Across the Universe: Part of the European Love Affair Trilogy

By Ulf Skei

The English translation.
Swedish original title: Bergsgatan 21

This is strange and weird story about two lovers, a number of south african gangsters, and of course a vast and extensive corridor across this old universe and wide.
Will our couple find their way back to earth?
Will love win, as it tends to do, or will it get lost somewhere in Congo or perhaps in Palermo.
It is astounding, to say the least.
Astounding.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Books on Demand
• Release date: Jul 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9789176991534

Ulf Skei

En konstnär och jazzmusiker som spenderar sina dagar på cafeer i Stockholm, Milan, HongKong, Antibes eller London. En boulevardier. En drömmare. Författare med hjärtat i Italien.

Book preview

going…

Chapter 1

Morning. Very early morning. August morning at about five, to be more precise. Everything was quite silent and, well, ’solitary’ one might say. Elvis Karlfeldt lay in his convertible bed sofa in the single room in his Stockholm one room apartment of 23 square meters at Bergsgatan 21, 3rd floor. Laundry and WC out in the stairway. This was an old bachelor apartment from previous turn of the century, which was very adequate as Elvis was a bachelor with few or no demands as regards comfort and luxury. We are going to be following Elvis Karlfeldt during a few weeks of his life. This is an attempt to justify some of the choices he made during this fatal August of the year 2007. We will include a few other individuals in our recapitulation of this veritable month. Chlôe, the beautiful brown eyed cashier in a little tobacconists around the corner from Bergsgatan, about 75 meters from the City Hall Subway station on Kungsholmen island in Stockholm. The two knew each other like a customer and a cashier may know each other. Out of necessity, one may say. Elvis had a slight crush on Chlôe. He had written a number of poems to honour her beauty. He had also painted quite a few portraits in watercolour of the flower of his heart, as it might have been expressed long ago. Elvis, who must be said to be the ’hero’ of these scribblings, was the proprietor of a little book store around the corner from the Kungsholmen Church. He used to say he ’managed a Book Box’. He thought it sounded a bit 40’s, ’Book Box’. Elvis also considered the 40’s to be the best of all decades. Elvis was born in 1964, so he wasn’t even a lust filled glimpse in the corner of his father’s eye during the 40’s. This didn’t bother Elvis, though. He claimed everything from the 40’s was the best. Cars, bicycles, typewriters, hats, ink pens. Everything. Well, maybe not the war, but other than that. The sun showed no mercy. It hammered like a mad narcoleptic on a steel drum below Elvis’ bed. Elvis couldn’t care less. He hid his head below the blanket and pillow. It was getting hot and moist under the blanket. You know the feeling. Oxygen level was rapidly falling.

Oh dear…

Elvis voice was one of disgust and dislike. It was also one gasping for air after recently having been well nigh silenced by suffocation due to having been situated below a blanket of the honourable but silenced by time brand 'Excelsior Primo', and thereby luckily unknowing but yet cut off from the for life so vital addition of oxygen. Elvis was rather dizzy. It was not only the lack of oxygen and the time of day that made him a bit dizzy, he had been under the influence of the spiritual fluid ’Isle of Spove’ together with his old uni fraternity. In limited amounts and far between it was ok, but with his old uni brothers and at his old alma mater and the favorite pub, the ’Happy Drone’ it was never limited and far between.

Elvis Karlfeldt really did not appreciate mornings.

Chapter 2

It was a beautiful morning in Kungsholmen. Rather warm and pleasant this end of summer’s day, this August morning. Some of the insects sharing this isle with Elvis and a few other mammals and birds started waking up. The sound of the gravel under the tires of a limousine rolling across a tarmac plate known as the Svea car Park was a little bit annoying. The car, a black marvel of German engineering, sniffed methodically and almost evil, across the car Park. It was so perfect it gave the impression of being an elegant predator hunting for prey. The simile was not too far from reality. The driver, a certain Herzog, felt how yesterday’s dinner, a very spicy ragu of Dutch Beef, made him feel quite ’off’. The man sitting in a dark mist in the backseat, Wilmuth Schwarzkopf, didn’t talk much. He knocked his cane on the front seat as they approached one of the keys, and Herzog let the discrete German machine, this morning hunter, stop by the edge of the key. He applied the hizzing hand brake and opened the driver’s door. It clicked methodically and discretely as he pulled the door handle. The door slid open. Cruelly. An observer would have instantly realised that something fatal was going to happen. Now, there were no observers present, which was probably for the best. A seagull looked with its bird look at the limousine, at Herzog trying to get out of the car, and finally at a butterfly taking off from a dandelion about two meters away at the exact instant when Herzog noticed the gull. Herzog felt bad. He couldn’t stand spicy food. He saw the gull, and unlike any ordinary person he didn’t like gulls. He didn’t like animals, no, Herzog didn’t like the world.

      Go away, gull bastard. Said Herzog and stomped his driver’s shoe angrily to the tarmac. At the same time he made a stride towards the gull. The law of mass and movement combined with Herzog’s hangover and overweight made the irritated man lose balance and almost topple over in a flegmatic screaming heap. But only almost. Herzog reached backwards and supported his unbalanced mass towards the car. He looked angrily at the gull. The gull set off like scared gulls do, towards the water.

      And stay away… The annoyed driver shook his pale, lily white fist towards the gull. The gull was already far away over the water and did not care. The in fatal mist sitting passenger, Wilmuth Schwarzkopf, who was Herzog’s employer, irritatedly knocked the Austrian handmade silver top of his cane against the window of the car door.

      Yeah yeah… Herzog gathered his thoughts, turned to the rear of the car and walked the walk of many a year behind the steering wheel to the trunk of the German monstrosity. The engine, a precision instrument of 486 horsepowers and a very accurately adjusted fuel injection, silently hummed. The limousine factory had over the years managed to balance the engine so perfectly one would be able to place a coin standing on end directly on the engine and start it, and the coin would remain standing. One might also have placed a fly, any fly, on the hood or in certain cases directly on top of the engine, and it would not fly away when starting the engine. In other words, it was a very discrete machine. Discrete with an air of evil. This it had in common with its owner, Herr Schwarzkopf. Wilmuth among close friends. Herr Schwarzkopf's close friends were almost none. One. If his brother is counted as a close friend. I think we can do that. Well, it was a very silent machine. The German engine. Herzog didn't think much about that as he walked to the trunk. He eloquently allowed his right ring finger to push a finely measured button which, by way of an intricate system of levers and ball bearings made a well lubricated hook let go of its perfect grip of an angular section cast according to a drawing perfected by an anonymous employee at the manufacturers GMBH Drawing section in Hamburg. It was inaudible, but Herzog vaguely felt the plop which made the trunk slowly open and disclose its contents. The contents were, other than a warning sign and a limited set of tools necessary to for example put on the spare tire, a vague mass covered in a black greyish plastic cover of the sturdier kind. Herzog groaned, spat silently on the ground behind the car and grabbed the mass which he subsequently placed on his right shoulder and walked to the waterfront.

      Heavy dude… He huffed and puffed for a while then shoved the mass into the water. The mass of plastic and whatever float about by the surface of the oily water for a while, then it ’exhaled’ loudly and disappeared below the surface and into the cold and dark below. Suddenly Herzog heard a car getting closer and hurriedly closed the trunk and got back in the car. The man in the back seat said

      To the office, Herzog. Herzog noddingly applied a series of well rehearsed movements and the massive machine left the key in silence. Like a beast going to its lair. Later Herzog would be sorry he had not remained to make sure the package disappeared, remaining on the bottom of the harbour basin. While Herr Schwarzkopf was driven away from the harbour in a evil black limousine controlled by a certain Herzog, a man who could not handle spicy food, and who didn’t like seagulls, an old and quite rusty machine stopped by the same key edge where the wrapped in plastic mass just disappeared three minutes ago. The car was, as a vehicle, as technical construction, in a lot worse condition than the black limousine which had just now left the scene. No discrete clicks and hizzes here. More squeaks and cutting burp like sounds and cries. Eliza Montezzori, the young mother of Roger Montezzori, a five year old who gladly inspected anything within reach, opened the door to her little car and said

      Come now, Roger, let’s go to the key and have a look. Roger took the bait and jumped onto the concrete key.

      I go watch. Said a very interested Roger. His mother, who was a kind and understanding kindergarten teacher from Kallhaell, replied;

      You do that, but be careful.

Roger was occupied poking about with a stick in the water so he didn’t listen too carefully.

      What's that? He asked, as he saw a bulgy mass bobbing about just below water surface.

      Careful, mind you. Said his patient mother trying to see whether the child was at jeopardy of falling into the water.

      What that? Roger called, even more excited as he saw a foot appearing out of the plastic.

      Probably just litter. Said Eliza. When she got closer she saw parts of a human being coming out of the wrapping. She got all cold and remembered a lecture from last week about emotional trauma at a young age leaving imprints on the sensitive psyche of children. She was convinced she had destroyed Roger's future. She knew this would be decisive in shaping her little son's future. A future which, between you and I, suddenly appeared a lot more gloomy and saggy. Roger was to develop a number of unpleasant streaks as a result of this. For instance, he was to instinctively dislike feet, shoes and shoe salesmen. Even socks. Later on in life he would become a compulsive thief. A kleptomaniac, feeling a strong urge to steal socks even when on feet. This, in turn, would lead to conflicts with the schooling system. So for instance Rogers participating in school athletics would become a trial to his poor teacher, a man by the name Lennart P. Gregorian. Lennart P had to be on the watch constantly as Roger jumped at any chance to slip away during sports and enter the locker room where he would steal all socks he could get hold of. These socks he would hide under a rock in a nearby forest. Lennart noted how Roger disappeared during a football game, and decided to follow him. So he did, and saw what took place. when Roger left his prey under the sock rock and walked away, Lennart went to have a look. He found a macabre collection of several hundred socks, many with pins stuck into them, others filled with dead rotten pieces of fish and bird parts. The smell was unbearable. Lennart felt compelled to discuss the issue at the next meeting with his colleagues. This was highly irregular. Indeed, it had only occurred once before, then due to little Morgan Aspling, a boy who developed the unfortunate habit of spreading rumours regarding his school friends’ parents’ political preferences. Something the child could not have any idea of, or so the colleagues argued. So, even though the sock incidents were not in any way financially burdening, as physics teacher Karl Eberhardt said;

      Well, the worst bit of it is of course what this implies as regards the poor boy’s home situation. Based on this it was decided that social authorities had to make an intervention and the child be placed in society care.

That’s what happened when a serene visit by the docks and keys were to destroy the future of quite a few people. What we learn from this is, of course, that life, existence, yes, ’being’ itself, has nothing at all to do with intents and purposes, personal qualities or ’meaning’. On the contrary, chance is what rules life. Chance paired with a, in most cases, veritable bad luck. But for the time being let us sit in a comfortable chair while resting our feet on a little pillow or stool.

Chapter 3

      What a lovely morning… Elvis Karlfeldt gazed at the morning sun as he stepped into the street. He shrugged, like a dog just aroused, smiled a bit silly and laughed.

      Life, I dig you… At the same moment a big, black limousine passed by out on Bergsgatan. Elvis saw it in the corner of his eye and was surprised by it being so silent he hadn't even heard it. He thought there was something unpleasant, almost evil about the dark, shadowy car. He tried to see into the car but that was impossible due to the darkly toned windows. He did, however, see the trace of a dark mass moving about in the back seat regions. But he wasn’t sure as a garbage truck stopped with its smelly load outside number 21, Elvis' address, at the exact same time. Elvis lost concentration as he had hated garbage trucks ever since childhood. He thought they were mean, somehow. Each time he saw a garbage truck he recalled a dream he dreamed a lot as a child. In the dream he was alone walking about at night at a harbour in Stockholm. He strolled about and saw the people working at an open gas station, and people loading trucks and ships. He saw the neon lights at the gas station, the staff in their uniforms. A garbage truck always passed by. The smell of rotten fish was terrible. Also rotten vegetables. Elvis shrugged.

      Forget it, mate… He said. He walked on in the sun. A huge swarm of flies could be noted by the back of the garbage truck. They had found today’s lunch restaurant. The flies appeared happy. Elvis kicked an old cigarette butt that lay on the sidewalk outside Elmquist & Co Tobacco,