His Blood
‘We should dance to forget. But one forgets all the same. A dance is not necessary.’
A translation of ‘His Blood’, a story from the collection Of a Dead [Om en död] (1992) by the Swedish author Stig Larsson. I have previously translated two chapters from his debut novel The Autists [Autisterna] (1979). You can read them here and here.
The shirt is bloody. It lies on the floor. My brother has taken his life. He cut himself in the arm. Along the vein, not across. And he never made it to the bathroom. He lies in front of the bathroom door, in his own blood. I never understood him. My heart tightens. It was my brother. I should have spoken, but of whom? Of him. But with him there was only tragedy. That was what I didn’t understand. I didn’t see him for all the talk. There must have been something that made everything begin, something that one could alter.
His wife stands behind me. She’s screaming. She’s as if out of her mind now. It’s too much, all this. I must take her out of the room. She manages to calm down before I do it. They were meant to divorce, she says. She sensed something. It was this. It was this she sensed. I embrace her and say it’ll be alright, with the funeral and everything. She’s not sniffling any longer. It’s so stupid to do this, she says calmly. Yes, it’s stupid. We hold on to each other, it’s consolation we require. She has a nurserymaid’s light, slightly gangling body. She should be in someone’s home and babysit, I think. Nevertheless she didn’t look her age, the body had ceased to develop. The breasts are so small and untested. They never had children. Yes, one has time to think a lot and of a lot of stupidities in a short while. She lifts the bloody shirt, which he had taken off somehow. I don’t want to look at her now, she makes me so sad.
I stand and look around. A room with familiar things, brought back to memory. They’re here, and yet there’s no right to keep this stuff which the brother had accumulated and which he had taken with him to this studio with kitchenette – just to be alone, just to be alone and able to think, as he said.
She held him back. She was too much of everything. Feelings all day long. It was love drunk like a shot of vodka, softer and softer, more and more numb, and harder and harder, harder and harder to keep the courage up, it sinks away and the room is emptied, no one else here … this is how the brother loved and this is how the brother finished loving.
She’s sad, that’s clear. Stupidity and offences, they glide together. One accuses oneself. Inside that phase. I feel it through the body. It’s dull and smooth. I caress her back under the jumper, no bra on her. The skin flakes, must be sunburn. The neighbour plays music, soul music on high volume. We should dance to forget. But one forgets all the same. A dance is not necessary.
I go and open the window. It’s evening outside. She lights a lamp. We can be seen from outside now. We’re a drama to guess one’s way to. Nothing more to anyone else. But we’re taken away from consciousness and have to fend for ourselves, the one who maybe looked towards our window has turned around and will never look at us again. Alone, with thoughts of the future, we stand a bit silly and look at each other. What do you think, she asks, should we call the police? I think so. It’s best if I call. She stands there beside me when I’ve dialled the last digit. My voice in the telephone is clear – and it’s a bit suspect, a presence of mind this perfect in strained moments. It returns with frets and frustrated fou rire when I’m insecure, which I am now and then.
Now we just wait. It’s also a shit thing to do. All the blood. Nowhere to go. How much good cheer does one have to go on? She seems totally strange, starts talking as if to herself, about his superior attitude, starts orating about her fear of pregnancy – with that loser. Oh, doesn’t she understand then that I feel something different towards him? That I see him in a completely different way. This is embarrasing. Better tap the beat of the soul music coming through the wall. Not show the contempt one feels for this done up creature. The brother deserved better. She can’t restrain herself. It looks like. Yes, fuck … she’s sick. She trips around a bit. Then she’s sick again. I feel sorry for her. I go to the bog and get loo roll. I stand there with the roll in my hand, like a waiter. She says thanks and wipes her mouth.
(aug 1985)
