Shadows in the Twilight Page 13

  And needless to say, he was late for school. Otto sat at his desk, smirking at him. Miss Nederström told him to come out to the front and explain why he was late.

  'My shoelace broke,' he said.

  The class started laughing, and he had to admit that it sounded silly. So silly that he started giggling himself. Everybody was laughing apart from Miss Nederström. Nothing made her more angry than laughter. Joel had noted that down in his diary, on the page where he listed all the strange things that grown-ups do. Getting angry with people who laugh . . .

  Joel tried to save the situation by explaining that one of his wellingtons had vanished. But that only made Miss Nederström even more annoyed.

  'Go and sit down, Joel Gustafson,' she said. 'If you carry on arriving late like this, I'll have to have a word with your father.'

  She's forgotten about the Miracle, Joel thought. If I'd said I was late because of the Miracle, she wouldn't have been angry, I'm sure.

  The day had begun badly, but things were going to get worse. Joel had forgotten all about the geography homework they'd been set. That was his best subject, and the one he found most fun. He was top of the class in geography. Nobody knew as much about foreign countries and oceans as he did. But today's lesson wasn't about foreign countries: it was about Sweden. Joel didn't know all that much about Sweden. He ought to have read up on what was set, and consulted his atlas. But he'd forgotten. He tried to look confident, as if he knew the answer to all Miss Nederström's questions. He nodded when one of his classmates answered a question correctly. He hoped she would think that he knew all the answers, as usual. But then she surprised him with a question directed at him. Just as if she had been a hawk, and he had been a dove.

  'I didn't hear the question,' said Joel. He had heard, in fact. What is the town of Örebro famous for? He didn't know. He needed to think about it.

  Miss Nederström repeated the question.

  His classmates eyed him in anticipation. Joel could feel Otto smirking behind his back.

  He thought as hard as he could. Örebro? He couldn't even remember where the place was. Örebro, Örebro . . .

  He suddenly remembered one of the pictures in one of the eight packs of pastilles he'd bought. Wasn't one of the wrestlers from Örebro?

  'Well,' said Miss Nederström. 'Are you going to answer or not?'

  'Örebro has one of Sweden's foremost wrestling clubs,' said Joel.

  The class exploded with laughter. Miss Nederström turned white in the face with anger.

  'You are insubordinate, Joel Gustafson,' she said. 'Of course you know that Örebro is famous for its shoemaking industry. You ought to have thought about that this morning when your shoelace snapped. But you don't want to answer the question. You just want to annoy me, Joel Gustafson.'

  'I didn't mean that at all,' said Joel.

  Miss Nederström had marched up to his desk, She grabbed hold of his ear and twisted it. Her fingers were like talons. She twisted so hard that he had tears in his eyes.

  'Let that be a lesson to you,' she said, going back to her desk.

  Joel was staring hard at his desk lid. There was nothing so unpleasant as having your ear twisted. It was worse than dreaming that you'd been burnt alive. Joel was furious. But he was ashamed as well. And it hurt.

  And Otto sat there behind him, smirking. Joel would never be able to lift his gaze from the lid of his desk. He would sit staring at the lid of his desk until he grew old and fell onto the floor and died.

  That's how it felt. Deep down Joel knew that it would pass, and he would forget about it. Everything passed eventually. But just now, that's not how it felt. Just now he felt petrified. Like the petrified prince in a fairy story, who would have to sit there staring at his desk lid for a thousand years . . .

  When the bell rang, he was the last one to leave the room. The others were standing outside the door, waiting for him. They were all smirking. Otto was at the front of them, smirking more than anybody else. Joel forced himself to stare right through his classmates. He's not Joel any longer. He's on his way to his own execution. General Custer hasn't been able to save him. Joel has shot the drunken Lieutenant Hickock. It was self-defence. But there were no witnesses. Now Joel was going to be hanged. The gallows have already been raised on the hill outside the palisade. The drums are rolling. But Joel is icy calm. He stares right through all the people who are staring at him. He will die with dignity. He's not the one who's frightened. It's the people watching him who are frightened. He walks resolutely up to the noose. The hangman wants to tie a cloth over his eyes. But Joel shakes his head. Then he smiles. He is calm. He will die calmly and with dignity. They will write songs about how calm he was. How brave. And then everybody will realise that he was innocent. General Custer will assemble the whole regiment and reveal the terrible truth – that Joel Gustafson was innocent. The fort will be renamed in his honour. Just now it's called Fort Jameson. In future it will be known as Fort Joel. The hangman places the noose around Joel's neck, and Joel gazes calmly over the heads of the assembled multitude. Then he falls, and is dead. But he can still see. The screaming masses gaping at his body dangling from the gallows. He can still see.

  The bell rings and break is over. Joel still stares right through his classmates. He'll carry on staring through them all day. . .

  At last school is over. Joel takes a long route home in order to avoid his classmates. He walks by the side of the wall behind the churchyard. Then he notices that one of the big entrance doors to the church is half open. Without really knowing why, he walks up to the door and peers inside. It's dark in the church. He sneaks through the door. He listens. Not a sound to be heard. He moves silently among the pews. Right at the front is the tall altarpiece. It's as if he always used to sit there and look at it after school. He doesn't like the painting. When he was younger he used to be frightened of it. It depicts Jesus on the point of flying up to heaven. He is hanging in the air, a metre or so above the ground. A Roman soldier is kneeling in front of Jesus. He's wearing a helmet, but has dropped his sword. Jesus is all white, but the Roman soldier is dark. Behind them, a storm is whipping up. The clouds are pitch black.

  Joel goes up to the altar rail. He's never been as close to the picture as this before. It looks even bigger now. It's growing. And the thunderstorm is approaching. The dark clouds are growing bigger and bigger.

  The thunder resounds with a frightening roar. Joel gives a start, as if he's been struck by lightning. The thundery roar echoes between the walls of the murky church.

  Then it dawns on him that it isn't thunder at all, but that somebody has started to play the organ at the back of the church, upstairs. He realises that somebody is practising, starting again from the beginning. It must be Oliver Organ rehearsing for the next service. The organist is a hunchback, and is so short-sighted that his glasses have treble lenses.

  Joel sits at the end of a pew and listens. Oliver Organ keeps repeating sections over and over again. It's powerful and beautiful and frightening. Joel looks down at the floor, and remembers that he has been in the Underworld. He has carried the whole of this church on his shoulders. He's been so deep down that the roar of the organ couldn't penetrate.

  His mind is racing. That accursed town of Örebro. And the Caviar Man who disappointed Gertrud by not showing up.

  I must do something else, Joel thinks. I can't let it finish like this.

  The Caviar Man must realise that Gertrud is the best wife he could possibly find. Where does it say that every person has to have a nose? You can still breathe without one. Oliver Organ is a hunchback, but he plays the organ better than anybody else. The Caviar Man must realise that the nose Gertrud doesn't have makes her special . . .

  Joel listens to the organ. This time Oliver Organ plays a whole piece through without stopping.

  Music, Joel thinks. Kringström's orchestra play at the dances held in the Community Centre on Saturday nights. That's where the Caviar Man and Gertrud will meet. I'll write some
new letters. I'll let Gertrud send him a present. It was a mistake to arrange the meeting by the birdbath in the horse dealer's garden.

  It's good to think about Gertrud and the Caviar Man. When he does, he can no longer feel Miss Nederström's talons twisting his ear. It's good to think about something completely different.

  He goes back to school and collects his bike. He'd forgotten about it.

  How can you forget your bike? It's just as peculiar as a wellington boot vanishing.

  When he gets home, he finds the missing wellington straight away. It had been covered up by some firewood that Samuel had carried in last night. Joel picks the boot up and throws it at the wall. He's really throwing it at Miss Nederström's bottom.

  The next time she twists my ear, I'll do the same back to her.

  I shall start a secret society devoted to doing away with all ear twisters.

  Down with Ear Twisters!

  He borrows some more letter-paper from Samuel's room. When he settles down on his bed to write, he realises that he can't remember if he had written to Gertrud or to the Caviar Man with his left hand. It takes him ages to remember which one it was.

  This time he'll write the letters without first looking through the books of poetry he'd borrowed from the library.

  'Meet me at the dance in the Community Centre on Saturday,' he has the Caviar Man write to Gertrud. 'I was prevented from coming the other day,' he adds after a moment's hesitation. He's not sure how he should sign the letter. In the end he decides to write 'Your beloved'.

  He seals the envelope and writes 'Gertrud'.

  Her surname is Håkanson, but he doesn't add that. The first name is enough.

  Before he writes Gertrud's letter to the Caviar Man, he needs to gather strength. He drinks some milk and makes two big sandwiches. The level of jam in the pots has sunk worryingly over the last few days. He has to make do with a few slices of sausage instead.

  Then he goes to Samuel's room and starts looking for a present for Gertrud to give to the Caviar Man. There must be something in Samuel's wardrobe that he never uses and so will never miss.

  Mummy Jenny's dress is hanging in there.

  Come back, Joel thinks. Come back and fetch your dress. Come back and tell us why you went away. Why we weren't good enough, Samuel and me . . .

  He lets go of the dress. Today is not a good day to see it hanging in Samuel's wardrobe. To touch it, feel it.

  He carries on searching. Eventually he finds a tie he has never seen Samuel wearing. It's green. The Caviar Man can have it. Samuel will never notice that it's not there.

  Joel sits at the kitchen table and starts to make an envelope that will be big enough for both a letter and a tie. He opens out a small envelope to see how it's put together. Then he cuts out and glues a bigger envelope from a sheet of brown wrapping paper. Bits of white glue stick to the paper and the edges are not quite straight, but it will have to do. Besides, he doesn't have any more wrapping paper.

  Then he writes the letter from Gertrud to the Caviar Man.

  'I'll be at the Community Centre on Saturday night. I hope you like the tie. I bought it in Hull. Your beloved.'

  Joel checks one of Samuel's sea charts to see how the town of Hull is spelt. Joel knows for certain that Samuel once bought a hat there. So it must be possible to buy a tie there as well. There can't be Hat Towns and Tie Towns, he thinks. And how could the Caviar Man know if Gertrud had been to Hull or not? If that's a problem after they are married, they'll have to sort it out by themselves.

  'I can't do everything,' Joel shouts into the empty kitchen.

  They'll have to do something themselves!

  He puts the tie and the letter into the envelope.

  When it comes to writing the name on the envelope, he very nearly makes the same mistake again. Nearly puts the Caviar Man instead of David.

  But he writes: 'Mr David Lundberg'.

  That's that. Later on he will put the letters in the appropriate letter boxes.

  He peels the potatoes, fills a pan with water and sits down at the kitchen table to keep an eye on them and make sure they don't boil over. Between now and Saturday there's a big problem he has to solve. How is he going to be able to get into the Community Centre and make sure that Gertrud and the Caviar Man really do meet? He'll have to find some way of sneaking inside and hiding. But how will he be able to manage that?

  The next day everything is back to normal at school. Miss Nederström is in a good mood, and everybody seems to have forgotten that the previous day she had twisted Joel's ear. Moreover, Otto is ill, so Joel doesn't have to put up with his sneering face.

  After school Joel cycles to the Community Centre. He rides round the building five times, trying to find a good solution to his problem.

  What would Geronimo have done? Joel wonders. How would he have tricked his way into the fort?

  Joel tries to think the way Geronimo would have thought. If it had been a question of defending the fort, he would have tried to think his way into General Custer's mind. Red Indians were best at capturing forts, but the white soldiers were best at defending them.

  What would Geronimo have done?

  Joel dismounted and studied the fort. The Community Centre Fort. In the display cases outside the entrance were film posters. Just now there was a romantic film running, starring Vivien Leigh and Gary Cooper. Joel imagined Vivien Leigh without a nose, and Gary Cooper with blond hair like the Caviar Man. Then the film could have been about Gertrud and the Caviar Man.

  A notice in the next display case announced that Kringström's orchestra would be playing at the dance on Saturday evening.

  That gave Joel his idea.

  Kringström would help Joel to get into the Community Centre Fort.

  Joel knew that Kringström lived in the same block of flats as the Greyhound, Eva-Lisa. She had told Joel that when Kringström wasn't performing somewhere with his orchestra, all he did was listen to gramophone records. He used to play them so loudly that all his neighbours had complained. So he had built a room inside a room so that no noise could escape through the walls of his flat.

  Kringström played the clarinet and saxophone. But if anybody in his orchestra was ill, he could stand in for them and play any instrument you liked.

  A brilliant idea occurred to Joel.

  Not even Geronimo could have thought of a better plan!

  Joel cycled up the hill to the block of flats where Kringström lived. As he didn't want the Greyhound to see him and start asking awkward questions, Joel sneaked in through the back door as quickly as he could. Kringström lived on the ground floor. Joel rang the bell. But perhaps Kringström was in his soundproof room listening to gramophone records? If no sound could leak out of there, perhaps no sound could get in either? Such as the doorbell. Joel rang again. Should he hammer on the door instead? Perhaps the neighbours would come to investigate and wonder what was going on? He rang once more. The door opened, and Kringström appeared, in dressing gown and slippers, even though it was late afternoon.

  'Ah, good afternoon,' said Joel. 'I'd like to speak to Mr Kringström, please.'

  Kringström adjusted his glasses, which had been up on his forehead, and eyed Joel up and down.

  'I don't want to buy anything,' he said.

  'I'm not selling anything,' said Joel. 'I want to learn to play the saxophone.'

  'You don't say,' said Kringström. 'The saxophone? Not the guitar, like everybody else?'