Mankell Henning - When the Snow Fell

Joel woke up with a start. This had never happened to him before. A naked woman coming towards him in a dream. Not as unexpectedly as this, in any case. Before, he’d always been able to dictate who turned up in his dreams. But not this time; she’d come of her own accord.

There was something else that was different. It eventually dawned on him that she wasn’t only like somebody he’d seen in one of Otto’s magazines: she had reminded him of the new shop assistant in Ehnström’s grocery store.

Joel tried to escape back into his dream. Closed his eyes and leaned back on the pillows. But no matter what he did, he couldn’t get back there. His dream had gone away. And he couldn’t get back in touch with it.

But he knew that it was connected to his New Year’s resolutions. He knew that in the coming year, he would see a real naked woman.

Something had happened during the past year. Something that had shaken his whole world to its foundations. Something inside him. Hatches that had opened up, secret doors that had been flung open wide.

Feelings were like doors. Joel knew that. Sorrow had its own room; so did disappointment, and happiness. Life was like a long corridor. Every door you walked past concealed something you could choose to accept. Or reject. If you knocked on the door and went in. Always assuming you were allowed in. But doors you hoped would remain closed could also open unexpectedly.

It was all to do with Otto’s magazines. Where more or less naked women were climbing up ladders, or sitting on balconies in front of some photographer or others who snapped and snapped away. He couldn’t say whether what was happening inside him was good or not. But it worried him. He was on fire.

During breaks Otto often went on and on and on about how things stood. He hissed when he spoke. Not too loud, not too soft. Just so that those gathered round him could hear. No girls, only boys. And Otto hissed. About big girls’ secrets. And Joel had always listened carefully. But there again, he didn’t trust Otto. Not just because they had more or less always been enemies. Otto was always bragging. But on the other hand, Joel could never be absolutely sure. You could only be sure when you knew yourself. And not always then.

Joel thought about the woman in his dream. How she had walked towards him. Captain Joel Gustafson had dared to look at her. But the one having the dream, Joel Gustafson with a sore throat, had looked away. He hadn’t really dared to look at her, not even in his dream. He hadn’t really had much more than a glimpse.

Joel had chosen that word carefully. A glimpse . Something you nearly saw, not quite. And that was exactly what the woman had been.

But he had seen something. All the unknown things that worried him.

And she had been very much like the new shop assistant at Ehnström’s. The one who spoke with a Stockholm accent, and hadn’t become an old woman yet.

Then it dawned on Joel. He was ill in bed, but he knew. The New Year’s resolution he had made, about seeing a naked woman: it would be Ehnström’s shop assistant. With no clothes on. But goodness only knew how he would be able to manage that.

Nevertheless, it was a step in the right direction. He knew now who he had picked out. Or rather, who the dream had chosen for him.

He noticed that the dream had made him hungry. And his throat was hardly sore anymore. He went to the pantry and fetched what was left of the black pudding from the previous evening. Cold black pudding was not exactly tasty. But when you were really hungry, it didn’t much matter what you ate. He prepared a plate of black pudding and jam. Then he clambered up onto the window seat. A car drove past, then another one shortly afterwards. Fat old women were shuffling along the pavements, trying not to slip. No doubt they were heading for Ehnströms Livs to do their shopping. And none of them saw Joel sitting on the window seat, hoping they would slip and fall down.

Joel ate. He was really hungry. Then he went back to his room. Wondered if Lars Olson, lying dead out there in the churchyard, had ever eaten black pudding. Had Captain Joel Gustafson ever been forced to survive on any of his long voyages with nothing to eat but cold black pudding?

He banished the thought as he went back to bed and snuggled down under the cover. What he would most have liked to do was to continue dreaming about the woman who had come towards him on the beach. But he had other New Year’s resolutions to think about. And besides, there was a long day ahead of him. It would be many hours before Samuel came back from the forest.

He was going to live to be a hundred. Live until at least 2045. If he was going to live that long, he’d have to toughen himself up. But in the world he lived in, there were no giants to fight.

The only thing was winter: the snow and the cold.

Yes, winter would be the giant he would challenge and overcome. He would show that he was stronger than the cold.

And he knew what he was going to do. As soon as he was fit again, he would begin.

He would start sleeping outdoors.

There was an old bed in the woodshed at the bottom of the garden. That was what he would use. When Samuel had fallen asleep Joel would take his bedclothes and make up a bed outside the shed. To start with, he would dress in outdoor clothes and boots. But when he’d got used to it and become tough, he would only wear his pajamas.

He felt a stabbing pain in his stomach at the very thought.

Sleeping in a bed out there in the snow.

But he’d made the resolution. The dead had heard him make it. Lars Olson had been a witness to Joel’s New Year’s resolutions. There was no getting away from it.

He curled up under the blanket. Swallowed. His throat felt rough and jagged. Like a piece of wood he’d sawn up in his woodworking lesson. But at least it didn’t seem to be getting any worse.

Then he thought about his third resolution. How he was going to devote the coming year to solving the biggest of all the problems he faced. To persuading Samuel to dig his axe deep down into some tree stump or other and leave it there once and for all, to take out his old suitcases and sailor’s kitbag from the wardrobe, and say: The time has come. Now we’re going to the sea. The waves are waiting for us.

The waves are waiting for us .

Joel could feel a surge of hot blood running through him. The waves were waiting for them somewhere in the far distance. But would they wait forever?

Joel knew that there were only two possibilities. The first was that he do something that brought such disgrace on himself and Samuel that it was impossible for them to stay in this place any longer. That was option number one. They would have to run away.

The other was that Joel find a way of earning vast amounts of money. So that Samuel no longer needed to chop down lots of trees in order to earn enough money for them to be able to eat.

But how could he possibly earn as much money as that? He was thirteen years of age. Just a young brat. And young brats didn’t earn any money.

Even so, he had a few ideas.

One was to become Sweden’s youngest rock idol. A Snow Elvis.

Another was to sell trailers. He’d heard all about that. Selling trailers was an excellent way of getting rich quick.

His train of thought was broken. Something had disturbed him. Then he looked out the window and jumped out of bed.

It had started snowing again. A mass of snowflakes were cascading down to the ground.

Miss Nederström looked at Joel.

It was the following day. When Joel was feeling fit again.

But the look she gave him didn’t suggest that she had discovered a secret. She simply asked him if he’d been ill. And he said he had. They had already sung the morning hymn by then. Joel had held his breath when Miss Nederström sat down at the harmonium and started pedaling. If the sound that emerged was not musical notes, he would faint. He grabbed hold of the desk with both hands. As if he’d been in a boat as a big wave was approaching. His classmate Eva-Lisa, the Greyhound, was standing beside him, grinning. But there was no way she could know. She usually grinned at anything slightly different. Joel grabbing tight hold of his desk was enough for that.