What Doesn’t Hurt You

The executor of the will observed that, broadly speaking, the father had left behind only two assets of any significance: first, a unique Märklin Spur 0 collection from the 1920s, containing an Austrian station building, twenty-six clockwork locomotives in mint condition, fourteen electric locomotives, eighty-seven lithographed tinplate carriages, bridges, viaducts, semaphore signals, points and enough track to offer a journey all the way round the block; and then, of course, the swingers’ club he had run with great success for decades. The value of the two was judged to be roughly the same.

The will contained precise instructions. The train collection was neither to be broken up nor sold to collectors, and the club was not to change its nature. The sons still had a choice, the executor observed when they gathered around the table for the review of the estate: namely, either to accept the inheritance, or to leave the premises empty-handed.

The summer cottage in the archipelago had been made over to the Hungarian dental nurse, also the father’s mistress, a legally watertight arrangement. The liquid assets, which had once been substantial enough to buy a defunct adventure park on a whim, the father had withdrawn in bundles of banknotes and distributed as lavish tips during his final years of milder dementia. Among other things, he had made a waitress both rich and written about in the local newspaper, and in addition refurbished the establishment where she worked to resemble a Bavarian beer hall. The attic flat in town he had sold many years earlier in order to pursue a caravan life, and the caravan itself was, as everyone knew, lying at the bottom of Lake Fryken. Hence this meeting, the executor summed up, without altering his tone.

It ought to have seemed natural to let the model trains pass to Olof, the slightly nerdy and prudish physicist, and thereby sign the club over to Ragnar, the bohemian and extravagant motorcycle mechanic, but the will ordained the reverse. Their father’s principle of upbringing followed the proverb “what does not harm you hardens you”, which apparently also applied from the realm of the dead. The brothers could have spoken at length about this, but in adulthood they almost never met, and on those occasions the conversations remained at the level of small talk.

The sons had certainly been hardened, as children of the scabrous sex director, whose business attracted all manner of herpes-ridden pervs with neither university credits nor table manners. From time to time a certain amount of tourism was generated in the town by suspicious German gangs with television crews, and more than once the neighbours complained about loud howls and used condoms, which had not even been properly sorted for recycling. But the enterprise put food on the table, as people say, and the father had been careful not to bring his work home with him. Their mother did not say much, mostly satisfied at having drawn the winning ticket of not having to work.

Furthermore, the executor explained, I shall guarantee that you sons honour the inheritance. You may sign here, he said, pointing to the dotted line at the bottom of the fifth page of the booklet.

There was nothing to do but obey.

For many long weeks Ragnar stared at the boxes where they stood unpacked in the middle of the villa. As if they might suddenly spring open by themselves, with a surprise and a revelation. His partner said nothing about their placement outside the guest toilet, mostly pleased to own something so expensive for the first time in her life. She boasted about the inheritance when guests came over, and they too had never come close to anything so expensive, so they later came to boast about it second-hand.

The value, however, began to fall on the night, in the wolf hour, when Ragnar decided to take command of the situation. He tore open the untouched packages with their Gothic Märklin logos and began laying buffer stops and centre-rail track across the vinyl flooring. The collection came to life, with carriages, spring-driven locomotives, remote-controlled points and hand-painted semaphore signals. There were both bridges and viaducts, so the thresholds caused no difficulty. He built as if in a trance, and when the rest of the family had woken, they had to tiptoe over the rails to reach the kitchen. In front of the dishwasher stood the Central-Bahnhof, with ticket window, platform roof and a clock face that had stopped at 17:12. Not especially practical, but no one ever questioned Ragnar.

When the line was complete, he sent off the first locomotive. It chuffed away, if not towards Verona or Innsbruck, then at least towards the hall. The sewing-machine sound of the striving engines soothed his mind. The whole procedure reminded him of taking an antique Chinese porcelain service down from a display cabinet and using it to serve tea, then focusing entirely and fully on the drink itself. A transformation into an object of use, from observer to user. And more than anything else: into the protagonist of your own life.

When he checked his mobile after setting several parallel departures in motion around the home, he discovered several missed calls from Olof. His timid brother normally never used the telephone function, it was almost surprising that he had even discovered it existed, and at most sent a text message on birthdays and anniversaries. Now he had called several times during the night leading into Saturday. He had also left several voicemails.

But Ragnar did not call back.