John Lindqvist - Handling The Undead

'Nothing. Bring your psychologist,' she said.

'What?'

'I said: bring your psychologist. Leave me alone.'

She felt Margareta's presence behind her for a couple more seconds, then it left her and slammed the door.

The little man…

That was what frightened Margareta.

Six months ago-after coming horne from a talk at I he Youth Psychiatry Service Margareta had forced Flora to attend – Margareta had sudden;y opened up and started to talk about her father.

'I can't take it,' she said. 'I can’t handle that vacant stare, the way he doesn't say anything, just sits there.'

At that point she had not been to visit her father for several months.

'And all the time,' she went on, 'all the time, it's like I'm imagining that inside my father, somewhere inside his head there's… a little man… a little man who thinks clearly and looks out onto the world and he's accusing me, he's thinking: Why doesn't my daughter come to see me? He's sitting in there and waiting and… But I can't handle it.'

And Flora sensed that her father was one of the main topics of conversation between Margareta and the psychologist she saw once a week (twice a week when Flora had been doing the most self – cutting).

Even back then, Flora had thought it would have been better if she had just dragged herself out to Taby. But Margareta believed in psychology. She thought it was possible to become whole. That if she worked her problems out conscientiously, one by one, she would finally attain a state of harmony. Possibly also a diploma. Every problem had a solution except for those that did not.

And what could you do about them? Ignore them! Little men in your head? No such thing. Not worth speaking or even thinking about.

Now the little man had come out. Now he was walking around with vacant eyes. Now the pointing finger of accusation was waiting for Margareta at Danderyd.

But it was an insoluble problem. Therefore there was no problem.

It did not exist.

Flora skipped back and raised the volume.

The steak is cold, but it's wrapped in plastic.

Yes. Come to our house. The steak is cold, it may even be rotting, but now we have wrapped it in plastic, we promise that you won't smell anything. Stay a while.

Gladwrap.

The thunder that started rumbling half an hour later interfered with her internet connection. Flora tried to call Elvy but no one answered. When she called Peter, he answered on the first ring.

'This is Peter.' His voice was low, almost a whisper.

'Hello it's me, Flora. What is it?'

'The police. They're cleaning house.'

Even though his voice was electronically flattened, Flora could hear the hatred in it.

'Why?'

There was a crackle on the line as Peter snorted. 'Why? I don't know. They probably think it's fun.'

'Did you manage to save the scooter?'

'Yes, but they've taken all the bikes.'

'No.'

'Yes. I've never seen so many of them. Eight SWAT units and a van. They're driving all of them away now. All of them.'

'What about you?'

'No. I can't talk any longer. Have to keep quiet. See you.' 'Sure. Good…'

The connection was broken.

‘…luck.'

Kungsholmen 20.15

As the first flash of lightning split the sky above Norrmalm, David was standing in front of the freezer staring at a packet of frozen raspberries. The rumble that followed a couple of seconds later stirred him from his trance and he stuffed the raspberries to the back, taking out a bagged loaf of bread.

Roast'n Toast. Best before 16 August. When he bought the bread a week ago everything was normal; life a sequence of great or not-sogreat days to pile one on top of the other. He shut the freezer door and lost himself in the bread instead.

How long?

How many days, how many years before even one good memory would be attached to a moment after Eva's accident? Would that ever happen?

'Dad, look.'

Magnus was sitting at the kitchen table, pointing out the window.

Fine chalk lines blinked on the blackboard of the sky and the claps of thunder that rolled in shortly afterward did not appear to have anything to do with it. Magnus counted quietly to himself and said that the thunder was three kilometres away. Sheets of water slid down the window.

David took a couple of rock-hard slices of bread from the bag and put them in the toaster for Magnus' evening snack. He had burned the spaghetti sauce for dinner and neither one of them had eaten much. Later they had watched Shrek for the fourth time and Magnus had downed half a bag of chips while David drank three glasses of wine. He wasn't hungry anymore.

The house shook with detonations that were drawing closer. David managed to coax Magnus into eating a piece of toast with cheese and marmalade, and a glass of milk. He alternated between regarding Magnus as a machine that had to be taken care of, and as the only other life that existed on this earth. After the wine, it was the latter view that had started to dominate and he had to hold back tears as he looked at his son.

Magnus went off to brush his teeth and at the instant he disappeared from view, panic started to burn in David's stomach. He drank the dregs of the wine straight from the bottle and leaned against the kitchen table, watching the lightning.

After a minute Magnus came back and stood next to him.

'Dad, why does the light move faster than the sound?'

'Because…' David rubbed his hands over his face. 'Because… good question. I don't know. You'll have to…' He broke off. He had been on the verge of saying: You'll have to ask Mum. Instead he said, 'You should go to bed now.'

He tucked Magnus in and said he was too tired to tell him a goodnight story. Magnus asked him to read one instead, and he read the one about the leopard that lost a spot. Magnus had heard it many times, but always thought it was funny when they got to the part where the leopard counted its spots and discovered that one was missing.

This evening David lacked his usual storytelling verve. He tried to act out the leopard's consternation, but Magnus' dutiful giggle was so pitiful that he had to stop, and simply read the story as it was written. When it was over they were both quiet for a long time. When David made a move to get up, Magnus said, 'Dad?'

'Yes.'

'Is Mum coming back here?'

'How do you mean?'

Magnus curled up and drew his knees up to his chest.

'Is she going to come back like how she is now and be dead?'

'No. She'll come later. When she is well.'

'I don't want her to come here and be dead.'

'She won't.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes.'

David leaned over the bed and kissed Magnus on the cheek, and on the mouth. Normally Magnus would make trouble-want to play the Angry Game, make funny faces-but now he just lay still, allowing himself to be kissed. When David stood up Magnus was lying with his brows knit. He was thinking about something, wanted to ask something. David waited. Magnus looked him in the eye.

'Dad? Are you going to be all right without Mum?'

David's jaw froze. The seconds ticked by. A sensible voice at the back of his consciousness shouted at him: Say something, say something now, you're scaring him. Finally he managed, 'Go to sleep, buddy. Everything is going to be fine.'

He left the bedroom door open, went to the bathroom and turned on the bathwater, hoping that it would drown out the sound of his sobs.

He had imagined Eva dead many times. Tried to imagine. Wrong.

Many times the thought of Eva's death had been forced upon him. Yes. Because things happen, you read about them in the paper every day. Photographs of roads, lakes, some nondescript forest glade. Someone had been in a crash, someone drowned, someone was murdered. And he had thought. A life of emptiness: routines, duties, perhaps eventually a bit of light from somewhere. But now, when it had happened, of course the worst pain came from things he had not been able to imagine.