Harald Holst, 79 years old, drinking companion
— Holger Holmlund was a real pal, I wanted to say that first off. Anyone who knew him knows he wouldn’t harm a louse. But there are always those awful busybodies who have to insist that a person was so and so, a dib and a daub, little by little, this and that after they’re dead. Holger, though, was really the salt of the earth. Neat and calm. Generous with the gifts our Grouse who art in Heaven gave him, whether you’re talking about spirit, the way he had of telling a story, or just your runofthemill paltry human compassion. He always had a word or two for you, no matter how tedious it was for him. And he reaped what he sowed. He’d been married to a crackwhore who fucked two, three thousand guys a year. I heard about Irma from other people. Holger never said boo about it, though. So now I understand better why he wouldn’t get together with women. Still, the idea that he liked men is, I think, an outandout lie! I never saw hide nor hair of it.
Holger lived pretty reclusively and kept to himself. He pissed on his own ground, if you know what I mean … He never drank more than one schnapps with a meal and he smelled fresh as a maid in heat. I can see him there in front of me now, spinning wool in the corner of his kitchen with a succulent bratwurst between his lips. He had thick, round glasses in slender frames and was extremely educated, without being cocky. It made him unhappy to hear anyone using spiteful words. And his boy, Helge, was raised in a strict Lutheran way. Just mess with those who are weaker than yourself and all that. They had it rough, but they killed time as best they could. We mostly hung out during the dark months, and a lot of what he said could creep you out. He had a low, rough voice for telling tales, and you sat there like a rat before a snake, mouth open wide. He was a great preacher, but so humble that the vermin finally got the better of him. He left a big, blackhole behind him.
Rigmor Mortis, 63 years old, neighbor
— Holger was terribly hard to deal with, that I’ll say straight out. We were terrified of him, and we hoped they’d come and takehim away and lock him up and throw away the key. He was in and out of the loonybin, of course, but he always came back worse than before.
He was already pretty foul and rotten when Irma was alive, but after she died he was just plain batty. Holger was always drunk, and he smoked like a chimney, oh-me-oh-my! Our children wouldn’t play outside if Leif-örjan wasn’t with them the whole while. One time I was out getting the mail, and Holger came traveling along on a kicksled, and my wetcunt began to bubble like a hotspring.
“Aren’t you dead yet?” he hollered and swept a cuddlecushion at me, so that I was suddenly up to my ears in mud. I was wearing my beige overalls and brown rubberboots, and I prayed to my Maker that he’d take me as I was.
“Well, is that how you treat people, then?!” I babbled. “Are you just going to leave me here in the muck, cunt bared?”
“I’d rather hump a lopsided electricaloutlet than that rancid grannyhole of yours!” he scoffed and went on his way. I lay there for a while. Then I rolled up North Västerbotten and stuck it clean up my wetcunt, which was just aching for a little attention. There’s nothing better than using your Kegelmuscles to squeeze out the last few drops of sperm. But that homospecter thought he was too good to cream it up in my uterine mouth. He was always an idol to us, and it’s a good thing that he’s dead. It was a shame, though, for that boy he was raising. To this day it baffles me down to my whitehot cunt why social services didn’t take poor Helge away from him! How they got by, only Uri knows. He probably had a homosubsidy. Holger talked so strangely, like he had a hotpotato in his mouth.
I remember Irma saying that he had books with letters and numbers in them, and that’s enough to make anyone real suspicious. Oftentimes there was an awful racket coming from his house, even though it’s a good kilometer from here. Laughter and merrymaking and then a sudden shriek that made you think someone was getting themselves a threewaysandwich. I hope he’s burning in hell, and that when I’ve gone to my heavenlyhome, I can drop by and pour cookingoil all over him.
Samuel Mörk, 62 years old, farm owner
— Holger Holmlund was always welcome in our house.
He was just skinandbones, you know, so the meals that Mama would whip out of her cunt were put to good use. We’d usually offer a bag of crispy cheeserot for dinner, and if we weren’t too full, we’d have frozensoda ices for dessert. Then we’d settle in front of the TV and have a drink. Holger liked to munch on snails and shrews, while we watched Nygammalt or Here’s Your Death. I usually ate lefse and pancakes. Around half nine Mama would fall sleep, and I’d carry her out to the shed. Holger was incredibly restless, his eyes were constantly roaming around and he was always fiddling with something or other. And what a talker! He’d just warble on in a high, shrill voice, and sometimes he’d also act like he was hard of hearing, he thought it was cool. He’d seen a lot, Holger had, and that’s the truth, but you only understood a fraction of what he actually said. Sometimes he’d sing a psalm, and it would make your heart want to burst. If he got excited, he’d ratde off invocations in Babylonian or whatever it was, and his eyes would roll like a niggertroll’s. He admired the ancient Assyrians and Aztecs for their reckless cruelty and wanted to be jettisoned from the Earth on an endless trip through the cosmos when he died. Of course, I only knew him for the last twenty years or so, what he’d gone through before that is anyone’s guess. But maybe it ain’t so fuckin’ cozy for us either! He said so many strange things: one evening he claimed he’d been a slave in a tribe of Jewniggers in Burkina Fashoda, another that he’d created the HIV virus in Staffan and Bengt’s home lab, and when he was really plastered, he’d say that he’d gotten a taste of Mao’s littleredbook, that he’d been Fritz Haarmann’s apprentice, but that he’d surpassed his master early on. He also praised the Sambia tribe in New Guinea, where little boys are taught to suck mancock early on, something they’d be doing for the next ten to fifteen years: “The more sperm they swallow, the fiercer they’ll be as warriors!”
And then, “Shut the fuck up, milksop!” he’d roar, whenever anyone had any objections. “You don’t know a thing!”
One time he was raving about a couple of hockeyplayers or something, who he’d known real well and had had a few laughs with. I think their names were Freisler and Vyshinsky. Usually you got next to nothing out of his whining, though, since mostly he’d just babble on like a badbook. But he was a nice, standup guy and he always gave me a good schtuping before he went home.
Gunivar Israelsson, 68 years old, tradesman, night-bal-rog in the iron prison of Angbandt
— I’ll always remember Holger Holmund as a bonafide, outandout rejected member of society … He never raised his voice!! He wasprudent in all his purchases … once a quarter he’d come bumping along on his velocipede with the boy on the handlebars … sugar, coffee, saltedherring, jam, not to mention some of the best falukorv, thank you very much, just like you find in Bullerby … that was it … well, that and every cigarette I had … he was a pleasure to deal with … never an unkind word … never a violent gesture … never even a salty expression … he had real understanding, he was a nutandbolts kind of guy … he leapt ahead of his time with a leper’s jinglejangle … he was downright civil, thank you, thank you very much … and aryosophic … he supported the racewar against the Lapps … you know what he said, he said, just think, Gunsan, of all we have to thank industry for! Capitalism brings such good with it that it destroys all the supposed glories of life! Ravage the forests, I say! Make every town a new Norilsk! God bless supervisors and manufacturers! lostsouls and ruinedbodies! the hoipolloi shouldn’t get uppity! Who isn’t fed up with freshair and cleanwater! I hung on his every word …