Åke Edwardson - Sun and Shadow

“Shouldn’t you stay in tonight? You have an exam tomorrow, after all.”

“I’ve done the work for that.”

“When?”

‘At school.“

“Don’t you want me to test you on it?”

“No.”

“Maria, please. Can’t you stay in tonight?”

“I have to go now. They’re waiting for me.”

“Who is? Who’s waiting for you?”

“Patrik and the others.”

“Can’t you ask them to come here instead?” Hanne asked and immediately felt foolish. Would they really want her to serve them sponge cake and lemonade?

“They’ve already been here.”

“We’ve moved the VCR into your room,” said Hanne, feeling foolish again the moment she’d said it.

“Bye, Mom.” Maria closed the door behind her. Hanne heard her daughter’s footsteps on the steps and on the path outside. The snow was already packed so hard that it sounded like somebody bouncing on a trampoline. Winter in November, and it might well have come to stay, although you never knew. It could be fifty degrees over Christmas.

Hanne went back to the kitchen table and her newspaper and her reading glasses. She tried to spin out the time and avoided getting down to her Sunday sermon until the last minute.

If only the Christmas spirit would hurry up and arrive. They ought to go away, as far away as possible… Two weeks in the Canary Islands.

It would be best if they didn’t come back. A house in some southern country. All those Swedish expats. There was lots of work for a vicar. Several Swedish clergy were working on the Costa del Sol. She thought about Erik Winter. Yesterday, when she’d been at the police station, somebody had told her that his father had died. She could hear a tram approaching from Saint Sigfrids Plan. It sounded as if it were plowing its way through the snow. Maria might be on it. She thought about Winter again, his father. Maria’s father hadn’t been around since she was a baby. Had that sowed the seeds of the harvest she now was reaping? What am I saying, she wondered. “Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

And now the girl was a teenager. She saw her home as a potential prison, as they all do at that age-a part of growing up.

I’d better write that sermon now.

Málaga looked as it had done before. Nothing had changed of the city or the sea since he last saw them from the air.

The plane banked, and all he could see was sky. The coast was no longer visible behind them. The flight attendants started trundling their trolleys down the center aisle, and passengers ordered their drinks. Angela was feeling sick. Nothing unusual in the circumstances, she’d said, but she’d rather it wasn’t in an airplane.

He tried to read, but couldn’t concentrate. He avoided alcohol and ordered mineral water instead, like Angela. He didn’t touch his sandwich.

They passed through a pocket of turbulence that caused the aircraft to shudder once or twice.

“That actually helped,” Angela said. “I feel better now.”

“You look better too.”

“I can see the coast.”

“Which coast?”

“ Denmark, I think.”

Half an hour later the plane began its descent. Winter glimpsed Gothenburg through the clouds before they were swallowed up by them. The buildings were gray, but the ground was white.

The snow was about four inches deep at the side of the runway at Landvetter.

It smelled like a different country as they left the terminal building and made their way to the long-term car park. He could feel the cold through his thin coat. There were a lot of people milling around, but fewer than he’d been used to for some time. Coming back home was always like that. A lot of noise, but even so it was quieter than when he’d been away.

They didn’t speak much in the car. Angela intended to say something in the elevator, but didn’t.

“Is it Saturday we’ll be moving in the last of your things?” Winter asked.

Patrik waited for the snow plow to pass. There wasn’t enough snow for that, surely? No doubt they’d been told off again. The local authority. Whenever it snowed in Gothenburg the local authority was always told off for not getting the plows out to clear it soon enough. So here they were already, cruising around town even though there was barely enough snow to turn the streets white. Patrik checked his watch, then pulled his sleeve down over his freezing hand. His gloves were at home, doing an excellent job on the shelf in the hall, ha, ha.

He unloaded Beck from his Walkman, replaced it with Boy with the Arab Strap and sauntered over Aschebergsgatan while the music washed away the city sounds. That was good. He sometimes had more cassettes with him than newspapers, but they were all his own choices and it helped to keep changing, often. It made time pass more quickly. The sounds of the city were transformed into something else. Not that there were so many of them. The first trams. A few taxis, some of them apparently being driven by madmen. Drunken men and women yelling for taxis, especially on Friday and Saturday evenings.

And sounds like now, the snow plow attachment scraping against the tarmac, vibrations shuddering their way through the road surface until they caught up with him, then continuing up his legs and taking possession of his whole body.

He removed The Boy and replaced it with Gomez. Music was his life. He was a millennium ahead of everybody else. He was before his time. People listened to Eminem. Even some people he knew. Or used to know. Previously known people. He could feel himself making a face when he listened to Eminem. He felt provoked by Eminem. He had seen a television interview with Eminem devoid of intelligence and conducted by a couple of girls. Maria had been watching and he could see that she liked it, so he’d gone to his room and put on “Walking into Clarksdale ” at top volume. That was wicked stuff. That was a millennium ahead of its time. Page and Plant, who would soon be sixty and still way ahead of everybody else, who hadn’t a clue and started laughing when he played them. It was almost the same with Morrissey, but not quite as bad.

The electronic lock on the front door wasn’t working properly, as usual. He had to key in the code twice. There was a smell of old age in the stairwell and he started to feel tired, as there were so many stairs left to climb before he’d delivered all the newspapers. He always started to think along those lines when he’d got this far. He was on the third floor. For the last few days he’d paused here and asked himself what seemed amiss. He switched off his Walkman now and took away the earphones.

It was several days ago, when he was about to push the newspaper through the mail slot. He thought back to that occasion, again. Some newspapers had landed on end and were blocking the slot. He’d had to push quite hard and he’d heard the music coming from inside the apartment. It was five in the morning, just like now. There were no lights on in the apartment, but he’d heard the music. Listening to metal at five in the morning! Death metal, eh! Or black. Somebody was sitting there, listening to metal, but whoever it was didn’t read his newspapers, nor did he open his mail.

It said VALKER on the door. Nothing else. Valker. He couldn’t even get the newspaper through the slot anymore. He squatted down and could see the darkness inside the apartment and hear the music as usual. But there was something else now-you couldn’t miss it, couldn’t avoid it. A smell that was worse than… he didn’t know, worse than… he couldn’t think of anything worse, but he could smell it and had been able to smell it for several days now and not only in the morning. He’d felt obliged to go back several times and check. Hell’s bells, he had to admit it. He was curious. Maria had been with him the day before.