The Merman (13 page)

‘So what do you intend to do now?' he asked when I had finished.

‘That's what everybody's asking me. And I'm hoping somebody else can tell me. Like maybe you.'

He opened a compartment in his pill case, took out three red tablets and two yellow ones, and weighed them in his hand.

‘I think you need to divide everything up into smaller chunks,' he said. ‘One problem at a time. Together they seem big, but not individually. And then you can try to solve them one at a time. That's what I usually do.'

He filled up a glass of water, placed the tablets on the tip of his tongue, swallowed and took a drink.

‘And you need to have time to think. Stress makes everything worse... Are you listening to me, Nella? You seem as though you're miles away.'

I gave a start and looked at him.

‘The worst thing is that Gerard doesn't seem to think I'm the one who blabbed.'

‘Who does he think it was, then?'

‘Somebody in his gang. He sort of feels it in his bones.'

‘So why is he continuing to pick on you?'

‘Because he thinks it's fun.'

‘No human being is born evil. There are a thousand reasons why people turn out the way they do and do what they do.'

‘But that doesn't help me. What might help me is a loan of a thousand kronor. So he doesn't take it out on my brother.'

‘If I had the money you would get it, you know that.'

That was true, he would have given it to me on the spot. A million if that's what I needed. But he was completely uninterested in money, and that's why he never had any.

I dropped the subject and let my eyes wander round the kitchen. There was a box on the windowsill of oddly shaped stones: one of his many collections. His stamp albums were piled up on a table by the kitchen sink. A tall glass case next to the door to the hall contained his collection of taxidermy animals: small birds, a black grouse, a fox, a hare in its winter coat. I don't know how many times I had sat there admiring them, how the taxidermist had managed to capture them in mid-step. But now I couldn't. All that gruesomeness... the fact that somebody had killed them, split them open, cleaned out their flesh and organs and then stuffed them. Everything was leading my thoughts where I didn't want them to go.

‘Isn't there a teacher you can talk to?'

‘That would just make everything worse.'

‘Your mum, then?'

‘I may as well ask ask Father Christmas for help.'

‘So you're hoping for a miracle, just like me.' He took a banknote out of his back pocket and folded it in half. ‘Here. This is what I've got. Fifty kronor.'

I shook my head.

‘I don't need it, now that I think about it. That was good, what you said about dividing up problems into smaller chunks. You can see the solutions better then. I'm going to forget about paying Gerard. It's no use. He'll still never get enough.'

The Professor smiled. As he must have done a lot more often before, I thought. Before the accident, where his leg was injured so badly he had to go on medication and use crutches for the rest of his life. Before he was transformed into that crow-like figure who hobbled his way through life on crutches paid for by the health service and read everything he could read and collected everything he could collect.

‘Is there anything else I can do for you?' he asked.

‘Yes... mermaids. Would you be able to find out what people actually know about them?'

‘You mean the fairy-tale characters?'

Anything that has to do with mermaids. Have people ever believed that they existed for real? Are there any male ones? Anything that might be related.'

Is this something you're doing at school?'

‘Maybe. Just see if you can find anything, and let me know. And then I was wondering if I could have a look through your keys.'

He put the fifty-kronor note back in his pocket.

‘Sure. The box of keys! My collection. I keep it in the attic these days. Have you locked yourself out?'

‘Sort of.'

‘No problem. Just tell me what type of lock it is.'

T
he first time I ever met the Professor was at the library in Falkenberg. A year had passed since the bus crash, and while the authorities argued over whether or not he should be declared disabled, he got a temporary job there through the jobcentre. My brother and I had just discovered that the library was a good place to hang out when things were raging at home. They were open till seven, and if you were quiet and didn't make a nuisance of yourself you could stay there until closing time. We would read comic books or play games, and when I got tired of Tintin and Lucky Luke or of beating my brother at Chinese chequers I would ask Lazlo to find some interesting books for me. He just lit up when you asked him about astronomy or dinosaurs. And he would set off among the shelves and come back carrying huge piles of books. After a while, it felt like we were old friends. He knew what books I liked, and often he was just as interested himself. When there weren't many people around and he didn't have anything else to do, we would sit in the cafeteria and chat about all sorts of things.

One of the first things I did was ask why he walked with crutches. And without beating about the bush, he told me about the bus journey he went on to Germany, and about the accident on the autobahn where he had broken both his legs, and how the fractures were so severe that he would never be able to walk properly again. The ironic thing, he explained, was that it was the first time he'd been abroad, if you didn't count the two years in Hungary before he came to Falkenberg with his mother, and the accident had happened almost right after the bus drove off the ferry. All I got to
see of Germany was a bit of motorway and a hospital, he said, and that was so depressing that I never intend to travel abroad again.

Soon after that he rented an old farmhouse just outside Skogstorp. When his temporary job at the library ended, he said I could come and visit. I was a little unsure at first due to my general suspicions about adults, but in the end I went. It seemed like he didn't have visitors very often, if you didn't count his mother, who usually came round twice a week with ready-prepared food, because he was almost overjoyed to see me. He offered me tea and showed me all his collections, and told me a load of weird things he'd read about in books.

And that's how it continued. I usually went to visit him a couple of times a month. Mostly just to chat a bit, and sometimes to ask about something I was wondering about or needed help with in school. Lazlo knew a lot about a lot of things, and if he didn't know he made sure he would find out.

I thought about that as I cycled back to Skogstorp. If there was anything written about mermaids, he would find it for me.

There was a car in the driveway when I got home: a black resprayed Ford Taunus that looked like it had been rescued from the scrap heap at the last minute. The windows were open for ventilation. My brother's little bike had been flung carelessly in the gravel next to the steps.

There were fresh tulips in a vase in the hall. I could smell Mum's perfume, the expensive stuff she hardly ever used. It took a few seconds before I realised what was going on: a rucksack on the floor, the worn-out cowboy boots, a leather jacket on the coat rack.

I hastily tidied my hair and rubbed out a spot of dirt on my trouser leg. I couldn't believe that I wanted to look nice for his sake.

The voice coming through the living room wall was so familiar, even though nearly a year had passed since I had last heard it.
He hardly ever phoned from prison. He didn't like to talk on the phone – he became monosyllabic and grumpy, and would sometimes could hang up in the middle of a sentence.

The radio was playing Swedish dance band music in there. A singer was crooning something unfeasibly sentimental, and Dad was humming along with the melody. Then his voice disappeared and was replaced by another one, a little squeakier. It wasn't Mum's or my brother's, but a man's voice that cracked a joke about something because Dad started laughing, that croaky laugh, like a fox with something caught in its throat.

Mum emerged from the living room carrying a tray. Her face lit up when she saw me.

‘Hi, Nella. Guess what: Dad's home! It's crazy. He had misread the release papers. Almost three weeks out. You know he has a little trouble reading. And what do you know, an hour ago, he turned up. Aren't you happy? Go in and say hi to him.'

She had got dressed up in her bow-front blouse and a skirt, with a white scarf knotted round her neck. She looked like she was in love. Her cheeks were all rosy, and she had her best earrings on, silver hoops with red stones in them. Right under one ear was a fresh love bite. She had a real spring in her step; I couldn't remember the last time I had seen her so happy.

‘Leif is here, too – Dad's friend. I'm just going to get some more glasses and cigarettes.'

I hardly recognised him at first. He had a shaved head and weighed at least twenty pounds more than he had the last time I had seen him. He was wearing jeans and a short-sleeved shirt. A new tattoo depicted a snake winding its way along one arm. When he went down, he had had sideburns and a ponytail that went down past his shoulders. Now he was completely bald. He must have shaved off his hair just recently, because his scalp looked rough, and in the middle of his head there was a little shaving cut with dried blood.
I couldn't tear my eyes away from his skull, dented and strange, with moles that reminded me of woodlice.

Next to him on the sofa sat a man I had never seen before, also shaven-headed, with a short but sturdy build.

‘Hi, Dad,' I said.

He didn't see me at first, just turned his head slowly in the wrong direction as if he had heard a voice coming from inside the wall. Robert was sitting cross-legged on the floor opposite him, his face bright red from excitement.

‘Nella, there you are. Come here and let me give you a hug.'

He held me so tightly it hurt, and the pain came together with his smells, the old familiar scents of the aftershave he always used, the sweetish smell of sweat that was his alone, the smell of alcohol and tobacco. He released me, then held me with his arms outstretched ,and I looked straight into his eyes. It was like there was no shine in them, you could only sense him at a distance, way down in the bottom of that gaze.

‘Leffe. Say hello to my daughter, Petronella.'

Dad's mate gave a brief nod before looking down at his fist, where a can of beer was firmly clenched. He was also tattooed. A naked woman on one forearm; a heart pierced by an arrow on the other. Far down on his neck I could see another tattoo: a swastika, partially hidden by a thick silver chain.

‘See how much she looks like her mum. Can you see it? Same colour eyes. Just as skinny. Bloody hell, Nella, how are you, girl?'

‘Fine.'

‘You've hardly grown since last time. I thought you'd have outgrown your folks by now. How are things at school?'

‘Okay.'

‘Just don't overexert yourself. It's not good to read too much. It can change you. Some people get so smart they turn stupid, if you follow me.'

He looked from Robert to me and back again, as if he were unable to decide which one of us needed his attention more.

‘Christ knows if it isn't you kids I've missed most this year. I'm no good at phoning or writing letters, you know. That's how it is inside. Don't take it personally. You switch off, so to speak. So you don't go mad.'

He coughed and hawked up a gob of phlegm.

‘Robert! Go out and fetch us a few more cans, they're in the boot of the car.'

My brother disappeared from the room, delighted to be honoured with this duty. The radio suddenly went silent. There was just a little rattling coming from the kitchen, where Mum was busy with something. Dad sort of peered to the side of me with his hazy eyes.

‘Have you been looking after your little brother while I was away?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Helping him with his homework and things?'

‘Sure.'

‘That's good. He has a hard enough time as it is with all those damn learning difficulties... My daughter, on the other hand, is a genius,' he continued to his mate. ‘Top marks in almost every subject. Fuck knows where she gets it from, not from me anyway. I didn't even learn my times tables in school. The old man could never live down the fact that he lived under the same roof as an idiot. My God, the number of beatings I got when I came home with those marks.'

He gestured towards the packet of cigarettes on the table, and his mate reached out and handed them to him.

‘Have you got the car keys, by the way? I've got a few things to sort out. I've just got to tell the old lady.'

‘Can't you call her something else?'

Dad gave a good laugh and crumpled the beer can in his hand.

‘What? Lady? Listen to the word: lay-dee. It's a word that shows love and admiration. She appreciates it.'

‘I just don't want any rows. Are you sure you can't stay here a bit? You haven't seen your kids in quite a while.'

‘It's all right. They've managed for a year without me, why wouldn't they manage for another couple of hours?'

He stopped talking when Robert returned with his arms full of cans of beer. Something in my brother's posture, as he put the cans down on the table, made me see that they were similar; that someday he would look very much like Dad. Only a great deal softer, because he was completely different on the inside.

‘Are you leaving already?' he asked.

‘Just for a little while. Got to sort out a few things. And for Christ's sake, don't start bawling now.'

‘Okay, Dad... '

‘I mean it. I need some peace and quiet when I'm at home. You have no idea what kind of life it is in the place I've just come from. And it just keeps getting worse every year with all the foreigners inside. Turks and Yugos and all that shit. Isn't that right, Leffe?'