Karin Alvtegen - Shadow

Right now he was missing the solace of alcohol. For a long period it had been his best friend and ally, the one thing that had been allowed to take precedence over everything else. It had helped him to rob the fear of its power.

But on the gravestone before him it said ‘love’.

That sort of love, he was not familiar with.

He often took walks in the cemetery, even though he had no real reason to go there. He found it peaceful, and not even his fear of the dark kept him away. There was nothing to fear in a place where death already resided. There was only calm, and everything in comparison became small and surmountable. He was not even sure whether he was afraid of death. Sometimes he envied people who had lived their lives and were now allowed to rest. Not that he longed to die, but neither did he feel particularly keen to live. He envied the dead because they avoided the responsibility of continuing to struggle. They had escaped having to maintain the will to go on.

Rich, poor, good, evil, ugly, beautiful, smart and simple – the same fate awaited all. No matter how fast one ran, it was impossible to escape.

All those names and dates on the gravestones. Some of the people resting below had been dead for hundreds of years, but their memory had won out over wind and weather. Only the special ones were allowed to have their graves undisturbed and the stones left in place, the ones who were of importance. The graves of ordinary people were cleared out as they were forgotten, and their last resting place became someone else’s. His goal was to be one of those who were left, one of those whose names were allowed to remain and remind new generations of their existence. He would be one of the special ones, one of those who had excelled, who had done something of significance. A true survivor.

Then death would no longer be able to get to him.

Herein lies that which belonged to the earth. Faithfully loving, eternally reunited.

The man had died in 1809, his wife in 1831. No one was now alive who had known them. And yet he was standing here 175 years later and knew that they had existed.

He liked reading the messages on the gravestones and found them consoling. He would wander among the well-tended graves with flowers that were constantly replaced, and those graves that no one cared for any longer. Time came and went and priorities changed; stones with one engraved name stood next to a blank space waiting for the spouse still living. He wondered how it felt to stand there, knowing that one’s name and a date would some day be etched there, and one would never see the result. He felt a flicker of jealousy that they at least knew where they belonged.

He continued along the illuminated gravel path, lured by the glow from the floodlights in the corner of the cemetery where the newer graves were located. On the way he passed several large stones with the inscription ‘Family Plot’. One of the most beautiful phrases he knew.

Eternally reunited.

He had not been without offers. He was good-looking and had been considered, at least as long as he was drinking, to be interesting enough to spend time with. Now he no longer knew. He didn’t frequent places where prospective speculators could show their interest, since that most often occurred under the influence of alcohol. But back then, when he was still participating in the mating dance of nightlife, he had seldom gone home alone. He had experienced sex so many times he eventually grew weary of it, but he hadn’t really known love. Whenever something was about to develop, he had declined and returned to his waiting.

For the answer to who he was.

Then his life could begin.

His ringtone began to play in his pocket, and he took out his mobile. He recognised the number at once.

‘Kristoffer here.’

‘Hello, it’s Marianne again. You know, it occurred to me that a Torgny Wennberg RSVP’d for the funeral. I thought that if he knew Gerda Persson, then maybe he knows more, and you might want to contact him. I don’t have his number, and I can’t get online right now, but maybe you could check it out yourself. There can’t be too many people with that name.’

‘Torgny Wennberg?’

‘Yes.’

‘With a W or a V?

‘I can’t check right now but I’m pretty sure it’s a W.’

‘Okay. And he’s coming to the funeral, you said?’

‘Yes, at least he said he was.’

‘I’ll check it out then. Thanks for calling.’

Torgny Wennberg. He added the name to the address book in his mobile so he wouldn’t forget it. Now he had those palpitations again. The feeling of wanting both to know and yet not know.

He had reached the new graves. Many of the dead resting here were children. Several graves were decorated with toys, pretty shells, teddy bears and small heart-shaped stones. There were almost always candles burning.

Eternally loved.

Words that appeared again and again. The endless care with which they looked after their beloved children’s graves. The thought of his own parents. How deep their pain and despair must have been if the only possibility remaining to them was to abandon him.

A cold wind swept over the cemetery and made the dry leaves whirl around. He pulled his duffel coat tight at the neck and decided to head for home. There he heated up a vegetarian lasagne in the microwave and sat down in front of the computer. With his dinner beside the keyboard he began to search. There was no turning back now; the door was ajar and he would never forgive himself if he missed the chance to step inside. He started with Torgny Wennberg. His name produced 313 hits. He clicked on the first one and was taken to the Workers’ Movement Archive. The heading was From our collections – Torgny Wennberg (b. 1928), forgotten proletarian writer. He skimmed through the text.

Torgny Wennberg was born in Finspång, Östergötland county. His father was a metalworker. Wennberg began as a metalworker at the age of 14. Early on he began to write stories. In 1951 he debuted as a writer with the novel It Will Pass. The next year he moved to Stockholm.

Torgny Wennberg is best known for his novels about the metalworkers in Östergötland. Keep the Fire Burning is considered one of his best works, published in 1961. Wennberg has also written several plays for the stage and radio. At First It Hurts was his last proletarian novel; later books can instead be characterised as relationship novels. His last novel, The Wind Whispers Your Name, was published in 1975 and portrays a man’s downfall after a love affair. Wennberg has published a total of twelve prose books and eight plays.

Kristoffer printed out the page. He went to another search engine, typed in the name and got a hit. There was a Torgny Wennberg living in Hantverkargatan. Kristoffer wrote down the phone number. He went back to Google and searched for Axel Ragnerfeldt. The name produced 1,000,230 hits. He hopped from page to page, reading a little here and there. He already knew much of the information. He had read all his books, some of them in school and the rest on his own. He added Gerda Persson to the search box but got nothing. Deleted Axel Ragnerfeldt and searched only for Gerda Persson and got 205 hits. It was impossible to tell which of them might be about the Gerda he was looking for. For the next hour he read selected pages about Axel Ragnerfeldt. Most of the hits led him to publishers and booksellers all around the world; there were also student projects and theses, but very few gave any clues to his private life. His wife Alice Ragnerfeldt was also a writer, and he spent a while reading about her books. Her last book was published in 1958, but from what he understood she was still alive. Many of the links were about the foundation that was established in Axel Ragnerfeldt’s name. He read about a children’s home in Chile and several clinics in Africa.