin refills our glasses and clears his throat.
‘Sometimes it was difficult to know which of them was most addled, Petrus or Beda.’
‘Neither one of them had a completely clear head.’
‘She was a compulsive liar. Everything was a fairy tale to her. You remember her stories, my brother? Those kings and barons and other members of the gentry who visited her at night? How they praised her fine laundry and well-formed feet?’
‘She wasn’t out of her mind, though. And neither is Petrus, just a touch simple.’
‘A bit? With that skull? A typical criminal physiognomy.’
‘That’s irrelevant.’
I stumble over my words. The alcohol courses through my veins. I’ve been off it, I used to be able to handle ten shots and more.
‘They say he sneaked up on her while she lay sleeping. Crushed her skull with a heavy iron.’
I shrug. Lundin looks at me. He has a bit of amber-coloured jelly in his moustache, from the pig’s trotters.
‘How do you know that?’
‘That was what they said.’
‘Did you bury her?’
‘Someone else was called in for that, thank God.’
The accordionist can’t hold himself back any longer. Not everyone has stopped eating, but the first notes of a waltz start ringing out. I study the way his fingers wander across the keys. It’s been a long time since I heard music.
Lundin hands me yet another filled glass and we knock it back.
I raise my voice: ‘Petrus may be a bit retarded but he’s no murderer.’
‘You should have seen her towards the end.’ Lundin shakes his head slowly. ‘Cancer everywhere, bed-bound the whole time. Her skin completely yellow. You could see the skull under her skin. I suppose he didn’t know any better, that damned youth. I think he got that way from too much pleasuring himself.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘Långholmen, I suppose?’
I shake my head. The violinist gets his instrument out from the case and falls in with the waltz. A couple of blokes stamp out the rhythm until the floorboards start complaining. Wetterström and his wife are the first on the floor, and before long two other couples are keeping them company in a whirling dance. Wallin rises out of his chair and howls at the ceiling, like an excitable hound. The schnapps has pressed itself out of the pores of his skin, making his face chafed and red. He’s a big drinker: from time to time he boozes until he sees little men. Another bloke seizes hold of his epaulettes and tugs him back into his seat.
‘She made me promise…’
‘What’s that?’ Lundin cups his hand behind his ear. ‘Promise what?’
I shake my head. There’s a tightness across my chest. A dozen years ago it all went to hell and my boxing career came to a sudden end. I moved to Roslagsgatan and Lundin and Beda were the only people who welcomed me. Lundin, because no one else dared live above an undertaker’s shop. Beda, because she didn’t know any better. Or maybe she knew better than most. Her coarse hand against my cheek and her soft words still live on in my memory: ‘Kvisten can’t do nowt about who he is. The heart’s not some old nag you can harness any way you like.’
I shiver with unease and look up. The dance has already turned wild, there’s shouting and commotion, and a scramble for the three young women soaring across the floor so their colourful skirts billow out around their slender waists. Their legs are exposed right up to their knees. The old men pretend they’re looking in another direction. Nilsson from floor five knocks the filth out of his harmonica and holds it up to his lips.
Lundin brays into my ear: ‘Promise what?’
‘Nothing.’
I put the plate on the floor and push it under the chair with my foot. I take out a Meteor, bite off the end, blow off the tobacco fragments from my lips with a spurt of spittle. I loosen my tie and run my finger around the inside of the collar.
‘He who makes no promise makes no sin.’
The music stops abruptly after Lundin’s godly words. There’s cheering and applause. Now the banjo player has also joined in, and someone stamps out the beat of yet another melody. The widow of the Lapp, a gnarled old woman with small eyes dark as pieces of coal, legs it out of the door in her reindeer moccasins, her apron loaded with stolen deposit bottles.
One of the young women, the brunette, separates from her girlfriends and places herself in front of Lundin with her back towards us. She has arranged her dark hair over one shoulder. On the nape of her neck sits the clasp of a golden chain. On the other side of the room, the other two blonde girls stand tittering and whispering among themselves. A couple of blokes have to turn around sheepishly after drumming up the courage to ask them for a spin.
‘As I mentioned earlier, you can work off some of the debt.’
Lundin has raised his voice to make himself heard over the music.
‘I’ve also set up a couple of matches with Lindkvist at the Toad. And Wernersson may have a couple of jobs for me.’
‘He’s been on the telephone.’
I grunt. Wernersson’s Velocipedes is my main employer. I reclaim bicycles that have been bought on credit, when payments aren’t made. There’s a welter of impoverished sods who put their hopes on an expensive delivery bicycle, thanks be to the Lord. Every recovered unit can net me in the region of forty kronor, if I’m really lucky.
‘Once I get my advertisement in the daily newspaper, the wheels should start running smoothly again, as ever.’
‘A toast to that!’
We clink our glasses and drink our shots. Lundin has the hiccups, his long, rangy body is jerking, and his face is a deep scarlet.
The girl in front of us turns around and smiles. She has slanted white teeth at the front. Her red-painted lips are full, and her plucked eyebrows accentuated with scorched cork. She leans towards me. I pull my hand over my close-cropped skull and try to arrange what little hair I have left.
‘I hear Kvisten is a real swell at dancing. That right?’
For a few seconds I stare into my empty schnapps glass before I look into her green eyes, shiny from booze and tobacco smoke.
‘That’s right.’
The emptiness in my head chases away the music for a moment, neutralises the cheerful cries, Lundin’s hiccuping, the sound of the dancers’ heels against the floor, the ringing of glasses and the slamming of cutlery and crockery.
‘But the bloody dog. I have to walk the dog before it gets dark.’
The sounds of the party come back, full force. The girl purses her red lips.
‘Course you do,’ she hisses, tossing her dark hair as she turns around. She elbows her way across the dance floor.
Her girlfriends laugh soundlessly, their mouths like black holes. I clench my jaw but do not say anything.
She’ll be called all sorts of names for what she’ll do tonight in her drunken state. I have another shot and put the glass down on the floor. I lean forward, my elbows on my thighs. The music stops but restarts before the applause has ebbed away. Another foxtrot. Slower, this time. I regain my breath and give Lundin a poke on the knee.
He jerks to attention as if I’ve just woken him up. I stare down at my hands, my fingers crooked with fractures, the scarred knuckles flattened. I’ve spent half my life trying to retrain myself to twist my fist at the moment of impact, using the bony ridge instead, but my muscle memory wants to do it another way. You are who you are: sometimes it hurts, nothing can be done about it.
‘I’m thinking of taking a lodger. To halve my rent costs.’
I caress myself soundlessly over my well-shaven chin. The barber, Nyström, and his soap-girl, did a thorough job this afternoon. Lundin stops hiccuping.
‘Anyone particular in mind?’
I nod at the floor.
‘Doughboy. A lad. Met him inside. He’ll be out in a week and I want to help him get back on his feet.’
There’s a glugging sound as Lundin pours another glass. Cigarette smoke hangs heavily in the air. The smell of food has been replaced by a reek of tobacco, aquavit and sweat.
‘There’ll be talk.’
‘There already is.’
Lundin hums. I notice that I’ve been holding my breath for a while. I exhale. The brunette has said yes to the grammar school boy. She’s laughing as they glide past. His hand slowly slides down her back. He risks getting a proper slap any moment now.
‘Do what you like. You do anyway.’
Lundin picks up his snuffbox and, with a certain amount of difficulty, kneads together a solid plug and shoves it under his lip. I fidget with my jacket. In the inside pocket is my letter from Beda.
‘Who’s taken over the laundry?’
‘Beda’s? No one, as far as I know. It’s been empty since it was put on the market.’
I stand up and have to support myself against the back of my chair when I lose my balance. I put my hat on, hang my overcoat over my arm and pick up the half-full bottle of Kron from the floor.
‘So soon?’
I nod.
‘Too many people. Not used to it. And it’s time for Dixie’s walk.’
Lundin gives me a nod and raises his snuff-brown fingers towards the brim of his hat. I do the same and turn towards the exit.
‘Brother!’
I turn around again.
‘Don’t go back inside for a while, not this time.’
Grinning indifferently, Lundin’s head drops onto his chest. I laugh out loud. The Jewel pushes her stocky little bloke out of my way as I stumble out into the cold November night, bottle in hand.
In the asphalted courtyard I can make out the yellow-painted latrine huts and the outhouses in the dark. I press the palm of my hand against the smooth pointing of the house wall and sway slightly as I feel my way to the door leading out of the courtyard, some three or four metres away. It’s cleared up. The stars seem to be dancing a quadrille across the night sky and I take deep breaths to purge my mind. The clean evening air mixes with the smell of refuse and excrement. I accidentally kick an empty bottle which clatters across the yard. A door slams somewhere.
The dark stairwell between the street and the courtyard smells faintly of coal fumes and turpentine. Drunkenly I pant, reaching for the wall. Slowly, my eyes grow accustomed to the darkness. Somewhere ahead of me there’s a scraping sound, and I look up. A damned night light in this entrance would not have done any harm.
‘As dark as a tomb.’
I take a few breathless steps and tumble into a soft body. Someone sighs deeply. I bounce back a full metre across the marble floor before I regain my balance.
‘Watch out, will you!’
My voice is hoarse from the schnapps. I squint, trying to focus. The features of a large man slowly emerge from the gloom of the stairwell: pronounced eyebrows, a rough-hewn nose riddled with gaping pores, full lips and broad, strong shoulders that completely fill his coat. It’s Rickardsson, the gangster who lives up by Roslagstull. Working with the Scythe Man, the ugly fuck is part of Ploman’s inner circle and controls a large share of the vodka trade in Vasastan. Lundin pays the swine ten per cent every month so he can pursue his own business in peace. Every time we bump into each other in the street he sizes me up as if he’s challenging me.
‘I’d say Kvisten’s had a drop too much.’
‘None of your damned rat poison, you can be sure of that.’
I hiss the words out of the corner of my mouth, like a cobbler with his gob full of tacks. I take a small step towards him, grinning as if we’re in opposite corners of the ring.
The whites of his eyes seem almost yellow in the darkness. He holds up his left palm. I catch sight of a wedding band on his finger. With his other hand he quickly opens the single button of his coat and folds open his overcoat and jacket. He’s not wearing a waistcoat either. From his waistband, the butt of a revolver sticks up like the head of a hammer from a carpenter’s belt. He puts one hand on it.
‘Let’s take it easy now, boy. Shall I help you home instead?’
For an instant, an image of Doughboy and his flea-bitten neck flashes before me. I stop, still grinning.
‘Has Rickardsson got so old that he needs a crutch for support?’
‘No trouble now. Take a bit of fresh air. Maybe I can take you for a stroll round the park.’
Rickardsson gives me a wide berth as he leaves. His expensive rhinoceros-hide boots ring out on the floor as he backs away into the courtyard. He has folded up his trouser legs so that the heels can be seen better. I grunt and show him my back as I continue on my way. Damned weakling to rely on his shooter like that.
The door creaks. An Ardennes mare harnessed to a gig clatters by on Roslagsgatan. The driver sits there all black and stiff, the reins in one hand and the whip in the other. The whiplashes show up as pale streaks across the horse’s glistening, sweaty hindquarters. One of the grey-painted ambulances of the Epidemic Hospital drives slowly northwards. I bumble along in the same direction. The light is still falling across the pavement from Beda’s old laundry. I put my cigar in my mouth and quicken my step.
I’m left standing for a moment outside Lundin’s undertakers. His sign squeaks unpleasantly in the faint breeze. I look up at the dark façade and get the feeling that the entire house is about to fall down on me. I gasp and stumble backwards into the road.
‘It’s been a good while since… Kvisten had a taste of the strong stuff.’
I sway to and fro, staring up at the clear, starry sky. It reminds me of the darkness of the packed crowd during a fight, pierced by hundreds of glowing cigarette ends and wide-open eyes.
‘Harry Kvisten Kvist… in a… magnificent comeback.’
I laugh and close my eyes. I hold up my arms into the air, spilling booze from the open bottle over my shirt front, while I jog clumsily on the spot.
For an instant I am there again: the darkness calls my name.
Dixie’s claws sound against the cork mat as I take her lead down from the hook next to the mirror. It’s time for a walk.
The faint tones of yet another waltz make their way into the street from the tenants’ shindig in number 41. The cold tears at my vodka-drenched shirt breast. I hear the far-off sound of laughter and chatter.
‘The schnapps in there must be flowing like butter in the Sahara.’
The cold November evening startles me out of my stupor. It’s blowing so hard that the cigar in my mouth burns at twice its normal rate. For a long while I stand on the other side of the street, keeping my eyes on the laundry. There’s no sign of that mysterious shadow.
Dixie whines and pulls, but I drag her along. We walk towards the Veterinary Institute and take a detour over the Johannes School’s yard. Dixie starts panting and her limping gets worse.
I put my hand in my pocket and finger the letter from Beda. I don’t have much of a sense of recall at the moment, but I remember my promise to the washerwoman, and words are there to be honoured. I have failed to keep a promise I made to someone I cared about one too many times already. Never again.
I hold the letter up in the light cast by a street lamp, and stare at the date. If old man Ström was right, Beda only wrote it a few weeks before she died. We cross to the opposite pavement before I drag Dixie back south again.
Up in Vanadislunden St Stefan’s Church strikes nine times. From the train station towards Albano, a freight train lets out a shriek. The air smells of burning spruce.
We are almost home now. Across the deserted street, Lundin’s shop sign is banging in the wind. Suddenly the pale light, falling over the pavement outside the laundry, is turned off. A bell tinkles, a door creaks and slams. I stop; my heart misses a beat.
Only a few metres in front of me, a figure with an upturned coat collar is hunched over the lock. He has a walking stick hooked over his lower arm. The silver hilt glitters in the dark.
‘Bleeding lock!’
The man curses, tugging at the key. His voice is deep. He’s still not seen me. Soundlessly I tie Dixie’s lead around a drainpipe. There’s a click as the lock clicks into place. The man in front of me sighs and tries to pull the key out. I glance around once, making sure I’m alone. Quickly I take off my tie and fold it up in my coat pocket before I charge at him. I move quicker than I have for years.
I twist the man round with a hand at his collar before I thump him into the laundry door. Dixie barks. The drainpipe rattles when she tugs at the lead. The man roars and pumps his arms up and down. Somehow he manages to whack me just under my eye with the silver hilt of his stick. The pain surges through my head like a piercing wolf-whistle.
My fingers quickly work their way up to his throat. His yelling comes to an abrupt end when I give him a squeeze and at the same time twist a left hook into his liver. It’s not an especially hard punch. My knuckles connect with his bottom rib. I let him go and the fucker goes down on all fours.
His hat rolls off and ends up in the gutter. His pocket watch falls out of his waistcoat and dangles under him like a pendulum. He gasps and coughs. Viscous threads of phlegm trail out of his mouth, like the tentacles of a jellyfish. I put my foot on his neck and press his face into the pavement. He still has too little air in him to yell. He starts fumbling with something, then holds out a black wallet.
I take my foot off the man’s neck. I turn towards the laundry and try to get the lock open. It gets caught and I have to fiddle with it for a moment before it releases. The man on the pavement thinks he can crawl off. He’s turned his arse towards me. I take aim and drive home my boot between his legs. Only now does he protest. He falls onto his side and yells, with his hands on his crotch and his legs drawn up into a foetal position. I hastily look around before grabbing him by the shoulder of his fur-trimmed overcoat, then drag him inside backwards. On the way in I hit the light switch.
The laundry looks the same as the last time I was here: a large square room five or six metres wide. Across it runs a counter of dark wood. There’s a sharp smell of starch and ammonia. For an instant I feel the vodka wanting to come back up. In a corner lies Petrus’s broom with the worn bristles pointing at us.
I drag the man a bit further and he rolls onto his side. His dark hair is greying at the temples and thinning on the crown of his head. A straight nose cleaves his grimacing face. He’s well dressed but under his waistcoat his cravat’s come undone and his watch-chain curls over the floor. I stand on the pocket watch and snap off the chain with my hand.
‘And your name is?’
‘Don’t hit me!’
His voice is shrill, desperate. A walkover.
‘I’ll beat you to death if you don’t tell me your name.’
In my stupor I stumble over my words. I smack my lips clumsily to soften up my mouth.
‘Kullberg. John Kullberg.’
‘And what are you doing here?’
‘I’ve purchased the shop. With the intention of opening a delivery firm.’
‘And when did you buy it?’
‘Yesterday.’
I bend down and grasp his collar. He raises his hands to protect his face. I pull him up onto his feet and dust him down. He’s wearing a thick tweed suit and galoshes on his feet. He whines and bends down to pick up his pocket watch.
‘Where do you keep the keys to the bedroom downstairs?’
I point to a door behind the counter.
‘These are business premises and according to the health and safety authorities cannot be used as a dwelling.’
‘Either bloody way they slept down there, the two of them. Do you know a murder was committed here?’
The man twists and turns and fingers his broken watch.
‘I was told that people around here didn’t know about it.’
‘Every snotty-nosed kid knows. Well? The keys?’
‘It’s probably open.’
‘But who’ll lock the front door?’
‘There’s nothing here to steal.’
‘What about homeless people?’
‘Wait outside, then, for Christ’s sake!’
The man twists again, still shaking. I wait until he’s gone, then I open the counter. A swelling thumps to life under my eye. Bruised by a bloody old codger. Wouldn’t have happened if I’d been sober. Harry Kvist in another amazing comeback.
The back door glides open without a sound. Another door behind it leads to the shed in the courtyard, where the boiling pots and mangles are kept. I go down the dark staircase and enter the small cellar room.
I light a match and find the light switch. The lamp doesn’t work. The stench of piss and mould finds its way into my misshapen nose. The match head burns my fingertips, I shake it out and light another. The shorter wall of the little room is covered in tarred pipes. Behind one of the welds is a large, black wet patch on the cement wall.
Along both of the longer sides are narrow cast-iron beds. Again I blow out my match. A cellar rat darts over my feet. I flinch and drop the box of matches. It hits the floor somewhere in front of me. A surging sound comes from one of the pipes.
‘Damn it.’
Through the door above comes a faint light.
I wait a while but my eyes don’t adjust to the dark. My knees click as I go down on all fours. I fumble over the coarse concrete floor. In the end I find the matchbox. As I get up I kick something. A bucket falls over with a clattering sound. The sharp smell of month-old piss assaults my nostrils. Again my stomach turns but I’m not someone who wastes vodka unnecessarily. I light another match and breathe through my mouth.
Between the beds lies a zinc bucket which has been used as a chamber pot. The bed linen is disordered. I check one of the mattresses. It’s lumpy to the touch, stuffed with rags and other cast-offs, but there’s no blood on it. I hold up the sheets in the flickering glow of the flame. They’re completely white. I toss them back and throw aside the match. It hisses and goes out on the floor.
Yet another match, forming a shivering ball of light. I lean over the other bed. On the pillow are a couple of scattered, rust-red drops, and that’s all I find. I stare at them. Possibly Beda died here, but no skull was ever crushed in this bed. I’ve worked over a couple of blokes in my day, and I know what a damned nasty mess results when you make a proper job of it. I curse as the flame burns the tips of my fingers again.
My steps echo as I go up the narrow stairs. In the shop the sudden light blinds me, like when you’re released after several days in a dark solitary cell. Little Doughboy appears in my head, and I slow my steps. The greying bloke is standing outside with his broken pocket watch in his hand. I let him wait a few minutes more.
The cash register has been emptied of money. In a cardboard box on a shelf underneath is a pad of carbon paper. Squinting so I can focus my eyes, I look through a dozen receipts at the top. There seem to be several different handwriting styles. I know Beda’s handwriting and she has not written these. The topmost receipt is dated the seventeenth of September. Ström, the junk dealer, apparently handed in a shirt and overcoat. The slanted pencilled letters seem to be leaning against each other on the grey-hued paper. I copy everything into my notebook and lift the hatch in the counter with a thump. I open the door. A northerly wind raging down the street hits me square in the face. It stinks of winter. I turn to Kullberg, who’s working on reacquiring his dignity by firmly clenching his jaw. I go back and talk to him.
‘Who sold you this property?’
‘Miss Johansson.’
‘Who?’
‘She inherited it from her mother.’
‘Inherited?’
‘And I certainly didn’t think that I’d be assaulted the first time I came to look it over.’
‘You looked like a burglar.’
I pull the elastic strap off my wallet.
‘But you said yourself that there was nothing here to steal,’ he complained.
I hand over two five-krona bills: ‘So you can have your pocket watch repaired.’
‘I’ve a good mind to call the police about you!’
The wrinkles around his mouth deepen when the measly old bloke purses his lips, but he takes the money. The vein in my forehead starts to throb. I feel like putting my feet on the bastard’s neck again. This time I’ll make sure that he puts his teeth against the edge of the pavement. I clench my fists: ‘Listen: not a soul saw what happened here. It was a mistake, the whole thing. Get lost now!’
I get out another five-krona bill and tuck it into the breast pocket of his overcoat: ‘Welcome to Sibirien.’