He heard her footsteps on the stairs and for the fourth time she appeared in the living room. This time she was silent. She simply went over to one of the bookshelves and ran her finger over the spines of the books as if searching for a certain volume.
And then with her back to him she said, ‘Have you asked Axel if he’s coming with us tomorrow?’
‘No, I told him about it a couple of weeks ago, but he hasn’t said yet whether he’s coming.’
‘And how long were you planning to sit here?’
‘I’m just sitting and thinking a little. I have a geography test on Friday, so I’m trying to prepare.’
She turned to him. ‘So where’s your geography book?’
He could feel himself blush. ‘Well, I know almost everything by heart. I’m going over my European capitals.’
That was all she said. But he noticed that she didn’t take a book with her when she left and went upstairs.
Another hour passed. The ticking clock on the wall kept precise track of the time, and the soporific sound made him doze off. He woke up when somebody tugged at his sleeve. Annika had her nightgown on, and he could see that she’d been crying.
‘You have to come, there’s something wrong with Mamma.’
He looked at the door, which was still closed.
‘Hurry up!’
Despite her fear she was whispering, and he ran down the hall after her and up the stairs.
Their mother was lying on the floor of her bedroom, in her dressing gown with her face to the floor. He was filled with a greater fear than he’d ever felt in his life. Annika began to sob. Jan-Erik hurried over and knelt down at his mother’s side. He pulled on her arm and brushed the hair out of her face.
‘Mamma! Mamma! Wake up, Mamma! Tell me what happened. Say something, Mamma, tell me what’s wrong with you.’
She didn’t move. Her arm was limp as he tugged and yanked at it. He felt the tears come. He put his nose to her mouth, but she didn’t smell as sour as she did sometimes when she’d been drinking wine. This was something else.
‘Mamma. Please, Mamma, wake up.’
He let go of her arm and pressed his hands to his face.
‘We have to get Pappa.’
He was just about to jump up and rush off when she opened her eyes. She twisted round a bit and looked first at him and then at Annika.
‘Annika, could you fetch me a glass of water?’
Annika ran off. His mother sat up. All at once she looked completely natural, as if she hadn’t just been lying like a dead woman on the floor.
‘So you do care a little bit after all.’
Jan-Erik froze. At first he didn’t understand what she meant and just sat there. A tear was allowed to run down his cheek undisturbed.
His mother got up but he remained on the floor; follow ing her with his gaze as she went over to the bed and sat down.
‘What do you mean?’ he finally managed to say.
‘You’re so anxious for Axel to come tomorrow, but you’ve hardly asked me.’
‘But I want you to come too. You told me you would. I’m sure I asked you.’
‘Are you quite sure you want me to come?’
He felt the tears again.
‘Of course I want you to be there.’
Suddenly she covered her face with her hands and her shoulders began to shake the way they did when she was crying. Jan-Erik’s tears ceased abruptly. He got up from the floor hurriedly and went over and patted her on the arm.
‘I’m sorry, Mamma, I’m sorry. I do want you to come, much more than I want Pappa, I promise. I’m sorry.’
Annika came back with a glass of water. Their mother wiped her eyes and put the glass on the nightstand.
‘All right then. We’ll say that. I’ll talk to Axel and make sure he comes too.’
11
‘There has been no improvement at all, rather the opposite. Axel is actually too ill to remain here. Our beds are intended for patients who can be rehabilitated. But since he is Axel Ragnerfeldt, we’ve decided to let him stay. It’s not definite that he’d be able to get a private room anywhere else, and considering his celebrity and what it means for his integrity, we’ve decided to make an exception.’
That’s what the doctor had told them during the meeting, and Jan-Erik had expressed his gratitude. Then he had spent an hour with his father and confirmed that the medical diagnosis was correct. It was becoming harder and harder to make contact. Jan-Erik had tried to update him on both the news and what was going on culturally, but the question was how much he actually understood.
He found the visits grim. For so long he had dreamt of gaining the upper hand, but when he finally did any sense of satisfaction failed to appear. Instead he was plagued by what would now never happen. He wondered how it would be the day Axel actually died and was gone, how the grief would feel. Because how could he let go of what he’d never had?
He let the motor run and got out to open the gates, noticing that it was time to call the head gardener. The verges were brown with withered perennials, and everything was covered with leaves. One of the supports on the covered patio, built when he was in the States and which nobody had ever used, had blown over and was lying in the grass. The gravel path, the constant bane of his youth, had been infiltrated by grass, and he was thankful that his mother wasn’t with him. She had kept an eye on the gravel and its border with the lawn as if keeping them separate were a matter of life and death, and it had been his task to maintain it – his and Gerda’s and Annika’s.
He returned to his car, drove in and parked in front of the house. There he sat for a while, feeling no hurry to go inside.
It had been a long journey. Perhaps not geographically speaking, but it felt as though life had gone through an endless number of twists and turns since he’d moved out of this house. Over thirty years had passed, and yet it was as if everything led him back here, no matter how he tried to escape its grip. Sometimes he was even homesick, though he didn’t know why. But he only felt that way as long as he was somewhere else. Once he arrived he immediately wanted to leave.
He got out of the car and fished out his house keys. The steps to the front door were covered with leaves, and he swept them off with the broom that had stood guard by the entrance since time immemorial. The ends were worn down from years of use and reminded him of a cheese that had been sliced crooked. Once again Louise appeared in his mind; cheeses cut like a toboggan-run always irritated her, and he had learned to use the cheese-cutter with precision. He sighed. He had placed the business card she’d given him in his wallet, but naturally he hadn’t rung the number. He knew she would ask as soon as he stepped in the door at home.
He unlocked the front door and turned off the burglar alarm, wiping his shoes carefully on the doormat but keeping them on because the floors of the uninhabited house were cold. The heat was kept down to a minimum and was turned up only in the wintertime to keep the water pipes from freezing.
He went into the kitchen and placed the house keys on the wood-stove, looking about to make sure that everything was as it should be. Everything was unchanged and looked the same as always. Only a lamp by the window clashed with his memory, the one he had put there himself and hooked up to a timer. The refrigerator door was ajar with a kitchen towel in the gap, and all work surfaces were bare and clean. Everything lay fallow.
He knew the house inside out, except for the blank spot that made up Axel’s office, an unknown world in all this familiar space. He left the kitchen and went through the silent house. Every nook was inhabited by memories: each door handle, each creaky floorboard, each tiny object. Except for the switches for the ceiling lights, which had been replaced in the eighties when the house was rewired. Every time his hand trailed along the wall and met the unfamiliar shape it was surprised, expecting a different one.