Peter Stjernström - The Best Book in the World

‘One moment.’

Astra takes a deep breath. Why the hell hadn’t she thought of Malin earlier?

‘Hello, Malin here!’

‘Hello, Malin. My name is Astra and I’m a friend of Eddie X and I know Lenny too a bit.’

‘Yeah, hi.’

‘I need to talk to them about something. Have you any idea where they could be?’

‘Yeah, I think they were going to the country to rehearse something.’

‘Ah, so that’s it! The country… whereabouts?’

‘Well, I haven’t a clue where it is. It’s sort of an abandoned cottage deep in the forest in Sörmland. It’s sort of always empty. In the middle of fucking nowhere. Like for real. I haven’t the faintest where the place is!’

Astra tries to press her a bit more about where this abandoned cottage might be, or if she knows anything more about what they were going to do there, if Malin had heard that the author Titus Jensen was going to go with them. No, she hadn’t. She knows nothing about anything. Lenny had simply said they were going to take it easy and rehearse a few days. Then they went off. That’s all she knows.

Titus wakes out of his torpor when something that sounds like an old radio starts crackling.

‘Hello, are you awake Titus?’

It’s Eddie’s voice, on a speaker. Perhaps Eddie is sitting inside that cottage and talking to him from there? With a walkie-talkie or some such apparatus? Maybe its one of those baby monitors he’s seen on the TV ads.

‘Have you thought about my offer?’

Titus isn’t sure whether there is a microphone in the earth cellar. Can Eddie hear him if he swears? He’ll try speaking in a low voice:

‘What? Which offer?’

‘My offer to you. If you admit that it’s my book, then you’ll be free. You must sign the contract. I’m the one who wrote the book and you know that. You have stolen it. You have nicked every single idea from inside my head, and pretended to Astra and Winchester Publishing that you are the one who has written it. That’s what you must sign. Then you’ll be released.’

‘No fucking way!’ Titus shouts for all he is worth. ‘It’s my book. I have written every single word in it! I have put my soul into it. You don’t know what you are talking about!’

‘Oh yes I most certainly do!’ Eddie yells back through the speaker. ‘I know very well what I myself have thought up! They are my ideas, straight off. I said all of that already during that evening at the festival. But you were so drunk you’ve chosen to forget!’

‘You didn’t at all! You’re lying!’

For a moment, silence reigns. Titus can hear Eddie breathing into the microphone. He seems upset.

‘Titus?’

‘Yes, what do you want?’

‘Do you confess?’

‘No, I’ve told you! Never!’

Silence again. A moment’s heavy breathing.

‘Then I’ll have to turn the lights on.’

‘What?’

‘If you don’t confess, then I’ll turn the lights on!’

‘Yeah, right.’

Is he joking? Is this candid camera? Will they come any moment and open the door and throw confetti and shout that it’s all over and laugh at him for falling for everything? No, hardly.

The only alternative is that Eddie is in the midst of a severe psychosis. Titus has never come across such extreme obsessive-compulsive behaviour in anybody else before. It is decidedly unpleasant.

‘Do you confess? Will you sign it?’

‘No. You can let me out anyway. Let’s forget all this. Perhaps you aren’t feeling very well, Eddie?’

‘Last chance: sign or I’ll turn the lights on.’

What a bizarre threat, thinks Titus. He would much rather be imprisoned in a lit-up earth cellar than in one that is pitch dark.

‘Eddie, I’d rather die than give up the copyright to that book!’

Eddie breathes into the microphone for quite a while. Then he says:

‘Okay. I’m turning the lights on.’

Quite a few seconds pass. Still dark. Then there is a buzzing sound in an electric cable. A fluorescent lamp up on the ceiling starts to crackle and blink. Titus puts his hand over his eyes, not having seen any light for a couple of days. When his eyes have acclimatised he looks around him.

He sees a portable loo with a large container in green plastic in one corner. In the other there is a little camping table and a folding chair. The walls have shelves fixed all around the earth cellar. From floor to ceiling.

But there aren’t any jam jars or sacks of potatoes on the shelves.

They are full of bottles and cartons.

Titus realises what he is looking at.

The shelves are packed with wine, spirits and beer. Several cartons of cigarettes. Lots of multi-packs of tobacco. Smoked sausage, crisps and cheese puffs.

The earth cellar is all kitted out for a party.

‘Hello dear, everything under control?’

Evita is radiantly happy and drums with her long nails on Astra’s doorpost when she looks into her room. Her hair is even more jet black than ever. She pouts her red lips at the little mirror just inside the door and gives herself an appreciative wink. There is always plenty of room for humour and self-mockery in Evita’s life. Presumably that is why people feel so comfortable in her presence.

Astra twirls around on her office chair. She looks rather concerned.

‘What? Oh, hi Evita. Under control… Yes, yeah. I suppose it is,’ says Astra in a more tired voice than she usually has.

Evita goes in and sits on the chair opposite Astra’s desk. She crosses her legs and supports one arm on the back-rest. She is one of those women who always look just as relaxed regardless of whether she is sitting in an armchair or hanging from a trapeze. Nothing can dent her self-confidence.

‘The book fair will be starting soon. It is going to be really great.’

‘Yes, well…’

‘I’ve just been to Micha’s and got my hair done. Did you know that it’s his niece who does the shampooing? She can’t be very old. Fourteen at the most. It can hardly be okay to work full-time when you’re so young.’

‘You look really lovely. Have you had some colour added? There’s a nice glow.’

Evita stretches her head back and gently shakes her hair over her neck.

‘Thanks. I’ve just done the usual. I don’t really know what’s in those dyes but I don’t suppose they are particularly organic,’ Evita laughs and goes on. ‘Did you get Titus’ manuscript? Did he get it finished on time? He must be very pleased with himself now, don’t you think?’

Astra avoids looking Evita in the eye when she formulates her vague answer.

‘I’ve got it. It looks really good. I’ve sent some selected chapters to be translated too. The printers at the book fair will arrange everything. All the sales materials will be waiting when we get down there on Thursday morning. So, yes, it should all be ready…’

Evita is a tough lady. But she hasn’t reached her position because she is thick skinned. On the contrary, she is extremely receptive and considerate. She immediately cottons on that something isn’t quite right and fastens her green eyes on Astra.

‘But…? I can feel that there is a big “but” here…’

Astra takes a deep breath. She looks at Evita. Take the bull by the horns, she thinks. Sink or swim.

‘Evita, I don’t know where Titus is. He’s disappeared.’

‘Disappeared?’

‘I don’t know where he is…’

‘What do you mean? A grown-up man can’t just go up in smoke. Have you tried the Association Bar? Perhaps he’s “had a relapse” now that he’s finished the book,’ says Evita, adding quotation marks with her fingers as she borrows the alcoholics’ own terminology.