Betrayal

There was no parking ticket on his car when he came out. It didn’t surprise him much, he only noted it as something natural. For the last time the main doors had slid aside when they sensed his presence, but this time they hadn’t tossed him out into fear and loneliness, longing for the next time he would be allowed inside. This time they had slid aside deferentially and wished him well in his new life.

Now it would all begin. Everything he had gone through up till now had been a test of whether he deserved what now awaited him. He could forgive life for the injustice after injustice. Together with her everything would be repaid.

For the last time he turned on to Solnavägen and took a right towards Essingeleden. The rush-hour traffic was over and the trip home took him only the eighteen minutes it usually did.

Or rather, as it used to do.

When he got home to Storsjövägen he backed up to the front entrance and shut off the engine. He climbed out and opened the boot. He had a lot to do today, and it was best he began at once.

The packing boxes lay in the cellar. He picked up four of them and took the lift up to the studio. It smelled stuffy when he opened the door, but he didn’t feel like airing it. Instead he opened up two of the boxes and lined the bottoms with newspaper. The hibiscus had lost one of its two pink flowers, and the one that was left had withered into a shrivelled strip. He tossed the pot, dirt and all, into one of the cartons. For two years and five months he had seen to it that all her potted plants stayed alive, but now that was all over.

He was no longer responsible for their lives.

The boxes were heavier than he thought when they were full of dirt, and he had to drag them out to the lift. When he looked round one last time and made sure that all life in the flat had been emptied into boxes he closed the door behind him, locked both locks and threw the key through the mail slot.

Never again.

He continued to his own flat.

Some of the painting frames were too big to fit into the cartons, so he had to break them up.

When the walls were bare the flat looked completely naked. Just as naked and unblemished as he himself would be. He would cleanse every thought, every memory, clean every nook and cranny to make room for the love he had found.

Utterly pure and without guilt he would receive her, making himself worthy.

He opened the wardrobe and took out her clothes that he had brought down from the studio, shoving them down amongst the paintings. Her scent had long since left them, but they had still kept him company when the loneliness felt too oppressive.

Now he didn’t need them any more.

Never again.

He had to put the last box on the passenger seat. The clock on the dashboard read only eleven thirty, and that was much too early. He would have to wait for evening in order not to attract too much attention. On the other hand, he would have to carry the boxes the last stretch of the way; it was only a matter of driving up to the Boat Club, and that would take him a while. He would rather have done it on the wharf, but he knew that was impossible. Yet he could do it on the beach right next to it. No one would see him from the path, but the bonfire would be visible from the south side facing Söder. But surely he could light a fire if he wanted to, and it would have to take place near the wharf.

Like a purification rite, once and for all.

On that September day two years and five months ago it had been raining for a whole week, but then like an omen the sky split open and turned bright blue two hours before she was to arrive. He had packed the picnic basket carefully. He had even made a quick trip down to Konsum and bought plastic champagne glasses so everything would be perfect.

As usual she was a bit late, twenty-six minutes to be exact, but she had wanted to finish something on a painting she was working on. It didn’t make that much difference; if he had waited a year he could wait another twenty-six minutes.

He had placed a checked kitchen towel over the basket and during the walk down towards Årstaviken she kept asking him what was in it. As usual she babbled on; it bothered him a bit that she didn’t seem to grasp the solemnity of the occasion. She talked about some gallery where she might get a chance to exhibit her paintings, and about how nice the man was who owned the place. The whole conversation made him uncomfortable. He hated it when she met people outside his control. He wanted to know everything she did, who she met and how she acted when she met them. A few weeks earlier he had mustered the courage to talk to her about it, explain how he felt. Something had happened after their talk, something that bothered him. For him everything he told her had been a sign of his boundless love, but somehow she must have misunderstood. It seemed as if she had pulled back the past few weeks. She had suddenly not been able to eat lunch with him as she usually did, and a few times she had pretended she wasn’t home when he knocked on the door of the studio, even though he knew she was there.

Now he would see to it that everything was all right again.

He had thought that they should sit on the bench across from the Boat Club, but when she saw that the gates were open she absolutely had to walk out on the wharfs. She chose the one on the right, and they walked past the few boats that were still in the water, waiting to be taken out for the winter. They walked to the end, and he set the basket down on the concrete. The bench would have been better. She came over and stood by his side, looking out over the water. A lock of her dark hair had slipped out of the clasp at the back of her neck and was lying across her cheek. He resisted the impulse to brush it aside, touch her face.

‘God, it’s so beautiful. Look at the Söder Hospital.’

He looked where she was pointing. The sun made the windows in the enormous white building glow as if fires had been lit inside each and every one of them.

‘I should have brought along my sketch pad.’

He knelt down and took the towel off the basket, placed it like a tablecloth on the concrete, and set out the champagne glasses.

‘Oh,’ she said, smiling in surprise, ‘it’s a party!’

He felt the nervousness now, almost changed his mind. In some way she didn’t seem fully there. Everything would be much easier if she met him halfway, tried to help him out. He took out the potato salad and the grilled chicken, reached for the sparkling wine and stood up.

Her smile. He had to touch her.

‘What are we celebrating?’

He smiled at her, couldn’t say the words, not yet.

‘Has something wonderful happened?’

Now she was looking at him with curiosity, really looking at him. For the first time in weeks he had her full attention. Finally she was back again, with him, where she should always be.

He handed her the glass with determination.

‘Will you marry me?’

He had fantasised about it for months. How her beautiful face would break into that smile that made her eyes narrow to slits. How she would come to him, come close, in complete trust and finally let him kiss her, touch her. She who had always had to struggle through life would understand that he intended to protect her, that he would never leave her, that she never had to be afraid again.

But all she did was shut her eyes.

She closed her eyes and shut him out.

A primal fear came over him. All the terror that she had protected him from for a whole year came flooding in like a great fury.

She opened her eyes and looked at him again.

‘Jonas. We have to talk.’

She took the glass from him and put it down on the wharf.

‘Come, let’s sit down.’

He couldn’t move.

‘Come on.’

She reached out her hand and placed it carefully on his arm, led him cautiously over to the edge of the wharf and got him to sit down. She stared out over the water.

‘I think the world of you, Jonas, I do, but what you said to me a few weeks ago scared me. I realised that maybe you’ve misinterpreted everything.’

I don’t want you to live here any more.

‘I’ve tried to explain things to you but . . . well, it’s my own fault that it’s gone this far, because I haven’t dared, I didn’t want to make you sad. Yes, and our friendship has been terribly important for me as well, I don’t want to lose it.’

I don’t want you to live here any more.

‘This man at the gallery I told you about, his name is Martin, we have . . . he and I have . . . oh, damn it.’

She looked away but in the next instant he thought he could feel her hand on his arm, though it could have been his imagination.

‘I’m so sorry that I didn’t say something sooner. I didn’t realise how you felt until you told me that you didn’t want me to see other people if you weren’t with me. And this thing with Martin. Well, now I might as well tell you the truth. I really believe I can say that I love him. At any rate, I haven’t ever felt like this before.’

He looked down at his arm. Yes, it was there. Her faithless hand lay there on his forearm.

She was touching him.

‘Forgive me, Jonas, but . . .’

Everything went white.

In the next instant she was in the water. Her face broke the surface, shocked and furious.

‘What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy?’

He looked around. There was an old abandoned oar next to him with only half the blade left. Her hands were clutching the edge of the wharf but he prised up her fingers so she had to let go. The next time he saw her head above the surface he shoved the oar against her shoulder and forced her back down. Her deceitful hands thrashed above the surface but vanished. Then she started moving out, backwards; she was trying to escape by swimming out of reach.

The water closed around him. The cold didn’t touch him. Quickly he was at her side and shoved her head under the water. He fought off her thrashing arms and locked his legs around her to get extra leverage. It might have taken ten minutes; time did not exist. Only the feeling that she slowly but surely was ceasing to resist, had submitted to his will and given in.

And then the voice from somewhere that suddenly broke into his consciousness.

‘Hello! Hello! Do you need help? I’m coming.’