But on Sundays you get into your best clothes and roam around town and Oskar, who is not yet ready to eat, goes into the café down at the harbour. He walks into the crowded room. He nods at people and some of them nod back at him. He spots an empty place at someone else’s table, orders coffee, and blows into his hands to warm them. An old railway worker is sitting on the other side of the table. Oskar recognises him from some photographs in the local newspaper. Oskar knows that he is called Leandersson and that he is a relatively successful local wrestler. Leandersson beats nearly everyone in the bantamweight class and, if he were not already nearly forty years old, he could even have had a successful career at a higher level.
Leandersson looks at Oskar and gives a slightly crooked smile. A little curious, Oskar looks for the famous cauliflower ears which wrestlers soon develop. But Leandersson’s ears are smooth, without swollen earlobes or damaged cartilage.
Leandersson is drinking beer. In front of him on the table he also has a black notebook. It is greasy and he runs his thumb across the smooth surface.
“Is this seat free?”
“Go on, sit down.”
“The weather’s pretty rough.”
“Autumn’s early this year. The houses are cold. And I suppose you’re also out of work.”
“I am.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a blaster.”
“I see. I’m on the railways.”
“And a wrestler, right?”
“Well. I could have become one maybe. But I’d say it’s too late now.”
“I read about you in the papers sometimes.”
“I think it’s not me who’s good but the opposition that’s bad. I usually wrap a load of scrap iron in a mattress and train with that. That’s about the toughest opposition I get.”
“Really? Are there so few who wrestle?”
“That’s not it. I’m in the wrong division. There don’t seem to be many who weigh as much as I do. Or as little, I suppose I should say.”
“I see. But in that case, can’t you put on or lose some weight?”
“I don’t want to. It’s not worth it. At any rate, not any longer.”
“How long’s it been?”
“Without a job? I’ve been chopping wood for a mate who was off sick for a few days but apart from that it’s been four months, nearly five, I think.”
“That’s bloody terrible.”
“You can say that again.”
“And it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.”
“It probably will, eventually.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“Yes. Let’s.”
Then Leandersson starts to leaf through his black notebook and Oskar stirs his cup and looks around the café. The warmth and the smoke are getting in his eyes and he asks to pay. Just as he is about to get up and leave, Leandersson slams his notebook shut.
“One can’t very well just sit around and do nothing. And I can’t wrestle with those bloody mattresses every day.”
Oskar, who had been about to go, remains seated.
“No.”
“So I’ve been spending some time tracing my ancestors.”
“Is that so?”
“I’m trying to find out where I come from. It’s pretty interesting when you find something. I’ve been looking at church records here and there. Luckily the family comes from villages around here so I can use my bicycle.”
“Indeed?”
“I knew that Farfar on my father’s side had been a farmer, but I had no idea where his parents came from. But now I know a little more.”
Leandersson the wrestler then opens his notebook and begins to read.
“My great-grandfather’s name was Leander and he came over from Denmark. He moved here in 1802. He was described as a farmer, but he must have been a sailor as well since it says that he was lost in a storm, was never heard of again and was then declared dead in 1821 at the request of his wife Maria Louisa. Then I’ve written to a parish in Jutland and they tell me that a Leander emigrated in 1800 and bugger me if he didn’t push off on the first day of the century, January 1, taking his wife and a child with him. Farfar wasn’t born until later. But in that letter from Jutland it then says that Leander was born in 1769 and that he was the son of somebody called Christian Leander, who was also a farmer, born in 1738. But that’s as far as I’ve got. Now I’m getting to grips with my mother’s side. It’ll be interesting to see where that leads. I had no bloody clue that there were Danes in the family. But you’ve got to keep yourself busy with something.”
“It’s interesting to find out all that.”
“Certainly is.”
Then Oskar gets up, they nod at each other, and Oskar leaves the café.
On the way home he stops at the display window of the newspaper office and looks at the pictures there. He can count as many as eleven in which you see Per Albin Hansson.
On his way out of Parliament. On his way into Parliament.
Patting a cow and smiling at the camera.
Talking to von Sydow.
On a rostrum at the People’s House in Sala.
On a rostrum at the People’s House in Norrtälje.
On a rostrum at the People’s House in Värnamo.
In an armchair in his office.
With his cabinet on the way to a meeting of the government.
With his cabinet on the way back from a meeting of the government.
In his office with a general in attendance.
The window is misted over on the inside and the lighting is poor. Oskar examines the pictures one after the other and counts them twice. Then he goes on his way.
Later they sit at the kitchen table, he and she, and Oskar talks about Lindgren.
“Is it really that bad?”
“I expect he’ll die soon. And she’s a bit confused now too. But that’s understandable.”
“Poor things.”
“It’s awful.”
“Can’t medicine help?”
“No. It seems it can’t be cured. It just spreads and spreads. The head rots.”
“That’s terrible.”
“He probably doesn’t notice it himself.”
“Thank goodness for that.”
“Yes. But it must have been good for him to get some fresh air.”
“That must have made her happy.”
“Yes. It did.”
Then they fall silent and soon they will sleep.
When they have gone to bed, she tells him that in a few days, on September 12, 1932, there is going to be a political debate on the radio. While sleep steals over them, they go on talking.
“Who’s taking part?”
“Per Albin. Wigforss.”
“What about the other side?”
“Pehrsson. Axel Pehrsson. The bloke who bought the Bramstorp property.”
“Why not Sköld? And Engberg?”
“We can’t just have our lot, can we?”
“Will they be talking about Kreuger in that case?”
“They’ve got more important things to discuss, I imagine. Now that we’re in government. There are thirty million people around the world who are out of work.”
“How do you know?”
“I saw it in the paper.”
“But here?”
“There must be more than a hundred thousand without a job.”
“Maybe we should be giving them a voice.”
“Yes.”
Until the end ofthe 1920s, Oskar has no idea what determines labour and wages, crises and economic booms. He does his job and is only faintly worried at the prospect of becoming one of the 16 per cent of Trade Union Confederation members who are out of work. He listens to discussions, he sees changes, he reads newspapers, but has no understanding of the forces that drive the economic and social situation. He works and is present.