Kiruna — Northernmost city in Sweden
VII
Fall was trying to ambush old summer, but August was putting up a fight. We were on swivel chairs in the hunting tower we’d climbed into the evening before. Grandpa kept watch through the flygutsplattered windows towards north and east, and I took south and west. There was a forestroad running right below us. Grandpa had wanted me to shit myself and I’d just done it — and man it felt good. Baal knows it had been a cold, dark night … Grandpa had slept curled up, but his chthonic body wouldn’t leave well enough alone. He’d kept babbling in his sleep, something about Schuler and bloodlust and honeysweet Nero. He knows a whole mess of things by heart.
—“Das Herz der Erde als Hölle der Christen … Morde den Vater, eh’ dass er dein Kind, deine Seele frisst, und entfessle die Urknäuel, das hundertspeichige Feuerrad! Die Hölle, das Herz der Gaia, wird dich helfen …”
Grandpas German’s so bad it makes you weak in the knees …
Later he lit some stormlanterns and comfortmunched all our provisions: schoolgirlfricassé and two balls of yarn. Then helaughed that ghoulish laugh of his, and whipped up some coffee and schnapps.
After that, he toyed with my fudgepacker and rambled on about anything that came to mind.
— Mossad, he said, going hard all at once, Mossad can pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. For all I know, you could be sent by Mossad … or Wiesenthal …
His decrepit risiblemuscles twisted impishly, but there was no emotion left in his eyes … empty as a promise …
— But it’ll be a cold day in hell before those asses get their claws into me, that’s all I’m saying! If they get cocky, they’ll just have to cry it out, if nothing else works! he declared darkly and fingered his favorite rifle, an eleven point six millimeter.460 Weatherby Magnum built to take out buffalos and elephants.
— When I die, I’m taking all of you with me! The whole goddamned planet! Everyone’ll probably be glad it’s over! You’ll be roasted in Sakar! in Hutama! Omphalus, the World’s Navel! The hub of evil! If you get your way, the whole goddamn universe will explode when I’m gone! And you’ll give out shouts of rejoicing! You can’t even imagine how topsyturvy things will get when I’m upupandaway. Darkness is coming, and how! Pah! Don’t you understand? When I finally lay myself down to sleep, and thank God for it, it all stops! I’ll hush the animals to sleep with a lullaby and the sun will put on mourningcrape and shroud! Yes, boy, when your collective will has been done and I lay there with a shit-blessed grin on my face, delighted to be with my Father Who Art in Heaven, it’ll be too late for tears! It’ll be over and done! Over and out! Hasta la vista, baby, and good night!
Grandpa was so worked up I had to blow him then and there, and then we slept until about eleven o’clock. Now we’d been sitting still for about three hours and keeping watch out over the clearcutting. Every now and then Grandpa broke the silence with some phrase he’d just then pulled out of his ass.
— The only Semites worth mentioning are the ones that founded the cult of Moloch. Or — Swine and Sex Objects in the Semitic Tradition by Reichsbauernleiter Diarré is absolutely the worst piece of drivel I’ve ever set eyes on! Or — Is there anything more appealing than a sick and hopeless old man pounding on a locked door in vain? Or — The greatest thing you can give your fellowdemon is an intercession … and then a sudden, painfree death … Or — A Dutch explorer, Adriaan Kukkurloom, was the first of the grayraces to describe a thoughtful girl, a creature as rare as God’s mercy! Or — Sigvard Thurneman was a fine lad, just a little persnickety … Or — Soon I’ll have devoted ninety years to Nothing, feeling Nothing, thinking about Nothing … Or — The only animals worth hunting anymore are wolverines … in a pinch, a polecat … every now and then a squirrel will do! But from the depths of my tooty-fruity innards, you’ll never catch me taking a lynx in the morel! Or — The cargocult is the religion closest to my heart … In a previous life I was an ascarid in Timur Lenk’s gut … a pleuralsackparasite in Benedict of Nursias windpipe … he got me by boning a pheasant … The USA is the great Jahveh … evil’s domicile … vulgarity’s nexus … a festeringboil … We’ll give them a neutronbombshower … just as soon as we’ve founded the Fourth Reich … A final solution to the American nightmare … Four of the seven mouths of hell are there … on Wall Street, in the Pentagon, in Las Vegas, and in Hollywood … There’s one in Rotorua and one in Bangcock … The seventh I’ll reveal in the decay of time …
Grandpa had on a Barbour oilskin coat and a mossgreen Patagonia jersey. He had girlskinpants and a pair of creamcolored, highheeled, otterskin boots. I had on rough lightblue trainingoveralls, sailors boots, and a steelcollar: a rosary with shortbarbs for hard obedience training. I’m Sargon the Great and you’re Lugalzaggesi, Grandpa had said as he fastened on the chain.
— Hell is other people! Grandpa suddenly exclaimed. That’s the only thing he’ll quote from Sartre. Otherwise, he hates the guy like sperm hate it when you’ve got to piss. Then Grandpa switched tracks and launched into a story about a chessmatch between Moses Uritzky and N. A. Fraenkel that had ended in a draw and, finally, in heavypetting. After that he angrily questioned the wisdom of contracting the Kegel muscles for the sake of drier orgasms.
— Depends if you get a shot off, I commented, for lack of anything better to say.
— Shut your yap and keep watch, devilcolt, Grandpa said and jerked my leash so hard the tower shook.
—“What of it then if I warble, babble out a string of verses, if I sing in every valley, wail about in every firwood?” Grandpa väinämöined. You can accuse me of being a local patriot, but I still contend that ethics is the art of cheating, Grandpa snarled in confused conclusion.
The clearcutting was as shittybrown as a partyrally in Myrberg. Rotten brown logs, fallen deciduous trees … Large, graywhite stones lay exposed in the darkbrown of the road that ran behindthe machinepark. The bog was burntred and frozenblack. Immobile stumps, lichen and moss, a couple of driedout spruces, some raspberrybushes and a mass of halfdead birchtrees. What’s the point of sowing anything, plants just die … they put up a struggle and end up choked in plastic … The forest edge was a long ways away, lots of empty ridges between us and it … The wind let up and I thought I heard someone coming down the path. On the horizon a little Jap clunker suddenly appeared. It was yellow and seemed to be struggling. The road here’s uneven and rocky, so the going gets tough. Grandpa narrowed his eyes. He began to hum “Headhunters and Headgivers” by the Corpsefucking Crybabies. Then, peering through his Aimpoint 3000 red-dot sight, he started to cackle soundlessly.
— A bull, a cow, and two calves … damn berrythieves … novembercrooks …
The car stopped about a hundred meters away. Our quarry tumbled out and got ready to follow the path leading through the clearcutting towards the meager blueberrybushes five hundred meters north. I used the sight on the other rifle. It was a large Tasco, and the rifle was a.416 Remington Magnum loaded with Swift Bonded Core bullets. They were coming toward us. The bull walked with a manlyman’s swagger. Next came the female, her calves swarming around her ankles like sicklebacks around a rotten bullhead. The bull was big and mean, he had the face of a tadpole. The female looked like a dumb bluelightspecialwhore. The calves were nothing but skinandgristle wrapped in bright clothes.