A summer with Kim Novak by Håkan Nesser

Author:Håkan Nesser [Nesser, Håkan]
Language: nld
Format: epub
Publisher: Geus B.V., Uitgeverij De
Published: 2015-12-02T16:00:00+00:00

13

Henry left with Ewa that night. I think he rode the Puch while Ewa drove Killer; it must be harder to drive a moped than to drive a car when you only have one working eye. In any case, the parking area was empty when Edmund and I returned from a long bike ride around ten.

Then another couple of days passed. The weather volleyed between sun and rain. But it was generally quite warm. We tried to go fishing, but Möckeln had a reputation for being dead when it came to fish, and neither Edmund nor I were particularly amused by sitting around and staring at a float.

Even less amused, in fact, by the thought of having to reel in a poor dace or perch and stick a knife in it. Or whack it until it died. Or whatever you did to fish.

As luck would have it we never needed to come up with a solution to the problem because we didn’t get one to bite.

But Edmund did get strep throat. A mild case—according to his own diagnosis; he’d had strep throat a few times before—but he still was lethargic and feverish and preferred to sleep. Or read.

‘Read, sleep, drink,’ he said. ‘From these threads, my wellness is woven.’

‘An idiom from the heart of Lapland?’ I asked.

‘Not exactly,’ said Edmund. ‘My dad says that.’

‘Your real one?’

‘No, for Christ’s sake,’ said Edmund. ‘Not him. Only crap comes from him.’

Those days it was harder than usual to talk to Henry. When he wasn’t running errands in Killer, he mostly went around muttering and smoking. His writing didn’t seem to be moving forward either; he often just sat staring at the Facit, as if he were trying convince it to write the existential novel itself. Sometimes I heard him curse and tear a sheet of paper out of the roller. He was constantly grumbling and irate.

Because both my brother and Edmund were busy—Edmund with his strep throat, Henry with other things—I also kept to myself. I drew more than ten pages of Colonel Darkin and the Mysterious Heiress and was chuffed with the result. Since I had decided to censor all the half-naked female bodies, it was much easier to get on with the story. I guess that’s how it is, I thought, glumly. As in literature, so in life.

During those days, the meals were monotonous, too. Edmund had lost his appetite and when Henry ate, he didn’t care what he put in his mouth. You could just as well have set a plate of moss on the table for him. Because of this and the situation in general, we mostly ate potatoes with butter. We placed two jars of herring on the table at every meal, but none of us bothered to twist off the lid of either of them and take a whiff.

It was what it was, and we had plenty of potatoes in stock.

I’d just finished And Then There Were None and had turned to the wall to sleep, when I heard them walking across the lawn.

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