A summer with Kim Novak by Håkan Nesser Page A

macaroni. Especially if you happened to have mixed in too much flour, as Edmund had done this time.
    ‘Of course,’ I said.
    ‘Discretion is the better part of valour,’ said Edmund.
    I had no idea what that meant, but Edmund was full of strange expressions:
    Discretion is the better part of valour.
    Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
    Seh la gehr , as the Germans say.
    Not to mention all the Norrlandish.
    ‘Good,’ said Henry. ‘I trust you. But remember that even if you think you know a lot, there’s very little that you understand.
    ‘That doesn’t just go for you. It applies to me too,’ he added after a while. ‘And to everyone else.’ He waved his fork in the air in front of him, as if he wanted to write what he was saying on the air. ‘We would do much better, we people, if we stopped creating bloody context all the time. We should be living in the moment.’
    He fell silent and lit a Lucky Strike. Pensively blowing smoke across the dining table. It wasn’t often that Henry let more than one sentence slip at a time, at least not with us, and the effort seemed to have tired him out.
    ‘In the moment,’ said Edmund. ‘I’ve always thought so.’
    ‘How’s the book coming?’ I quickly asked.
    ‘What?’ said Henry, staring at Edmund.
    ‘The book,’ I said. ‘Your book.’
    Henry took his eyes off Edmund and took a drag.
    ‘Wonderfully,’ he said and stretched his arms over his head. ‘But you’re not allowed to read it until you’ve turned twenty, remember that.’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘Because it’s that kind of book,’ said my brother Henry.
    The hawk protecting the dove, I thought, and then that half-page came to mind. The one I’d read eight or ten days ago, about the body that landed on the gravel road and the dense summer night. Suddenly I felt ashamed: as if without warning I had found myself in possession of something that was apparently forbidden and inappropriate for children. I muttered something vague in reply, but it seemed a response wasn’t actually necessary, so I hastily shovelled more macaroni in my mouth.
    ‘I was thinking about visiting Mum tomorrow,’ said Henry when he’d stubbed out his cigarette. ‘Want to tag along?’
    I finished chewing again.
    ‘No thanks,’ I said. ‘I don’t think so. In a week or so, maybe.’
    ‘As you wish,’ said Henry.
    ‘Say hello for me,’ I said.
    ‘Of course,’ said Henry.
    ‘The soul is located just behind the vocal cords.’ That was another one of those strange things my mother said before she was admitted to hospital. ‘If you listen carefully, you’ll always be able to tell the difference between right and wrong. Remember that, Erik.’
    The day after E-Day (E as in Ewa Kaludis) we rowed through the creek to get provisions from Laxman’s, and I asked Edmund where he thought the soul lived in the body. And about right and wrong.
    It didn’t seem as if Edmund had ever thought about it, because he missed a stroke and we glided right into the reeds. It was easily done, really: the creek seemed to be getting narrower and narrower with each passing day; the cottage owners usually got together and cleared it out once every summer, but it hadn’t happened yet this year.
    ‘Your mum has a handle on right and wrong,’ said Edmund when we had got ourselves back on course. ‘Of course you know when you’re doing something bad. When you’re mean to someone or whatever …’
    ‘Or you’ve ripped off a gum dispenser?’ I said.
    Edmund mulled that over for a moment.
    ‘Chewing gum is one of the ills of youth, I’m sure of it. So, ripping off a gum dispenser can never be completely wrong,’ he said.
    ‘But it must be a bit wrong?’ I suggested. ‘As is stealing planks.’
    ‘Hardly,’ said Edmund. ‘It’s peanuts compared with … well, if you compare it.’
    He looked solemn, and I understood what he was comparing it to. Neither of us said anything for a while, but then he feathered the blades of