Black Lies, Red Blood

Thirteen

Bernt Friberg’s and Gunilla Lange’s relationship could be summarized in a single word: skin.

They crept together like two animals in darkness. Gunilla breathed against his shoulder and he hid himself behind her ear.

He’s a fine person, Gunilla would think, when she heard his heavy breathing. She knew what he did during the day, felt the weight of his body, the twitching muscles.

I love you, Bernt might mumble, before he passed out.

The hours of skin counterbalanced much of what felt incomplete.

She stared into the darkness. They were lying close together, he with one leg over her thigh, she with her arm resting on his shoulder. It looked like any late evening, they always lay close together, wordlessly storing up skin from the other.

“What is it?” he said, twisting his head. She felt his words against her throat, and she heard that he was worried. Not angry, just worried, a feeling he often expressed in darkness.

“I’m thinking about Bosse,” she said without fear.

What else could she say? Betray Bosse by saying: “Nothing?”

“Don’t think like that,” he mumbled.

What do you mean by “like that,” she wondered.

“He’s gone,” he said. “Now you have me.”

“I know,” she answered.

She waited awhile for him to continue. Normally he would rattle off a long litany, but he remained silent.

“He wanted so much to get away from this life,” she said instead, encouraged by his silence.

“I doubt anyone really believed in that company, other than Bergman, but he was wounded too.”

“What do you mean?”

“He sits at home dabbing at canvases and daydreaming,” said Bernt.

“I believed in their company,” said Gunilla. “I know what he could do, what they could do.”

“That was then,” said Bernt, with sharpness, but still consoling in tone.

“He deserved a better fate.”

“You have me,” Bernt repeated.

They were still lying close together, but none of the customary calm was present. Suddenly he placed his hand on her breast, caressed it carefully, took hold of the nipple between his thumb and index finger and mumbled something she could not interpret.

She did not want his hand on her breast but against her will the nipple stiffened. She freed herself carefully from his hold by turning over. She felt how he stiffened and how he pressed himself against her back and buttocks. His breathing became heavier. Without wanting to she became damp, and she thought about Bosse as he forced himself inside her.

When in the middle of the night she woke up he was no longer in the bed. He usually got up once during the night, but there was no sound of flushing from the toilet.

She pulled aside the cover, swung her legs over the side of the bed, and sat that way for a few minutes before she got up, pulled on her bathrobe, went up to the closed bedroom door, and listened. The apartment was quiet.

The door creaked a little as she opened it. She heard a faint sound from the kitchen and happened to think of a puppy she had as a child. A puppy that never was more than a puppy as he was run over at only three months old, who at night would whine at the foot of her bed, unable to jump up onto it.

He was sitting at the kitchen table, naked, with his shoulders tensed, his head resting in one hand. In front of him were two bottles of beer. One was empty, the other half empty. Bernt, who would not have a drop for weeks, not even a beer.

“What’s going on?”

He started and turned quickly around. In his eyes there was fear. His hairy chest heaved in a deep breath.

“I woke up,” he said as he exhaled.

“Were you dreaming?”

He shook his head. She knew that it would be as good as impossible to get him to talk, but she made an attempt anyway.

“I liked what you did,” she said, realizing how crazy that sounded. “I mean, it was nice for me too.”

She guessed it was something like that he wanted to hear.

He said nothing, raised the bottle, and took a gulp.

“Won’t you come and lie down?”

Another shake of the head.

“I might as well stay up. I’ll be leaving soon.”

She looked at the clock on the stove. 4:13.

“You can sleep another hour,” she said.

At a quarter to six he had to be at Heidenstam Square. He and four workmates met there every morning to carpool down to Jakobsberg. They had done that since March. In the fall there would be a few weeks in town before the commute to Stockholm started up again.

In that respect they were alike, Bernt and Bosse. It felt good in the morning, like a continuation of her life with Bosse. Bernt was also in construction and always left home early. Bosse had never been exactly talkative in the morning, and Bernt wasn’t either.

“Why do you have to work on a Saturday?” she said.

“You know how it is,” he replied.

She knew. How many weekends hadn’t Bosse worked?

“Shall I make you a cup?”

He did not answer and she took that as a yes.

They drank coffee together. She glanced at him.

“Aren’t you cold?”

“Yeah,” he said.

She went for the cover in the bedroom and draped it around him. He looked surprised, but smiled, took a sip of coffee.

“That was good,” he said. “I needed to warm up.”

“What are you thinking about?”

It was as if Bosse’s death made it possible to ask such a question at four thirty in the morning. She did not understand how, but that’s how it was.

“About us,” he said. “You are so dear to me.”

She reached her hand across the table and took hold of his. I will never forget this moment, she thought.

He looked tired. His beard stubble was shiny black.

“I didn’t mean you any harm,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“With all this,” he said after a long time.

She still did not understand, but waited for a continuation.

“Jerker’s not doing well,” he said suddenly.

“Does he have a cold?”

“No, it’s his lungs. He has a hard time breathing.”

Jerker Widén had been Bernt’s workmate for many years.

“Angina, maybe.”

“They don’t know. But he’s worried, of course.”

“What are you worried about?”

He looked quickly at her.

“Losing you,” he said.

Gunilla started crying. She withdrew her hand and hid her face. Bernt started talking with a fervor that at last made him fall silent, embarrassed by his own words.

“Don’t say that,” she said. “You don’t need to explain everything. I know.”

“I’m thinking about Bosse too. I didn’t want it to go that way, just that he would disappear from your life. I knew you still cared about him. And then that money.”

“He needed it,” she said hotly.

He nodded.

“I’ll be on my way now,” he said. “I can stop by the storeroom.”

He got up and left the kitchen. She understood that nothing more would be said, and she was grateful for that.

As he went past Gunilla he stroked her across the back, and in the doorway he turned around.

“We need that money too,” he said.

She nodded, did not want to discuss it.

“Jerker wants to sell his boat,” he said.

She stared at him.

“Should we buy a boat?”

“We need to get out a little,” he said, unusually defensive.

“A boat?” she repeated, looking like he had suggested they should sail around the world.

“It’s in Skarholmen,” he said, nodded and disappeared. The lock clicked as he carefully closed the outside door behind him.

Gunilla shook her head. He had never mentioned being interested in the sea or boats. Was it Jerker who put that idea in his head? They were like clay and straw. Of course they had discussed her loan to Bosse, and now that it was no longer relevant, the money could be plowed into a boat project.

“We need to get out a little,” he said, and in principle she agreed, but she would never literally throw her money into the sea.

She had heard Jerker talk about his boat, but did not even know if it was a motorboat or a sailboat. It didn’t matter. A boat was just not going to happen!