Åke Edwardson - Sun and Shadow

“Have you spoken to your dad’s doctor yet? Al-Whatever his name is?”

“Alcorta. Of course not. He’s a ghost. In a white coat.”

He slept badly for a few hours. The refrigerator in his basic room was noisier than it had been before. No, no, it was the same as ever. All the noises were the same. The woman in one of the next-door houses bawled her husband into life before six, and a quarter of an hour later Winter heard muffled hammer blows. So, it was the carpenter.

He had emptied his pockets onto the table next to the wardrobe.

Her business card was illuminated by the morning light shining in from the patio.

Winter shook his head and went for a shower.

The table next to his at Gaspar’s was empty. Winter missed his breakfast companion with the hacking cough. The waiter arrived with coffee and tostadas even though Winter hadn’t ordered. He saw how Winter was looking at the neighboring table and made the sign of the cross. Winter lit a Corps after breakfast and watched the smoke drifting up into the sky. The sun was clawing its way up behind the mountain.

Lotta Winter arrived by taxi just as he was getting out of his rented car in the hospital car park. She looked pale and had a hacking cough, though it was nothing compared with that of his former breakfast companion.

‘A decent flight, I hope?“

“No. I was sitting next to a drunk.”

“That’s a charter flight for you.”

“I see you haven’t been in the sun much.”

“Let’s go in,” he proposed.

“If we dare.”

“He’s awake. Mom called not long ago.”

“She phoned me as well. In the taxi.”

“He’s back in the nursing ward.”

“How many times is this?”

“Does it matter?”

“I think I’ll cross my fingers,” she said as they climbed the steps and entered the cool gloom of the entrance hall.

Their mother was waiting for them in the corridor. A short man in a white coat came up to them and held out his hand. Lotta shook it and looked at her brother.

“Soy Pablo Alcorta. Médico.”

“Soy Lotta Winter. Médico también, pero ahora hija de Bengt Winter.”

“Ah.”

She’s been here for three whole minutes and has already met Alcorta, thought Winter, holding out his hand. Maybe I’m the ghost around here.

Bergenhem collected Ada from nursery school and walked around the block with her. She was fascinated by everything. He tried to settle her into the car, but all she did was scream.

It had been impossible yesterday to get her into the child seat in the car, and he’d driven home from the Co-op with her on his knee, behind the steering wheel. Luckily none of his colleagues had stopped the car.

Martina had been quiet all morning, almost as quiet as he had.

She’d gone to work now, and he’d felt as if he’d been liberated when he came back to the empty house. Ada was laughing at something in her own private world. He looked at her, and felt ashamed of what he was thinking. It started to snow.

He prepared a bowl of mashed apricots for her and made coffee for himself. He scanned the front page of the newspaper and tried to read while Ada was eating. He adjusted her bib, and let her splash milk and mashed apricot all over the table.

He put the paper to one side, without remembering anything of what he’d read. He felt stiff all over after an uneventful night spent in the car outside a building in Hisingen. Waiting and waiting, then going home. Martina had already delivered Ada to nursery school by then. An empty house, a feeling of liberation. What a stupid expression! Liberation from what?

He was driving his own car. It wasn’t yet noon. He’d tried to get a good night’s sleep, but that was ages ago. He stopped to make a few purchases. He’d no idea what when he went into the shop. The owner nodded to him, as if he were a regular.

There was something lying on the counter. Had he bought it? Should he buy it? He turned away and left the shop. He had it in his hand. Nobody shouted after him. He looked back, and the owner waved to him. Of course. He knew where he was now.

Of course. It was here.

He looked around as he came out. Nobody there.

He went back and waited outside the shop, looking in another direction.

When evening came, the family was assembled in the intensive care ward. Dr. Alcorta had decided to move his Swedish patient there an hour ago. The umpteenth move, Winter thought.

It was a different room, with a window facing west. Winter found it hard to tear his eyes away from the mountain. He thought about the white house in Nueva Andalucia. His father was also looking out the window, possibly at the white mountain. The mountain was a stage and the sky was the backdrop. All the blueness was draining into the backdrop, turning black.

“What’s that smell coming from outside?” asked his father, turning his head to look at his family, who were sitting in a semicircle in front of the bed. “It struck me just now that I can smell something different in here.” He needed some help with a tube that had been placed in his nose and was pressing against his chin. Lotta stood up and adjusted it. “That’s not why,” he said when she sat down again. “It wasn’t the tube.”

“There’s a smell of sun and pine needles,” Lotta said. “Coniferous forest. Pine trees.”

“Pine needles? You think so.”

“Yes.”

“In that case it’s just like home,” he said, turning his head toward the window and the mountain again. Nobody spoke for a while. Suddenly his father coughed and it sounded as if he were clearing his throat. A spasm ran through his left arm. He looked as if he wanted to sit up. A nurse hurried over to the bed and shouted something in Spanish. Winter looked at a screen that was evidently showing his father’s heartbeat, and the white line leveled out with a metallic clang. Winter could see his mother and sister sit up and stare at him. People in white came rushing in and crowded around the bed.

When Winter finally had his conversation with Dr. Alcorta it was too late, and not much of a conversation. He still felt in shock. His mother had been calmer than he’d expected. She had been prepared, at least to some extent. His sister seemed to have frozen into herself, on one of the green chairs in the dayroom. “I should have stayed at home,” she had just said, but she wasn’t aware of what she was saying.

“It wasn’t possible to do anything this last time,” Alcorta had said.

“No. I understand.”

“I am sorry.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“What happens now?”

They were in the cafeteria. It smelled of oil and fish. A group of doctors and nurses was having dinner by one of the windows facing south. Winter was drinking strong coffee. His mother and sister hadn’t touched their cups.

“What do we do now?” Lotta repeated her question.

“The hospital has an arrangement with an undertaker in town,” said her mother. “In Marbella.”

“I haven’t thought about it at all,” Lotta said, “but you think Dad should be buried out here, do you?”

“That’s what he wanted. It’s a long time since he first mentioned it.”

“What do you think?”

She shrugged.

“It was what he wanted. And… what I want as well.”

She looked at her children.

“This is our home, after all.”

“Are you going to stay on out here?”

“I don’t know, Lotta. I mean, I have my… my friends out here, some of them. I don’t know.”

“Will the undertaker take care of everything?” Winter asked.

“Yes. As soon as Dr. Alcorta has confirmed the… cause of death and all that sort of thing. The undertaker will look after all that needs to be done with the authorities. The court. In Spain the formalities have to be approved by the court.”