Peter Stjernström - The Best Book in the World

‘Different in what way?’ Astra wonders.

‘Yeah, well, he’s become sort of jealous. He doesn’t think that anybody likes him any more, that everybody thinks his poems are ridiculous, that when he says something funny then they laugh at him instead of with him, if you get what I mean. And that he’s started drinking rather a lot. All the time.’

Malin goes on to say that Lenny doesn’t want to talk about Eddie any longer. The week before they went off to the cottage, he didn’t say much at all. As soon as she tried to ask him what was wrong, he just wanted to change the subject, became irritated and swore even more than usual. It was as if his tics got worse as soon as she entered the room.

Now she has tried to phone him loads of times the last few days, but he doesn’t answer. And nor does Eddie X.

Astra and Malin talk for a while. They are agreed that everything is not as it should be and that they must do somthing. Now. The question is – what? Perhaps they can try to find the cottage by just driving around. It ought to be somewhere in Sörmland, because Malin is pretty certain they passed Södertälje when they drove there. And then they sort of went off to the right. What would that be? West? There was a lake somewhere near. Perhaps Malin could find the way if they just set off in that direction. But probably not. No, it wouldn’t work.

‘But Astra!’ Malin suddenly exclaims.

‘Yes…?’

‘We’ll talk to Lenny’s dad. I know where he hangs out. We’ll go there!’

‘Why?’ Astra wonders.

‘Yeah, well listen. It’s Lenny’s dad who owns the cottage. He is there in the summer.’

‘What? Does somebody own it? You said it was an abandoned cottage.’

‘Well nobody lives there… it’s, like, an abandoned cottage,’ Malin says defensively.

‘It might not be permanently inhabited, but that doesn’t make it an abandoned cottage! An abandoned cottage is a house that has been forgotten, that just stands there. It isn’t an abandoned cottage if somebody owns it and goes there in the summer. It isn’t abandoned just because it’s in the middle of nowhere. Oh, why didn’t you say so from the start? Then I would have been able to find it immediately!’

‘Well, I’m very fucking sorry then,’ says Malin and rolls her eyes. ‘Hello, how should I know…’

‘But isn’t Lenny’s dad dead?’ Astra breaks in when her brain has worked out what Malin has actually told her. ‘Eddie said he was dead.’

‘No, he isn’t dead! Did Eddie say that? He and Lenny don’t keep in touch any longer. He is alive and well from what I’ve heard, but I’ve never met him. Lenny knows where his dad hides the key to the cottage, above the outdoor lamp in the porch. It’s the same place as when he was little. So he has, like, done a break-in at his dad’s house. But then we have always cleaned up after us. His dad has no idea we’ve been there. It has always been at weird times, like in the middle of the week or a weekend when it’s been pissing with rain all the time, when no normal person would ever think of going off to the country, like. Shall we go and find the old guy? I know where he is.’

Astra puts her hand on Malin’s.

‘Come along, let’s go. Can you take time off?’

‘Of course,’ says Malin gravely. ‘It is up to us now.’

Titus walks beside the shelves. Despite the cold dampness, he can feel his face starting to sweat. It is as if his body wants to become one with the cellar. The same dripping unpleasantness, the same controlling icy cold. He wipes his forehead with the shabby sleeve of his jacket. The black shirt and jacket have become rather dirty from the stay in the earth cellar. The perspiration is dripping from his scalp like melted margarine when you fry pancakes. There is a flow in his armpits too. His back, his crotch, all his sweat pores are wide open and pulsating with tiny thirty-seven-degree steam puffs. Off with his jacket. Unbutton his shirt. He is like a wet dishcloth. Losing liquid quickly now. Everything is flowing.

His fingers feel along the edges of the shelves. Nervous, exploring, trembling.

Titus remembers a question-and-answer game that he and his mates at the Association Bar used to liven up monotonous evenings. It was called ‘the rest of your life’ and could go on for hours. There was no particular order to who would ask the questions, you just chimed in and it got louder and shriller. ‘Now here’s one: if you had to listen to only one song for the rest of your life – which would you choose?’ And that would be followed by an endless discussion about how this or that song was so good because it both made you happy and you could listen to it when making love, or that another song was better because it was such a complex production so it would be the least likely to tire of, or that yet another song was so extremely simple and it would harmonise with your heartbeats for years without disturbing you. Of course they never came to any agreement. Everything would have to be looked at from every angle and examined down to the tiniest detail. ‘One single position for sexual intercourse – which would you choose?’ And so on. The pros and cons of various sweets and goodies, governments, types of weather, sandwich fillings, diseases, novelists, newspapers and holiday destinations were analysed in extreme detail. The bickering turned into endless theorising with lots of laughter and bawling.

If Titus had been at the Association Bar right now and been forced to list the wines, spirits and types of tobacco to choose if he had to live with them for the rest of his life, then his choice would have been more or less identical with the selection on the shelves here in the earth cellar. Here are several red Bordeaux wines heavy as lead. He can really feel the zinc aftertaste on his tongue. Mmmm. Here too are some Chablis wines, light as a feather, their sweetness being perfect to wash down summer-warm strawberries. Ah, exquisite!

And look there! A Lagavulin! That superb Islay whisky which is like a parody of smoky Scotch single malt whisky. That’s one I would certainly choose, Titus thinks. But there’s a Laphroaig too! Perhaps I ought to choose that. It would surely be more balanced in the long term…

Then his gaze falls on a packet of red Marlboro. The cigarette that has led to an early death for hundreds of millions of people. Oh, so tasty! I’ll take that, Titus thinks. He knows exactly what the first drag on the cigarette feels like, when the hot cloud of tar spreads inside you and the tastes in your mouth are replaced by the smell of the smoke. Absolutely, if I’ve got to choose one brand of cigarettes for the rest of my life, then it’ll be Marlboro. Preferably the extra-long ones that make your cilia dry up as quick as a baby’s hair under a dryer.

The attempts to think negative thoughts about cigarettes completely misfire. The craving creeps up on him like an influenza epidemic. It starts with a churning feeling deep inside him, and soon his entire body is on fire. He wants a smoke. Now.

Titus rips the cellophane wrapping off the cigarette pack and opens the flip-top. Presses his nose against the twenty wonderful cancer sticks sticking up. Takes a deep breath. Holds his breath with the tobacco smell in him for a couple of long seconds before breathing out with his mouth open and his eyes closed. It would be so good, he thinks. Just one measly ciggy, that’s all he asks for. Have one ciggy, Titus, you deserve it. You are actually locked up inside a hole in the ground with neither bread nor water. Just one fag, that’s the very least you can ask of life just now. Have one fag and then you can get out of this dammed prison. One fag will empower you. Just one.