Карин Тидбек - Jagannath

He surveyed the little space. There was plenty of material to work with. He rolled up his shirt sleeves, took off his jacket, and started sketching a framework.

Herr Cederberg finished the machine on an early morning in the second week of August. At first glance, it resembled a stubby winged canoe on wheels. The cockpit had a corduroy seat with a safety belt. A pair of bicycle pedals stuck out of the floor. It had felt a little banal to use pedals to power the wings, but they turned out to be the perfect method for creating the oscillating pattern he wanted. The chassis was covered with a layer of oilcloth, painted with black-and-yellow stripes. Herr Cederberg realized he hadn’t given the craft a name.

After a long blank moment, he patted the chassis and said, “Bumblebee.” He blushed at his own lack of imagination.

It was time to go. He folded the wings along the sides and pushed Bumblebee out of the garage, toward the forest.

Herr Cederberg stood sweaty and winded on the edge of a cliff in the forest outside the suburb. Far below lay the lake and the dark green sea of the pine forest. Next to him, the craft sat with its wings extended and a couple of wedges under its wheels to keep it from running off the edge. Herr Cederberg put his goggles on and crawled into the cockpit. He fastened his seatbelt and waited.

The morning wind was too gentle, but after midday it finally picked up speed. A low pressure front was heading in, and the chubby cumuli fused and inflated as they wandered the horizon. When the draft finally arrived, Herr Cederberg tore the wedges off and cheered quietly as the craft rolled forward, lifted its nose, and slid out over the edge. He pedaled as fast as his legs could manage. The wings were sluggish at first, but picked up speed, and when an updraft shot up along the cliff Bumblebee really took off. The air rushing by made Herr Cederberg’s cheeks flutter. He rose higher and higher at a steep and determined angle.

The low pressure front came in straight ahead. The cumuli had gained height and metamorphosed into an enormous cumulonimbus, an anvil-shaped mass that stretched up into the higher layers of the atmosphere. Herr Cederberg looked down at the ground. He looked up at the cloud. Then he smiled and pedaled faster.

At first, the suction of the cumulonimbus felt like a faint increase in wind. Then suddenly, it was as if someone had grabbed the craft, as the cloud greedily started sucking in all air in its vicinity. Herr Cederberg saw the dark belly of the cloud stretch out like a bruised ceiling. The wind howled in his ears. The cloud ceiling soon filled his entire field of vision.

The forward motion turned into a violent updraft, and the air darkened around him. Bumblebee began to shudder and shake. A wing abruptly tore away and pulled half of the oilcloth with it. Herr Cederberg clung to the edges of the cockpit with whitening knuckles as the cold and dark closed in around him. Ice crystals flocked to his eyelashes and moustache. The other wing fell away into the fog. Herr Cederberg unfastened his safety belt and kicked away from the cockpit. The craft’s remains disappeared under him. The fog brightened slightly. He closed his eyes.

Some time later, the light became almost unbearably bright, and the wind quieted down. Herr Cederberg opened his eyes again. He was floating just above the top of the cumulonimbus cloud. Above him, a hard little sun shone in a sky colored dark violet. Little cirrus clouds powdered the stratosphere. White hills billowed away in all directions. The cold was deep and quiet. Herr Cederberg oscillated his arms, like a bumblebee.

Despite the well-known fact that it’s the worst time possible, everyone who needs to speak to a governmental agency calls on Monday morning. This Monday was no exception. The tiny office was buzzing with activity, the three operators on the day shift bent over their consoles in front of the ancient switchboard.

On Arvid Pekon’s console, subject 1297’s light was blinking. He adjusted his headset, plugged the end of the cord into the jack by the lamp and said in a mild voice:

“Operator.”

“Eva Idegård, please,” said subject 1297 at the other end.

“One moment.” Arvid flicked the mute switch and fed the name into the little computer terminal under the wall of lamps and jacks. Subject 1297 was named Samuelsson, Per. Idegård, Eva was Samuelsson’s caseworker at the unemployment insurance office. He read the basic information (1297 unemployed for seven months), listened to the voice sample, and flicked the mute switch again.

“Gothenburg unemployment insurance office, Eva Idegård,” Arvid said in a slightly hoarse alto voice.

“Hi, this is Per Samuelsson,” said Per. “I wanted to check what’s happening with my fee.” He rattled off his personal registration number.

“Of course,” said Arvid in Eva Idegård’s voice.

He glanced at the information in the registry: last conversation at 1.43 PM, February 26: Subject’s unemployment benefits were lowered and insurance fee raised because of reported illness but no doctor’s certificate. (Subject did send a doctor’s certificate—processed according to randomized destruction routine §2.4.a.)

“You’ll have to pay the maximum insurance fee since we haven’t received a doctor’s certificate,” said Arvid.

“I sent two of them in the original,” said Per. “This isn’t right.”

“I suppose one could think that,” said Arvid, “ but the fact remains that we haven’t received them.”

“What the hell do you people do all day?” Per’s voice was noticeably raised.

“You have a responsibility to keep informed and send the right information to the unemployment benefit fund, Per,” Arvid said, in a soft voice.

“Bitch. Hag,” said Per and hung up.

Arvid removed his headset, massaged the sore spot it left above his right ear. He wrote in the log: 2.07 PM, March 15: Have explained the raised fee.

“Coffee break?” said Cornelia from the terminal to his right.

The light by subject 3426 was blinking when Arvid sat down again.

“Operator,” said Arvid, calling the details up on his screen. There was no information except for a surname: Sycorax, miss. He hadn’t seen this subject before.

“Hello?” said a voice. It was thin and flat.

“Yes, hello.”

“I would like to be put through to my dead mother,” said Miss Sycorax.

“Just a moment.” Arvid muted the call. “Dead mother? How am I supposed to imitate her dead mother?” he said to his terminal. He peeked for the guidelines that should be popping up next to Miss Sycorax’s name. There was nothing. Then he saw his hand rise up and flick the mute switch, and a sonorous voice burst out of his mouth. “Hello?”

“Mother, is that you?” said Miss Sycorax.

“Darling! Hello there. It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

“Finding a good connection to Hell isn’t easy, Mother.”

Arvid fought to press his lips together. Instead they parted, and his mouth said: “It’s lonely down here.”

“Not much I can do about that, Mother,” Miss Sycorax replied.

“Can’t you come visit, just for once?” said Arvid, his voice dolorous. He desperately wanted to rip his headset off, but his hands lay like limp flippers in his lap.

“Well, if you’re only going to be whiny about it I think we can end this conversation,” Miss Sycorax said, tartly.

Arvid called her just that—tart— in her dead mother’s voice. His ear clicked. Miss Sycorax had hung up. Arvid’s hands were his own again. He took his headset off with shaky hands and looked around. At the next terminal, Cornelia was talking to subject 2536 ( Persson, Mr, talking to an old friend from school in Vilhelmina ), twirling a lock of dark hair around her pencil as she spoke to the subject in an old man’s voice. When she ended her call, Arvid stood up from his chair.