Let the Old Dreams Die (15 page)

Where are his clothes?

The alarm clock next to the bed had stopped at twenty past eleven. I pulled a chair up to the bed, sat down and let my gaze wander over the body.

I have to say it again: he was almost perfect. Muscular, but not over the top. A body moving in H
₂
O, seven letters: swimmer. His jaw-line was well defined, casting a black shadow over his throat in the electric light. His lips could have convinced me that he was alive. Pale and bloodless, yes, but not sunken; they were full, pouting as if he were waiting for the kiss of life. His brow was high and smooth and his blond, medium-length hair was swept back. He was very handsome.

The only thing that spoiled the impression was the hair on his chest. Blond, almost white hair curling down towards his abdomen.
Not too much, but enough to be disturbing. And then there was the penis. The idea was new to me, I’ve never seen a dead body before, but is there anything more pathetic than a dead man’s penis? So utterly, so mercilessly…unnecessary.

I took one of the blankets out of the wardrobe and spread it over his lower abdomen. I suppose I really should have covered his face as well—something to do with respect.

But I didn’t feel any respect. No. Now the initial shock had subsided I felt only…excitement.

‘Hi there, you,’ I said.

He didn’t reply. I would have liked to know his name, so that I could use it. For the time being I decided to call him You. I wasn’t scared at all. Perhaps it was the absence of blood, the undisturbed condition of the body that made the whole thing unreal.

I sat with him for a good while. When I left, after checking that there was no one in sight on the road, I left the patio door on the latch.

By the mailboxes I counted back and forth between the houses I knew, and worked out that the man’s mailbox was number 354. There was a name too. Svensson. I found it so comical that the man was called Svensson that I started to laugh. I had imagined something along the lines of, oh, I don’t know, Delafour, Sander, anything at all, but not
Svensson
.

Of course there was nothing to indicate that the man on the bed was the owner of the house. I had never seen him before. As I walked home I tried out the name: ‘Svensson…Svensson.’

Oh well. It wasn’t too bad after all. Could be anybody.

I remember those days, those first days. Wonderful days. Blissful expectation running through my body, like honey. Lasse noticed the change in me, he said it was as if there was light all around me. Or as if the darkness had ebbed away—same thing, really. I played with
the children, I cooked delicious meals. In the evenings, while we were watching TV, I curled up in Lasse’s arms. I loved him because he was simple and imperfect, dirty like me. Another person.

And I was longing to be somewhere else. All the time.

I was afraid of two things: that the people who owned the house would come back, and that the weather would get warmer, begin the thaw.

However, my reasoning was this: either the man on the bed is the person who owns the house, or the people who own the house have something to do with his death. Neither of these alternatives would lead to the man being moved. I know, I know, it wasn’t exactly watertight, but that’s the way I reasoned in order to calm myself down.

With regard to my other fear, there was nothing to worry about. The weather forecast promised that the cold spell would continue.

So I curled up in Lasse’s arms and smiled at the weatherman as he pointed to his minus signs and his snow flurries. Everything was as it should be.

As soon as the children had gone back to school and Lasse back to work, I headed over to the house. I was wearing several layers of thin woollen sweaters so that I could cope with remaining still for a long time without suffering too much.

What did I do once I was in there?

It’s hard to describe, really. You could call it a confession. I told you everything, and you listened. I looked at you as I talked. You were so good to look at. Like a Greek statue. I caressed you.

No. Not like
that
. It was pointless, of course, and perhaps that was actually part of the point. I could caress you without it meaning
that
. I could caress you because you were beautiful, like a statue. I told you how beautiful I thought you were, and that you were mine and mine alone.

Is that sick?

Well yes, I suppose it is. I knew that while I was doing it. I knew I was doing something ugly, something bad. But I said to myself: what crime am I committing? I suppose the closest thing is desecrating a corpse. But how can it be desecration: talking to someone, caressing someone, telling that person how beautiful he is? If that’s desecration, then what is love?

Before everything changed there was really only one thing I did that you could regard as overstepping the mark. On the third day I took Lasse’s shaving things with me and shaved off your pubic hair and the hair on your chest. It bothered me so much, all that hair. I call it overstepping the mark, because it’s something you would hardly have agreed to, given the option.

But you weren’t a person. You were a dead thing, I was the one who had found you, and you looked so much better without all that hair. Completely smooth. No longer almost perfect, but totally perfect.

The knife?

You might think that would spoil the picture, the red handle sticking up out of your chest and breaking the surface of the skin. Equinox. Quite the reverse, in my opinion. It acted like a beauty spot, six letters: mouche. It was all about a fixed point, somewhere for the eye to focus before it moved on to the rest of your beauty.

And, if I’m truthful, I was afraid to pull it out. I mean, I’ve read the fairy tales. The sword is pulled out of the dead king’s body. He turns to stone, crumbles to dust and is gone. So I made a virtue of necessity, called it a mouche and left it where it was.

Your eyes were closed, and I told you everything. I told you things I didn’t even know I felt before I met you, found you. The constant sense of unreality, the veil between me and the world. How I would suddenly feel as if Emil and Johanna were dolls, and not mine at all. How I would be able to see Lasse in bed with X-ray
vision, and realise that he consisted of minced beef packed into a bag of skin. A hundred kilos of mince. How I would have to close my eyes.

You lay naked before me. You were beautiful and you listened.

If only things had stayed that way.

It started on the sixth day, a Monday.

I had been forced to leave you alone over the weekend for family reasons. I don’t remember what I did that weekend. I think I baked a big batch of vanilla cakes. Emil and I watched Astrid Lindgren’s
Alla vi barn i bullerbyn
, which was being repeated for the hundredth time. You just have to grin and bear it.

I was desperate by Monday morning, when they’d all gone. Just to test myself, to discipline myself, I chopped a couple of armfuls of wood and filled up the basket by the fire before I set off. I almost ran to your house, hardly bothering to look around. My heart was beating fast, I think I was blushing.

As always I was afraid something might have changed during my absence. But the snow that had fallen during the weekend lay undisturbed on the drive and there were no marks on the porch. I went inside.

When I walked into your room I stood motionless in the doorway for several minutes. You were lying there with the blanket pulled up to the knife handle. The contours of your body were clearly visible beneath the thin woollen fabric.

A new kind of beauty, but not created by my hand. I was one hundred per cent certain: I had left you naked. On the rare occasions when I had covered you with the blanket, I had placed it over your lower abdomen. I had never covered your whole body. But now the blanket was draped halfway up your chest.

I stood there motionless, listening. There had been no marks in the snow, so there must be someone else inside the house. Someone
who had been there all the time.

No point in pretending otherwise: I was scared. Scared and embarrassed. There was someone in the house, someone who had known about my comings and goings, perhaps listened to my confessions. Someone knew more about me than I would wish any living person to know.

I took a carving knife from the magnetic holder in the kitchen and spent over an hour searching the entire house. I opened every cupboard, every wardrobe, every drawer, even if it was actually too small for anyone to hide in. I found nothing, and the impression I had gained on the first day was reinforced: apart from the tipped-over saltcellar, there was nothing to indicate that the house had ever been lived in.

I went back to you and sat down.

‘How did you get the blanket over you?’

That was the first question I asked you. My monologues had never taken the form of questions; I had no interest in speculating about your life among the living. You were simply here.

During the search I had grown hot and sweaty in all my layers. It was as if an extinguishing material, two words, six letters: dry ice had been injected directly into my muscles as you parted your blue lips and uttered three words:

‘I was cold.’

Your voice was weak, hollow, as if it came from far away. My body was suddenly ice cold, I was frozen to the chair. Your lips closed. You had parted them just far enough to allow the words to escape. It was a long time before my vocal cords thawed out sufficiently for me to speak:

‘You can’t be cold. You’re dead.’

Did I see the faintest twitch at the corner of your mouth? The hint of a smile? Your lips opened again, a little further this time. You said, ‘You’re dead too. You’re wearing sweaters.’

‘I’m not dead.’

‘You’re not alive.’

Only now did it strike me as odd that you knew I was wearing sweaters. But then my gaze slid up to your eyes. They were open. Only a fraction, a slightly denser shadow below the eyelid. Like someone having a pleasurable experience, or about to fall asleep. Or someone who has just woken up. I couldn’t see your eyes.

A person’s ability to deal with new situations is a strange thing. You were talking to me. I hadn’t imagined that you would be able to talk to me. But when you did, I accepted it. What else could I do?
You’ve made your bed, and now you must lie in it.
That’s what my mother used to say. I hated that expression. When I hear myself saying it to my own children I am seized by the urge to punch myself on the nose. But that’s the way it is.

I think you were looking at me from beneath those almost-closed eyelids. I asked, ‘Would you like another blanket?’

‘Yes.’

I fetched the other blanket from the wardrobe and spread it over you. When I had done that, I folded my arms and said, ‘I have no intention of becoming some kind of nursemaid, you know.’

Your head moved slowly from side to side and you said, ‘I don’t need anything.’ Your voice was very weak. I had to strain to hear the words. There was something cheeky, eleven letters: impertinent about the way you said you didn’t need anything. A kind of smugness. I looked at you. Under the blankets you looked more like a normal sick person.

I removed the blankets.

‘In that case you won’t be needing these either.’

I carefully folded the blankets and put them back in the wardrobe. You didn’t object. When I turned back to face you again, everything was as it should be. Your naked, shaved body stretched
out on the bed, just the way I wanted it. Perhaps by way of apology I said it again:

‘You can’t be cold. You’re dead.’

‘I understand.’

‘What do you understand?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Come on, tell me. I’m curious about what you understand when you’re dead.’

You didn’t reply. I gave your shoulder a push, just a little one.

‘Tell me.’

No reply. Your eyelids were closed once more. I sat beside you for a while longer. You were so beautiful to look at. It wasn’t the time for any more confessions. When I got up to leave, you said something I didn’t hear, so I bent down and put my ear close to your mouth.

‘What did you say?’

The lips parted. I was aware of a faint aroma of something like frozen berries. You said, ‘I don’t want you to come here anymore.’

I straightened up.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘But that’s not actually your decision to make.’

Your face was so rigid that it was impossible to pick up any kind of reaction. I waited a few seconds for a futile protest. When it didn’t come, I left the house for that day.

From now on I am going to omit all my reaction and speculation on the fact that a dead man was talking to me. Of course I turned the problem over in my head, many many times. You weren’t really dead (of course you were dead. You had spent at least six days lying in a room where the temperature was below freezing), I was mad (I wasn’t mad, there was nothing in my behaviour to suggest that I was mad), I was imagining the whole thing, and so on and so on.

But it was a fact. From now on we will take that as read.

When I got home, earlier than usual despite the hour I had spent searching the house, I was disappointed. Sad. In spite of my hard attitude, your last remark had hurt me. I cried for a while. Then I tried to do some work on a crossword. I had a deadline to meet. It didn’t go well, so I sent an old one from
Hemmets Journal
to
Allers
, and vice versa. The one for
Kamratposten
wasn’t so urgent.

I knew it wasn’t a good thing to do. The crosswords I sent were no more than four years old. The editor wouldn’t notice a thing, but I could guarantee some old bag in Småland or somewhere like that would complain. People with photographic memories enjoy doing crosswords, or so I’ve heard.

Your body was all I could see during the hour I spent sitting at the computer, trying to come up with new combinations of words, witty little secondary meanings. Only your body, your perfect face. You no longer belonged to me. You had taken yourself away from me.

What right did you have to do that?

Yes, the disappointment slowly changed to anger. Anger because I wasn’t good enough for you. Because you preferred to lie dead and alone in that bare room rather than to have me by your side. My secrets and my musings on life weren’t good enough for you,
Svensson
.