Peter Stjernström - The Best Book in the World

The museum guide looks at the children. They shake their heads. A vacant look on their faces. Now she has them where she wants them. They are wide open. They will remember this moment for the rest of their lives.

‘If you think this sounds weird, it’s nothing compared to what’s going to come. Right: we have learnt that The Enigma of Wilhelm Tell is about Salvador Dali’s wish to get revenge on his dad and on narrow-minded middle-class attitudes. But we’re not going to have it as easy as that. The Enigma of Wilhelm Tell is perhaps most of all about the darkest side of human behaviour. Our uncontrolled desire to eat and – cannibalism ! Who knows what cannibalism is?’

A little boy sticks his hand up.

‘I have seen The Silence of the Lambs …’

Others have seen it too. Titus, who is watching the performance from the sidelines, can’t believe his eyes and ears. That film is X-rated! These children have seen The Silence of the Lambs but have never heard of Napoleon.

‘Bravo!’ the guide shouts. ‘The film is about the same thing! People who suffer, people who are afraid to die, people who force themselves to do horrible deeds because of their guilt about their own inadequacies. Do you remember the mass-murder boy in the cellar? The one who sews clothes from the skin of his victims? He could just as well be the boy at the bottom on the crutch. Both of them suffer from an extreme inferiority complex. Just like Napoleon did! And Salvador Dali with his stupid dad! Do you get it? Everybody has an inferiority complex at some time. Everybody has the same feelings deep inside. We are all like Salvador! All of us have our bottoms on a crutch!’

The children look at each other with wrinkled foreheads and puckered noses. They don’t have their bottoms in crutches, do they? What does she mean?

‘Now we’ll move along! Can you see the goat with a car tyre around its tummy over there?’

The group of children disappears as quickly as it turned up.

Titus remains standing in front of The Enigma of Wilhelm Tell for a few more moments. He is on the right track, his mind is in overdrive. The bottom on the crutch, the bottom on the crutch… then he suddenly gets it. Yes, of course! The serial killer in The Best Book in the World must naturally hang up the body parts of his victims on crutches. As a protest against his dad, the brusque middle-class dad who never let him come into full bloom. Who, on the contrary, belittled him and ill-treated him mentally and physically. And when the heroic detective eventually gets on his track then the arch villain is of course given the nickname Salvador, or perhaps even Serial Salvador. And Serial Salvador leaves clues that demand that you must analyse Dali’s paintings according to a new pattern in order to trace him. In that way, The Best Book in the World will be a revolutionary book about art history too! Perfect! Now all Titus has to do is read lots of books about Dali and then he’ll have cracked it.

Just what the doctor ordered, Titus thinks, satisfied. A good title for a book too, The Bottom on the Crutch … must go to the café and write it down!

He just has time to turn towards the exit when somebody grabs hold of his earlobe, pulls Titus’ head towards him and screams right into his ear:

‘COCK IN YOUR EAR!’

Is there any limit to how quickly you can think? Sound travels at 340 metres a second in ordinary air. The fibres of your body transport nerve impulses almost as quickly.

Since the screaming mouth is as good as inside Titus’ ear, it is only a question of a hundredth of a second before the sound is transformed into an impulse which is sent to the brain along half a metre of winding fibres inside Titus’ skull. So it takes a second or so before he is aware of what is happening. The scream paralyses him in the meanwhile. During the second that passes, some traumatic episodes of Titus’ life are screened before his eyes, like a condensed and nasty near-death experience. An unpleasant situation flashes past, like a frozen memory image for a tenth of a second, before it disappears again.

He is in school, fifteen years old. Two boys in the class with downy beard growth have him in their grip. He can see their teeth. They smell of cigarettes, and beer: Pripps Blue. Titus starts to panic. They are going to hack their pencils into his hands. They are going smash him to bits. He writes too much. They hate that. They won’t let him be good at anything. They hate him because he does something they don’t understand. Poems are for homos. Only queers read novels. But writing is the only thing he can do! Writing is the only thing he wants to do, and they are going to take that away from him. He must flee. He must get away. Fight or die. Help, where is his reward image?

Ah, plop, there it is! Suddenly he is lying on the woman’s bosom again. He licks away his milk moustache. He breathes easily. He becomes calm.

One second has passed since the scream in his ear to self-control and calm. One second that proves to Titus that anything is possible. His technique works. Whatever the situation he finds himself in, he has only to resort to his threat or reward images. It takes less than a second. He is strong now. Titus turns toward the loudmouth.

‘Lenny… nice to see you,’ he says without conviction, and touches his ear as a sign that he intends to protect it from further aggressive trespassing.

‘M-me too. I mean… the same. Sorry that I screamed in your ear. Can’t help it. It just happens. Tourette’s syndrome, you know. As soon as I get the slightest bit excited or surprised, then it comes. I was happy to see you.’

‘Yes, but I know, Lenny. It’s cool. It’s okay.’

‘Thanks, Titus. Well, what are you doing here?’

‘I’m just sort of scouting around, you could say. Got a new project going and I need a bit of inspiration. And you?’

‘M-my girlfriend works in the museum café. Malin – have you met her?’

Titus shakes his head.

‘Well, she works in the restaurant here. Shall we scrounge something tasty?’

‘Okay.’

Titus gets in the queue for the cashier behind a couple of cultured ladies dressed in black. They smile at him and nod very discreetly, as if they knew him. Or had known him a long time ago and now wanted to make themselves known so as to avoid any embarrassment. Has he slept with one of them? Or both? Nothing is impossible, Titus realises, and nods back almost as discreetly before looking away.

The counter is filled with enormous ciabatta sandwiches and cakes and biscuits that are as big as small plates. The sarnies are a bit rustic and look as if somebody had scattered too much flour onto them before they were put in the oven. Houmous, brie, salami, some fancy cabbage leaves and sun-dried tomatoes, the contents are overflowing on all sides.

The giant biscuits have extremely uneven edges. Titus thinks that the person who has baked them must have been a little child or somebody with a serious disability. It’s a very good thing that they employ disabled people at Moderna Museet! The cultural upper class can be in need of a bit of grim reality. To be forced to cope with your own or somebody else’s handicap is an everyday occurrence for many people. It doesn’t really matter what the biscuits look like; it’s the contents and the taste that counts. And the contents are extremely visible since the biscuits are very buckled. Here and there, bits of chocolate, raisins and nuts stick out. Besides, not all the biscuits have been baked properly; some are even burnt at the edges. Titus takes a handicap biscuit and fills a large cup with coffee. He pushes his tray towards the cash register.