unclear about what to feel or do next, only knowing that he wants the dog to stop barking. That dog will be barking in his dreams until the end of time.
8
There’s something that’s no longer moving.
Something that’s stopped for ever. Instead whatever it is that’s surrounding me is moving. I don’t have to breathe to live here, just like it was long ago, where everything began and I floated and tumbled inside you, Mum, and everything was warm and dark and happy apart from the loud noises and rough jolts that shook my senses, the little senses I had then.
No warmth here.
But no cold either.
I can hear the dog. Howie. It must be you, I recognise your bark, even if it sounds like you’re so far away.
You sound anxious, almost scared, but what would a dog like you know about fear?
Mum, you taught me all about the fear to be found in pain. Am I closer to you now? It feels like it.
The water ought to be so cold, as cold as the heavy hail that’s been firing from the skies all autumn.
I try to turn around, so my face is looking up, but my body no longer exists, and I try to remember what brought me here, but all I can remember is you, Mum, how I rocked in time with you, just like in the water of this moat.
How long am I going to be here?
There’s a ruthlessness here, and I see myself reflected in that ruthlessness, it’s my face, my sharp, clean features, the nostrils whose flaring can scare people so, no matter who they are.
Pride.
Am I proud?
Is that time past now?
Now that everything’s still.
I can float here for a thousand years, in this cold water, and be master of this land, and that’s just fine.
The deer need to be culled.
The hares need to be eradicated.
People need to leave their warm, secure water.
New days need to be born.
And I shall be part of them all.
Own them all.
I shall lie here and see myself, the boy that I was.
And I shall do so even if I’m scared. I can admit it now; I’m afraid of that boy’s eyes, the way the light opens the world up to him, in jerks, like the desperate bark of an abandoned dog.
9
Linköping and district, summer 1969
The world comes into being through the eyes, because if you close them there are no images, and the boy is four years old when he learns to recognise his own eyes, pebble-sized deep-sea-blue objects set at perfect distance from each other in an equally perfectly shaped skull. Jerry realises what he can do with those eyes, he can make them flash so that remarkable miracles happen, and, best of all, he can get the nursery-school teachers to give him what he wants.
His reality is still directly experienced. What does he know about the fact that on this very day, tons of agent orange and napalm are being dropped onto tropical forests where people hide in holes deep underground, waiting for the burning jelly to dig through the ground and destroy them?
For him, warm is simply warm, cold is cold, and the black-painted copper pipe attached to an endless, rough, red, wooden surface is so hot that it burns his fingers, albeit not in a dangerous way, but in a way that’s nice and makes him feel both safe and scared; scared because the warmth in him awakens a feeling that everything can end.
A lot happens in this life.
Cars drive. Trains travel. Boats on the Stångån River blow their whistles.
He lies on the grass in the garden of his grandmother’s cottage, feeling the dense smell of chlorophyll possess him, seeing how the grass colours his knees and body green. In the evenings, when the midges attack, Daddy puts a bright yellow plastic bathtub on the grass and the water is warm on his skin and the air around him is cold, and then he runs alongside the howling grass-scented monster that gives off a sharp smell and Daddy sweats as he pushes it across the grass. The blades sniff out the boy’s feet, spraying grass cuttings from its broad maw; this isn’t a game and Daddy sees the look in his eyes but doesn’t let that put him off. Daddy
8
There’s something that’s no longer moving.
Something that’s stopped for ever. Instead whatever it is that’s surrounding me is moving. I don’t have to breathe to live here, just like it was long ago, where everything began and I floated and tumbled inside you, Mum, and everything was warm and dark and happy apart from the loud noises and rough jolts that shook my senses, the little senses I had then.
No warmth here.
But no cold either.
I can hear the dog. Howie. It must be you, I recognise your bark, even if it sounds like you’re so far away.
You sound anxious, almost scared, but what would a dog like you know about fear?
Mum, you taught me all about the fear to be found in pain. Am I closer to you now? It feels like it.
The water ought to be so cold, as cold as the heavy hail that’s been firing from the skies all autumn.
I try to turn around, so my face is looking up, but my body no longer exists, and I try to remember what brought me here, but all I can remember is you, Mum, how I rocked in time with you, just like in the water of this moat.
How long am I going to be here?
There’s a ruthlessness here, and I see myself reflected in that ruthlessness, it’s my face, my sharp, clean features, the nostrils whose flaring can scare people so, no matter who they are.
Pride.
Am I proud?
Is that time past now?
Now that everything’s still.
I can float here for a thousand years, in this cold water, and be master of this land, and that’s just fine.
The deer need to be culled.
The hares need to be eradicated.
People need to leave their warm, secure water.
New days need to be born.
And I shall be part of them all.
Own them all.
I shall lie here and see myself, the boy that I was.
And I shall do so even if I’m scared. I can admit it now; I’m afraid of that boy’s eyes, the way the light opens the world up to him, in jerks, like the desperate bark of an abandoned dog.
9
Linköping and district, summer 1969
The world comes into being through the eyes, because if you close them there are no images, and the boy is four years old when he learns to recognise his own eyes, pebble-sized deep-sea-blue objects set at perfect distance from each other in an equally perfectly shaped skull. Jerry realises what he can do with those eyes, he can make them flash so that remarkable miracles happen, and, best of all, he can get the nursery-school teachers to give him what he wants.
His reality is still directly experienced. What does he know about the fact that on this very day, tons of agent orange and napalm are being dropped onto tropical forests where people hide in holes deep underground, waiting for the burning jelly to dig through the ground and destroy them?
For him, warm is simply warm, cold is cold, and the black-painted copper pipe attached to an endless, rough, red, wooden surface is so hot that it burns his fingers, albeit not in a dangerous way, but in a way that’s nice and makes him feel both safe and scared; scared because the warmth in him awakens a feeling that everything can end.
A lot happens in this life.
Cars drive. Trains travel. Boats on the Stångån River blow their whistles.
He lies on the grass in the garden of his grandmother’s cottage, feeling the dense smell of chlorophyll possess him, seeing how the grass colours his knees and body green. In the evenings, when the midges attack, Daddy puts a bright yellow plastic bathtub on the grass and the water is warm on his skin and the air around him is cold, and then he runs alongside the howling grass-scented monster that gives off a sharp smell and Daddy sweats as he pushes it across the grass. The blades sniff out the boy’s feet, spraying grass cuttings from its broad maw; this isn’t a game and Daddy sees the look in his eyes but doesn’t let that put him off. Daddy
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