Shadow Page 11

In the room was a framed photograph of Annika. In a gap in the row of books it stood wedged in next to a white porcelain figurine, a little boy who lay resting against a dog. Jan-Erik went over and took down the small frame. He rubbed his sleeve over the dusty glass. She was ten years old in the picture, with five years left to live. Her hair was in pigtails and she was smiling at the camera. He missed her, often wondering how everything would have been if she were still alive. She still felt so familiar, like a part of him; only no one could see her. In appearance she was always twelve years old, the way she was the last time he had seen her. But in his mind she had aged along with him. Or else it could be that in his internal conversations with her he was still back in the time when she was alive. What a person had shared with a sibling could never be transferred to anyone else. It was a relationship built on common experiences, the fact that they were in such close proximity during the stage of life when they had no choice of their own. The fact that they were marked by the same environment. Sometimes he would even type her name into Google to see if there were any others besides him who remembered her. He never got any hits.

  She was fifteen years old when she was run over. The driver of the car had never come forward. He didn’t know many details, because it had happened while he was abroad.

  With the photograph in his hand he sank into one of the library armchairs. He stroked his finger over her face. He should never have left her alone.

  At first it had all been like a dream, too good to be true – he had received a scholarship. His tennis coach, who recognised his talent, had helped him with the formalities. Without him saying a word at home, the application had been sent in and accepted. For three years he would study at a college in Florida and be part of the school’s successful tennis team. Everything had been arranged when he had proudly come home to tell them. He had imagined the scene, how at the dinner table when everyone was gathered together he would take out the letter and pass it around. How he would silently read the astonished reactions on their faces. How his father would be ashamed that he hadn’t understood, and regret that he had never come to watch a match. And finally he would realise that his son had his own rare talent, despite his inability to see poetry in the simplest objects. Unlike his father Jan-Erik was the type who simply saw a dustbin when he saw a dustbin, and not a ‘vessel for unwanted memories’. And there had been a reaction, but not the one he had imagined. His mother congratulated him and then took another gulp of wine, which was to be expected. But his father’s reaction he could not have predicted, not from this man who had never before cared. Sports were not something for intellectuals, Jan-Erik was informed; one might devote oneself to sports in order to keep the body in shape, to oxygenate the blood and thus facilitate the flow of knowledge. Tennis was a sport for the upper class, for spoilt rich kids, and he certainly hoped that his son was not turning into one of them.

  Jan-Erik had sat there silent, incapable of matching his wild hopes with what was actually happening.

  His mother got up from the table and glared at her husband.

  ‘You’re an idiot and you know it,’ she said.

  Then she refilled her wine glass and went upstairs. Annika followed right behind her. Alone, father and son finished dinner in indignant silence.

  Several days passed, and for the first time he had dared take up the fight. In his seventeenth year he had finally opened hostilities. At first timidly, but after daring a few times he had begun to enjoy being able to slam doors, stomp up the stairs and in wrath say whatever he liked. He remembered Annika, the way she had sometimes slunk along the walls. He had no memory of his mother’s actions during the war. Only the eternal dressing gown, which she wore more and more often. And Gerda’s nervous comments – ‘He only wants what’s best for you’ and ‘Is it really worth all this?’ And then the resolution, which on his father’s part was a concession. Of course he could go to America if he wanted to, Axel had even arranged everything for him with the help of his contacts. American Field Service had a student exchange programme with the objective of promoting understanding, contact and friendly relations between students from Europe and the United States. It was a context in which a Ragnerfeldt belonged, and the tickets were already booked.

  At that moment Jan-Erik had realised for the first time how much he hated his father, and staying in the house had seemed impossible. A month later he had left, his own plans defeated and travelling on his father’s tickets. He ended up in a little dump of a town in the Midwest, living with a conservative middle-class family with Christian values. The Vietnam War was raging, and the family stood wholeheartedly behind their president. He himself had not been very involved. But around Christmas in 1972, being Swedish was enough to land him in the opposition camp. The prime minister Olof Palme had criticised the United States and compared the continuous bombing of North Vietnam to Hitler’s attacks during the Second World War. In a rage President Nixon had refused to receive the new Swedish ambassador. Jan-Erik had done his best to be accepted anyway. He had devotedly assimilated American culture and set a new personal record for adaptation.

  He jumped when his phone rang. The sudden sound in the empty house frightened him. It was Louise’s number; she was ringing from the shop. He hesitated, wanting to let it ring and have the voicemail pick it up, but he knew that wasn’t a good solution. He had used that trick too many times before.

  ‘Jan-Erik.’

  ‘It’s me.’ He didn’t want anything from her so he said nothing.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘At the house. I’m looking for a photo of Gerda Persson.’

  ‘How’d it go with your father?’

  ‘Same as usual. No improvement, at any rate.’

  ‘When are you coming home?’

  She sounded different from that morning. He could almost imagine that they were having a normal conversation in which one could say anything that came into one’s mind rather than having to screen things out.

  ‘I have to look for that photo. I don’t know how long it will take, I just got here.’

  ‘Are you coming home after that?’

  ‘Yes.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘You know, I just want to say that I’m glad we had that talk this morning, even though it was hard. I think something good can come out of it.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Anyway, I just wanted to tell you that. I’ll see you later then.’

  ‘Sure. Bye.’

  He hung up. Her new tone worried him; it had sounded almost like a rapprochement.

  He got up and put the photo of Annika back on the shelf, adjusting the angle so it could be properly seen. It struck him that it had been a long time since he’d been to her grave, but he had never really felt any connection with the place. How could he? Her name on the headstone proved that she was lying there, but he had never seen her with his own eyes. His father had refused to pay for the trip home, since Jan-Erik had refused to use the return ticket he had already financed. Against his parents’ will he had stayed in the States after finishing his studies, and for two years he had hitchhiked around with no goal except to avoid going home. It had taken him ten months to make enough money for a plane ticket, and in the meantime he’d missed both Annika’s funeral and the Nobel ceremony for his father. But he did make it home in time to see Björn Borg win at Wimbledon. They had met twice as junior players. One time Jan-Erik had been close to beating him.

  It had begun to grow dark outside when he opened the door to his father’s office. His hand found the new light switch. He stopped in the doorway. About a month after his father had his stroke, when Jan-Erik had become used to the idea that no one was going to stop him, he had gone in and sat down behind the desk. He had sat there for a long time, absorbing the feeling. Then he had carefully pulled out the top desk drawer, just to see how it felt, and then pushed it back in.

  One wall was filled with bookshelves, most of them holding Axel’s books translated into various langua
ges. The opposite wall was covered with certificates and framed photographs, and here and there was a space where a signed picture had once been. He went over to the wall. None of the photos was of the family. They were all from some award ceremony or banquet with dignitaries. Believing that he would find Gerda anywhere was hopeless.

  He went over to the cupboard door. He had only looked inside once before, and he’d found the key in the desk drawer. The darkness and raw cold struck him, and he realised that he needed a pocket torch. There was one on the shelf inside the door to the cellar; it had always been there. Removing it would have been ill-advised, since his mother had always been meticulous about everything having its place, and her reaction was unpredictable. Yes, the pocket torch was right where it should be, despite the fact that no one would ever be angry again, as if it had learned to obey all on its own. Nothing happened when he pushed the button on it. He went to the kitchen and pulled out the fourth drawer from the top – the drawer for batteries, elastic bands and clingfilm. There was an unopened packet. It occurred to him how strange it was to find charged batteries in the deserted house. As if they were the only things still alive. They lay there, ready, waiting for something that no one knew would ever happen. He changed the batteries and went back to the library.

  There was a half-full rubbish bag inside the door. He shone the torch beam into it and saw printed materials and other papers. He would take those with him when he left – if his father had intended to throw them away they were undoubtedly rubbish. Axel had saved everything. Jan-Erik’s mother had called his hoarding a disease.

  The cupboard was bigger than the others in the house, and ran along one whole side of the room. Heaps of paper, magazines, folders, binders, fan letters, newspaper clippings and boxes. All in a godforsaken mess that could not have been systematic even for the person who had once stuffed it all in. It would take weeks to clean out, sorting through what should be saved. The rubbish bag was a sign that his father had already begun, but considering the small amount in the bag and the quantity left he hadn’t got very far. The dream was to find an unpublished manuscript somewhere in the mess. After his Nobel Prize, his father had only published a few books; they were well received by the critics, but there was no real enthusiasm for them. It was clear to everyone that Shadow had been the high point of his career, a level he never managed to achieve again. But an unknown manuscript published after his death would bring in a considerable sum, even if it was from his declining years.

  Jan-Erik began to dig through the piles, at a loss as to where to start. Notebooks, reviews, letters from admirers, programme flyers for author visits and the follow-up articles in the press. Much of what he found he was interested in studying further, but he knew this was not the right time. Even finding a photograph of Gerda might take hours. He opened a cardboard box full of old letters and to his relief found some old photographs. He took the box over to the desk and sat down. He moved the typewriter and set the box in its place. The first photo was an old black-and-white snapshot showing his father’s parents; the next was in colour and more recent, and they looked just as he remembered them. They had come to visit occasionally, always formally dressed, his grandfather in a suit and tie and his grandmother in a dress. They had moved about the rooms cautiously as if they were afraid to knock something over. They would come on the occasion of some celebration, and he recalled that even as a child he had noticed the way his father changed. He had looked on in wonder as Axel suddenly lost his usual commanding presence and instead dashed about the house showing off his fine prizes and framed certificates. His grandparents had looked on wide-eyed but didn’t say much, except for trivial remarks about some detail of a frame. Otherwise they had seemed to be more comfortable in the kitchen with Gerda, who on those occasions was always welcome to eat with the family in the dining room. And he suddenly remembered one Christmas dinner when they had been using the fine china, and his grandmother had tipped over her glass on the white tablecloth. Her face had turned crimson despite all assurances that it didn’t matter in the least, and she hadn’t eaten another bite. Not until Gerda happened to tip over a half-full beer bottle ‘by accident’.

  They had died in the mid-eighties, four days apart, and at the joint funeral Jan-Erik had seen his father cry for the first and only time.

  He put the lid back on the box and went back to the cupboard, determined to start at a different corner. There was a box on the floor at the back. A tall pile of papers was stacked on top. He lifted them off and opened the box. The first letter was dated 1976 and was from a publisher, but the date showed that he was in the right time frame. He took the box out to the light in the office.

  He found it somewhere in the middle of the pile, after he’d glanced through his father’s name and address on countless envelopes and other items of mail. It was not at all what he was looking for, but the printed text up in the corner attracted his interest. A brown envelope from the police. He pulled out a folded sheet of paper, and everything he thought he knew became meaningless in an instant.

  It was a police report.

  Annika’s full name, address, and Social Security number. The words underneath made his body react as though he’d been startled by a sudden bang.

  Immediate cause of death: Hanging.

  Manner of death: Suicide.

  12

  ‘When you hear the tone – ding-a-ling – it means it’s time to turn the page. Now we’ll begin.’

  Kristoffer pushed the stop button on the old tape player. Many years had passed since he’d listened to the cassette. When he moved it had been packed in a carton and always had its obvious place among his belongings, but now he could no longer listen to it.

  If a person had been waiting for a phone call for thirty-one years and that call finally came, how would that person be expected to react? Kristoffer didn’t know. For five hours he had sat motionless on the sofa, incapable of feeling anything at all. The little scrap of paper on which he’d written the number lay beside him on the sofa cushion; occasionally he would turn his head to look at it.

  Named as sole beneficiary in a will.

  As long as he could remember, he had been afraid of the dark. He always slept with a light on when nobody else was around. Terror gripped him whenever what was revealed by the light disappeared into the dark; he had fantasies about what took shape when he could no longer see. Right now the room lay in darkness. Only the stubborn blinking from the closed lid of his laptop shone at regular intervals, pulsating like visual heartbeats. He hadn’t eaten, hadn’t called anyone, hadn’t done anything at all. Just sat there motionless, trying to decide what to feel.

  Biding his time.

  He had always waited. And yet he was incapable of pressing down the numbers on the telephone. Like a magic formula they would transport him to the desired place, the place he had always dreamt of, though he knew nothing about it.

  Who would he be transformed into once he did arrive?

  His ego had been formed on two foundations. One was everything that it was possible to see, everything tangible with which he could have a relationship. The second consisted of what had always been out of reach, the hidden world where he belonged but to which he had always lacked access. Who was he? Why was he the way he was? Did he have any genetic traits? What had been affected by what?

  Who was it who had once chosen his name?

  And then the fundamental question, the one he’d carried with him like an invisible stigma: why had he been abandoned?

  The missing answers had become a part of his identity. Time after time he had been forced to invent his background, altering details when the old ones had worn out, adapting it to new demands.

  All the conversations he’d been forced to listen to; about hopeless parents and insufferable family get-togethers, Christmases that had to be endured and family squabbles about weeks of holiday in summer cabins that were a shared inheritance. Bitter battles, broken family relations and sick parents who required time-consumin
g care. He had always hidden behind the claim that his parents were dead. Someone had even had the bad taste to express envy because he had the freedom to do as he pleased without having to be subjected to a guilty conscience.

  All around him was emptiness. Everyone else he knew was anchored to a clear chain in which the links could be followed. But he hovered freely with nothing holding him. He dreamt of finding the chain that was his, the one that would become whole when the missing link was finally rediscovered.

  Kristoffer had been about four years old when he moved in with his foster family. Apparently they had handled the situation as well as they could. They had answered his questions to the best of their ability, but what could they say when there were no answers to give? The police investigation had produced no result. He had only been able to give a first name for his mamma, and everyone named Elina had been contacted with no result. He had never named a pappa.

  At ten years old his foster parents had taken him to Stockholm and showed him the steps at Skansen. He got to meet the guard who had found him, who had never been able to forget the experience. But none of the questions Kristoffer asked him had produced an acceptable answer.

  Sometimes a vague sensation would float by, a second-long feeling rather than a memory. Always torn out of its context, squeezed in between dim and incomprehensible thoughts.

  He had created his own truth for himself, convinced that his real parents would soon show up. Overjoyed at finally finding him again, they would take him home to his real life, away from the life where he was simply waiting. They would explain how crushed they had been, how a horrible witch had locked them in a tower and refused to let them go. How they finally in spite of difficult hardships managed to escape, prepared to do anything to see him again. Over the years his fantasies had developed and the explanations became less like fairy tales, but the feeling that he was living in a temporary situation had never left him. He decided that it wasn’t worth immersing himself in anything, since at any moment he would have to start over.