When they were on the way to the streetcar, he suddenly grew irritated with Berit, partly because he was forced to walk in the rain with her—it had just started to rain then—and partly because she was holding his hand and squeezing it so hard. Then all of a sudden he snaps, Do you always have to wear that damn black dress? Then she stops in front of a display window and unbuttons her coat. Underneath her coat is a red dress. But it’s dark red, so he can be forgiven. But then she asks, Did you see what dress she was wearing? A red one, he must say since he did in fact see it. It was your Mama’s dress, Bengt, she says. Then he becomes terribly upset that she’s lying, because he had seen for himself that it wasn’t her dress but a different one altogether. And a son should know his own mother’s dress. And your Mama’s shoes, too, she added. Then he becomes so upset that as soon as the streetcar is visible around the curb, he storms away from her. Bengt! she yells after him so that people stop and stare. Bengt! Bengt! But it’s raining, so he’s in a hurry to get home. That’s why he didn’t even turn around.
Now there’s only a small lamp on in the other room. And when the curtains are drawn, he slowly leaves the doorway. Now he knows she is leaving. He lights a cigarette as she proceeds down the stairs, but it’s raining harder now and the rain puts it out. Somebody is coming out the door. The rain is dreary. All he can see is a shadow and an umbrella that quickly dissolves into the rain. Then he runs across the street. He runs up the stairs, too. Although the pouring rain was cold, his body is burning. But his head is cool. Quietly, he rushes up to the fourth floor, but even though his head is cool, he doesn’t know why he is so quiet. Nor does he understand why he sticks the key into the keyhole so gently, as one sticks a finger in his lover’s mouth. He just does. He doesn’t turn on the light as he stands in the dark entrance. He feels inside the dog’s basket; it’s warm but the dog isn’t there. Then he walks silently through the hallway and up to the door of the other room. He doesn’t hear a sound from inside. The father must be writing. Cautiously, he opens the door, and it doesn’t creak because the father has greased all the hinges, so they wouldn’t creak when he was alone.
As soon as Bengt sees it, he slams the door and runs to the entrance. Like a whip, the scream stings the back of his neck. He opens the front door, slams it shut again, but stays inside. Gasping, he thrusts his burning brow against the cool doorpost. Suddenly, the tension fades and he feels himself turning completely soft inside, not a hard bone is left in his body, not a single taut muscle. Just a floating, hot mass that burns against the walls of his body. A minute later, when the mass has cooled off and his body has gotten its bones back, he realizes that what he had seen—a naked woman’s body on his mother’s daybed—is not the worst part. The worst part is that he knew he was going to see it but that his mind concealed it from him.
He hears voices from the room, one calm, low, and deep and the other light, rather high-pitched, and very worried. Eventually, both voices are calm and subdued. They think he ran out. And they know how it is with young people; they run away, thinking they’ll never come back. But the older ones left waiting in the room know very well they’ll come back very soon. Then quiet footsteps approach their door. A streak of light flashes in the hallway but goes out the same instant. Afterward, someone comes pattering out toward the entrance.
It sounds like a frightened human being, but it’s a dog. It finds him in the darkness with its soft nose and is friendly to him. Then he quietly opens the door and entices the dog out. It isn’t difficult. He has the leash and thinks about walking the dog around a couple of the dark blocks.
But when he reaches the end of the stairs, he goes out to the yard instead. He doesn’t turn on the yard light. And even though the yard is dark, he still seeks out the darkest spot behind a tall carpet-beating rack. There, he takes the dog by the nose and grips it tightly so that it won’t bark. Then he starts beating it with the leash. As he flogs it, the dog twists around, trying to free its nose from his grip, but he is too strong and unyielding. Sometimes it falls on its back, but it still can’t break free. And every blow causes Bengt pain because he’s actually beating himself, and it’s his own mouth he has to clench shut so that he won’t scream out in agony. Or with joy because he is hitting her, too. Instantly, he realizes it’s her dog.
Then a patch of the yard is suddenly bathed in light. Someone has turned on the light, so he stops thrashing and falls to his knees over the dog’s body. It’s writhing around like a snake but cannot break free. Window after window, he glimpses a flash of her distinct silhouette gliding down the stairs. After the last window, he hears her footsteps echoing from the front entrance. Then the door reverberates as it shuts again. When the light goes out, he notices for the first time that it’s raining. He is drenched in a brew of sweat and rain, and his shoulders are throbbing. At the same time, he is listless and wrung out like a wet rag. He puts the leash back on the dog. As he leads it across the yard, he holds it on a very short leash so it won’t bite him.
After he turned on the light, he falls to his knees before the animal in a vestibule and is affectionate. He gently wipes the gravel and rain from the dog’s back. He rubs its upper neck and embraces its hind legs. Finally, he looks it in the eye. In that moment, he knows that the dog can never have the kind of eyes he wants to see. Cold with shame, he drags it upstairs with him.
The worst thing about hitting animals is that you can never ask them for forgiveness. And you can never get forgiveness. Though, in the end, forgiveness is the only thing you need.
A Letter in May from Himself to Himself
Bengt!
I’m all alone as I write this, alone in my room. And he’s alone in his. The other night he asked, Shall we play a game of chess like we used to, or a little poker? Come on, let’s go to the other room. He went first and evidently thought I would follow him. When he noticed that I wasn’t coming, he asked if I didn’t like playing chess. Now, he knows very well how much I like to play chess. He also knows that I like playing with him—in the kitchen or in my room. However, he also knows that I’ve been refusing to go into the other room lately. He hasn’t asked why, because he knows all too well. Night after night, he’s tried to beguile me by any means necessary into breaking my promise to myself. As for me, I’m always trying to make him ask me, Won’t you tell me why you’re avoiding the other room? I’d be very glad if he asked because I have a crushing answer on hand. My answer: Because you and she have made the room so filthy that only the two of you can go into it without feeling ashamed. If I were to go in, I would not only defile myself but also my pure memory of Mama.
It’s possible that he might not understand this at all, because I think parents always have a different understanding of purity from what their children do. For them, at least as far as my own experience goes, the quality of purity has lost every semblance of practical meaning. It may be possible for them to consider it something worth aspiring to for teenagers going through their “awkward years,” but in their own actions, parents constantly deny that such a concept even exists. Parents always live a more sordid life than their children because parents have always condoned all the things they do themselves. That is, to be able to excuse everything for themselves, yet practically nothing for their children, is the reward that “experience” affords adults. What parents call experience is really nothing but their attempts—successful to the point of sheer cynicism— to deny everything they once considered pure, true, and right when they were young. They themselves don’t realize the terrible cynicism behind all the incessant talk of “experience” as life’s highest goal. They only notice the “inexperience” in their children; that is, the kind of inexperience called purity and honesty, and then they become irritated. And when they’re irritated, they take their irritation out on their children. They call this “raising children” because what else is raising children but the attempt of frustrated parents to stifle in the child what they recognize as the stifled goodness in themselves? And if they aren’t vexed, they act superior, superior because they erroneously pride themselves in their great life experience, as if it were particularly respectable and remarkable to destroy the best within us.