Page 56 of The Living and the Dead

“I thought you were going to die,” Sander managed to say, patting Killian awkwardly on the shoulder, like he’d seen older men in the village do after they all pitched in to free a mired thresher.

These were simple memories. He didn’t see any complexity in those emotions, none at all, just the horrid feeling of almost losing your best friend, and the absolute determination that Killian must be saved.

As children, Sander and Killian had birthday parties together, shared a desk in the classroom, played war in the forest, and chased each other through fields. They stood outside the school nurse’s door, waiting in terror for Helena Johansson to call them in, stick her hand into their pants, and make sure they had two testicles, both in the right place. They rode mopeds together, got drunk together, and talked about girls. If one had a secret, so did the other.

They shared something no one else could be part of. Perhaps that was the crux of the dizzying experience that was having a best friend, a terrible intimacy you couldn’t free yourself from.

—

On the morning of Christmas Eve, Sander lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling.

When he summoned the memories now, it was like they became physical beings that sucked all the energy from him. The treachery inKillian’s cabin felt calculated and ancient, as though it had roots so far back in history that he was brushing up against millennia of betrayal. It all choked the air above him, memories from the past and recent moments too. Killian and Felicia, naked in the cabin.

You know how getting out of here is like your dream. Isn’t it? This is mine.

Killian’s words.

All those words were dead now, dead as rocks, nothing but a burden and no help at all.

From his back pocket he took the page he’d torn from Filip’s notebooks.

He read:snow is falling, let it fall, my brother is dead and the snow is falling, let it fall, i’ll make it through this too, with explosions and drugs, who has drugs, who has something for me, or for all of Skavböke, something, i miss him so much, what am i going to do if this doesn’t pass, i want to light myself on fire, the explosion awaits, the snow is falling

Dangerous words, as though the paper might burst into flames any second. That was why he had torn the page out.

He fingered the paper.

Maybe not all words were dead.

Sander considered Filip’s words again and thought: Yes. That’s exactlyit.

Out of nothing, in life, you cultivate what you believe are trusty companions, and then you hurt them until they begin to pull away, until they leave completely. The circle is complete: life is as lonesome as it was when it began.

He understood that things would never be the same, and that, in this particular moment, he wished his best friend were dead.

—

Killian called around lunchtime. It had begun to snow.

“Hi,” he said. “Can we meet up?”

Moments darted through Sander’s mind, cold and quick: stepping into the night with a ferocious bird perched on his back, heading for Killian’s. That crafty cop Siri Bengtsson’s flashing brown eyes, herhand holding the pen, the glow of the wordPolison her shoulder as she stood outside the door minutes earlier, Killian sinking into Felicia, sinking into her and vanishing, the pleasure on Felicia’s face, Mikael at the party. Filip rewinding the videotape and Karl-Henrik being led out of the chapel by the two cops. Killian and Sander leaving the party and walking home, Felicia and Killian again, once more, again, Felicia turning around to puke during their kiss, Sander tearing a page from Filip’s notebook, Killian and Felicia again. They swirled around him, all of these, brushing against his skin like apparitions.

“Hello?” Killian said. “Are you there?”

It sounded like something was stuck in Killian’s throat. Something had happened. But what? Did he know Sander had seen them?

“Yes,” Sander said icily. “I’m here.”

“Can we meet up?” Killian repeated.

“We can.”

He hated Killian, hated Felicia, loathed them both the way an invalid loathes the healthy.

42

It was only for a day, but it felt strange to have time off. Siri prepared the boiled potatoes, Christmas sausage, and creamed kale; she sliced the Christmas ham in her parents’ kitchen simply to have something to do with her hands, to fend off the feeling that she was wasting time.