We dragged the boat up on land, shooed the mosquitoes away, and pretended everything was normal … Loons ransacked us with their desolate cries … a thousand times more worthy than we … The devil made himself known … mocked our every step … Grandpa didn’t dare say a word … only stopped to mumble a “Sour Father who art in..We stepped into our home’s human warmth and fucked standing up … quick and easy …
Before we went to sleep I asked:
— Can we play Emil of Lymmelberga tomorrow?
— Nah … Tomorrow were going to hold up our end of the bargain …
__________
stinkhorns — Phallus impudicus
Brothers Tigerheart — Astrid Lindgren, a Swedish icon of “goodness,” wrote a book called The Brothers Lionheart
Gabriel in a gray coat — a little gray gadfly
raffset — a Swedish word for sexy female undergarments
Satanstick — slang for cigarette
aeaeae — magic witch’s herb — St. John’s wort
birdsfoot-trefoil — in Swedish “käringtänder,” or “old woman’s teeth”
Virgin Marys — seven-spot ladybugs
norns — Calypso orchids; also the Norse Fates (Swedish norner)
sri and sa-bdag — Tibetan demons
But the sour flame’s still smoking—Men he ruk laing i surom bran-nom, an expression referring to someone who’s suffering from a long, painful illness, and just won’t die
Bejn-Burman — bought bones and turned them into glue
Nilapadhana — some sort of necrophilic-sadistic Tibetan ritual, my sources tell me, wherein a man has to embrace a corpse, convince himself it’s alive, and afterward pry open its lips and bite off its tongue (the Chud rite, “the way of the corpse”)
Judas’s coins — Lunaria annua
Abel Allmonikus — Abel means mischief-maker, joker; allmonikus means tired
Möbius — Paul Julius; On the Physiological Deficiency of Women
Weininger — Otto; Sex and Character, that fascinating work!
ELC — Evangelical Lutheran Church
Karelin — Alexander, Russian wrestling champ
gooberdinky — a booger, bogy, etc.
Nils Poppe — a Swedish actor
Baphomet — Satanic symbol, often represented by a goat head; also, see Klossowski
Gilles de Rais — a Breton knight, companion of Joan of Arc and a serial killer of children
Sutcliffesteak — Peter Sutcliffe was the “Yorkshire Ripper”
Sevesogrogg — Seveso is a river and town in Italy; “famous” for the eponymous disaster in which several kilograms of the dioxin TCDD was released into the atmosphere by a nearby chemical plant
chloracne — an eruption of cysts and pustules
SRB-cunt — Swedish Red Breed, breed of cow
Ulva intestinalis—green sea grass
Delesseria sanguinea—red algae
delimitation — delimitation period: the process by which parts of the Swedish crowns land was transferred to private ownership; in Västerbotten, delimination can be said to have ended before 1870
psychomor — Swedish, lit. “psycho-mom”
PJ/SE — Practical jokes/Special effects division
Heimar Mene — Heimarmene: the oppressive cosmic wasteland in Gnostic belief
Förtvivlans giffel, the croissant of despair—Cioran’s first book, brilliant of course, came out in German with the title Auf den Gipfel der Verzweiflung, or, literally, “On the Peak of Despair”; the Swedish anti-writer Lars-Olof Bengtsson thought Gipfel in this context meant giffel, Swedish for “croissant”
Carolines — soldiers of Charles XII of Sweden
Emil of Lymmelberga—“Emil of Lönneberga” is a fictional character in a childrens book series by Astrid Lindgren; in Swedish, “lymmel” means villain, whereas “lönne” means maple
XXXII
When Grandpa gets tired of me, I play by myself.
Sometimes I play the quiet game … sometimes I play dead … sometimes I draw old geezers I’ve met and then I pretend I’m them … sometimes I lay on my back in a September field and listen to the earth hurtling through space … to victims shrieking at all the evil-deeds wrought upon them … then I try to sink into the light, soft, fluid grass and become a part of its mystery … Nature thrives on destruction … everything starts soft and small, but ends hard … they hound you till you’re hard as a rock … sometimes I try to figure out how many fucks are going on at a single moment … sometimes I think of everything I won’t ever get to fuck … When I can bear it, I try to look ahead … but all horizons are equally galling … sometimes I force animals to fight to the death … mink vs. weasel … rat vs. rooster … shrike vs. jay … beaver vs. badger … ant vs. earthworm … sometimes I think I’m going crazy … sometimes I play Grandpa-daddy-boy … sometimes I’m my own imaginary friend …
Most often I play with my plasticsoldiers … they’re from different WWII militaryunits … Grandpa knows all there is to know about the war, since he was one of the ones who started it … He knows alot, but he won’t talk about it … Every now and then, when things are getting too comfy, I get an earful about Florian Geyer or Götz von Berlichingen, Kharkov and Cherkasy, the Children of Nemmers-dorf and Papa Eicke … I stole my plasticsoldiers from Grandpa … when he thinks no ones watching him he plays with them … I play on the livingroom floor or out on the rocks … Outside there are cracks and crevices, reindeerlichen and bears bedmoss, heather and wildrosemary … its all so natural you forget about time and space …
I have two collections of bluegray Germans, the Afrika Korps and the Japanese … they fight the gray Russians, the sandcolored Eighth Armyrats, the Yankees, the Aussies, the Commandoyankees, and the Commandobrits … the Rommels and Japs are also khakicolored, so Grandpas bought me a few special collections … some partisan fighters from Prince Eugen’s Mountain Division … and a handful of Bad Tölz Junkers from the Nibelungen Brigade … Playing with my plasticsoldiers has taught me how cheap life is … how easy it is to die … how soon it’s all over … When I gather up the victors, and the good guys always win, they seem a little confused … the slanteyed swordslinging officers … the German machinegun troopers … the SS-Junkers … When you’ve killed your enemy, there’s only one thing left to do: shoot yourself … preferably in the spleen …
When I walk home through the tired, brightwhite wildoatfields after having waged a war, I’m numb … that’s the good thing about life … most of the time you don’t have to feel it …
__________
Rommels — soldiers under the command of Erwin Rommel, also known as the “Desert Fox”
XXXIII
— You’re the only thing in this life that’s never disappointed me, boy … because I never expected a god damn thing from you!
Grandpa and I were out on the terrace getting ready for my party. It was going to be outside, even though it was late October and sleeting to boot.
— How old am I, Grandpa?
— Nine or ten, I guess …
Grandpa had dressed up in a darkgray suit with a starched shirt, loose collar, and a preknotted tie. I had on a knitted woolsweater, balloonpants, and gummyshoes.
— You’re a timesink, a milksop, you’re stupid and you suck like a girl! FYI, this is your last birthdoomsday … I can’t do it any longer! I can’t stand the sight of you!