Read Online A Darker Shade of Sweden by John-Henri Holmberg - Free Book Online Page A

knee, the one from last year. Another of her grandchildren had printed out a number of digital pictures on paper and gifted her the album.
    She had reached a photo of her single great-grandchild when the doorbell rang.
    â€œTonight you will dance.”
    The phrase from the lovely song floated to the surface of his mind. “Tonight you will dance.” People sang it on bright midsummer nights when he was tied inside the greenhouse. He heard them trying to sing in parts, heard their wobbly voices searching for each other. Everyone was in high spirits, many were children. Later they would come in to weep in front of him and feel bad. When they loosened the harness it was almost dawn; his mother had put sour milk out on the steps. He never knew if it was intended for him or for the hedgehog.
    He had time to think all that before the door in front of him opened. An elderly woman peered at him through the crack.
    â€œYes?”
    â€œIs it Gunvor?”
    â€œWell? I don’t want to buy anything.”
    â€œNeither do I.”
    He looked at the photo album on the kitchen table. It was spread open. He stretched his hands out and took it. The two open pages were crammed with pictures of children. He let his eyes move across the images until they stopped on a small boy down by the corner of the page. He looked at the boy for several minutes, his brown, curly hair, his tight mouth. Finally he held the album out to the woman bound opposite him and pointed at the little boy.
    â€œIs that your grandchild?”
    The woman’s face was dark blue, her eyes wide, her head shaking violently. He couldn’t make out if she said yes. He turned the album back towards him and opened the next spread. It too was full of pictures of children; children hugging adults and children holding flowers. All of them looked cheerful and happy; none of them were harnessed. His mouth narrowed to a bitter streak; he knew that in time those children would grow very long noses. He turned the pages back to the picture of the little boy down by the corner; that boy’s eyes were searching for his, he thought, perhaps as if he wanted to appeal to him. He felt something wet rise under his eyelids.
    Suddenly he shut the album and watched the woman in front of him. It seemed to take much too long. He was impatient. He wanted what he had come here to find. He was on the verge of rising before she had died but remained seated. Finally her body went limp. He watched her and waited for his reaction.
    For the darkness.
    It didn’t come.
    Nothing happened inside him.
    He poked lightly at the white cotton thread at the corner of her mouth. It hung slack and immobile. Everything was as it should be, but even so it was all wrong.
    He remained sitting in his chair for several minutes, close to despair.
    He had a feeling.
    Suddenly he rose and threw the photo album across the floor. His heart beat unnaturally hard.
    He kicked his chair aside and rushed out from the kitchen.
    In the stairwell he felt his throat constrict in a cramp.
    He left the house without giving a thought to remaining unseen. It meant nothing any longer. He tore off his heavy coat and started to run. It was still dark and he chose the nearest way. He noticed that he met a few nightly walkers; a couple of cars had to swerve. He continued straight ahead. He knew what was happening and he wanted it to happen where there was no one else. He had to make it back to his crypt.
    He began screaming long before he had reached the door to his building.
    Now his heart had calmed down, the scream had gone silent, his body had slowed down. He stood leaning against one of the walls of his room. He knew it to be the calm before pain. He had experienced it before, how everything went still for a little while before it began in earnest.
    As if there was compassion.
    He looked around his room to remember it, the couch, the table, the wooden model; his eyes caught at the wooden door in the wall.