Butterflies in November

TWO

I park my car close to the block and rush up the threadbare carpet of the lily-blue staircase, tackling two steps at a time. I don’t allow myself to be bothered by the two or three doors that open during my ascent, ever so slightly, to the width of the vertical slit of a mailslot, releasing the odours of well-kept homes. I don’t care if anyone can retrace my steps, because what I am about to do for the third time in three weeks is not a habit of mine, but a total exception in my marriage. When I rush out later on, I’ll be able to tell myself that I won’t be coming back here any more, which is why I can afford to be indifferent to those gaps in the doorways and prying eyes. I’m in a hurry to wrap my hands around my lover’s neck, standing on his newly laid parquet, and to run my fingers down the hollow of his neck, leaving a red streak in their wake, and then to get it over with, as soon as possible, so that I can buy the trimmings for the goose before the shops close. The most time-consuming task turns out to be the removal of my boots; he stretches to hold onto the door frame as I offer him one foot. He has removed his glasses and his eyes are glued to me throughout. The faint October sun, which is sinking over the tip of Seltjarnarnes, filters through the semi-closed slats of the venetian blinds, corrugating our bodies in stripes, like two zebras meeting furtively by a pool of water. I can sense from the waft of laundry detergent emanating from the bedclothes that he has changed the sheets. Everything is very tidy; this is the kind of apartment I could easily abandon in a fire or war, without taking anything with me, without any regrets. The only incongruous detail in the decor is the patterned curtain valances, concealing the top of the blinds.

“Mom made those and gave them to me when I divorced,” he says, clearing his throat.

Naturally, the environment is bound to change according to one’s moods and feelings, although I don’t want to get into a discussion on the notion of beauty and well-being right now. One can’t exactly say that there’s anything premeditated about the fact that I’m sitting here naked on the edge of this bed, nothing planned as such, it’s just the way my life is at the moment. I’m indifferent to the drabness or even perhaps ugliness of this apartment and I don’t mind that he sometimes spells hyper with an i or writes hidrodinamic fluid, and if he can be a bit vulgar in the way he talks or even inappropriate sometimes, it is because he has a firm and secure touch. Although I can’t really boast of any extensive experience in this field, I know there is no correlation between sex and linguistics, I’ve learnt that much.

A small feather has stuck to the bloodstain on the first page, but I don’t have to ponder on whether I should give him the article before or afterwards. I know from experience that it’s best to wait, business and pleasure shouldn’t be mixed. After we had slept together for the first time, he looked surprised when I handed him the bill with the VAT clearly highlighted.

After the deed, I help him smooth out the sheet, while he squeezes the goose-down quilt back into the stripy blue cover, which has slipped off the foot of the bed into a ball. He confides in me, sharing something a woman should never divulge. It is only then that I first notice the bizarre tattoo on his lower back. It vaguely resembles a spider’s web, which seems incongruous for a man of his social status. Skimming it, I feel the protuberance of a scar. When I quiz him about it, he tells me it was an accident, but I don’t know whether he is referring to the scar or the tattoo. He holds out his hand, clutching a pair of white lace panties between his thumb and index.

“Aren’t these yours?” he asks, as if they could be someone else’s.

I’m in a hurry to get home, but when I’ve finished washing my hands with his pink floating scented soap and step out of the bathroom, I see he has set the table, boiled eggs, buttered two slices of toast with salmon and made some tea for me. He is still topless and bare-footed and stands there, watching me eating, as he slips his shirt back on.

“I saw your car in town in the middle of the week and parked right beside it, didn’t you notice?” he asks.

Can’t say that I did.

“So you didn’t notice that someone had scraped the ice off your windscreen either?”

No, I didn’t, but thanks anyway.

“I noticed your car is due for an inspection. .”

When I’ve finished both slices of toast and am about to say thanks and kiss him goodbye because I won’t be coming back again, he asks me how often I think about him.

Every three or four days, I say.

“That makes 5.6 times over the past three weeks,” says the newly divorced expert, who has only fastened one of the buttons on his gaping shirt. “I obviously think of you a lot more than you think of me, about sixty times a day and also when I wake up at night. I wonder what you’re up to, and watch you putting on your cream after the bath, trying to figure out what it must be like to be you. Then, in the evenings, I imagine you don’t slip into bed until your husband is asleep.”

My husband isn’t home much in the evenings these days.

Then he asks me if I intend to divorce him.

“No, that hasn’t entered my mind,” I say.

Because I probably love my husband. But I don’t say that. Then he bluntly tells me that this will be the last time.

“The last time that what?”

“That we sleep together. It’s too painful saying goodbye to you every time, I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff and I’m scared of heights.”

It has grown eerily dark by the time I dash down the stairs of the apartment block for the third time in as many weeks. This time I’m gone for good and I will never again do what I’ve just done, I’m in a hurry to get home. Even if it is unlikely that anyone is waiting for me there. Driving, I listen to Mendelssohn’s “Summer Song” on the car radio. It’s an old crackly recording, but the presenter doesn’t seem to notice, not that I’m really listening to it.