Let the Old Dreams Die (34 page)

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That one.’

‘Sorry,’ said Majken. ‘Am I getting confused, or didn’t I get your name?’

‘You don’t sound confused to me. My name is Dolly.’

‘Goodness. After Dolly Parton?’

Now it was my turn to laugh. ‘I’m not that young, ‘I said. ‘It says Dolores on my birth certificate.’

‘That means sorrows.’

‘It does.’

It was only now, as the conversation was drawing to an end, that I realised how much I wanted it to continue. I wanted her to ask me how I came to be called Dolly, anything at all. At the same time a rational voice told me that it was Konsum customer services on the other end of the line and not an old friend, even if it felt that way. She must have lots of calls waiting.

Does she talk to everybody like this?
I wondered, but I just said, ‘Anyway, thanks for the chat. I enjoyed it.’

‘Me too,’ said Majken.

There was silence for a few seconds. I studied the pattern on the rag rug in the hallway, let my gaze wander along to the front door, battered from all the bumps with Börje’s wheelchair. Let my thoughts carry on out into the silence of the stairwell. The silence everywhere that would return when I put the phone down.

Majken said, ‘Maybe we could do it again.’

‘Yes,’ I said. A little too eagerly, perhaps, but goodness me, we were two mature ladies, not shy teenagers. Our integrity might grow over the years, but we can do without superficial prestige. I was very lonely and Majken was a little breath of life. No point in pretending otherwise.

‘In that case I’ll give you a ring one day, if that’s OK,’ said Majken.

‘Yes. My phone number—’

‘I’ve got it here on my monitor.’

‘Right. Of course, yes.’

I still haven’t got used to the technological advances when it comes to communications. I find it difficult to speak to an answering machine.

I got her private number too, one of those that begins with 070, which I have learned means it’s a mobile phone. Majken was obviously more modern than me. We exchanged farewell phrases and hung up.

The silence wasn’t as deafening as I had feared; it was as if there was a little song inside my head. Which one? Oh, maybe one of those Svante Thuresson hits from the sixties. The ones that paint pictures in pastel shades, giving you the feeling that the world has just been created.

Do you know what I mean?

A couple of months ago there was an exhibition of photographs up in the library here in Blackeberg. It was about the first ten years, 1954–64. A lot of the pictures were black and white, but when it came to the colour photos you could kind of hear ‘You’re a Spring Breeze in April’ playing as background music.

The sensibly arranged shops, the subway station. People in the square: women in plain coats, men in hats. A kind of freshness mixed with emptiness, as if the people had just discovered that this place existed, were trying to get their bearings. In some ways that’s exactly how it was, I’m sure.

I remember those days. We came here before they’d even finished building. Our place on Björnsonsgatan was ready, but the earthmovers were still working further up the street. It was a good time. Lots of children. There was a sense of expectation in the air: We’re going to live our lives in this place!

Lena was six, and Tomas was born six months after we moved
to Blackeberg. They had plenty of friends to play with, and the forest was just behind our building. It should have been a good childhood.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that the exhibition focused on those particular years. The idyllic years, the ones you can go back to in order to reflect on what went wrong. One thing I do know: it was after this period that my own life started to go in a different direction from the one I had hoped for.

Talking of Svante Thuresson.

I put the piece of paper with Majken’s phone number on it in the drawer under the phone and went in to see Börje. He was sitting on the sofa as usual, staring at the wall. It was only an hour since I had helped him to the toilet, and he’d had a good breakfast that morning, so for the moment there was nothing I could do for him.

Talk to him, you might well be saying. Get out and about.

He stopped talking three years ago. I don’t know if he understands what I say; he gives no indication that he does. He moves only if he absolutely has to, and then with great difficulty, so perhaps you can understand that the opportunities for getting out and about are limited.

In fact he shut himself off thirty years ago, when Lena died. But he kept functioning on a mechanical level. Carried on working as a ticket collector, came to the cinema, met up with friends. But the spark, the soul or whatever you want to call it—that had gone out. We were invited to visit other people less and less often, he lost interest in films. In the end his part-time job as a ticket collector was his only contact with the outside world.

That was when I started cleaning. Tomas was eighteen and perfectly capable of taking care of himself—after Lena, Börje had lost interest in him too, and from the age of fifteen Tomas essentially had no father—and we needed the money.

I’ll be honest with you: when Börje started sinking into this final catatonic state five years ago, I had to choose between putting him in a home, or giving up my job to look after him. I very nearly went for the first option. It might sound heartless, but I’d had enough. Frankly, if Börje hadn’t withdrawn into his shell so completely, I would probably have asked for a divorce.

I don’t know. Maybe he knew I felt that way, maybe it contributed to his decision to cut himself off from the world. Because I believe it was a decision. I still think he could talk if he
wanted
to. But to be honest I prefer this care package sitting on the sofa to the shadow of a human being who used to move from room to room under his own steam.

So I stayed. Or
I kept him
, I suppose you could say.

Am I talking too much?

You must forgive me, but I think all this is necessary if you want to understand. And I hope you do. For your own sake.

What do I mean by that?

You’ll see.

That afternoon drifted by like many others. When dusk started to fall I took a stroll down to the eco-cottage to see if anyone had thrown away anything I could use.

Ha ha, no, I don’t mean
food.
We haven’t got to that stage yet. I just mean something that might come in useful. A breadbin or a rug or a better vacuum cleaner than the one we’ve got.

It’s incredible what people throw away. Stuff that’s practically new. Although I suppose the really incredible thing isn’t so much the fact that they’ve thrown away an electric mixer that works perfectly well, but that they’ve bought a new one even though they had the old one. What do I know; maybe they suddenly decided to chuck out the mixer without buying a new one. But I don’t think so.

The only thing I found that afternoon was five brand-new plastic storage boxes for the freezer. I took them home.

In the evening we watched the news as usual. I’m not much of a one for TV, but I suppose that’s the only time of the day when Börje and I sit together. I mean, otherwise it’s impossible. Just sitting there staring at nothing.

When the news was over I went and lay down and read
The Idiot
. You can never really understand that book. Börje stayed put, watching some comedy or other. He’s OK on his own, he can get to the toilet and so on. It’s only when we’re going out I have to get the wheelchair, and we don’t do that so often in the winter when it’s icy.

Towards ten o’clock I went in to have a look at him. He looked tired and I asked him if he wanted to go to bed. Sometimes I get an almost imperceptible nod in response.

I tried to get him to bed, but he resisted as he sometimes does. When that happens I usually make up a bed for him on the sofa. You could say that’s the only expression of will he ever shows these days: refusal. Refusal to eat, refusal to go to the toilet, refusal to go to bed. So I respect it.

In any case, there was some film on TV with soldiers running around shooting at one another. He likes that kind of thing, always has done. The last film we saw at the cinema together was called
Platoon
, and I thought it was horrific. Although I suppose it’s regarded as good.

Perhaps I don’t need to tell you any more about all that. I look after my husband, and that’s all there is to say. One day at a time. We sit in our tomb and nod to one another.

I don’t know what would happen if he died. I mean, the absurd thing is that I’m dependent on him. The amount I’m paid for looking after him, along with his meagre disability pension, keeps us afloat.

I am sixty-seven years old, which means I can’t get another job. My pension will be…well, will it be anything at all by the time they’ve finished speculating? I might end up owing the state money instead—what do you think?

So there we are. Each dependent on the other in our own way. Tomas rings sometimes, but he’s got enough to think about. I don’t blame him.

Anyway, let’s move on.

The following day I went into town in the morning. Perhaps you could say the road that has led me here began that morning in the cheese department in Åhlén’s department store.

I’ve been shoplifting for several years. Got caught twice. The second time I was fined. Fifteen hundred kronor. Perhaps that should have put me off doing it again, but it didn’t.

I mean, you have to think in economic terms these days, in which case shoplifting is extremely rational. I’ve stolen goods worth far more than the amount I was fined. Ten times more, perhaps. What puts most people off doing the calculation is the fear of being caught. The shame.

Oh yes, I’ve felt that way too. But there have been times when I just had to shoplift. We have enough money for basics, but then I smoke, and…well yes, I could stop buying books. But I don’t want to. So I take the risk, even if it’s felt like a low thing to do at times. Being a thief.

But on this particular day, as I stood there looking at the various blue cheeses and the parmesan at twenty kronor for a hundred grams, the words Majken had said were running through my mind: ‘Have you earned this?’

Have I earned this?

Put like that, the answer was quite simple:

Yes.

A weight fell from my heart. I remembered seeing a documentary on TV about the Swedish national cookery team. A banquet, a load of celebrities sitting there eating dishes with unbelievable names. The King was there.

The King. In what way has he
earned
(that’s the key word) the right to travel around eating gourmet food in different places every day? How has this person and that person
earned
the right to sit there with their mouths open, waiting for lamb chops and parsley-scented potato croquettes to just pop in?

Have they worn out their shoulders carrying buckets of water, burned the skin on their hands with cleaning fluids, or sat in a tomb with a zombie, saving society enormous amounts of money?

Have you earned this?

I slipped a Danish blue cheese in one coat pocket, two hundred grams of parmesan in the other. Then I went up to the clothes department and dropped three pairs of expensive tights in my handbag. For the first time I didn’t feel the slightest bit worried. I looked around and spotted a wonderful nightdress made of silk. I looked at the price ticket. Nine hundred kronor.

Have you?

Yes. I have. Many times over. But there was a magnetic tag on the nightdress. I don’t suppose it’s all that difficult to take them off, but unfortunately I don’t know how to do it. So I had to leave it. I went down to the book department instead.

I must emphasise one thing at this point. Regardless of what I’ve earned or not earned, I would never, ever, ever steal anything from a small bookshop or—God forbid—a library.

As you know, the limit for shoplifting rather than theft is one thousand kronor. The tights were one hundred and fifty kronor a pair, the cheeses about a hundred altogether, so I had four hundred kronor left before I reached the limit. With the new reduced sales tax on books, it was enough for Kerstin Ekman’s latest two novels;
I’ve been wanting to read them for ages, but they’re always out when I go to the library. They also fitted in my handbag. It’s quite a big handbag.

Perhaps you’re surprised that I haven’t been caught more often?

I think it’s got something to do with attitude. Routine. Sometimes I’ve simply walked out of department stores with goods in my hands. It’s a matter of not hesitating. Not giving the slightest indication that you might be doing something illegal. Sometimes I see other shoplifters who might as well have a sign hanging round their necks. Eyes all over the place, uncertain movements.

Once I even went over to a boy who was about to pinch a bar of chocolate. I walked past him and said quietly, ‘Don’t do it. There’s a store detective watching you’.

I actually know who the plain clothes store detectives are in most of the big shops. They might as well be wearing a sign too. The boy left the chocolate bar and scurried off. I thought of pulling a face at the store detective, but there’s no point in attracting attention unnecessarily.

After I left Åhlén’s I went to the City Library. My shoulders and my back might be worn out, but there’s nothing wrong with my legs. Sometimes I get off at Ängbyplan and walk the last two stops to Blackeberg.

OK, it’s a way of putting off my return home to the tomb, but I believe in exercise. As long as you can stretch your legs and walk, you’re not completely past it. Not completely.

If an angel came to me and asked, ‘Would you like to die right now, with no pain?’ I would answer yes, but I’ve never been anywhere near the practicalities of suicide. Sleeping pills combined with a plastic bag over the head is supposed to be the most effective method, but…no.

Isn’t the City Library a beautiful building? Just the experience of all those books in a
circle
. As if it’s never-ending. I cleaned there
for six months in the eighties. Unfortunately I was only filling in for somebody else; I would have liked to stay longer.