Hop in Then! Read online

  Translated from the Swedish by

  Eric Swanson

  in collaboration with the author

  As long as a person has not felt his pains completely, he cannot give up hope.

  Arthur Janov

  Wednesday, 1 January 1964

  Dear Diary! No, I’m not going to start that way, because that’s ridiculous. In any case, it’s a new year and 1964. What could this year hold in store then? Well, that remains to be seen! That’s partly what this book will be about.

  I haven’t made any New Year’s resolutions, because you can never keep them, but I have the intention to try to be more diligent in school this semester.

  Yesterday, on New Year’s Eve, I was with mamma and papa at Stig’s and Anita’s. What E-L did, other than that she went into town, I don’t know, because she has not called yet.

  Tomorrow is Saturday. My pal and I are going out then. We usually go first to the cinema and then to Svartbäcksgatan. That’s the street in Uppsala where the guys called raggare drive their cars up and down looking for girls. But we are not raggarbrudar, because we never go in big American cars. We only ride with guys in common cars. And it’s so wonderful to walk there and wait for what will happen. I will probably never get tired of it. But Kicki would just as well go dancing if I wanted to. She comes with me just because she prefers to be with me. If she didn’t, I would go alone, because I want nothing else than to go into town. Besides, I cannot dance.

  Sunday, 5 January 1964

  I have a cold, so I stayed at home yesterday evening. But E-L went out, and then she saw Håkan with a girl in Tre Liljor, she said today when she called. She saw them through the window when she walked past the restaurant. And you should have been able to figure it out, that he has been out with others the whole time. He is older than we are (he is 21 and we are 15), so it isn’t strange that he is out and about. The strangest thing is rather that he wanted to meet us, I think now. He phoned and even wrote a letter to E-L. We were both interested in him, but it was E-L who was the winner. I was with his friend, Becke. I remember how cosy I thought it was the first time we met them, when we drove in Håkan’s black PV to Norrtälje where Becke lived. It was Advent and they had turned off the ceiling lights and lit living candles, and outside it was dark with snow on the street and everything felt so moving and nice. We had coffee and smoked, talked and listened to music. And Håkan wanted to dance, but E-L cannot dance (she believes), so he danced with me instead. He was dressed in a narrowly striped nylon shirt, which he had rolled up at the sleeves, and black pants and was very attractive, I thought. I preferred him to Becke, but I let Becke kiss me when I sat on his knee in the armchair. (Håkan had laid hands on the bed with E-L although it was Becke’s residence.)

  They gave us a lift back to Uppsala, and I wasn’t home until twenty minutes before two. I’m supposed to be home at twelve if I’m not out dancing, in which case I’m permitted to be out until one. (That you can leave the dance earlier for a little hanky-panky they evidently don’t have in mind.) In any case, I should have been home at midnight but I didn’t come until twenty minutes before two, and papa was awake and came up to me and gave me a cuff on the ear. “Aren’t you supposed to be home at midnight?” he said. And actually I am, so I didn’t think it was unjustifiable that he was angry. I understood that he had been worried, and I didn’t think it was wrong that I had gotten that cuff. He was sober, so it was really nothing to get hung up on. Afterwards I was not allowed to go out on Sunday or the next weekend either, and I had to promise not to come home that late again

  I got a letter from Örjan, the guy I was with on New Year’s Eve. He wrote the following:

  Hello, Eva-Lena! I heard from Göran that you had been visible in town and thought therefore to write you some lines and explain what happened on New Year’s Eve. I hope you didn’t take it too seriously, because I didn’t. The fact is, that I’m going out with a girl down here in Göteborg. It was possibly wrong of me to meet you on New Year’s Eve, but I don’t believe you took it so seriously.

  I have almost managed to stop smoking, but I do have a puff now and then. I advise you to quit while there’s still time, both smoking and guys, so you aren’t going astray with alcohol and other things. I don’t believe so, but, but... Finally, I hope that you feel well and that you aren’t annoyed with me. Greetings, Örjan.

  What was he thinking? That he made such a strong impression on me that I would never be able to forget him? He didn’t do that. I would rather have been with his friend, Göran, who was also with us, and whom I’m acquainted with since before. But I felt odd when I read that he was afraid that I might go astray.

  I have been in love with Göran – or if I still am – but on New Year’s Eve, when he was drunk and together with two girls at the same time, I thought he was disgusting. He came out to the kitchen with messy hair and his shirt outside of his pants. “Time for a new round!” he said and rubbed his hands, before he threw himself into the room with those girls again. It’s bad form to be with two girls at the same time, I think. Kicki thinks so, too. “Such a guy you take a dislike to,” she said when I told her what he had done.

  On Sunday I was out again. On my way to Svartbäcksgatan I met a middle-aged man who took me for a whore.

  “How much do you want?” he asked. “Fifty kronor?”

  Is that well or poorly paid?

  There weren’t many cars out, and at first none stopped. Later a single guy in an Opel Rekord came and asked if I would like to ride with him. His name was Bert and he was nineteen years old. When he had driven up on the Castle Hill he began to paw me. He had dirty fingernails and reminded me of the guy I was with the first time Kicki and I rode with some guys we didn’t know, when we were disappointed because Göran and his buddy didn’t want to meet us anymore. That guy was also rough and also had brown hair and sideburns.

  Bert kissed very disgustingly. When I didn’t let him stick his tongue into my mouth, he said:

  “What the hell is it? Are you a prude?”

  He was to go dancing, but I didn’t want to come along, so he dropped me off on the street again. Later Ludde came, a guy I have ridden with before a few times, and I went with him even though I didn’t really want to do that, either. He just says a lot of things that aren’t true. He said that he was in love with me and had thought of me every day since the last time we met.

  “But I was so jealous when I saw you ride with another guy the next evening, that I decided that I wouldn’t see you again.”

  He’s just bluffing and exaggerating.

  I got a lift home from a guy in a Volvo Sport. He was going to take part in Roslagsvalsen, the motor rally, on Saturday, he said. Between his thumb and index finger he had three black dots that mean faith, hope and charity.

  Sunday, 12 January 1964

  Yesterday, E-L and I were in town, but nobody stopped and asked us. We were so mad at the guys who didn’t want to pick us up. On top of that it was so cold that you could freeze your butt off. That’s the disadvantage of hanging out in town. If you go dancing and are not asked to dance, you don’t have to freeze and aren’t equally dependent on what the boys do or do not do. E-L, for example, must have someone who gives her a lift home if she doesn’t want to walk all the way (and of course she doesn’t). But I can take the bus home if it isn’t too late.

  In any case, we were so mad at the guys who just cruised there to and fro and stared at us. If they notice that nobody picks you up, they conclude that you are nobody worth having and don’t stop. That’s exactly how it is with dancing, that if a girl is not asked to dance from the beginning and gets to dance most of the time, she becomes a wallflower. She receives a stamp on her that she isn’t worth being asked to dance. And that’s how it is in town, as we
ll. But then the next evening, although there are about the same guys who drive there and although they recognize us, it can be completely different.

  It wasn’t that many degrees below freezing outside, but you get cold when you walk and stand for several hours. E-L had her black skirt and black long sleeved sweater under her coat, and I had my green skirt and rust brown cardigan with collar. My coat was the one with the big rabbit collar, and I think it is rather nice, because it is a little styled in the middle. I have a brown coat also, but that one isn’t as good. It is straight, and it’s like a shawl in the same cloth that sits attached to the coat and which you can sling around your neck and up over your shoulder. Actually, it doesn’t suit me, so I don’t like it as well as the black one. For the black coat, I have a gray fur cap, which is in the same style as the collar, but it’s so big, so I usually never use it. I don’t want to have a cap. I would rather freeze. It’s possible that I have a shawl sometimes, but I rarely use it at all. Yesterday I didn’t have anything on my head, and on my feet I had my black boots with high heels and with scarcely any lining and thin nylon stockings. Once I chilled one leg above the knee and a bit into my thigh, so now, when it’s cold outside, it becomes red and starts to itch there.

  Monday, 13 January 1964

  School has begun again after the Christmas vacation. The only fun about it is that E-L and I can see each other more often again. Otherwise, I’m not especially excited. The fact is, that I’m a little lazy in terms of actual school work, even though I don’t regret that I have continued to study. When we went to the sixth grade, you had to decide if you wanted to continue in the comprehensive primary school, that was new then (it was new that you should go nine years instead of eight), or if you would like to apply for entrance into some other school, and then I applied to the girls’ school, because when mamma and I discussed it with my homeroom teacher beforehand, she recommended it. And I was admitted to it and wound up in the same class as E-L. That’s how we met and fell in love. (That was before we had begun to be interested in the opposite sex.) We talked and called, exchanged notes and wrote letters. We still do, but not as often as before. Then boys came into the picture, and that’s when the seriousness of life began! No, but then we became more concentrated on them than on each other.

  Yesterday, we went to the movies first, to a Danish film called “Goat Buck in Paradise”, and then we went to Svartbäcksgatan looking for boys. But there was none that stopped. I took the bus home, and E-L got a lift from a guy in a Saab, she said today.

  Once Siv, who is in the same class as Kicki and me, was kicked out of a dance hall because she was drunk, and sometimes she comes to school with big hickeys on her neck, so I don’t think she has any cause to look down on Kicki and me just because we walk on Svartbäcksgatan. Today, when I went past her and some other girls in front of the annex, she said: “Hi, raggarbruden! Are you going to be picked up tonight?” And another time, she came up to Kicki and me and said: “What are you going to do tonight? Are you going to the movies or are you going to go out dancing?” “Going to the movies,” Kicki said. “You are not going to ride in a raggarbil then?” Siv said. But to be drunk and kick up a fuss so you are thrown out of a dance hall is worse than riding with guys you don’t know, I think. When you go dancing you don’t know the guys either, before you have danced with them. And the guy has perhaps a car and drives the girl home, and then you can easily figure out what they do before she gets out. So what’s the difference? The only difference is that we don’t dance with the guys first.

  With regards to raggare, there was an eighteen-year-old guy who killed that taxi driver in Halland. The guy and his buddy wanted to have a car to pick up girls, so they shot the driver and took the cab. But they didn’t get any girls.

  Saturday, 18 January 1964

  Today E-L and I cut gym class and went to Café Regent and had coffee. I have become really clever in writing mamma’s signature on my absence card. E-L just tells her parents to sign for her when she has been absent from a lesson, because she has such discipline over them in that way, but I don’t have it over mine, so I have to carry on falsifying.

  Actually, I can’t afford to come along with E-L to go for coffee as often as I do. I get 50 kronor every month, and that’s supposed to be enough for stockings, coffee, cigarettes and the movies. (Not for the bus, because I have a bus pass, and they pay for it at home.) But the money isn’t enough, because it costs a lot for cigarettes, and then coffee and the movies. Sometimes I go out with E-L at Tempo for lunch also, even though I can eat for free at home.

  When we were at Café Regent we talked about a girl in a parallel class who is pregnant. To be pregnant and so young is not anything you wish for yourself. But as long as you are a virgin, you don’t need to be uneasy about it. And I intend to wait with both sex and children until I have met Mr. Right. First you are together a while, then you get engaged, then you marry and then it can be time to start thinking about children. I wouldn’t wish to be pregnant until I’m mature enough for it and feel that that’s what I want. I want it to be planned. But I will probably not wait to be intimate until after the wedding, because that would perhaps be difficult if you are in love. So it can happen that you get pregnant even though you have not thought it would happen that way. Then you must try to make the best of the situation. You can travel, for example, to Poland and have an abortion. No, I wouldn’t do that. But I think there should be abortion rights in Sweden.

  This evening I’m supposed to accompany mamma and papa to visit Gunnar and Viola. We will sleep over, because they are going to have a party (and then you know what you can expect). Viola usually drinks about as much as papa and Gunnar, because she is stout and tolerates it, while mamma, who is small, drinks a lot less. But everyone gets affected. And meanwhile I get to lie in the room next door and listen to how they laugh and roar. They don’t give a shit if I can’t sleep. But I would rather lie there, than sit at the table and watch them get drunk. I can’t put up with the way mamma always becomes flirty and girlish when she drinks. I react physically to it and I almost feel sick. It gives me the creeps, but I don’t ever say anything. I just withdraw and become like some kind of observer. I don’t get involved like Anita did, for example. “Quiet!” she shrieked when they became too loud at parties. And that they later, if we are at home, have sex in the bed next to me though I’m awake, I can’t stand, either. They probably think I’m asleep.

  I have bought a pink, long-sleeved sweater at Hennes, and I had it on when I went to town. With it I had my black, tight skirt and white cardigan.

  Kicki was supposed to go away with her parents, so I went alone again, and there were quite a lot who stopped. First came a lone guy in a DKW, afterwards two guys in a Vedette and then three draftees in an Opel. Finally, I rode with two guys and another girl in a Dodge.

  In the fall, when Kicki and I started to go out, we said that we would never ride with guys in real raggarbilar and never with those who have alcohol, but now I have done it, although they didn’t have any alcohol. The guys were called Putte and Becke, and it was Putte who didn’t have a girl. I sat in front, next to him, while Becke and the other girl half lay in back. They had a record player in the car, and it was so cosy to sit there in the warmth and ride around town and listen to music. I played “Diggity Doggety” with the Streaplers and “Fourty Days” with Cliff Richard and some others I don’t remember the names of.

  When we had spun around town for a while, we went off to Kohagen and drove down to the waterside. I don’t believe that real raggare are harder than common guys and throw girls off in the woods if they don’t get their way, because Putte didn’t get angry at all when I didn’t let him kiss me. But it can of course be different. Mostly I usually let them do it, so I don’t really know why I said no to him. I think it was because of the car. He was maybe used to getting what he wanted with all the girls he picked up, and if I let him kiss me he might think that I was with him for everything, I thought. Though now
I don’t believe any longer that guys in big American cars are worse than others.

  He wanted to suck a hickey on my neck. When I didn’t let him do it, he drew up my sweater and cardigan and sucked one below my bra instead. Then he sat up and lit a cigarette.

  “What do you think of the Pearl then?” he said.

  “The Pearl?”

  “Yes, the car! What do you think of it?”

  “Well, it’s nice, I suppose. Is it yours?”

  “We own it together.”

  But it wasn’t because he had a certain type of car I had followed along, if that’s what he thought.

  While he smoked, he stared at me without saying anything.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Do you know you are sweet?”'

  “No.”

  “Nobody has told you before?”

  “Well, yes.”

  “Well, then you know!”

  Then he asked me if I had a photo he could have.

  “What are you going to do with it?”

  “Look at it so I remember how sweet you were.”

  And I had one in my wallet which he got.

  “And write your name and phone number,” he said and put the picture with the backside up on the dashboard so that I could write it there.

  But it was enough with my name, I thought, because I didn’t know if I wanted him to call. Though when he asked me where I lived I told him, because he would find that out anyway when they gave me a lift home.

  A little later he wanted to know how many guys I have laid.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said.

  “Yes, I want to know.”

  “Why?”

  “Because. Is it more than twenty?”

  “No.”

  “More than ten then?”

  “No.”

  “More than five?”