That one I just have to take on the chin, even though I haven’t said a single thing about drinking since I set foot in the house. I’ve been shamed before, plenty of times, but never in front of an outsider like that. That’s a hell of a way to treat your own! The girl don’t look up from her magazine, but she took it in alright. You can tell. So here I’m getting an early taste of what kind of hell it’s gonna be to be stuck here a whole evening with this crew. I could fire back at Lydia and ask her who it was that sent the old man money for dipping tobacco for eight long years, who it was that sent Mamma dresses when she was in need. And if anybody feels like taking account, I’m more than ready to draw up the ledger. But it ain’t worth riling things up like that. It would never end.
After dinner I head down to where Ulrik stashed the wreath box in the cellar. There’s a few more of them on the cellar floor. Ulrik’s own and Lydia’s. And Lena, she sent one too. Not like I want to be small about it or anything, but the one Lydia and Nisse bought is a shitty little excuse for a wreath. Couldn’t even spend some money on a decent ribbon, from the looks of it. Ulrik’s is a real farmer’s wreath, but that just goes to show what you can get around the village here compared to the little market town. Lena only sent flowers, but they’re pretty ones. Can’t hold that against her, stuck in a sanitorium for almost half a year now. She’s got no way of paying for a wreath. There’s nothing here from our little brother Tage, but I’m sure he’ll be carrying his with him when he comes on the night train tonight. Then there’s Mamma. I’m probably the only one that’s thought about her. I got her a little bouquet of flowers. I take it out of the box now, ’cause I mean to bring it to her at the churchyard this evening. From the bag I grab a three-quarter-pint bottle of brännvin, the good stuff, and stick it in my jacket. Not like I’m going to visit Doughboy or anything, but you never know what old friends you might run into when you’re out and about, and it’s nice if you have a little something you can offer them.
When I get back upstairs they’re all sitting there at the table like they’re in church. The poor neighbor girl is washing up with nobody lifting a finger to help her. So I grab a dish towel to help her dry stuff off. “Don’t bother with the charade,” Lydia says. “So many stories about you have made the rounds hereabouts, there ain’t a self-respecting girl in the parish would accept the kind of help you’re ready to offer!” And this girl counts herself among the pure of heart, I guess, ’cause her face flushes deep red, and she yanks the towel away from me with a short “No thank you!” And I’m left standing there like an ass. God only knows what they’ve been saying about me while I was in the cellar.
Anyways, I tell them I’m heading off to pay Mamma’s grave a visit with my flowers. But I can see right away this troubles Lydia.
“Well, Knut dear,” she says real quick. “I’m sure Nils can drive us all there.”
And damn if she ain’t intent all of a sudden on visiting Mamma’s grave too. But really she just don’t want me to go off on my own ’cause she’s worried things might turn out like last time. Not that she’s concerned about me, mind you. She couldn’t give a shit. No, it’s the gossip she’s worried about. I mean, I’m sure there was a fair share of that last time round, with me going off and getting plowed the night before my own Mamma’s burial. But I don’t give a rat’s ass how Nils feels about that and the same goes for Lydia. And right now Nils is out in the shitter, so before he gets back I slip out the door in record time and take the shortcut straight across the near field so I don’t run into him on his way back.
Christ! What a lovely family! Can’t even trust a man to go visit his own mother’s grave. Ulrik just had to spit his poison at me, of course, as I was ducking out the door: “Now don’t forget the rake and the watering can. Oh, that’s right — you can get them right there at the churchyard … if you ever make it there.” If I ever make it there! What the hell they think I’m gonna do with this bouquet, chuck it in the river? Eight crowns I laid out on it! So don’t tell me I ain’t doing right by my folks! If the rest of them showed the same kind of consideration, then maybe I could tolerate their abuse a little more.
It’s pretty nice out for October. I’ll say that. Up near the woods a heap of cast-off potato plants is burning in the field. It looks like the Wiklunds got themselves a harvester. It’s sitting there next to the barn. If Ulrik had a little more gumption he’d go in halves on that harvester to keep from working himself ragged. I suggest stuff like that every time I come home. But if Ulrik wants to slave himself to death, who am I to tell him otherwise? There’s leaves on the road, and it’s getting darker. I pick up my pace so I’ll get to the graveyard before the dark really sets in. In one of the windows of the parsonage I can make out the minister himself, sitting there smoking a pipe. A man of the cloth smoking! I don’t know why, but that just seems funny to me. It’s an easy walk, this one, along the road. But not for the blacksmith. He’s staggering practically from one side of the road to the next, and soon enough he’ll end up in the ditch. That man don’t know how to stay sober. Otherwise he’s a nice enough fella, and he was one of the last to see the old man alive. I should really have a word with the tin knocker, though, before I go back to Stockholm. Hitting the bottle hard together for old time’s sake is one thing, but letting the old man ride off like that by himself, in his condition — well, I’ll have some words for the tin-knocker about that when I see him, that’s for sure.
There’s not many people out. But they’ll have dancing over at the Pavilion tonight, even though it’s the middle of October. Says so on a poster anyway. That’s something I might have gone and done myself if the old man hadn’t just died. Mini-golf? It’s a little too dark for that. What’s the point of paying one fifty if you can’t even see the holes? Anyway, I keep to the right side of the road and head in through the gate at the churchyard. It ain’t hard to find the family plot, and that’s a good thing ’cause soon it’ll be too dark to read the names on the stones. Our plot is right near the dead room, just outside the door, actually. At Mamma’s funeral we carried the coffin past the open grave and into the church and then marched back there with it again. I was swimming in my own sweat, but it was the middle of July then. A heat wave.
On top of the grave is a vase with rotten flowers in it. Sure looks like Ulrik ain’t putting himself out much looking after it. Don’t look like the gravel’s been raked in a while. But I’ll have to let it stay that way for now, ’cause it’s getting too dark to see good. It looks kind of nice though, with the new flowers I brought. I don’t think anyone would argue with me over that. As late as it is I can hear them hammering down inside the dead room. Crazy ideas start running through my head. Quit your goddamn hammering! I think. You might wake the old man! Crazy stuff like that. It’s the coffin’s trimmings they’re working on now, I’ll bet. The errand boy from the nursery sticks his head out the door for a second, but he don’t recognize me. Just as well. I don’t have a mind to look in there on the old man, not this time of night. Once they get the head stone put up over Mamma’s grave — Mamma’s and the old man’s grave I should say now — I figure it’ll all look pretty decent. Good location too, the best in the place really.
It’s dark now. The wind sifts through the leaves with a hiss, creaks through the church roof. Should I go somewhere? Maybe sit at the café for a while? I might run into some folks I know. Probably not a bad idea to show my face for once while I’m back here. Otherwise people talk. Say things like: “That Knut, he’s so goddamn full of himself now that he lives in the city. Can’t bother to spend any time in the village except when he’s passing through on his way to the train.”