Part 22 (1/2)

Turning on his heel, he marched out.

Hjalmar heard the door bang closed behind him.

I can't go on, he thought. There's no way out.

There was an opened packet of cheese nibbles next to the bed. He took a few handfuls.

He heard a voice inside his head. His old schoolmaster, Fernstrom: ”It's up to you to decide what you're going to do next.”

No, Fernstrom never understood.

He did not want to think about all that. But it made no difference what he wanted. Thoughts came flooding in like water through an open sluicegate.

Hjalmar Krekula is thirteen years old. On the radio Kennedy is debating with Nixon in the run-up to the presidential elections. Kennedy is a playboy; n.o.body thinks he is going to win. Hjalmar is not interested in politics. He is sitting in the cla.s.sroom with his elbows on the varnished lid of his desk. His head is resting on his hands, his palms against his cheekbones. He and Herr Fernstrom are the only ones there. Once all the other children have gone home and the smell of wet wool and stables has disappeared along with them, the smell of school takes over. The smell of dusty books, the sour smell of the rag used to clean the blackboard. The smell of soft soap from the floor, and the peculiar smell of the old building.

Hjalmar Krekula can sense Herr Fernstrom occasionally looking up as he sits at his desk, correcting exercise books. Hjalmar avoids meeting his gaze. Instead, his eyes trace the wood grain of his desk lid. It resembles a woman lying down. To the right is an imaginary creature, or perhaps a ptarmigan: the mark where a twig branched off is an eye.

The headmaster, Herr Bergvall, enters the room. Herr Fernstrom closes the exercise book he has been marking and pushes it to one side.

Bergvall greets him.

”Well,” he says, ”I've spoken to the doctors in Kiruna, and with Elis Seva's mother. His wound needed six st.i.tches. His nose wasn't broken, but he has concussion.”

He says nothing for a while, waiting for Hjalmar Krekula to react. Hjalmar does what he always does: says nothing, fixes his eyes on something else, on the wall chart featuring a map of Palestine, on the harmonium, on the pupils' drawings pinned up on the wall. Tore had taken young Seva's bicycle. Seva had told Tore to give him the b.l.o.o.d.y thing back. Tore had said, ”Come on, I'm only borrowing it.” A fight had ensued. One of Tore's mates had gone to fetch Hjalmar. Seva had been furious, hitting out left, right and centre.

Herr Fernstrom looks at the headmaster and with a barely noticeable shake of the head indicates that there is no point in waiting for an answer from Hjalmar Krekula.

The headmaster's face becomes somewhat flushed and he starts breathing heavily, provoked by Hjalmar's silence. He says that this is bad, very bad. a.s.sault and battery, that is what it is. .h.i.tting a schoolmate with a spanner: for G.o.d's sake, there are laws against that, and those laws apply in school as well.

”He started it,” Hjalmar says, as usual.

The headmaster's voice goes up a tone, and he says he thinks Krekula is lying to save his own skin. Says his friends might back up Krekula's story to save their own skins.

”Herr Fernstrom tells me that Krekula is a talented mathematician,” the headmaster says.

Hjalmar Krekula says nothing, looks out of the window.

Now the headmaster loses his patience.

”Whatever good that will do him,” he says, ”when he is failing virtually every other subject. Especially conduct and att.i.tude.”

He repeats the last sentence.

”Especially conduct and att.i.tude.”

Hjalmar Krekula turns to face the headmaster. Gives him a disdainful look.

The headmaster immediately starts to worry that he might have his windows smashed at home.

”Krekula must try to keep his impulses under control,” he says in a conciliatory tone.

And he adds that Krekula will have one-to-one tuition with the deputy head for two weeks. Get away from the cla.s.sroom for a while. Have an opportunity to think things over.

Then the headmaster leaves.

Herr Fernstrom sighs. Hjalmar has the impression that the sigh is a reaction to the headmaster rather than to himself.

”Why do you get involved in fighting?” Herr Fernstrom says. ”You're not a fool. And you're really gifted when it comes to maths. You ought to continue your education, Hjalmar. You have the chance to catch up in your other subjects. Then you could go on to high school.”

”Huh,” Hjalmar says.

”What do you mean, huh?”

”My father would never allow it. We have to work in the haulage business, me and Tore.”

”I'll have a word with your father. It's up to you to decide what you're going to do next. Do you see that? If you stop fighting and . . .”

”I couldn't give a toss,” Hjalmar says vehemently. ”I've no desire to continue at school anyway. It's better to get a job and earn some money. Can I go now?”

Herr Fernstrom sighs again. And this time the sigh is definitely aimed at Hjalmar Krekula.

”Yes, you can go,” he says. ”Go away.”

But Fernstrom really does have a word with the old man. One day when Hjalmar comes home, Isak Krekula is bubbling over with rage. Kerttu continues making pancakes with a grim expression on her face while Isak lays down the law in the kitchen.

”I want you to be quite clear that I sent that schoolmaster of yours packing with a flea in his ear,” he bellows at Hjalmar. ”I'll be d.a.m.ned if a son of mine is going to become an anaemic calculating machine, and I made sure he understood that. Maths, eh? Who the devil do you think you are? Too posh to work in the transport business, is that it? Not good enough for your lords.h.i.+p? I'll have you know that it's the haulage business that has put food on your table for your entire life.”

He gasps for breath, as if his fury is well on the way to choking him, as if it were a pillow over his mouth.

”If it doesn't suit you to help to take responsibility for your family, then you're not welcome to stay here, is that clear? Work away at your maths if you like, but in that case you'll have to look elsewhere for a place to live.”

Hjalmar wants to tell his father that he has no intention of going to high school. This is all something thought up by Herr Fernstrom. But he does not say a word. His fear of his father gets in the way of what he wants to say. But there is something else as well. A flash of insight.

The insight is that he really is good at maths. Even talented. Just as the headmaster said. He is a talented mathematician. Fernstrom told the headmaster, and Fernstrom drove all the way to Piilijarvi to tell his dad.

And when Isak Krekula yells, ”Well, how's it going to be?” Hjalmar does not reply. Isak gives him a box on the ear, two in fact, making his head spin and throb. Hjalmar has the feeling that he can become ”an anaemic calculating machine”. And that is something way beyond the reach of the rest of the family, something that makes Isak froth at the mouth with rage.

Then Hjalmar goes to the lake to sit on the sh.o.r.e. Has to turn the cheek that has been smacked away from the autumn sun, to prevent it hurting even more.

He watches two ravens playing tag with a twig. One of them performs wild acrobatics with the twig in its beak, the other chases close behind it. They loop the loop, spin round on their own axes, dive down towards the water, then shoot back up again.

The one with the stick flies straight into the crown of a tree; it seems certain that it will collide with the trunk or a heavy branch and break its neck, but the next second it emerges on the other side it has found its way through the network of branches like a black throwing knife. It sails out over the lake and gives a reckless ”korrrp” and drops the twig, of course. Both ravens circle above the water before they decide they cannot be bothered and fly off above the tops of the pine trees.

I land on the jetty next to Hjalmar. He's thirteen years old, and his cheek is flaming red. Tears are streaming down his face, although he's trying hard not to cry. And then comes the anger. It hits him with such force that he starts trembling. He hates Isak, who bawled and yelled so violently that spit was flying in all directions. He hates Kerttu, who simply turned her back on it all, as usual. He hates Herr Fernstrom why the h.e.l.l did he have to go and have a word with his father? Hjalmar didn't ask him to. He has never even thought about going to high school. He's had something taken away from him that he didn't have in the first place. So why is he crying?

The fury inside him is like a red-hot poker. He stands up, has to struggle to stay on his feet. He goes looking for Tore, who is messing about with his Zundapp moped, fitting a bigger jet to the carburettor.

”Come on, there's a job we need to do,” he says.

Herr Fernstrom's black Volkswagen is parked in its usual place, a hundred metres from the school.