My Struggle: Book 2: A Man in Love (50 page)

But Linda was right: he had only himself to blame.

I buttered another slice of bread. Vanja stretched her hands into the air. Linda lifted her out of the chair and carried her into the bathroom, from where soon there came the sounds of running water and Vanja’s little squeals of protest.

The phone rang in the living room. I froze. Even though I knew at once it had to be Ingrid, Linda’s mother – no one else would ring us at this time – my heart beat faster and faster.

I sat motionless until the ringing stopped, as suddenly as it had started.

‘Who was that?’ Linda asked when she emerged from the bathroom with Vanja hanging from her arms.

‘No idea,’ I said. ‘I didn’t answer it. But it was probably your mother.’

‘I’ll call her,’ she said. ‘I had planned to anyway. Will you take Vanja?’

She held her out as if my lap was the only other place she could be in the flat.

‘Just put her on the floor,’ I said.

‘Then she’ll scream.’

‘Let her scream. It’s no problem.’

‘O-K,’ she said, the way that meant the opposite. This is not OK, but I’m doing it because you say so. Then you’ll see what happens.

Of course, she started to cry as soon as Linda put her down on the floor. I stretched my arms out for her, then fell hands first onto the floor. Linda didn’t turn round. I pulled open a drawer, which I could reach now from a sitting position, and took out a whisk. Vanja wasn’t interested, even if I could make it vibrate. I held up a banana in front of her. She shook her head as the tears ran down her cheeks. In the end I lifted her up and carried her to the bedroom window, where I stood her on the sill. That did the trick. I named all the things we saw, she stared with interest and pointed at every car that passed.

Linda poked her head through the doorway with the phone held to her chest.

‘Mummy asks if we would like to eat there tomorrow. Would we?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s fine.’

‘Then shall I say yes?’

‘Go for it.’

I lifted Vanja carefully down to the floor. She could stand but not walk yet, so she squatted and crawled towards Linda. This child could not show a second of dissatisfaction before her needs were fulfilled. For close on the whole of her first year she had woken up in the night every two hours and been fed. Linda had been almost out of her mind with tiredness, yet she wouldn’t make Vanja sleep in her own bed because then she would scream. I was in favour of a brutal course of action, putting her in her own bed and letting her scream as much as she wanted the whole night through, so that the next time she would understand that no one was going to come whatever she did, and resigned and perhaps angry, she would settle down to sleep on her own. I might just as well have told Linda that I would beat Vanja over the head until she was quiet. The compromise was that I rang my mother’s sister, Ingunn, who was a child psychologist and had experience of such things. She suggested a gradual weaning, emphasising that Vanja had to be patted and stroked a lot if she wanted to be fed or to get up but was not allowed, and that bit by bit we should defer the time when she was given the day’s final feed. So there I was, by her bed at night with a notepad, jotting down the exact times and patting and stroking her while she screamed her head off and glowered at me furiously. It took ten nights for her to sleep through. It could have been done in one. Because surely it didn’t hurt her to cry a little? The same happened in the play area. I tried to make her stay there alone so I could sit on a bench and read, but that was out of the question: a few seconds on her own and she was searching for me with her eyes and holding out imploring arms.

Linda rang off and came out with Vanja in her arms.

‘Shall we go for a walk?’ she suggested.

‘I don’t suppose there’s much else we can do,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked warily.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Where shall we go?’

‘Skeppsholmen maybe?’

‘OK, let’s do that.’

Since I’d had Vanja in the week, Linda took care of her now. She sat Vanja on her lap, dressed her in a small red knitted jumper we had inherited from Yngve’s children, brown corduroy trousers, the red romper suit Linda’s mother had bought for us, the red cap with the strap under the chin and the white brim and a pair of white woollen mittens. Until a month ago she had always sat still when we changed her, but of late she had begun to wriggle and squirm in our hands. It was particularly difficult when you had to change her nappy, the crap could end up anywhere as she kept wriggling, and more than once I had raised my voice. LIE STILL! Or LIE STILL FOR CHRIST’S SAKE! And my grip on her tightened more than was necessary. For her part, she thought it was funny to try and wriggle away, she always smiled or laughed whenever she succeeded and at first she simply did not understand the loud irritated voice. Sometimes she ignored it totally, or she stared at me in surprise, now what was that meant to be? Or she cried. First the lower lip puckered and started to quiver, then the tears flowed. What on earth was I doing? I thought. Had I gone completely mad? She was one year old, as innocent as only the innocent can be, and there I was,
yelling
at her!

Luckily she was easy to comfort, easy to make laugh, and luckily she had a short memory. From that perspective, it was worse for me.

Linda had more patience, and after five minutes Vanja was fully dressed in her arms with an expectant smile on her lips. In the lift she tried to press the buttons, Linda pointed to the right one and guided her hand. The button lit up, the lift set off. While Linda went into the bicycle room with her, where the buggy was, I lit a cigarette outside. The wind was still strong and the sky heavy and grey. The temperature was around zero or minus one.

We walked down Regeringsgatan, into Kungsträdgården, past the National Museum, and turned left onto the island of Skeppsholmen, along the quays where all the houseboats were. A couple of them were from the turn of the last century and in their heyday had plied between the many islands outside Stockholm. There was also a kind of small boatyard here, or so it seemed, with a keel and timbers arranged like a skeleton inside a wooden warehouse. Now and then a bearded face poked out as we walked past, otherwise the area was deserted. Up on a small hill was the Moderna Museet, where Vanja had spent, considering the length of her short life, a disproportionately large number of days. But admission was free, the restaurant was good and child-friendly, there were play areas and some of the art was worth seeing.

The water in the harbour was black. The clouds were dense and low in the sky. The thin layer of snow on the ground seemed to make everything harder and more naked, perhaps because it removed the little colour that was left in the townscape. All the museum buildings here had once been military and they still bore the hallmarks – low and closed, they ran alongside the short untrafficked roads or stood at the end of what must have been parade grounds.

‘That was great yesterday,’ Linda said, wrapping an arm around me.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It was. But do you really want another child now?’

‘Yes, I do. But the odds are against it.’

‘I’m sure you’re pregnant,’ I said.

‘As sure as you were that Vanja was a boy?’

‘Ha ha.’

‘I’d be so happy,’ she said. ‘Imagine I was! Imagine we were going to have another child!’

‘Yes . . .’ I said. ‘What do you say to that, Vanja? Would you like a little brother or sister?’

She looked up at us. Then she turned her head to the side and pointed to three seagulls bobbing up and down on the waves, their wings tucked into their sides.

‘Deh!’ she said.

‘Yes, there,’ I said. ‘Three seagulls!’

One child was absolutely out of the question for me, two was too few and too close together, but three, I reckoned, was perfect. Then the children outnumbered the parents, there were lots of permutations possible, then we were a gang. I had nothing but contempt for precise plans to pinpoint the most suitable time, both as far as our own lives were concerned and which ages went best together. After all this was not a business we were running. I wanted to let chance decide, let what happened happen, and then deal with the consequences as they emerged. Wasn’t that what life was about? So when I walked down the street with Vanja, when I fed and changed her, with these wild longings for a different life hammering away in my chest, this was the consequence of a decision and I
had
to live with it. There was
no
way out, other than the old well-travelled route: endurance. The fact that I cast a pall over the lives of those around me in doing so, well, that was just another consequence which had to be endured. If we had another child, and we would, regardless of whether Linda was pregnant now or not, and then another, which was equally inevitable, surely this would transcend duty, transcend my longings and end up as something wild and free in its own right? If not, what would I do then?

Be there, do what I had to do. In my life this was the only thing I had to hold on to, my sole fixed point, and it was carved in stone.

Or was it?

A few weeks ago Jeppe had phoned me, he was in town, could we meet for a few beers? I had a lot of respect for him, but I had never managed to talk to him, as was the case with so many people, but we loosened up after I had knocked back several beers in quick succession. I told him what my life was like now. He looked at me and said with that natural authority which was typical of him, ‘But you must
write
, Karl Ove!’

And when push came to shove, when a knife was at my throat, this was what mattered most.

But why?

Children were life, and who would turn their back on life?

And writing, what else was it but death? Letters, what else were they but bones in a cemetery?

The Djurgård ferry rounded the spit at the end of the island. On the other side was Gröna Lund, the vast amusement park, with all the machines empty and motionless, some covered with tarpaulins. A couple of hundred metres away was the building that housed the Vasa ship.

‘Shall we take the ferry across?’ Linda asked. ‘Then we can have lunch at Blå Porten.’

‘We’ve only just had breakfast,’ I said.

‘A coffee then.’

‘Yes, we can. Have you got any cash on you?’

She nodded, and we waited where the ferry berthed. After only a few seconds Vanja started complaining. Linda found a banana in the bag and handed it to her. Happy, she sat back in the buggy and stared across the sea while stuffing bits of banana into her mouth. I was reminded of the very first time I had been out with her on my own, because this was where we came. She had been a week old. I had almost run around the island with the buggy in front of me, frightened she would stop breathing, frightened she would wake up and scream. At home we had the situation under control: there was breastfeeding, sleeping, changing nappies in a soporific yet somehow quietly triumphant system. Away from home, we no longer had a structure to cling to. The first time we took her out was the third day, she had to go for a check-up and it was like we were transporting a bomb. Obstacle number one was all the clothes she had to wear because the temperature outside was more than fifteen degrees below. The second was the child seat. How do you attach it in a taxi? The third was the eyes that studied us in the reception area. But all went well, we survived, albeit with an immense amount of fuss, but it was all worth it when some minutes later she was placid and gently kicking her legs on the changing table as she was being examined. She was in perfect health and in an irresistibly good mood because she suddenly smiled at the nurse bent over her. That was a smile, the nurse said. It wasn’t gripe. It’s rare for babies to smile so early on! We luxuriated in the compliment, it said something about us as parents, only several months later did it strike me that the line, it’s rare for babies to smile so early on, was probably used to accomplish that very effect. But, oh, the low, somehow timid January light that fell through the window and over our daughter on the table, whom we still weren’t remotely used to, the ice outside glinting in the freezing temperatures, Linda’s utterly open relaxed face, made this one of the few memories that did not contain the slightest trace of ambivalence. It lasted until we were in the corridor and ready to go, and Vanja began to scream her head off. What should we do? Pick her up? Yes, we had to. Should Linda give her a feed? If so, how? She was wearing so many clothes she looked like a balloon. Should we undress her again?
While
she was screaming? Was that what you did? What about if she didn’t calm down?

Oh, how Vanja screamed as Linda fiddled with her clothing in her nervous, irresolute way.

‘Let me do it,’ I said.

Her eyes flashed as they met mine.

Vanja went silent for some seconds as her lips closed around the nipple. But then she jerked her head back and continued to scream her head off.

‘Not that then,’ Linda said. ‘What is it? Is she ill?’

‘No, I doubt that,’ Linda said. ‘After all, she’s just been checked over by a doctor.’

Vanja screamed and screamed. The whole of her little face was in convulsion.

‘What shall we do?’ Linda said in desperation.

‘Hold her for a while and we’ll see,’ I said.

The second couple, the ones after us, came out with their baby in a car seat. They studiously avoided looking at us as they passed.

‘We can’t stand here,’ I said. ‘Let’s go. Come on. She’ll just have to scream.’

‘Have you rung for a taxi?’

‘No.’

‘Then do it!’

She looked down at Vanja, whom she was hugging, not that it helped, there wasn’t much reassurance in the contact between Vanja’s romper suit and Linda’s Puffa jacket. I took out my mobile and tapped in the taxi number, holding the car seat in my other hand, and walked towards the stairs at the end of the corridor.

‘Hang on,’ Linda said. ‘I just have to put on her hat.’

She screamed all the time we waited for the taxi. Fortunately it arrived a few minutes later. I opened the rear door, put the seat in and tried to secure it with the seat belt, which I had managed an hour earlier without a problem, but now it appeared to be absolutely impossible. I tried attaching it in every conceivable way, through, over and under the bloody seat, and none worked. All with Vanja screaming and Linda looking daggers at me. In the end the driver got out to help me. At first I refused to move, I could damn well manage this on my own, thank you, but after another minute’s fumbling I had to concede defeat and let him, a moustachioed Iraqi-looking man, fasten it at a stroke.