Peter Stjernström - The Best Book in the World

‘M-me, I’m not so fucking sure about that. Are you hunting happiness just because you go to a concert reading by Eddie X? Can’t you just take it easy and have a cosy time? Just be, sort of, fairly content?’

‘Yeah, of course. And that’s what I mean. The world gets a bit better from that sort of thing. But if it is happiness or not, that I don’t know.’

‘Does it make any difference what you call it?’ says Lenny, and blows with the corner of his mouth: pfff, pfff.

‘No, you’re probably right about that.’

Titus glances at the cultured ladies. Are they still there? Yes, they are, they’re sitting and breaking small pieces of their enormous biscuits, popping the crumbs into their mouths like beautiful small birds. Giggling and glistening with their nice teeth. They look rather expensive from a distance, with their highlighted hair in fancy coiffures. Something has definitely happened with cultured ladies in recent years, Titus thinks. Just a few years ago, most of them had hair that was dyed red, preferably with an uncombed look and set up with a colourful hair ribbon. Sensible shoes and multi-coloured clothes. Now they are more discreet and stylistically pure: high heels and tight skirts, pretty as models, almost regardless of age. You can no longer distinguish between culture girls and upper class chicks. That sort of hairdo must cost at least a thousand kronor. What has happened? Have wages gone up in the culture sector? Not in Titus’ sector at any rate, he is quite certain about that. Although when he thinks about all the glass and brushed steel he saw in Astra’s flat he becomes uncertain again. She is pretty in that way too. Not sexy pretty, but expensive pretty. Fuck, I’m way behind, he thinks. I want money too! But not so that I can look like an expensive upper-class chap. I just want the freedom.

‘And what are you working on at the moment then?’ Lenny wonders. ‘A new book under way? I’ve read Storm Clouds and Treacherous Charades. Quite a lot of pain and blackness. Perfect reads for a grim week on Gotland in November. Is there more in that style coming along? Pfff. Pfff.’

Titus is taken unawares by the question even though over the years he has learnt to never talk about a book he is working on. It gives the whole project bad karma. Expectations are every author’s worst enemy, so you should never try to describe a book yourself. Not when it’s finished, and even less before it has been written. When the book is ready, it must manage on its own.

‘Yeah, well, I’m busy working on a synopsis for some things. Talking a bit to the publishers and that.’

Titus feels uncomfortable. This is no good. It is simply crazy to be sitting drinking coffee with a guy who sits there making small weird blowing sounds all the time. He ought to be working instead of wasting time. The days pass and he must actually catch a mad serial killer. And bearing in mind that he has never been anywhere near writing a crime novel, it’s high time to get on with it.

‘W-will it be g-good, then?’ Lenny asks.

‘What?’

‘Y-your b-book, of course.’

‘Book? Oh, we’ll see how it turns out,’ says Titus and tries to prevent his eyes from going all over the place. He doesn’t like Lenny prying about the book. Which book? Titus’ book is nothing that is any concern of Lenny’s.

‘You know, Lenny, I must be getting along. Work calls.’

‘Oh my God. You too. I’m so impressed by you all.’

‘Us?’

‘Yes, I only know two authors. And both of you work as if you were possessed, it seems.’

Titus feels that in his solar plexus. What does he mean? Who does he mean?

‘Who else do you mean?’ says Titus slowly although he knows very well who Lenny means.

‘Eddie X. He is working like a madman too. I have hardly seen him since the festival.’

When Titus hears the three syllables of Eddie X’s name, he feels the blood draining away from his head. He is forced to hold the table with both hands so as not to fall off his chair.

‘Oh really… Eddie,’ he says, but silently thinks to himself: fuck, fuck, fuck. Then it’s true, his worst suspicion is confirmed.

‘H-he doesn’t p-poke his nose outside the door. Just works, works, works. Day and night.’

‘With what?’ Titus hears himself asking.

He feels paralysed. If Eddie X has started working on his version of The Best Book in the World, then Titus has been robbed of his victory. People love everything that Eddie touches. Sure, Titus is a living legend too. Respected on the arts pages. Hunted by the gossip press. But Eddie X is much more than that. He is a saint. The day he stops writing poems and starts writing novels, he’ll get millions of readers and become a millionaire without even trying. Titus must know. Have the judge pronounce sentence. What is Eddie working on?

‘H-he says he is working on his summer radio programme. It’s being broadcast next week. But I don’t know, he doesn’t usually take that radio stuff so seriously. It’s the third time he has done the summer programme and he didn’t work especially hard even on the first one. He’s got it all inside his head. He only has to turn on the tap. But, of course, perhaps it takes time to choose the music.’

The beloved Eddie X is slaving away like an animal with a project that is probably going to make him immortal. Meanwhile, the soot-black has-been Titus Jensen is sitting here drinking in a café with a spasmodic blowfish.

If there is any justice at all in this world, then it is high time it starts doing its job.

Competition is not a whip that usually cracks behind Titus. But when it does finally sing through the air in Titus’ flat, it sends his adrenaline levels sky high.

Now it is a matter of ping-pong. There is no time to play tactically and plan in detail. No, what he must do is smash every ball that comes his way. Since he has a good overview of the plot of the book in his head, he can allow himself to churn out the various chapters in any order. Then he can cut and paste.

He blow-starts the computer and savours a brilliant idea:

The ABC Method.

The very thought of the perfect slimming method made Chief Inspector Håkan Rink’s body so exalted that he burnt 100 calories. Never before had anyone packaged slimming tricks in such a smart and concise manner as he had done. Never ever had the advice been so simple and candid. And besides, he himself was living proof that the system worked. In only five weeks, he had lost ten kilograms. And he had just passed the ‘ogling threshold’, the magical eighty-two-kilo boundary. The ogling threshold was the perfect measure of a person’s ideal weight, and it was much more reliable than the tired old BMI value which only measures the relationship between weight and height. Weight and height are of no interest to mankind in the long term. The only thing that counts is if and when you can mate. And BMI has no say in that. The ogling threshold, however, puts the focus on more natural instincts.

Eighty-two kilograms: that was the boundary when women yet again started to meet Håkan Rink’s eye. They hadn’t done that for ten years. Before, when he weighed more than ninety kilograms, there wasn’t a single soul who eyed him up. But now that he weighed a little below eighty-two, at least one or two gave him an appreciative smile. In the reflection in a shop window, he had even noticed how a girl raised her sunglasses and sneaked a look at his arse. To be objectified – that was a wonderful feeling that Håkan Rink wanted to experience more often. Besides, people had started to listen to him at work in a new way. They took him seriously again. Now he was competent as a mating partner and transporter of human genes. As such, that made him credible as the leader of the flock.