every day at the breakfast table. The present confusion, indolence and fear within the Swedish working classes have found in me a perfect representative.
Still, I haven’t given up. The failed law studies were only a temporary humiliation – I can survive that. But the fact that I have no dream? That I travel to Africa with someone else’s dream, someone who is dead? Instead of grieving I set off on a journey of penance, as if I were actually to blame for Janine’s death.
One winter night I crept across the cold iron spans of the river bridge. The moon hung like a cold wolf’s eye in the sky, and I was utterly alone. I was fourteen years old and I didn’t fall. But afterwards, when Sture was supposed to follow me …
His thoughts burst. From somewhere he hears a person snoring. He traces the sound to the roof of the train car.
In a sudden flare-up of rage, he gives himself two alternatives: either continue his law studies or return to the frozen landscape of his childhood.
The journey to Africa, to the mission station in Mutshatsha, will fade away. In every person’s life there are ill-considered actions, trips that never needed to be taken. In two weeks he will return to Sweden and leave the Southern Cross behind. The parentheses will then be closed.
Suddenly Werner Masterton is standing by his side and looking out into the darkness.
‘They’re selling diesel fuel,’ he says. ‘I just hope they don’t miscalculate, so we wind up stuck here. Within a year the wandering hunter ants will have transformed this train into a deformed steel skeleton …’
After an hour the train jolts to a start.
Later they stop for an inexplicably long time at Kapiri Mposhi. In the dawn light Olofson falls asleep in his corner. The conductor never appears. Just as the morning’s heat breaks through, the train screeches into Kitwe.
‘Come with us,’ says Ruth. ‘Then we’ll drive you to Kalulushi.’
Chapter Seven
O ne day Janine teaches them to dance.
The rest of the town expects her to whine and complain, but she chooses to go in a completely different direction. In music she sees her salvation. She decides that the affliction so deeply incised in her body will be transformed into music. In Hamrin’s music shop she purchases a slide trombone and begins to practise daily. Hurrapelle tries for the longest time to persuade her to choose a more pleasing instrument, like the guitar, mandolin, or possibly a small bass drum. But she persists, forgoing the possible joy of joining in the concerts of the Free Church, and practises by herself in her house by the river. She buys a Dux gramophone and searches often and eagerly through the record selection at the music shop. She is entranced by jazz, in which the trombone often has a prominent role. She listens, plays along, and she learns. On dark winter evenings, when the door-knocking with her magazines is over for the day, and the congregation doesn’t have a prayer meeting or other fellowship, she loses herself in her music. ‘Some of These Days’, ‘Creole Love Call’, and not least ‘A Night in Tunisia’ flow from her trombone.
She plays for Sture and Hans. Astonished, they watch her the first time, barefoot on the kitchen floor, with the gramophonespinning in the background and the brass instrument pressed to her lips. Sometimes she deviates from the melody, but usually the notes are woven together with the orchestra that is pressed into the grooves of the record.
Janine with her trombone …
Janine with her noseless face and her incredible gesture of inviting them into her house instead of calling the police, transforms that year, 1957, into a fairy tale they doubt they will ever experience again.
For Sture the move from the cathedral and residence in a city in Småland to this market town had seemed a nightmare. In a desolate and snowed-in Norrland he would go under, he was convinced of that. But he found a warrior and together they found Janine …
Hans
Still, I haven’t given up. The failed law studies were only a temporary humiliation – I can survive that. But the fact that I have no dream? That I travel to Africa with someone else’s dream, someone who is dead? Instead of grieving I set off on a journey of penance, as if I were actually to blame for Janine’s death.
One winter night I crept across the cold iron spans of the river bridge. The moon hung like a cold wolf’s eye in the sky, and I was utterly alone. I was fourteen years old and I didn’t fall. But afterwards, when Sture was supposed to follow me …
His thoughts burst. From somewhere he hears a person snoring. He traces the sound to the roof of the train car.
In a sudden flare-up of rage, he gives himself two alternatives: either continue his law studies or return to the frozen landscape of his childhood.
The journey to Africa, to the mission station in Mutshatsha, will fade away. In every person’s life there are ill-considered actions, trips that never needed to be taken. In two weeks he will return to Sweden and leave the Southern Cross behind. The parentheses will then be closed.
Suddenly Werner Masterton is standing by his side and looking out into the darkness.
‘They’re selling diesel fuel,’ he says. ‘I just hope they don’t miscalculate, so we wind up stuck here. Within a year the wandering hunter ants will have transformed this train into a deformed steel skeleton …’
After an hour the train jolts to a start.
Later they stop for an inexplicably long time at Kapiri Mposhi. In the dawn light Olofson falls asleep in his corner. The conductor never appears. Just as the morning’s heat breaks through, the train screeches into Kitwe.
‘Come with us,’ says Ruth. ‘Then we’ll drive you to Kalulushi.’
Chapter Seven
O ne day Janine teaches them to dance.
The rest of the town expects her to whine and complain, but she chooses to go in a completely different direction. In music she sees her salvation. She decides that the affliction so deeply incised in her body will be transformed into music. In Hamrin’s music shop she purchases a slide trombone and begins to practise daily. Hurrapelle tries for the longest time to persuade her to choose a more pleasing instrument, like the guitar, mandolin, or possibly a small bass drum. But she persists, forgoing the possible joy of joining in the concerts of the Free Church, and practises by herself in her house by the river. She buys a Dux gramophone and searches often and eagerly through the record selection at the music shop. She is entranced by jazz, in which the trombone often has a prominent role. She listens, plays along, and she learns. On dark winter evenings, when the door-knocking with her magazines is over for the day, and the congregation doesn’t have a prayer meeting or other fellowship, she loses herself in her music. ‘Some of These Days’, ‘Creole Love Call’, and not least ‘A Night in Tunisia’ flow from her trombone.
She plays for Sture and Hans. Astonished, they watch her the first time, barefoot on the kitchen floor, with the gramophonespinning in the background and the brass instrument pressed to her lips. Sometimes she deviates from the melody, but usually the notes are woven together with the orchestra that is pressed into the grooves of the record.
Janine with her trombone …
Janine with her noseless face and her incredible gesture of inviting them into her house instead of calling the police, transforms that year, 1957, into a fairy tale they doubt they will ever experience again.
For Sture the move from the cathedral and residence in a city in Småland to this market town had seemed a nightmare. In a desolate and snowed-in Norrland he would go under, he was convinced of that. But he found a warrior and together they found Janine …
Hans
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