Sleet: Selected Stories

He was the only one who could save me from the shame of what I had done — a shame which, at the time, I believed would last forever. And in despair that he would not help me, when he was the only one who could, I hung onto him heavily, pouring everything that was in me out over him, hoping somehow that he would finally push me away and scream “Go to hell!” — so that in the end I might at least have the chance to say to myself, “Well, I wanted to set things right. But he told me to go to hell.”

But Sivert did nothing. He simply let me hang there on him, spitting out all the abuses I could think of. So then I threw him down in the snow at the edge of the road, hoping that I might be able to say, “Well, I wanted to square things with him. But then he hit me!” But Sivert willingly let himself be thrown down into the snow drift. I jumped on him, pounding and hitting him wherever I could, panting above his closed eyes.

“You lousy thief! You goddamn animal killer! You lousy goddamn thief-animal killer!

And yet, all of this seemed to be happening to somebody else. I was so nearly out of my mind with tense despair that I just left Sivert lying there, and I ran and ran. In front of the church I suddenly began to cry. And I must have cried the whole way home, because I couldn’t see anything. I could tell the farmers were driving their manure sleds out into the fields from the smell and from the clanging of the bells, which flew like blue birds out over the expansive plains of twilight. And because it was that time of year, I also knew that the woods were releasing their small clouds of white winter mist. Yet the very next day the miller’s children told me how they had been standing next to father’s big maple tree, and how they had asked me to go home with them to play “people drowning” in the giant wheat bin. But then they said I just walked right on by, as if I didn’t even see them. And the simple truth was, I did not.

The Games of Night

Sometimes at night as his mother cries in her room, and only a clattering of unfamiliar footsteps echoes in the stairwell, Håkan plays a little game to keep from crying himself. He pretends he’s invisible and that he can wish himself wherever he wants merely by thinking about it. On these nights there’s really only one place to wish himself to, and so suddenly he’s there. He’s not sure how it all happens. He knows only that he’s standing in a room. Just what the room looks like, it’s hard to say, because he doesn’t have eyes for those things. But the air is filled with cigarette and pipe smoke, and men laugh out abruptly, horribly, for no reason at all. Women also sit there at the table, speaking words that make no sense. Sometimes they lean forward and break into fits of laughter which are every bit as terrifying. These things cut through Håkan like knives, but he’s glad to be here just the same. All of these people are sitting around a table with too many bottles spread out in front of them, and as soon as a glass is emptied, a hand unscrews the cap of another bottle and fills that glass again.

Still invisible, Håkan gets down on his hands and knees and crawls beneath the table without drawing anyone’s attention. In his hand he holds an invisible drill. Without wasting a second, he places the drill bit against the wood and begins to bore up through the bottom of the table. In no time at all he has drilled straight through the table top. But he does not stop at this. He continues to drill, right through the bottom of a bottle, and then he watches as a nice, steady stream of vodka runs out through the hole. Beneath the table he recognizes his father’s shoes, and for a moment he cannot bear to think what might happen if he should suddenly became visible again. But then, with a rush of delight, he hears his father’s voice.

“There’s no more booze!”

Another voice joins in: “I’ll be damned, you’re right!”

And then they all get up to leave.

Håkan follows his father down the stairs. And when they reach the street, he leads him — although Håkan’s father doesn’t know it — straight to a taxi stand. Håkan whispers their address to the driver and for the whole trip he stands outside on the running board, holding tight to the door, making sure they actually go in the right direction. When they are only a few blocks from home Håkan wishes himself back. Again he’s in the kitchen, lying on the daybed, listening to the sound of the car as it pulls to a stop on the street below. But then only when he hears it start up again and drive off does he realize it wasn’t the right car. This one had stopped in front of the building next door, not at his. And so the right car must still be on its way. Maybe it got held up in a traffic jam at a nearby intersection. Maybe it stopped to help someone who got knocked off their bike. Yes, of course, there are a good many things that can happen to a car.