The Best Book in the World (22 page)

T
itus walks beside the shelves. Despite the cold dampness, he can feel his face starting to sweat. It is as if his body wants to become one with the cellar. The same dripping
unpleasantness
, the same controlling icy cold. He wipes his forehead with the shabby sleeve of his jacket. The black shirt and jacket have become rather dirty from the stay in the earth cellar. The perspiration is dripping from his scalp like melted margarine when you fry pancakes. There is a flow in his armpits too. His back, his crotch, all his sweat pores are wide open and pulsating with tiny thirty-seven-degree steam puffs. Off with his jacket. Unbutton his shirt. He is like a wet dishcloth. Losing liquid quickly now. Everything is flowing.

His fingers feel along the edges of the shelves. Nervous, exploring, trembling.

Titus remembers a question-and-answer game that he and his mates at the Association Bar used to liven up monotonous evenings. It was called ‘the rest of your life’ and could go on for hours. There was no particular order to who would ask the questions, you just chimed in and it got louder and shriller. ‘Now here’s one: if you had to listen to only one song for the rest of your life – which would you choose?’ And that would be followed by an endless discussion about how this or that song was so good because it both made you happy and you could listen to it when making love, or that another song was better because it was such a complex production so it would be the least likely to tire of, or that yet another song was so extremely simple and it would harmonise with your heartbeats for years without disturbing you. Of course they never came to any agreement. Everything would have to be looked at from every angle and examined down to the tiniest detail. ‘One single position
for sexual intercourse – which would you choose?’ And so on. The pros and cons of various sweets and goodies, governments, types of weather, sandwich fillings, diseases, novelists, newspapers and holiday destinations were analysed in extreme detail. The bickering turned into endless theorising with lots of laughter and bawling.

If Titus had been at the Association Bar right now and been forced to list the wines, spirits and types of tobacco to choose if he had to live with them for the rest of his life, then his choice would have been more or less identical with the selection on the shelves here in the earth cellar. Here are several red Bordeaux wines heavy as lead. He can really feel the zinc aftertaste on his tongue. Mmmm. Here too are some Chablis wines, light as a feather, their sweetness being perfect to wash down
summer-warm
strawberries. Ah, exquisite!

And look there! A Lagavulin! That superb Islay whisky which is like a parody of smoky Scotch single malt whisky. That’s one I would certainly choose, Titus thinks. But there’s a Laphroaig too! Perhaps I ought to choose that. It would surely be more balanced in the long term…

Then his gaze falls on a packet of red Marlboro. The cigarette that has led to an early death for hundreds of millions of people. Oh, so tasty! I’ll take that, Titus thinks. He knows exactly what the first drag on the cigarette feels like, when the hot cloud of tar spreads inside you and the tastes in your mouth are replaced by the smell of the smoke. Absolutely, if I’ve got to choose one brand of cigarettes for the rest of my life, then it’ll be Marlboro. Preferably the extra-long ones that make your cilia dry up as quick as a baby’s hair under a dryer.

The attempts to think negative thoughts about cigarettes completely misfire. The craving creeps up on him like an influenza epidemic. It starts with a churning feeling deep inside him, and soon his entire body is on fire. He wants a smoke. Now.

Titus rips the cellophane wrapping off the cigarette pack and opens the flip-top. Presses his nose against the twenty wonderful cancer sticks sticking up. Takes a deep breath. Holds his breath with the tobacco smell in him for a couple of long seconds before
breathing out with his mouth open and his eyes closed. It would be so good, he thinks. Just one measly ciggy, that’s all he asks for. Have one ciggy, Titus, you deserve it. You are actually locked up inside a hole in the ground with neither bread nor water. Just one fag, that’s the very least you can ask of life just now. Have one fag and then you can get out of this dammed prison. One fag will empower you. Just one.

‘Idiot!’ screams another part of his brain. Better to be obsessed than dependent: have you already forgotten your mantra? Without poisons in your body you can do whatever you want with your life. If you are clean, you can perform miracles. You’ve already written a classic manuscript, now you must see it through to the end. Better to be obsessed than dependent, never forget that!

Then he is a little boy again lying on a young woman’s bosom, her breasts heavy with milk. He breathes calmly. He keeps time with her. She strokes his head. He has that downy soft baby hair. Her nipples are still and beautiful. He puts his lips around one of them and lets a wet tongue lick round it.

Titus can feel calm returning to his body. This cognitive self-help therapy with reward images saves him yet again. With a trembling hand, he puts the open cigarette packet back on the shelf.

A crackling comes from the colourful baby monitor on the table.

‘Cheers, Titus!’

It’s Eddie.

Who is he really, thinks Titus. He who just a couple of months ago was a good person has now been transformed into a repulsive monster. Why? What have I done to deserve this hell?

‘Hello? Hahahaha! Woof, woof, you pathetic drunken dog. Did you find something tasty?’

‘Eddie, why are you doing this?’ Titus asks in a calm voice. He looks at the wall behind the walkie-talkie as if trying to establish eye contact with Eddie.

‘Haha! And you wonder why? Haven’t you understood anything? Ever since we thought up the idea of this book, you’ve been tormenting me. I could perhaps have lived with you writing a
version of your own. But I can’t allow you to steal all my ideas.’

‘But I haven’t done that!’

‘Yes you have, every single word is stolen. Don’t you think that I can see what you’ve done? Do you think I’m an idiot? But perhaps I could even have lived with that theft too. If you hadn’t…’

The walkie-talkie goes silent.

‘If I hadn’t… what?’ Titus wonders.

‘If you hadn’t infected me.’

‘Infected you?’

‘You have infected me, Titus Jensen.’

‘With what?’

‘Your confounded darkness. I can’t shake it off! It’s driving me crazy. I wake up every morning and the only thing I want to do is go to a bar and have a large, strong beer. I can’t write a single sensible word. But you will bloody well confess that you’ve stolen my book! You have stolen my idea, my manuscript and you have infected me with all of your damned Titus depression. To hell with you! But I want my life back, do you understand? Cheers! Hahaha!’

There is a click from the walkie-talkie. Eddie has gone.

‘Hello?’ Titus attempts. ‘Are you there?’

No answer.

Locking up a sober alcoholic in an earth cellar full of spirits is not a kind thing to do. It is torture.

Titus shakes his head. Eddie has gone completely nuts. What’s with the ‘infected’ thing? He can’t help it if Eddie has lost his touch. Just because he has got his energy and
joie de vivre
back this summer, surely that doesn’t mean that it must disappear from somebody else? As if the energy had simply transferred from on to the other?

He sits there, on the camping chair by the table, and thinks over his situation.

Energy cannot be used up – he remembers somebody having said that. You can’t destroy it and you can’t create it. The energy that exists can only be transformed and redistributed. Energy goes round and round, a system complete in itself. For example, you pump up oil from under the sea, make it into petrol and use the petrol to create
kinetic energy for a car. And around the car thermo-dynamics are created in the air, that is, energy which in turn affects animals, insects and sound waves, and the energy is knocked further into the atmosphere. Round and round, like a perpetual motion machine.

The thoughts inside Titus’ head whirl round all the faster.

What if the same applies to human energy? The energy and love in the world just hops around between different individuals! Why shouldn’t the laws of nature be the same for humans as for the sun, wind and water? You can’t use up human energy and love. But you can transform it, move it.

In some perverse way perhaps Eddie is right. The mind boggles at the idea. But just imagine if it actually is true that Titus has functioned well all summer because he has got his energy from Eddie? All that time he has been under the impression that it is his actual work with
The Best Book in the World
that has kept him away from the hard stuff, but he can’t deny that the idea cropped up when he was boozing with Eddie. What if he was really charging up with a load of energy from Eddie then? And at the same time emptying Eddie!

He stares in front of him, glares at the shelves filled with the best alcohol, tobacco and snacks in the world. Is he in his true element now? He feels empty inside.

He thinks about those young people who wanted his autograph at Södra Teatern. What did they say? That they had became a couple because of him? That he had given them love… Had he really been infected with Eddie’s ability to give love? Could he, Titus Jensen, have given love to those young people…?

No, it’s an impossible equation. He can never become Eddie X, and Eddie X can never become Titus Jensen.

The craving washes over him again. Just one glass of whisky – that would make him see clearly again. He must test who he really is. Is he the new energy-creating Titus or is he the same old drunk of a writer that he always has been? If he tastes the whisky, he’ll have the answer. He will either pass the test and put the glass aside once and for all, or he will get totally sloshed as usual.

The cognitive behavioural pattern makes one more attempt to
save Titus. The mantra chants repetitively in his head: better to be obsessed than dependent, better to be obsessed than dependent. But it sounds more feeble than obsessed. When he tries to find the reward image of himself on that soft woman’s breast, he can only see a toothless tramp with a grey beard who laughs scornfully at him. The old wreck has lain down on top of a woman who sobs vainly and has turned her face away. Titus waves his hand in the air in front of his eyes but this figment of his imagination won’t disappear. The man stretches up a bony and filthy hand in the air holding a mug of cloudy beer. The man says something. Have a glass, brother Titus! You have earned it. Cheers, damn it!

‘He’ll soon sign the paper, you wait and see,’ says Eddie, and grins under the light bulb above the kitchen table.

‘I really hope you’re right,’ answers Lenny.

‘Yeah, for sure, he’ll soon be himself again. And then everything will be business as usual.’

Lenny looks at Eddie with a sorrowful expression.

‘Nothing can ever be the same after this.’

‘Of course it can,’ hisses Eddie. ‘Who we are and how we are regarded is a zero-sum game. One man’s loss is another man’s gain. I’ll soon be the usual Eddie X again, and you the same old Tourette’s-Lenny. And Titus, he is Titus. A fucking booze-hound.’

‘Stop, I’m not sure I want to be a part of this any longer…’

‘You what? Stop pretending to be scrupulous, damn it, it doesn’t suit you. Why are you here in that case, if I may ask?’

‘You know why.’

‘There you are then.’

‘But I don’t know if I care any more…’

‘Hahaha! So you want to live the rest of your life as a bluff? “Do you remember Lenny, the guy who was the rock star in The Tourettes? But who was just a fake.” What, is that how you want to go down in history?’

‘No… but it’s all this stuff with Titus. What if he never comes back? I think we’re going too far.’

‘I’ll go just as far as I must to get that damned thief to admit his guilt,’ says Eddie with clenched teeth.

‘And then what?’ wonders Lenny with a sad sigh. He is weighed down by the thought that his friendship with Eddie has been seriously dented. Carrying out crimes together creates a bond between people, but it wouldn’t be right to call it friendship. They were friends before, close friends. They went on tour together, partied together, and spent boring weekdays together. They know all about each other’s strengths and weaknesses, there was a mutual respect that made them strong and self-secure. It was a friendship that bordered on love. They felt happy deep inside from the presence of each other. But now that friendship had been transformed into a state of dependence. Lenny still hopes that there are values that haven’t been smashed to bits, something upon which they perhaps can build up a completely new friendship when all this is over.

Now Eddie is a different person from the one Lenny has known for so many years. His hands tremble and little twitches can be seen in the corners of his eyes. He doesn’t look kind. His voice is tired.

‘Then… then you can do what the hell you want. I’ll get back the rights to my manuscript and you can do what you want. I’m not going to say a word. I keep my promises if you keep yours. Everything will be as usual. Give me the fags.’

Perhaps he is right. Hope so, thinks Lenny, and slides the
cigarette
packet across the table top.

‘O-okay.’

‘Aaaaahhhh!

Titus has really worked himself up in his enforced loneliness. He must bring about a change. He must interrupt his thoughts and push Eddie X out of his brain. Away with the evil, away with the energy. Empty out, down to zero. He is Titus Jensen and nobody else. He hasn’t drained anybody. He refuses to accept that his willpower has been stolen from Eddie. If that power is not his own, then it isn’t worth anything. The thoughts whirl around at a crazy speed.

Titus screams as loudly as he can. His voice cracks.

But the whirling thoughts don’t stop. They just get worse.

‘Aaaahhh!’

He lies on the mattress and bangs his hands on the floor. The despair has settled over his chest and whips him hard on his face, drooling its cold sweat over his forehead. The pressure is colossal, it is hard for him to breathe. His ribs will break first, then his lungs will puncture, his heart will explode. It is only a matter of seconds now, then he’ll be dead.