“Ah, you’re awake, that’s good.”
Your brain hunts for information.
Where … Where do I know him from?
You really don’t remember? Jogging, park bench, old man …
The old man?
You’ve got it.
The man sits on a stool and looks at you.
“Fanni and Karl,” he says. “Why?”
You don’t mean to, but you burst out laughing.
The man tilts his head to one side.
You stop laughing and say, “Why? What sort of question is that? You’re one of them, aren’t you? What sort of stupid question is that? I’ll tell you why. Because of everything they did to me. That’s why. Because of everything.”
“And who are you to dare to condemn others?” the man asks.
“You know very well who I am.”
“Little Lars.”
“That’s right, little Lars.”
The man shakes his head.
“Little Lars would never do anything like that. Never. He’s one of us, he belongs to us. Lars is like a son to me. Who are you really?”
You spit and hit him on the shoulder. He looks at you, he looks at you for a long time as if he could see through everything you think and feel. You have to make an effort not to look away.
“At any rate you aren’t one of my sons,” says the man. “You have no respect, and you haven’t got a spark of honor in you. Haven’t you understood that we’re your family, which sticks together?”
You feel the gall rising from your stomach.
Family. How dare he? How can he
… There’s so much you could hurl at him, but all that comes out of your mouth is:
“You’re a bunch of pedophiles who snatch innocent children from the streets. You’re sick people who destroy souls. No more, no less.”
The man looks surprised.
How can he be surprised?
You wish both your hands were free. Your legs twitch, but you don’t think you could catch him with a kick.
“Pedophiles?” says the man as if the word were an insect that he would never catch. “You’ve got a few things wrong there. We teach the children something. We’re good to them, because we teach them obedience. We
catch them and teach them pain. How are they supposed to survive in our chaotic world without obedience and pain?”
He seriously expects an answer from you. You’re bewildered. Why are you even talking to him? What is there to talk about?
Nothing
. What do you think you’ll get from it?
Nothing
. There’s no foundation to any of it. You could ask a stone why it’s a stone. You could talk to yourself and you’d get more out of it. And if you’re quite honest, you aren’t really interested in what this man thinks and feels and why he became what he is. Forget his story, forget his roots. History and roots are no excuse for what’s happening now. They just make it more comprehensible. Once you cross a particular boundary, explanations are unnecessary. Children are a boundary. No one can undo what’s been done and go back to how things were. All you can do is stop it, so it doesn’t spread like a virus. So concentrate on what’s right now. You, hanging from a nail in a wall.
“… Why?”
“What?”
“Why did you nail them to the wall?”
You just look at him. You aren’t going to answer that question.
“Did Lars tell you all that?” the man asks. “Did he tell you they did the same thing to him?”
He laughs.
“And you believed him?”
Your answer is a whisper.
“I know what you’ve done to me. I was there. You tied me up. You hung me from the wall like a hunk of meat. I know what I know.”
The man smiles ruefully.
“Of course Lars lied to you because he didn’t want you to learn the truth.”
You don’t listen, you tense your arms. The man makes you tremble. The man may have nailed you to the wall, but he left out one important detail. So that Fanni and Karl really stayed in place, you drove an additional nail through their foreheads. That detail is very important, because with your weight, if you—
The man hits you in the face as if reading your mind.
“Are you listening to me? Do you know why Lars would never have done something like that?”
You have no idea what he’s talking about. If your hands were free, you could break his neck within seconds. The man lays a hand on your chest.
He unzips your tracksuit jacket, pulls your T-shirt out of your trousers, and shoves it upwards to reveal your chest. You feel his cold fingers. His breath on your skin. You look down, the man looks up. His hand covers your heart.
“Tell me who you really are,” he whispers.
“I’m your little Lars, you asshole.”
The man shakes his head. His hand rests on your chest.
“Here,” he says, patting you like a good dog, “you’re missing something here.”
He lets your T-shirt fall again and steps back. He looks at the hand that touched you, then he says:
“If you ask me, you don’t know Lars at all, because if you knew him, you’d know that he’s part of the family. Why do you think he’s told you so little about himself?”
He touches his own heart.
“We branded him. All the sons, all the daughters bear the mark. Here. You haven’t the faintest idea what I’m talking about, do you? You think you know so much about Lars, but you have no idea who he really is. Do you know who I am? I’m a mystery to you, aren’t I? Come on, tell me. Who am I?”
You look away, you have no answer. So the man tells you who he is.
When Butch turned fourteen, Fanni and Karl told him he was one of their brothers now. They brought him presents that day and laid them at his feet. They were as affectionate as siblings, and for the first time Butch felt protected by their presence. Fanni bound his eyes and said they had a surprise for him. They left the room, then it was still. Minutes passed. Then Butch heard a movement and knew he was no longer alone in the room. He held his breath, everything inside him cramped up. A man’s voice spoke close to his ear. It only spoke once. It said:
Lars
.
Butch started to pee. He was so scared that he simply started to pee. A hand wrapped itself around his penis and milked it as if Butch were peeing only for that hand. When nothing more came, the hand disappeared, and it was still again. For a few minutes, then Butch heard someone sniffing at him. Deep breaths in, sighing breaths out.
After that the man never touched Butch again. He just sniffed him repeatedly. All over. And he stayed for a long time. When he left, his lips were at Butch’s ear again. He spoke quietly and said,
If anyone asks you, I was never here
.
• • •
The man looks up at him. He’s pleased with himself.
“Lars told you about Fanni and Karl, but he didn’t say a word about me. And you know why? Because I’m his secret. No one is supposed to find out about me. I asked and he promised. We’re close. We trust each other, you understand?”
You don’t take your eyes off him. You mustn’t show any emotion now. The man knows where your sore point is.
“So who are you?” he asks.
“Lars Meybach.”
“And you’re sure of that?”
“I’m sure.”
The man takes a hammer from the workbench and starts breaking your ribs.
Autumn was the end, not winter. In the autumn the lights went out and the shadows came to life. It was the time of transformation. Back then you didn’t know that it would also be the time of your transformation.
You remember the smells. You still remember what life felt like. Everything was possible. Sundance was filled with hope, Butch was fine.
During the holiday they spent together in Sweden, Sundance had sprained an ankle and met a woman doctor in the hospital. In early autumn he had a week free and visited the doctor in Stockholm. Because his return flight was canceled, it was rebooked and he came back from Sweden a day early. Butch didn’t know anything about it, Sundance wanted to surprise him.
After driving home from the airport, he went to the supermarket and did his shopping. He wanted to cook, and if Butch came home in the evening, they would celebrate his return.
At about three o’clock in the afternoon Sundance heard footsteps in the apartment above his own. Some days Butch came home early from work. Sundance got on with his cooking. He laid the table and turned on the oven, then took the two presents he’d bought for Butch in Stockholm and went upstairs.
No one opened the door.
Sundance rang again and wondered if he should go and get his key. He didn’t think he’d imagined the noises before. On the other hand he
didn’t want to burst into the apartment when Butch was sitting on the toilet. He had sworn he would trust Butch and respect his privacy. He rang again. The sound of pounding footsteps, then the door opened.
Little Butch was standing in front of him. As if he’d traveled from the past to show himself to big Sundance. But the hair color was wrong, the eyes were different, and the longer Sundance looked, the more surprised he was that he could have mistaken the boy for little Butch.
“Get away from the door,” he heard Butch’s voice from the apartment.
The boy just looked at Sundance, then retreated into the shadows, walked backward down the hall touching one wall with his fingertips to get his bearings. When he had reached the doorway to the bedroom, he stopped.
“Who’s at the door?” asked Butch.
“A man.”
“What sort of man?”
The boy shrugged.
Butch told the boy to look at him.
The boy looked at him.
“You’re lying, aren’t you?”
The boy shook his head.
Butch stepped out of the bedroom.
The door to the apartment was still open, but there was no one there.
Butch looked out into the corridor.
“Fucking salesmen,” he said, and shut the door.
Sundance went into action. He thought through every step. There were to be no mistakes. Once he was back in his apartment, he turned off the oven and sat down at the kitchen table. He thought. He had two kinds of sleeping pills in his medicine cabinet. He opened a bottle of wine. At half past seven he called Butch’s cell phone and told him he’d just landed and was about to take a taxi. And did Butch fancy having dinner with him at nine.
“What are you having?” asked Butch.
“I’ll scrape something together,” Sundance promised and hung up.
For the next half hour he sat motionless on a chair, then walked to the front door, opened it and slammed it shut.
He was home again.
• • •
They hugged, they sat down for dinner, he got out Butch’s presents, and they laughed at the nonsense he’d bought. A sweater with a red reindeer on the front, a cap with earflaps. They drank wine, and Sundance talked about his time in Sweden; Butch told him about all his work and how he’d almost not made it home from the advertising agency that day. Once Sundance disappeared into the bathroom. He picked up a towel, pressed it to his face, and screamed into it. After that he waited until the color of his face was back to normal, and went back to the table.
The sleeping pills started working after the third glass. Butch felt warm at first, then he felt strange and couldn’t concentrate. Sundance helped him onto the sofa, where Butch fell asleep after a few minutes.
Sundance went upstairs and opened the door to Butch’s apartment. He left it open and went back downstairs to get Butch. He carried him as you would carry a bride. He laid him on the bed in the bedroom, then went to the bathroom and filled the tub. He wore gloves, he wasn’t stupid. After lighting some candles, he put the wine bottle on the floor and the wineglass on the edge of the tub. It was a fresh glass, so that if anyone went looking they wouldn’t find out that the sleeping pills had been dissolved in the wine.
In the bedroom he undressed Butch and noticed some scars under his left nipple. Four dots that looked like a Y. He laid Butch’s clothes on a chair and carried his friend into the bathroom. Butch went on sleeping, the hot water didn’t even make him flinch. It was all as it should be. Sundance pulled up a chair. He studied Butch in the candlelight. The way the hot vapor from the surface of the water swirled around his neck. The way his heart thumped in his chest. The peace exuded by his friend.
Sundance laid a hand on his head and pushed him gently underwater. Silence. Bubbles of air rose from Butch’s nose. He coughed once, twitched. Sundance went on being gentle. When he took his hand off Butch’s head, nothing had outwardly changed. Butch was underwater, hot vapor rose from Sundance’s arm. He wished for a moment that Butch would open his eyes and look at him. He wanted to explain himself. There was nothing to explain. Sundance was convinced that his friend understood why he had to do it. Love. It was pure love.
And they had never once talked about it.
• • •
“Tell me your name.”
You cough, the pain is so extreme that you’ve already thrown up twice. Every time you breathe you can feel your shattered ribs. The man has started on the lower sections and explained to you that he’s going to save the upper ribs for last.
“Otherwise they’ll pierce your heart, and I’m not going to let it happen that quickly.”
The man wipes his sweaty hands on a towel. Green with white lilies. He drinks from a bottle of water and takes two pills. He promises you that he will be back in a moment.
You shut your eyes and go back to the past.
You were the one who found the corpse the next morning. You were the one who called an ambulance, talked to the police, and offered them coffee. You, not Sundance, because that same night Sundance had died along with Butch. There was no longer any reason for him to exist. Butch and Sundance were no more. Extinguished.
A lot was expected of you. You promised his family you would take care of everything. His parents gave you power of attorney. The apartment, the bank account, the insurance. It all had to be administered, you had a lot of work ahead of you, but that was fine. Taking care of everything was your way of atoning for what his family didn’t know.
“How on earth could he kill himself?” asked Lars’s father. “What kind of person does something like that to his parents?”
As if everything revolved only around them, as if children existed so their parents would be seen in a good light. It made you bitter that Lars’s family turned away from him in death. You’d expected more from them.