While Håkan stands by the window waiting for his father to tear himself away from the vending machine, his mother suddenly comes out of her room and passes the kitchen. Since she is barefoot, Håkan hadn’t heard anything at first. But she couldn’t have seen him because she moves right on toward the doorway. As his mother looks for something among the coats, Håkan lets go of the shade and stands absolutely still in the total darkness. It must have been a handkerchief she was looking for, because after a short while she blows her nose and heads back to her room. Although she’s barefoot, Håkan notices how she walks very softly, so as not to wake him. When she enters the room she immediately shuts the window and draws the shade with a quick, hard pull. Then she throws herself down on the bed, and the sobbing starts all over again. It’s as if she can’t sob when she’s not in a lying position — either that or she has to start sobbing the moment she lies down.
Håkan looks out at the street one more time and sees that it’s entirely empty except for a woman allowing herself to be caressed by a sailor in the doorway just across the street. So he creeps back to his bed. The sound of the linoleum squeaking under his feet startles him, and he wonders, just for a moment, whether he might have dropped something. He is terribly tired now, and sleep begins to rush over him like a fine mist. As he moves through this mist he catches the sound of steps lumbering on the stairs. But they go in the wrong direction, starting upstairs and then heading downward. As soon as he gets under the blanket, he’s pulled down reluctantly, but swiftly, into the waters of sleep. And as the last waves break over his head, they are as soft as sobs.
At night, all waking thoughts revolve around one thing, one moment. And even Håkan’s deepest sleep is much too fragile to block that one thing out. True, he hasn’t heard the car pull up out front. He hasn’t heard the click of the light switch or the steps in the stairwell. But the key that slides into the keyhole also pokes a hole in Håkan’s sleep. In an instant he’s awake, stricken deep by a flash of delight tingling hot from his toes to his scalp. But the delight disappears nearly as fast as it comes, withdrawing into a cloud of uncertainties.
And so now Håkan plays a little game, another game, that begins every time he wakes up like this. He pretends that his father has hustled through the hallway, that he has come to a halt right between the kitchen and the bedroom, so that both Håkan and his mother will hear him as he speaks up loudly: “There was a guy at work that fell off a scaffold, and I had to take him to the hospital. I’ve been sitting there all night and I couldn’t call because they didn’t have a telephone,” or: “Can you believe it? We just won the lottery! And I’ve been holding out all night just to keep you in suspense!” or: “You’ll never guess what happened! The boss gave me a speedboat today! Can you believe it? I’ve been testing her out, and tomorrow morning we’ll be going for a spin, all three of us. What do you think of that?”
But in reality everything goes much slower. And what’s more, there are never any surprises. His father can’t find the light switch in the hall. Finally he gives up and hits a hanger, knocking it to the floor. He swears at the hanger and tries to pick it up. But instead he tips over a bag that had been leaning against the wall. Eventually he gives up on that, too, and tries to find a hook for his coat. But the coat slips off anyway and falls to the floor with a soft thud. Then he props himself against the wall and stumbles into the bathroom, just a few feet away. He opens the door and lets it stay open. He turns on the light. And as he’s done so many times before, Håkan lies completely motionless on his daybed, listening to the splashes on the floor. His father then turns off the light, bangs into the door and swears. As he walks into the bedroom the drawn curtain makes a rattling noise, as if it wanted to bite.
Then all is completely silent. His father stands there in the room without saying a word. There is a weak squeaking that comes from his shoes, and his breath is heavy, irregular. But these things make it all seem even more unbearably silent. And in this silence another flash strikes Håkan, hatred burning through him. He grabs the knife handle so tight that the palm of his hand hurts, and yet he does not feel the pain.
But the silence lasts only a moment.
His father begins to undress himself — jacket, vest. He throws his clothes on a chair. Leaning back against a cabinet, he lets his shoes fall to the floor. His tie flutters. Then he takes a few steps further into the room, towards the bed, and stands there completely still as he winds up the alarm clock. Then all is silent again, as terribly silent as before. Only the ticking of the clock gnaws at the silence like a rat. The drunken, gnawing tick of the clock.
And then it happens — that thing which silence merely awaits. His mother makes a desperate move on the bed and screams flow from her mouth like blood.
“You bastard! You bastard! You bastard! Bastard-bastard-bastard!” she screams until her voice dies out and all is quiet again. Only the clock gnaws and gnaws, and the hand gripping the knife is absolutely drenched in sweat. The anguish in the kitchen is so intense that it cannot be endured without a weapon. But then at last Håkan’s terrible fear exhausts him so thoroughly that he races head-first back into sleep without the slightest resistance. Far into the night he wakes for a moment. Through the open door he hears how the bed creaks, how a soft murmur fills the room. He doesn’t know exactly what these sounds mean. He knows only that they are two safe sounds, sounds that tell him the pain has ended for the night. Yet the knife is still clenched in his hand, and so now, only now, does he loosen his grip and push it away, filled with a heated desire for himself. And as he crosses the threshold of sleep one last time, Håkan plays the last game of the night, the one that gives him final peace.
Final — and yet here there is still no end. As the hands of the clock approach six in the afternoon, Håkan’s mother comes into the kitchen where he sits at the table doing his homework. She takes his book away from him and pulls him up from the bench with one hand.
“Go to your father,” she says as she drags him through the hallway. She places herself behind him to block a retreat. “Go to your father and tell him I said he’s to give you the money.”
The days are worse than the nights. The games of the night are much better than those of the day. At night you can become invisible and dash across rooftops to where you are needed. In daylight you cannot become invisible. In daylight things do not happen so fast. In daylight the games are not so fun. Håkan comes out of the doorway and he’s not even the least bit invisible. The janitor’s boy tugs at his coat. He wants Håkan to play marbles. But Håkan knows that his mother is standing above in the window. And he knows that she will keep her eye on him until he disappears around the corner. So this is why he tears himself away without saying a word and then runs off as if someone were chasing him. But as soon as he has rounded the corner he walks as slowly as he can, first counting the concrete slabs of the sidewalk and then the drops of spit that mark them. The janitor’s boy catches up with him. But Håkan will not answer him, because you cannot say you’re out looking for your father because he hasn’t come home yet with the paycheck. At last the janitor’s boy gives up and with each slow step Håkan finds himself getting even nearer to that place where he dreads to go. He pretends he’s getting further and further away from it. Yet still, this isn’t true.
At first he passes right by the bar, brushing so close to the bouncer that the man mutters something after him. He turns off into a little side street and stands across from the building where his father’s workshop is. After a while he goes through a gate and into the storage yard, pretending his father is still there. He pretends his father has hidden himself somewhere behind the barrels or sacks, waiting for Håkan to come and seek him out. Håkan lifts the lids of the paint barrels one by one, and each time he is equally surprised that his father is not sitting inside, all scrunched up. When he has searched the yard for half an hour he is finally convinced that his father has not hidden himself there after all, and so he returns.