The Best Intentions (5 page)

In addition to asparagus, the menu includes salmon mousse with green sauce, spring chicken (hard to handle), and Anna's masterpiece, a trembling crème caramel.

After coffee in the salon, they make music. Dusk is falling, and they light candles around the musicians, who are playing the slow movement of Beethoven's last string quartet. Johan Åkerblom plays the cello; Carl is a good amateur violinist, member of the Academic Orchestra. Ernst plays the second violin, with great feeling but less success. A retired member of the Royal Opera House orchestra comes down for coffee from his apartment above, with his viola, a courteous shadow, benevolent and somewhat haughty. He can hardly bear to
make music in this company, but the superintendent of traffic has underwritten loans for him and his suffering is prescribed.

Music and dusk. Henrik sinks . . . all this is dreamlike, outside and beyond his own colorless days. Anna is sitting by the window, looking steadily at the musicians and listening with attention, her profile outlined against the dying light outside. Now she senses she is being watched and controls her first impulse, but then gives in and turns to look at Henrik. He is looking gravely at her, and she smiles slightly formally, slightly ironically, but then becomes grave in response to Henrik's solemnity I see you, all right. I see.

Now it is time to leave, and farewells are being exchanged. Henrik bows and says thank you in all directions and for a brief moment finds Anna in front of him. She stands on tiptoe and whispers quickly into his ear, her hair fragrant, a light touch.

Anna:
My name's Anna and yours is Henrik, isn't it?

She at once goes and stands beside her father, taking his arm and leaning her head on his shoulder, all of it a trifle theatrical, but affectionate, not without talent.

Henrik is quite dumbfounded (that's what it's called, banal but at the moment there is no better word, dumbfounded). So he's standing in bewilderment on the corner of Trädgårdsgatan and Little Ågatan. He ought to go home and write that painful letter to his mother, but it's early and he's lonely. Ernst was off on some escapade and had been in a hurry, rushing down Drottninggatan with his coattails flying.

The chestnuts are out, and band music can be heard from the city park. The cathedral clock strikes nine, and the Gunilla bell replies with delicate clangs from the hill above the Sture Vaults.

Someone pokes Henrik on the shoulder. It's Carl. He is benevolent now, exuding brandy.

Carl:
Shall we walk together, Mr. Bergman? Shall we, for instance, take this street straight down to Svandammen and look at the three cygnets,
Cyg-Nus Ocor,
or the black swan,
Chenopsis Atrata,
which has just been imported from Australia? Or shall we extend our promenade by exactly a hundred meters, take a glass of liqueur together — and last but not least, look at the three brand new whores they've acquired from Copenhagen? We'll go to the Flustret, Mr. Bergman. Let's go to the Flustret!

Carl smiles winningly and pats Henrik on the cheek with a soft little hand.

They sit out on the Flustret's glassed-in veranda. The evening is still; people have settled out-of-doors in the mild early summer twilight. Only a few seedy lecturers huddle indoors in bitter solitude, guarding their night drinks. A slim, strikingly lovely waitress comes up to the table to take their order. She gives a little bob and greets them.

Frida:
Good evening, sir. Good evening, Mr. Bergman. What would you like this evening?

Carl:
Half a bottle of punsch liqueur, Miss Frida, if we may? The usual — and some cigars, please.

Frida:
I'll tell the girl.

She nods and turns on her heel. Carl watches her go, a blue gaze behind the pince-nez.

Carl:
You seem to know Miss Frida, Mr. Bergman.

Henrik:
No, not really. We sometimes come here to eat when we have any money. No, I don't know her.

Carl
(
sharp-eyed
): Color has come into the pastor's cheeks, Mr. Bergman. Is this a denial? Are we going to hear the cock crow?

Henrik:
I know only that her name's Frida and she's from Ångermaland. (
Pulls himself together.
) Nice-looking girl.

Carl:
Very nice looking, very. Doubtful reputation. Or? What do you think, Mr. Bergman? Theological training is said to provide insight into human weaknesses. Or should I say a nose for them?

The cigarette girl comes with her tray and supplies the gentlemen with Havana cigars. Carl pays and tips her generously. The girl clips and lights their cigars. They puff away and lean back.

Carl:
Well, Mr. Bergman, what did you think of the evening?

Henrik:
In what way, Mr. Åkerblom?

Carl:
What did you think of us, to put it bluntly?

Henrik:
I've never had a four-course dinner with three different wines before. It was like being at the theater. I was sitting there in the middle of your play, expected to perform with you, but didn't know my lines.

Carl:
Very well put!

Henrik:
It was all very attractive but also repelling. Or rather, inaccessible. I don't mean to be critical.

Carl:
Inaccessible?

Henrik:
Even if I wanted to get into your world and had ambitions to act in your play it would be impossible.

Frida brings the liqueur in a cooler and two small glasses with no stems, slightly misted over. Carl looks at Henrik with mild attention. Henrik doesn't dare meet Frida's eyes. Supposing she kisses me on the mouth, or puts her hand on the back of my neck? What would that matter? Actually, things are inaccessible in her direction, too. Perhaps in all directions? Outside? thinks Henrik with bitter voluptuousness. Outside?

Carl:
My stepmother, Karin, plays the main part in our insignificant family drama. Mammchen is a remarkable character, considerably larger than life. Some people say that's our little bit of luck; others maintain she's an out-and-out bitch. If anyone happened to ask
me,
I would say she wants what is good and does what is evil, to paraphrase — yes, it's Romans, isn't it? Her ambition is to keep the family together, whatever point there is in that. If something doesn't fit in with the pattern, she cuts it out, amputates it, deforms it. She does that well, the charming little lady.

Carl raises his glass to Henrik, who answers his toast, and they look at each other with sympathy.

Carl:
May I be so bold as to suggest a fraternal toast? My name's Carl Ebehard, '89. Thank you.

Henrik:
Erik Henrik Fredrik, '06. Thank you.

The ritual is carried out, and the newly created brothers carefully observe the quiet that usually follows such a significant event.

Carl:
I'm an inventor, really, and have had a few minor inventions accepted by the Royal Patent Office. I'm a failure in the eyes of the family, the black sheep. I've been in the lunatic asylum a couple of times. I'm no madder than anyone else but am considered somewhat incoherent. Our family has produced so damned much normality that there's some surplus craziness, and I see to that.
In addition,
I happened to clash with the law a few years ago. I imitate other people's handwriting far too well. To be a priest, one should believe in some kind of god, shouldn't one? Isn't that one of the principal conditions?

Henrik:
Yes, that's probably a principal condition.

Carl:
How the hell can any young person today believe in God? Excuse the intentionally tactless way I put it.

Carl:
. . . an inner voice? A feeling of being in someone's hands? Of not being left out, excluded? Like a warm breath on your cheek? Like being a small pulse beating in an immense circulation system? A not insignificant pulse, despite the vastness of the network of arteries and veins. Purpose, pattern, moments of grace? No, I'm not being ironic. It's just my throat never ceases throwing up sarcastic belches. I'm being terribly serious, young man.

Henrik:
Why do you ask, if you know?

Carl:
I think a man born blind can perfectly well imagine things in red, blue, and yellow.

Henrik:
I'm an irresolute person. I like to think the cassock may perhaps be a good corset. I'll probably be a good priest for my own sake. Not for humanity's.

Frida returns, puts the bill down on the table beside Carl, then glances at Henrik.

Frida:
I'm sorry to bring you the bill, but as you gentlemen perhaps saw on the notice down in the hall, we're closing early tonight. We have a breakfast for the whole Senate tomorrow morning, and we have to set all the tables tonight.

Carl:
So Miss Frida is . . .

Frida:
. . . busy this evening? (
Laughs
.) You could say that.

While Carl is paying and putting back his wallet with some ceremony, Frida leans over behind Henrik and pinches his ear. This occurs swiftly and unnoticeably. She smells good, slightly pungently of sweat and rosewater.

Carl Åkerblom and Henrik Bergman are standing by the railing around Svandammen looking at the black swan floating as if dreaming through the dark mirrorlike water. Fine rain has begun to fall.

Henrik
(
after a long silence
): And your half sister? Anna?

Carl:
Anna? She's just twenty. You saw for yourself.

Henrik:
Yes. Yes, of course.

Carl:
She's training at Sophiahemmet's school of nursing. Mammchen maintains that young women must have an education. That they must stand on their own two feet, and so on. Mammchen believes that she believes that. She herself gave up her teacher training in order to marry.

Henrik:
Your little sister is very . . .

Carl:
. . . attractive. Exactly. We've had a great many suitors coming to the house, but Our Lord Father has frightened them all away with his appalling but extremely sophisticated jealousy and Our Lady Mother has frightened them even more with the scarcely cheerful prospect of having Karin Åkerblom as mother-in-law. At the moment, that young genius Torsten Bohlin is frequenting the family. Nothing at all deters him, and he appears to be amazingly tolerated. But then he's a man of the future, too, and he'll obviously be a cabinet minister or an archbishop. Anna seems unusually amused by his attentions. Though my theory is that Anna's destiny is written in another book.

Henrik:
Look, here comes the other black swan out of their house. This rain's very pleasant.

Carl:
After the drought. Yes. Anna's destiny will probably be to love a madman or a sex murderer or perhaps a nonentity.

Henrik:
Why are you so sure of that?

Carl:
Our little princess is so well adjusted and clever and purehearted and tenderhearted and loving; there's no limit to it.

Henrik:
But that sounds good. All of it? Or?

Carl:
You see, my boy, she possesses a splinter of glass, a sharp splinter that cuts. (
Laughs
.) Now I've terrified you all right!

Henrik:
I don't understand what you mean.

Carl:
Nor is it something you can understand just like that. But I know her. I
recognize
her.

Henrik:
That sounds like a more sophisticated kind of literature.

Carl:
Of course, of course.

Henrik:
Let's go, shall we? It's raining quite hard now.

Carl:
You can share my umbrella. Since I have a markedly tragic view of the ways of the world, I always carry an umbrella. Whether I use it
later on or not is my own free choice. It's my shrewd way of combating determinism and deceiving chance.

Henrik
(
smiles
): For obvious reasons, I can't share your . . .

Carl:
. . . view. I have no opinions, but I chatter. Do you know what, Henrik? I think Miss Frida would be an
extraordinarily
splendid minister's wife.

Henrik does not reply to that. He is, quite simply, rendered speechless.

The term has ended and Henrik goes home.

It's a hot day in mid-June, and the train chugs through the summer countryside, making a lengthy stop at each station. Silence, the buzz of flies. Chestnuts in flower reach out toward the closed windows of the compartment. No one is in sight, either at the stations or on board the train. Then on it chugs, first through the pine forest and then along the coast. It takes all day to travel by passenger train from Upsala to Söderhamn.

Henrik arrives at the west station at twenty-seven minutes past eight in the evening. Mama Alma is waiting at the entrance. He sees her at once — her heavy figure seems to be surrounded by an invisible aura of tearful desolation. Henrik smiles, puts down his suitcase, and embraces his mother.

She is very fat. Her face is round, her eyes wide open and anxious; she has a small snub nose, large sensitive mouth, and short neck. She is wearing a tight summer coat that is rather shabby and has a button missing. Her black hat with a feather in it has been knocked awry by their embrace. She laughs and cries in utter despair. Henrik makes an effort to return his mother's show of affection. She smells of dried sweat and is wheezing asthmatically. “Let me look at you, my son. How pale you are, and how thin you are. I suppose you've not been bothering about food, of course! How nice of you to come back to your old mother for a few days. Are you really going to have a mustache? I don't think your mama is all that keen on that mustache. You'll probably have to shave it off now that you're to be my darling boy again.”

Alma Bergman lives in three small rooms at the top of the inner courtyard block on the corner of Norralagatan and Köpmangatan. One of the rooms is Henrik's and is rented out during the winter months.

Alma's bedroom is a very small room, and then there's the dining
room, connected to a spacious kitchen by a curious serving passage. The apartment is very cluttered, as if its occupants had suddenly had to move from something much bigger and had not had the courage to part with bulky furniture, pictures, and other objects.