In The Wake (20 page)
I sit up with a hand to my side and push myself out from under the table.
Carefully I breathe as deep as I can, but it is not easy, for my heart is beating wildly, and with each lungful of breath I feel a stab to my side.
“How much did it cost?” I weakly ask.
He looks at me, and then at the table, he is breathing as hard as I am, and then he says: “Fuck the table,” and gives it a kick, and it tilts up and stops on its edge, and the broken leg comes right off and falls
to the floor
with
a sound like a bamboo bell in the forest, one early morning, in China or someplace. “I’ve never really liked it. It is too posh. It is just that I can’t afford anything new right now. It is starting to look empty in here.”
“I have the old kitchen table from Veitvet in the cellar,” I say. “You can have that.”
“The one with the stylish chairs from the forties?”
“Yes.”
“God.
That would have been great. I thought we had sold that.”
“That was the idea. But I took it. I thought you had enough.”
He looks round him at the walls of his house. “I probably had,” he says, and rubs his chin, shakes his head and says: “Fuck me. Where did you learn that boxing stuff?”
“From the old picture of Dad that used to hang above the radio. I’ve got it in my bedroom. I always look at
it before putting out the light.”
“You’re joking.”
“Yes,” I say.
“I don’t remember that picture. Are you sure it hung above the radio?”
“Of course I am.”
He shakes his head again and stays sitting on the floor brushing dust from his shirt front and smoothing his tousled hair back with his fingers. He does not look
like
he has seen the Light any more, but neither does he look like Jesus on
the Cross just before crying: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
He says:
“Are we done with all this now?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Good. I am too old for this sort of thing. But you always had a big mouth.”
“Yes,” I say, feeling oddly pleased. It is easier to breathe, I can take in air without trouble now, only the knuckles on my right hand feel sore.
“Look,” he says, “I don’t feel like going
out any more. If we are going to drink we can do it here. I have a bottle I’ve kept.”
“Under the bed.”
“No, not exactly.” He smiles slightly.
“That’s fine by me,” I say. “Can I smoke?”
“Of course you can.”
He gets stiffly to his feet. His legs are trembling. He brushes dust from his trousers. Then he rubs his face.
“You just stay there,” he says. And then he turns and walks out of the kitchen
and downstairs to the basement room. His steps are not so light, but not so heavy either. I lie down on my back and stretch my body until it creaks and look up at the ceiling. I suck my knuckles. I could join a boxing club. They just might have a class for old boys. I could cut down on the smoking. Let’s say, with five cigarettes a day. There’s a
lot
of health to be gained right there. I sit up
again and bump along on my behind and lean back against the cupboard smoking a cigarette and listening for my brother’s steps. Here he comes.
He has a three-quarters-full bottle of Famous Grouse in his hand. He opens the cupboard above my head and takes out two kitchen glasses and gives me one. He sits down with a groan and leans his back against the fridge and unscrews the bottle. He fills my
glass and then he fills his own.
“I’m selling out my share in the firm,” he says. “It’s a long time since I did my bit anyway. It’s no fun any more. Besides, I’m broke.”
“So what will you do?”
“I don’t know. Actually, I like it like this; cleaned out, rock bottom.”
“Welcome to the club,” I say. He smiles, but his eyes are shining. He raises his glass.
“Rock bottom,” he says.
I look down.
I see my hand round the glass, the glass is full, but at least it is not gin. I raise my glass.
“Rock bottom,” I say. I lean forward and let my glass touch his, and then we take the first mouthful, and I do not say anything about Mrs Grinde, or Naim Hajo for that matter.
That
would have been selfish.
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Version 1.0
Epub ISBN 9781446402566
Published by Vintage 2007
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Copyright © Per Petterson, 2002
English translation copyright © Anne Born, 2002
Per Petterson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
to be identified as the author of this work
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
First published in Great Britain in 2002 by
The Harvill Press
Vintage
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ISBN 9780099520740