Peter Stjernström - The Best Book in the World

No, he must think through his routines better: check that the windows are shut when he goes out and lock the door properly, check it is locked by pushing the handle down and keep a discreet eye on the entrance door a couple of minutes after he goes out. Urgh, he is all nerves. Just take it easy, Titus, everything will be all right, he thinks.

Another blow in the tube: fifty-six minutes and seventeen seconds.

Time crawls along.

Titus goes into the kitchen alcove and turns the coffee machine on. He makes a sandwich using a slice of Cheddar and slices up a green pepper to put in it. He fills a glass with orange juice. The fridge doesn’t look like an ice desert in the Arctic any more, now that he has his eating habits under control. A balanced diet. Regular mealtimes. Things will sort themselves out. Breathe slowly.

He looks out through the window. The white-haired lady is still sitting on her balcony. Now she is pressing the buttons on the radio on the balcony table.

Yeah, why not? Good idea, thinks Titus, and turns on his little kitchen radio.

The signature tune fills the room. It is Summer. Probably the most popular radio programme in Sweden of any category. Swedes known and unknown who have something exciting or interesting to talk about are given one and a half hours each at lunchtime during the summer to enthral the whole country. They intersperse their stories with their favourite music. The result is often extremely personal and occasionally rather provocative. Nobody is indifferent to what they hear. The evening tabloids usually get on the bandwagon and do a messy re-write or a sick distortion the next day to sell a few extra copies in the summer news drought.

The signature tune fades away. Titus wonders who it will be today.

Good afternoon, Sweden.

Hello, Swedes!

My name is Eddie X.

I am an author and poet.

I live on water, bread and love.

And music.

You can do that too.

Today I’m going to show you my life.

Because it is your life too.

You and me.

We are very similar, don’t you think?

Just as fragile, just as strong.

Just as repulsive, just as beautiful.

Today I’m going to show you my memories.

And I shall play music that has gilded my memories to something priceless.

You will be there with me when I made out the first time.

You will be there with me when I made love the first time.

Does that sound like fun?

It was.

But first you are going to come with me to my nursery school.

You.

You are going to paint my willy with finger paints.

Here we go. Titus sits down on a kitchen chair and listens attentively. He forgets the time and that the breathalyser lock is ticking away to imminent liberation. Eddie’s cosy voice fills the room. He has a faint northern accent which increases the sincerity; no one else in the whole world could get away with such a bombastic balancing act like this one of Eddie’s. But it never becomes ridiculous, not for a single second. Eddie X never degrades himself to become a silly court poet with a starched collar. He is rock’n’roll in poetry format, a stick of dynamite in a velvet casing.

Titus is hooked. Spellbound. He and the other little children play with Eddie’s willy at nursery school, he follows Eddie to a children’s party, starts school, looks at the lady schoolteacher’s bouncing breasts, sneaks up on the girls in the gym showers, laughs at the dragon fancy dress, wets himself at school camp, feels the popcorn taste of the first tongue kiss, has an uncontrolled ejaculation in his pyjamas, makes out with the girls with new and firm breasts, acquires a taste for it and makes out even more, scrumps apples from local gardens, eats his way through every ice cream flavour on the list, goes mountain-biking in the forest, makes out in a frenzy, watches TV, drinks strong beer, writes poetry, drinks copious amounts of strong beer, writes exceptionally good poetry, performs at a Poetry Slam competition, wins the audience’s hearts, makes love even more, writes even more poetry, paints a red heart on his chest for his medical for military service, is declared unfit for duty and sends the certificate in a pink envelope to the Secretary General of the UN, Interrails all over Europe, goes island-hopping in the Mediterranean, moves into a commune, makes love, becomes obsessed with love and conveying it, becomes a legend in Poetry Slam circles, travels the length and breadth of the country visiting festivals together with The Tourettes, preaches the gospel of love, publishes collections of poetry and makes recordings.

Eddie X plays only Swedish music to accompany his memories. He has no taboos about what is beautiful or ugly, permitted or forbidden. In Eddie’s Summer programme, Ace of Base and E-Type have just as much cred as The Hives and The Soundtrack of Our Lives. Twenty-five years of the best of Sweden in a wonderful and amusing whistle-stop summary in one and a half hours.

Titus can almost hear through the walls how the Swedish nation is cheering joyfully. A new jewel in our national treasure chest has been found. First Bellman, Taube, Lundell and Hellström. And now – Eddie X.

When the programme ends, Titus texts Eddie:

Congratulations! Laughs + tears + laughs again. Thanks + cheers. Titus.

When he puts the phone down, it suddenly hits him like a fist right in his solar plexus. He feels the blood emptying out of his head. He has to sit down on the floor. He rubs his crew-cut head hard. Bloody fucking hell. How could he not have thought of it earlier? Fingernails scratching his scalp. A struggle to breathe. Hyperventilation.

Eddie didn’t say a word about his paranoid dad! When they met at the City Library he was doing research for his Summer programme! Digging into the past and learning more. Confronting nasty memories and all that sort of thing to be able to bare himself to the Swedish nation. And then: a single long harangue about the fun and games of growing up in Sweden. Just memories, no analysis. Not a word about what it was like to grow up with a dad who had mental problems.

So Eddie had lied to his face. He would never have thought that possible. So much for the loving message. A wolf in silk clothing.

Before Titus faints, he sees it all clearly: Eddie X, the new national hero, is also busy writing The Best Book in the World.

Meltdown.

The doorbell rings.

Titus doesn’t know how long he has been lying there out cold. Could have been minutes, could have been twenty-four hours – it feels like an eternity. He gets up cautiously and staggers out into the hall, a bit dizzy but able to stand. His mouth feels dry and dusty. He must have been lying there in the kitchen quite a while. He looks at himself in the hall mirror, and sees he is as pale as a corpse despite the sunbed short-cut at the gym.

The doorbell rings again.

Who can it be? Is it Lenny coming back to steal the whole computer this time? Titus looks through the spy-hole. He sees a muscular guy in blue dungarees holding a gigantic toolbox, his mobile phone in a holster and blond streaks in his hair.

Then he remembers the conversation with Astra. It’s the locksmith of course. He got here so quickly. Then again, how does Titus know that? He could have been unconscious for ages. He opens the door.

‘Hello, are you the locksmith?’

‘That’s me. I came as quickly as I could, mate. There seemed to be a bit of a panic here they said.’