The Glitter Scene Read online

  And followed her to the summer residence as well. Where the baroness put her up, not in the house but in the boathouse. An existence that Eddie de Wire was dissatisfied with in the beginning but later found tolerable after all. And she found herself a boyfriend, of course, one boyfriend, maybe two. But you can also remind yourself about something else you heard the baroness say one time while Eddie de Wire was still alive. That after the summer the American girl would not be there anymore: the baroness had no plans whatsoever of taking Eddie de Wire with her to the winter residence.

  And in that light, think about the fact that the baroness herself had also spent quite a lot of time at Bule Marsh where Eddie de Wire had died. That she had a habit of going there almost every day for her morning swim. But that is to say—you have stopped yourself at the thought—morningswim? At Bule Marsh, in the middle of the woods? The baroness from the Glass House on the First Cape that is located by the sea: my goodness, why didn’t she swim there?

  But you knew the answer to that too. A fact that is cast in a new light.

  The twins. Rita, Solveig, from the cousin’s property. They were the ones she would meet at Bule Marsh, they were the reason she was there: the twins who were always at Bule Marsh—already early in the morning when ordinary, honest people were still in bed, asleep. In order to “train”? Were going to become swimmers, whatever that was? There was so much talk about a “talent for swimming,” which they were seen as having. How they had gone around bragging about it left and right as if they were saying it just to each other but loud and clear enough so everyone else would be sure to hear it too. About everything “that was required,” “all the sacrifices,” “training, training, training…”

  Sure. This was added on silently in the District back then too, before everything. Who did they think they were? Ha-ha. Really, seriously, nothing to write home about exactly. That “cousin’s property,” for example, which they came from, what kind of a place was it anyway?

  Now, in this context, you remind yourself of what you know about them, not much, but strange things. The terrible man, the “cousin’s papa” who won the property in a card game, the parents who died, dancers, circus artists? And so, a memory that strikes down like lightning. Dance music coming from the open window, closed curtains. Rumba tones. A persistent, absorbing rhythm in the still, hot summer days around the house on the First Cape. The dancer, his wife, who were training for dance competitions on the salsafloor.

  The rhythm, and the quiet children. The three cursed ones. And later, after the accident, sitting outside the house, the three children in a row. Tall kids who seemed so much older than they were, backs against the stone foundation.

  Rumba tones, absorbing, as if they could still be heard around them.

  That kind of inheritance, that kind of evil blood in the genes.

  A shiver ran through you. Those children. The boy, who was friends and maybe more than friends with the American girl, and Rita, Solveig, the twins.

  Back to Bule Marsh. Those girls with the baroness who did not get along with her young relative Eddie de Wire who died right there, at Bule Marsh.

  Nothing you walk around saying out loud, you dismiss the thought as soon as you can. But still, difficult to get it out of your head once it has gotten in. And because all of it cannot be said out loud, after all they are only children, strengthens the feeling.

  And so it becomes that much of that vagueness, the fear, the discomfort, the suspicions that were hanging in the air after the American girl’s death without a goal or a direction gather around the twins, unspoken. Rita, Solveig, exposed for a short while; the eyes of the District upon them, stolen looks.

  •

  And a circle of emptiness around them, which only Tobias does not care about at all and pushes his way through. Continues visiting the twins in their cottage, just like before. Encourages Rita and Solveig to focus on school: the world is large, is open to them, and so on. Everything that had also been said in the woods at Bule Marsh with the baroness—but that sounds different now. Pedagogically severe and square so to speak, yes, he certainly hears it. But someone has to say something, he cannot remain quiet. Do not throw away your talent: high school, college, university! Reminds them of their old nicknames, which existed before “the swimmers,” before everything. “The astronaut,” “the nuclear physicist.” Which were of course also what they were going to become… and the twins nod and start bickering a bit loose-limbed about who was going to be what, as they had a habit of doing during the time when they enjoyed teasing Tobias because even he did not want to admit that he also had a hard time telling them apart because they looked so much alike. “I AM the nuclear physicist, not Rita.” “No, me Rita.” An old jargon but without any energy in it: grown out of it, not very much fun anymore.

  They do not talk about swimming, at all. Never again. Naturally unthinkable to continue training at Bule Marsh as if nothing had happened. But there are swimming pools, in the city by the sea for example where you can easily get to by bus, not to mention one in the next county over. And when it becomes summer again, other public beaches in the District.

  “Shall we go and swim? Rita? We can bike.” Solveig will be heard nagging at Rita a few times. But Rita is determined. Does not listen at all, all of that is over and done with.

  So, what do you mean “swimmer”? Two ill-fitting swimsuits that are hanging, forgotten, on a clothing hook in the hall of the twins’ cottage under shirts, coats.

  An old Lifeguard’s Medal that is hidden away in a desk drawer is forgotten. A reminiscence from another life.

  •

  So in the very beginning, it is like this, you cannot escape: Rita and Solveig on shining late summer days and in the fall that follows August of 1969. September that becomes October and the beginning of November. High blue skies, wild white clouds, and the play of colors when the leaves fall from the trees, the ground grows hard, the first snow.

  Sitting on the steps of the twins’ cottage on the other side of the field, across from the cousin’s house.

  Rita, Solveig, just the two of them while everything continues around them.

  On the cousin’s property, for example, about three hundred feet in front of them on the other side of the field: the new girl in the cousin’s house, Doris Flinkenberg, she is jumping rope. Concentrated, persistent, does not look around, in the middle of her own personal game, as if she had personally discovered the art of jumping rope. And not just any old, rotten jump rope she is handling either, but a brand-spanking-new one, which the cousin’s mama has bought for her in a real store with her own money from cleaning houses that she has saved in a tin can in the cabinet in the kitchen. In addition to the glossy photos and the stationery of a kind that not only a small child like Doris Flinkenberg could be made happy with, printed with Keep-on-going-and-smile suns at the top edge. Not to mention the radio cassette player, a real radio cassette player, which also suddenly appears at the house instead of the old transistor that belonged to Björn and had been broken into a thousand pieces.

  Welcome-Doris-presents is what they are called. Gifts that are given to Doris Flinkenberg to make Doris happy, Doris who has had such a difficult time and has now finally gotten a real home. With the cousin’s mama, in the cousin’s house. “Today I’ve gotten, and tomorrow I will get and get…” That is how Doris’s little song goes, the one she walks around humming during this time too.

  •

  Doris who is jumping rope a few hundred feet away. “Stipplo.” One of the twins says it, so that only the other one hears. “Stipplo.” But in the next moment how it actually happens: Doris on the cousin’s property, a desert away from them, trips over the rope, tangles her legs in it, falls flat on her stomach. Dump on the ground, she is not particularly graceful. And Doris, there where she is lying, looking around, a brief moment of astonished hesitation—as if she really did not know how she was going to deal with this unexpected mishap, with what kind of reaction. On the one hand: natural
ly just a trifle, what is tangling yourself in your jump rope compared to all of the horrible things you experienced in your early childhood in the Outer Marsh that fortunately for that matter is now over? On the other hand: objectively speaking it is also damn painful falling flat on your face, not to mention skinning your knees. But such a normal evil for a normal child can be blown away by a normal mother. And as if she was thinking just that, she casts a quick glance in the direction of the cousin’s house and the kitchen window where the cousin’s mama can be found on the other side… and first then, how her face wrinkles and she starts crying at the top of her lungs.

  “Maamaa!”

  The cousin’s mama is out of the house in no time, running to Doris Flinkenberg, taking her in her arms. And then the scrapes on Doris’s knees are inspected by the cousin’s mama and Doris Flinkenberg together. Whereupon, cheeks ballooning, puust on the owie and soon Doris stops sobbing because it is so much fun and she starts puffing as well. And the cousin’s mama helps Doris to her feet and they disappear inside the house. To the kitchen, where a snack is being served and pop songs and crosswords are filled in family magazines and there is reading from True Crimes.

  A funny little scene, of course, not even the twins on the steps on the other side of the field can resist smiling just a little.

  “You said it. Stipplo,” Solveig establishes later. “And then it happened.”

  “Nah, it was you,” says Rita.

  “I heard you, Rita. Don’t even try.”

  Rita suddenly gets angry. “Yes, but just imagine if you would shut up! IMAGINE if you would stop getting involved in things. It just gets screwed up!”

  Tobias, within hearing distance, closes in with quick steps. Rita sees but does not stay and wait, gets up and leaves. Solveig gets up as well, shilly-shallies a brief moment as if standing between two fires but then follows after Rita. Waves to Tobias, “Be back soon.” Tobias waves, calls out something friendly, “See you,” then remains standing at a loss before he slowly walks off in a different direction to return when the twins are back.

  Tobias stands and watches: the twins heading up the steep path to the hill on the First Cape. To the house, the overgrown garden that will be tended by a family by the name of Backmansson who will eventually move in there. But still, a short while, a few years, a place for dreams, utopias… “They have a game, the Winter Garden,” the silver ball in the middle of the tall grass, overgrown rosebushes, reflecting light in the middle.

  Rita first on the path, Solveig a little way behind. Rita who is in a hurry, Solveig trying to keep up with her.

  Because also: those children… A shadow falls over them. Which Rita tries to escape, by breaking free of her sister, separating herself. Rita, suddenly, how she turns around and bellows, “I want to be alone. Do you have to follow me around all the time?”

  Solveig flinches, stops. Rita who continues, upward, upward.

  Still Solveig, she does not want to stay in the shadows either. Or shadow and shadow, maybe the grandiose just was not for her—because one difference among many, which starts presenting itself between the twins during this time as well, is that Solveig broods less, is maybe a bit slower but more here and now. But quite simply: does not want to be left behind, alone.

  “Rita, wait!” And Rita still hears, regrets it. Waits for her sister and when Solveig has caught up with her the siblings walk the last bit like two friends, arms around each other.

  •

  “They have a game, the Winter Garden.” A game with its own language, like a separate world, a dreamworld, a utopia. With its own rules, its own language. The hacienda must be built.

  Beautiful. But: it fades. Lacking the energy to maintain it, or force&resistance. The cursed ones. The eyes of others that become their eyes. Rita, Solveig frozen in time. Rumba tones, stone foundation, an unexplainable threat hanging in the air around them. Another story that is taking over all the time.

  And yes, there comes Bengt. Who does not spend very much time with his siblings anymore, or at all, with anyone. Has started speaking again, but does not say very much—on the other hand, it was always like that. And soon, rather soon too, he will pretty much leave the sketch book altogether to become oneofthose teenagers for real. One with bags of beer, flower power cap on his head, to attract “women”—girls from the District and so on… who in some way will actually flock around him, for a while. But Bengt becomes stuck there, so to speak, the beer, et cetera… drifts here and there, one who comes and goes, things with him go to hell in a handbasket, he becomes nothing. And many years later, 1989, then he is around thirty-five, he is completely dried up, kaput. Comes “home,” to the cousin’s property and ends things. Also there, in that cursed cousin’s house. Maybe a logical fate—

  A sad story, a story about the unnecessary.

  Tobias who stands by and watches. Remembers “Karin” too, not often but sometimes. Her desertion, and his. The baroness who soon after the catastrophe said confused, stammering: “That is what you do. First. Instead of doing what you should be doing. Go to the city with ‘Astrid’ ”—that is the cousin’s mama’s real name, which only the baroness has ever used—“and buy things.” As if it would make things easier. Art supplies for Bengt, a radio cassette player. Yes, it is “Astrid” who suddenly wants it but it is the baroness who pays for it. She tells Tobias about Astrid who had a tin can filled with coins in her authentic checkered milkman shopping bag, which she had insisted on taking with her on their visit to the city; she had suddenly taken the can out in the appliance store and opened the lid and poured the contents out on the counter. “Is this enough?” With tears in her eyes, and the baroness explains that it was first in that moment that she understood how, behind the cousin’s mama’s calm, sorrowful façade, such a daze had been hidden, that she herself had fallen silent. And in some way also understood that she should do something. Not just for Bengt, but for everyone, for everything. Those children, so defenseless. But at the same time she realized the opposite. She could not, cannot—has enough problems of her own: Eddie de Wire and the guilty conscience about her own shortcomings, everything that went wrong.

  The cousin’s mama who had stood in the shop like a child, chasms that had opened for the baroness. But the only thing she had been capable of doing was collecting the coins and getting out her checkbook and paying for that gadget—at the same time as she hated herself, her checks, her money, her possibilities.

  Everything you should have done but did not while there was still time. “Time is the time we do something else, Tobias,” the baroness had said to Tobias on the veranda and said that there was a poem that went like that which had suddenly popped into her head and Tobias never hated her like he loved her in that moment.

  •

  “WHERE IS EVERYONE? I WANT TO PLAAY!” Doris out in the yard again, had become a bit bored with just the cousin’s mama and the crosswords in the kitchen. And the music: I go up to the mountains with my lonely heart—a pop song of the day as good as any other, which she hums where she is standing there on the steps, looking around with a hardtack sandwich in hand.

  “WHERE?” Doris yells. Deadly silence. No one answers Doris. But then Doris catches sight of Rita and Solveig and Bengt on the hill on the First Cape.

  “I’m comiiing!” And Doris heads off in the direction of the path that leads up to the hill. But no one stays there and waits for her. Bengt disappears and Rita and Solveig make their way down on the other side, leaving the garden and the house that will soon be occupied by others: let’s get out of here as they say in the District.

  Enough of that. But also, enough of the twin-unity. What happens happens there even though no one notices until it is impossible to hide it any longer. A crack that becomes a sore that is widened until it can be seen by day, red and gaping. Doris starts running up the hill.

  Rita and Solveig walk down, as said. You can see them strolling down the hill, out of Doris’s sight, leaving the garden and the house that will soo
n be inhabited by other people, let’s get out of here.

  Lose yourself. Because what you are, have been together, is not good enough.

  And you have started hating what you are.

  The game. The Winter Garden, on the hill. Can be determined. Silly. Realized. The utopia. More fantasy was needed than what they possessed in order to make the game, which was really never a game but an own world, real—a possibility. Well, been there done that and no one there is interested in witnessing the development of the fall, from A to B in that way.

  And: what remains. The astronaut. The nuclear physicist. A damned many years until college, university.

  But at the same time—these are just movements that can be sensed under the surface.

  And are never spoken about, almost no fights, reconciliations.

  An old Lifeguard’s Medal that Solveig still sleeps with under her pillow. A sign of luck. Talisman. Pathetic. But it disappears, as Rita starts saying: “You are, Solveig, a pathetic.”

  •

  But Doris comes to the twins’ cottage that same night. “Today I got, tomorrow I will get and get.” Doris warbling her own little song, a few hours after she raced up the hill on the First Cape only to discover that the siblings had escaped.

  Doris in the twins’ cottage, jumping around there too: clumsy dance steps on the floor, tippytoe, today… tomorrow… GET! Doris everywhere, at the table where Solveig and Tobias are trying to focus on her math homework… but mathematics, sigh, Doris does not want that one, yawns theatrically, you become bored after all. So Doris continues on, to the bookshelf, takes out the Swedish Academy’s word list that was Tobias’s Christmas present to the twins and that Solveig used to take with her to the cousin’s kitchen as an aid for the cousin’s mama with all of the crosswords she was solving before all of the terrible things happened and Doris Flinkenberg came to the cousin’s house. Some strange, funny word that Doris can find and take away from there; and Doris flips, flips until she realizes, which she says too, with delight, “I am so little, I can’t read!” And moves on to picking up different things at random, whereupon she stretches out on her stomach on Solveig’s bed, “get and get,” but drowsy now, and then of course after a moment of motionlessness as if she were sleeping, so to speak, she sticks her hand under the pillow.