But, “maps,” “special buildings,” “architecture”—on a rare occasion he finds his tongue, even becomes excited. Then for the most part, his cousin Björn is with him and Björn is the one who explains it as a way of introduction, with admiration in his voice too. But then when Bengt relaxes and starts talking on his own it does not become much more intelligible; Björn rolls his eyes and starts laughing in the middle of everything. “You aren’t right in the head, Einstein,” he says but with respect, so to speak, as if being crazy is a sign of honor, and Bengt thaws even more and suddenly words start gushing out of him. Then you see the age difference too, of course—despite his gruffness and seriousness, how much of a little brother Bengt is in relation to his cousin Björn with whom he shares a room on the upper floor of the cousin’s house; his best friend, his only friend, before the American girl comes in any case.
Björn and Bengt, together the two of them make a rather odd couple, as it were. Bengt who is five years younger and still a head taller than Björn. And no, they do no talk very much, not always and especially not in large groups. The collective silence you sometimes say when you see the cousins together. But for the most part it is that ordinary teenage shyness too; in any case with Björn, none of that restless, quiet anxiety about him.
Björn is kind, someone everyone likes, nothing strange about him. A perfectly ordinary boy who tinkers with his moped on the cousin’s property; he bought it with his own money, he works at the gas station up in the town center and is going to be a car mechanic when he grows up. And of course, something that becomes very clear later on when he gets together with the American girl, eventually get married and start a family and have many children with her.
It is in the middle of June 1969 when she comes walking from the Second Cape where she is living that summer, the American girl Eddie de Wire. Cuts across the cousin’s property with her eyes trained on Björn who is working on his moped outside the barn, the transistor radio hanging on a hook on the wall of the barn. Teenager drawn to teenager, like a fly to flypaper—Eddie to Björn and, of course, despite the great shyness, vice versa. Eddie who sits down in the opening of the barn, lights a cigarette and smokes. Björn toying with his moped, screwing and screwing because he has no idea what to say but for everything in the world he does not want her to go away. And then he finally builds up some courage and lifts the radio down from the hook on the wall, takes it in one hand and Eddie in the other, and then they go for a walk. So Björn becomes Eddie’s official boyfriend that summer. The one she “is going steady with” as it is called in the pop songs that should be playing on that radio as they walk up and down Saabvägen, backward and forward; but for the most part there are just talk shows, or the news and the weather report.
Eddie and Björn, by the barn on the cousin’s property, many evenings that summer. And gradually, after a while, Bengt joins the group. As shy as a weasel at first, a quiet presence—but does not go anywhere, remains there.
“The architecture,” “the buildings” that Bengt talks about, they are his world. Architecture, houses, dreams about houses—both in fantasy and reality. For example the houses on the Second Cape that were once part of the housing exhibition: he loves them, has them on his mind, as if they in some way are his. He was on site already when they were being planned and built, asking the builders and architects questions and trying in different ways to make himself useful to the construction workers. But without progress: Bengt is not, so to speak, despite his wild and strange mind, the slightest bit practically oriented.
Also after the summer guests have taken possession of the Second Cape he continues going there, moves around just as he pleases and at whatever time of day suits him. He does not pay attention to the property lines, ignores the sign PRIVATE PROPERTY that is eventually put up in the little copse of trees that naturally demarcates the summer world on the Second Cape from the remaining parts of the District. The strange boy, you notice him. There is nothing obviously charming or childishly attractive about him either; almost something a bit frightening where he is wandering among the houses and on the cliffs, sketch book under his arm, tall and gangly. Stirs, yes, a certain discomfort, thoughts that cannot really be uttered out loud, in any case not if you are an adult and a parent on the Second Cape because he is, after all, you can see that too, just a child. A child like your own children, who have their own eyes and ears to see and hear with as well of course, who can monitor what they hear in the voices of the adults, the kind of underlying things that cannot be said in public.
So maybe that is why no one on the Second Cape really intervenes when the children finally take matters with Bengt into their own hands. Attack him, chase him into the woods behind the houses, surround him, and punish him. Many times, over and over again.
Before the American girl arrives and becomes his friend and gets involved, saves him. And the time that follows, a few intense weeks in July and the beginning of August 1969, you can see them on the terrace of her boathouse. Mouths moving, especially Bengt who is talking the hind legs off a donkey—all that dark gruffness and shyness in him blown away.
But punishment or not, and also before the American girclass="underline" nothing can beat Bengt. Sooner or later he is back again.
On the bare cliffs by the sea, for example, looking up at the Glass House where the baroness lives. One of the most elegant houses on the Second Cape, with the entire front made of glass. Windows from floor to ceiling and a veranda in the middle which, from a certain perspective, off to the side, looks a bit like it is floating above the water.
“That boy is different.” It is the baroness who says that about Bengt to Tobias when Tobias visits her in the Glass House. They sit down there on the veranda on long, light summer evenings and talk to each other. The American girl is not there yet, it is the summer before the catastrophe that changes everything. Changes the baroness too—and in those times, the baroness is not the baroness but rather just “Karin,” to him.
Many times later in life Tobias will remember how she said it, “Karin,” the baroness; without anything condemning, no customary District suspiciousness in her voice. But softly, with admiration. The calm, the softness… like an extenuating circumstance because he liked her very much once, keeping in mind everything that happens later.
Up there on the veranda in the Glass House, Tobias and “Karin,” at the beginning of time. Him talking, her listening with interest when he tells her about Bengt and his two sisters—about their tragic family history, of course, but also about their talent, fantasy. And about the game they have, the Winter Garden, they are building their own world, with their own language that only they understand. People float freely away from themselves. In the middle of the Winter Garden there is Kapu kai, the forbidden seas. The hacienda must be built…
How he has taken it upon himself to support and help the twins, in school, in all ways, sneak them a little money now and then, “granting small scholarships.” With swimming as well; they are talented, good swimmers, both of them: one of them saved a little girl named Susette Packlén from drowning at the swimming school that Tobias held for the District’s children a few years ago, right here, on the Second Cape.
“The hacienda must be built.” The baroness laughs on the veranda of the Glass House, and it is as if she is enlivened for real, likes what she is hearing. “You are kind, Tobias,” she says as well. “It must mean a lot to them that you are here.” And Tobias shrugs and says nothing but it touches him of course that she, the baroness, “Karin,” which she is for him during this time, says that.