Slowly, the sky began to clear. It stopped snowing. Bright sun soon reflected off the snow. One of the soldiers removed the hood of his white cape and looked up at the sky. The snow began to melt from the roof of the cottage, large pieces of ice and snow falling into the garden. The soldiers continued to watch. The branches on the birch reached upward, and the snow kept melting. Soon the image of the soldiers faded and one by one they disappeared until the trench was empty. It too then disappeared. The snow was gone. The grass turned a deep green and flowers rose from the garden. Birds arrived to land on the branches of the birch trees, and on the warming rain gutters of the cottage. It rained for thirty seconds and was again clear. The blue sky above the house became very bright. The screen turned white and then gray. As the lights came on in the room and it emptied of guests, Bent turned to Lennart and said, in a strong clear voice that surprised Lennart, “I wonder if it happened like that.”
Lennart helped his grandfather from his seat and offered him his arm. Together they walked into the main room. He led Bent to a group of red armchairs arranged in a neat circle near the bar. In the center of these chairs a low table held empty glasses. All around the group of chairs, people lingered. A man in a gray suit held one hand on the back of the chair nearest the bar. With the other hand, he turned a long-stemmed glass of wine in small tight circles in front of his chest as he spoke. Lennart helped Bent lower down onto a chair. The man glanced at Lennart and Bent and then at Lennart again, and moved his hand.
“Was it like that, do you think?” Bent said. A ring of water on the table broke its formation and crept slowly to the edge of the table.
“A version of it, I guess,” said Lennart. “You were there.”
They sat without saying much for a long time. Lennart ordered them drinks, then soon after a second for himself. When Bent finished his first beer, Lennart ordered them each another.
Behind Bent’s head, a light was positioned in such a way that it shone directly around Bent’s profile and onto the ceiling above the dance floor, alternating colors from red to green to blue and back. The film had bothered Lennart. It struck him as indulgent, its central metaphor somewhat foolish. Winter was long and difficult. Sweden had once fought in a war. The images were striking, beautiful even, but as a project the whole thing felt flat to him. He was particularly interested in asking his grandfather about death. It was the one thing the film managed to get right, although he’d been thinking about it since they sat down in the bar and had been unable to formulate a clear thought about how he might define this Tightness. The drunker he got, the closer he got to collecting his thoughts into a recognizable shape. There was no death in the film, apart from the idea that winter itself represented, but there was something else. Something in the soldiers, their postures or the way they held their weapons and peeked, almost childlike, over the lip of the trench, managed to define their mortality, to suggest their fate without resorting to the blunt shorthand of violence. This was the one part of the film he’d enjoyed. It had rattled him. Lennart had experienced death. His father’s, of course. And there was a friend in grammar school, Henning his name might have been, he couldn’t remember, who died of cancer. A girl he liked when he was younger got so drunk at a party their first year of high school that she froze to death on a park bench in Vasaparken. A cousin drowned on vacation in Spain. Each of these deaths had, of course, likewise rattled him, but the film reached him more deeply.
Bent would die soon. He looked at his grandfather and thought this, very clearly, without emotion. The oncologist Bent visited last month had suggested Bent not choose to undergo chemotherapy. He’d been firm with his recommendation. Bent was old, the doctor explained to Lennart, and his body would probably not withstand the treatment. Lennart understood the doctor’s position. It was one Bent agreed with in the taxi on the way home from the clinic, but still the idea of doing nothing bothered Lennart. Given the capabilities of modern medicine, why shouldn’t Bent be kept alive as long as possible? But now, in the bar, drunk, he was struck by how simple the answer was.
“I don’t think it was anything like that,” Bent said. “It was slower. That winter was the longest winter I remember.”
Lennart wasn’t resistant to the idea of his grandfather being allowed to die because he wanted his grandfather to continue to live. Bent’s death would come soon, Lennart knew that. But he hoped that his relationship with Marie would end before Bent died. It was a simple thing for him to understand and he was surprised it hadn’t occurred to him before.
“I remember that cold gave us all sores on our legs,” Bent said, and slowly reached a large knuckled hand up and down his thigh. “Can you imagine the pain?”
Lennart leaned toward his grandfather and spoke clearly but quietly so that Bent would be able to understand him but probably not hear what he said. “I’m going to end things with Marie, Grandpa.”
Bent looked small in his chair. Lennart waited for a response from his grandfather, though he knew there wouldn’t be one.
Shortly before eleven, he called a taxi.
Outside, the snow had picked up and a fresh layer coated the rolled-up red carpet. The taxi was waiting for them. Lennart didn’t request a particular route home. He watched the headlights of passing cars. He leaned his head against the headrest and closed his eyes. They passed the Opera House. The building had been wrapped in a mesh wrap to cover renovation work that was being done. On the wrap was printed an old image of the Opera House. The wrap had been meticulously lined up with the building underneath, leaving only the peaks of the green copper roof that crowned the Opera House visible. He’d read about the renovations in the paper. The image depicted the Opera House as it was in the late nineteenth century. Horses and carriages filled the plaza. People posed on the steps. The scale was too big, the people and all the objects unbelievably tall.
The snow was falling heavily, veined in all directions at once in the headlights of the taxi. The driver turned to Lennart. “I’ll get you both home. Don’t worry.” They traveled slowly, but soon the taxi was turning onto Bent’s street. The incline of the street rose sharply at the intersection. The plows wouldn’t be out until the storm weakened. Snow fell hard from the orange clouds onto their shoulders as they shuffled from the curb to the building.
Upstairs, Lennart went from room to room, turning on lights. He set the thermostat. He helped his grandfather undress and get into pajamas. They drank another beer together at the kitchen table. It was probably just exhaustion but Lennart was drunk. He could pinpoint the feeling in his chest, a sleepy feeling that suggested both hope and fright.
Bent finished his beer and Lennart asked if he wanted another. “No,” Bent said, placing his hand over his glass. “That film wasn’t very good.”
Lennart was surprised by his grandfather’s lucidity, and looked closely at him as if to confirm that he’d heard correctly. “I guess not,” he said.
“It was too fast,” said Bent, placing his hands on the table in front of him and shaking his head. “It wasn’t like that, everything speeded up. Just the opposite.”
“No,” Lennart said. “I suppose not.” At one o’clock, he helped his grandfather into bed. When that was done, he typed a text message to Marie, though it was late and he hoped he wouldn’t wake her. “Finished now,” he wrote, just drunk enough to send the text without considering the double meaning. He was surprised when he got a response. “How was it?”