The Best Book in the World

CHAPTER 39

To Gothenburg


By the time Astra and her companions approach the little S?rmland cottage, Eddie has long since left. He is on his way to the book fair in Gothenburg in his old Dupont-style Peugeot decorated with hand-painted hearts. There he will be cheered by the masses and he will show his new secret manuscript to his publisher. He is certain they will hit the roof with delight. For a long time they have been saying that he needs a vitamin injection for his future writing. To be on the safe side, he will always have the document with him too. He doesn’t expect the drunkard Titus to make a fuss, but just in case.

Astra slams on the brakes and the car skids to a halt on the gravel. She leaps out and rushes up to Lenny, who is sitting on the porch steps. He looks calm as he sits there drinking coffee from an old china cup and saucer.

‘Where is he? Where’s Titus?’

Lenny holds up a silencing index finger to his lips and then puts the soles of his hands together and places them like a pillow against his head on one side. With his thumb he points over his shoulder into the inside of the cottage. With a sideward nod of his head, he invites her to enter. She runs in.


Now Malin and Lenny’s dad get out of the car too. Lenny sees Malin first and smiles at her with a serious look. She runs up to Lenny, throws her arms around his neck and disappears into his arms. He looks at her and strokes her cheek.

‘It’s over now,’ he says slowly.

Malin looks up at Lenny. She doesn’t recognise him. There is something strange about him. He is not nearly as wound-up as usual. They haven’t seen each other in quite a while but even so he isn’t stuttering the slightest. Is he on tranquilisers? Is he ill?

First she nods slowly, as if to reassure Lenny. It doesn’t matter if he is ill or weird or just high on whatever. She must be on his side now.

‘It isn’t over yet. But soon.’

Steps can be heard in the gravel in front of them. Lenny looks up.

‘Dad!’

Lenny’s dad stands with open arms just a couple of metres away. Tears run slowly down his cheeks. His chest heaves a little from his sobbing.

‘I’m sorry, Lennart.’

Malin slips out of Lenny’s hug and sits on the steps with her arms around her drawn-up knees. She looks expectant. This is not like anything she has ever experienced before. She knows that it will be a lovely scene, one of those you can live a whole life without experiencing in reality. A string orchestra is playing inside her and emotions are flowing over in her tear ducts. She takes a deep breath so that her sobs won’t disturb the moving tableau.

Lenny gets up. He gives his father a serious look. It looks as if a million thoughts are passing through his head. He puts his hands up to his face and over his nose and mouth, and inhales with big and heavy breaths through his nose. He stares at his dad through his little fingers and ring fingers, all with rings on them. Then he runs his fingers through his hair and down over the back of his head, back and forth.

The seconds that pass feel like an eternity. Malin looks at them in turn, first one and then the other. She smiles, because it will soon come. Oh, how lovely it is.

Then Lenny holds out his right hand and takes a step towards his dad. Their hands meet in a handshake that immediately turns into a hug. When his dad puts his arms over Lenny’s shoulders, then Lenny can’t restrain himself either. He starts to cry and leans his face against his dad’s shoulder. The tears run down the cheeks of both the well-built men. They look at each other and laugh through their tears.

Malin dries some tears with her large shawl. Her inner orchestra is now playing the most sorrowful music one can imagine. It is as if all the clouds are dispersed and the sun warms up the yard. If it had been a film, then little cherubs would come skipping out of the forest and throw confetti over Lenny and his dad. There is a glow and sparkle in their eyes. This is almost better than Malin had hoped for.

Astra sits on the edge of the big sofa-bed in the back room. The ceiling is low and the bed takes up most of the floor space. The old roller blinds are lowered and the light is weak. But here and there a few rays of sun break in through tears in the cloth and particles of dust dance in the cones of light. Titus is lying under a heavy old woollen feather duvet with an attractive upper side of gold-coloured silk. He is thin and looks like a little nestling that has fallen out of the nest too soon.

When he wakes up, Astra is holding his hand. With her other hand she is stroking him slowly on his forehead and his stubbly scalp.

He looks at her. Now he recognises her: she is the young woman on the reward picture. She disappeared but now she has evidently come back again.

He doesn’t need her any longer. He still likes her, he feels that distinctly. But he doesn’t need her to survive.

He almost died there in the earth cellar, he thinks. He was only a hair’s breadth from drinking himself to death. A few more bottles and he would have had a major stroke. A few more cigarettes and he would have suffocated.

Miraculously, there in the cellar he had actually regained the will to live. He knows why. In the cellar there was time to think. Sure, he was sloshed when he thought over and over about his situation and analysed it. But the answer became all the clearer, the more time passed.

He had managed to write a book again.

Undeniably, the battle over The Best Book in the World was lost, but that didn’t matter any more, he thinks. He can write some more novels, even better books. That’s all that counts. As long as he can work, there is cause to live. It is the work itself that is the point, not the end product. Before, he always expected the publication of the finished book to give him joy and satisfaction. But the euphoria never came, and he had to deaden the growing rage within him with alcohol. Now he knows that it is the actual writing process that is the reward. That is when he is alive. He doesn’t need any more cognitive therapy, no breathalyser locks or inflated personal vendettas on which to project his anxiety. He doesn’t even need The Best Book in the World.

All he needs is himself. Sober and in good working order.

The final hours before Eddie and Lenny came and released him, he hadn’t drunk a drop of alcohol or smoked a single cigarette. He had just been sitting there and waiting to sober up and become the new re-born Titus. The turning point was just as clear as the mushroom cloud after an atomic bomb. From this point on, he would heal.

He has taken over his life again. Since he – excepting a few short periods – hadn’t been sober for thirty years, he must now define who Titus really is. Metaphorically, he is young again. He has all his choices before him.

Freedom is the understanding that you have a choice, he thinks. And as long as he has recourse to himself, he can do anything at all. Never again will he reject himself.

He looks at Astra, who is sitting on the stool next to his bed. She has let him wake up slowly and he is grateful for that.

‘I’m free now,’ he says.

She nods slowly.

‘You are indeed free, Titus. Now we’re going to Gothenburg.’

Astra comes out onto the porch steps with her arm around Titus’ back. He sags like a little sack by her side.

Titus blinks in the sunlight and looks as if he has just woken up. He gives a smile of recognition to Lenny and Malin.

Then he sees a large smiling man in a white coat.

‘Doctor Rolf? Ralf Rolf?’

What is that nutter doing here? He recognises the noisy and crazy multi-therapist that stubborn telephone seller had conned him into meeting. Who talked about placebo therapies and fell into a heavy sleep in the middle of the conversation. They are not going to con him into lots of daft multi-therapy now, are they? If this is one of Astra’s new ideas, then she is way off…

‘I’m Lennart’s dad,’ says Doctor Rolf and interrupts Titus’ thoughts. ‘Lenny’s, I mean. I am Lenny’s dad.’ A big liberating laugh rolls out of his mouth. ‘Call me Raffe, all my closest friends do that.’

Titus looks at Lenny and at Doctor Rolf. He can’t believe his eyes. Are the two related?

‘We’ll sort it all out in the car,’ says Astra. ‘We’ve got to be in Gothenburg in five hours.’

Titus sits in the front seat and tells Astra about everything that Eddie has subjected him to in the earth cellar. That Lenny had only been a pawn in the game. That what had happened had, in some ways, been good because now he knows who he is and what we wants to do with his life. Astra stares hard at the road in front of her and mumbles quietly between clenched teeth: ‘monster, odious loathsome repulsive monster’. She presses hard on the accelerator.

In the back seat, Lenny and Ralf are each sitting in their corner. Malin is sitting between them, leaning against Lenny. And Lenny has his arm around her.

‘Eddie forced me,’ says Lenny, in a serious tone.

‘How? Why did you go along with it?’ wonders Malin who hasn’t really got over how blunted and weird Lenny has become.

‘I don’t have Tourette’s…’

‘What? You don’t?’ Malin shouts and looks up at Lenny. Now she understands nothing. Has he suddenly turned normal? Is that why he is so weird?

Ralf places his hand upon Lenny’s. Lenny looks at his dad who nods silently as if asking Lenny to go on with what he was saying.

‘He said he would reveal that I don’t have Tourette’s if I didn’t help him to get hold of Titus’ book. At first I thought he was kidding me, but then I realised he meant it for real. He was close to phoning the tabloids several times. So I did what he said, it didn’t seem so bad. It was almost like a bit of a prank in the beginning. Then it sort of grew. He got totally obsessed by it. We never talked about anything other than the manuscript. The manuscript this… the manuscript that… It seems as if we hunted it all summer long, that we spied on Titus for every step he took. Broke into his flat and got him sloshed at S?dra Teatern and lots of other crazy things. And then all this with the earth cellar…’

‘But what d’you mean, I can’t follow,’ Malin interrupts him. ‘Isn’t it bloody good that you don’t have Tourette’s?’

‘No… it’s thanks to Tourette’s that I have a public. Without Tourette’s I wouldn’t be anything, just an ordinary useless rocker-wannabe. I am Tourette’s-Lenny, the guy who has had an incredibly tough handicap but who has nevertheless managed to do something with his life. But now I’m finished as an artiste. A rotten imposter. I have stolen sympathy and empathy from honest people. And as for all the people who have real compulsive syndromes, well, I’ve dragged them into dirt and dishonour. I have made a fool of them. As if Tourette’s is something to joke about, like a false nose you put on to get a few quick laughs. You just shout out “Cock in your ear” and everyone gets happy and frightened at the same time. No, it doesn’t work like that. But I’m pleased it’s over now…’


‘It’s my fault,’ Ralf interrupts in a loud and slightly grating voice.

‘Why?’ asks Malin and moves her gaze to him.

With almost a roaring sound, Ralf clears his throat. What he is going to say is deeply buried…

‘I only cared about my patients when you were little. I never understood how much you needed me. That’s right, isn’t it?’

Lenny nods in silence.

‘So your only recourse was to develop Tourette’s in the hope that I would become interested in you and devote more time to you. You heard about my patients who had Tourette’s. They seemed weird and you became curious. Then you started carefully with facial tics and soon moved on to mildly compulsive behaviour, avoiding lines on the kitchen floor and so on, swearing dreadful tirades with revolting expletives when your grandmother was visiting. Then you started with that damned body-blinking and suddenly everybody became terribly interested in you…’

Lenny looks out through the window and nods. A sad countenance.

Ralf goes on.

‘But the whole thing was fake. I realised at once and could never reconcile myself to the idea that you just acted out what my patients suffered from for real. I demanded that you stop, that you got a grip of yourself. I wanted a healthy and normal kid. Even though many of my patients’ problems were inside their heads, their afflictions were at least not a result of an active choice. They imagined they were ill, and they couldn’t actually help it. But you, you chose to have Tourette’s. And even though you got to try out all my therapies you never got better, just worse and worse. I put you through dreadful things and you were only a child. You became cynical because I never had any faith in you. I turned into a repulsive parent, a monster. And you refused to be cured, perhaps to punish me. Isn’t that true?’

Tears run down Lenny’s cheeks. Malin puts her hand on his stomach and pats him gently. He is still looking out of the window when he answers.

‘I hated your patients. You gave them infinitely more therapy and attention. Then when they got better, they disappeared forever. You always wondered how things had gone for them. The sicker they had been, the more you cared. So I thought that the more Tourette’s I got, the closer I would get to you. And at the same time I noticed that it led to attention at school and that people started to respect me. The more I swore, the greater the number of adults who wanted to talk to me. I was someone. I became someone.’

‘But how did Eddie find out?’ wonders Malin.

‘He knew straight off. I have never been able to hide anything from him. But we haven’t talked about it, never. Not until he suddenly started to threaten me a couple of months ago. It was horrid. Something had happened between him and Titus early in the summer, at that festival where we got pissed together with Eddie. We were boozing together all night long and the two of them were sort of holding back on each other. After that he was completely transformed. Angry and greedy, like. Even though I’ve known him all my life, I became afraid of him.’

‘Forgive me, Lenny,’ Ralf mumbles quietly with a large lump in his throat. ‘I gave you too little love when you were small. I was obsessed with my theories and patients. I’m afraid I still am, I suppose. It didn’t exactly get any better when I moved to Stockholm, everyone there is completely confused. But if you give me the chance, I’ll never demand anything from you again. You can be whoever you want and I will love you unconditionally. Because I really do love you. I have missed you so much.’

Lenny looks at his dad, his eyes welling up.

‘I love you too, dad.’

Malin’s shawl is wet from all the tears. But the sadness isn’t so sad any longer. Now the string orchestra is playing inside her again. Now the confetti is slowly falling over the back seat like pretend-snow in a fairy-tale film in the olden days. Now the angels are smiling; now the cherubs are playing their little trumpets. Everything grey has acquired the most beautiful of Technicolor pastel shades.

She will remember this moment for the rest of her life. She carefully dries the tears under her eyes so as not to smudge her mascara on her cheeks.

‘I love you, Lenny. And you too, Ralf.’

Titus’ body and soul have been through a purgatory, and half-way to Gothenburg he falls asleep.

Astra takes the opportunity to phone Evita and give her a rundown of the situation. Evita becomes radiantly happy and can’t praise her enough for having found Titus so quickly. She says that the book fair seems to be a success. Everyone is there. Astra asks Evita to contact the Gothenburg police: Eddie X must be dealt with. What he has done to Titus is terrible. How many years do you get for kidnapping? Eddie has evidently forced Titus to sign a contract while he was imprisoned – Titus has relinquished the copyright of The Best Book in the World. He has ‘confessed’ that he has stolen both the ideas and the manuscript from Eddie. Such a contract can hardly be valid, can it? It would be good if the company’s legal department could prepare for a match against both Babelfish and Eddie. Astra says that the police can question Titus at the fair before they arrest Eddie. Eddie is going to be at the Babelfish stand when everybody mingles at five o’clock and they ought to get there in time. Good, says Evita, and urges Astra to drive carefully.

Astra ends the call and breathes out. It’s going to be all right. She has managed to get The Best Book in the World this far, so she will bloody well manage to get it that little bit further.

She looks at Titus snoozing against the window with the safety belt as a cushion. His black suit is grey with soil, cement dust and old, dried-up vomit. His face has lines of dirt. He stinks.

This isn’t good enough, Astra thinks. We must tidy him up. Put him under a shower. She looks at the road signs to check if there is a hotel anywhere near. Where are we? Lake V?ttern is down there on the right somewhere. She is lucky. The Golden Otter, two kilometres. She remembers that motel, her family used to stay there when she was little and they were on their way home from a motoring holiday down in Europe. They would eat salmon with dill in white sauce, buy a stick of peppermint rock and remember that it was nice to go abroad on holiday, but it was even better to be back in Sweden. They’d sit on the terrace and look out across the long narrow lake, talk about the mythical island – Visings? – where her father believed that kings had lived in bygone ages. Run to the car to fetch warm sweaters. Brrrr. It is cool today, but it will probably be warmer tomorrow. Sweden, home sweet home.

When she parks the car and the sound of the engine stops, Titus wakes up. He looks around, then leans his head against the neck rest and closes his eyes again.

‘I’ll get a room so that Titus can have a wash,’ she explains to the company in the back seat.

‘Okay, we’ll go in and get a cup of coffee and a Danish pastry. It’s on me!’ Doctor Rolf rumbles.

Astra goes round to the other side of the car and opens Titus’ door.

‘Titus, you need a shower. Come along!’

She helps Titus out of the car. He totters out and stretches his arms over his head, yawns widely and smiles.

Next to Astra’s car on the parking area stands a car with an open bonnet and a man leaning over the engine. Something is evidently broken and his irritation can be felt in the air. He throws an oily rag onto the ground and mutters.

‘Accursed vehicle!’

Titus recognises that voice. He bends down under the bonnet and looks.

‘Christer!’

It is Christer Hermansson standing there swearing at his car. The zealous librarian from Stockholm City Library. Titus’ fellow author, who writes laboured books about men on the verge of reality.

Christer Hermansson looks up at Titus.

‘Titus!’

His eyes wander over Titus from top to toe.

‘What have you been through?’

‘It’s a long story. This is Astra Larsson, my publisher.’

Christer looks at Astra. He wipes his hands on his trousers and pulls his ponytail tighter before holding out his hand.

‘Christer Hermansson. How do you do?’

‘Has your car broken down?’ asks Astra.

‘Ich bin ein bibliothekar!’ exclaims Christer. ‘Not a car mechanic…’

‘I see. And are you on the way to the book fair too?’ wonders Astra.

‘Yes. But now I’m stranded here. I don’t understand engines, and they don’t understand me. We are not friends, I fear. A negative prognosis suggests this is a matter of lifelong enmity. I fear the worst.’

Titus smiles when he recognises Christer’s austere tone. It is always hard to tell whether he is serious or is joking. An academic dryness with a humorous glint is always present.

‘You can come with us!’ says Titus, and turns to Astra. ‘He can do that, can’t he?’

‘Of course!’

‘Really? Most gracious of you!’

‘Yes, but absolutely,’ says Astra. ‘Pack your things in the back. Incidentally, you don’t have some extra clothes you can lend to Titus? And shaving gear?’

Christer Hermansson looks at Titus again. He nods understandingly.

‘Indeed, I do have new clothes for the emperor. He can borrow one of my book-fair suits!’

The mood in the car couldn’t be better when they set off on the final stretch. They have all eaten and been to the loo. Titus has stood under running water for half an hour and shaved his head and face. He has regained quite a lot of his former colour, and if you didn’t know better you might think he had just returned from a holiday in the sun.


Malin huddles on Lenny’s lap under the safety belt. They are purring like cats that have just had their favourite dinner. Christer Hermansson has found a space in the middle of the back seat. He looks small beside the large and jovial Doctor Rolf. Since he doesn’t have any idea what has happened to this strange party in the car, he just sees the journey as divine intervention. He has escaped his wreck of a car and can chat with lots of amusing people who are also going to the book fair. Thanks to Astra and Titus, he will get there in time. He is as merry as a lark and starts up a sing-song.

‘We’re havin’ fun sittin’ in the back seat, kissin’ and a’huggin with Fred.’

‘Dee doody doom doom, dee doody doom doom, dee doody doom doom, DOOM,’ answer Ralf, Lenny, Malin, Titus and Astra in a loud chorus.

They laugh as Christer guides them through some old popular classics. It is liberating to let something else take over, something from outside. There is still a world out there. They are on the way back now. They’re having fun.

Then Astra’s telephone rings.

Unknown number.

Astra hushes them with her finger on her lips. It could be news from the book fair. Has Eddie X disappeared? Has Evita got hold of the police? They might want to talk to Titus.

She presses the green button and answers in a proper tone:

‘Yes, this is Astra Larsson.’

‘Hello, Astra! This is Fabian Nadersson. Have you got a moment?’

Oh no! Not that dreadful telephone hawker again! He rings on the most unsuitable occasions. What a hopeless type. But Astra refuses to abandon her good mood. She switches to the loudspeaker and holds up the phone so that everybody can hear, turns the volume to maximum and shouts:

‘Fabian, we are in the middle of a little conference here! Is it okay with you to sell to several people at the same time? We are me, Titus, Ralf, Christer, Malin and Lenny. Everybody – say hello to Fabian!’

‘HELLO FABIAN!’ The back-seat chorus shouts. Astra sets the tone by whirling the telephone in the air and whispering words to prompt the chorus.

‘Hello everybody!’ says Fabian. ‘Great, several birds with one stone, we like that, haha. Well, the thing is, you understand, Astra and all the rest of you, that I am ringing on behalf of Seraphim Insurance. We offer a free meeting with one of our insurance experts.’

‘THANK – YOU – SO – VERY – MUCH – FABIAN! The chorus yells in line with Astra’s direction.

‘It’ll take an hour and during that hour he or she will go through your financial situation. Then you’ll be given a proposal for a pension plan designed especially for you which will realise your old-age dreams. Does that sound good?’

‘NO – IT – DOES – NOT!’

‘I see. Perhaps your pension savings have been arranged some other way?’

‘NO – THEY – HAVE – NOT!’

‘Do you have any plans to think over your insurance policies in the near future?’

‘NO – WE – DO – NOT!’

‘I propose a meeting either on Tuesday, 10 October, at 11 a.m., or 1 November at 2 p.m. Which of those times would suit you best?’

‘NEITHER – DON’T – YOU – LISTEN?’

‘I see, well then, could you suggest another time when one of our experts can come to your office for a personal meeting?’

‘NO – ABSOLUTELY – NOT!’

‘Would you rather I phoned back another time?’

‘NO – PREF – ER – AB – LY – NOT!’

‘But you are interested in our services?’

‘NO – NOT – ONE – TIIINY – BIT!

‘Well, thank you for giving me your time…

‘YOU – ARE – WELCOME!’

‘Okay, goodbye.’

‘GOOD – BYE – FABIAN – NADERSSON!’

Astra ends the call and they all burst out laughing. There is nothing so liberating as when a telephone seller says goodbye.

They laugh and smile all the way to Gothenburg.