Betrayal

Horrid was the word he thought could best describe the remainder of their crossing, even if it was an understatement. The Baltic Sea was smooth as a mirror, but the calm outside was amply compensated for by the tornado that struck him, that tore loose every feeling he thought was firmly anchored in a decision taken. Everything he had known, wanted, dreamed. It was all one big mess.

The longest half-hour of his life she had spent locked in the bathroom before she burst out, packed her things in a rage and without saying a word slammed the door of their luxury cabin behind her.

He had remained sitting where he was, looking out the porthole as the archipelago thinned out and Stockholm and home vanished farther and farther out of reach. After a few hours he made his way down to the lobby and changed his return trip reservation to that same night. She had done the same, he learned. He had no idea where she was during the rest of the crossing.

In Åbo he had changed ferries; as sheer punishment he was given a windowless cabin on a lower deck below the water level, and that’s where he had continued his isolation. Just after midnight there was an urgent knock on his door. She was drunk. Furiously she screamed at him, using all the obscene words he could remember ever hearing, and when he didn’t defend himself the air went out of her. In tears she collapsed on the floor inside the cabin door. But he was unable to console her. For the life of him he couldn’t come up with anything to say. And when she realised his total inability to handle all that had happened, her wrath was reawakened and with a new onslaught of vituperation she left the cabin, slamming the door, leaving him to the confined space with her words hanging in the air. And he realised that he deserved every one of them. He remained sitting among them and spent the next few hours in soul-searching until he could stand it no longer. Because he had been betrayed as well. A judge ought to come down on his side, weighing the punishment he deserved for what he had done to Linda against the sympathy to which he was entitled after Eva’s betrayal.

It would have been so much easier if everything were black or white. The tightrope he would have been forced to walk with a furious need to accuse her without any of his own guilt. Silence her with her guilty conscience and rob her of every possibility of defending herself. Force her to admit her wretchedness and thereby finally take the power from her. Gain superiority over her.

Instead he would obsequiously have to attempt to win back her love, persuade her in an ingratiating way, try to convince her to stay with him. Choose his words well and not give her the slightest opportunity of minimising her crime by dumping part of the guilt onto him, by saying that he had behaved no better himself.

It would have been so much easier if he had told her the truth from the beginning. If he had confessed his secret love or passion or whatever it was he felt or had felt. Then they could have continued from the point they were at now, with all their cards on the table. Now it was too late. Now his admission that he had lied cast him into the underworld and from there he could never become her equal. Even if she had done the same thing to him, her verbal prowess would quickly shift all right and truth to her side.

There was something about Eva that made him feel superfluous. She was so unbelievably strong. Adversity seemed to have the opposite effect on her that it did on other people. She didn’t react normally. For her adversity was a reason, and fuel to become even stronger. In some unfathomable way she always managed to convert a crisis into an opportunity. As he stood by and kept silent and realised that she didn’t need him, that she could solve everything on her own with no need for his help or support. Bit by bit she had stripped him of all responsibility until finally he hadn’t known whether he could handle anything at all. Good God, he wasn’t even allowed to open his own window envelopes!

With Linda everything had been different. She had openly admitted that she needed him; it was a fantastic feeling to be indispensable. She made him feel like a man. Straight off she admitted that there were things that she couldn’t do or hadn’t mastered, and unlike Eva there was nothing shameful in it for her. On the contrary, she used it to come closer to him, to make them dependent on each other, to help them create an essential togetherness. And he had enjoyed their solidarity. He had fantasised about their life together and how different everything would be. How different he would be. Now he realised how naïve he had been, how simple everything had seemed as long as it was merely a fantasy. He had imagined that he would be able to cut Eva out of his life and his future like an old wart he finally got around to doing something about. That everything would be clean and pure and full of possibilities. An unblemished new start, completely unaffected by everything that had gone before, all the choices he had once made. He realised now with devastating clarity that it could never be that way; he and Eva belonged together forever, whether they wanted it or not. The choices he had already made would follow him for the rest of his life. Axel was one of the consequences. He had only seen the advantages, forgotten to imagine Eva and Axel together with a new man, a man who would spend as much time with Axel as he did. Influence him and the grown man he would one day become. Now that he had got a look at that bastard, the thought was intolerable.

But the thought of losing Linda was intolerable as well.

Or of being rejected by Eva.

Or that she may never have loved him.

Bloody hell.

He needed time. Time to understand what it was he actually felt.

What it was he actually wanted.

He got up and found the key card. He had to try and get hold of Linda. Whether it was out of consideration or because the walls of the cabin were threatening to suffocate him, he didn’t know. He got her cabin number from the reception, but there was no answer when he knocked. No one was answering her phone either. Methodically he searched through the bars and restaurants on board. What was it he wanted from her? He didn’t know. All he knew was that he had to talk to her. Try to make her understand. She wasn’t on any of the flashing disco floors or in the loud karaoke bars. He stopped in front of a large panoramic window, having lost his orientation, and in all the pitch blackness outside the window it was impossible to discern the direction they were sailing, whether he was closer to the bow or the stern. He found a wall map and made his way back to her cabin. This time she opened the door, squinting at the sharp light in the corridor. She didn’t say a word, just left the cabin door open and backed into the darkness inside. He took a deep breath before he followed her, still not knowing what he wanted to say. Then he closed the door behind him and stood there in the dark.

‘Don’t turn on the light.’

He heard her voice a few metres away and pulled back his hand that had automatically been searching the wall for a light switch.

‘I can’t see a thing.’

She didn’t answer. He heard the sound of a glass being set down on a table. A faint light from the porthole began to materialise and then the contours of a chair. He stood there trying to let his eyes adjust. Didn’t want to risk tripping over something on the floor. But he had to figure out what to say.

‘How are you feeling?’

She didn’t answer this time either. Only a faint snort broke through the throbbing engine noise.

He stood in silence a long time. The initiative was his but he didn’t know what to say, what words he could use to make her understand.

‘Do you have anything to drink?’

‘No.’

He heard her pick up the glass and take a few gulps.

This was not going to be easy.

‘Linda, I . . .’

He had palpitations now. He felt so much and could explain none of it. She who had been his closest friend. Who had understood him so well. Who had made him feel so good. Who had made him dare.

He heard her change position. Maybe she was sitting up.

‘What do you want?’

Four words.

Each by itself or in some other context completely harmless. Utterly without gravity in themselves. Merely a question about what he wanted.

But at this moment the words coming from her lips were a threat to his entire existence. Now he would be forced to make the choice he would have to live with for the rest of his life. Open the way towards the future he would freely choose, here and now. Now he had a chance. Or did he? That was precisely what he didn’t know any longer, whether he actually had any other choice. And that’s what made it all so hard. He no longer knew. Maybe this was the only alternative. Maybe the decision had already been made, over his head.

By Eva.

Again.

Shit.

Surely Linda realised that everything had changed, didn’t she? That it wasn’t so easy any more? She couldn’t ask him to make such a big decision without giving him a chance to think or figure out what was going on.

‘If you still don’t have anything to say then you might as well leave.’

There was a coldness in her voice that scared him. He was on his way to losing everything. Both what he had and what he dreamed of having. Both. What would he do then? If he was left all alone.

‘Please, can’t we just turn on the light so I can see you?’

‘Why should you see me? It doesn’t seem to be anything you want.’

He felt the rage building. It was such a shame for her! She was lying there so pitiful and refused to make the slightest effort to try and understand or meet him halfway.

She was the one who spoke.

‘I just want to hear your answer to my question. That’s all I ask and it doesn’t matter if it’s in the dark. What is it you want, anyway?’

He could see her contours now. She was sitting up in bed. A single cabin the same as his.

‘It’s not that fucking simple!’

‘What isn’t simple?’

‘Everything has changed.’

‘What has changed?’

Now he could also make out the floor, and he went over to the chair, picked up her jacket that was hanging over the back and placed it in his lap as he sat down.

He gave a heavy sigh.

‘I don’t know how to explain.’

‘Try.’

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit.

‘It’s not as if my feelings for you have changed, that’s not it.’

She sat in silence. It was harder to make out her contours from this angle. Maybe it was true that it was easier to say what he had to say without being able to see her.

‘It just feels like . . . I know it sounds strange, but . . . Eva and I lived together for almost fifteen years. Even though I don’t love her . . . I just can’t fathom that she has been with another man for a whole year. Without saying a word. I just feel so stupid.’

The darkness was working in his favour. He didn’t need to see her or show his shame. And he didn’t want her questions and accusations. He wanted her support. Her understanding.

‘I’ve never told you about this. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone, not even Eva. It’s a long time ago now, back in Katrineholm before I moved to Stockholm.’

A girl he had loved. Unconditionally and to distraction. At least he had thought so. Twenty years ago, with no frame of reference. Everything new and untested. Untried. No limits.

‘There was a girl there, Maria was her name. She was a year younger than me. We moved in together in a little bed-sit in the city right after high school. I was really in love with her . . .’

The price had been high. He had risked everything but not for a second had he felt secure. It had been a crazy balancing act from the beginning; he had loved her more than she did him. Every waking moment was a struggle to regain balance. Every day a paralysing fear of losing her, a fear that in the end controlled his whole life. And he had good reason to be afraid. He never succeeded in trusting her, in spite of her protestations that everything was as it should be. She had lulled him into a false sense of security which he finally had to believe in because he had no other choice. Until his suspicions had been confirmed by the testimony of others.

‘She went behind my back. I had a suspicion about it the whole time, but she assured me that it wasn’t true. But in the end she admitted that she had met someone else.’

Never again will anyone do me so wrong. Never be able to fool me like that. I will never again let anyone all the way in.

Twenty years later and the wound was still there. He had kept his promise. Until he met Linda. She had forced him to dare.

Now Eva had sabotaged everything by picking the wound open again.

He heard her drinking from the glass. Sensed her movements as shadows in the dark.

‘I have only one question. What is it you want?’

He closed his eyes. Gave an honest answer.

‘I don’t know.’

‘Then I want you to leave.’

‘Linda, please.’

‘I know what I want, I’ve known it for a long time, and I’ve told you about it. You told me what you wanted too, but I realise now that you didn’t mean a word of it.’

‘Yes I did.’

‘You most certainly did not!’

‘Yes I did, it’s just that everything is different now.’

‘Well, so be it. Then there wasn’t any more to it than that. You find out that your wife is doing it with someone else and suddenly we don’t mean shit any more. Bloody hell!’

She lay back on the bed again.

‘Linda, that’s not what this is about.’

‘Then what is it that has changed so much? If it’s not your feelings for me? Just a few days ago we went and looked at a flat together!’

Give me a year on a desert island.

With all my choices intact.

‘Can’t you wait for me?’

‘Wait for what? For you to see if you can get her back?’

‘No!’

‘What am I supposed to wait for, then? For you to make up your mind whether I’m good enough as a replacement?’

‘Cut it out, Linda. I just feel that everything’s moving too fast. I do realise that because I’m reacting this way that . . . that . . .’

He broke off. What was it he had actually realised?

‘That you actually love your wife?’

‘No, that’s not true. I really don’t.’

Or did he?

‘It’s not that. I just realise that . . . that I’m not ready yet . . . it wouldn’t be fair to you to . . .’

Please, get me out of this!

‘I’m just not ready. It wouldn’t be fair to you if we started a life together when I’m feeling this way.’

‘So you think I should sit and wait for you? In case you ever happen to be ready?’

‘Everything is so much easier for you! You’re not risking anything.’

She sat up again.

‘I’m not risking anything! I’m a day-care teacher who’s having an affair with the father of one of the children! What do you think will happen to me when this gets out? And those emails that somebody sent? How do you think it feels to have someone go into my computer and find my private letters and then send them off? Don’t you get it? Somebody knows. Somebody who has seen us. Who’s trying to punish me!’

‘It wasn’t Eva. I know you think so, but she’s not like that. And why in hell would she do it? She must be satisfied by now. It gives her a free hand, after all.’

Linda was silent, and he saw that she was shaking her head, slowly shaking it back and forth in disgust.

At him.

‘Listen to yourself. Listen to what you’re saying. Poor little rejected Henrik. It’s such a fucking shame!’

He didn’t reply.

He had lost her.

She went over and opened the cabin door. The sharp glare from the fluorescent lights in the hallway blinded him. All that was left of her was a black silhouette.

‘You’re never going to be ready, Henrik. If I were you I’d spend my time finding out who I am and what I actually want to do with my life. Then you can go out and involve others in your future.’

He swallowed. The lump in his throat wouldn’t go away.

‘Now go.’

He couldn’t recall the last time he had felt so nervous. The enormous bouquet of roses on the seat next to him suddenly looked grotesque, like a foolish prop in an even more foolish film. It was just after ten in the morning, and he was grateful that he would have the day alone at home so he could collect himself before she came home from work. He hadn’t called to tell her that he was returning a day early.

He was close now. Close to home. But he had never felt so far away. He cursed at a badly parked old Mazda that stood halfway out in the road just before the right turn into his street. With one hand on the wheel he manoeuvred his way past and in the next moment he saw his house.

Her car was in the driveway.

Why wasn’t she at work?

And then the next thought.

Maybe she wasn’t alone inside. Maybe she had made sure to bring home her lover now that Henrik was out of the way for a few days, show him their home, what she had to offer in the way of material assets. The thought disgusted him as much as it scared him. He stood alone now while there were two of them. And he was the one who would have to leave the house, she was the one who had the financial wherewithal to buy him out. And then that other bastard would move into his house, get to enjoy all the hard work he had done to fix it up. Fuck. And she who had been so understanding. Suggested maybe he should go away for a few days and think. I’ll take care of everything here at home in the meantime, it’s quite all right, the main thing is that you feel good again. I’m here if you need me, I always will be. Maybe I’ve been poor at showing it, but I’ll try to improve.

How was it possible to be so cold and calculating, all to get rid of him for a few days so she could fuck her lover in peace. Who was she really, this woman he had lived with for almost fifteen years? Did he know her at all?

And the trip she had paid for. And the champagne. Had it all been to assuage her guilty conscience?

He opened the car door, took the bouquet of roses and climbed out. If she had seen him through a window he couldn’t very well retreat now. But what would he do if the other man was in the house?

He took his time after he put the key in the door. Made as much noise as possible to give them time to interrupt whatever they were doing. A bedroom drama was the last thing he wanted to deal with right now. He put his bag down on the hall floor and looked around for strange shoes or coats without finding any.

Her voice from upstairs.

‘Hello?’

Instinctively he hid the bouquet behind his back.

‘It’s only me.’

Her steps across the floor upstairs and then her feet, legs and finally all of her visible halfway down the stairs, where she stopped. The expression on her face was hard to read, maybe surprised, maybe annoyed.

‘I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow night.’

‘No, I know. I changed my mind.’

He swallowed his impulse to ask if she was lonely, his need to know.

They stood there looking at each other, neither of them ready to take the next step. The bouquet burned in his hand, suddenly so embarrassing that he wanted to back out and toss it away before it was discovered.

It was impossible to determine what he actually felt when he saw her. Only a desire to be able to go up the stairs in peace and quiet, sink down in their sofa and let everything be normal. Decide who was going to pick up Axel at day-care, where he would be able to drive without having a stomach ache, and then eat a normal Tuesday dinner together. Ask how Axel was doing, whether anyone had called and where she had put his mail and whether they should rent a movie that evening. But there was a mountain between them. And how he was going to get over that mountain he had no idea. Even less what might be waiting for him on the other side.

‘Why aren’t you at work?’

He hadn’t meant to sound like he was snooping, but he could hear that it sounded like an accusation. And it was more than clear that she was searching for a suitable answer, since she didn’t really have one.

‘My throat is a little sore.’

She said it on her way back up the stairs, without looking at him. And he knew she was lying. When she was gone he put down the bouquet and quickly took off his jacket, looked at himself in the hall mirror and ran his fingers through his hair. He couldn’t remember the last time he had bought her flowers, or whether he had ever done so before. But if he were to be successful with what he had decided to do, then he would have to try and overcome the distaste he felt. He had one single goal, but his feelings were fighting for space inside of him. Anger, fear, confusion, decisiveness.

He took the bouquet and went up the stairs.

She was standing by the kitchen table stacking up sheets of paper. A calculator and a pen. The folder they got from the real estate agent where she put all the bills and loan papers related to the house.

The fear again. Stronger than the anger.

‘What are you doing?’

She didn’t have time to answer. She looked up at him and saw the blood-red bouquet. Stood there mute and stared at it as if she were trying to identify what it signified. And then, finally, after an uncomfortable pause when all he felt was his own heart pounding, she finally managed to grasp what the bouquet was.

‘Did someone send you flowers?’

‘No, they’re for you.’

He held the bouquet out to her but she didn’t move. Not a hint of a reaction. Everything felt hollow. Not a move to step forward and take them. Her indifference made him suddenly feel so embarrassed that it was too much for him, and he wanted to scream out all his accusations right in her face. Crush that false mask devoid of feeling that she hid behind and force her down on her knees. Make her confess. But he had to be smarter than that to manage all this.

He swallowed.

‘Shall I put them in water?’

His words got her moving, and she went to the cupboard over the refrigerator where she kept the vases, hesitated briefly when she couldn’t reach them, and went back to the kitchen table to get a chair. She didn’t say thank you when he handed her the bouquet. Didn’t look at him either. Just took the flowers from his hands, turned and went to the sink. He stood looking at her back as she slowly and carefully clipped the ends off the roses and arranged them one by one in the vase.

Perhaps she had already made her decision and stood there preparing herself. Perhaps she would turn around soon and tell him the truth, that she had made up her mind while he was gone. Admit that she had met another man and wanted to live with him instead. He had to forestall her, make her understand that he was ready to fight for what they had, that he would change if she just gave him a chance. He had to make her understand that her decision was based on false assumptions.

He suddenly felt like crying, going over and throwing his arms around her. Stand close behind her and tell her the truth. Once and for all get rid of all the lies and, with them out of the way, be able to feel close to her again. When had they stopped talking to each other? Had they ever been able to talk the way he and Linda had done? Why had it been so easy with her and not with Eva? They had known each other for fifteen years, after all. She knew more about him than anyone else. He couldn’t stand not having her friendship any more. They shared far too many memories. And they shared Axel.

Dear Eva. I’m sorry. Forgive me.

It didn’t happen. It was a superhuman task to give voice to the words, to admit his infidelity and his lies even though she was no better herself. He refused to expose himself that way, or at least he didn’t intend to do it before he had some idea how she would react, whether she intended to reject him or not. But he had to try to approach her, he was in a hurry now, he had to try to reach her before it was too late. Before she turned around and announced her decision.

‘I’ve missed you.’

She didn’t turn around but her hand stopped halfway between the sink and the vase.

He could hear how strange the words sounded. As if even the room were reacting. It was so long since anything like that had been said within these walls, and he wondered whether what he said was true. Was it longing for her he had felt? In the strict sense of the word. Yes, it was. The longing for her loyalty.

‘I’ve been thinking while I was away, as you told me to do, and I would like to beg your forgiveness for being so disagreeable lately. And then I got to thinking of that trip you booked to Iceland. I would very much like it if we went on it together.’

Her hand was once again moving between the sink and the vase.

‘I cancelled it.’

‘We can book another one. I can do it.’

Eager, bordering on desperation. A wild attempt to break through, get a first response that would point out what way they were heading. And he hated the fact that he was once again subject to her will, her decision. In a second he was re-acclimatised and robbed of the ability to take action, which he had discovered was something he could do over the past six months.

The phone rang. She reached it first even though he was closer. He had hesitated because he thought they should let it ring.

‘Eva.’

She gave him a quick look when she heard who it was. As if she was close to being exposed.

‘I haven’t got to it yet, can I call you a little later?’

Hadn’t got to what?

‘Good, I’ll do that. See you later.’

She hung up and put down the phone.

‘Who was that?’

‘Pappa.’

She was lying without looking at him again. It was him – the other man.

Somehow he had to rise up from his position at the bottom. He was the one who had been unpleasant lately. She could continue in peace and quiet to hide behind what was right – wounded and unapproachable, forcing him to make up with her. Somehow he had to get her to confess. But not by accusing her. Then she would only be on her guard and also have a legitimate reason to strike back. No, he had to get her to reveal herself.

She had returned to the roses, although they were all standing as if to attention in the vase.

He decided to try a long shot. It should produce some kind of reaction.

‘Janne says to say hello, by the way.’

‘Mm-hmm. How are they doing these days?’

‘They’re fine. He said he saw you at some lunch place a while back.’

‘Oh, he did?’

‘You didn’t seem to see him. He joked and wondered what sort of lamb meat you were out to lunch with.’

With the vase all arranged in her hands, she turned round.

‘Lamb meat?’

‘Yes, there was some young man you were eating with.’

‘I don’t remember that, when did he say it was?’

She walked towards the living room with the vase. He followed her.

‘A week or so ago, maybe. I’m not sure.’

‘It couldn’t have been me. He must be mistaken.’

Cool as a cucumber. He didn’t know her at all. Had she always been able to lie this easily? Maybe it wasn’t the first time she had an affair behind his back; she had had plenty of opportunity over the years. All these business trips and all the overtime she worked. Even if she hadn’t eaten lunch with him, the words ‘lamb meat’ should have bothered her, since her lover was a decade younger than she was.

He felt the anger taking over, and soon he would no longer be able to stop himself before he let it loose. She had set down the vase on the coffee table and now stood straightening up the roses as if they were going to be entered in a symmetry competition.

He turned and headed for the bathroom, feeling a great need to take a shower and wash off everything that had clung to him in the past day.

He checked the bathroom cabinet. No forgotten toothpaste. The wastebasket had been recently emptied and lined with a new plastic bag. There was washing in the machine, and he opened the lid to hang it up. Axel’s dark-blue sweatsuit, Eva’s black pullover. And then a pair of black lace panties that he had never seen before. He held them up between thumb and forefinger, disgusted at the thought of . . . God. So that’s the way she dressed when she was out with her lover. She had certainly never dressed like that for him.

He took two clothes-pegs and hung the panties up in the drying cabinet so that they would be the first thing she saw when she came into the bathroom, would know that he had discovered them. And start to worry why he didn’t comment on them.

He went back upstairs and into the bedroom. The bed was made and the bedspread in place. How could he ever sleep in that bed again?

He pulled out the top drawer in the chest of drawers where she kept her underwear, searched among the sensible panties that he usually saw her wearing. Then to the left, among her bras, another unknown piece of paraphernalia. A black lace bra with padding that he had never seen before. He heard her clattering in the kitchen, held up the bra, and was assaulted by the image of her and the other man together in the double bed behind him, how his feverish hands managed to undo the little clasp he saw before him and expose her breasts. He resisted the impulse to rush out to the kitchen and throw it right in her self-pitying face, forced himself to take a few deep breaths. He was just about to push the drawer back in when he caught sight of something else. A corner of something red. A diary with a lock but with the key hanging on a silver thread from the little heart-shaped lock. A diary? Since when had she spent time on something like that? The sounds from the kitchen assured him that she was still out there. He quickly opened the lock with the little key and started to page through the diary. Blank and not written in. Not a word on the white pages. He was just about to lock it again when something fell into his hand and he discovered hand-written words on the inside of the cover.

‘To my Beloved! I am with you. Everything will be fine. A book to fill with memories of all the wonderful things that await us.’

Then he looked down at his palm and didn’t want to believe what he saw.

Disgusting, and tied with a light-blue thread, was a light-blond lock of that bastard’s hair.