32. Jon-Ante
JON-ANTE
1985
The music blaring from the Matoj?rvi sports complex for Children’s Day could be heard all over town. Jon-Ante drove along the winding streets and hills of Kiruna with the top down. He’d just turned around on Telerakan near the bus station and was on his way back to the amusement park. The lady on Biblioteksgatan hadn’t thrown water at them this evening even though a big crowd had stopped there and made lots of noise. As long as they didn’t piss on the side of the building she would leave her bucket where it was.
A couple of guys in their gang were wearing their red-and-white satin jackets with the eagle on the back, but Jon-Ante was in his black leather jacket. The guys raved about his car, and he couldn’t stop smiling. He’d been looking forward to this weekend all summer, finally getting to go cruising while there were lots of folks around.
He drove slowly, enjoying the looks he got. People on the sidewalk turned to stare, he could see them in his rearview mirror. The car was perfect; earlier today it had gleamed in the sunlight and now the lacquer flashed under each streetlight. Classe was in the passenger seat, still grumpy because Jon-Ante wouldn’t let him smoke. But the can of beer was firmly in his hand, his elbow resting on the door. He turned up the volume of the radio as they approached Matoj?rvi, where famous skiers like Thomas Wassberg had competed in the Kiruna Games, and the old hockey arena where Borje Salming had left his first marks on the ice, on skates that would later take him out into the world and turn him into one of the greats. Jon-Ante himself had run on that brick-colored track for a brief period in his teens, when he thought track and field might be his thing.
Today Matoj?rvi had transformed for the weekend: it was Children’s Day, the highlight of the seasonal shift into autumn, when the darkness began to return, just before school started, and it was time to get your head back into work for real. During the day, it was an amusement park for kids, full of carousels and wheels of fortune and cotton candy, but when darkness crept in and the disco tent billowed smoke and thumped with loud music, the young families went home and the crowd grew drunker with every passing hour.
Jon-Ante and Classe wouldn’t go inside this year. No, they would just cruise on by, playing loud music. People asked for a ride, but Jon-Ante refused. No drunks in this car.
“Tomorrow I’m taking my own car,” Classe said, his gaze sluggish and distant from the alcohol. “It’s too damn boring, not picking anyone up.” He suddenly spun around in his seat, gaping at three girls who were reeling down the sidewalk as they swigged what remained in their bottles. “Look! Those chicks would definitely fit, we could give them a ride all the way.”
“They’re barely twenty.”
“But they’re definitely legal.”
“We’re too old for that.”
“Not me.” Classe wolf-whistled.
Some guys liked to lure teenage girls into their cars. Girls in heavy makeup, easily made tipsy from the cans of beer that were thrust into their slender hands, all covered in silver rings and neon bracelets. They smelled like hair spray and wore tight shirts. Jon-Ante had never touched a single one of them. Sometimes, especially back in the day, he would sit in the back seat and feel some young girl pressing up against him until he was craning for the door, trying to keep his distance. Classe would laugh at him. “But they want it!”
He didn’t, though. It just didn’t feel right.
His mind turned to Katti. He had met her one night in town when they were out cruising, and she had objected to the sight of some teenage girls in another car. He had liked her blunt style, the fact that she spoke her mind, and they became a couple. Katti was his age and they were together for a few months. It was fine, but he wasn’t in love, maybe didn’t even have a crush. But it was still nice to have someone, to not always have to fall asleep alone.
He could count his ex-girlfriends on one hand, and none had lasted more than a few months; in recent years there hadn’t been any. He didn’t really know why. It was like in the village—everyone moved on and got together for real, had kids and moved into a house and bought regular cars. Classe had Louise—Lollo—and they had been together for almost eight years now. He was one of the few who managed to keep his lifestyle despite his chick. But even so, here he was, drunk and pining after young girls in stonewashed jeans that clung to their rear ends.
There was a line of vehicles waiting to enter Matoj?rvi. The American cars stood in a row, letting folks in and out. In the car ahead of them, a young guy fell out when the door opened, and he lay on the asphalt laughing as his buddies tugged at him. They stepped right in a puddle of vomit as they headed for the entrance.
“That’s Perre driving. He’s got room for me now. I’m switching!” Classe said, and before Jon-Ante could react he was jogging over to the green Chevy with its bright red taillights.
Perre rumbled off and Jon-Ante idled for a moment, until someone honked. Riding alone, it just wasn’t done. He hit the gas a bit harder as he passed the entry to the sports complex, not wanting eyes on him. He drove on toward Petsamo and took a left past the Konsum on Foraregatan. He stopped with the engine running outside the buildings on Porfyrv?gen, and a woman walking a poodle shot him a dirty look. He turned down the volume Classe had set, but the woman still scoffed as she crossed the street.
He glanced at the clock and drove on. The sound of the engine calmed him and he rolled down side streets in the Luossavaara neighborhood. A couple walking with their arms around each other laughed in the dark, and he looked away. Sure, he’d wondered if there was something wrong with him, when no women stuck around. Not to mention how much Enná thought about it. She sometimes muttered about his needing a wife to take care of the laundry and cleaning—he occasionally still dropped his dirty clothes off at home. In the past she’d asked him to do so, but that was when he was young and she wanted to help out. Now as he approached middle age, it was ridiculous for Enná to still do his laundry. But it was also a reason to come home, and she liked feeling needed. It wasn’t really his laundry she was concerned about, it was probably the fact that he was all on his own.
“You need a Sámi woman, no rivgu,” she said.
At the moment, no one in the family was particularly eager to see him. He had missed calf marking, and that was a hard thing to forgive. Instead he had polished his gem of a car and gone to the drag races in Pite. Mikkel and Isak had mocked him, first acting annoyed that they would have to mark his calves for him and then letting him know what they really thought about his interest in cars. They informed him that his hairstyle was silly and it was a damn shame he put so much money into his car when they needed things for herding. And when did he plan to start taking serious responsibility for his reindeer? Why should he earn a ton of money in the mine and spend it on polishing his car when they could hardly keep their herding operation afloat? So much resentment, it seemed like unspoken old frustrations were flaring up again. Looking at them, Jon-Ante had felt the familiar rankle from childhood, his envy at the way the two of them got along. They had become entwined like sinew thread while he was on his own at the nomad school, and so it had continued throughout his adolescence. Same thing with the reindeer—they had always been close, pulled reindeer together; they had grown up into a strong duo. Which was necessary, in the collective, because you had to stick together and vote the same way at meetings; there was often a lot of fuss about how to handle the financial and practical matters. Arguments between families and extended families, and Mikkel and Isak would be right there with Isá, working toward a common goal. Jon-Ante couldn’t handle it, and when he was in a certain mood he could admit he got vindictive. Was a vote in the collective all they needed him for, so they could have their way? What about everything else? It was childish, but he couldn’t help how he felt.
He had developed his rolls of film from the drag race, intending to bring them along to show his family after calf marking. His Lincoln had attracted lots of attention, and he was damn proud of it. But when he placed the envelope of photos on the kitchen table at his parents’ house, no one even touched it. He had to open it himself and pull out the best picture Classe had taken of him. The car was just washed and he was sitting behind the wheel wearing sunglasses and grinning. Enná, at least, took the picture from him and made some trivial remark, he didn’t remember what.
But: “Do you have to drive that car in the village?” This question he remembered word-for-word. Of course, she immediately felt guilty and her voice edged into a whine as she tried to backtrack. He wasn’t about to make it any easier on her, nor would he apologize for missing the calf marking. Why should he apologize for choosing to live his own life?
“It clears my mind, I forget everything else when I’m tuning up a car,” he had told Mikkel once, back when he was still determined to make them understand.
“Yeah, you forget everything—we’ve noticed,” Viellja replied acidly.
Perhaps his brothers took the same pleasure in being out in nature with the reindeer; maybe that cleared their minds. What did he know? Those two never talked about that stuff.
Some young girls called out from the sidewalk on Reenstiernagatan, asking for a ride, but he pretended not to hear. Instead, he turned left onto Brytaregatan and cruised slowly toward Sameg?rden, the Sámi cultural center. He’d set out for that venue on occasion when the Sámi Society had a celebration there, but then changed his mind at the last minute. Later on he’d regretted not going, though; it would have been nice to spend some time speaking Sámi. He sighed, thinking of his cousins who also lived in town—it had been ages since he’d swung by for a cup of coffee. Maybe it was time to go home next weekend, sit at the kitchen table with Enná or put out fishing nets with Isá. Just to have the chance to talk. An uneasy feeling arose in his chest. He dreamed in Sámi, he thought in Sámi, but only at home could he have conversations in Sámi. Dammit, why was he getting all sentimental? There was no point, it only messed things up.
There was a sudden gleam outside the door of Sameg?rden and he tried to get a closer look. Was someone sitting there? Or rather, was someone lying on the ground and raising an arm? He stopped the car and waited for the person to get up. It was a good habit to stay alert—all too often during celebration weekends, people overindulged and passed out on the ground. One winter, on St. Lucia’s Day, he had saved a teenager from freezing to death in a snowdrift.
He got out to check, but he left the car door open in case he needed to make a hasty retreat. You never knew.
Mumbling reached his ears. A woman. She had managed to sit up and prop her head between her knees.
“Hello there. Are you all right?”
She looked up, and he squinted in the dark, taking a few steps closer to be sure.
“Marge?”
“Jon-Ante? What? Is that really you?”
He crouched down beside her and noticed that her mascara had clumped around her eyes, and she wasn’t meeting his gaze.
“ándagassii,” she said, running a hand through her hair, which fell right back into her face.
“Why are you apologizing?”
“Well, look at me! Drunk! And I’m so old!”
“Yeah, so old,” he said with a laugh, feeling unexpectedly amused.
“I’m such an embarrassment, so useless.” She pressed her hands to her cheeks. “Don’t tell anyone you found me like this. Oh my God, what would Enná say?”
When had he last seen her? Surely they’d said hello in passing in the village, but when had he last spoken with her? Hadn’t it been at some soccer match, standing in line to buy coffee? That sounded right, and it must have been three or four years ago. She looked different, something about her hair, maybe she had curled it, and there were worry lines between her eyebrows. She held her glasses in her hand and squinted at him. She was slurring her words a bit, apparently trying to make her eyes focus.
“I’m an enná myself now. Moms aren’t supposed to be like this.”
He’d heard she adopted a little girl. It had been one of the hot topics in the village last spring. Someone had guessed that she was a homosexual. Others said it was terrible to take a child out of their familiar environment at that age. Several people had more positive views, saying that a lovely woman like Marge was just the right person to take care of a vulnerable child.
“Aren’t you cold? Want me to drive you home?”
The car was idling with a gentle rumble, its open door calling out to them. What if she threw up in the car? But he couldn’t just leave her like this.
“I was supposed to go out with a friend from work but we got way too drunk. I don’t know what happened. But then again, I haven’t had a drink for years, so I suppose I have no tolerance anymore.” She waved up the street. “She lives over there. I said I was going to walk home, but this is as far as I got. To Sameg?rden. Of all places!”
She grinned and a sly gleam appeared in her eyes; he tried to keep up with her rapidly shifting moods. He offered his hand and she took it. Cold as ice. As she got to her feet she nearly tipped over again, and he gently held her around the waist. She shivered in the cold. Her jean jacket was open and the sweater underneath didn’t look very heavy. The knees of her jeans were wet, as though she had fallen in the grass.
“What if they take my little girl away? I would die, I would just die!”
“No need to worry about that. Everyone gets drunk now and then.”
“My brother said Stella should spend more time with her cousins, they thought she should sleep over so I could go out.” She snuffled. “How could I have agreed to that? How could I leave her?”
Jon-Ante shushed her. Although she looked miserable, he found himself stifling laughter. Had she always been this dramatic, or was it just the alcohol talking?
“There, now. Take it easy. Kids love having sleepovers. And after all, they’re belá?agat! Cousins!”
“Her name isn’t Stella. It’s Estela.” Marge pronounced it carefully. “Estela. With an E! Enná and Isá thought she should have a more Swedish name. But was that the right thing to do? Was it?” She stopped and looked him in the eye. Her anguish was palpable, and he took a breath, overwhelmed.
“I don’t know,” he said, feeling inadequate.
“Me neither. But I’m the one who’s supposed to know!”
She never would have talked this way in line for coffee at the soccer match, and tomorrow, when she sobered up, she would probably feel ashamed. The idea distressed him. His most genuine conversation in a very long time, and he was the only one who would remember it.
He helped her inside the car, and she collapsed onto the seat as though all the air had gone out of her.
“I’ll put up the roof,” he said as he got in.
“No! Leave it down. I’ve never ridden in a raggare car. Drive.”
“But your lips are blue.”
“I can’t feel it. Now drive, and turn up the music. To think that you’re a raggare, Jon-Ante.” She put on her glasses and laughed. He liked that. He saw a hint of young Marge in her face, and he remembered her in the dormitory cellar, the time she gave him candy. Would she remember that, if he reminded her?
They drove up Adolf Hedinsv?gen.
“Where do you live?” he asked.
“I can’t go home! I’m all alone. Couldn’t we go to your place?”
He looked at her in surprise—she was acting as if they knew each other, as if no time had passed and it was perfectly natural for him to take her home with him.
“Okay, let’s do it.” He hit the gas harder, afraid she would change her mind.
They turned by City Hall and drove past the train station, and as they passed the old red wooden buildings with their view of the mine and Luossa Lake, she pointed. “I work here sometimes. I’m a home aide.”
He said nothing but was thinking that she was well-suited to take care of other people.
“There are some really mean old ladies there on Baningenjoren.” She stumbled over the street name; her gaze was grim. “But the worst one is on Gruvv?gen.”
“Is that so?”
“I’m not allowed to say it, but you won’t tell, Jon-Ante, will you? It’s Rita.” She gripped his arm and gave a quick nod. “Rita.”
He was confused. Was he supposed to know who that was?
“Rita!” She repeated. “Olsson.”
“Who?”
“From school. Satan herself. Housemother! The witch!”
He stared at her. “She’s here in town?”
“Yes, so it seems. Christian and everything. And I have to visit her house, can you believe it?”
He looked at his little finger, which would never close around the steering wheel he had special-ordered from Norrlands Custom in ?rnskoldsvik. His heart raced and his grip became sweaty. He hadn’t thought about her in years.
“I told them I didn’t want to visit her again,” Marge said, banging her thigh with a fist. “You know, she kept going on about Lapps.”
He stomped on the brake, too hard, and Marge lurched forward, almost hitting her head on the dashboard.
“What are you doing?” she exclaimed. “We don’t even have seat belts! I can’t die! I have a child!”
The wind blew across Luossa Lake, and the water lapped at the shore but the sound didn’t reach the road. Once there had been a swimming beach here, but it was gone now. Maybe some professor had realized that the citizens of Kiruna were swimming in poisonous substances that leached from the mine.
“What is wrong with you? Why did you stop?”
He raised a defensive hand; he, too, was surprised. Where had that reaction come from? The car began moving again.
“Now I’m cold,” she said.
His pinkie throbbed, but it didn’t look any different. He thought he saw her glancing at it and was afraid she might say something about it. He turned up the music, but she turned it down.
“I wasn’t supposed to tell you that. You have to promise not to tell anyone. You promise, right?”
“Juoa.” He would definitely keep this news to himself. He never wanted to be reminded of Rita Olsson again.