He stayed with them for three years. Then he packed his things and moved out. His parents had begun to talk with each other again. In the initial period they had been silent, sat like statues in their TV recliners and said not one word, as if they wanted to punish each other, as if they, in some irrational way, considered it the other one’s fault that Margareta had driven off the road.
She had had her driver’s license just one week and she was using their car that evening, a 1972 Saab. No one ever managed to find out why she had driven off the road close to Bro and right into a cement block.
The car was totaled.
Her room stood unused for many years. His mother went in sometimes and shut the door behind her. When she came out, she would usually go to her bedroom, get undressed and creep under the covers.
Hans Peter suffered from that, so he slowly, cajolingly, tried to convince them to let him go and clear it out. Finally his mother gave in.
He had cleaned out everything from his sister’s room. He carried her private things up to the attic, and claimed her bed and the neat little desk as his own. His parents did not react. They didn’t make a peep, not even when emptiness gaped from the spotless room. Yes, he had been thorough: he had washed the walls with soda and water, used a wool mop on the ceiling, scrubbed both the windows and the floor.
His mother had always mentioned having a dining room. “Now you can have it,” he said. “I’ve prepared it for you.” And he threw the IKEA catalog on the coffee table, and finally convinced them to start looking through it. His father gnashed his teeth a bit, pressing his molars together silently. His mother had cried. But finally they accepted it. He had forced them to accept that Margareta was not going to come back, and it would not be a blot on her memory to change her room into something more practical than a museum.
However, they only ate in that room when he came home, in order to make him happy. Hans Peter thought that they never had guests. They hardly had them before, so why should they now, just because they had a dining room?
It seemed they could just barely deal with everyday burdens. His father was tired constantly. Previously he had worked as a sheet-metal worker, but he had been retired for many years, his back ruined.
His mother had been a high school teacher.
Hans Peter remembered a time when Margareta had complained to their parents that they isolated themselves too much. She was about thirteen then, had started to rebel a bit. His father had grabbed her by her shoulders and pushed her against the wall.
“We live our own lives our way, and if Little Missy doesn’t like that, she can move out. We don’t like folks sticking their noses into our business.”
That was one of the few times he showed anger.
He began to avoid them. He found an apartment in Hasselby Strand, which was close to the subway, close to nature, and he liked to walk and move around. He kept up his studies, even though it didn’t lead to anything. When he began to worry about his student loans piling up, he started a series of part time jobs such as delivering mail by bicycle and doing surveys for SIFO. They didn’t bring him a lot of money, but he also didn’t have a lot of needs.
At Akermyntan’s library, located in Villastaden’s shopping center, he met Liv Santesson, a recently graduated librarian. Eventually, they got married. It wasn’t a question of passion on either side. They just liked each other and that was enough.
It was a simple wedding, a civil ceremony at City Hall and then lunch at Ulla Winbladh Restaurant with their nearest relatives.
Her brother ran a hotel in the city. Hans Peter took a job there as the night clerk. This was an unfortunate choice for a newlywed who was not able to take care of his wife in a suitable manner.
They didn’t have any children, and eventually they stopped having sex as well.
“We just have a different kind of relationship,” he told himself, convincing himself that she agreed.
She didn’t. One Saturday evening, four years after their marriage, she told him that she wanted a divorce.
“I’ve met someone else,” she said, nervously pulling at her earlobe, shying away a bit, as if waiting for a blow.
He was completely calm.
“Bernt and I fit together in a different way than you and I did. Just to be honest, you and I have never really had all that much in common, other than literature. And you can’t live from literature alone.”
A feeling of sorrow entered him, light and fluttering, came and went.
She embraced him, her little frozen hand on his neck. He swallowed, and swallowed again.
“You’re fine,” she whispered. “There’s nothing wrong with you, nothing like that… but we never see each other and Bernt and I, we…”
Hans Peter nodded.
“Forgive me. Say that you forgive me.”
She was crying now, the tears traced their way down her cheeks, hung on her chin, fell and were soaked up by her sweater; her nose was red and shiny.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” he said, as if his mouth were full of oatmeal.
She sniffed.
“So you’re not angry with me?”
“More like disappointed, that it didn’t work out.”
“Maybe we needed a little more… fire.”
“Yes, perhaps we did.”
The next day she moved out of the apartment. She only took essentials with her, and moved in with Bernt. Later that week she returned with a moving truck which she had rented from a garage. That surprised him. She never did like driving.
He helped her carry out her things. He kept most of the furniture and the kitchen utensils. Bernt already had a completely furnished apartment in a building on Blomsterkungsvagen.
“Can I offer you a cup of coffee or something,” he asked when they were done.
He didn’t want to ask; he really wanted her to go as soon as possible so he could be alone. He didn’t understand why he asked, the words just fell from his mouth.
She hesitated a moment, then agreed.
They sat together on the sofa, but when she wanted to lay her arm on his shoulder, he steeled himself against her.
She swallowed.
“So you’re really pissed off at me, aren’t you?”
That was the first time he heard her use bad language. That surprised him so much that he burst out laughing.
Many years later, he ran into them at Akermyntan. They were weighed down by grocery bags, and they had children, though he forgot their names right away.
Her new husband was tall and strong, with well-trained abs. He was wearing a jogging suit.
Liv had cut her hair. It was curly now.
“Come over for a drink sometime,” she said, and her husband nodded.
“Sure, do that. We live in Baklura, you just take bus 119.”
“OK,” he said without much enthusiasm.
Liv touched his sleeve.
“I wish that we wouldn’t lose each other totally,” she said.
“No,” he answered. “We won’t.”
Sometimes his mother reproached him, although indirectly. She wanted grandchildren, which she never said directly, but she would do things like pointing at a picture of a child in the newspaper or make some kind of sorrowful comment. Or she would turn the television on right when the children’s programming was starting.
This drove him crazy, but he never let on.
He would go out with various women. Sometimes he brought them home and introduced them to his parents, mostly to give his mother a bit of hope.
He knew his parents were disappointed in him. No real job, no family.
You really couldn’t blame them.
