'I'll soon be coming for a sit down,' said Sara, before disappearing with her tray.
The other two waitresses, Karin and Hilda, said the same thing.
'We'll soon be coming for a sit down and a rest.'
Joel didn't say anything. He was regretting not having waited a bit longer before coming to the bar. He ought to have thought through what kind of man Gertrud would want first. Then he should have worked out how Sara could be tricked into helping him.
This was typical of Joel – he often forgot to think before starting to do something.
And this was the result. Just then Ludde dropped another glass that shattered on the checked tile floor.
'Now!' exclaimed Sara, throwing down her tray and slumping onto a chair. 'Time for a rest!'
She poured herself a cup of coffee, put a lump of sugar in her mouth, and started slurping. Then she looked up at Joel, and smiled.
'I'm so pleased,' she said. 'So pleased that nothing happened to you. You wouldn't believe how much the blokes out there are talking about the accident. You've given them something to talk about. Everybody knows who Joel Gustafson is now.'
Joel couldn't make up his mind if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Perhaps in future people would turn round in the street to look at him and think: there goes that Joel Gustafson who was run over by the Ljusdal bus without suffering a single scratch.
Maybe they would even give him a nickname. Like Mr Under the horse dealer, who was only ever referred to as Neighing Ned.
Or Hugo, who was an electrician and the best player in the local ice-hockey team.
How many people knew that his name was Hugo when everybody called him Snotty?
The world is full of nicknames, Joel thought. Snotty and Fleabag-Frankie and Paintpot-Percy, who was a painter and decorator. There was a chimney sweep known to everybody as Jim even though his real name was Anders. Not to mention the baker everybody called Bluebottle, because he had a front tooth missing and made a buzzing sound when he talked. Or the stonemason known as Buggery, because that was more or less all he ever said. Or the vicar whose name was Nikodemus but was called Knickers by those who knew him. But most people just said Vicar. Then there was a skier known as Skater-Sammy, and a drayman nicknamed Pop. But oddest of all was surely the carpenter called Johanson who was known to everybody as The Welder.
What would Joel's nickname be?
Joel Ljusdal Gustafson?
Lucky Joel?
Miracle Gustafson?
Joel frowned, and pulled a face at the very thought.
That was the worst thing about nicknames – it was always somebody else who invented them.
You ought to be able to choose your own nickname.
'What are you pulling a face at?' asked Sara, with a laugh.
'Nothing,' said Joel.
'It was nice of you to come and visit me.'
'I wanted to ask you something,' said Joel, without knowing what he wanted to ask her about.
Sara nodded, and looked at him.
Just then the swing doors were flung open and Karin came storming into the kitchen. She was red in the face with anger.
'I can't make head nor tail of that lot,' she said. 'Now two of them have started thumping each other.'
Ludde broke off his washing up and turned to look at her.
'What's Nyberg doing about it?' he asked. 'Why doesn't he throw them out?'
'He tried,' said Karin. 'But now he's on the floor with the other two on top of him.'
Before they knew where they were, everybody was rushing towards the swing doors. Joel had stood up and followed Sara, but when she got as far as the doors she turned round and said sternly:
'You stay here.'
Joel was angry at not being allowed to go with them. But at the same time, he had to admit that he was a bit scared.
He peered cautiously through the crack in the doors.
Tables and chairs were overturned all over the floor. Nyberg the bouncer was just crawling out from underneath a mass of arms and legs. He was rubbing his nose and looking furious. Sara had taken hold of one of the drunks, and was shaking him as if he were a little boy. Ludde was waving his red hands about and shouting something Joel couldn't make out.
He wasn't at all sure who had been fighting.
On the other hand, he noticed two men sitting calmly at a table, apparently completely unconcerned by what had been going on. They were drinking Pilsner, both leaning forward with heads close together, and talking away. One of them was fair-haired. It struck Joel that he looked very like the blond boy depicted on tubes of one of Sweden's favourite delicacies, Kalle's Caviar. (It wasn't the expensive, 'real' caviar, but what you might call the poor man's caviar – fish roe, delicious with your breakfast toast.) The man was the spitting image of Kalle, despite the fact that he was probably three times as old. His friend had dark hair, combed in Elvis Presley style.
They are the ones, Joel thought.
One of them could become Gertrud's husband!
He would have liked to continue spying on them through the crack in the doors, but Ludde and Sara were striding back towards the kitchen again. Bouncer Nyberg had thrown out the two troublemakers through the big front door. Karin and Hilda were busy clearing up after the fight.
Joel scurried back to his chair.
Ludde returned to the sink, and started by dropping a plate that smashed on the floor. Sara flopped down on her chair, produced a handkerchief from her cleavage and mopped her face.
'What happened?' asked Joel, trying to give the impression that he'd been sitting on his chair all the time.
Sara leaned forward and whispered:
'I saw you peeping out through the doors.'
Joel blushed. He felt as if he'd turned red all the way from his stomach up to his forehead.
His first reaction was to deny that he'd been looking.
But he changed his mind immediately. He'd only have blushed even more.
'It wasn't all that serious,' said Sara. 'When they've cooled down they'll be as meek as lambs again.'
'Why did they start fighting?' Joel wondered. He didn't like the fact that Sara had caught him out.
'I've no idea,' said Sara with a shrug. 'Have you?'
The latter question was directed at Karin, who had just come in through the swing doors with a shovel in her hand.
'Do I have any idea about what?' asked Karin.
'Why they were fighting?'
Karin emptied her shovel into a bin standing between the stove and the sink where Ludde was splashing about with his plates and glasses.
'It was something to do with a girl,' said Karin. 'Blokes only fight if there's a girl involved, don't they?'
Joel listened with his eyes open wide.
'I think they're both sweet on the same girl,' said Karin. 'That Anneli who works in the shoe shop.'
'Is she anything to fight over?' wondered Hilda, who had joined them in the kitchen.
She turned to look at Joel.
'Or what do you think, Joel?' she asked. 'Surely a shop assistant in a shoe shop isn't worth fighting over?'
All the waitresses laughed, and Ludde dropped another glass on the floor.
Joel could feel himself blushing again. He thought he would have to say something that showed he'd understood what they were getting at.
'I shall never fight over anybody who sells shoes,' he said. 'Never.'
They all laughed again, and Hilda came up to pat his head. Joel tried to shrink away, but she left her hand there and ruffled his hair.
'He's as nice as Rolf and David,' she said. 'The girls who get them can consider themselves lucky.'
Then she sat down at the table alongside Sara and Karin. Joel listened to what they said. He had realised that it was sometimes important to hear what grown-ups were saying. They sometimes said things you could learn something from. Not very often. But sometimes. Such as now.
It dawned on Joel that they were talking about the t
wo young men sitting at a table by themselves and paying no attention at all to the violent fight taking place.
'If only I were a bit younger,' sighed Hilda as she massaged her tired feet.
'I wish they'd been my sons,' said Karin.
Sara said nothing. But she nodded in agreement. All the time Ludde was clattering away at the sink.
Joel stood up and tried to sneak out of the door without being seen.
He didn't see the bucket standing next to his chair, and stumbled over it. He fell headlong and ended up in the middle of the three waitresses.
'A boy's paying us a flying visit,' said Hilda with a laugh.
Joel could feel that he was blushing again.
He had blushed more today than he'd ever done before.
Karin stood up, took her tray and vanished through the swing doors again.
Hilda went to the storeroom and began carrying in new crates of beer.
'What was it you were going to ask me about?' Sara wondered.
'Does one of them look like the caviar tube?' asked Joel.
Sara looked at him in astonishment.
'What do you mean? The caviar tube? Who's supposed to look like a caviar tube?'
'David or Rolf? Like the boy on the caviar tube?'
Then the penny dropped. She burst out laughing and slapped her knee.
'You must be referring to David,' she said. 'You're right, he does look like the lad with the mop of blond hair on the caviar tube.'
'I just wondered,' said Joel. 'I must be off. 'Bye!'
And he hurried out of the door before Sara had time to ask him anything else.
It was already starting to get dark outside. Joel raised the collar of his jacket and ran round the corner to check the time on the church clock.
Five o'clock already!
He had better hurry up and put the potatoes on. Samuel was usually home by six at the latest. The potatoes had to be ready by then.
David and Rolf would have to wait. He was in a hurry. . .
It was evening. Joel could hear Samuel in the room next door listening to the radio. Joel was sitting like a tailor on his bed, writing up the diary he had taken from the Celestine's showcase.
He wasn't actually writing, in fact. He'd already finished.
'There was trouble at the bar today . . .'
That's as far as he'd got. He'd had the feeling that it was silly, keeping a diary. Or logbook, as he used to call the little book with a black cover. He started reading it instead. He had glued the edges of some pages and drawn a red stamp on them, saying that what was written there had to be kept secret for a year. But he hadn't paid any attention to that. Declaring part of your own diary secret was childish and not something anybody who would soon be twelve could indulge in.
TSFTDTHFAS, it said on the cover.
'The Search for the Dog That Headed for a Star.'
His secret society.
He read bits here and there in the book and thought that all he had written about seemed to have happened a very long time ago. In fact, it was only just over six months ago. Barely even that.
He didn't like the idea of time passing so quickly. Of everything changing so quickly. Not least himself. He would really prefer everything to stay the same. You ought to be able to pick out a day when everything had gone well and say: It's always going to be like this!
But that wasn't possible! Why wasn't it possible?
Joel sighed and dropped the diary on the bed in front of him.
Perhaps that was the way you became a grown-up? By realising that there was no such thing as a day that could never be changed?
Perhaps that's why so many grown-ups looked so tired and miserable? Because they knew that's the way things are?
He jumped impatiently off the bed and lay stretched out on the floor, looking at the maps he had cut up. He tried to think a bit more about the geography game. But that wasn't much fun either. Then he lay on his back and stared up at the ceiling. He traced the outlines of the damp patches with his eyes.
He suddenly felt as if he were lying underneath the bus again.
Just think if he'd died!
He wouldn't have been able to smell the awful stench in Simon Windstorm's house any more. Or to sit with his dad, Samuel, at the kitchen table and sail the seven seas.
He would never have fallen asleep again, never woken up.
He didn't like those thoughts. They were scurrying around in his head like ants. He sat up and thought he ought to go to bed now.
What he would have liked to do most of all would have been to give up all thoughts of doing a good deed. Gertrud could find herself a man without his help, if she wanted one. She could brick herself into the church tower and wait for somebody to climb up to her. . .
Curse that miracle, he thought.
In any case, surely it should be Eklund who ought to do a good deed?
He was the one who caused it all, and was lucky enough not to have killed a human being with his bus.
But deep down, Joel knew that he was the one who would have to do a good deed. So he might as well get it over with as soon as possible.
He clambered back onto his bed and started writing in his diary:
'Today I, Joel Gustafson, who don't yet have a nickname, have decided that Gertrud must have a man. Finding one for her will be my good deed in return for the Miracle. I have chosen David or Rolf to become her husband. All I have to do now is to establish which one of them is most suitable.'
He read through what he had written. That would do. It was more than enough.
'Shouldn't you be going to bed now, Joel?' shouted Samuel from his room. Joel could hear that he had adjusted the radio so that there was no programme, only static. His dad used to do that when he wanted to listen to the sea.
'In a minute,' Joel shouted in reply. 'I've started.'
Although the town they lived in was very small, he had never seen David and Rolf before. He didn't know their surnames, where they lived or what their work was.
What would he do if they lived a hundred miles away?
I'll have to start tomorrow, he thought. I'll ask Otto. He knows everybody's name.
He went to the kitchen and replaced the diary in the Celestine's showcase. Then he got undressed, brushed his teeth and settled down in bed.
At first it was so cold that he had to tense every muscle in his body. But it gradually grew warmer under the covers.
'I'm in bed now,' he shouted to Samuel.
His dad came shuffling into Joel's room in his slippers.