‘War is so damned dirty,’ he said, before he climbed down.
On their way home, Sven-Arne walked as close to his uncle as was possible.
‘Aren’t your hands freezing?’
Ante had left his gloves on the roof.
‘You can borrow mine. They’re big.’
Ante shook his head.
He stood up reluctantly and studied the filthy floor. Then he let his gaze travel over the sparsely furnished room, before he got himself together and walked to the bathroom. The cracked glass of the wall mirror reflected a divided image where the two sides of his face did not quite connect, as if the picture had been cut in two and someone had tried to paste it back together again.
In his reflection, a wide black line ran down his forehead, nose, and mouth like a monstrous column. He turned his head, made a face, monkeyed around, creating new images, fully conscious of the fact that it was a game, a way of postponing the inevitable decisions that had to be made. Soon he would have to decide where to go. The filthy hotel room was a bus stop, the starting point for his new life. His journey to death started here. What was it he had dreamt during the night, a nightmare that had bathed him in cold sweat? In his reflection, he saw himself as an old man with tired features and a muddied gaze that begged for mercy. The nightmare had ridden him like a young woman. She had laughed at his impotence. Weeping, he had tried to hold her fast, but she shrugged off his limp arms.
He looked away and turned on the tap but out came only a few drops and a hissing sound that caused the pipes to vibrate and sing.
‘I don’t feel so good,’ he said out loud but somewhat haltingly, mostly in order to calm himself with the sound of a voice, prove that he could still talk, that he was alive. A dream was a dream.
The shocking encounter with Jan Svensk had shattered much of the defences he had built up over the better part of a decade. He looked straight into himself and it was not an encouraging sight. The repressed feelings of alienation and emptiness, despite the friendship with Lester, his work in the garden and teaching at St Mary’s, lay bared, woven together with the lies of his flight.
He realised that the complicated dreams of the night were the answer from his unconscious. They had not let go yet and at night he could not escape. His thin legs trembled, his chest rose in ragged breaths, his hands unconsciously found their way to his genitals, shaped like the faucet and as dry, and he felt a shiver of the impotent lust he had experienced during the night. Staring into the cracked mirror he tried in vain to satisfy his lust while his inner vision of the mocking woman – more and more coming to resemble a young Indian woman in his neighbourhood – became increasingly difficult to catch hold of, blurred at the edges, only to disappear completely.
Not even this, not even his desire remained. He had not made love to a woman for many years. The last time was with a young Indian woman, too young, whom he had been with for a short time. Every time she fumbled for his wrinkled member, he became depressed. Finally he had been unable to achieve an erection. His self-disgust conquered his self-pity and his need for another’s hands on his body. He cut himself off, did not want to be some old white lech for whom gratification and artificial warmth were bought for a few simple rupees.
Before this brief adventure, he had had a relationship with a co-worker, a widow barely forty years old, originally from Chennai, who had moved to Bangalore and her brother’s family. When her brother died in a head-on collision on the road to Mysore, she was thrown out. She got a job at the botanical garden, living very simply and not speaking much, and she lived near Sven-Arne. Sometimes he accompanied her on the way home; from time to time they had had a meal at some street café.
The whole thing had started with an accident. Sven-Arne was clearing the area around the Japanese garden, picking up fallen branches, sweeping up leaves and paper. It was trivial work, but gave him a great sense of satisfaction. He liked the little oasis, even if the division was painfully neglected and did not have many similarities with a Japanese garden.
When he completed his work, he sat down on the slope to the drained pond. It was early in the morning, still cool in the air, at least in the shade of the trees surrounding the pond. He remembered that he felt happy, not simply because his morning work was done – new sticks, leaves, and papers waited – but because of the stillness of the entire garden. Before the school groups and other visitors arrived, he was shielded from their curious gazes and could think in peace. He used to plan his lectures at St Mary’s during this time. These did not take a great deal of preparation but it gave him pleasure to think through some subject or theme.
He stood up in order to make his way down the slope and toward the nursery. Perhaps he had been sitting too long, he had been training himself to sit in a crouch, so that his muscles had become stiff and his joints immobile, for after only a couple of steps he tripped and pitched forward headlong. He automatically threw his hands up to break his fall. When he landed, a root poking out of the ground cut into his right arm, into the flesh from his wrist to his elbow. He remained prone for a while, in shock, shaken by his flight, experiencing a burning pain. Shortly thereafter he felt blood running down his arm. At first he did not even want to look at his injury, as he knew it was serious. His thoughts went – strangely enough – to Ante, and how his uncle with his all-seeing gaze, like a worshipped but also feared god, pointed his finger as if to say that sin punishes itself.
Finally he lifted his head and looked at his arm. The blood was flowing and had already formed a neat pool at the bottom of the pond. He managed to crawl to his feet and felt at that point that one knee had been banged up and that blood was also flowing from his forehead. He fumbled with his shirt, pulled it off, and wrapped it around his forearm.
On his way over to the nursery, he started to think of the consequences. He was not insured, but that was less important as he – in contrast to his co-workers – had enough money to pay for healthcare. What was much worse was the fact that he would be unable to work. He would have to take it easy and recuperate for a while. The routine of going to the garden every day gave his life meaning. A long convalescence, with a lack of assigned tasks and the anxiety-infused thoughts that he knew would come, would throw him off balance just at the time when he after many years had managed to find a kind of equilibrium and peace of mind.
But as it turned out, it was just the opposite. The period that followed the unfortunate accident was the best of his time to date in Bangalore.
After bandaging Sven-Arne with materials from the paltry first-aid kit at the nursery, Jyoti took him to a hospital in Vasanth Nagar that she claimed was good.
The long laceration needed nineteen stitches, his head was cleaned and bandaged, and he received a support bandage for his leg. He was treated quickly and well. Jyoti pointed out that he went before many others. When she saw his expression she smiled and said something he did not understand, but it sounded like a saying.
Jyoti hailed a rickshaw and they went home to Sven-Arne’s place, where she took charge and made him lie down while she made tea. His head throbbed and his limbs ached, but he took pleasure in listening to the rattle from the little kitchen alcove.
The next day she returned, changed the bandage on his head, massaged his leg, and made tea.
He was close to tearful gratitude for her attentions. He gave her money so that she could buy some food. Perhaps he exaggerated his pain, made faces when he tried to cross the room, and took his head in his hand as he rested on the bed.