Bengt, he whispers and puts his hand over the son’s hand, whoever is dead is dead. So you have to move on. You have to consider the ones who are living. Sooner or later, we’ll be dead, too, Bengt. And it will be good to have lived. Do you know what I mean?
Now the son knows what the father means.
This is why he remains silent. Silent for a long time. Through silence, anyone who is drunk can become a little sober. The fog disperses among the silence and darkness, and the abyss that appears is black and deep, and coldness flows throughout its depths. He frees his burning hand from the father’s. Then he places it over his eyes. To be drunk is really only to see beautiful dazzling lights and soft corners where there are usually hard ones. But when you close your eyes, you only see darkness. This is why you can sober up when you close your eyes. Not completely sober but sober enough so that you can sense what is happening. Although you probably can’t keep it from happening.
I know, the son says.
Then he is silent again.
But the father is not silent. What has to be done has to be done soon. Everything has to happen quickly for the one who is drunk. Otherwise, it can easily be too late, since being drunk makes silence unbearable.
She is sweet, too, the father says. She is very sweet. You’ll think so, too. I think you will like her. Just as much as Alma.
After he said it, he tries to pull the son’s hand away from his eyes because he knows how dangerous the darkness is. Afraid, he pulls too hard, but the son’s hand doesn’t budge. Now the abyss grows deeper and deeper, and the cold is even more piercing. In the end, the son’s intoxication is only ice and darkness. This is when he shouts:
I never want to see her! Never! Never! Never!
Immediately, the father says:
I know you don’t want to. I know you can’t because of Alma. But, son, can you forgive me for seeing her sometimes? Not often, but sometimes. It’s not because I’ve forgotten Alma. I will never forget her. She was so sweet.
Then the ice starts to melt and the darkness begins to recede. Gently, the mist surges through him again after the warmth— which his internal sober self, cold this whole time, has been longing for—emerges unexpectedly from the dark pit. Deep below was a warm well that his father’s words created, his last words. No, not the father’s but the son’s. Because they are his words, after all. They are bright and that makes them beautiful. The son willingly lays his hand on the table.
I will never forget her, he whispers. She was so good.
Now they are both emotional. They look at each other. Then they look at each other’s hands.
But I never want to see her, the son whispers.
Why not? the father asks.
Because I miss Mama too much, the son replies.
I understand, the father says.
And in a sense he does understand. In a sense the son understands the father, too. They sit there, finally understanding. Then they toast one more time, to their understanding. But before they go to bed, the father gives the son twenty kronor. The son takes the money and thanks him.
He is quite drunk when he enters his room. The light in the room is flashing and making him dizzy, so he leans on his desk. Then he plops down on the unmade bed and whistles as he undresses. It’s his first time being drunk. Mother would have never forgiven him. But he forgives himself. Before he slips under the covers, he manages to raise himself up and open the desk drawer. Inside it, there is some money in a book. He counts it over and over again. Finally, he reaches a hundred and twenty twice in a row. It’s probably right. Ten lies at ten kronor apiece and twenty kronor for an hour of understanding comes to exactly that.
The next day, he wakes up late and almost without any remorse. It isn’t until he is standing half-dressed in the kitchen—where the father’s wallet is lying on the firewood bin and where the shot glasses, but not the bottle, are still sitting out—that he feels a slight pain. So he sits down on the sofa and tries to remember, laying his heavy head in his hands. He remembers that he received some money. Then he remembers that they talked about his mother, and he is tremendously relieved when he recalls that they only spoke well of her. But everything is true when you are drunk and not when you are sober. Yet the things that were true during intoxication don’t necessarily lose all their accuracy later. You vaguely remember what was said and you start to brood over it. Then you find that there is some truth to it and that ultimately this truth might be rather significant. He remembers that he called his mother Alma. Then he begins to feel nauseated, so he drinks the last few drops in the shot glass. Once he feels a little better, he realizes there’s nothing wrong with it. Her name was Alma, after all.
He gets dressed and shaves. Then he makes some coffee. It tastes bitter, and for no reason at all he grabs the bottle from the cupboard and pours himself half a shot. Surely, it won’t be noticed. Another half shot won’t be noticeable either, so he pours one more. After having some coffee, he is cheerful. Then he goes into the other room. It is semi-dark because the shades are still drawn, but he doesn’t open them, for he has nothing to fear. He sits in the armchair and smokes for a while. Their ashtray is broken, so they use the father’s pencil holder instead. He never writes anything anyway. The son sits for a while and stares at the white door to the closet. Then he walks up to it and opens it on a whim. He really only wanted to open it, but once it’s open, he steps inside just for the hell of it. He stands there for a moment, breathing in the dingy air of camphor and staleness. Then for no particular reason he opens up a brown cardboard box at the bottom of the closet. There are some old silk stockings inside it. He always thought silk stockings were beautiful. For fun, he takes out the least worn-out pair, and in the light beaming from one of the windows he lets the silk run through his fingers.
Then he sticks his hand into one of the feet of the stocking. His mother’s foot had once been exactly where his hand is now, limp and hot. At one time, his mother’s foot was a long, tender piece of flesh and sinew encased in a sheer, sheer stocking. He rolls up the shades a little bit and looks at the foot. It’s a long, slender foot because his hand is long and slender. It’s a young foot, too. He imagines it’s his mother’s foot when she was young.
He thinks it is a beautiful image, but after thinking about it for a while, he suddenly becomes upset. He doesn’t know why. But he puts the box back, closes the closet, and rolls up the shades. He drinks a little more coffee to calm down some more. The coffee is cold and bitter. And to get rid of the pungent taste, he takes another swig of aquavit—hardly half a shot.
But afterward, he’s not any less upset. Then he suddenly remembers a pair of keys that were on a shelf in the closet, and for no reason at all he takes them from the shelf. The two keys are thin and shiny, and one of them opens the desk drawer. For the hell of it, he unlocks it and cautiously looks inside. Now he is even more upset. His hands are shaking, and when he carries the drawer from the desk to the table underneath the light, he doesn’t do it for fun. In an instant, his cheeks have become hot and his heart is pounding. He takes out one sheet of paper after the other and spreads them out on the table. They flicker before his eyes as he reads them, but beneath his ruddy glaze of nervousness, he is very cool and clear-headed. Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to sort the papers so precisely as he does, exactly as he found them in the drawer.