Assisted Living: A Novel (26 page)

I stuck Mari in the trunk and drove away. When we got to town, my boss called the police. When they stormed Holger’s place, though, he was so wellgroomed it was almost sickening, he was just as friendly and hospitable as any GB-Gubbe. Besides that, we didn’t really have any real proof that Helge had suffered at Holger’s hands. In the fall of’88, we got a report alleging that Holger had repeatedly abused his grandson, Helge, whose parents were found raped and beaten to bloodypulps in the Skellefteå museum’s movietheater. I think it was a documentary called
Skellefteårs: The Missing Link
that was showing while the two of them were getting their justdesserts. They died of their wounds before regaining consciousness. Helge was delivered by chancelloreansection at seven months and spent his first extrauterine year in a clinic for relapsed pederasts. After that, he spent two years with his grandmother in Kåge, until she succumbed to gardenhosemasturbation. He spent a few weeks in a garbageroom, because nobody gave a shit. Then one fine day Holger Holmlund swept into the office, ready to do business.

“I want to abort the boy,” he said.

“You mean adopt.”

“Yeah, I want him. What do you want for him?” he asked, fingering a wad of Monopolymoney.

“Excuse me?” Lisbeth, who ran the whole shebang, asked. “How much do I have to shell out, already!?”

She blushed furiously and clung firmly to the letter of the law, because he was a stately man, and you could tell that there was something slightly “off” about him. He had no barriers left, so to speak.

“To adopt a child, you have to fill out this form first. Then a committee of rejects will be appointed to decide if you’re a fit guardian. After that, the matter is in the hands of the local omnipotents.” “Superb, cuntskunk,” he said, “I’ve got my thumbs in the local powersthatbe, and I don’t just mean in the eyes.”

He stood and filled out the paperwork, while he sang Hans Sachs’s last piece in the
The Mastersingers of Nuremburg
, the one that begins with “Verachtet mir die Meister nicht, und ehrt mir ihre Kunst!” The laying on of hands went recordquick, and the next Monday that came around, Holger thundered in, banging open the entryway door so hard it splintered.

“I have an appointment with a three-year-old!”

I lifted up the boy in a blanket. Small, woolly, yellow lambs were leaping in a meadow, and one corner had been sucked to scraps. He was an alert little rascal, his eyes followed everything that moved. Skittish and mute. But I’ll never forget the expression on Holgers face when he took that bundle into his arms. The child looked up at the old man—and, suddenly, everything was good, just like it was meant to be. The boy laughed for the first time,and it sounded horrible. He stuck his small fist between Holger’s cracked lips. The old man pretended to bite, and the child just about died. The sounds he made seemed to stand for all the miracles of joy, love, and safety. He was beside himself, he whimpered and yowled, as if everything before now had been a nightmare, but today there was healing, hope, and forgetfulness at last. Holger was like a vortex of pure light. I saw that he was the Madonna with child. Neither before nor since have I seen a face so twisted by purelove. The rest of us didn’t exist any longer, the whole fucking world had burst like a troll in the sun. He flew off, glided out, people melted in his presence, melted in the face of his heartcoremelt-down, and God existed, and goodness, and mercy. Death and the Devil stood by in shame, Holger was Creation’s champion. It was a good while before everything went back to normal again, and we could smoke and chat and think about other things. And as for the accusations of incest, well, nothing was ever proven, none of the powersthatbe bothered to launch an investigation. Sometimes it seems like I dreamed the whole thing …

Harald Holst, 79 years old, drinking companion

—Holger Holmlund was a real pal, I wanted to say that first off. Anyone who knew him knows he wouldn’t harm a louse. But there are always those awful busybodies who have to insist that a person was so and so, a dib and a daub, little by little, this and that after they’re dead. Holger, though, was really the salt of the earth. Neat and calm. Generous with the gifts our Grouse who art in Heaven gave him, whether you’re talking about spirit, the way he had of telling a story, or just your runofthemill paltry human compassion. He always had a word or two for you, no matter how tedious it was for him. And he reaped what he sowed. He’d been married to a crackwhore who fucked two, three thousand guys a year. I heard about Irma from other people. Holger never said boo about it, though. So now I understand better why he wouldn’t get together with women. Still, the idea that he liked men is, I think, an outandout lie! I never saw hide nor hair of it.

Holger lived pretty reclusively and kept to himself. He pissed on his own ground, if you know what I mean … He never drank more than one schnapps with a meal and he smelled fresh as a maid in heat. I can see him there in front of me now, spinning wool in the corner of his kitchen with a succulent bratwurst between his lips. He had thick, round glasses in slender frames and was extremely educated, without being cocky. It made him unhappy to hear anyone using spiteful words. And his boy, Helge, was raised in a strict Lutheran way. Just mess with those who are weaker than yourself and all that. They had it rough, but they killed time as best they could. We mostly hung out during the dark months, and a lot of what he said could creep you out. He had a low, rough voice for telling tales, and you sat there like a rat before a snake, mouth open wide. He was a great preacher, but so humble that the vermin finally got the better of him. He left a big, blackhole behind him.

Rigmor Mortis, 63 years old, neighbor

—Holger was terribly hard to deal with, that I’ll say straight out. We were terrified of him, and we hoped they’d come and takehim away and lock him up and throw away the key. He was in and out of the loonybin, of course, but he always came back worse than before.

He was already pretty foul and rotten when Irma was alive, but after she died he was just plain batty. Holger was always drunk, and he smoked like a chimney, oh-me-oh-my! Our children wouldn’t play outside if Leif-örjan wasn’t with them the whole while. One time I was out getting the mail, and Holger came traveling along on a kicksled, and my wetcunt began to bubble like a hotspring.

“Aren’t you dead yet?” he hollered and swept a cuddlecushion at me, so that I was suddenly up to my ears in mud. I was wearing my beige overalls and brown rubberboots, and I prayed to my Maker that he’d take me as I was.

“Well, is that how you treat people, then?!” I babbled. “Are you just going to leave me here in the muck, cunt bared?”

“I’d rather hump a lopsided electricaloutlet than that rancid grannyhole of yours!” he scoffed and went on his way. I lay there for a while. Then I rolled up North Västerbotten and stuck it clean up my wetcunt, which was just aching for a little attention. There’s nothing better than using your Kegelmuscles to squeeze out the last few drops of sperm. But that homospecter thought he was too good to cream it up in my uterine mouth. He was always an idol to us, and it’s a good thing that he’s dead. It was a shame, though, for that boy he was raising. To this day it baffles me down to my whitehot cunt why social services didn’t take poor Helge away from him! How they got by, only Uri knows. He probably had a homosubsidy. Holger talked so strangely, like he had a hotpotato in his mouth.

I remember Irma saying that he had books with letters and numbers in them, and that’s enough to make anyone real suspicious. Oftentimes there was an awful racket coming from his house, even though it’s a good kilometer from here. Laughter and merrymaking and then a sudden shriek that made you think someone was getting themselves a threewaysandwich. I hope he’s burning in hell, and that when I’ve gone to my heavenlyhome, I can drop by and pour cookingoil all over him.

Samuel Mörk, 62 years old, farm owner

—Holger Holmlund was always welcome in our house.

He was just skinandbones, you know, so the meals that Mama would whip out of her cunt were put to good use. We’d usually offer a bag of crispy cheeserot for dinner, and if we weren’t too full, we’d have frozensoda ices for dessert. Then we’d settle in front of the TV and have a drink. Holger liked to munch on snails and shrews, while we watched
Nygammalt
or
Here’s Your Death.
I usually ate lefse and pancakes. Around half nine Mama would fall sleep, and I’d carry her out to the shed. Holger was incredibly restless, his eyes were constantly roaming around and he was always fiddling with something or other. And what a talker! He’d just warble on in a high, shrill voice, and sometimes he’d also act like he was hard of hearing, he thought it was cool. He’d seen a lot, Holger had, and that’s the truth, but you only understood a fraction of what he actually said. Sometimes he’d sing a psalm, and it would make your heart want to burst. If he got excited, he’d ratde off invocations in Babylonian or whatever it was, and his eyes would roll like a niggertroll’s. He admired the ancient Assyrians and Aztecs for their reckless cruelty and wanted to be jettisoned from the Earth on an endless trip through the cosmos when he died. Of course, I only knew him for the last twenty years or so, what he’d gone through before that is anyone’s guess. But maybe it ain’t so fuckin’ cozy for us either! He said so many strange things: one evening he claimed he’d been a slave in a tribe of Jewniggers in Burkina Fashoda, another that he’d created the HIV virus in Staffan and Bengt’s home lab, and when he was really plastered, he’d say that he’d gotten a taste of Mao’s littleredbook, that he’d been Fritz Haarmann’s apprentice, but that he’d surpassed his master early on. He also praised the Sambia tribe in New Guinea, where little boys are taught to suck mancock early on, something they’d be doing for the next ten to fifteen years: “The more sperm they swallow, the fiercer they’ll be as warriors!”

And then, “Shut the fuck up, milksop!” he’d roar, whenever anyone had any objections. “You don’t know a thing!”

One time he was raving about a couple of hockeyplayers or something, who he’d known real well and had had a few laughs with. I think their names were Freisler and Vyshinsky. Usually you got next to nothing out of his whining, though, since mostly he’d just babble on like a badbook. But he was a nice, standup guy and he always gave me a good schtuping before he went home.

Gunivar Israelsson, 68 years old, tradesman, night-bal-rog in the iron prison of Angbandt

—I’ll always remember Holger Holmund as a bonafide, outandout rejected member of society … He never raised his voice!! He wasprudent in all his purchases … once a quarter he’d come bumping along on his velocipede with the boy on the handlebars … sugar, coffee, saltedherring, jam, not to mention some of the best falukorv, thank you very much, just like you find in Bullerby … that was it … well, that and every cigarette I had … he was a pleasure to deal with … never an unkind word … never a violent gesture … never even a salty expression … he had real understanding, he was a nutandbolts kind of guy … he leapt ahead of his time with a leper’s jinglejangle … he was downright civil, thank you, thank you very much … and aryosophic … he supported the racewar against the Lapps … you know what he said, he said, just think, Gunsan, of all we have to thank industry for! Capitalism brings such good with it that it destroys all the supposed glories of life! Ravage the forests, I say! Make every town a new Norilsk! God bless supervisors and manufacturers! lostsouls and ruinedbodies! the hoipolloi shouldn’t get uppity! Who isn’t fed up with freshair and cleanwater! I hung on his every word …

Just think! he ordered … where would Skellefteå be without Boliden and Rönnskär! They’re the best thing that could’ve happened to us! Where would we be without heavymetals! We never would’ve enjoyed the Skellefteåsickness! the Västerbottensyndrome! the Kågespew! Thousands of tons of sulphurdioxide a year! dozens of tons of copper! zinc! lead! arsenic! cadmium! We would’ve had PMS! migraines and discharge and badtempers in the morning! like Kikewhores! Rapers of the earth! industrytycoons! profiteers! Thank God for them! consortiums and investmentcompanies! concerns and financialtrusts! all our age’s heroicdeeds take placeon the stockexchange! No more wildanimals! No more freefantasy! Just commerce and industry! profit and production! exploitation and consumption! Conformism and narcissism! Hedonism and mammonism! Dollar, yen, and mark! They’re the Holy Trinity! He sounded like an auctioneer! … he was meek and mild, so long as we were left in peace … he knew what he wanted and he knew how to get it … he was a firstrate customer … I’d offer the boy a raisin, and for Christmas a saltcone … But if a woman came in and started blathering, then it was different story altogether … you saw he was a shaman … without further ado they went out to settle the score … once and for all … no more niceties, no more chitchat … he lashed out with his walkingstick … slipped … they went down … bit the dust … made snowangels … rolled around … sent the snow flying … but Holger knew how to use his elbows and knees … and he had the kiddo … he always won … came in again, paid up … bitched and moaned … but if there was a crowd, he left … He’d been married, and I can remember how Irma looked … tall and skinny … on the pretty side, if the lighting was bad … reddishblonde … bony hips and a limp ass … a bitter, lewd expression … big nose, but not so much that it was offputting … shrewd, frightened eyes … she sounded like a National Bolshevik when she came …

Hemming Forslund, 64 years old, villager

—I can see them in front of me when I close my eyes … the little kid and the old geezer … always together … always underway … off on unknown errands …

Holger was a demon … apparently he’d been scandalously handsome once, but had decided to do something about that … he hated everything established, obvious, and unequivocal … He wrote a tract,
Concerning the Difference in Our Conceptual Worldviews,
and then something called
Anesthetic Breviarium
 … He cast neither shadow nor reflection … he was terrified of bidets … he was loud and lustful … But it never turned out the way you expected … it was terrible … they were like Grendel and his mother … satrap and hierodule … You might’ve felt sorry for them, but they were so disgusting … complete outsiders … no one could help them … they were beyond all aid … utterly disgraceful … they knew what was what … reduction and regression … They lived alone … back behind where Zakri had his pasture … the house was a two-and-a-half story mass … darkred with black corners … all the upper and lower windows were nailed shut … They had a Christmasstar and Easterdecorations up all year round … their yard was wild and overgrown … sunflowers, marigolds, and rhubarbs … hops, touchmenots, and bilberries … rowans and birches … huge, ancient aspens and yews … and an ash … Nettles, ferns, and mandrakes … navel-wort, hoodedskullcap, and bugleweed … Moses’s burningbush … They didn’t till the ground … the area was overgrown with tall grass … Old plows, a harvester, and a cowskeleton dotted the hayfence … Two hundred meters from the house flowed a trout-stream … The fish found in the deepest pools were unnaturally large and bitegreedy … Wolves howled in the midwinter twilight … a lot of superstition and queerness … the entropicforest whispered esotericsecrets … it wasn’t a good place …