Shadow

18

When Axel woke up he was alone. Some time during the night she’d had the good taste to avoid a farewell that would detract from their experience. There was nothing left to say that hadn’t been said already. He felt gratitude over what had happened, yet right now it felt hard to believe. With his hands clasped behind his head he recalled the experience. It was so extraordinary that during the night he’d been the object of a woman’s desire, that his presence had aroused her lust. Now it aroused only disgust with Alice. He did not wish anything undone. On the contrary, he felt exhilarated by what had happened. He’d thought that desire had left him, that it had gone after all those years spent in sexual deprivation. He hadn’t even been aware that he’d missed it; he’d directed his passion towards his writing, which became his surrogate lover. He already knew that it was only this one time, and he felt no wish for a repeat performance. They had met by accident and taken advantage of the occasion, there wasn’t anything more to it. Now he would return home and continue working on his book in the hope that what happened would give him inspiration.

He got up and went into the bathroom. Filled a glass with water and drank. Despite a slight headache he felt in excellent spirits.

He skipped breakfast, deciding to have a coffee at the train station. He wanted to retain the memory of the night as it was, pure and unspoiled. Like when he was a boy and had experienced something special that only he knew about, and then could safely carry his treasure about in his heart.

It was walking distance to the station, and he said goodbye to no one before he left.

He strolled through the park towards the station. The night had been cold, and in the shadows a thin layer of frost covered the ground. For weeks it had been grey and dark, but today the autumn sun peeked out from its hiding place. The air was so clear his eyes watered. He wanted to go home to his work. He had waited so long for the spark to be ignited. Now it was back, he could feel it, longed for and welcome.

The train was just about to depart. He was sitting alone in a compartment for eight and had gratefully pulled shut the door to the corridor. He looked at the glass carafe in its holder on the wall and wondered when the water had last been changed. On the table before him lay his pad and pen, but he hadn’t written a word. Then the door was shoved open and Torgny and Halina stepped in.

‘There you are!’ exclaimed Torgny. ‘Where did you go off to last night?’

He heaved the bags onto the luggage rack, and Axel’s and Halina’s eyes met. He couldn’t say a word. Torgny threw himself down on one of the seats and took off his scarf. His eyes were bloodshot and he stank of stale alcohol.

‘Oh, curse this bloody headache, I don’t know what it is. I’ve got to cut back on the cigarettes.’

He grinned and patted the seat next to him.

‘Come and sit down, sweetie.’

Halina hung her jacket on one of the hooks. Torgny caught sight of Axel’s writing pad.

‘Don’t tell me you’re sitting here writing?’

Axel collected his things and put them back in his leather briefcase.

‘No, I was just about to make some notes.’

‘Damn it, Ragnerfeldt, you’re going to have to learn to relax and let go a little. Come down to earth with the rest of us once in a while, and pull out that stick you’ve got up your arse.’

Torgny laughed and sought approval in Halina’s eyes. Axel realised that Torgny was still drunk. Even though his language was occasionally improper, this was a bit coarse even for him. Halina pushed open the door.

‘I just have to go to the toilet.’

She pulled the door shut behind her and turned to meet Axel’s eyes through the glass before she vanished.

‘Well, what do you think?’ Torgny smiled and nodded towards the door.

‘She seems very nice.’

‘Damn it, Ragnerfeldt, come on. I saw the way you were looking at her last night. I sure as hell didn’t realise there was such a horny little devil inside you.’

Axel said nothing. The language Torgny was using was the kind that Axel had left in his childhood. This side of Torgny’s personality was as new as it was disgusting. Even if the situation had been different Axel would have had a hard time joining in this sort of conversation.

Torgny leaned forward.

‘She’s a real animal, just between you and me. I didn’t sleep a wink last night, well, maybe a little on the sofa at the party but that hardly counts. The only complaint I have is that I don’t get much writing done since she moved in, but I suppose I have to take the bad with the good.’

For a few seconds Axel fumbled for a bearable interpretation. Then he had to acknowledge one that made him feel sick.

Torgny is my friend, but not my man. We’re not a couple or anything, if that’s what you’re thinking.

She had lied, duped him into doing something that lay far beneath his dignity. To betray Alice was something he had chosen to do; it may not have been very honourable but it was acceptable at the time. But one never touched a colleague’s woman. Suddenly he was in debt to a man he detested. Who sat there reeking of alcohol, contaminating the air with his repulsive words. From his higher ground he had slipped and become inferior to Torgny, since he was the one who had committed a base act in their relationship.

The thought was repellent.

Halina came back and Axel avoided looking at her. Their experience had been transformed into something crude and perverse; what he’d done was the opposite of everything he’d ever been taught. Loyalty, morality and a conscientious life.

He got up and began gathering his things.

‘If you’ll excuse me I’m going to sit in a different car.’

Torgny objected but Axel didn’t listen. He just wanted to get out of the compartment and never have to see either of them again; he couldn’t get away from them fast enough.

‘Wait, you dropped something.’

He was already standing in the corridor, about to pull the door shut. Halina picked up something from the floor, and without meeting her eyes he took what she had in her hand and stuffed it in his jacket pocket. Then he went to the last carriage on the train and stood in the corridor until the train pulled into Stockholm Central Station.

When he got home he went straight to his office and closed the door. On the way there he’d encountered Gerda, who took his bag and told him that his wife was resting and his daughter was in her room; she had a cold and had stayed home from school. He didn’t feel like seeing either of them, and he asked Gerda to say that he was not to be disturbed.

He didn’t leave his office all afternoon. Just before six he went to the kitchen and asked Gerda if she could bring him dinner at his desk. He didn’t get one word written; all his thoughts were circling around the events of the night before and how he could repress them. At nine o’clock he gave up, took his empty plate and went out to the kitchen. Annika was sitting at the kitchen table with a pen and a piece of stationery. He was amazed to see how grown-up she looked. No longer a girl, but soon a woman.

She looked up when he came in.

‘Hi.’

‘Hello, dear.’

He put down his plate, took a glass and filled it under the tap. He tried to work out how old she was. Was she fourteen at her last birthday?

‘What are you doing?’ he asked her.

‘Writing a letter to Jan-Erik.’

He drank the water. Gerda came in and curtseyed when she saw him. He no longer knew how many times he’d asked her not to do it, but eventually he’d given up.

‘Excuse me, sir, but I found this in your jacket pocket, and I thought it might be important.’

He set down his glass and went over to her. She handed over a little folded piece of paper. He opened it and read:

In all haste…

Thank you for a wonderful night.

I’ll be in touch as soon as I can.

Your H

He quickly crumpled up the note and glanced at Gerda. She didn’t return his gaze, and her impassive expression was impossible to interpret – he couldn’t tell whether she had read it or not. Without saying anything more he left the kitchen and went back to his office, tore the note into tiny pieces and flung them in his wastepaper basket. Then he thought for a moment, got up and opened the door.

‘Gerda!’

He waited a few seconds before he called again.

‘Gerda! Would you please come here?’

In the next instant she appeared. Her shy gaze swept past his a couple of times before fixing on the wall behind him.

‘I just want to say a few words. Come in here, please, for a moment.’

He tried to make his voice sound kind but saw that she was afraid. He held the door open for her and closed it when she stepped over the threshold. She stopped just inside the door, and he went to sit behind his desk. Her obvious anxiety diminished his own, but he still needed the power conferred by the desk.

‘I just want you to know that Torgny Wennberg is no longer welcome in this house. If he shows up, please tell him I’m not available.’

Gerda curtseyed.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And for God’s sake stop all that curtseying!’

In sheer fright she looked up and their eyes met. This time he lost his patience. She was more than ten years older than he was, and yet she looked like a browbeaten schoolgirl.

‘Yes, sir.’

Axel regretted it at once. He knew that she had worked as a servant since the late twenties, when other customs prevailed; it was only natural that she would behave the way she did. Yet he felt uncomfortable when he witnessed her submissiveness. It reminded him of his parents, the way they always hunched over when faced with authority figures. Even with him, nowadays, as if he were a stranger.

‘Gerda, please forgive me, it was not my intention to raise my voice.’

Gerda didn’t respond. Just stood there inside the door with her eyes fixed on the carpet.

‘Was there anything else?’

He hesitated. Should he mention the note? If she had read it, anything he said would only draw attention to it. If she hadn’t read it, what he said would be a form of confession. He decided to let the matter rest. If Halina got in touch he would clearly and unequivocally declare his lack of interest, and Gerda would know nothing more about it. The whole thing would be over, and everything could carry on as usual.

‘No, that will be all.’

Gerda curtseyed and quickly left the room.

Axel sat there looking at the closed door. Gerda, and all she represented, was a reminder of a vanished era. In the present day it was considered inappropriate to have a housekeeper, especially in left-wing intellectual circles where the gap between classes was supposed to be non-existent. But the truth was, they couldn’t get along without her.

Four days passed. Four days of writing nothing. The piece of paper that met him each morning was still a blank blinding white when he gave up in the evening. Alice had a few good days when nothing in particular provoked her, and she mostly stayed in the library. In the evenings the sound of the TV seeped into his office. Sometimes he would emerge and try to keep her company. Silently they would watch Columbo until he could no longer stand it and went back to his office. He knew that she missed Jan-Erik and was sad that they rarely heard from him. Whenever a letter arrived it was always addressed to Annika. Sometimes he got the feeling that Alice was more attached to the children when they were out of sight. As far as he knew, she didn’t devote many hours to the teenager who was still living here. He couldn’t understand why Alice didn’t try to write anything again. When the children were small she’d complained that she didn’t have time, but her excuse was no longer valid. Sometimes, staring at the blank page, he envied her. Her right not even to try.

When he went to bed she was still up. As he waited for sleep to come his thoughts flew to his night with Halina. Not to her personally; her face was robbed of all its features. His fantasies followed the path of his hand over skin, a woman’s skin. He recalled how his hands had grabbed greedily for her, how she willingly opened up, the sounds she made. How she gave herself without reservation in a way Alice had never done, not even long ago before it had all mouldered away. Now he wondered whether he’d made a fatal mistake by awakening an urge he had no longer missed. Because how could he satisfy it now? With Alice downstairs in front of the TV? The thought was implausible, almost repulsive. But what if? Could he find the courage necessary to take the initiative after all these years? To risk being rejected? Was it even possible to reawaken the passion he’d once felt for her, which had long since been submerged by all the quarrels, all the indifference, all the silence? He remembered how he’d felt in their early years together. When they had made love and lain close to each other and listened to each other’s heartbeat. The feeling that no one could ever be less alone than this.

He realised it was more difficult to have sex with his wife than with a strange woman at a hotel. The thought intrigued. Maybe he could use it in his book.

The feeling of guilt had begun to dissipate. Once in a while a memory would flit past, but it was easy enough to ignore. What was done was done, and only time could dilute his mistake. But on the fifth day after his night with Halina a thick, oversized, unstamped envelope was lying on his desk when he returned to his office. He turned it over. His fury was instantaneous when he saw the single letter H. Just an H. As if they had a secret intimacy. He went out to look for Gerda. He found her on her knees in front of the tile stove in the living room. ‘Where did this come from?’

Gerda stood up quickly and smoothed out her apron. He held out the envelope.

‘It was hanging in a bag on the front door. It must have come by courier, although I didn’t hear anyone ring the doorbell.’

Through the doorway to the library Axel caught sight of his wife sitting in one of the easy chairs reading a book.

Without taking her eyes from its pages she asked, ‘What is it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’

‘I haven’t opened it yet.’

‘Well, why don’t you? That might explain things.’

He said no more and headed back to his office. With the door closed he hurriedly ripped open the envelope and pulled out a wad of paper. He knew at once it was her manuscript. Handwritten on lined paper. A typed letter was fastened with a paperclip to the first page, and he quickly scanned the words.

Axel, the hours that have passed have not been lonely. You are still with me in my thoughts. Since I’ve had a hard time getting away I thought I’d just send you my book anyway. I’d be grateful to have your wise views on it. No one else has read it (as you will see, it’s far above Torgny’s head). My book longs only for your lovely eyes to read it.

Your Halina

P.S. I’m so glad that we finally met! H

At first he couldn’t decide what angered him more. Her intimate tone, which assumed her interest was reciprocated or her shameless demand on his valuable time. If he’d wanted to be an editor he would have taken a job at a publishing company; nothing could interest him less than the desperate ambitions of a first-time author.

He stuffed the letter and the manuscript back in the envelope and unlocked the door to the cupboard. He put it on top of a pile and went back to his typewriter.

It was twenty past two.

By evening he still hadn’t written a single word.

The low pressure that had settled in during the summer was stubbornly hanging on. For four days it had been raining, and the sky was so dark they had to turn on the lights in the morning. Water had leaked in through the letter-box, but Axel could clearly read the writing on the card that Gerda delivered to him when the post arrived. Written in ink and open to public gaze.

Prinsen Restaurant 17.00 today. Your H

Gerda had left, and again he sat bewildered. He couldn’t quite work out why it was so important to him to know whether Gerda understood or not. She would never tell tales to Alice, so that couldn’t be the reason; it must be something else. There was something in him that sought Gerda’s approval. He had heard the happy laughter from the kitchen whenever his parents were visiting, easy-going conversations that faltered when he tried to participate. The community from which he was now excluded. He wanted to have Gerda on his side, to assure himself that what she told them about him was well-intentioned, what she said to the two people he could no longer reach. She was his link to what had been taken from him.

He turned over the card. A picture of a little kitten on a pink cushion. The key to the cupboard lay in his desk drawer, and he opened it up and put the card in a box of fan mail.

Naturally he wouldn’t go to the restaurant, but her boldness had ruined his concentration. Anything other than ignoring her would be meeting her halfway. For a long time he’d been used to having people around him respect his orders, and if anything bothered him, measures were immediately taken. Now he was being subjected to her unwelcome approaches. She kept cropping up in his thoughts; she had acquired a power she had never been granted. The whole situation was untenable, and at the present moment it was intolerable.

The rain continued. It was reported on the news that the record had been broken. Never before had so much rain fallen in eastern Svealand as in these two months.

His publisher called, proposing a meeting. Some of his older titles were going to be reissued, and they wanted him to look at cover designs. Reluctantly he left his office and took a taxi into the city. He needed to ask for more advance money, which was always humiliating. Alice didn’t know, but there was good reason to worry. If he didn’t get something written soon, the situation could well become alarming.

He was received with coffee and rolls, and not until the end of the meeting did his publisher ask how it was going with the new book. He lied and said everything was going well. He might be able to finish by spring. He regretted the remark at once, as he realised the consequences. But an additional advance was approved.

When he stepped outside, it had finally stopped raining. He stood in the entrance for a moment, wondering whether he should take a little walk. Perhaps all the way down to Slussen and then take the commuter train home. He was just setting off when he felt a hand on his shoulder. It may have been the cigarette smoke, maybe just his instinct, or maybe he had been expecting it the whole time, but he knew who it was before he even turned round. He was greeted by her smile. Nothing of what he’d planned to say to her remained, not a word would pass his lips. The strength of his displeasure gave him a feeling of inferiority. Even the note slipped into his pocket on the train had felt like an infringement. All the days of dreading new attempts at contact came as an assault.

She dropped her cigarette and made a move to embrace him. He fended her off and took a step back.

‘Listen to me, Halina, I…’

‘Sshh.’

She put her finger to his lips and he was caught off guard.

‘Just let me look at you for a moment.’

He noticed the smell of tobacco. He removed her hand from his face and dropped it as if wanting to be rid of something unpleasant. Her smile faded as abruptly as she had appeared.

‘What is it? Why are you acting so strangely?’

The door to the publisher’s opened and two men came out. Axel recognised one of them and nodded in greeting, doing his best to seem nonchalant. The whole time he was watched by Halina, who seemed to be reconsidering the situation. She fished around in her handbag for another cigarette, lit it and took a quick puff.

‘Shouldn’t I be the one who’s angry? Do you know how long I sat waiting for you at Prinsen?’

‘I never said I’d come.’

‘Oh, I see. So you didn’t even think you could take the time to ring the restaurant and let me know you weren’t coming? That would have saved me a lot of bother.’

He changed the subject and tried to assume a conciliatory tone.

‘Halina, I don’t know what you were hoping for, but you have to stop contacting me. You know I’m married.’

She snorted. ‘It didn’t seem to matter in Västerås.’

‘No, I know. I was… it was stupid that things turned out the way they did, but I thought it was understood that it didn’t… that it only… that it was just then…’

‘That you wanted to have a sneaky little fuck?’

Axel closed his eyes and put his hand over his face. The situation he was in was so absurd that despite his profession he was at a loss for words. Forty-eight years old and he was standing here in the street trying to break off a relationship he had never started. In the hope of making himself understood he threw out his arms.

‘I’m sorry if I led you to believe there could be anything between us, I really am. I don’t usually behave that way but, well, things just turned out the way they did. I assumed that we both knew it was a one-off. I have a family and children and I, well, I really do beg your forgiveness.’

She smiled, but now it was another sort of smile.

‘So that’s all it was?’

‘Yes, unfortunately, that’s how it has to be.’

She gave a flat little laugh.

‘So, you, Axel Ragnerfeldt, the famous fucking author with a pole up his arse, you think it’s okay just to screw me a little and then throw me away like an old towel?’

‘Halina, please,’ he appealed to her, but she just shook her head.

‘How the fuck could I be so stupid?’

He suddenly got the feeling that he was dealing with a child.

‘Halina, please, I sincerely apologise for what happened. Can’t we just try to part as friends? Can’t we at least do that?’

She took a drag on her cigarette.

‘Do you know what I do when I get angry with myself?’

He sighed.

‘Can’t we just…’

‘This is what I do.’

She stretched out her arm. He couldn’t stop her. With a sizzling sound she pressed the tip of the cigarette onto her bare wrist. He slapped away her hand and looked in horror at the reddish-black hole the burn had left behind.

‘Are you mad?’

She stood quite still, as if the pain had numbed her. He looked around to see if anyone had seen what happened, but there was no one nearby. The sleeve of her jacket fell down over the wound and he gently took hold of her arm. She wrenched it free and stepped back a couple of paces, turned round and walked away. Axel stood there watching her go, utterly at a loss. She crossed the street and he still stood there, incapable of understanding what had just happened. What scared him was not only what she had done, but also what he had seen in her eyes. Something in her look that had escaped him the first time, but this time he had seen it clearly. He wanted to get out of her consciousness. He didn’t want to be a part of what occupied her thoughts.

On the other side of the street she suddenly stopped and turned to him.

‘Hey, Axel!’

He watched her, waiting.

‘You with the great imagination, why don’t you go home and wonder about what I do when I get angry with someone else?’