John Lindqvist - Handling The Undead

Elvy didn't know if the question was directed at her, but answered it anyway. 'You go somewhere.'

'Somewhere where? Heaven?'

Elvy sat down on the bed next to Flora, smoothing out the already-smooth sheet.

'I don't know,' she said. 'Heaven is probably a name we've given to something completely unknown to us. It's simply… somewhere else.'

Flora didn't answer, catching a few more balls. Suddenly she sat up, close to Elvy, and asked, 'What was that before? What happened in the garden?'

Elvy sat quietly for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was low, tentative.

'I know that you don't share my faith,' she said, 'but maybe you could look at it like this. Put aside God and the Bible and all of that, and think about the soul: a human being has a soul. Do you think that's reasonable?'

'No,' Flora said. 'I think we die and get burned up and then that's it.'

Elvy nodded.

'Yes. Of course. But this is what I think. A person lives a life. Accumulates thoughts, experiences, love, and when she is eighty years old and still has a razor-sharp mind the body slowly begins to falter. Inside that human being is still the same person, just as fully alive and thinking, but the body is worn down, is worn away and at last the person sits there inside crying: No, no, no… and then it's over.'

'Yes,' Flora said. 'It is.'

Elvy became excited, grabbed Flora's hand and raised it to her lips, kissing it lightly.

'But for me,' she said, 'for me that's completely absurd. Always has been. For me… ' Elvy stood up from the bed, waved her hands, 'it is completely obvious that a person has a soul. We must have one. To think that we are all-that a consciousness which can embrace the whole universe in an instant should be dependent on this kind of… ' Elvy swept her hand across her body 'this kind of… sack of meat in order to exist… No, no, no. I can't accept that.'

'Nana? Nana?'

Elvy's eyes, which for a moment had been fixed far away, returned to her granddaughter. Elvy sat down on the bed again, clasped her hands in her lap.

'Forgive me,' she said. 'But tonight I was shown proof that the things I believe are true.' She glanced at Flora and added, almost sheepishly, 'I think.'

After she had said goodnight and closed the door on Flora, Elvy began to pace. She tried to sit down in the armchair, picked up Grimberg, read several sentences and then put it away.

That had been one of her projects that she had promised herself she'd take on when Tore was gone: to read The Wonderful Adventures of the Swedish People before she died herself. She was well underway, was already half-way into the second volume, but tonight she would get no further. She was too restless.

It was past midnight. She should go to bed. Admittedly, she didn't need so much sleep these days, but frequently she'd wake up at around four in the morning and have to sit on the toilet for a couple of hours while the urine trickled out of her.

Tore, Tore, Tore…

Earlier in the day she had been down to the funeral parlour with his best suit, for the service scheduled two days later. Was he lying in the cold storage box at the church now, ready and dressed for his last big day? They had asked her if she wanted to dress him herself, but she had been more than happy to hand the matter over to them. She'd done her bit.

It was ten years since she'd started to make his sandwiches; seven since she'd begun feeding them to him. For the last three years, he hadn't been able to take anything by mouth except porridge and purees, needed supplements through a feeding tube just to stay… yes, alive. Or whatever you would call it.

Confined to a wheelchair, unable to speak or, probably, think. Just occasionally when she said something to him a glint of understanding flickered in his eyes, only to disappear just as quickly.

She had fixed his food, changed his nappy and his bag, washed him. The only help she received was in putting him to bed at night and getting him up in the morning-for yet another day sitting in his wheelchair unable to move.

For better or worse, until death us do part. She had kept her promise without joy or love; but also without complaint or hesitation, for that was how it went.

In the bathroom she removed her dentures, brushed them thoroughly and put them in a glass that she kept in the bathroom. Did not understand people who kept them next to the bed like a grinning reminder of time passing. Glasses, yes. The security of having one's eyesight close at hand if anything should happen, but the teeth? As if something you had to chew was suddenly going to appear.

She went into her bedroom, took off her clothes and put on her nightgown. She folded the clothes carefully and placed them on the rolltop desk. She paused, looked at the photograph on the desk. Their wedding picture, her and Tore.

What a pair of lovebirds.

The photograph was originally black and white, but had later

been hand coloured in still-vivid hues. She and Tore looked like an illustration in a book of fairy tales. The King and Queen-shortly after 'and then they lived happily ever after'. Tore in tails, she in a white dress with a colourful bouquet of flowers at her breast. Both staring into the future with spookily blue eyes. (Tore had not even had blue eyes; the retoucher had made a mistake, but they'd never got around to having it corrected.)

Elvy sighed, stroking the photograph with her finger.

'That's how things can end up,' she said, not thinking of anything in particular.

She turned on the bedside lamp, wondering if she should try another session with Grimberg before she fell asleep, but before she had made up her mind there was something at the front door. She listened. The sound came again. A… scratching.

What in the name of heaven…?

The clock on her bedside table said it was twenty past twelve. The scratching came again. Probably some animal, perhaps a dog, but what would it be doing at her house? She waited a while, but the scratching continued. Stray dogs were unusual round here. In the winter you might get a deer, wandering into the suburbs, but they never came to the door to pay a visit.

She pulled on her robe and walked to the front door, listening. Not a cat, she thought. Partly because the scraping was too strong, and partly because it appeared to be coming from chest height. Elvy leaned against the door post and whispered loudly, 'Who is it?'

The scraping stopped. Now there was a low whimpering instead.

It must be someone who's been injured in some way .

She stopped thinking about it and opened the door.

He was dressed in his best suit, but it did not hang well on him. During his final years of illness he had lost about twenty kilos and the gabardine now drooped from his shoulders where he stood on the front steps, his arms dangling. Elvy backed up a couple of steps until her feet bumped the doorstop and she almost lost her balance, but grabbed the coat rack and straightened again.

Tore was standing still, staring at his feet. Elvy looked down. His feet were bare and white, his toenails untrimmed.

She stared at his feet and thought:

They cheated. They haven't trimmed his toenails.

For it was not terror or horror that she felt when she looked at her husband, dead three years after their fiftieth anniversary, now returned. No. Only surprise and… a kind of exhaustion. Then she took a step towards him and said, 'What are you doing here?'

Tore did not answer. But he lifted his head. There were eyes, but no gaze. Elvy was used to this, she'd had the non-gaze turned on her for three years. It was just that now it was even more frozen, lifeless.

This is not Tore. This is a doll.

The doll took a couple of steps forward and entered the house.