And she goes back to her breakfast and Elly leaves the room.
“Close the door, Elly.”
Elly closes the door. Elly goes into her room and lies down on her bed. She curls up into the foetal position and tightens every muscle in her body. She moves slowly. She rocks back and forth.
But the accident, Elly?
What do you mean?
I don’t know anything about it.
Elly sits on the edge of the bed. She is wearing her white dress.
“I heard there was an explosion. They pulled you through town on a cart. Nobody thought you had survived. Nobody thought you would live. The paper said you were dead.”
And suddenly there you are, Oskar, standing by the rock wall one afternoon in June and pulling at a length of detonating cable winding into a drill hole. Then what? Your eye wanders from Elly’s face to the royal family on the wall. And you see yourself. Standing up the slope, a short distance from the excavation site. You see yourself standing by the rock wall and suddenly the whole thing explodes and you’re thrown backwards and end up as a mutilated body lying in the gravel.
Elly puts her hand on the blanket. Her touch is light, you hardly feel it.
“Was that how it was? Is that what happened?”
“Yes.”
“An accident?”
“Yes.”
That’s why I’m lying here. I was in a blasting accident. A charge that tricked you. Dynamite that shot out of the rock with furious force and tore you to pieces.
Elly.
“I’m so glad you’re alive, Oskar.”
Elly’s visits.
At first every day. Then every third. Then once a week.
Then one last time.
Elly in a white dress. She is standing by your bed. Looking down at her clasped hands.
“What is it, Elly?”
“I’ve met someone else. We’re leaving town.”
And you notice that her stomach is a bit rounded. But what are you thinking? What are you feeling?
“I don’t remember. It must have been hard. It was unexpected. Because when she came to visit me the week before she hadn’t mentioned anything. And she wasn’t behaving in a funny way either. I was probably trying to pretend it wasn’t happening. But it’s easy to understand. I must have looked dreadful. After all, in those days you needed strong hands and healthy men. And she did get a good one too. When she died a few years ago I saw in the death announcement that there were many children and grandchildren. One of them was called Oskar, I remember.”
Oskar Johannes Johansson
Oskar sits on the chair. His index finger drumming. It is evening and we are waiting for the rain to stop. The light in the sauna is fading. The paraffin lamp is lit. We are not going to put out any nets. It is too late for that. But on many evenings we just sit and wait for it to stop raining. If it goes on all night then Oskar stays up. He never sleeps when it rains.
“I find it hard to go to sleep.”
August. The summer visitors are beginning to desert the archipelago. Fewer boats pass the island. The only ones left are the permanent residents. This morning, when we took up the nets, we saw a solitary sailing boat disappearing out to sea.
Elly goes. She is glad that Oskar is going to live. She promises to write. Her hand brushes the blanket. Then she is gone.
And Oskar is there in his bed with his head saying no, no. He can’t help it that his eye begins to run. And the empty socket responds.
The other visitors.
The theologian.
Norström.
The other blasters.
But his parents? His sister and brother?
The third summer he talks about it.
“My father and I had fallen out. He must have been fifty-plus and was tired and worn out. He used to empty waste from privies and it was heavy work. There were three of them dealing with a huge number of houses and they had to slave away night and day. Sometimes he said that he was worse off than everybody else. A shit collector, that’s what I am. All year round. He never had any time off, and was never rid of the smell. I can’t ever remember him laughing. He sometimes smiled, but that only made him look sad. In any case, we had a row. It was about the agitator. There was to be a meeting at another estate nearby and I was going. It wasn’t that man Palm. It was somebody less well-known. He was both an auctioneer and an agitator, from Blekinge, and he had this funny dialect. But he spoke well and we were all stirred up by the time the meeting ended. I bought a paper off him for fifty öre and when I came home with it and put it on the kitchen table and Far saw it, he became angry. He grabbed it, stared at a picture of the king on the front page, and then he saw that there was a drawing underneath so that it looked as if the king was standing on the head of someone who was supposed to be a dock worker or something like that. At that, he said that he did not want to see this in his house. It would only cause even more misery. Then he stared at me and asked if I was one of those. And I said yes, mostly just to be cheeky, I suppose.”
“What did he look like, your Pappa?”
“Hard to say. More than anything else he was tired.”
A spring day in 1910. A conversation.
“Can’t this be banned? They’re so easily influenced.”
“I don’t think so. They’ll rage for a while. Then things will calm down.”
“Wouldn’t it be best if it was forbidden?”
“Of course. But you can’t, except by threatening them. The owner of the property has given his permission.”
“Who is he?”
“I don’t remember the name. But it’s the brewer.”
“Kvist?”
“That’s the one.”
“What do they hope to gain by this? Do the workers really understand what they’re being told?”
“Some of them maybe. But it’s a language of one and one makes two and no frills.”
“What’s the subject of the meeting?”
“A hey and a ho for the revolution...”
Laughter. Drawn out, indifferent.
“The Party is growing.”
“Obviously. But it doesn’t matter.”
“No. True. We have all the power on our side.”
“So to speak, yes.”
“Will there be clashes, do you think?”
“I’m sure there will be. At some point.”
The conversation peters out. The weighty gentlemen get to their feet, shake hands and go their separate ways. Slow steps, eyes to the floor.
“We were about fifteen kids and maybe ten adults at the gathering. Not exactly a mass meeting. The man from Blekinge who was speaking was going to go around various different properties. But then it ended up just being this one meeting. Turned out he had to leave. He stood on a barrel and we were a little way off and the little kids were running around, but he didn’t mind that. We were impressed that he could speak for so long without any notes. He had a good voice. He didn’t shout like some others. And I’d say we understood quite a lot. Everyone clapped. I and a few others bought his newspaper. He said the money would be spent on publishing more material. Then he went around asking what our jobs were, if we were in the Party, how much we earned. Many told him what a hellish life they had and he agreed. I imagine he was very intelligent and I suppose we felt just as we were meant to. Important and strong. I kept that paper for many years afterward.”
“But there was a rift. I was told I could not stay at home if I became a socialist.”
Where was his mother? Was she sitting in the kitchen too and listening? Did she say anything? And his siblings?