A novel

Last updated: February 2: Begun a complete overhaul of Chapter 17, not very edited; January 30: Finished Chapter 16 (for now); January 26-28: “Feeling” my way through Chapter 16; January 20: Added a little to Chapter 16; January 15: Began editing the prologue in Chapter 16, then it’s the rest of it that must be changed greatly; January 13: Finished Chapter 15; January 10-11: Added some more to Chapter 15; January 9: Begun a little bit on Chapter 15; December 31: Finished editing Chapter 14 (for now). Next, Chapter 15 shall be redone; December 30: Began editing Chapter 14, reached as far as “Dana and George liked each other from the start.”; December 22: Finished Chapter 13 (for now). Next, Chapters 14 and 15 must be edited significantly and possibly merged; December 13: Began writing a new Chapter 13 (not very edited), a merger of the old Chapters 13 and 14; December 7: Finished editing Chapter 8 (for now). Next, Chapters 13 and 14 must be revised significantly and possibly merged; December 4: Finished editing Chapter 7 and 12 (for now); December 1: Began editing Chapter 12, another chapter that feels like a placeholder waiting to be overhauled; November 30: Merged Chapters 11, 12, and 13 into Chapter 11, much edited, and removed what was Chapter 19 (for now); November 19: Done editing Chapter 10 (for now); November 18: Done editing Chapter 9 (for now) and begun on Chapter 10; November 9: Began editing Chapter 9 and reached as far as “Awake late one night…”; November 2: Moving things around, editing, and rewriting; November 1: Edited Chapters 4 and 5; October 31: Playing around with reordering the chapters. Much editing remains before things begin to make sense; October 28: Done editing Chapter 2 (for now); October 26: Kept editing Chapter 2. I’ve reached as far as “I wonder if the circumstances were the same when Pretty Boy John’s brother came asking for help.”; October 24: Kept editing Chapter 2, written early in the process, lengthy, and still not very sharp. I’ve reached as far as “Before I knew it, we were halfway through the ceremony.” It’s funny, I remember that I was content with the chapter when I wrote it. Revising it now it reads very poorly and needs some serious revision; October 22: Edited the first part of what is now Chapter 2; October 19: Reordered the chapters; October 17: Made some changes to Chapter 26; October 16: Added some to Chapter 26; October 15: Added some to Chapter 26; September 21: Made some changes to Chapter 26; September 20: Added some to Chapter 26; September 7: Made a few changes to Chapter 26; September 5: Began a sketch of Chapter 26; August 27, 2025: Finished Chapter 25, sometimes not very edited, like the rest of the novel.

1

The space was dark and empty, like a lucid dream, and the wind was howling. All was out of reach, it seemed, and there was no use fighting over that. Yet there was, so we rode fast, to the core of the human heart. Hellhounds were guarding it and we fought them bravely to reveal in shimmering lights the working muscle. Endless, timeless, growing, shrinking, like a tree of life. So we perceived it. In awe we lifted our hands and placed them at our hearts and wished they would never stop. For then we would never die. We would live forever and there would be time. We could find solutions to common problems and still, by a beautiful sunset, perhaps, ponder origins and meanings of outstanding questions. Explanations, one could say, as to why suffering and hardship, like night and day, was an integral part of the human condition. Of course, so it was for the Gods, who graced by countless days and mystifying wit truly believed that no phenomenon existed worthy of fear. Even death, it seemed, was just another level to transcend, to combat with thought alone, though our watery eyes and shivering bodies suggested otherwise. So we tested them, in utmost bravery, against the stars from whence they came, and grounded to the Earth, by the window in our rustling hut. The space was dark and empty, the wind was howling. From above came the snow and from within, like burning spears, the thoughts of those we’d loved and lost. There we saw no shimmering light, and no hints of movement came to interrupt our weary song. Since the dawn of time, just like that, naked and torn, the keys of coping fading like clouds by the first rays of the sun.

In poetry, bent to the heavens for a trace of grace. As understood by sages through the ages. The right questions asked but vague answers received. So said the naturalists, that only the most fortunate could perceive the otherworldly signals. At unheard-of frequencies, from extra-spatial dimensions bent to the Earth by near-infinite gravity, said the scientists. Confusion brought perplexities that led to fallacies in interpretation and too slow progress ensued. Through the generations, a secret and contradictory knowledge pertaining to the unrighteous imprisonment of humankind to body and mind.

My friend died in 2000 when we were thirteen. Coming back from Copenhagen two days after New Year the car hit a tree, twenty minutes from home. He was survived by his father, mother, and younger brother who had his spleen ruptured. My father, the entrepreneur, collected funds to start a memorial fund, awarded to an ’especially good friend’ and to be handed out in the church of Önnestad at the start of each summer vacation. I wonder if that fund is still active.

Yesterday I visited the grave for the first time in many years, together with my brother. The wind was howling, flattening the fields, straining the flowers and plants left by the living in remembrance of the dead. In the distance the neighbour village and the house we grew up in. On the gravestone I read my friend’s name and the years of his birth and death. Unexpectedly, tears flooded my eyes and my brother turned to me. So young, I said. Three days into the new millennium. We left holding each other. As I recall it was my brother who first put his arm around me. When exiting the churchyard I held the gate but he hesitated, thinker as he is. As if we too were leaving this life, or would be soon, perhaps just one of us. I debated the matter but the signs were not clear. In any case, I would go first, I was the oldest after all. Then again, we would grow old together, that we had promised. We would buy the house back, it was right there in the distance. When we got back to the car I’d forgotten what I was thinking about.

On that same day of passing and farewells we had been to my friend’s mother’s funeral. Our father came as well, she was his friend. They got divorced around the same time and often bumped into each other at the local bars. Cancer of the stomach got her. The battle lasted for years. I never knew of it, the last time I met her she appeared healthy. In the end she isolated herself and turned all visitors around. Red from crying were the eyes of my friend for now his mother was dead. He and his brother left to fight for themselves, in the middle of this confusing life, the alcoholic father in prison for threatening behaviour towards his former girlfriend. We knew each other well, we had this special sense of humour having formed our personas since our teenage years. When entering the church we could not help joking about this or that, in stark contrast to the mellow mood consistent with it being his mother’s funeral. I think it was needed, it eased him up. Afterwards at the reception we talked a bit and promised to keep in touch. We would become better at finding days when we could meet. We would not let the years pass by any more than they already had. In fact, after leaving once I returned to say farewell a second time. So much was contained in this friendship which was suddenly reanimated like a mirror to the past.

It was blowing greatly still when me and my brother in the early afternoon arrived at the forest hut, our father having gotten there already. Waves on the grey lake in turmoil, just like life on that windy day. In turmoil, years gone by coming around and around. Tossed up and thrown about by what are essentially irregularities in air pressure. Life’s pressure on its head, bumping up and down, never to land softly again. Never again waking up to reach out for the arms and legs, in comfort finding every piece where it should be. Lightly on the thoughts now, ready to fly gently over the countryside with the fields and small hills and roads lined with autumn trees. The leaves falling and tumbling slowly, not in a vacuum but in crisp air.

Fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, friends and friends of friends. There must have been times when we were together. It must have been so that commotion at the hill stirred us at first but when it got closer we saw it was just one of the uncles coming back from the market. With wine, salt, computers, and cars. This must be before we settled on what everything was and where it should go. About the time of the written word and its preservation. Before this the wilderness, for sure, the trees, the running back and forth. Tools, items, and possessions, everything we collected through the ages with our name on it.

There came a time when we owned the stars too, until it was discovered that we can go back, which we did, which is how the world came to be, and be again. The moment we stopped time was when we returned, and that was when the sight on the hill stirred us. Spacetime expansion, uncles at the horizon. Drenched in wine in a pile of records. In a cave painting elk and deer with amusing faces. There they stood, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, all of the uncles, very disappointed.

Life was not wasted in a Spitfire at 25,000 feet once you knew how to fly it properly. Save your soul if they jumped you at 14,000 before the supercharger kicked in, like shooting rats in a barrel. We turned and turned, Keith McAllister, the boys, and I, after the 109, until it tried to dive and we caught it blazing, smoking, burning all the way into the Channel. We were in the trenches too, with Keith and Terry, we survived and became our own fathers…

As pilots go, few were finer than Terry ‘Terrible’ Johnson. Born in Earlsdon, Coventry, top of his class in the chemical sciences at Leeds, joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve at the outbreak of war aged twenty, which made him one of the oldest in the squadron. As fine as they come, as deadly in a turn as in a dive, aggressive, good at shooting, more than perfect eye-sight, and could differentiate between dots and spots, birds and bombers. Short and stout limping ahead, with a wide moustache, but Terry always had your back. Terrible Terry Johnson. We saw it at balls and celebrations, in the presence of women. A stuttering so bad he couldn’t be understood.

On leave with Keith visiting the blacked-out London an air-raid sent them to the bunkers in the Metro where they found themselves next to two beautiful women. Deprived of such matters of the heart, like all young people in wartime, both sides of the puzzle steered towards the inevitable. A kiss to remember, a photograph in the cockpit. Four hearts in a tangle of words and vivid conversation disturbed by the bombs blasting the buildings and streets above. What’s your name then? asked Fanny. Terry began, started over, tried again. The damn thing wouldn’t fly! Then a 2-tonne bomb exploded and shook the walls of the underground and the beating hearts violently. Terrible, said Terry, propelled by the blast. Yes, what a terrible bomb, laughed Fanny. Or is that your name? Mr. Terrible? She was teasing him. Terry began to formulate an answer. You see, saved Keith the situation, for our Terry here speaking is like taking off in the Spitfire. It’s near impossible before you’ve got the speed up! Terry here, once in the air, is the best, at loving and kissing, at love, if you know what I mean. For a brief moment they looked into each other’s eyes. But Oh, never stare into the eyes of a fighter pilot, what such eyes haven’t seen! Let be the burning body stalling through the clouds, let be the bullets flying and piercing the canvas, shredding the rudder. Let be the lost generation sunk into the ocean floor, none older than twenty-five. Never hurt my Terry, Fanny thought violently and fought the tears. Another bomb shook the station. The next thing Keith saw was Fanny coming over to Terry. She whispered something and then kissed him on the mouth. Then they embraced for a long time. What’s your story, then? Keith asked Heather. When the bombing stopped they lost each other going up the crowded stairs. Fanny went looking for Terry.

Keith went cloud-chasing in India. It was around the time he lived at Mr. Ratput’s mansion in the bushes a few hours south of Hyderabad. Mr. Ratput tricked him into it. See that cloud over there, Mr. Keith, he said and pointed. Keith could see many clouds but Mr. Ratput came close and pointed at the one he meant. I bet that cloud looks like the face of a princess if you stand right under it. Keith in his mind, intoxicated from all kinds of herbs and beverages, did not do much to criticise the Indian’s proposal. As if setting sail, with a light push against Mr. Ratput he went off towards the magical cloud the distance to which it was difficult to discern. He went through villages, and the people ran after, past lilac orchards, stopping only at wells and small temples to drink water donated by excited wardens and villagers. Amazed everyone was, so it seemed to Keith, by the sudden appearance of a white but heavily sunburned man in just a robe and a belt, no sandals on the feet, and in such a hurry as to not even wave back. Some people followed for long distances. Keith wanted to talk to them, such was he, but the prolonged running through hills and countryside made him short of breath. The Indians, on the other hand, not being nearly as exhausted, chatted along freely and asked many questions to which Keith couldn’t reply properly. The situation did not frustrate the young man, for all he could see was the white cloud foretold to contain the princess face. Amazingly, that particular cloud remained in the same spot on the horizon well into the afternoon and only dispersed by the last rays of the sun. By that time Keith had long ago collapsed by a well in a village square where he was quickly surrounded by men, women, and children who tirelessly began tending to the exhausted body and bleeding feet. It was late in the afternoon the following day when Mr. Ratput finally found him, having looked through every village within an hour’s drive in the automobile. On the way back to the mansion neither of them talked about what had occurred. Mr. Ratput probably for being too amused by the success of his practical joke. Keith for only recalling vaguely that somehow he’d met his future wife, and that she was a princess in a castle in the sky.

2

Mothers and fathers, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, abandoned siblings and forgotten family pets! Much weight was placed on the shoulders of the Earth’s inhabitants. Slowly at first, or so we hoped, for they know that we are new in the World. Then exponentially until life was lived and backs broken. We must be honest to each other and ourselves, and we must talk about what’s difficult and not only of that which is pleasant or odd. Indeed, we must discuss the three mothers and their tribulations. Two of them died from cancer of the stomach, one in months, the other in years. The third was still going strong last I saw her.

Far too strong, one could argue, like a witch she was, Pretty Boy John’s mother, with the prying black eyes and the lightning mind. Lost the husband to a stroke and then one of the boys died from suicide. The weary one, The Bear, I knew him a bit, he liked maths too, I heard about his death from friends of friends. Enough to break even her iron heart, I imagined. And now, greeting me at Gay John’s mother’s funeral with no restraint but a twinkle in the eye, calling me the troublemaker. Who? I said. Me? I was back like I’d never left. The witch of Önnestad arresting me, tying my tongue with benevolent curses. Æhnestat in old norse. Town in nowhere.

Indeed, we were The Troublemakers and I was the leader, or at least the driving force behind the shenanigans. The Troublemakers were one of the most notorious street gangs in Önnestad at the time. We knew nothing of our past and nothing of our class and place in the scheme of things. The church records had been deleted many times, by the Swedes, the Danes. Books had been burned and confiscated. We floated in space, dark and void of meaning, but there they were, our ancestors, the simple peasant boys, the ghosts and the ghouls. In the passageway behind the churchyard where the light flickered so strangely. Misbehaving like us, roaming the old dirt roads like us, fighting the Swedes, the Christians, protesting against the distant gentry and established order like us.

We hid in the bushes to throw pebbles and rocks at cars passing by. We collected shit in paper bags and set them on fire by the door and ran. We came back to ring the doorbell and throw dirt on the windows. Elderly couples enjoying their Friday night, village alcoholics on a binge, angry men setting out on their bikes to put and end to it all. Destruction was our lot, and that of the village in nowhere.

What have you been up to, boys? asked my father.

Nothing, Mr. Olsson, said one of the Johns, politely.

Pretty Boy John had his mother’s dark eyes a fair face and was popular with the girls, or so he said and we believed. The other John was Gay John but he was not gay. Then there was Danny D with the A-D-H-D. The nickname made him crazy. He grew up in a foster family because his biological parents were heroin addicts. Danny D was the daredevil that could be made to take a dump in the streetlight and collect the shit in the bag himself. Danny ended up serving short prison terms for violence in bars.

I was dickie, like the skateboard brand, but also because I had tight foreskin and was half-circumcised when I was four. They thought that was funny. I wasn’t little dickie, but none of us could compare with Pretty Boy John whose dick was longer than his forearm.

The Troublemakers dissolved when my family moved to Kristianstad, but my parents were not happy in the new house, which was actually my grandmother’s house where my mother grew up. They got a divorce and my mother moved to an apartment complex down the street. My brother and sister went with her while I stayed with my father to not leave his side. All is lost, he cried, bottle in hand. My father was not a drinker but that’s all he had, his own father withering away from vascular dementia at a nursing home. The challenge of a lifetime.

Yes, life taught me early that adults are kids themselves. When the adults get divorced the children are left to their own. My brother stopped going to school and they sent out counsellors and psychologists that treated him with benzodiazepines. He began cutting himself on the forearms when we were sleeping, but I sat outside, and hurried home to see whether he had been in school or not. My sister was nine and refused to go to school too. We slipped into the abyss. The rug was swept away as I set out to explore the world, parties, and girls.

Like lovers, friends fall out too. People change, friends grow apart, even if they hang out every day. Pretty Boy John and Danny D saw the downfall and I was projecting my anger on them. That’s why we were fighting.

We had a falling out. In the city centre, John and Danny were waiting for the late bus back to Önnestad. Some irritation had preceded the exchange but I can’t remember what triggered it.

At least I’m not Little Dickie, said John.

At least my father is not retarded! I replied.

John’s father had recently suffered from the first of several strokes to come.

Let’s go, Danny, he said and turned towards the bus that had just arrived.

Let’s go, I said to my brother.

Back to the house of horror.

But that’s not how I saw it at the time. My father taught me to fight on and never give up, so that’s what I did. And so it was that me and Pretty Boy John went our separate ways, lived our lives, had children of our own, and turned almost forty before we stood face to face again and could talk about what had happened.

The sun shone high above the chalk-white church constructed in ancient Viking times and the melting snow was glittering like piles of diamonds by the collapsed and worn headstones. Crows and magpies, stirring on the ground, resting in the trees, watched curiously as the attendants came in, wearing, just like them, garments in black and white.

It was Gay John’s mother’s funeral. The process had been short, less than a year from diagnosis to death. Even though I asked repeatedly, John was reluctant to share the details. His mother’s heart had been warm and compassionate, but John himself was often blunt and disconnected.

John’s mother had been the proud owner of the oldest house in Önnestad. It was a modest, white cottage from the end of the 17th century with a low ceiling and a large, unkempt garden. At a time of confusion in his life, John had set out to build a sailing boat that instead became a flowerpot in which his mother grew potatoes and rose bushes. From the veranda she could see what once must’ve been the village crossroads. On one of the corners stood a grand villa, 200 years younger than her cottage, but in a neglected state. One of my early girlfriends used to live there with her three sisters and her father who was always working. Her mother had died of cancer too, but let’s not dig into that now.

The bells were ringing and I hurried down the hallway, realising soon that the dress code was not casual. Here I came, running inside the church, in my flying gear, jeans, boots and leather jacket. I removed the cap and felt the cold against my skin and I folded the jacket over my arm in an attempt to appear acceptable. I slowed the pace to a dignified walk. Not that John’s mother would’ve cared, as I had known her, and the only people I was expecting to know were the Johns and the wicked mother.

Here he comes, the troublemaker
Did you know that he’s a doctor now?
The crazy kind of doctor.

Emerging from the murmur, thoughts can strike quickly and moods change abruptly. Something of a panic attack was looming. The church was full and loud, people sat on every bench, talking, talking, and there was no place for me. I was handed a white pamphlet with a picture of John’s mother on it and was happy to see her face. And there, in the back, an empty bench where I sat down and folded my jacket beside me. Finally, a sense of calm, but then I realised that I had forgotten to bring flowers.

Scrolling through the pamphlet I couldn’t help to notice the professional design. That’s John’s doing, I thought, and imagined him spending some time selecting his mother’s favourite songs, choosing the font and the pictures and so on, until on the last page I saw a logo and contact information for the funeral home. That too was typical John, I thought. He might as well have designed the pamphlet as letting the funeral home do it. An enigma, he was. Then I spent some time observing the paintings on the walls and in the ceiling. Simple scenes of Biblical events, simple faces in single strokes, pale colours, blue, red and brown. Worn and watered by hundreds of eyes and years. I tried to remember whether I had been fascinated by the drawings as a child but concluded that no specific impression had been made. Then I imagined how I would go about planning my parents’ funeral service. My father would’ve liked Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here. My mother, I’m not sure. Perhaps something by Evert Taube. In the unlikely event that they would be buried together, I would speak before the crowd. My father grew up working class and was the first to attend university. He was an entrepreneur in everything he did, and a loving father. My mother was an intelligent and sensitive woman and her father was a sailor that played the accordion…

A single tear rolled down my cheek when the organ began to play to signal the start of the ceremony. Turning my head backwards and upwards towards the sound something caught my attention. Sure enough, there they were. Pretty Boy John and his mother, him in a dark blue suit and her in a black dress and a hat with a veil. I realised immediately that I was not afraid to meet either of them, regardless of how much I had obsessed about it when driving here from Copenhagen. No winds or rattles could stir me. No bitter conversation or unfounded remark could stall me. I realised too, now that I saw her again, that John’s mother was no witch at all but a gentle woman in church mourning the death of her acquaintance. As the priest began to speak I did not listen but thought instead about whether the two mothers had known each other well or only vaguely through the friendship between their sons.

Halfway through, Gay John’s aunt spoke vividly about the farm they grew up on, five sisters and a brother. Tears in eyes but voice firm she recalled their last days together, some weeks before her death, planting an apple tree and sitting on the veranda as the sun went down. The dog barking at all the birds flying over. Thinking, both of them, whether she would live to get to eat the apples from the tree.

After some psalms the ceremony was over. Gay John did not speak and I would’ve done the same. Hundreds of people leaving the church like a lazy snake. When I came out the sun was gone and had left instead the beginning of a storm and a carpet of grey clouds. Gay John remained at the entrance thanking people for coming and taking condolences. I went up and said sorry but he had no time to talk. Then the priest came out and we began walking around the corner to the back of the church where the new section of the graveyard was located.

Before me I saw Pretty Boy John and his mother. I found courage, increased the pace to skip past on the grass, and found myself walking next to them. This was the meeting that I but not John and his mother had prepared for.

Hello there! I said. John turned around, looking surprised at first but then disappointed. Oh, you. Why, hello there. The hollow, singing voice, I remembered it now, all the brothers sounded the same. I extended my arms and we embraced quickly, still walking. Mother, look who’s here.

And there she was, the witch. She hadn’t aged at all even though she was at least seventy. The skin quite dark, the black eyes beaming behind the veil and the crooked teeth revealed as she spoke in slow-motion.

Well if it isn’t you, the troublemaker! The troublemaker!

Surely, you are referring to John, I stuttered.

But she did not hear me and said something of her own that I did not hear. John cut us off.

Mother, you can talk later.

He took her by the arm and they walked ahead, ending at the other side of the small circle that formed around the priest, Gay John, and a balding man that I did not recognise, next to the grave. The priest spoke but the wind was blowing greatly. Then the ashes were returned to the soil from whence they came. I saw John cry what I had never done before. The balding man began to sing, he was a professional opera singer.

We sang for Gay John’s mother, and the church and the crows and the magpies watched us, and the wind sang too, increasing in strength, carrying our voices, tossing around with the snow and the leaves. And for a moment, the sun came back through an opening in the clouds.

Pretty Boy John’s mother was a veteran of the church choir. Her sharp teeth were showing and she was watching me, I jokingly said to myself, with the blackest of demon eyes.

I wonder if the circumstances were the same when Pretty Boy John’s brother came asking for help. The circumstances: the doctor is not a psychiatrist but temporarily in psychiatry as part of specialising in family medicine or neurology; the doctor is in charge of not only the emergency ward but of the whole psychiatric hospital and is constantly interrupted by alarms and calls; it’s the middle of the night and there are eight patients waiting; the police is on the way with a manic old man; the doctor is tired, exhausted even; the doctor’s propensity to show empathy towards his fellow human beings has long been deteriorating.

Pretty Boy John’s brother had been known as Paul all his life but for his thirtieth birthday was gifted a name change and chose the name Bear. He soon became The Bear. He was sharp and witty like his mother and possessed the same deadly charm as his younger brother, who was a Don Juan if there ever was one. An anecdote has it that the brothers fought over a girlfriend (the Bear’s girlfriend at the time) and that John won her heart only to break it shortly thereafter.

The Bear was restless and too large for this world. He escaped Önnestad, he moved from Kristianstad, but even Malmö and Lund, with its renowned university, was boring and swept in eternal winter. He wanted it all, in a hot bite, all of the world and its shiny gifts. He dropped out and joined the hip hop and gangster milieu in the Stockholm suburbs. He smoked hash and hung out with a famous rap crew.

Maybe this was when he had his first manic episode? Maybe cannabis provoked the psychosis? Maybe he had stayed healthy if he hadn’t touched that joint? Maybe he never should’ve left Önnestad? To stay with his demanding mother and ailing father. I don’t know the details, only that he was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and died by suicide.

Indeed, I only saw a glimpse of him when I visited John and stayed for dinner. Then he joined the Johns for a party at my house, shortly after we had moved to Kristianstad. I found him arrogant, like his brothers, but I was not easy to be around, either, as I’ve explained. I was drunk and I tried to talk about mathematics, knowing that he was at university. Maths was his baby, his love, and who was I to express amazement about derivatives and integrals and Gödel’s incompleteness theorem? Somehow I convinced him to let me borrow a book that he was carrying in his backpack. To a party? A introductory book on linear algebra.

The last time I saw The Bear was at a party in his small and chaotic student flat in Lund. Everyone was drunk and stoned and some, including The Bear, were on other stuff too. He recognised me and asked me to return the book. I promised that I would but I never did. It’s still here in my bookshelf. My own personal memory. I remember the way he talked, fast and furious, and his light brown eyes like muddy water that bounced off the walls and kept evading contact.

Some nights ago, at 4 in the morning, I admitted to the psychiatric emergency ward a young woman with autism, ADHD, and anorexia nervosa. She had been gang-raped two weeks ago, the second time in her life, was injecting herself with crystal meth again to cope, and had stopped eating for a week. She was 19 years old and had tried to kill herself more than twenty times. She slept the night in the ward but was discharged the day after. “If the primary problem is substance abuse, the patient should be referred to the relevant resource. Suicidal thoughts secondary to drug abuse are not a psychiatric problem. The patient shall come back when she has been drug-free for at least three months.” I did not argue with my colleague. That’s just another day in psychiatry. As a human void of superpowers, I can only do so much. That same night I rejected a young man with schizophrenia. He had written a farewell letter and was planning to hang himself. The man had not slept for three days. I sent him home with sleeping pills. He had an appointment at the outpatient clinic some days later. Last time I looked he was still alive and doing better. Some medicine adjustments and then things were fine again. Until they weren’t.

Into this wicked world of referrals, admissions, and worn plastic benches in sterile wards was cast the mother. She waited for hours with the psychotic son by her side. She spoke for him, remembered his appointments, handled his medication, held him down when he tried to escape into the night. She drove home, again and again, and with and without him, assured that, finally, he would receive the proper treatment, so hard to come by. She sat with the morning coffee making conversation with the fading husband when the door bell rang and there he stood, the son coming home again. They let me out, I’m not so bad after all. You’ve never been bad, Bear, but there’s no plan? Of course there’s a plan, mother. I’ll see the nurse in a month’s time. Can you drive me to the station? Where are you going? Berlin, where things are happening. I can’t hang around here, can I? You are always welcome to stay here with us. Then the father called from the living room. Let me get my coat, I’ll drive you. Train or plane? Oh, I’ve bought tickets for both, in case I should be late, see? But she can’t stop him, his life must go on. He won’t show up for the appointment, he won’t take the medication. Last time it was Stockholm, this time it’s Berlin. Year after year, while the other children are doing fine, starting families, finding jobs. There was lithium and olanzapine and he completed two semesters at the university. Now he’s ill again, standing in the doorway with a knife and a rope in the backpack. In case one way fails, see? Just go! I can’t take it anymore! But I don’t think she ever gave up.

When Gay John, the priest, and the opera singer, and everyone else had stopped singing, and the urn had been lowered into the grave, only the wind broke the silence as the lazy snake re-assembled itself and began to move. I wanted to wait for Pretty Boy John so that we could walk and talk to the parish hall together, but the sight of the crowd coming towards had me turn around instead. I wasn’t able to stop until we reached the corner of the church, where I let him catch up. Let’s go, he said, without ever looking at me, as if all he had in mind was the buffet, and the coffee, and the cake. She’ll catch up with us later. I looked over his should to see his mother engaged in vivid conversation.

A lot of failed conversation played out as we walked the couple of hundred metres to the parish hall. John walked faster, always a step ahead, as if he wanted to get rid of me. That behaviour had irritated me back then, and it certainly did so now. Wow, I said, it sure feels strange to be back here. John probably couldn’t relate. He hadn’t left Önnestad like me, his mother still lived here. I heard you live in Denmark? I understood from the tone that he couldn’t care less. But we were adults now, I wasn’t going to play teenage games. I replied merrily and matter-of-factly that, yes, I live across the strait, a bit outside of Copenhagen, and I have a daughter. To show him that I was relaxed and not intimidated by whatever games he was playing, I added with a little laugh that my accent’s a bit off, as he can hear, but then again, Skåne used to belong to the Danes. I could not tell from the view of his shoulder whether the curiosity had landed well or not. I no longer cared about making a good impression.

Having walked at a great pace ahead of the crowd, we were the first to reach the parish hall. John held the door and I entered. What struck me first was the smell of old wood, mould, and fresh coffee. The anterior room was a large cloak room. In front of us was the dining hall where where servants were preparing the large buffet. John walked towards a door on the left that I had not seen and I followed as he opened it. A plain room clearly out of service, chairs and tables stacked on top of each other. I haven’t been here in years, he said with some weight. Me neither, I said. In fact, I haven’t been here at all. Now he smiled for the first time. Oh, that’s right, you’re one of the heathens. Most kids in the village were confirmed but I refused, as I said at the time, to indulge in religious indoctrination. As we stood looking at the anonymous room, John told me that he had many crazy memories from this room. Many unbelievable things happened her. What, I wanted to ask, did you have sex with lots of girls in here? I couldn’t think of anything else that would be crazy to Pretty Boy John. Oh, you mean like wild parties? John nodded and somehow confirmed my thought. Yes, very wild parties. Shall we have a seat? But surely, I wanted to know, you weren’t allowed to drink alcohol here? But John was already in the dining hall. I found the man immensely annoying.

John was expecting the troubled teenager but got something he could not figure out. I was about to show him that his old tricks were no longer working. When we sat down face to face at the empty table I decided to conquer him. He kept avoiding eye contact, but come on, John, we’re having a conversation.

Look at me! I’m interested in you. I’m friendly. I have no agenda.

How have you been, John? Gay John told me that you have children.

Yes, I have three sons.

The straightforward question removed his mask and he had to answer. Yet, he talked but briefly, and sought constantly to return to the state of irony where he felt safe. That’s his shield, I thought, and I must keep it down.

He also said that you have a model railroad in the basement? That’s where you’re spending the weekends. Because you never go out.

John laughed, genuinely now.

I’m keeping an eye on you, you know. Little birds tell me every move you make!

Maybe John had heard things about me too, that I had been crazy, for example, that I had had a mental breakdown some years back. All he needed was a display of sanity and naturalness in conversation.

Hey, I heard some of your music some time ago, he said.

Really? What song? Where did you hear it?

I can’t remember. Gay John played it to me.

I heard you work in logistics, what’s that about?

John had to think before he answered.

Are you thinking? Whether you work in logistics or not?

He laughed.

Yes, I’m thinking about how to explain it.

At this point I felt a warm hand on my shoulder and turned around to see the witch standing there, the veil up now, the black eyes beaming with excitement.

Mother, you must sit here at the end of the table, said John and got up to fetch a chair.

While me and John were conversing the many tables had filled up and the sound level in the hall had increased. John seemed properly relaxed now that his mother was here. He took a snuff from his pocket and leaned back in the chair, and looked with hungry eyes on the buffet and the queues forming on both sides of it. It was obvious that he had no intent on continuing our conversation. His mother, however, was more than delighted to see me.

That old house you used to live in, by the railroad tracks, did it have a name?

As his mother struck up conversation, Pretty Boy John ate with great appetite. Of the soda cans placed at the ends of each table he had two. He was a big man, after all, not tall, but sturdy and more muscular than I remembered. Gay John sat at the table in the middle together with his girlfriend and some people I did not recognise. His face was neutral as always and his eyes were not red from crying. The mood in the hall was light and talkative, a natural reaction after the life and death of the funeral ceremony.

Some months before she died, Pretty Boy John’s mother continued and pointed in the direction of Gay John, we talked about that for a while, whether that beautiful villa had a name like some of the other houses along the railroad tracks.

She had a direct way with people, she used to be an elementary school teacher. She expected people to listen when she spoke.

I don’t know, I said as emphatically as I could. I can’t remember.

She could not help herself, she had to look away. The air of disappointment that I remembered so well. As if I had forgotten on purpose, or was refusing to say.

It used to be a doctor’s practice, I said to give her something. There was a separate entrance with a waiting room…

Yes, yes, we know that!

She looked at John, who was cutting a piece of meat and not listening.

So tell me, what are you up to these days? You’re living in Denmark, correct?

Yes, ma’am

Yes, I live in Denmark. I have a daughter. I’m a doctor.

She seemed delighted to hear that, but I knew that the answer to her next question would offset her. There was no easy way of saying, no prelude that could soften the blow.

What kind of doctor are you?

I work in psychiatry.

Her eyes grew big and she moved closer, she sucked me in with all of her being. All of her pain. All of Bear’s suffering, all their struggles.

You do that?

Yes, ma’am

Just for a second. In those fiery eyes. I took in and I took in, I saw and I understood. I took her by the hand and I healed her wounds. I made everything right again. We travelled back to the time when The Bear was still alive. They sat under an old oak tree and talked until the sun went down. Then it was dark and he was gone, for real this time, and she got up, devastated no longer, to wait for the sunset.

You know, she said, he had the same psychiatrist for many years. He was in and out of the ward but then he found this psychiatrist, an elderly man, retired. They became friends, they went to football games together, they had a beer at the pub. He could call him any time of the day. And I don’t know… I don’t know how good that was for him. The patient-doctor relationship, you know.

But she had been over that a million times.

Oh, to hell with it! John, go fetch some more bread for your mother, will you!

John got up, surprised at the shift in tone.

Gay John thanked me for coming. We’ll talk more next time. He was planning a dinner party and Pretty Boy John and his wife were invited as well. Then I hit the highway. A childhood is a childhood and that’s written in stone and can’t be undone.

I stopped in Malmö to visit Greg, my 67 year old, gay, bald, best friend who grows his own pot. When Greg grew up it was mandatory to go to church on Sundays. I have not yet read it, but Greg knows all of the New Testament by heart. As he passed me the joint he told me how it happened when Jesus made wine from water. Greg spoke as if Jesus was someone he knew personally, just some kid from his childhood. This was before he began performing miracles. I hadn’t smoked in a long time. We sat on the balcony and the seagulls flew close, screaming as they always do when one wants peace and quiet.

What is this? Who the fuck am I?

Every man serves the good wine first, and when the people have drunk freely, then the inferior wine; but you have kept the good wine until now.

I couldn’t believe that I had been out there in the world talking to people.

3

The solitary walker, eternally through orchards in bloom, said goodbye to the mother without meeting the eye. Loves with the one hand, leaves with the other, gives nothing in return and expects no one to bother. Through a village which fire has swept, a metropolis of citizens in debt. The solitary walker, forever outside, by the window as candles are set. Speaks there with muffled sounds, speaks of wisdom in heavenly meetings found. Returned, barely, from a tedious trek, from the silent forest by the silver moon, from the stormy beach where lonely ghosts howl, from the frozen plains of sparkling diamonds. Crystallised, say, to Commandments Ten, perpetuated in disguise with a feather pen. To ring more true than human filth, to describe more elegantly the suffering to touch. Eternal, eternal, we knew it from the start, that some walk alone while others seek a part.

If you could see what I am, Beloved, I’m crying, if I could show you, the scars and the horns, and where I’ve been, on Earth and off, the dreamscapes, the escapades, the dark alleys, the sleepless nights. You would hold me holy, you and the world, and never let it go, the creature I became. No less real than Fanny and Terry, equally opaque, harder than our walls, thicker than our skin, enduring like microplastics in the depths of oceans and in the shallows of cemetery soil. Always sinking, kicking downwards, but always sinking, to the bottom of the world, Oh you’ll find me there, Beloved, extending it like a rose to a lover, to you, the key to peace. Peace in the world and in our hearts and in our minds. In ours, Beloved! Peace derived from beauty, from understanding, from the letting go of past follies and behaviour. It materialised when it struck me, Blue thunder… the task I was handed, or rather, Lightning that is frightening… the vision of forests and lakes, endless and thriving, that somehow marked its completion. The truth of this revelation, beamed to my brain from above, or below, or in any other way, in the autumn of 2009, struck me with a power that made me cry. I knew instantly that I was challenged by supernatural forces, and I said, Yes, I will do it, and Yes, I am strong enough. But the answer I received was weak and designed to foster doubt.

Beloved, with that experience in mind I set forth and considered my next move, or more precisely, I threw myself at the fangs of the great monster that’s the world in the twenty-first century. I was not afraid, I imagined, because they had my back, and I stirred and it moved, stirred and it moved, the world, and rather than ignored, my actions were recognised, expected even, as if my arrival on the stage was foreseen and predicted, by sages through the ages.

Boom, clang, clash, rumble, fighting, fighting righteously. Chew and spit me out! You can’t destroy God! My arrival a beacon of hope. Foe turned to friend, hate transmuted to love, greed replaced with generosity, despair exchanged for hope. It was easy enough and soon I sat back and said, Yes, it’s fine and the work’s done already and now let us celebrate before we get much older. There, Beloved, there. I am happy that you never saw me there. Twenty and a bit, lost and delusional, a solider in a war so abstract that it did not exist, clinging to ever-evolving figments of imagination We had expected someone stronger… and never letting go of the mess. White vans with antennas parked outside, strangers talking American knowingly in restaurants, He looked the shooter in the eye… dates with innocent girls at university and barely surviving getting home. You would not have loved me then, Beloved, and yet you do, unwittingly, because still the Hellhounds roam free.

Still they wait on my side of the bed and leave before you turn. Still they dissolve with a wink so sly at the first light of day and pant at the sight of your embrace. Still they linger in dust before barking a farewell, menacing, like dogs can’t sing, about a struggle that never happened and a world that remains hopeless and forlorn.

Interests, Beloved, interests, you’re wise and educated with your degree in transcultural studies. The world’s governed by conflicting interests and on that busy hill I appeared one morning Today it is 70 years since the start of WW2… with nothing but a rusty sword and a song and no clear statement as to what interests I was pursuing. I am on my neighbour’s network… Heroes, if allowed, must appear through recognised channels, be represented by agencies, or at least collaborate with publishers and media houses. It is time to change things…. They don’t have to wear capes like in the cartoons but the sleeves must clearly indicate affiliation. They must be red or blue, black or white, east or west. For how else are heroes to be defeated, if they can’t be labelled and come and go as they wish? Well, I appeared out of nowhere, naked, manic, and torn, and I did all that and then the Hellhounds came barking. In my ear, outside my door! In that damn flat in Copenhagen where I lived in filth for ten years! My life was over and destroyed but my heart was not deterred. Nothing was real to me, Beloved!

And yet, I can draw a crooked line in my mind between my actions and the events of the years that followed. Mass protests, people taking to the streets, the toppling of dictators, the changing of societies, in various ways and degrees, from North to South, East to West, all over the world. The enlightenment of the world, Beloved! I am not sleeping, never again… To never sleep again! I did that, it’s true, and the angels say I did, because the Gods wanted me to. I was the spark and the catalyst and I was not alone. Of course, I was at first, but it only took a second. Who are you… The Hellhounds may scare at night, imprison, deter and torture, but the people of the world make the wheels go round. Not so fast… The bottom, blood, sweat, and tears, and not the gilded top, is the only irreplaceable part. Who will you become… This is why, when in despair, we must remember that no order is fixed and that power is lent to the leaders by the people. If one generation fails the next will succeed… Workers of the world unite!

Beloved! Wait! Enough of politics! Don’t run away, don’t slam the door in my face. Where are you going? Oh shoot, I will survive, I will drink and smoke until it’s Monday again, or Friday. I’ll emerge like a poet, a madman, again and again, I’ll make music, I’ll write. But where will you go? You’re married to me now, you’re carrying my baby. Didn’t you know this about me? Could you not have guessed what stirs beneath the surface of my dark eyes? That’s why I’m crying. Beloved… None of this matters. The Hellhounds… The people… Oh, you don’t believe me? No, I’m not joking. No, I’m not drunk. Oh, Beloved. I just don’t know… It does not matter. I don’t know if it’s dangerous, I don’t know if it’s real.

That’s why, Beloved and the world, you must hold me holy, for I sacrificed my heart and my wit to save the world. And the Gods, well, look up, they’re here, they’ve always been here, and truth and peace will prevail, sooner or later, and everything will be alright. That’s lukewarm…

Beloved, look at the sky. It’s blue like your eyes. The sun’s coming in, dispersing the clouds. Dry your tears. All of this has made me stronger. There’s a wall around my heart which is made of stone. In the good way. I’ll never stop fighting. Fighting for us, for our love, for our baby. No, not for the world, I don’t think like that anymore. This is fiction and nothing’s real anyway. Only when you let me, Beloved, a Friday or two, every once in a while, or once a year, I’ll retreat to my chambers… It can’t be destroyed, like a bud bursting forth in the spring.

I have told you about this before, about her, the one that got away, and how I was crazy and how it ended, and how it wasn’t my fault even though I was the one doing wrongs and she was perfectly innocent. It just goes to show that desperate young men prone to wrongdoings can be rehabilitated and turned into productive and respectable members of society. I’m a good example of that, Beloved, won’t you agree? Yes, let’s cheer to that, let’s have another glass of wine Will is my friend… even though you’re pregnant. Let’s ignore that fact for now. This is fiction and nothing’s real anyway.

Her father was a priest and a metaphysician, an author of mysterious books that few people read. I don’t know what her mother did. She had at least two younger sisters and one younger brother. We had the same birthday, but she was two years older. When I went mad from the SSRI, that fact mystified me and strengthened the attraction. It’s inappropriate, I know, but the two of you actually look alike, Beloved. Similar cheekbones that are high, eyes that are bright blue, hairs that are blonde, noses that are slightly crooked. Your teeth, however, Beloved, are significantly more beautiful, for there was a large space between her central incisors which pointed in opposite directions. I found that charming at the time, and loved it when I met her first when I was sixteen, and she was eighteen. A display of vulnerability, such wicked teeth on that wild and beautiful face, just like I was wild and vulnerable too, in my own ways. My father, after having seen her for the first time in court, announced that disregarding the circumstances I could’ve aimed for someone better-looking. He seemed to insist that this woman, whom I had harassed in a psychotic state, was not worthy of the attention because of her looks. You know my father, Beloved, he can be brute and speaks before he thinks, but he means well and the heart’s in the right place. Yes, cheers to that. Let’s have another glass of wine…

This is at least 22 years ago. We had just left the dream house in Önnestad and moved to Kristianstad and my parents had not yet divorced and the family was not yet in free fall and the children not yet damaged. The world was a playground, love was in the air, and I was an extroverted sixteen year old hooked on music and literature, transitioning from punk rock to Dylan and pretending to specialise in Russian literature, you know, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Daniil Kharms, Nikolai Gogol, and, of course, Fyodor Dostoevsky (and Tolstoy and Pushkin). I rode my bike to the city centre just to see what was going on, I approached strangers to strike up conversation, and I fell in love with every girl that I saw, just to forget and start all over again the next morning. Ha! You should’ve seen me, Beloved, compared to now. Oh, don’t worry, you’re getting the best of me, but back then I was skinny and my hair was long and curly. In fact, though I may sound presumptuous, my flirting strategy in these festive days was to lurk in the shadows sending mysterious looks only to appear before my designated target hours later with a declaration of love. The girls thought I was cute and I didn’t have to work hard for kisses and love. Don’t get me wrong, Beloved, we’re not talking body counts, I was no Don Juan. On the contrary, I believed in true love and the one and only and when I saw her outside Hässlebaren, where the indie kids went, I knew that I had found her. We were sixteen but sometimes the doorman let us in.

She was sitting in a mess on the pavement with the contents of her bag (lipstick, Nokia, MP3 player, a book) spilled on the ground. She was angry, making a scene, shouting at someone, a friend, or a stranger in the queue. She was an actress, I could tell, the energy was there, the attraction, sucking me in. You go, I said to my friends, I’ll be there in a second. The wild animal was looking around and saw me coming from a distance, the hunter with the eyes on the prize. What’s your name? Where do you live? Where are you going? I didn’t try to kiss her. I’m going home, she said. My bus is in twenty minutes. I didn’t ask if I could come. Her village was far away. Can I have your number? Yes, you can have my number. And when I texted her the day after she didn’t reply. And nothing happened. My parents got divorced, the family entered a free fall, the children became damaged. I started gymnasium, I got a girlfriend, I moved to England to study mathematics and physics. I broke up with my girlfriend because of the distance and I dropped out of university and moved back to Kristianstad. The plan was to apply to medical school in Copenhagen.

Tradition, at least in Kristianstad, has it that the day after Christmas Eve is spent in bars getting drunk. We had a band, Frukostklubben (let’s hear it, Beloved!), and we were playing at a venue that is now long since gone (Kulturkentauren). Okay, I’ll turn it down, yes, let’s hear something else. Kind of Blue it is, you know it well, your father is a jazz musician. Yes, I’ve had four glasses of wine now. Yeah, I’m alright, thanks. Yeah, I’ve got a little something for later, I’ll smoke it in the study.

I was sitting in the bar with a beer after the show when suddenly someone that I did not recognise at first sat down in the chair next to me. Do you remember me? she said. I think that I just fell in love with you… Of course I did, instantly. The one that got away, the beautiful actress. Where did you go? You never replied. You scared me, she said. You were too direct. Oh, sorry. Did you hear the concert? Yes, some of it. So what are you doing now? I don’t know, kissing you, maybe? And then we kissed in the bar. We left and headed for my father’s place, where I was living at the time, in my teenage room, crossing the frosty railroad tracks, holding hands, stopping to kiss, asking where we’ve been and what we’ve been up to. I showed her up to my room and went to the kitchen to get drinks. All I could find was a bottle of gin which we drank with nothing else to the sound of The Rolling Stones. We became, so to speak, too drunk to fuck. You know that song, Beloved? Let me play it. On my pillow in the morning, a black tear from her mascara. Were you crying? A condom with nothing in it on the floor. She forgot her earring and called the day after to ask if I had seen it. Yes, it’s right here on the bedside table. Also, I need some pills because I don’t think we’re ready for kids yet. Can you meet? I’d love to. When? Whenever, I’m all yours.

I remember driving on the Øresund Bridge with my father on a winter’s evening, studying the illuminated panel with an empty mind, such pain, so much in love that I did not function. A sinister kind of love, dark and foreboding. I had lost all manners and all sense of cool. Hey, want to hang out in the weekend? A day went by, two, before she replied. I can’t, sorry, got other plans. I mean, I played my cards right with you, Beloved, obviously, since you’re here, and cheers to that, and I love you. With her, I threw the cards away. I didn’t want to play, I just wanted to love her. Little did I know that I was descending into depression, or something akin to it. Too much partying in medical school, too much alcohol, too little exercise. Problems understanding the Danish language, not really fitting in. Lots of small factors bringing me down. I was not the charming charlatan anymore, lovable and quick, I was no longer someone that she found attractive. I remember clinging to her breasts in a karaoke bar, her having to brush me off, politely, but still taking me home, and going to sleep with no prospect of kisses or sex. She broke up thereafter, finished whatever it was that we had started.

Here it comes, Beloved, the grand finale, the painful ending to what could’ve been a happy love. Of course, you realise, I’m happy that things played out exactly the way they did, because if they hadn’t, I would never have meet you, so cheers to that. Yes, yes, I’ll have one more glass. Oh, the bottle’s empty? Shoot. Well, let’s open another one. It’s a Shiraz, it’ll be even better tomorrow evening. This is fiction, Beloved, we can drink as much as we desire.

I went to the doctor and the doctor said that I was suffering from depression and prescribed an SSRI. I started to feel better immediately. In fact, within a week I was euphoric. Hey, it’s me again. You? Yes, I’m sorry about the way I behaved. Would you care to meet me for a cup of coffee, just to chat? Sure, just to chat, I’m not interested in anything else. That’s fine, I totally respect that.

Oh, Beloved, I can’t tell you any more. So many things… The Gods… So many things happened… No, I’m not crying. I’m fine. It’s just the wine speaking. Getting emotional. Oh, I was such a pain in the… I feel sorry for her. I can’t really explain… She became, somehow, my only hope. Yes, hope! I became psychotic. I was fighting evil, I thought I was… The Messiah. The Internet… No, nothing. Yes, it’s a common symptom of the manic mind. I sent her letters, I sent her gifts, I wrote her poems and songs. Two times I visited her apartment but was not let in. Once I called her parents’ home to ask her father where she was. It occurred to me, at times seeing clear, that I was all alone. She was not waiting for me. Then I received a letter from the police. She had collected my letters. I write a lot, Beloved, you know that. Remember my poems? I had written her a book. Enough for the police to open an investigation. Not stalking, not sexual harassment. Just harassment. A small fine. Then it was over. The brain is a plastic organ. I had to carry on. Ha! It’s incredible, what an experience. Cheers, my love! Can you bring me a glass of water?

4

Bestowed is out there making noises doing her things, but one thing she won’t do and that is to tell me whether this is our old house or the nursery home. They say I hear voices and that I’m seeing things but haven’t the slightest idea what I’m up to when I’m alone in the study.

Don’t come in, love! Better keep out!

A precaution, I didn’t expect her to be there, but she heard me.

Are you playing with space and time again, love? In your little spaceship? I’ll leave you to it.

That’s alright!

I’ll knock when dinner’s ready, love!

I frowned. Must be our old house, else she wouldn’t cook, or be here at all. Did we outlive each other? She should stop calling so I don’t have to get up. She’s never there anyway. Bestowed, Bestowed. Wait, that’s not her name. What is her name? Has it changed? They say I have gotten old and that I don’t remember, but I would remember her changing her name.

If I go on a little adventure, what can they say? If I take off and never land again? If this is indeed our old house then I demand to know who they are. We should be alone here in our house, enjoying our last days. No nurses, no caretakers, no superintendents. Stop me however, they can’t, if indeed they exist, from going on a little adventure! To the attic, for example, or the basement, where we keep our memories. I can stand with hands and head deep in boxes, trunks, and suitcases all day if I want, throwing things around, until my back’s bent for good and can’t ever be straightened and Beloved has to fold me and leave me at the hospital or the cemetery, whatever’s the closest. She can put me in one of the suitcases, I’m sure I’ll fit.

In the attic, I dug myself in real good, made paths and reached the end, the deepest of the bottoms of the farthermost boxes, hidden by layers and layers of dust and time, and matter so dark the normal eye can’t see. My eye was that of a fighter pilot, a Spitfire pilot. I still had it in me. Fanny and Terry should never have parted, the Gods knew it too.

I found an old film reel and made my way down the stairs.

Bestowed! I cried.

But she did not come.

Bestowed! I’m mad again, you have to help me!

Silence, no Bestowed, no Beloved, when I need her.

The projector cranked and made its wining noises. I tried to shut it off but I couldn’t. A black screen, a flickering countdown. Terry Johnson’s gun camera. He must have taped the button.

The Spitfire was notorious for being difficult to handle when not in the air. A Queen in the sky, bitch on the ground, we used to say. With the long nose pointing upward one had to lean out of the cockpit while to see where one was going. No differential brakes, instead an ingenious system of hydraulic pumps and wires controlling to the tail wheel. Right foot forward while grabbing the brake handle steered the aircraft to the right. Not letting go in time resulted in it spinning around. Too much speed combined with too long a press and the aircraft toppled over, plunging the propeller into the ground. A narrow set of wheels, too, the torque of the propeller pushing leftwards, the right wing sliding along the runway if the aircraft was not trimmed and forces counteracted properly. Many inexperienced pilots died trying to take off in the Spitfire.

The day Terry was shot down. I remember it well. Nothing had signalled his departure, there were no signs. We knew from Keith that he had met a girl and that her name was Fanny. Had they met again? Terry refused to answer. He kept his feelings to himself

Beloved? Are you there?

Silence, she must be listening. We were taking off, Keith in the lead, the engines spitting smoke and fire as we increased the power. Terry must have taped the button. There wasn’t enough film for such a long shot. Regardless, there was I, second from the left, lifting, retracting the gear. It sucked me in, it was, what’s the word, visceral…

Bestowed? It’s happening again!

My heart was racing what the doctor had prohibited. My hands were sweaty, my head was dizzy. On the stabiliser I saw a raven, wings folded, utterly relaxed. The wind should have knocked it off. I started down the runway, gained speed, and the raven took off. Towards Terry’s gun camera. Impossible! That’s not how the world works! The black eyes were shining, piercing me from the inside, my very soul, and it opened its beak to scream. I heard it clear as day.

It was past midnight. Beloved had not tucked me, not this time. It must be something that I’d done. The film reel was gone, the projector screen too. Terry must have taped the button, there is no other explanation.

I found a letter in my hands. Or was it a poem? Did I write it? Someone had been crying on the paper but I doubt it was me. I must have found it in the attic. The tears were mine.

Our Keith went on foot to India, he left Bath in the middle of the third Michaelmas semester, hitched a ride, Dover to Calais, across the bumpy Channel, and kept walking when they reached the sandy shores of France. On the professor’s desk a written piece of paper, and to his classmates on the blackboard in chalk the same words, short and resolute, out of the blue. Farewell, I’m off, and won’t be found until I am. Donate my books and stuff to charity, send my parents away if they come, and expect, no longer, wonders large or small from me.

The slender man bent in the wind, clutching knapsack and walking cane, across the soft dunes like quicksand, through the thorny labyrinths of hedgerows, angry yet determined, to stop no sooner than sundown, when eyes can’t see shapes, but light from a farmhouse down the road, warm and safe, certainly taking him in. Resting restless in hay through the night with the wind, cold and shivering, still certain it’s destiny, to leave Bath, so sad, and all of dreary civilisation behind.

With that he’d disagree, at least to some extent, for Keith was gay and agreeable, hungry and dedicated, talkative and warm, like they knew him, in halls, lectures, and bars. He escaped not relations, knowledge, or Western ways, but brought this with him, his entire foundation, to shine it like a torch, to test it, reflect it, against the darkness of the world. On the third day, outside Le Havre, doing circles in a field, his father’s voice, that ends can be replaced, exchanged, inside and outside, that joy in life depends on it, but you return now to glorious Britain, and higher education, enlightened, tall, and proud. No, replied Keith, twenty and a bit, in a stubborn twist, I’ll have it any other way, rather hopeless in the dark by a farmhouse, sent to hay and winds of change like a beggar or tramp.

Dug up from the soil by curious hands and brought there by horse and bandwagon, opened like a music box, warmed until alive again, our Keith, on the streets of Paris. Sleep there, come here, Oh stranger with razor-sharp wit, a queue we’ll form to feed you, our ears are ready to hear you. Alas, with love they poisoned him, excessive from the start, yes, Keith loathed such admiration, it’s bad for the heart. Then, a meeting in an alley cold and dark spelled the end to bliss and celebration. A slow voice maundering, crazy eyes questioning. Listen, messenger, give me something you don’t have, a coin or some wine, a drop of your blood, or a kiss, right here, so I’ll never forget. Our Keith in flight towards the light, away from the wicked, away from the fight. Esmeralda too quite hard to leave, but an argument in Dijon, about nothing at all, returned in tears the girl to the streets, and the voice that he loved, that sang night and day.

Cease the restless walking up and down the veins of Europe. Pick instead a dot or a speck, away at the horizon, or a peculiar tail at the end of a cloud. Things, people, grow and approach as time lets you sweat and ponder. Discard them abruptly when they’re near. Turn and go, replace them with dots, goals, and purposes. That’s the key, Keith, to never getting old and always being happy. Remain fiercely independent, as I see you now, young man. Change skins like the sky, what it does with the clouds in the sunset, what it does with the wind, wild and still. But the yellow teeth did not invite a reply and the shed did not keep them warm. Keith presenting a toothbrush, frozen in doubt, at the turn of spring.

Washing face and armpits in a silver stream a neighbour approached, to ask at first, but to comment later, on manners and behaviour. Last night with the moon? Yes, but also before that and the days up to. When Keith was still approaching, in a land described as Holy. Not the stream, the silver in it, that feeds the local supermen. Keith’s seen it all, Europe inside and out. I’m an üntermensch, smelly and foul, that’s not your stream, that’s not your water. Yes, away he chased, Keith, the farmer and his boy. Away he drew, Keith, the count and his gang. Left the sun hanging, crying and laughing, and hiding, a partner in crime. With the evening came cold and mist on the fields. Was there one? No, there were several. A band of Keiths, running that way.

Holding on to luck like a sunny day in April, that they’ll take him in again, to hearth, table, and blanket, the illuminated people of the world. Curious and tender, loving and caring, the natural ways of man, against kin and stranger alike. Pen in hand, eyes to the sky, if not at once in a smile then hidden in a frown. An axiom, indeed, that whereas hate depends on forces external, compassion flows free like a creek come spring. Come then into München late at night, stragglers whose fathers died in the war, whose mothers found no answers. Dragging darkness, Keith in the midst, like ants moving about, to attack on signal the hands that feed them, to cleanse from society what does not belong. Like a Saviour disillusioned, our Keith on a box, reading from his books, that first and foremost we must love each other. Night must pass before day comes again and our Keith’s having none of it. It’s just like that alley in Paris! Hannah with the dark eyes and the sadness that he loves, hands intertwined on a wagon going south, towards Sarajevo, where she’s from and they will live in peace.

All his life, they come to him in droves, like pigeons in a square, to be shed and repelled, once tasted and dry, like a spoonful of oil in tea. Virgin oil, the softest, in muddy waters, the foulest, for Hannah, the best he can do. Lovers when they’re Keith take to streets, enforce their rights, in the middle of nights, they flee instead of fight. Keith like a child, she has to look away. Hannah’s going South too, he learns, just maybe, or they’ll rendezvous in Bath, until Death do them apart. A one-legged pigeon receives from Keith some lokum and cuddles so close to the heel of her foot. He loved the sadness in her eyes, did not see the wrath, finished the cup and stood up and left. The pigeon, frightened, returned to its flock and Hannah to her books. There are other fish in the sea, the summer coming on knew that much.

A small boat on a bumpy sea, a bright star in the distance, our philosopher and bard, wanting wine, bread, and olives. Keith in Greece with the Sun and the locals, on a guided tour of Acropolis, in a hectic chat with Socrates. Desire on a Santorini beach in the moonlight, in the sunset in August on Crete. Atlas, Nico, Orion… Proclaims from a cliff in the wind with the waves splashing high that life is an illusion, like love. Atlas comes with the glass and an arm to lean on. Hallucinations… Cyprus and Beirut, then he’ll walk on a line through the cradle of civilisation.

A ferocious rain of sand and diamonds and oceans of oil rising up from below. Mysteries abound, Oh Keith on a camel, but do not include the arms of the King, that encompass the vastness of space, and define the mystery of creation. Coming through, in need of a drink, care not who owns the road nor the well. Sinking for drinking, crawling for walking, dashing in circles away from the coast. A mouth more than dry, no tear left in the eye, carried by people set loose on the edge. Towards the horizon, the glittering ocean.

Miles ahead of the guide, Mr. Ratput, in the desert, an hour from the oasis and a day’s rest. Is there anybody out there? But the wind… Keith the fearless excited but on the third day powerless when the uncles came to rescue in the sunset, speaking English. Exchanging thoughts about the mystery of existence. Providence, said Keith, but no quantum leaps or coincidences were reflected in the mirrors. No time, they countered, in peaceful harmony with God, missing no man or woman, thought of no friend or foe. An endless love without physical contact. Keith heard music and danced, in the shadows of the flames, in arms with his brothers.

One day they came across an oasis and found Mr. Ratput still waiting with the camels and the water. One more dance with the ancient metropolis, the desert star, the city of wonders, our Keith in a hurry, ready for India lurking like a Genie on the far side of the clouds and snowy mountains. Our Spitfire pilot, 1937 in the Himalayas, in a letter to his father:

There is war within and then without, though every soul is swept in kindness, wickedness lives in alleys’ darkness, and most wanderers lost are provided food and shelter. The refugee never intended to stay, sees time differently, and counts in months instead of years. The nose, legs, or other parts of the body might be missing but he is not angry with you. That’s the one mistake, to think that strangers hate you, when in reality it’s just someone’s trying to make you feel bad. Has there ever been war without leaders? I mean, is not all violence incited by external factors rather than inherent anger? We are peaceful when not threatened. In the mountains, teamwork is better than discussion and fighting. Fastening the tent with stones lest it blows away. Another week to the top and then a slow descent into warmer weather… And then, the Jungle! Elephants!

5

A castle in the sky, a reclusive king, the boy and his machine in a lonely kind of bond. I took the glove off to scratch my neck where droplets of sweat had gathered, still holding the spade stick because the Spitfire rolls to the right at speeds below cruising. Oxygen masks, boys, and maintain radio silence. Keith in the lead thinking about his dog. The big boys, battered and bruised, approaching on the back leg.

Terry must have done it. But he’s dead, love… There we were, Bestowed, jumping out of the machines, kissing the grass, crying and shouting that love must prevail. Not always, of course, but sometimes love must prevail. This they must understand, the Gods. Like we love each other, Beloved, like we had each other.

It should’ve been me instead of him! I would’ve done anything to change seats. I will be no more, Gods! If only I could talk to them…

Terry would’ve said the same, love.

There they were, invisible and absent, seeing everything, understanding everything. A light encapsulated us and we came to understand that it was an answer. This they had decided, extraordinarily, that on this very day, in this very iteration of it, Terry will live to a hundred. A long and prosperous future will flourish for Terry, and he will have his Fanny.

It’s late, love, let’s go to bed. I’ll listen tomorrow, we have all the time in the world.

We never got a chance to chat with the American bomber pilots. Most of the time we didn’t even know what they’d been up to when we met over France on the back leg. We never saw the burning cities, never flew over Dresden as it burned for days on end.

I am all for the bombing of working-class areas of German cities. I am Cromwellian — I believe in ‘slaying in the name of the Lord’, because I do not believe you will ever bring home to the civil population of Germany the horrors of war until they have been tested in this way. - Geoffrey Shakespeare, British Liberal MP, to Archibald Sinclair.

We’d been flying back and forth above them for some twenty minutes when a panicked voice broke the radio silence. Fighters! 6 o’clock, coming down fast, now!

I never registered who made the call. We kept flying straight for a few precious seconds, turning ours heads to locate the danger descending upon us. Here they came, Focke-Wulf 190s, more than twenty, attacking in a sharp turn. No muzzles were flashing, they weren’t shooting yet. Keith called out. Break, boys! Break!

We turned and turned, Terrible Terry and I, up and then down, into a split S, sacrificing altitude for speed. On your tail, Andrew! The Jerry shot the bombers, some exploded in flames, some went on smoking, others kept returning home.

To the left of us and a hundred feet above a Spitfire was hit and flames engulfed the cockpit. Bail out, Andrew! Andrew, one of the new boys, burning to death. I kept turning. Terry stuck to me like glue.

To our left again I spotted two 190s chasing a Spitfire. I waved at Terry and we followed them down in a turn, gaining speed, getting closer. The first 190 exploded gently from a few short bursts with the cannon. They never saw us coming, which surprised me, Abbeyville boys as they were. The pilot, in flames, tried in vain to open the hatch. Terry’s 190 took hits in the left wing and lost its flap section. The aircraft rolled over and entered an inverted dive. We went after it.

We were upside down in a loop when Terry landed the killing shots. The wing fell of completely and the crippled aircraft entered a violent spin. The pilot had no chance to bail. One more Jerry sent to hell. Terry’s fourth victory, one kill short of Ace.

In hunting the 190s we had dropped to ten thousand feet. Below us was the little town of St. Omer with the cathedral and the river. I pressed the fuel gauge button. There was just enough left for another round in the inferno. We climbed and climbed, Terrible Terry and I…

You alright in there, Captain Rocky?

Not now, Bestowed! Not now!

You want something, love?

Don’t come in!

That’s fine, love. You’re calling me Beloved, not Bestowed! Funny little man!

How long have we been up here for? The Jerry was gone, as was the cramped cockpit, the wind, the sun, and the sky. It was raining like hell outside and the windows were black. I was freezing and I would’ve liked Beloved to enter to tuck me in.

But I had to remain focused. This is when Terry was shot down, which is why it was night and why it was raining. Terry must have put the film in the attic like a sign, what he could do from the other side of the grave.

I was back in the cockpit, one hand on the throttle and the other on the spade stick. I’m right here, Rocky.

Until I wasn’t.

At twelve thousand feet a lone Messerschmidt 109 jumped us. We were not prepared and it shot right through Terry. I saw him struggling, dancing on the rudders, stalling, falling. Here they were, the Gods, holding the strings, doing their things, having the option to let him out alive. I shouted on the intercom. Get out, Terry! Get out alive! I couldn’t leave, he was my Terry.

We fell together.

Turbulence, turbulence, the worst I’d ever encountered. As if the Gods were here in this storm, tossing us around like fallen leaves, dead and weightless. We fell as one, merged by an invisible chain no laws of physics could break.

In the name of all that is good and holy!

Then it cleared and we came out below.

Bestowed!

But nothing could save me now. What appeared below the clouds was beyond imagination. My heart knew this, for it abandoned my chest. My eyes knew too, for they popped out of my head. My mind, oh, my mind, it hurt like a nail shot up through the nostril with a sledgehammer.

I’ll leave you to it, love.

Don’t go! Bestowed!

I saw a black hole suspended in the air, at least a hundred feet wide. Ravens in the thousands were encircling it like some infernal gathering of witches. The hole was transparent so that I could see St. Omer on the other side, and yet inside of it the very fabric of space seemed distorted, flickering, shimmering, vibrating like hot air over a summer field. No sooner had I recognised the ravens than I heard their shrieking.

Terry! they were shouting. We want Terry!

I looked around and saw Terry on a path straight towards the hole, as if pulled by magnetic forces. The nose of the aircraft was pointing upwards, it shouldn’t be able to fly in that position.

We’re in this together, chap! If you go, I go too!

But only static was received on the intercom. The closer we got, the more we accelerated. The speed indicator span back and forth, the altimeter kept climbing, I couldn’t steer the aircraft.

Then Terry was devoured in a blink and my eyes were blinded by a magnificent light. The last I heard, Beloved’s sweet voice from a place both near and far, far away.

Rocky! Terry’s here to see you!

Driving around in the old Skoda, Beloved and I. I was in a bad relationship before but with Beloved things were better. I found myself again, I let the guard down, she helped me remove the iron cage I had put my heart in.

North is Copenhagen but any other direction is countryside. Thousands of roads leading nowhere special. Roads we’ve never been down before, roads that turn unexpectedly, roads that end at an abandoned farm or a man-made hill where people buried their dead in the Stone Age. We talked about wanting to have children, a delicate matter this close to forty. Failure was not an option. I should start running, cut down on the alcohol, quit the tobacco. Yes, I really should. Want to stop here for a coffee? But coffee was bad too. Beloved was an expert on many things.

Jennifer is my daughter from a previous relationship. She was nine at the time and stayed with us every other week. We were saving money to buy a house in the country. Beloved wanted a large garden. I was happy both ways, city or countryside. We should be self-sufficient, Beloved said.

Right or left, onwards we went, no particular destination in mind. Sometimes on the map we selected a town we’d never visited. A church from the 11th century, a lighthouse built in 1915, 40 metres tall. Both locations closed on Sundays.

That evening I made my own hot sauce from the chilli peppers we had grown on the balcony during the summer. The balcony was Beloved’s project, I only helped to carry the heavy pots and water the plants on occasion. Carolina Reaper and Trinidad Scorpion. Enough to kill a horse.

We drove to the Sea and it was windy, the waves kept attacking the beach, driving it back with every stab. Birds stood still in the air, not going anywhere. We held each other and smiled in a photograph.

We had it all back then. Then she discovered the lump in her breast and we forgot about children. Then we still had love but now the days were counted. Until they weren’t.

There were no signs as to how things would go.

Sometimes there was no lump.

6

As the autumn turned quickly into winter and the first snow clad the streets, Fanny went looking for Terry. London was cold, but the countryside was colder, especially when the train back home was late or never arrived. She went looking every evening when she wasn’t on double shifts, which was most nights.

Even colder than ice were the faces of the military police enforcing the laws that forbade civilians from entering. Behind their indifferent faces she saw Spitfires and Hurricanes taking off and landing, and at times, when the cockpit light was on, she could discern the pilot faces. Please, she begged, I just want to see him again.

His name was Terry, that’s all she knew. There were several airbases in the Greater London area and he had to be at one of them.

Fanny fought for love with whatever means, and at nights she dreamt. Will there be a time for us? Will the world turn in ways that our paths may cross again? In response, the clouds moved fast and the moon shone bright. Fighter planes and bombers filled the sky, bullets were flying in all directions. Every night, all the boys killing each other in vain.

Then there was a field in a secret part of a forest and flowers of every colour grew upon it. Rocks and boulders were scattered about, and there they sat talking. She held his hands in hers. He rested his heavy head on her chest.

But the sun was going down quickly. The flowers turned grey and the forest came closer as if attacking. There was little time, this they both knew. It was night.

In old age, Terry, in old age and beyond, I’ll love you then! Terry lifted his head to see if her words were true. Night after night, the bombers coming in, taking her Terry away.

Fanny awoke in a state of terror. Far away, in the depths of the forest, beasts and wild animals were preparing their assault. A flock of ravens crossed without a sound. We must fight for our love!

Sometimes she screamed it. When the dawn came, Terry transformed into a Spitfire and joined the ravens who were flying in a great circle. She waved with her handkerchief, but Terry was already a dot on the horizon, mere static on the radio.

That’s how they met. Standing in front of the destroyed bookshop Heather was shaking her head when Fanny walked up. Paperbacks in piles and burnt pages all around.

A pity, Fanny said.

And all because of that objectionable little man, said Heather.

Then the air raid siren started and they ran with a large crowd to the underground bunkers in the metro. At first they waited, having found a place to sit at the far end of the platform.

One day Fanny ran into Heather. Unexpectedly, Heather was before her again, revitalising the pains and memories of Terry. They walked towards the centre surrounded by rubble and destruction. Citizens in lines were busy stapling bricks. Small fires here and there even though the temperature was below freezing. Not that they spoke very much, too shocked they were. A family member could have been killed, a home could be lost. Over 40,000 civilians perished in the London Blitz.

A pity they got the bookshop, said Fanny.

They burn a lot of books in Germany, said Heather. Oh yes, he loves burning books, that objectionable little man.

They laughed and Heather took Fanny’s hands in hers.

Tell me, my dearest Fanny, have you met up with that sweet boy you met in the metro?

Fanny’s pace slowed to a stop

No, she said, and kept walking. I wouldn’t know where to look.

In attempting a lie one can reveal the truth. Heather searched Fanny’s bewildered face.

Keith said they were stationed at Kenley.

But I’ve been there, civilians aren’t allowed.

She was whispering. Heather took on a worried look and leaned closer, whispering back.

My brother is a mechanic at Kenley. I’ll see if he can help you.

Are you there, love?

Fanny?

When the second winter came and the Blitz was postponed we were transferred southeast to Manston. We flew Circus and Rodeo missions over France, escorting American bombers or picking fights with the weakened Luftwaffe. Oftentimes flying was not possible because of the weather. The long night greeted the short day with a thick layer of snow over fields and Spitfires alike.

We were still in grief after Terry’s disappearance a fortnight ago. The lack of combat missions meant we had no way of getting back at the Jerry. As if the soft snow and the sweeping winds had restored to normal our skins hardened by the fierce summer fighting, we had a hard time forgetting Terry and we did not touch his old armchair by the fire.

On such a day of sadness, with the sun already halfway down and snowflakes all about, Fanny arrived at the station and walked the icy roads to the gate. She said to the guard, as proper and formal as she could, that Mr. Bean, security officer at Kenley, had promised that her request to speak with Flight Sergeant Terry Johnson would be granted. The guard had not heard of Mr. Bean but was taken aback by Fanny’s determined face, and went inside to make a phone call to see what could be done.

We were sitting and standing like that when the security officer entered and hastily closed the door lest the snowstorm should enter.

There’s a woman here to see Flight Sergeant Terry Johnson.

He ain’t no more, Keith said from the bar. You got a name for the woman?

You can ask her yourself, the officer replied, she’s right here.

Fanny appeared with a face as white as a ghost draped in snow.

He’s dead, isn’t he?

Her eyes searched the room like a dove trying to land but in vain, for we all looked away.

Yes, shouted Keith. Long live his memory! Cheers for Terry!

The Jerry got him two days ago over France, I said.

Fanny searched and found me and smiled at first as she rested her eyes in mine.

I came too late, then.

She walked into the room, steered towards the fireplace, where it seemed as if she would faint before she landed in Terry’s armchair. A single tear down her cheek. It sparkled and fell and then it was gone.

God damn it! she cried.

When you’re twenty, the heart writes a hundred pages an hour but the rate can be a thousand. It can linger but not stop, and it can go back forever until it gets it right.

Every other Saturday, unless I’m working, is an explorer’s day, for Beloved and me, and for the little miracle, safe in the womb, kicking and sleeping, the size of a melon. It’s a new world now, something we fought for, us having a baby after all. Would it have been possible without science? Too many years in the polluted city, too much industrial waste in the water, too much microplastic in the food? We would have succeeded eventually, but Beloved was not so sure.

We met late in our lives. She wanted many kids too. Summer, a large garden, my little spot under the chestnut tree, the kids playing around. Asking for my attention, not my participation, they’ve got each other. I smile like a loving father relaxing in the shadows.

I had a kid when I was still at university, half-way through medical school. That explains why my total savings do not exceed 700 euros. But Beloved is not so sure about that. You’re not meant for modern society, she says.

Zealand is not a large island, I counter. One can drive from one end to the other, or all around its edges, in a few hours. We pick a random location. It can be a restaurant, a lake, an old church, or just a spot that looks interesting on the map. It can also be a forest, but I insist that there are no real forests on Zealand. There used to be, but the 17th century kings harvested the trees for shipbuilding, and now the ships are on the bottom of Øresund. Zealand is flat, like Scania across the strait. They call hills mountains and creeks rivers. The language is built on impossible vowels and inconsistent grammar. Beloved objects, but I’m the driver and I set the rules for the conversation. She sighs, looks out the window at the countryside and dreams her little dreams, hands folded on the growing belly.

Today, everything seemed familiar. Haven’t we been here before? That church? Beloved doesn’t think so. While walking in the forest we came upon a path that bent just like the road leading up to the lakehouse bends. That three-turn bend is everywhere, I said. I used to live next to a forest containing such a bend and I imagined that it was a portal to the lakehouse. Not an actual portal that I could use, but a specific view that evoked memories.

The lakehouse is a magical place. Wild boars forage in the flowerbeds at night. Beloved is impressed by the old beeches and the lake surrounding the house on three sides, but the facilities pose a challenge. Twenty four hours to warm up and the floor remain cold to walk on. There’s electricity but remember to flush only if absolutely necessary because the well must be replaced.

I’m an old man now, wise and experienced, walking in the forest. Beloved laughs. She finds a stick and runs after me. I find my own stick. The game is to force the stick up the arse, but of course that’s impossible with the clothes on. There’s no one around and we can go on for hours.

7

I dreamt I saw you running away from me, dear Jennifer, dear daughter, all grown up now, your happy face around a corner, stopping to turn and wave, the sun leaving none but your shadow on the wall, and I woke with tears in my eyes. Your first keys to an apartment, your first lecture, your first love, and life, and everything.

Do you remember when I exposed you to the full horrors of the Holocaust? I should’ve investigated more thoroughly what the exhibition was about, and I shouldn’t have answered all of your questions. I should’ve lied. You were only nine, after all.

Lenke Rothman survived Auschwitz and arrived in Sweden, 16 years old, sick from tuberculosis. In her art, she used cloth and other discarded materials that she found on her way through life. The guide asked the group of children if they knew why Lenke’s art often featured faces. “Did she meet many people?” asked a boy. The guide answered that Lenke lost her whole family in the Second World War. I looked around to see how the children took that in but there were no immediate reactions. There had been nine of them, the guide continued. Mother, father, the siblings, and Lenke. That’s why the numbers eight and ten often featured in various ways in her art. We walked around the hall, looking at the pieces on the walls. I had a hard time discerning your face too, dear daughter, whether you were interested or not. After the tour we were invited to the workshop where materials were provided to make art the way Lenke did. But you just sat there, dear daughter, eyes on the table, cloth, glue, and scissors in your hand.

“How did they die?” you asked.

I was whispering, certain that the other parents did not want their children to hear.

“Well, there was an evil man named Hitler. He hated Jews, and so did his followers. Judaism is a religion, just like Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, and so on. Many Jews lived in Germany and France, but even more lived in the eastern parts of Europe, including Poland, the Soviet Union, and Hungary, where Lenke was from. It all happened very slowly, in more or less calculated steps. It started in Germany and spread to every country that Hitler’s armies, the Nazis, occupied. At first, the Nazis forbade Jews from attending university or working as doctors or professors. Some Jews, such as Albert Einstein, left Germany while they were still allowed to. Then Jews had to carry a star on their chest and were not allowed on the streets in the evenings, and they were not allowed to go to the movies or eat at restaurants. Many tried to move to other countries but most countries would not accept such large numbers of immigrants. A ship sailed all the way to South America and waited for weeks before it had to sail back again. Then Jews were forced to live in special parts of the cities called ghettos and were treated like animals. Many died from disease and starvation. Finally, the Nazis decided that all the Jews should be killed. They called it The Final Solution. But not only Jews, but also Romani, homosexuals, artists, political opponents, priests, mentally handicapped people, and many others who thought differently than the Nazis. Three million Jews died in Eastern Europe and as many in so-called concentration camps in Germany and Poland.”

“Were they shot at the camps?”

“At first, yes, but this was too expensive, and difficult for the soldiers.”

“So how did they die?”

“Listen, Jennifer…”

“How?”

“They killed them with gas.”

“Gas?”

Horror in your eyes.

“They were forced to enter the back of a truck or a room from which they could not escape. The truck drove, or gas canisters were released from small holes in the ceiling.”

You cried silently while around us other children and parents made art the way Lenke used to do.

“What did they do with their clothes?”

“Their clothes? Most were naked when they entered the gas chambers.”

“Naked? But what if they were shy?”

“Listen, Jennifer. This happened a long, long time ago, and it will never happen again.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

I held you, hugged you.

“Yes, I’m sure. It happened a long, long time ago.”

You made a piece of art for Lenke that featured ten popsicle sticks painted in the colours of the rainbow and glued to a blue piece of paper. You wrote WE LOVE YOU with big letters on the top. We had lunch and left for the lakehouse. On the way we visited your great-grandmother who had just turned 93. You asked her about the war and the Jews, demanding details, expecting her to tell, but she did not seem to hear. “I would not have been chosen for work,” you said in the car. “I’m not very strong.” I slowed down because in the wintertime the forest is full of wild boars and deer that can appear in the headlights without a warning. “I would have held my breath, and pressed my hands against my mouth.” Finally, we arrived. The house was dark and cold and you waited in the car while I turned the lights on. I carried you inside and placed you in the bedroom in your jacket, under the blankets, and gave you the tablet, for once praising its distractions. But you said,

“Was it as big as this room?”

“I’ll make some food.”

“I don’t want to be alone.”

“I’m right here, but we need to keep the door shut, else the room won’t get warm. You’re allowed as much Roblox as you like, go ahead.”

I tried to smile a fatherly smile but your eyes were lost in the screen. In the fridge I found a beer that I emptied and then I made sausages and pasta with ketchup. We ate in the bedroom watching your favourite cartoon and then you were sleeping, turning and talking in your sleep, but I got up.

Some months back, Greg had left a bag of pot and it put me in a strange state of mind. I sat in the armchair and darkness came over me. A year before, when the wind was blowing as it did now, on the 7th of October, an hour after midnight, I had started this telling. The space was dark and empty, the wind was howling… I didn’t know what I was writing, if anything, and I still don’t know. The wind was howling, as I said, rattling the windows and I felt that I must write, which I did, long into the night, writing, sculpturing, two short paragraphs that seemed to vibrate from some otherworldly power. I slept until late and when I read the news the extent of the horror was still unknown. It was still unfolding. I became afraid to go on, hesitant to revisit the world I had conjured from such darkness. Now, the source revealed itself again. An electromagnetic buzz, a soft blanket over my soul, hard to carry, heavy from ten thousand years of pain, blood, and progress. Since the dawn of time, just like that, naked and torn… Was I shown an enlightened path, in an Oriental garden? Whatever that meant.

The world is two-sided, Jennifer, it’s wonderful and awful, and you know that now. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. And turn the other cheek. But how, when evil is all around? I found strength in hardship, wrote well when I was short of time, thought clearly with my back against the wall. Keith, the impossible, in a simple twist of mind, envied the dictators. Look at that playboy, all that power… Keith? I’ll have another beer. It takes a lot of work to charm the abandoned, who with devotion can be made to reject the foundations of the state. Terry? The smoothing of the edges and quelling of complaints, the abysmal work behind layers of curtains. The shimmering heart that loves the world knows two suns that set only to rise again. Fanny? It’s simple, dear daughter, in the land of dreams. Now, let’s go to bed. Still, the dismantlement of educational and health institutions as a means of suppression must be considered when…

8

We came from the promised kingdom, down on the snowy mountains, over the hills of gold and riches. We filled the poisoned streets and drank the lukewarm water from the backs of our starving camels.

Not a star in the sky, but a finger in the wind, and old words recalled by the fire to show us.

Don’t stay here, we were told, and moved on. No loitering, they said, and we moved on. No benches to rest on, no parks to set camp in, no public restrooms to be used free of charge.

On the third day, I saw my wife and children…

When the paths turned to highways we climbed the fences to make the news, but law enforcement on direct order could only push us forward.

In a makeshift tent of plastic bags she rested her heavy head on her arms and rubber sandals, satisfied to know that one day we are there by the shimmering heart of redemption by the indestructible glue that holds us together and makes societies prosper.

A seagull in the wind stretching its wings, a rat in a dumpster scoring a meal, a newborn crying while mothers and fathers depart and explode in the dust.

The Gods taught us right from wrong and made the knowledge our own. The two suns and our planets hardened our skins. The labyrinths of time sharpened our nails and eyes.

You must remove these handcuffs, we demanded, and they did for we were ready. That palace must be built outside the city centre, and later that night they built it far away.

We came down from the mountains with ideas and ideals. Like stone, we vowed, the mass of the mountain, we remain the same to let neither time nor success and failure change us.

In the midst of summer a rain in the sky that hovered and never fell. Perplexed, as the Gods would have us, we weighed the wearing of the stone against the lives of the flowers, but the rain when it came was heavy and quenched no thirst.

They put us on trains but the rails turned sideways and the doors swung open and the soldiers fell out and exploded on the ground.

On a busy side street I saw following me the most curious eyes on the most intriguing face. The girl spoke to me but my mother grabbed me by the arm and hurried up. The girl ran up to us but my mother pushed me forward.

“You’re worried tonight, son,” my father said. He was right, and I could not sleep, I was up all night thinking about the eyes.

The next morning we were relocated. They uprooted our tents and threw our suitcases on wagons. “Such a large, large pile,” said my little brother.

“Don’t worry,” it was announced from a megaphone, “you’re going to a better place.”

“Just like last time?” we cried.

“You can work, you can dance and sing, if that’s what you want.”

The mules, the bells, the whistles, the sandals and the feet, the grandparents too slow with the children in their hands.

But love was more important than any relocation. I did not worry about that new place. I’d get there, one way or another.

The city was a stinking labyrinth of boulevards, squares, and alleys. Shops, fruit stands, poultry in cages, men in hats drinking tea in the shadows.

“Dreamers always find each other,” the girl said. We made love in an alley not far away, hidden from view by a chestnut tree. “Love is blind, love is also disgusting, love is also this,” she said. “The blood and the flesh and the fluids and the words that must not be spoken or combined in certain ways. You must go now, you must join your kin.” Like a fortune-teller, dark clouds on the horizon. “I’ll be back,” I said, and swirled my cape.

I hurried to the central station and let myself get caught. We travelled east for five days without food or water. The grandparents and the infants perished. We were hopeful when entering the gas chamber, singing and dancing as instructed, promised that after disinfection water would be provided. But my brother did not have to go. He was taken to the doctor instead.

Afterwards, he asked where I had been all this time but I could not say, for his ears were too young to hear about love. My mother scorned me.

“The world will be different,” she said, “and your brother does not need to know everything.”

“In the future,” my father added, “man will treat man like an equal and not like an animal.”

“But we are animals,” I said.

My little brother’s eyes grew large, his urinary tract infected and surgically connected to his bowels.

From the Lake of Ashes we rose like bloody mist to devour the bureaucrats and soldiers of the General Government. We sought not revenge for our people but to convey that death is not the end, and that ghosts spin the earth exactly like the living.

Even if we entered singing, death through suffocation made us leave in distress. Blood from our ears and noses, the parents, the children lost in the dark. Excrement on the floor that we slipped on fighting blindly for the spot on the top by the door. Like slabs of stone, like basalt… And then, out we fell, tumbling onto one another, like slabs of stone, like basalt.

I was working as a nurse’s assistant and the boy was fourteen or fifteen and ill with terminal cancer. My task was to keep an eye on him. He was not to fall out of the bed or in his dreams rip out the peripheral venous catheter. He was sleeping when I arrived in the morning and slept until his father came to visit in the early afternoon. The father was in his mid-forties and well-dressed. He did not bring a gift or flowers. They greeted as if he visited daily. This is when I heard the boy speak. Like a blackbird on a lamppost on the last day of summer, robbed of it all but two falling tones. The father reported the news from home and asked if he wanted to call his girlfriend, and went out to get a cup of coffee. She had been to tennis practice, just like last Wednesday. Then they were silent and nervous. There was more homework than usual. They said farewell with a kiss and I love you. I wasn’t there. I would have said that love conquers all and that nothing ever dies.

My grandfather was a sailor and could play the accordion. During the Second World War, he worked on a freighter as far as San Francisco and liked to recall that he participated in the hostilities. My other grandfather was a mechanic at the fire station and a member of the Social Democratic Party. On my mother’s side I can trace my heritage to Vandrarfolket (the walking people). That is not to say that I have Gypsy or Romani blood. Back in the days it was common for people to wander around, alone or in groups, singing as they went, accompanied by the accordion and the fiddle, stopping in the villages and towns to trade. Tramps, vagabonds, vagrants. That’s what I like to believe, that I’m one of them. My surname is from my other grandmother. When her mother died her father remarried and took the name of his new wife. He was a gardener in some count’s garden and lived in Scotland for a while. The name itself is an 18th century Swedish soldier’s name, but older variants can be found in Germany, giving names to castles, villages, and rivers. My mother grew up a Persson and my father an Olsson. But my father, the entrepreneur, was not satisfied with the working class surname, and when he was twenty he changed to his mother’s maiden name. My parents grew up poor but not struggling. I grew up in an old doctor’s villa next to the railway and fell asleep to the sound of trains rattling by. When I was born my father quit his job in the pharmaceutical industry and became a copywriter. He was successful in the nineties and built a pool in the garden and drove a black Jaguar that I was ashamed of.

In our blood were the seeds of every colour of the skin, every type of eye and personality, and every deed, good or bad, ever committed…

9

This is when we learned to love each other. Human love, conditioned on death, the end. Fragile love not accounting for infinity, and not depending on it. The Gods did not know this kind of love, which was stronger or at least different in ways they could not understand. A love not affording endless days, a distilled version of Godly love, which was omnipresent and all-knowing. Jesus knew that the kingdom was at hand and feared no man and saw no obstacles. “Why have you forsaken me?” he cried in the end, loudly, so all could hear. The shifting clouds obscuring the sun like a picture of mortal doubt. His disciples had faith and loved him but when he sent them out in the lands they expelled no demons and cured only with oils.

My father was always there with the camcorder. “Here we are at the hotel in Mallorca and the weather’s great and it’s the third of February 1996.” On birthdays, he expected us to wave at the camera before opening the gifts. As we got older we became annoyed and misbehaved and he had to shut it off. “Oh, you’ll see, we’ll be happy to have this one day.” Sometimes we stole the camera to make skateboard movies and comedy shows, or to record our nightly shenanigans in the village. My father always objected to being filmed, yet there he was, to our great amusement, angry that we were wasting the precious tape. His face close up, yelling in the high-pitched and nasal accent of northeastern Skåne. He had a hot temper but cooled quickly. “Feels good to be eight, right?”

Some years ago he delivered the box of tapes to a photo shop to have them digitised. By some strange mistake, a third of the files on the hard disk we received were recordings of soap operas from before we were born. Another third were videos of ice-hockey goaltender training from the time my father ran an ice hockey boot camp in Stockholm. Me and my little brother were ice hockey goaltenders. I was a training product, my father admitted when we were older, but my brother had real talent. Yet I became the second best goalie in Skåne for my age, and was the third goaltender in TV-pucken (I was the second goalie until a terrible performance against an older Danish team made me apologise to the coach who concluded that I was not fit mentally). I quit when I was sixteen because of music, literature, and girls, and then my brother quit too, because I did. Woe to my father who went to Stockholm for two more summers, without his sons, until he could return to being a copywriter. Whereas the soap operas might have some cultural value, the videos of goalies going left and right with pucks flying about must be worthless. The same must not be said of the remaining third, the actual family videos.

My father was a teenager when he got his first parrot, a cockatiel, and it lived to the age of thirty. He had to give it to his sister when he started university but when he met my mother and they settled down it was not long before he acquired more parrots. When I was born he had already had two, a cockatoo and a yellow-fronted amazon. Both had died at a young age, one from an unnecessary operation gone wrong and the other from a rare virus. I grew up with Lazer, a blue macaw, and Shotgun, a yellow-blue-fronted amazon. The birds were only tame towards my father. We quickly learned to avoid their wicked attacks that came out of nowhere. Wings flapping, crazy eyes, beaks open as they descended from the curtain rod. Get down, brother!

Like most boys I admired my father and wanted to be like him and when I was ten in 1996 I was gifted a parrot, a cockatiel. I named her Sajber after a TV-show about computers, games, and the Internet. She was just out of the nest and was tamed almost instantly. I went to school with bird shit on my sweater and hurried home to be with my new best friend. My little brother wanted to be like his big brother but different, of course, and received a pet too. Not a parrot, though, but a rat. It loved to hide inside his sweater and ran back and forth on the table when we ate breakfast. My parents probably told us to be watchful when both pets were out. Rats, no matter how adorable and tame, are predators by nature.

One Friday evening my parents were watching TV and me and my brother were playing in his room. The rat was in the cage and Sajber was running around on the floor like cockatiels love to do, examining LEGO pieces and looking for food. When we decided to go down in the basement to play table tennis (my father said it made us better goaltenders), I thought my own room too far away, and we decided to put Sajber in the rat cage so that they could become friends. We would be back soon, anyway. Sajber was clinging to the net in the upper corner when we left, looking down at the rat that had not yet noticed her presence. Half an hour later we were met with the most gruesome sight. I remember that I cried in anger and threw an apple against the wall and I remember my mother’s horrified face. I was not present when my father buried the pile of blood and feathers at the pet cemetery under the cherry tree, and then we drove to Kristianstad to buy me a new game on the Sega Megadrive. I played it Saturday and Sunday and then never again. Monday, even the teacher couldn’t keep himself from smiling when I explained what had happened and why I was sad. I had killed my cockatiel in a gruesome way and now I was telling everyone about it. That’s one twisted kid.

A long time ago, a little boy loved a bird and the bird loved him back, as birds are able to love. By the boy’s hands, the bird died the most terrible of deaths. The boy could not appreciate the pain and buried it deep in his heart. She tried to fly, fly, fly in a frenzy of flapping but did not take off and she screamed as high as she could but the boy did not hear and did not come. The rat ate until it was not hungry anymore.

Beloved loves the family videos. She has relived more of the holidays, birthdays, and Christmas eves of my childhood than I have and speaks as if she were there when it happened. I want to watch a movie but she insists that we go exploring amongst the folders on the hard drive. Being systematic and orderly in nature, she also insists that we rename the files from the random VOB_1_2 to something more descriptive.

We were lying in bed and a light snow was swirling perfectly to the ground like glittering popcorn tossed from heaven. We discarded the soap operas and goalie training videos and rejoiced in the happy moments of my childhood.

Look how cute you were!

Were! Am I not cute anymore?

It happened then what I knew would happen. The very reason, perhaps, that I have never cared to watch the damn videos.

The lakehouse, June, 1999. We had to go, every summer, for at least a month. Friends could be brought and stay for days, but we had to stay, isolated in the forest. The whole family, all the parrots, the cats, the dog (a melancholic dachshund that my grandfather could no longer take care of), the blind rooster and the hens with their chicks. At least we were allowed to bring the desktop computer.

The camera was going around, stopping only for seconds, it must have been my brother filming. “Turn that off!” shouted my father, busy unpacking in the bedroom, but my brother got away. He ran outside where the sun flared the lens, then back inside where my mother and sister were loading the fridge. “Your father said to turn it off,” said my mother pleasantly. In the background, Lazer and Shotgun were screeching and they caught my brother’s attention and changed his plans, for he ran to the living room and began filming each parrot up close. Lazer and Shotgun attacked violently like dinosaurs as my brother taunted them by banging his little hand against the cages. “Stop that immediately!” yelled my father but did not come in. Then the camera turned to the smaller cage by the window and my heart skipped a beat and stopped in its path. I had to look away, tears were flooding my eyes. There, on the cage floor…

Are you alright, love?

Yes, Beloved. That’s just Sajber, the second Sajber. He died a few years before we met.

It’s just a bird, love.

I know, Beloved, but he was more than that. He was… He was my one and only superstar.

I hold in my hands his whole life. He was a cheerful bird that sang from the heads of guests, but that’s what cockatiels do. Countless hours sitting alone in the cage until I brought him friends (at one point I had seven cockatiels and only Sajber was tame and wanted me around). I brought him a mate when he could not follow me to England, but their nests were barren and he had no offspring. I remember, but not he, when I was twelve and chose him at the pet store because he was the calmest. He was sitting on the cage floor while the others were running around. I understood, and I think he did too, when he was old and could not fly and ate very little, that death was near. He was saying farewell, but not I, too entrenched and busy for goodbyes. His dark eyes watching me, taking me in, for more than twenty years. I came home and there he was. Always. I woke up and there he was. Singing. He saw me laughing and crying, he saw me ill, taking on the world. He saw me drunk and stoned, in love and heartbroken, understanding nothing of it. He came close and made little sounds of comfort when I was crying. He learnt that the sound of the keys meant I was leaving and tried to make me stay. He flew over the pine trees in the lakehouse forest, he flew out over the sea, and he sat in the treetops, until I called and he returned. There were hawks in the air that heard his calls. I was away for a long time, in Tanzania, and he gave up and stopped eating until I called from a shaky line and his vigour returned. His partner of fifteen years escaped and flew away and he understood that he would never see her again. He was sad, I could tell, but how could I help him grieve? I held his life in my hands and caused him much joy and sorrow. I should’ve been more careful. I should’ve been better. He loved me unconditionally and I was not there when he died. He wanted to die alone, that’s what animals want. In my dreams I’ve asked him many times. Did he know that I was coming?

In February 2020, just before the Corona lockdown, I brought Sajber to the lakehouse so that he could die in peace. We had two weeks. My girlfriend at the time had thrown a smartphone in my face (in front of our five year old daughter) and the ensuing blue eye and overall stress forced me to go on sick leave. Sajber had been getting worse for months and was too weak to fly and ate very little. His right foot was afflicted by arthritis and he could not climb the branches. Unless I lifted him up he had to sit on the floor. When I left the room he became desperate and called with a new melody of two descending tones. I realised much later that he was whistling my name.

The wind was howling and the house was cold. I put Sajber in the bedroom and turned on the radiator. My Old Little Man, I said. You relax now, I’m right here. He wanted to be close but kept falling asleep and every little movement disturbed him. Birds have a shallow sleep. I’ll cry when you’re gone, I said, but neither of us knew what I was saying. I held him in my cupped hands to simulate darkness and death and he almost stopped breathing. I went for long walks in the forest, in case he wanted to die alone, but when I returned he had not moved from his place on the pillow.

The two weeks passed and we had to go back. We left in the sunset and drove in the darkness. The cage rattled on the dirt roads and I heard him falling down. This was our goodbye. My cockatiel had followed me everywhere, for twenty years, back and forth in the car, a thousand times to the lakehouse. This was the last time. Tom Waits’ Fish and Bird and I’m Still Here played on repeat but too loud for his tired mind and sensitive ears. It was for my sake. I was crying but he was still alive when we got home.

The school’s winter vacation was coming up. We had booked train tickets to Stockholm to visit my brother. It didn’t matter that Sajber was on the verge of death. I refused to see it, I took it for granted that he would survive the week. I arranged that two acquaintances would check in on him twice a day. If he’s on the floor, lift him up so that he can reach the food and the water. I was at the National Museum when they called, in the grand room with the animal skeletons up and down the walls and on display in the monitors. On the cage floor, Beloved, that’s where he died. In the exact same spot. I hope that when the darkness came he remembered my cupped hand and imagined that I was holding him, warm and safe.

I went to the lakehouse to bury him. As I stepped out of the car I heard a blackbird whistling the exact same two tones. He was calling from beyond life and death. My superstar. For forty days I heard him calling. And now, every blackbird I see… But I cannot remember the sounds he made.

10

I went to bed that night thinking about Sajber. He was just a bird. Beloved was sleeping next to me. I went to bed that night thinking about the Holocaust. While he was dying in the lakehouse I re-watched Shoah. I wanted him to understand things that he couldn’t understand. We can be forgiven. Everything can be redeemed. I went to bed that night… If we want it bad enough. If the rich become poor and the first become last.

I was standing in a field that seemed without an end. There were no buildings, trees, or anything else and the horizon was all I saw. The sky was black and there were no stars, and no moon, and yet there was light. I felt no breeze against my skin and yet the grass was bending in the wind. It was shining softly and shimmering. I looked at my hands. They were shimmering too and my body was silvery and transparent. None of this rose any suspicion. I was a ghost, that is all. I was given a direction and walked until I heard church bells chiming in the distance. The grass grew taller and became hard to traverse. Far down in the valley what looked like a long line of people waiting for a sign.

I reached a clearing. The sound of an engine and I looked up. A Spitfire coming in to land. It went into a dive with the gear out and did a barrel roll before it graciously touched the ground. Now the pilot was wading through the grass and now he was before me.

We got this, Terry said. We’ll win at life. We’ll topple the world.

He put an arm around my shoulder. The line of people came up from the valley and walked past in silence.

Don’t listen too much to what the priest has to say, Terry said. Some things can be mended, the rest are left to heal in the merciful hands of time. One day you will die and all this will be in vain.

That’s not helping, I whispered.

Keith’s the better talker, he replied, but Keith’s busy fighting the Jerry. I got the day off to make sure you’re at ease.

I’m not at ease, Terry!

Don’t worry, he said. One day you will learn to relax.

I saw then that his face was on fire.

We are gathered here today to bid farewell to Sajber, a most beautiful and special cockatiel who in his final days, when it was the last he wanted, was abandoned by his only friend, Rocky, who deemed it more important to visit a brother in Stockholm. A journey that could be postponed, most certainly, but the lives of human beings are valued more highly than those of any other animal on God’s green Earth, is it not so, Rocky? I know you are listening. Yes, frightened he was, as we all would be, except Rocky, perhaps, who appears without deeper feelings. Wondered, Sajber did, when his friend would return. Hoping, he did, until the last second when the heart gave up and death took life’s place and light was replaced by darkness and all sounds ceased.

Terry, this is unbearable.

We must let her finish, then we’ll do whatever you wish. Something fun and creative, perhaps.

Rocky knew that his friend was dying but when he did not die within the two weeks that Rocky demanded, Rocky arranged and with poor instructions, mind you, for two acquaintances, whom he barely knew, and didn’t really like, for Rocky doesn’t seem to like anyone, to twice a day have a look. A look! Go over there a few times a day and have a look. Rocky’s words, written in God’s great book. Yes, he mentioned only briefly, as if it wasn’t important, that the bird was dying and couldn’t reach the food unless he was helped, and couldn’t reach the water unless he was lifted up. Too weak to fly up to the cage! Rocky knew this! Yet he did not lock Sajber in the cage or place the food on the floor where it could be reached.

That’s not entirely true, Terry! It didn’t happen like that!

Everything the priest says is true, Rocky. She is speaking God’s truth, whether we like it or not.

But I don’t believe in God!

You’ll see. Now we must listen.

Should the bird feed on air and courage alone? I fear that Sajber died from starvation. And dehydration. I’m telling you, Rocky, that Sajber died from dehydration and starvation! Had he only been allowed these essentials of life his heart would have kept on beating and he would have been alive when you returned from Stockholm. You were all he had, Rocky. You were the centre of his little bird life. His beginning and end. But no, people. No, angels. No, ye witnesses of a crime in heaven. Rocky did not instruct the acquaintances to lift Sajber to the cage or to place food on the wooden chair by the door, where death came knocking. All living things know such things. Rocks don’t know it! Plastics have no idea! But life knows when the end is near. The white drop of spilling indicates that death was slow and cold and that the bowels emptied there on the chair. There he sat waiting for whichever would come first! Rocky or death! The first acquaintance came in the afternoon to find Sajber with an empty look in the eyes and not reacting to whistling, and when placed in front of the water and food he did not eat or drink. He even called you, Rocky, to inform you of the situation but you shrugged it off and said that, yes, Sajber had become old and tired. When the second acquaintance came in the evening Sajber was dead, his little body still warm, his soul still lingering in the room with a barely audible electric hum. That was him, Rocky, not letting go of you.

Twice the door opened but it was not me that entered. Twice he thought I was coming but it was someone else.

That’s right, Rocky. It took him a long time to die because he was waiting for you.

And all this is not to mention the negligence that preceded his death and lasted for years. His foot was hurting and Rocky brought him to the vet and received medication to be given daily. But did Rocky give it daily? No, he did not! A week! Then the medication ran out and Rocky did not get out to get more…

Let’s go, Terry, I can’t take it anymore. The medication did nothing to stop the swelling. His pain persisted. He screamed in pain, medication or not. There was nothing I could do.

As we left I yelled at the priest who kept on talking like that, listing in detail every mistake I’d ever made.

I loved him so much!

Terry had to drag me away.

A day passed. A grey sun that emitted no light of its own came up and was gone again. The moon stopped by but soon withdrew. The black and green persisted, untouched by the workings of the universe. No stars ever appeared.

We took off in our Spitfires and landed again. We chased each other through clouds that were not there. I crashed and was engulfed in flames but a second later I was back on the grass. Terry approached and went away. He was left and right, up close and afar. He talked but did not say a word.

What are we doing here? I asked one day.

We are waiting for Keith. He should be here any minute now.

Countless days passed without Keith showing up. Terry lay in the grass reading a book. Now he was sketching on a piece of paper. Now he was writing something. I looked but the pages were empty. This wasn’t cutting it.

Let’s go, I said.

Where to?

Anywhere. We can’t stay here forever.

But we can, Rocky. Forever is just a word. There is no time here. Or rather, all of time is here. Everything that has ever happened is right here. Everything that hasn’t happened is right here too.

That doesn’t make sense, Terry.

But it does, Rocky. Challenge me. Let’s go somewhere while we wait. Anywhere. We can do anything.

We can go back to the dawn of time?

Well, yes, but that wouldn’t be very exciting. Let’s go where there are people.

We can go back to stop the second world war?

We can, but that’s more difficult than you think. We can’t just kill Hitler, if that’s what you’re planning. Believe me, we’ve tried that.

Who are we?

Keith will explain when he gets here. We call ourselves The Renegades.

Why can’t we just kill Hitler?

Because it had to happen.

So what’s the point of going back if nothing can be changed?

As I said, to have some fun while we’re waiting for Keith.

What are we going to do when he gets here?

As I said, Rocky. We’ll win at life, we’ll topple the world. The poor will be rich, the last will be first.

Isn’t that what Jesus said about the Kingdom of Heaven?

Yes, something like that, but Keith isn’t Jesus. It’ll all make sense. You’ll see.

We were flying again, shooting Dorniers and Heinkels. Little men in parachutes fell towards the sea and were devoured by the cold and hungry waves. We were on the grass again, Terry writing empty pages in his book. At times I got a feeling that something was about to happen. There was a rhythm to the bending of the grass.

Then I thought about the Holocaust. I thought about racism, fascism, and about the times I was living in with Beloved and everyone I loved. If only the rich supported the poor instead of divided them. What a beautiful world that would be. Imagine ending world hunger. Of course, xenophobia loves populism. Who in their right mind with power derived from wealth would want unions and democracy? Let the poor fight each other and steal what you can. It was a smart move to associate the enemy with LGBTQ+ rights and make this a question of division in the name of religion. Love God and love your neighbour as you love yourself. Jesus would have toppled the tables and sent them all to Hell. And training biased AI to write an alternative Wikipedia to legitimise racist pseudoscience. Listen, man! Ordinary people love their neighbours! You can’t kill that from a throne of blood. The world will be brown and there’s nothing you can do about it. People, people, innocent people. This is capitalism. The hate against the Jews began with The Gospel of Matthew that framed Jews as the killers of Christ. Mark didn’t do that. It might just as well have been Pontius Pilate that killed Christ. Jesus, at first, talked only to the Jews but then he expanded the recruitment pool to everyone. Then came Hitler with his perverted ideas. He was driven by hate and revenge whereas the fascists of our times are driven by power and wealth, and I don’t know which is worse.

A raven flapped its wings in silence. It was noon, the grey sun was watering my eyes. I had moved about a hundred yards from where Terry was sitting.

Come over here!

Sorry, Terry, I was thinking about something. Regardless, I really, really want to punish Hitler. If we can’t kill him, let’s castrate him.

You got it, Rocky. The Gods just might let this one go.

11

The Renegades saw this and heard it all and lived to be a hundred a thousand times over. Emperors and slaves, they harvested the grapes with backs bent and bloody and drank the wine with faces red and swollen. They sat on mountaintops in snow, silence, and wind and were followed by millions and they waded barefoot through deserts and mud when the climate changed and the harvests withered. They died young, they died old, they resorted to cannibalism when there was no other way and prevailed to tell a drowning world about it. Receivers of Nobel prizes and Pulitzers they spent lifetimes in jail for crimes against humanity and were righteous among nations and enemies of mankind. What’s revealed and felt with endless iterations, what Hellhounds emerge from the depths of the soul, that they were, The Renegades. Like children in the dark by the door and the light coming in, refusing to sleep to see what’s hidden outside. You have to live it to talk it and talk it to walk it but if so, how far can you go? Classic Keith, asking the Gods questions like that.

The feeble doctor entered in a hurry, late as usual, and did not bother to greet the secretary who motioned him not to enter Dr. August’s office, for he had a patient. He sat down at his desk in his office that did not carry his name, because his position was not permanent, he was helping out temporarily. The first patient was a woman in her fifties, a housewife and native to Berlin. The feeble doctor hated Berlin because of its filth and all the people. The woman, barely able to speak from exhaustion and excessive crying, spoke incoherently and with unnecessary detail about red little demons that for many weeks now, all her life, really, had taken residence in the attic. There they walked around with heavy footsteps and made so many noises that the woman could not get a minute’s sleep. The feeble doctor wasn’t having any of it. Did the demons not wake the children? “No, only I can hear them,” the woman said, but had no valid explanation as to why they had chosen her in particular. “The world is going to hell anyway,” she said, to which the doctor could only nod. He looked at his watch and asked if there was anything else she wanted to add. “I’ve always been a Capricorn,” the woman said. “Given the celestial circumstances, it’s no wonder that…”, but the doctor cut her off. “What’s astrology got to do with it?” he yelled, but restrained himself. The woman reacted with even more crying and did not dare to speak further. The feeble doctor, pleased to gain control of the situation, informed the poor woman that he was admitting her to the psychiatric ward, whether she liked it or not, and that she would be prescribed three days of fixation to, as he put it, get a grip on herself. “We’ll see what the little demons have to say to that.” The doctor pressed a button under his desk and the woman, resisting in every way she could, was brought out by two orderlies. He wrote in his journal: private logic, bizarre delusions, word salad, schizophrenia of the third degree. The division into stages was his own invention. After three months in Dr. August’s practice, the feeble doctor had gained confidence, and often practised without consulting the world-renowned psychiatrist for advice. The next patient, however, did not fit neatly into any diagnostic category, whether invented by himself or accepted by the medical community.

“I was eleven when I had my first vision. It warned me that my brothers would be killed in a war. A year later war broke out and a year after that they were dead. I went to my father but he shrugged it off. I learnt to keep silent. But now, doctor, I can’t be silent any longer.” The feeble doctor had a hard time hearing Anna’s words, for she was immediately the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her eyes were grey and cold, her hair blonde and to the shoulders, and her forehead was high and proud and Aryan-like. Her body was slim and moved in harmony with the sensual mouth that kept on talking, and above the mouth sat an elegant nose with the shape of a perfect triangle. The doctor made a note in his mind to later bring this description to paper, for he was not only a promising psychiatrist but also an aspiring author and authentic artist in general. “The war scattered my family like leaves in the wind and I ended up at an orphanage. It was here that I received my second vision. Go to Berlin, it said. The moment you step out of the train you will meet a man and he will be your husband. That too was true, doctor. That man is today the father of my two children whom I love very much!” Such beauty, thought the feeble doctor, and such madness. “Your husband,” he proceeded, “have you ever told him about these hallucinations?” Anna seemed disappointed, that much he could tell from her face, and she said, “Doctor, please, they are not hallucinations, they are visions. I don’t see them, they are more like messages transferred to my mind by which I instantly know that something is true. But no, as I said, I have never told anyone until now.” At this the feeble doctor relaxed visibly and reclined in the chair. From the drawer he fetched a cigar and lit it, blowing the smoke to the side. “Young woman,” he said with as much benevolence as he could muster, as if much was at stake for him, “I am listening. Go on, spill your heart out.”

Anna talked and the feeble doctor enjoyed the nicotine rush from his cigar. The room filled with smoke and her eyes watered and she coughed, but all was lost on the doctor who had enough to think about. Both of his wives were pregnant, one in the first and the other in the third trimester, and in different ends of Berlin, one in Neukölln and the other in Pankow. Agatha and Claudia, such beautiful women, but, alas, such dangerous fathers, a butcher and a blacksmith. The feeble doctor spent most of his days travelling back and forth and making up excuses. He didn’t mind being rejected should the women find out about each other (in fact, that would be a relief, and a reason to leave), but he did fear the fathers and what they would do with their crude tools should they catch him. He was thinking about running away, leaving filthy Berlin altogether. He was going south, to Bavaria, where he had heard there were no Jews and no Social Democrats and where healthy, proud Aryan men marched in cheerful columns…

“Doctor, are you even listening?” The torrent of words that kept interfering with the doctor’s delicate thinking subsided and were replaced by this, he reckoned, absolutely insulting imputation, that he was, in fact, not hearing what his patient was saying. “Of course I’m listening!” he beamed. “Indeed, I think I’ve heard enough! Is that your good husband in the waiting room?” Seconds went by before she answered. “Yes, it was his idea to bring me here, to have me evaluated by a specialist. But I can see now… It’s all very… It’s soul-breaking…” The doctor frowned. “Yes, yes, that’s enough. My assistants will see you out.” The doctor pressed the hidden button and the orderlies took Anna by the arm and led her out. He wrote in his journal: thought disorder, manic, talks too much, schizophrenia of the fourth degree. Will not improve with even the best of treatment.

An hour later he stood wavering outside Dr. August’s office. It was well past supper and the great psychiatrist found no joy in being interrupted this late. Nevertheless, the doctor knocked twice and when he did not receive a reply entered. Dr. August looked up with a friendly face, but then again, the doctor had never been able to decipher the great man. “Soul-breaking. Is that even a word?” he asked. “Of course,” said Dr. August and went back to his writing. “Anything else?” Yes and no, the feeble doctor thought with increasing annoyance. “How can you be so sure?” Dr. August did not grace him with a reply. If it wasn’t for the ticking of the clock one could’ve heard a hairpin fall. “Does the name Hitler mean anything to you?” Dr. August put down his pen and reclined in the chair, lighting a cigarette. “What’s with all the questions? You know I don’t discuss politics.” So he does know him, the doctor thought, encouraged. “I’ve just had this patient. She talked and talked, you know how they are, the manics. In any case, she mentioned this man, Hitler. She said he will destroy the Jews and the opposition, the Social Democrats, the Communists, all of them, and then he will use the rubble and the ashes to build a new, great and Aryan Germany.” The doctor couldn’t read Dr. August’s stone-cold face. “You seem excited about this?” he was asked. “Well, yes. I mean, Germany for the Germans, right? We can’t have the Jews running everything.” At this, the great psychiatrist rose from his chair and stood close to the feeble doctor, looked him straight in the eye and blew cigarette smoke right on his face. “I am proud of my Jewish heritage. Now, you get the Hell out of my office before I call the orderlies on you!”

On the train to München the feeble doctor wrote in his diary:

“Life is too short to be wasted on patients. Addiction, everyone’s addicted to something. I want a pure world. I want racial segregation. I want my own set of slaves. Hitler has praised the Alps in his speeches, and he praises the purity of the Aryan race. Far away are the Jews. Far away are Agatha and Claudia. Far away is Dr. August who turned out to be Jewish. Far away are all my problems. Look at the world! For the first time in my life I can say with confidence that I am free. I am strong. I am hopeful. My life has a purpose. His name is Hitler. Adolf Hitler. The future of the Aryan race, to which I happily belong. I am his soldier.”

He locked the diary and put it in his suitcase, fixed the pillow behind his head and flattened out on the seat, glad that he had the compartment for himself. For a while he looked at the stars and studied as best he could the villages and stations that flew by. He fell asleep and dreamt that he was smoking a cigar with Hitler. It was then that Anna entered, tracking device in hand. It was smaller than a fingernail. Before she put it in the suitcase she studied his innocent face. He could’ve been my father, she thought. We could’ve been lovers on a runaway. When the time comes, how will they know who is Jewish or not? The men, sure, but us women? She’d left a note on the table at home, leaving everything behind.

The next day the feeble doctor joined the Party and purchased a brown shirt and brown trousers and the proper boots to go along. I’m not a violent man, he reasoned, at least not yet, and postponed the purchase of a bat or stick. In the evening he stood before the mirror. If there be riots I will come back and change but I must look my best before the Fuhrer. He put a flower in the pocket of his tanned suit. Two rooms down the corridor Anna too was getting ready, receiver in one hand, a glass of wine in the other. She was wearing an elegant red dress and had put on makeup and was looking her very best, irresistible, even, or so the doctor would come to think. Months had passed since their meeting.

When entering the beer cellar, the doctor was taken aback by the rancid smell of urine, cheap tobacco, and spilt beer and could not proceed. He perceived in horror the moving mass of rugged faces and tattered clothing and the violent murmur from a hundred drunken voices. This is a big mistake, he thought. Where was the little table in the corner with a flower in a vase and a clean, white tablecloth from which he should enjoy the speech before approaching for conversation? Anna, delighted, found him like that. “You don’t recognise me?” she said with a smile. The doctor’s gaze took turns between the dark turmoil of the cellar and the mesmerising beauty of her shining face. “No,” he said, shaking. “Should I?” In an unusual move, Anna extended her hand for the doctor to kiss while imploring with her eyes that he should do something else. “The name’s Agatha,” she said to his further confusion. “Is it? I must sit down.”

The feeble doctor had never been struck by love like this before. For an hour he ascended and descended the treacherous steps of nascent love’s ladder. He considered carefully what to say only to abandon it a second later. He stared at her daringly only to avoid her when she looked back. It was a game of looks because not much could be communicated across the table, cramped in as they were between wide shoulders and loud voices. “I’ll get us something to drink!” Anna shouted. “No, don’t leave me!” he yelled, but she was already at the bar.

Later, the doctor had something important to relate. “I’m planning to meet with Hitler after the speech and I want you to join me!” he shouted. “That’s fantastic!” she replied. “I’d like to meet him as well, you must introduce me!” The feeble doctor could not be saved, madly in love and delusional. “What shall we do for our honeymoon?” Anna took his hands. “That’s for you to decide. If you want to. If not, I have some ideas.” They looked at each other, one in earnest, the other not.

November 1944, no light from the clouds but slowly falling snow since the Soviets dropped the bomb that silenced the Nazi voices. Years had passed since Hitler escaped to hell or who knows where. To South America under a fake Jewish name. To a secret base under the North Pole that the Nazis had been working on since the thirties. To the dark side of the moon where the aliens that created the solar system lived. Or, most likely, to the backstreets and alleys of Neukölln to live and die a transvestite prostitute addicted to morphine. Göring, the generals liked to say, was Hitler’s pimp and dealer, but the former Oberkommando der Luftwaffe denied the accusations. He was toppled after the failure of Operation Sea Lion in 1942.

The radiation didn’t bother the feeble doctor who awoke in his hole, hungry and cold, like every afternoon, and who waited until night to go hunting for whatever trash remained in Hitler’s great Germania. He cursed the rumbling of tanks above and the marching of soldiers. He cursed his father who back in the day had forced him to pursue medicine, leaving him at the end of the world without a means of survival. Not even crazy anymore, like his patients, not an animal. A human coping. Water, water, do you have any water? You don’t want to drink that. The feeble doctor in the black of the night, always with a coin for a shit beer or two in a bombed-out cellar. He did not have the luxury of dying fast from a drug addiction.

After the castration of Hitler, the night of which he remembered nothing, he had gone back to Berlin to work and developed insomnia. Turning and fighting in the bed, one part accepted the perceptions of what had happened and that somehow Agatha was involved. He had been set up, used like a crude tool. Shoo love and dreams of a future with her! The other part ignored what it heard, that the Fuhrer had gone mad. Hitler had discovered something about himself, they said, in bars, streets, and alleys, and even the patients talked, which made him furious. Nightmares! The Aryan race was no longer important, nor was the fight against International Jewry, or building National Socialism in Germany. Hitler was a woman now, and the breasts grew larger every day. The doctor knew that such a transition was impossible without sophisticated hormone treatment the likes of which had not seen the day. Rumours and hearsay, he concluded. Crazy propaganda, from the British most likely. Still, when the long-winded speeches on the radio climaxed in a shrieking that mixed with the static and was painful to the ears, the feeble doctor could not help but to turn down the volume. When the war broke out he was unemployed, searching for Claudia, and had lost all interest in politics.

“Curse this and curse that, why must the world be my enemy!” With that the wind grabbed the door and swung it open and he entered like a hurricane. “This day like every other, always the damn Jews!” “Leave the cart outside,” the bartender demanded, protecting his ears against the yelling and the nose against the smell. “That’s her with the bags, the tattered clothing, the once white fur coat now brown from filth and hard rain. That’s her!” A safari hat with a peacock’s feather of which only half remained. Scanning the room with furious eyes, finding customers, adversaries, someone to fight, nobody knew. “The usual?” the bartender demanded. “Not today!” he cried. Laughter all around. “The Fuhrer is back! Silence! The tide is turning!” More laughter. “I will be back!” He was up on a chair before the bartender could stop him, and then on the counter, fist raised, pale unshaven legs under ripped dirty stockings. “However! For that I will need money!” Still a decent orator, convincing some. A line formed in the back. Women were hard to come by in post-apocalyptic Germania. There was no tomorrow to speak of, and no colleagues or wives whom someone might tell.

The feeble doctor knew what was going on, this evening like every other, in the back room, and could hear it now and then, the unbearable shrieking, but thought then instead of Claudia. He too had known love, a long time ago. It was confusing and tiresome, at least when one’s a Christian that’s been married twice but never divorced or widowed. Five years to track her down to find six children and an ugly face that he no longer recognised. As for Agatha, she escaped to Italy… This beer tastes like mud… Sex with a prostitute was below him, no matter the attraction, physique, or degree of desire.

Speaking of which, here he came, limping, looking tired and depleted, standing before him now, making demands. Such tired eyes! Pinhole eyes! Were they brown or blue? They were black like wells in the night. It struck him then and he knew it was true, that this was not just any prostitute but the long gone Hitler himself. Not much, not even the little moustache, remained of the once visionary face but the disintegrating creature could be no other. His beloved Fuhrer. He felt nauseous. The little toothless mouth kept moving but the doctor was in awe and did not hear. An absolute lunatic! Never have I had a patient that… “Would you also like to try, young man?” The demonic eyes beaming with hatred of everything alive. “Two coins and a beer and I’m yours for the night.” I must help this man, the feeble doctor thought, whatever the cost, and gave away his coins and what remained of the beer that tasted like shit and mud.

Later, while Hitler, who was already craving, set out on a tirade not worthy of recounting, the doctor instinctively assessed, with a crooked psychiatrist eye, the grimaces and movements, the degree of misery that was beyond quantification. Amazingly, though he was sickly, trembling, and yellow, Hitler hid well any physical suffering. Driven by hate, the doctor concluded, vengeance, despite the deadly radiation, it kept him alive, there was no other explanation. Psychotic in many ways, delusional, in being certain that the old crew and what remained of the population would ever take him back. It was not long before Hitler fell silent from exhaustion and the doctor could get a word in.

“Age has not done you well, my Fuhrer.” But Hitler did not get the hint. “Do you hear me, Adolf Hitler? My Fuhrer, I know who you are.” “Yes, of course!” exploded the madman and flew off the chair, catching the bartender’s attention. “The whole world knows who I am!” Laughter at the bar. “They also know that I am expensive and don’t like to wait.” Hitler began yelling and shaking his fists exactly like the Hitler the world used to know. The dramatic orator, all feeling, no wit. “Shut up all of you! I’ve killed many men before!” He raised a finger and began to limp around, the tremor of the left arm hidden behind the back, muttering, shaking his head. “I had some great plans for solving the Jewish question. I would not be decent to the rats. I would save the Aryan blood. But they never gave me a chance!” Hitler exploded in anger again. “Jews, all of you!” Climaxing. “Traitors! Bolsheviks!” Laughter and scattered applause. Suddenly, he seemed to remember something and turned to the doctor who became frightened. “Young man, come now to the back or pay with your life.”

“That’s enough!” Keith was back and couldn’t help himself. “He’s not going anywhere.” In his hand two capsules that Hitler saw with frenzied eyes and licked his lips perceiving. “And who might you be, young man?” “I’m just a brother helping you out. For the disappearance of these two pills that you require, I offer world-class somatic and psychiatric care, in first-class facilities, the best doctors and psychologists, on the Moon, far from all your troubles. I guarantee that you will feel alright again, clean and free from desire, healthy and with a positive mindset.” Hitler’s bewildered face doubted, but in the end he was not impressed. “You look like a Jew, why should I trust you?” And The Renegades left that world to its own, to decay and be forgotten, for no soul remained to sustain it.

12

Terry?

We’re back, Rocky. Take it easy. Sit down.

I raised my eyes and saw a choir approaching. They were standing in the grass and the black sky was like a curtain. They were angels clad in white, shimmering, and one was standing before the others.

Speaker: The heavens decide what words there will be when all we do is sing to be free.

Choir: When in the mind pours black, hard rain and in the veins flows weary, sparkling wine. When there’s no agenda but to soothe and make right.

Speaker: No violence of phrases but righteous light.

Choir: A heart that beats, alone in the cold, pumping in the snow like a train coming home.

Speaker: Oh, treacherous clouds that painted our best. Oh, darkest of soils that swallowed the rest.

Terry, what is…

Hush!

Choir: Small paths in the ground in thaw, trailed by a hotter-than-fire Hellhound paw, securing the deaths of thousands. The Gods in the clouds utter the words when friend turns to foe and select the time it happens.

Speaker: From this we know there’s us and there’s them, the living and the dying, the thriving and the threatened.

Hush!

Choir: Explosions in the sky made your limbs go fly but I’ll see you again much later. All of you, charred. Time has not forgotten faces, eyes, and fire.

Speaker: Curse and curse the fathers who forced the hands that turned to destruction.

Choir: Love them all the same for they were deceived and their eyes turned to grass and sky. They swam in their prime but we could not when the oceans boiled and poured over. They flew with wings and fixed us to the ground like water and stone and the starry night on Pluto.

Speaker: We won’t rise again, our mouths are shut, we won’t shout again! Curse the fathers of destruction!

Why are they…

Hush!

Choir: A pile of dirt for us to climb with broken backs and foggy minds. A golden palace on the outskirts of town shining in the distance like a ghost playing games.

Speaker: Oh, Ravens in the thousands, circling, circling, the madness and the pain, don’t you know that the world is turning, like a giant sleeping?

The music faded and the angels evaporated like mist come morning, as did the whole experience.

What now, Terry? Still waiting for Keith?

Why, you just met him, Rocky. Are you a goldfish? He’s out again but he’ll be back. Keith’s always coming back.

Beloved was doing the dishes with quick hands and I could see from the side that her eyes were beaming. Light of hope was hitting the soap and the water and bouncing all around, enchanting a Saturday in November into something otherworldly and rainbow-coloured. Her period was late, just a bit, but she had a headache too, and perhaps she felt a little bit nauseous. I was happy, of course, but cautious, nervous, and wasn’t sure what to say when our eyes met briefly and then escaped like teenagers in love for the very first time. “Jennifer, time to go to bed!” I yelled, focusing on a task rather than riding a plane that might crash at any minute. The last time we were pregnant it ended in blood, tears, fighting, and two empty bottles of wine. “Not now, dad!” From the other end of the apartment I heard footsteps and doors closing. “Yes, now, Jennifer!” She was hiding somewhere, probably in our bedroom under the bed. It was about time for an eight-year-old to sleep in her own bed, but as a single dad every other week this was a fight I had postponed. Beloved insisted now that we lived together. “If we’re having a baby,” she said, “Jennifer must be able to sleep by herself. You must help me with the baby, you can’t be running back and forth the whole night.” Beloved was right, of course, and we were making progress. The problem was that Jennifer’s mother resisted the idea.

Many parents know what a mountain to climb getting the teeth brushed is. Now she was hungry and now she remembered that she had promised to call her mother to say goodnight. “You have five minutes,” I said and went out to Beloved. Ten minutes later they were still talking, playing some game on Messenger. “That’s it,” I said, “time to say goodbye, we’re going to bed.” Jennifer’s mother rarely cooperated here, rather having me the evil outsider set on tearing them apart. “Remember, pumpkin,” she said, “if you wake up at night call me instead of waking your father.” My blood boiled instantly. “That’s outrageous!” I cried at the tablet, controlling my voice and turning to my daughter. “Jennifer, if you wake up you come in to me. I will not be angry and I will put you to sleep again. Just like I always do.” Jennifer’s heart was shattered like a thousand times before. They spent a long time kissing and saying goodbye and then her mother was out of the picture. “Dad,” she said, “I will go out and put the tablet back.” That’s sweet, I thought. She took longer than usual and I did not hear the cupboard open and close, trying to relax as I was, scrolling on the phone. She stood by the bedside at three-thirty and we slept the remainder of the night like sardines in a can in her narrow bed.

The next morning, a Sunday, was busy. Beloved was getting ready and Jennifer had been instructed to take a shower and get ready too. We were making a trip to Roskilde to see the old cathedral. Jennifer loved old buildings, old things, history. I checked on her several times, at first encouraging her to get a move on, and later with annoyance, urging her. “Put the tablet away. Now.” She put it away but when I came back she was at it again. “Can I go the playground?” That was an odd request, she hated playgrounds. “When is it 1 pm?” Something was up. “We’ll be in Roskilde by then. Why?” Bewilderment in her eyes, fear even. I went out and came back again. “What are you doing on the tablet?” She was typing desperately. “Let me have a look. Give it to me.” She burst out crying. “No! I’m talking to mum!” I wrestled it out of her hands. There had been a video call with her mother in the middle of the night, thirty minutes in duration, just before she woke me up. Hearts and kisses in the chat and a single message from her mother. 1 pm at the playground. And Jennifer’s reply, sent just now. Dads not leting me we r goin on a trep!!!

Now, all horses were off the table. I called and objected but she was already in the car. We started calm but were screaming a minute later, hanging up. “She’s coming here in thirty minutes!” I yelled at Beloved. “It’s illegal,” she said. “You have a shared custody contract.” I hit the kitchen table with my fist. “Of course it’s illegal! But that’s not stopping her!” My heart turned to stone, it was a canary in a coal mine grasping for air, buried by layers and layers of dirt. But Beloved’s was functional. “Guess we’ll have to pack her things, then.”

We walked down the stairs hand in hand. My strategy was to avoid pouring gas on the fire, though that too provoked the mother who fancied fighting with Jennifer as a witness. “I was thinking,” she said, standing in the doorway with a snake’s face, “whether we should drink a cup of hot chocolate after the meeting on Tuesday. Just the three of us.” Jennifer was being interviewed by the judge and a child psychologist for the upcoming day in court to settle custody. “Let’s see,” I said. “Let’s talk about it the two of us.” Jennifer’s face was one part sad, one part happy, standing between us. I expected a Please, dad but nothing came. I lifted her up and we hugged. “Promise you won’t go to the cathedral without me?” she whispered. “I love you, pumpkin. We’ll see it next time. Now go, I’ll see you the day after tomorrow.” I sat her down and she ran towards the car, turning and waving. “Love you too, dad!”

A rain began to fall, heavy and grey like the emptiness taking her place, like the silence barricading us in our forts. When there were no words we set out for Roskilde anyway. “Don’t look at it,” I said as we crossed the square where the cathedral looms large over the city centre. It was closed by now and the streets were dark and empty. We were the only guests in a popular burger joint and I had a beer but could’ve had ten at once. Beloved ordered a club soda. “Are you eating? Still feeling nauseous?” I asked. “I don’t know what I’m feeling. Do you think she’s alright?” All things considered, Jennifer was a happy child. She had friends, she liked going to school, there were no tantrums. But she never talked about her mother, or how she was doing when she was there. “Of course she’s alright,” I said with a shrug. “Don’t worry about that now. What are you having?” It was raining greatly still when we got home. I opened a bottle of wine and put on Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, skipping to the fourth movement, the slow adagietto. “This must be one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written, with the harp,” I said. Beloved’s face took on a serious expression. Her father was a jazz musician playing the double bass. I closed my eyes. I did not exist. I was a violin.

13

The sky was black and vibrating as if from countless invisible stars. The neon grass bent low as if a strong wind was blowing, but my steps made no sounds. The sun was grey like the moon on Earth. I kept walking, but my existence was without purpose or mission. This I felt, deep within, that I had become space, dark and empty. That I had become Death, black and eternal.

I reached a clearing overlooking a ravine. Then I was down in it and I turned around a bend. I was surprised to see a playground, not small, not large. “Hello?” I said but could not hear my own voice. A little girl appeared behind the slide and came up to me. She handed me the corpse of a small grey parrot with a yellow crest and orange spots on its cheeks. I counted and now the colours were five. Black, grey, green, orange, yellow.

Holding the corpse in my hands it came to life. It had been dead but now it was alive, looking around as if it had been sleeping. It smelled of soil and pine. “What is it?” I said, but the little girl answered with a crooked smile. “Did you dig it up?” She nodded, she was proud, and she said, “It’s a boy. He’s yours now.”

He stretched his wings but I held him close. He sang from my cupped hands, slow, and hollow, the theme from Robin Hood that he never got right. In his black eyes not joy but not darkness, either. I threw him up in the air and he landed like a stone in the sand. “Wait!” I yelled at the girl. She was running away. “What’s his name?” I dug in the sand until it was dark and I could not feel my hands. But he was gone.

A Merlin engine sputtering, a Spitfire in the sky, coming in to land. Why, that’s Keith now, running towards me and waving, untangling the harness of the parachute.

“Terry!” I yelled but where was he? “Keith! Finally! We’ve been waiting.”

Whereas Terry was sensitive and wise, Keith was loud and without a doubt.

“You must let that go, Rocky,” he said with an energy that stunned me. “The bird, the sorrow, all of it. We have bigger fish to catch, the last will come first, and so on. You must get clean, redeemed, your spirit must be free. You can’t let life hold you down.”

I understood what he was talking about, and I said, “I’ve got it all, Keith. Beloved, Jennifer, my friends and family, a home, a job that I mostly enjoy, and spare time, every now and then, to do the things I enjoy.”

“But there’s a stone in your shoe, Rocky. There’s a shadow in your heart.”

“There are many shadows in my heart, Keith. The state of the world…”

But he interrupted me.

“I’m not talking about our world, or any other! I’m talking about your world, Rocky. Come on, give her a name. She deserves that much.”

“Who?”

“Give her a pretty name.”

“I’ll call her Ursula, like the sea witch.”

“Something sweeter, Rocky.”

“I’ll call her Magdalena.”

We sat down in the grass. Keith reached out behind him and presented something to drink and a loaf of bread that he broke in two.

“Now, you start from the beginning and go as you may. I’ll use my magic to set the scene.”

Keith meant that literally. No sooner had I begun my telling than streetlights materialised. A Saturday summer morning, the Copenhagen streets mostly deserted, the air and sky bright blue, blackbirds singing from the rooftops. The streetlights turn off and a taxi slows to a stop.

“Mr. Ratput and I came in a taxi. He went out on the left and I on the right and we didn’t see each other again that morning. We were coming from the party district. I had stunned the crowd with a violent and drunken, but also, in my opinion, beautiful a capella rendition of Tom Waits’ Old Shoes (& Picture Postcards). I had sobered up significantly during the taxi ride but wasn’t tired and didn’t feel like going home. I was walking down Elmegade when I saw a group of people sitting on the sidewalk listening to music and drinking beer. As I came closer I saw the most beautiful face, dark and exotic, not Nordic at all, but Southern, Italian, Spanish. She was dressed in black and her hair was thick and long and light brown. I didn’t know that she was nine years older than me. She certainly looked my age, which was 27. I sat down and it wasn’t long before Magdalena had removed my shoes and was massaging my feet.”

Assistens cemetery, all bright now. The merry group sits on the grass. A joint is passed around. Light morning traffic on the other side of the yellow brick wall.

“I asked her what she did for a living and expected her to be at university, or playing in a band, or working as an artist, but she said, bluntly and with a laugh, a bit embarrassed, I realised later, that she was working in a kindergarten kitchen. I tried to kiss her but she laughed and refused, but then she gave in. We were still kissing when the group dispersed and we became alone. We made love in a bush, the nearest we could find. The large cemetery has plenty of wild spots and bushes with entire worlds within them.”

Rocky’s apartment. It’s a mess. Two shabby sofas on opposite sides of the room. Rocky in one of them, phone in hand.

“I was crazy in love. She replied a few hours after my first text message. ‘Let’s meet soon!’ she wrote.”

Magdalena’s apartment. Very small, but also a mess. Boxes of old stuff, mandolins, Spanish guitars, oil paintings and rolls of canvases. A small balcony towards the courtyard.

“I admired her like a Goddess. She had survived so much trouble and misery. She was all alone in the world. Her friends were all she had. They were all outcasts and street dwellers, and drug addicts, and suffered from mental disorders. I didn’t smoke cigarettes but I smoked with her, hand-rolled. We drank wine on the balcony and talked. In the nineties, she went to techno parties in abandoned factories. They got hooked on heroin, but she never touched it. Her best friend was driven over by a bus crossing the street to start rehab. And her parents were dead. Her father was of noble Italian descent. Her grandfather fought the Nazis and had a square named after him in Milan. Her mother was Danish, an oil painter and alcoholic, abusive, I could read between the lines. The father had affairs and when she was nine her mother moved back to Denmark. Magdalena didn’t know the language. Her mother paid for a private school but that didn’t help. Magdalena couldn’t pay attention and she couldn’t spell. As a teenager she skipped classes and smoked joints. That’s how she became addicted to nicotine. Her father died from pancreatic cancer when she was 25, and her mother from lung cancer when she was 31. After her mother died, she spent half a year in bed, and then she began to work in a kitchen through a social program.”

Rocky in the car on the way to see Bob Dylan in Helsingborg.

“We had broken up by then. She was seeing other men and was not being honest about it. I was on the train to Malmö when she wrote me a long message, a story about a spider, written and spelled in her own fantastic ways. We were taking turns writing stories together. I learnt later that her ex-boyfriend came shortly after she sent the letter…”

Keith frowned.

“Were you checking her phone?”

“Yes, Keith, I was. I had my suspicions. It was all so uncertain. I was in love and vulnerable. I smelled another man’s perfume in the sheets that she never changed or washed. When I came the next time and she was sleeping I checked her phone. I went back to sleep. I did not dare to confront her.”

Keith laughed a hearty laugh.

“So you just went on, in love and increasingly insane?”

“It came to be all about her affairs. I say affairs because she promised me that I was her only lover and that she only wanted to be with me. I saw signs everywhere. Granted, I was smoking pot and that’s not good for a paranoid mind. So we broke up. She broke up. She said that if I didn’t stop being suspicious and asking these damned questions all the time we would need a break.”

Rocky in the car, holding at the side of the road.

“I hadn’t seen her in three weeks when she called and said she was pregnant. ’That’s great,’ I said. ‘I’ll be there. I’ll be the father.’ ‘I’m worried,’ she said. ‘It’s not very stable between us. I want the full custody but I want you to be a part of this.’ ‘That’s fine,’ I said, relieved that now I would finally have her for myself.”

Keith couldn’t help himself.

“That’s a wise man, right there, Rocky.”

At IKEA, in the lakehouse, back and forth between the apartments.

“The pregnancy brought us closer and we bonded. I introduced her to my parents, we prepared our apartments, we stayed up late discussing baby names and what’s important in a parent and in childhood. ‘She will not go down on love, that’s for sure,’ I said. Yet I could not shake off our turbulent past. No doubt, Keith, do you rightly assume that I wondered whether I was the father, and I wanted to know who she’d been seeing other than me and the ex-boyfriend. I was torn between the true me and the monster I had become. I couldn’t take it anymore.”

“So you hit the road, Jack?”

“Not like that, Keith, it was already planned, but could’ve been cancelled. As part of a project in medical school, I was going to a rural hospital in Mpwapwa, Tanzania. ‘Maybe you should go?’ she said. ‘To clear the air, to start fresh,’ I said. ‘I’ll be alright,’ she said. ‘As long as you’re back by the third trimester.’ So I went, because she wanted it, and absence makes the heart grow stronger.“

In the mist, saying goodbye. Magdalena crying, losing again all that’s important. Rocky like a rock on a plane to Africa. In Hamad International Airport, for the first time seeing falcons…

“Rocky! Wait!”

I looked out the window and couldn’t believe my eyes. A Spitfire, flying wingtip to wingtip with the Boeing 777. They can’t go that fast!

Terry was in the cockpit.

“Rocky, listen,” he said. “If you get the chance, if you see her say hello. If you can somehow give her a message, tell her that I love her.”

Another Spitfire joined. Keith was on the intercom.

“That’s not his mission, Terry. He’s to go out in the world, not mend your broken heart.”

Then a terrible storm materialised out of nowhere. Dark clouds, strong winds rattling the brittle Spitfires.

“The Gods! They can’t see us like this!”

The Spitfires turned and turned and vanished in the air.

“Rocky! Find Fanny for me!”

An hour later I landed in Julius Nyerere International Airport. The first thing I did was to buy a sim card and text her that I had landed. I love you, she replied.

14

They brought a young woman from the villages. They had been crossing the grasslands since dawn. She was dying, they said, she had been vomiting for days. The watery stools had patches of white and stank like poisoned eggs.

To her the medical students said:

“It’s fine, the doctor will be here shortly.”

To me and Dana they said:

“What’s wrong with her, do you know?”

The students hoped that our modern books contained the answer, but I didn’t know much about tropical diseases. We had been to a mandatory seminar before taking off but had slept through it, hungover. We drank Sangria from a bucket in the student union and blacked out in a bathroom in the emergency ward. I lost my iPad in a bush on the hospital grounds. Besides, Dana refused to examine the patient without protective equipment, of which there was none. I stepped forward and gently touched the stomach. The woman moaned and said something in their language.

“It has been going on for a week. What do you think it is?”

She was one of the first patients that I had ever examined. Our white scrubs and lab coats gave us authority. The doctors and students at the hospital wore ordinary clothes.

“It’s some sort of gastroenteritis,” I said with confidence and stepped back. “We must give her water.”

We looked around but there was no water, bottled or running. There was no soap and no disinfectants, either. The woman died in the afternoon, with the setting sun slow, blind, and burning.

The next day the chief doctor, who himself smelled of alcohol, explained that young people in the remote villages drink a toxic moonshine made from a fruit that grows among the withered bushes on the hills. “They have no TV, no radio, and the school is far away. What else are they supposed to do?” He gave me a glare that I was used to since I let my beard grow out. “Alcohol destroys the liver and when the liver’s gone you get this kind of foul diarrhoea.” Dana found it humorous that the chief doctor, our supposed mentor, really had been nicer the first couple of weeks. We left the office and stepped out in the sun. The air was as dry as the dusty orange sand.

“I remind him of colonial times,” I said. “He must’ve seen pictures in school of bearded white men destroying and enslaving. It’s probably a part of their curriculum.”

“No,” said Dana, “they’re just tired of having us around.”

“Yeah, we’re useless.”

“We look like a couple of Messiahs coming across the courtyard in our scrubs but we don’t know shit!”

“Yeah, we should come in ordinary clothes tomorrow.”

We were in the maternity ward’s depot, shaking two newborn babies, not giving up. Meconium aspiration, easily avoided and treated in Denmark, where it kills no babies. We tried for thirty minutes, shaking and sucking, before we put them aside, like they already had been, to die in the depot. If their skin had been white we could’ve assessed the degree of cyanosis.

Wild dogs took refuge from the lunchtime heat on the hospital grounds. The chief doctor stopped the train of doctors and students and picked up a stone that he weighed in his hand. “Watch this,” he said looking proud and took aim. Right on the chest, we could hear the ribs crack. The dogs got up like lazy cows but were in no hurry to escape, and the doctor didn’t chase them. He knew they were back the next day, resting in the shadows of the white hospital wall. “We should give them something to eat,” I said to Dana.

Large groups of people vegetated on the sides of the small patch of asphalt leading to the gates. Taxis idled with the windows down but never left. A river used to run through the town but even in the rainy season it was a red ravine. Little kids not in school in tattered and torn Mickey Mouse t-shirts were playing war there, shooting at me with sticks, running at me, pointing and laughing, posing very cool for a picture with my camera.

From our little house on the hospital grounds we saw the thorny hills that surrounded the town on two sides. We took a day off to climb them but couldn’t reach the top. George told us later that it was suicidal to climb the hills in the dry season. Venomous snakes, scorpions, the white ones that hide in the shoes.

It was never below 35 degrees Celsius in the old and promised kingdom. The operating theatre had running water but in the maternity ward water was from buckets on the floor. The mothers didn’t seem to cry when their newborns died. It was no wonder then, that we were medical professionals for a week, and tourists thereafter.

Dana was a conqueror of hearts. She had tried to conquer mine one early morning in the student union, years back, but in the end decided against it. That’s how we knew each other when it was decided that we should join the project as a pair. Her mother was from Ukraine and her father from Iraq, which explained her dark, exotic looks and mesmerising hazel eyes. Dana knew how to have a good time. “He’s not really my boyfriend,” she said of her boyfriend back home when extending her leg across the sofa to land in my lap. “I won’t massage your feet, Dana, I’ve got my Magdalena,” I rebuked. “That’s right, you’re to be a father soon.” The leg was retracted and we returned to zapping between the two channels, one showing Christian sermons and the other Muslim prayers.

George too was a conqueror of hearts. He was married with three children back in Australia, where his mother was from and where he had grown up and studied Media Science at a Christian university. His father, though, was from the old and promised kingdom and had been the bishop in the district capital. When the old bishop died George inherited his ranch, friends, workers, and tools included. He had been back for a year. The wife and kids were to join as soon as things were settled.

Dana and George liked each other from the start. It must’ve been our first weekend off. We took a taxi along the bumpy dirt roads and arrived in the district capital two hours later. We checked in at a hotel and made ourselves ready, ate at a restaurant, and hit a club. Sean Paul on the speakers, on repeat, it seemed, and I went outside to the garden to play pool under the starry sky. When I returned, I found Dana in the VIP room in a couch next to a pleasant-looking and solid man with curly, black hair dressed in a white shirt, jeans, and leather boots. George and his friends were accommodating and I never felt left out. “You must be Rocky! Come, have a seat! What are you having?” He ordered double shots for us all. An hour later I was scribbling Fuck capitalism! on the wall in the garden when Dana announced that the club was closing and that George would drive us home. “All the way to the hospital?” Dana was drunk as well. “No, of course not! George owns a ranch, we’re sleeping there tonight. He’s having an after party.”

With Dana on the passenger seat and me in the back, we drove with George in his jeep under a starry sky that was so black and so shimmering with stars in blue and purple that words fail me when trying to describe it. George’s friends came after in their own jeep. We took a right and drove down a long alley of palm trees. Barking dogs in long leather leashes greeted us. George went in and put the lights on. “We must take it easy now, we don’t know this guy,” I said, but Dana just frowned and went inside.

They sat in the salon talking and drinking to the sound of generic music. It was clear that I was there because I had to and not because my presence was wanted. Neither did George’s friends offer interesting conversation, although I was not in a talkative mood. It was clear, further, that this, whatever it was that was happening in the salon, was about Dana and George, wherefore I withdrew with my lukewarm beer to the old bishop’s dark and gloomy study.

I sat in a chesterfield armchair studying the stuffed bookshelves, picking at random books to read. The Christian Experience of the Holy Spirit by H. Wheeler Robinson, first published in 1928:

“If our consciousness of real activity is not illusory, then the perspective of human history cannot be envisaged as the biology of an organism. We can never reduce the writing of history to an exact science, because there are not only life-forces but LIVING agents at work.”

Find Fanny for me!

Fanny?

I had never read the Bible but I saw in the bookshelf a funny-looking one, where the words of Jesus were printed in red and everything else in black. I flipped the pages and landed on Matthew 5, the Sermon on the Mount:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

And I found myself crying, not for God, not for the prophets, whoever they were, but for the dying newborns, the dying woman, the kids in the ravine, the state of the hospital, the dogs, the water, the drunken chief doctor, and everything, everything that should’ve been old and promised, and back home my pregnant Magdalena was about to bring a new life into this world, and I cried:

“When, Jesus, when, and how, will you make everything right, for the first time in the world?”

And of all the things that could go wrong in such a delicate moment there stood at the door George and Dana, holding each other, and not quite ready for my tear-filled eyes.

“Hey Rocky,” almost yelled George, “we thought it might be time to put you to bed. Come, I’ll show you the guest rooms. Oh, are you alright, buddy?”

“That’s fine, George! I was just reading some of your father’s old books.”

He looked at the book I was holding in my hands.

“Oh, the Bible? Great book. Great dude, Jesus.”

He’s not your Jesus, I scorned silently. He’s mine.

15

Rocky went out in the lands to deliver the good news. In the district capital he came upon Matthew, a beggar with dreadlocks and skinny jeans, and Matthew followed Rocky to the highlife music venue where the stars shone brightly and they drank many beers. In the wee hours Rocky said to his friend Matthew, “Go, tell the musicians that I want to join them.” Matthew went as instructed, but when the band returned from the intermission they immediately dispersed and the multitudes turned towards Rocky and Matthew said, “Go ahead, Rocky, the stage is yours.” Rocky played Simple Twist of Fate and Pretty Boy Floyd and the multitudes danced and when Rocky left in a taxi they cried, for he had sung with authority. From that night, word spread to all the corners of the old and promised kingdom.

On the following Sabbath, Dana returned from the ranch to see that the medical supplies they had brought as gifts had been multiplied in number by a thousand and Rocky said, “Go, show it to the chief doctor, but don’t tell him what happened.” Dana frowned. “How am I to carry all of this?” But Rocky rested on the couch and said, “You unfaithful, how long shall I be with you?”

In those days, Rocky and Dana were in the bush lands vaccinating newborns. The multitudes formed a long line worth days of work, but Rocky said, “Let the children come to me.” Immediately Rocky vaccinated all the children waiting in the line, and all the children throughout the old and promised kingdom. “It’s time for you to go home,” Dana sighed, but Rocky said, “You go home, to your own people, and tell them how much the Lord has done for you.” Dana was astonished.

Around this time, Rocky’s father arrived in the kingdom because it was decided that on the holiday they would visit Serengeti National Park. The father tramped like a donkey on marble tiles through the maternity ward recording left and right with his camcorder so that everyone was ashamed. Rocky drove him out and said, “My true father is he who does what my Father in heaven wants.”

Now, everywhere Rocky travelled the multitudes followed so that he could not be alone. When he arrived in the town square where there was a market with many shiny things, they placed on his crown a baseball cap with a Jolly Roger flag sewn onto it and the words Dic Doc written on it. Rocky wore the cap in all days that followed.

One day, Rocky went down to the river and saw it dry and red like a ravine. Saddened, Rocky lifted his hands and water began to flow from underneath, turning the ravine once again to a flowing river. Immediately, all that had been dead was living and fish and other creatures that had dwelt in the vicinity of the river returned in plenty. Seeing this, little children that had been playing war games attached lines to their sticks and began to fish. Rocky said, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Frightened, the children ran away, but Rocky ran after them. Rocky said, “At least, let me give you some bread with which you can catch fish.” And he procured from his hands a loaf of bread that the children ate immediately.

The following day, Rocky returned to the river to see the multitudes catching fish and placing them in large barrels that they carried on their backs up the banks and placed on wagons that were dragged to the market and the town’s only restaurant. Seeing this, Rocky produced a large sum of money that he handed to the multitudes so that they could acquire the infrastructure needed for large-scale fishing activities. In the evening, Dana said, “They have whole fish at the restaurant now, not just heads.” Rocky remained in the sofa and said, “Let those who have ears hear. Let those who have eyes see.”

In those days, there was in the town a great feast to celebrate Easter. All sides of the church courtyard were lined with plates of fish and other delicacies based on fish, and fresh water from the river was served in clay cups painted in red and brown. When Rocky heard the gospel singing of the multitudes he left the road and entered the courtyard together with Matthew. The multitudes made way and Rocky said, “You still do not understand! When did I say that a man can not love a man and that a woman can not love a woman?” The multitudes grew weary and Rocky said, “God does not differentiate one kind of love from another and neither did the prophets care. If you say you are a man, I believe you. If you say you are a woman, I believe you. If you say you are neither, or you say nothing at all, or something different altogether, still I believe you. Certainly, I say to you, much foul water has passed down the throats of men since last I was here. Must I repeat myself? Love God and love your neighbour as you love yourself. Is that not enough? If so, why must you dwell over who your neighbour loves in return? Render unto God what belongs to God, but render not unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar! Do not be satisfied that faith alone will lift you out of this misery. Certainly, I say to you, mustard seeds grow in dusty, red sands, and lost sons return on crooked trails, but think not that the West is blessed because of rich soil and endless highways. We build the Kingdom of Heaven here, because you are the stones that the builders rejected.”

When Rocky had spoken such, the multitudes were silent before a tremendous roar erupted, and they lifted him up and carried him to the river where they baptised him, shouting, “Dic Doc! Dic Doc!” The feast lasted for seven days and seven nights and Rocky took the stage many a-time to play a Woody Guthrie song or two.

As the multitudes were busy from dawn to dusk, Rocky took Matthew to the side and said, “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his slaves, so go, my friend Matthew, and construct a road from here to all of the world.” Matthew doubted and could not see how this could be done, but Rocky procured a large amount of money and said, “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as a serpent and innocent as a dove.” Matthew went out in the wilderness.

On this Matthew’s Road to Heaven arrived one day an emissary from the district capital. Immediately, he went around asking the multitudes about the whereabouts of the infamous troublemaker. But when the sun set on the first day, the emissary had received no intelligible answers. On the second day, the emissary entered the hospital grounds and demanded to speak with the chief doctor, for he had heard that the troublemaker was an accomplished doctor of medicine. “There are only fools here,” replied the chief doctor. But in the evening, Rocky knew that he was hunted, and said to Dana, “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake, but the one who endures to the end will be saved.” Dana rose from the couch and turned off the TV.

That night, Rocky could not sleep and stood outside Dana’s door and said, “Dana, are you asleep? Couldn’t you keep watch for one hour?” Rocky went outside and stood under the starry sky and said, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” For he knew not how it would end. In the morning, Rocky took Dana aside and said, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Dana said, “I’m glad that’s settled, then. Are you coming or not?”

At sundown, Rocky sat on a tethered raft in the gently flowing river and said to the multitudes, “Last time, when I vanished up north, I had no chance to bid farewell. As you know, I remained silent and did not defend myself, for what words sway men that do not sway God? But I love man more than I love God, and this time I am worthy and God will descend from the heavens.” Hearing this, the multitudes were reassured and went about their ways, but Rocky called from the raft and said, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand.”

Rocky lifted his hands and a bright light shone from the stigmata in his palms. The light touched the pink clouds that parted to reveal two Mark II Spitfires coming in fast. They turned and turned and descended on the town to make synchronised barrel rolls and many other acrobatic air manoeuvres. Rocky said, “To you has been given the secret of the kingdom of God, but for those outside everything is in parables.” The multitudes fled left and right for they thought they were under attack, but Rocky said, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Rocky was working in the emergency ward when the chief doctor called him. In the office was Dana, George, and the emissary from the district capital. “I have come to stop you,” said the emissary, but Rocky took him aside and told him three things. When the emissary returned, they asked, “What did Rocky say to you?” Looking at the chief doctor, the emissary said, “If I tell you one of the things he said to me, you’ll pick up stones and cast them at me, and fire will come out of the stones and burn you up.” But George said, “Hey, where did he go?”

By sundown the following day, Rocky had reached far into the wilderness in search of Matthew when a jeep caught up to him. Rocky said, “If you have money, don’t lend it at interest but give it to someone from whom you won’t get it back.” George said, “You forgot your phone in the house. Someone’s been trying to reach you.”

It was Magdalena. There were complications with the pregnancy, Rocky had to come home. Dana had gathered his things, they took him straight to the bus terminal. The bus drove a full day and he arrived at the airport. “I’m coming home now,” he wrote. “I love you, things will be fine.”

For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat,
I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink,
I was a stranger and you invited me in.

16

“That was beautiful, was it not?” Keith came down in a parachute. “Did you see us in the sky?”

Did the change last?

Keith conjured a chalkboard. Birds of all feathers came close and sang from the hills.

“You must never doubt it, Rocky, you must believe in it, you must will it like a dictator, that it’s happening, everywhere you go and in places you never visited.”

Keith showed me abstract objects. Circles, crosses, spirals, galaxies, intertwined. He drew and washed out, illustrated and withdrew, rejected his own ideas.

“Any heart, tired and old, young or dirty, weak or overgrown, steady or shaky, contains the mustard seeds, if you like, now that you’re a scholar, Rocky, or crystals that, when studied under the electron microscope, can be made to roll or spin, or flicker back and forth, ‘tween good and evil, ‘tween do or do not, ‘tween have and have not. Come on! Let me hear you!”

I wrote on the chalkboard and sat down in the grass.

The stirred heart that shines like a disco ball with eagerness to do good and newfound care for all that’s living, explodes on the table with trumpets and gifts, for the first time free from its shackles.

I wrote some more.

Not people but circumstances drag the muscle along the treacherous crossroads where the ravens lurk and the Devil’s in the ditch playing backgammon. It’s structure, not sin or personal failure. Not other people, nor greed, nor jealousy, nor lust for wealth and power. The ways of the world when the eyes first opened.

“Yes, any heart can be vitalised to righteous action, but the valves must be prepared, they must be open. It must lie still and the moment must be seized, by a catcher of hearts. Lest it returns to bitterness and tears… Wait, I’ll get us some tea.”

I scribbled in the corner.

The moon is riding high over the mountain we descended before we traversed the lands.

Dear Fanny, wherever you are, walk the other way, live another day. You’re not here, are you?

“Thanks Keith, but I don’t drink tea.”

Terry liked some tea.

“T-to see the sun rise and set a million t-times with you, F-fanny.”

“She’s not here, Terry!”

But she might be. She could be. I scratched my head.

Then a giant voice coming from the Sun spoke to us and said, “Fight the weakness within you and leave the world to me! Don’t come close, I am power and wealth, and life and death.”

Keith and Terry got up, terrified.

“Run, Terry!”

Wait! Why’s he gotta run?

“This way, behind the hills!”

What weakness? I was alone, a fetus in the womb poking the walls. There’s no such thing as weakness when people come together.

Everyone’s invited but few answer the call to come to Greg’s dinner party in Malmö. They miss the splendour, the antiques, the busts, the collection of ancient Buddha statues, the wooden table from the 17th century, the oil painting of Gustavus Adolphus defeated at Lützen, the many, many armchairs and sofas, the balcony, the seagulls, and the home-grown pot. Sailor Tim, a real sailor who’s at sea six months at a time, has gifted Greg a monstrous vaping machine. “Let’s try it already!” yells Greg but he must wait until after dinner. At least if I’m cooking.

Here come Gay John and Pretty Boy John, wet from walking in the rain from the station. They come with the food and the beer, in plastic bags about to burst. Here comes Shabby, Greg’s neighbour. He’s in his forties like the rest of the guests and used to be a teacher until long COVID made him unfit for work and casual conversation. He talks and talks and can’t be interrupted while interrupting himself, but Greg insists that he’s always been like that.

What a sight now, and Beloved’s amused too! The Johns unpack the stuff in the fridge while Greg runs around asking how they’ve been and Shabby follows, interrupting everyone. Sailor Tim couldn’t wait and has gone to the bedroom where the machine sits on the floor by the balcony door.

“Shall we not help them?” Beloved is the only one with manners.

“No, we’re staying here until they’ve calmed down. They’ll come here eventually.”

She looks around. There’s much to look at in the living room. “Tell me about him, then.”

“Well, he’s close to seventy and used to work as a real estate agent. He can be a bit over the top sometimes. In fact, he scared me at first but now I know he’s a real angel.”

Beloved laughs. “A big, bald, gay angel dressed in leather pants, sure. Who’s also the secretary for Swedish Leather Man.”

“No, no, he is, and he has magical powers. The first time we met, here in this apartment, in fact, twenty years ago, he flicked the lights on in the kitchen using thoughts alone. He just stood there and said, ‘Watch this!’ and the lights turned on. And then we played backgammon and he made the dice roll according to his will, always in my favour, so that I won even though I couldn’t play.” Beloved loves when I’m crazy like that.

And here he comes, the eccentric simpleton himself, Greg standing before us now. “What are you two lovebirds doing sitting there all alone? Come join us in the kitchen and say hello!”

“No way, Greg,” I say, “we’re not joining you morons. You come to us when you’re done talking shit.”

“Oh, that’s a foul mouth if I’ve ever heard one!” Greg loves to be insulted like that and returns, invigorated, to the boys in the kitchen where the dice are already being cast. “I’ll play the winner!” “I have to start making the food!” “There’s lots of toxins in food!” Greg, Gay John, Shabby, in that order, all at once.

Alone again with Beloved, I say, “When he travelled in Tibet and visited a Buddhist temple in the mountains, they put flowers around his neck and told him that he was the Buddha himself.” Greg the alien, Greg the oracle, Greg the Buddha.

Beloved has been to Tibet too, and is not easily convinced. “There’s nothing Buddha about him, at all. Don’t get me wrong, he’s really nice and funny, but wise… I don’t know. And relaxed he isn’t!”

“But he’s a social chameleon, it’s all appearance, to make us relax, to hide his true self, his powers. Listen, when I was ill, he knew things he couldn’t possibly know…”

But standing before us now are Shabby and Pretty Boy John, the notorious womaniser. “May I please introduce myself?” he says with an exaggerated bow. Damn you, Pretty Boy John, if you try one of your tricks on my Beloved! But Shabby bows with him and says, “Oh, la, la, such manners from our John here. One would almost think that he was single! But you’re married, right, John? Yes, you’re married.” That shatters a little John’s flawless manners and it’s clear that he hasn’t come to talk. “If you excuse me, I’ll go help Gay John in the kitchen.”

Shabby, though, waits ‘til he’s gone and sits down to chitchat and I can count two long seconds ‘til Beloved’s discovered that something’s not right with this man. He’s on about the US elections, his hate for Mickey Dump and the partner in crime, the feminine Elin Tusk. Yes, Shabby, we believe in the welfare state too, but we have to slow the hurricane you’ve become, and lead you astray, lest you make us tired and boring.

“Don’t you worry about that now, Shabby. In the end the world will have its ways and the fascists are bound to lose. There is progress, after all, in the course of human history.”

“If not today, then tomorrow,” says Beloved.

“I just can’t believe it,” whispers Shabby and leans in. “Gay John, of all people, approves of the turd.”

He does? Now, that’s something different altogether. That’s unacceptable! I feel like standing up. “Well, you tell John that he’s in for a serious talk later!”

Shabby is quick on the trigger. “After you’ve tried the machine? Or before? Because John doesn’t smoke, as you know, and you won’t stand a chance when you’re stoned.”

Beloved joins the shenanigans. “He’s right, Rocky. You’re not exactly Einstein when you’re high.”

Inside, I am. I just can’t articulate it. But damn John, poor John, the algorithms got him. He was following live streams of rocket launches when a suggested video initiated the malign transformation. Or was he always a racist? Regardless, fascism starts and ends with a lack of empathy. That’s how I’ll get him! Now, you come here, Gay John!

“Sit down, love. Where are you going looking wild like that?”

He’s always been a Cicero, snug and untouchable. “To get us another beer, love.” I must do it now, else I can’t smoke when Greg’s off to the balcony any minute now.

“Who’s smoking? Where’s Tim?” Greg appears, on the clock, in the hall, Shabby runs to the kitchen, I sit down. In that order.

“I’ll wait, Greg!” I yell.

Greg knows why and he hands me the country accent and the unfocused stare with the lazy left eye. “You leave that man alone. His mother just died. Besides, gorgeous, what does it matter? You can’t change old John, not even a marble donkey can change him.”

Then Greg’s on the balcony with Tim and Beloved says through clenched teeth, “How could he have heard you? They are shouting in the kitchen and rolling the dice.”

Yes, how could you, Greg?

“He’s from another planet, that’s why, where manipulation of spacetime is common knowledge.”

Beloved laughs, relaxed again. “That’s a good one, love. It’s more likely that he has a listening device here in the room. Although that would be quite creepy. But go, love, and see if you can find it, behind that green sofa.”

“You go find it, my love. I’ll go get us another beer.” We kiss.

“What’s up, boys, who’s winning and who farted? I bet it’s Greg! And you sent him to the balcony to pay for it.” I enter the kitchen like that and head for the fridge, which means that Pretty Boy John has to get up.

Gay John, laconic, chopping tomatoes, says, “Greg really should make the kitchen larger if he’s to have parties this big.”

Shabby knocks on the window. “Did you hear that, Greg? You should make the kitchen larger!” Greg appears on the other side, joint in mouth, thumbs up. Shabby says, “Strange, I thought he was trying the machine. I must see what’s going on.”

And Shabby’s on the road and Gay John says to Pretty Boy John, “Sorry, John, but you have to get up again. I need to put the fries in the oven.”

That’s enough, Pretty Boy John shrieks. “There’s not even room enough to be anywhere!” And he leaves the kitchen, beer in hand.

“Hey, that’s Dylan!” I yell after him. “Is he mad?”

Gay John shrugs. “That’s just John, the drama queen. He’s probably heading for your girlfriend.”

Should I stay or should I go now? If I go there will be trouble. If I stay there will be double.

I sit down with my cans of beer and say, “Listen, John. I know you are happy about the outcome of the elections and I wanted to talk to you about that. But not today and it won’t be here. We mustn’t let it come between us.”

“Yeah, let’s not talk about it.” John with his back against me, busy with the salad, as if he didn’t hear me.

I can’t see his face and I have to reply, “But you do realise, I hope, that’s it’s the big take over.”

John reduces the gas on the stove, drinks some of his beer, and turns around. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, it’s just a phrase. They will dismantle the education system, you know that, right? And the healthcare system.”

Your mother wouldn’t get the same treatment as here…

“That’s just talk, Rocky. Propaganda. Where do you get your news from?”

“From lots of sources. Where do you get yours?”

“Lots of sources. Left and right.”

“Yeah? Well, I don’t even think in terms of left and right, John! I think in terms of empathy! A society is judged by how it treats its weakest members, that’s what matters.”

“For too many years, people like you have voted for open borders and mass immigration…”

“People like me! I don’t even vote!”

“Then why are you even talking about politics?”

I storm out of the kitchen to arrive at the crossroads. The balcony to the left, Beloved and John to the right, Sailor Tim passed out in the bedroom before me, next to the monstrous vaping machine.

But Pretty Boy John is mad no more, talking to Beloved. “I know the kind, the charlatan,” she would say the day after.

There just might be a chance, John, and you really haven’t changed at all. The silly John, the charming John, the talker and the listener. The John that waited for the stripper to finish her shift so that he could walk her home to the suburbs of Prague where he discovered that she lived with her mother.

“You have such beautiful cheeks. I’ve never seen cheeks like that before.” John tries to inch closer but I’m sitting between them, saying, “I love them, too, John. I really do,” but he takes no hints and shows no respect. I’m Little Dickie again and his name is still Pretty Boy John.

“Teach me Danish,” says Casanova, and I become one with Beloved to ask, Can he win our hearts and somehow sleep with us both? The pronunciation is terrible, but that’s by design, and he tries again, for ten full minutes ‘til the well’s gone dry. On the balcony sits the devil with the threads of the world, eyes upwards in a trance.

For what’s there to be merry and charming about when working in logistics, John?

When your main interest is Malmö FF, the soccer team?

When the bands you mention are shit!

We learnt later that John was in the middle of a divorce, three sons, having been unfaithful for years with a colleague at work.

And now John’s transformed, he is a sad puppy, and we’re taking care of him. “You’ve got it all ahead of you, man! Let’s have another beer, shall we? Beloved?”

But Gay John yells, “Gather the fools, the food’s ready!”

At the crossroads Shabby runs past me but turns around at the sound of dinner. Greg enters from the balcony making so much noise that Sailor Tim awakes with a start looking frightened. “Mm, that’s good,” says Greg when the military boots are off. “I’m hungry!”

What is good, Greg?

The steak is good, sliced and sprinkled with iceberg salad, sun-dried tomatoes, and Caesar dressing. Sailor Tim eats and eats.

Greg’s been all over the world a thousand times. “I’ve had this in Copacabana,” he says. “It’s my own recipe,” says Gay John. “Wonder is everywhere,” replies Greg. Shabby says, “I like the fries, they’re more Burger King than McDonald’s,” but I say, “Tell us about the Swedish royal family tree.” Greg knows it by heart.

Peace and quiet, finally. But it shouldn’t be too easy. “So Gustavus was not the grandson of Carolus?” Greg’s brought back two hundred years. “No! Or, yes! Which Gustavus? Are you not paying attention? We’re in the seventeenth century, not the fifteenth!” Even Pretty Boy John has to laugh, seeking Beloved’s eyes.

We run around with the plates. Shabby runs around. Beloved helps the most, Greg the least, Gay John not at all, having already done what’s required. Greg hands him Carcassonne and he seems content, at last, picking up the pieces with an IPA by his side.

“Balcony time!” shouts Greg into the living room but nothing stirs. Tim’s on his way home, Shabby quit years ago, the Johns prefer to just get drunk. Beloved’s ex was a pothead. “Here it comes,” I say to her. “You go ahead, love. Enjoy yourself.”

When we come out the sky is dark and stormy, the air crisp and wet. Seagulls in the thousands circle the balcony, wailing ominously. There sits the behemoth in silence fiddling with the lighter. Here sits I, the human, worrying about everything. Like a child he cries, “It doesn’t work! You do it!” Greg the clumsy and the short-sighted.

The joint sneaks up on you, we pass it back and forth. Greg talks about his mother and my grandmother who are the same age, almost a hundred years. “It certainly ain’t easy,” he says. “What is?” My voice sounds strange.

Somehow Greg knows everything. “Don’t use my real name in your book.”

“What book?”

“I don’t know. If you’re ever going to write one, call me Greg the Grey. I like your music, by the way.”

“You haven’t heard my music, Greg! You can’t even open a web browser.”

Greg answers not. “Give me the lighter.”

It’s gone out. “Give me the joint instead!”

Once Greg said, “Did they call you the asparagus?” What?! No, they did not!

And he said, “But you’re running!” Of course, I’m running! This shit is bottomless!

And he said, “She’s scared of you.” But it’s destiny…

And, “We’ve tried alcohol, nothing happens. Here, take this with you.” And he gave me some of his pot. Who are you? “I go all the way, Rocky, all the way to the top.” And I understood that Greg has authority somewhere.

The damn seagulls, they think they own the sky.

“How’s your blood pressure?” I wanted to ask the behemoth where he really comes from.

Greg coughs. “What kind of question is that when we’re stoned! Look at that airplane. It’s far away. But it’s also very close. Now, let’s go inside, I’m freezing.”

Later, Pretty Boy John is passed out on the sofa and Shabby, the neighbour, has gone home. Beloved’s tucked under the blanket on the sleeping pad with a movie. Gay John hesitates and circles the room and sits down next to me. “I wanted to talk to you about…” But it’s difficult. “We’ve been trying for some time…” It’s about having children.

Does it subtract from the experience that they were not what they seemed, and had Gods of their own, ad infinitum? I stumble in the dark but my heart is the light showing the way.

17

Keith, singing: A long, long time ago, if they could feel the passing of time. Not far away, but not here with us, either.

Terry, singing: In a zigzag version of an arc. Yes, in a zigzag version of an arc, a line that’s bulging and alive. Ghosts deprived of everything.

Ghosts, ascending the hills: We were here… We got up.

Keith, singing: Released from a sky dark and empty, onto the grass shining and fierce.

Terry, singing: Walking and conversing, soft and hollow, permeable and alive.

Ghosts: Coal eyes, cold hands, cool ways.

Keith, singing: It’s true how we perceive them, in poetry and prose, though our crafts rattle and turn.

Terry, singing: In the howling wind so dark and empty. So dark and empty, abandoned and gone.

Keith: We sing about justice!

Terry: And we sing even more about love once abandoned.

Life was not wasted in the Spit at 15,000 feet, coming down to land over London, having once again taught the Jerry to drink from the icy veins of the channel. Indeed, in the haze of the cockpit’s green we observed with joy the land coming in and the steady return of civilisation. Blacked-out London, dreaming London, kissed in pink, orange and red by the sun’s last rays and sudden escape to darkness. In the depths of it all, the shimmering heart, and respite from death and the Jerry. In the bars, streets, and tubes, the gayest of the youth and the toiling bulls of the kingdom. We kissed them all and loved them all and hoped in a way that the Jerry did the same, returning too, as they were, to their lands of hellish ruin.

18

Being judged by the colour of your skin, Terry, imagine that! We must make the best of it, Rocky. I must scream it out, but he did not scream. I love you, man, but our love is cursed! Jerry don’t want us around, simply for existing. Maybe this is all we got? My shoulders hurts from the turning and turning. Mine too, and my hands. We’re getting old, Rocky. Look there, Terry, out the window, Caribbean love, it looks like a hot spot. Imagine that. Girls dancing. He smoked his pipe. Where? Three o’clock low, the neon sign. Show me the art, Rocky. Of what, fighting the Jerry? You’re the best there is. Terry, Oh Terry. No, he said with a sweet smile and a playful eye, I mean of making it with women. I’ve had it once or twice but now I’m just nervous, this damn s-s-s-stuttering. Never nervous around men? I got nothing to prove to men, Rocky, I’m friends with everyone. Sensitive to beauty, then, women’s charming ways? Blended by the light, ey? I know what you’re talking about, Terry. I’ll speak some words of wisdom, but I’m too thirsty for another beer. I fought my way through the crowded pub to take a leak in an alley and then ordered two beer that I luckily managed to bring to our table by the small window in the corner. Terry didn’t see me coming, sat there alone smiling with a neutral face, as if he were still processing wonderful news. One more to go, I said, and landed the glass elegantly towards him on the table.

At first, when you first notice the attraction within you, do nothing. Greet politely as you would in any new encounter. Think not of any consequences, all you care about is to make her happy and get out of the way. Do not at this point enter her personal sphere, draw attention instead, towards making her smile and asking interested questions. Talk spontaneously to people around you to show her that you are a lovable person that treats others with dignity and respect. At this point soon you will know if your efforts have succeeded. Look around for signs of her interest. Surprise her by suddenly withdrawing to return soon again with a talking point or another round for the table. But if she asks me a question and I must stutter, what do I do? You tell her with your eyes and smile that you have this problem and then you finish the sentence taking your time. To be considered, a potential partner must show interest and patience when returning the love. Cheers, Rocky. Cheers, Don Juan. We drank up and stumbled out, rolled and tumbled across the street, devoured by a dancing darkness, bouncing bodies, a beating drum, and a lonesome trumpet that screamed for life, lust, and love.

Fanny had been working late, and as the sun’s first rays played gently on her rosy cheeks her brothers and sisters stood up and went out one by one. They queued for hours for a loaf of bread, they begged on a corner for a penny and some crumbs, they salvaged furniture, paper, and sticks to feed the stove, now lifeless and cold like the moist sheets and the gloomy room. But life stirred in there, the sudden silence awoke her. Or was it the door opening and closing, once for each sibling? Johnny, sixteen, slamming it shut and locking with the heavy key. Mother was long since gone, and Fanny had counted them in her sleep, all five of them, now that father was in the war and they had become her responsibility. She usually stayed under the sheets but this morning neither warmth nor sleep would soothe her. Tomorrow, tomorrow! The voices echoed in her head. All night, a couple in the corner had been locked in an embrace, ordering nothing, seeing nothing but each other, but looking occasionally with intent towards her. A pilot and an actress, so they appeared in their illuminated beauty, in the dim lights of the corner table, him in a blue uniform and her in a black dancing dress. Fanny stood up because she had never tolerated the thoughts playing games. She worked two jobs, producing helmets in the day, serving rowdy Londoners in the night, and there was little time for anything else. Tomorrow, tomorrow, what does it mean? Then she remembered. Why, that’s today, and I’ve got the day off!

Whereas Fanny was short with dark complexions, shoulder-length black hair, and an upturned knob for a nose, Heather was slender and as tall as a man and on each side of the eagle nose had eyes as bright as the crisp and blue of winter. Terry would later say that Fanny’s eyes were hotter than the sun and all the spices of India, and we would laugh because the compliment did not make sense. How much have you had to drink, dear Spitfire pilot? Fanny was leaning over the table against Terry, to hear him, she was more than curious, ready to eat him. Not enough for the two of us, I would reply, and he would vanish with a bow and return with a beer for each. This is the way that the Gods had agreed upon, in exchange for my soul’s eternal iterations.

They met in the bookshop in the early afternoon, like always, in the minuscule space between the French and Spanish classics. Fanny had always been poor but reading made her rich, so she reckoned, though she discovered it late, and knowledge was power and one’s compassion for people and the world improved. Heather knew comfort in a brick house with a small garden, an extensive library, and hot water. Fanny, steaming and leaving a trail, entered the kitchen in Heather’s mother’s bathrobe and a towel turban. We’re going out tonight! Here, have a bite. When are they coming back? Less than an hour, so you better hurry! You got any coffee? Poor Fanny, working all the time. Heather knew how to look concerned. In my father’s study, find the small cabinet full of fancy whisky and pick one you like. I’ll make us Irish coffee, but we’re all out of cream, and guess whose fault that is! Heather loved to make fun of Hitler.