A heavy thud, a crash against the outside of the door. She screws her eyes tight shut. Tears pour out. She wants to press her hands against her ears, but they won’t obey, they just keep shaking and shaking.
“Mummy!” she sobs as the door flies open with a bang. It hits her knees. It hurts. Someone is lifting her up by her clothes. She refuses to open her eyes.
He lifts her by the collar. She’s whimpering.
“Mummy, Mummy!”
He can hear himself whimpering. Äiti, äiti! It’s more than sixty years ago, and his father is throwing his mother around the kitchen like a glove. She’s locked Lars-Gunnar and his brother and sisters in the bedroom. He’s the eldest. The little girls are sitting on the sofa, ashen-faced and silent. He and his brother are hammering on the door. His mother sobbing and pleading. Things falling on the floor. His father wanting the key. He’ll get it soon. Soon it will be Lars-Gunnar’s and his brother’s turn, while the girls watch. His mother will be locked in the bedroom. The strap will come into play. For something. He can’t remember what. There were always so many reasons.
He slams her head against the hand basin. She shuts up. The child’s tears and his mother’s “Älä lyö! Älä lyö!” also fall silent in his head. He lets go of her. She falls down onto the floor.
When he turns her over she looks at him with big, silent eyes. Blood is pouring from her forehead. It’s just like that time he hit a reindeer on the way to Gällivare. The same big eyes. And the shaking.
He grabs hold of her feet. Drags her out into the hallway.
Nalle is standing on the stairs. He catches sight of Rebecka.
“What?” he shouts.
A loud, anxious cry. He sounds like a long-tailed skua.
“What?”
“It’s nothing, Nalle!” shouts Lars-Gunnar. “Out you go.”
But Nalle is terrified. Not listening. Takes a few more steps up the stairs. Looks at Rebecka lying there. Shouts again, “What?”
“Didn’t you hear what I said?” roars Lars-Gunnar. “Outside!”
He lets go of Rebecka’s feet and waves his hands at Nalle. In the end he goes down the stairs and pushes him out into the yard. He locks the door.
Nalle stands outside. He can hear him out there. “What? What?” Fear and confusion in his voice. Can see him in his mind’s eye, walking round and round on the porch, completely at a loss.
He feels an overwhelming rage toward the woman upstairs. It’s her fault. She should have left them in peace.
He takes the stairs in three bounds. It’s like Mildred Nilsson. She should have left them in peace. Him and Nalle and this village.
Lars-Gunnar is standing out in the yard, pegging out washing. It’s late May. No leaves yet, but one or two things are starting to appear in the flower beds. It’s a sunny, windy day. Nalle will be thirteen in the autumn. It’s six years since Eva died.
Nalle is running around in the yard. He’s good at amusing himself. It’s just that you can never be alone. Lars-Gunnar misses that. Being left in peace sometimes.
The spring breeze tugs and pulls at the washing. Soon the sheets and underclothes will be hanging between the birch trees like a row of dancing flags.
Behind Lars-Gunnar stands the new priest Mildred Nilsson. How she can talk. It seems as if she’ll never stop. Lars-Gunnar hesitates as he reaches for the underpants that are a bit tatty. They don’t come up very white either, although they are clean.
But then he thinks, what the hell. Why should he be embarrassed in front of her?
She wants Nalle to be confirmed in the church.
“Listen,” he says. “A couple of years ago some of those hallelujah types turned up here wanting to pray for him to be healed. I threw them out on their ear. I’m not that keen on the church.”
“I’d never do that!” she says firmly. “I mean, of course I’ll pray for him, but I promise to do it quietly at home, in my own room. But I’d never want him to be any different. You really have been blessed with a fine boy. He couldn’t be any better.”
Rebecka draws up her knees. Pushes them down. Draws them up. Pushes them down. Shuts herself in the bathroom again. Can’t manage to get up. Crawls as far away as she can, into a corner. He’s coming back up the stairs.
It was so bloody simple for Mildred to say that Nalle was a blessing, Lars-Gunnar thinks. She didn’t have to look after him day and night. And she wasn’t the one with a broken marriage behind her because of the child they’d had. She didn’t need to worry. About the future. How Nalle would manage. About Nalle’s puberty and sexuality. Standing there with the soiled sheets, wondering what the hell to do. No girl would want him. A mass of strange fears in his head, that he could become dangerous.
After the priest’s visit the village women came running. Let the boy be confirmed, they said. And they offered to organize everything. Said Nalle would be bound to enjoy it, and if he didn’t, they could just stop. Even Lars-Gunnar’s cousin Lisa came to say her bit. Said she could sort out a suit, so he wouldn’t be standing there in something that was too small.
Then Lars-Gunnar lost his temper. As if it was about the suit or the present.
“It’s not about the money!” he roared. “I’ve always paid for him, haven’t I? If I’d wanted to save money I’d have shoved him in an institution long ago! All right then, he can be confirmed!”
And he’d paid for a suit and a watch. If you had to pick two things Nalle had no use whatsoever for, it would be a suit and a watch. But Lars-Gunnar didn’t say a word about it. Nobody was going to say he was mean behind his back.
Afterward it was as if something had changed. As if Mildred’s friendship with the boy took something away from Lars-Gunnar. People forgot about the price he’d had to pay. Not that he had any big ideas about himself. But he hadn’t had an easy life. His father’s brutality toward the family. Eva’s betrayal. The burden of being the single parent of a disturbed child. He could have made other choices. Simpler choices. But he educated himself and returned to the village. Became someone.
He hit rock bottom when Eva left. He stayed at home with Nalle, feeling as if nobody wanted him. The shame of being surplus to requirements.
And yet he still looked after Eva when she was dying. He kept Nalle at home. Looked after him. If you listened to Mildred Nilsson, he was bloody lucky to have such a fine boy. “Of course,” Lars-Gunnar had said to one of the women, “but it’s a heavy responsibility as well. A lot to worry about.” And he’d got his answer: parents always worry about their children. He wouldn’t have to be separated from Nalle, as other parents were when their children grew up and left home. They talked a load of crap. People who hadn’t a clue what it was really like. But after that he kept quiet. How could anybody understand.
It was the same with Eva. Since Mildred had arrived, whenever Eva came up in the conversation, people said: “Poor soul.” About her! Sometimes he wanted to ask what they meant by that. If they thought he was such a bastard to live with that she’d even left her own son?
He got the feeling they were talking about him behind his back.
Even then he regretted agreeing to Nalle’s confirmation. But it was already too late. He couldn’t forbid him to spend time with Mildred in the church, because that would just look like sour grapes. Nalle was enjoying himself. He hadn’t the wit to see through Mildred.