The Princess of Burundi

Twenty-five

Ola Haver left the station with a sinking feeling. On his way out he had read the police chief’s traditional Christmas message. Several other officers were gathered around the notice board. Some of them made bitter, sarcastic comments, others shrugged and kept walking, unreceptive to the latest whims of their superiors. All the phrases about another successful year, despite the serious challenges, rang more hollow than ever. One of the officers, who worked a beat, burst into laughter. Haver walked away. He didn’t want to listen to the criticism, even if it was warranted.

Instead of going home he took a route past Ann Lindell’s apartment. He hadn’t visited her for several months, but suddenly he felt like talking to her. Maybe it was the meaningless Christmas message that had given him the idea, or else he wanted to discuss the Little John case. He didn’t think she would have anything against it. As far as he could tell she couldn’t wait to get back to work.

She opened the door wearing an apron, with flour sprinkled on her chest and hands.

“Come in, I’m in the middle of baking,” she said and didn’t seem at all surprised by his unannounced visit. “My parents are coming up for the holidays so now I have to prove my competence in the housewifely arts.”

“Quite a sight, in other words,” Haver said, and immediately felt the warmth and ease that characterized his relations with Ann.

He watched her while she finished kneading the dough. She had gained a little weight since having Erik, but not much. The extra kilos suited her. She placed a cloth over the bowl.

“There. Now it has to rise for a while,” she said. “How are you doing?”

She sat down across from him. He resisted an impulse to touch her, but it knocked him off-kilter.

“You have flour on your cheek,” he said.

She looked at him quizzically, then brushed her cheek with her hand, with the result that it became even whiter.

“Better?”

Haver shook his head. He was happy to hear her voice again. Her bare, flour-covered arms were arousing him. She may have noticed, because an expression of confusion crossed her face. Both of their states of confusion created an electrified atmosphere. He had never felt anything like this for Ann before. Where did this desire come from? He had always thought her attractive, but he had never felt this rising warmth and pulsing desire.

Ann, on the other hand, couldn’t place his look and expression at all. She knew him so well that she thought she knew all his moods, but this was something new.

“How is the Little John case coming along?”

“We think there’s money behind it,” he said and told her about questioning the witnesses to John’s big poker win.

“Was he an habitual poker player?”

“Seems like it, according to several people he often played, but never for this much money.”

“You have to be brave, dumb, or rich-or a combination of all three-to be willing to bet such amounts,” Ann said.

Haver had been thinking along the same lines.

“He must have had some money tucked away to play a game like that,” Ann continued.

Haver was enjoying hearing her talk. Colleagues mean so much, he thought. Ann is the one who pulls our team together.

“Yes, he does seem to have accumulated some. He lent ten thousand to a friend in September, for example.”

“That’s not an exceptional amount.”

“It is if you’ve been unemployed for a while.”

“Would you like some coffee?”

“No, thanks. I’ve had enough coffee today. But something to drink would be nice.”

Ann put some Christmas beer on the table. She knew he liked dark beer.

“Do you remember that conference out in Grisslehamn?” he said, then drank some beer straight from the bottle.

“I remember Ryde drinking too much and losing his temper with Ottosson.”

“You said something back then, something that stayed in my mind. Something about the limits and conditions love places on us.”

Ann was momentarily thrown for a loop, but answered in a lighthearted tone.

“Did I? I must have been tipsy myself.”

“You had a glass or two of wine,” Haver said, and regretted bringing it up, but he couldn’t stop these thoughts that had been threatening to break out the past few weeks.

“I don’t remember talking about anything like that,” Ann said defensively.

“It was when you met Edvard.”

Ann got up, walked over to the kitchen counter, and peeked under the towel.

“It probably needs more time to rise,” Haver said.

Ann leaned against the counter and looked at him.

“I was confused then,” she said, “and vulnerable. Both in my professional and private life after Rolf had left me.”

“You don’t have any luck with men, Ann. That’s not a criticism, by the way,” he hastened to add when he saw her expression. “You probably give too much to your job, and forget yourself.”

“Forget myself,” she repeated with a snort. She walked over to the pantry and took out a bottle of wine. She poured herself a glass.

“I’m weaning him,” she said.

“Still drinking Rioja,” Haver stated, relieved in some way.

She sat down and they continued talking about the case. Ann also wanted to hear all the details of the attack in Sävja and the murder on Johannesbäcksgatan. Haver noticed her eagerness and felt his brain-for the first time in this investigation-start to click into gear. Up till now he had been obsessed with doing everything right. He was formally in charge of the case. Only now could his mind move freely, as it had so many times before in conversations with Ann. He suddenly wondered if she felt any sense of competition with him since he had taken her position while she remained absent. He didn’t think so. Ann was not concerned with prestige, and she had a natural air of authority that meant she would have no trouble moving back into her former role at the station.

“How are the girls?” she asked when their conversation about Little John was starting to ebb.

“They’re doing great. Growing all the time.”

“And Rebecka?”

“It’s probably the same for her as for you. She wants to go back to work, or at least I think so. She seems so restless, but then the other day she was talking as if she didn’t want to return to the hospital. Something about too many budget cuts and bullshit.”

“I read an article by Karlsson, from the county council. I can’t say I was impressed.”

“Rebecka starts getting worked up if she so much as sees his face in the paper.”

Ann poured another glass for herself.

“I should probably get going soon,” Haver said, but didn’t get up.

He knew he should call Rebecka, but felt somehow embarrassed about doing so in front of Ann, to reveal that he needed to call home and say where he was. It was a ridiculous thought, but right now he didn’t want to bring his wife into this. He didn’t want to think about the standstill their life had come to, an armed truce of sorts, where neither party was willing to get up out of the trenches, nor willing to lay down arms.

“You look worried,” Ann said.

He had an impulse to tell her everything, but quelled it and mumbled something about having a lot to do.

“You know how it is. You run around all the time, back and forth, and all the time new shit is coming in. Sammy is completely frustrated. His work with the youth groups has come to a dead end. It started so well but now we don’t have the people and the resources to keep it up.”

“We should send out a message to all scum: ‘Please suspend all criminal activity for the next six months as we are in the middle of a youth project.’”

Haver laughed. He was about to have more beer when he realized that the bottle was empty. Ann set out a new one and he drank without thinking of the fact that he was driving home. I should call her, he thought again and put down the bottle.

“You were thirsty,” Ann said.

“I have to call someone,” he said.

Haver excused himself and walked out to the hall, then returned almost immediately.

“Everything’s fine,” he said, but Ann read the opposite in his face. Neither of them said anything. Ann sipped her wine and Haver looked at her. Their eyes met. Haver’s unexpected feeling of lust returned. He gripped the beer bottle. Ann put her hand on his arm.

“Why don’t you tell me about it?” she asked.

“Sometimes I feel like getting a divorce,” he said. “Even though I love Rebecka. I play with the idea, like a masochist, to punish myself or her, for I don’t know what. Before, I was drawn to her like a magnet. And I think it was that way for her too. Now we’re indifferent. She looks at me as if I were a stranger.”

“Maybe you are a stranger to her sometimes,” Ann said.

“She watches me as if she were waiting for something.”

“Or someone. Is she still jealous? You said something about that when we went to Spain.”

“I don’t know. I don’t think she really cares.”

Ann saw that he was becoming more and more uncomfortable. She worried that he would start to cry and she couldn’t handle that. She had to think of sensible things to say, even if they weren’t so sensible. She was afraid of the emotionality, a trap she would willingly fall into. She would become a victim, no doubt about it. Not because she loved him but because her longing for intimacy gnawed at her like hunger, so strongly that she thought her carefully constructed life would collapse altogether. She hadn’t been close to a man since last summer. I’m drying up, she thought from time to time. Occasionally she stroked herself but it never satisfied her. She thought about Edvard on his island, Gräsö, a thousand miles away. She would have given anything to feel his hand on her body. He was gone for good, had slipped out of her life after one night of drunken sex. Her longing and self-disgust went hand in hand.

Haver took her hand and she let him hold it. The silence was painful, but they couldn’t bear to break it with words.

“Maybe I should go,” Haver said in an unsteady voice. He cleared his throat and looked at her unhappily.

“What about you?” he continued, and that was a question she absolutely didn’t want to hear or answer.

“One day at a time,” she said. “Sure it’s hard sometimes, but I have Erik, and he’s a doll.”

That was what was expected of her, and sure, sometimes the baby was enough. But more and more she felt the need for another kind of life.

“It’s hard sometimes,” she repeated.

“Do you still miss Edvard?”

Stop it, she thought and was suddenly angry at his intrusive questions, but then she forced herself to calm down. He wasn’t trying to make her angry.

“Sometimes. I feel like we threw away our chance. We never really managed to get in sync.”

He squeezed her hand.

“I’m sure you’ll meet a great guy,” he said and stood.

Stay, she wanted to say, but stopped herself. They walked out into the hall. Haver stretched an arm out for his coat but then it was as if his arm changed direction on its own and found its way around her shoulders and drew her close. She sighed, or was it a sob? Slowly, she put her arms around his back and hugged him gently. One minute went by. Then she loosened herself from his grip, but remained close. She felt his breath and was enjoying standing so close to him. He stroked her cheek, brushed her ear with the tips of his fingers. She shivered. He leaned over. They looked at each other for a tenth of a second before they kissed. What did Ola Haver taste like? she asked herself after he had left.

They didn’t look at each other again, gliding apart as in a play, mumbling good-bye. He closed the door behind him with care. Ann put one hand on the door while the other touched her lips. That was bad, she thought, but then changed her mind. There had been nothing bad in their short meeting. A kiss, filled with longing and searching, friendship but also lust that threatened to erupt in a flow of lava and lead who knows where.

She went back into the kitchen. The dough was swelling over the sides of the bowl. She removed the kitchen towel and studied the mass. Suddenly she started to cry and she wished Ola had stayed for a while, just a short while. She imagined he would have liked to see her make the bread. She would have liked that. Her sleeves rolled up, the warm sticky mass of the dough, and his gaze. She would have formed and baked the golden loaves. But instead the dough lay in front of her, a shapeless lump she did not want to touch.

Ola Haver walked slowly down the steps, then quickened his pace. His stomach was churning, his brain was in chaos, and a burning feeling of regret followed him out into the snow. When would it ever stop snowing?

He thought of Rebecka and the children and hurried on. Once he was out in the parking lot he looked up at the building and tried to find Ann’s window, but he wasn’t sure which one it was. He overcame the impulse to run back. Instead he got into the car but didn’t turn on the engine immediately. He shivered with cold and realized that their short meeting would forever change their working relationship. Would they even be able to continue working together? Their kiss had been innocent, but potentially explosive. He had never kissed another woman since he’d met Rebecka. Would she notice anything different? He ran his tongue over his teeth. The outer traces linger for only a moment while the inner ones remain. In a vague way he felt pleased with himself. He had conquered Ann, an attractive woman who wasn’t known for being easily wooed. He knew it was a ridiculous thought, but the coldness at home had created a psychological space for this feeling of triumph he clung to like a piece of candy. He toyed with the idea of starting a relationship with Ann. Would she want to? It was doubtful. Would he be able to do it? Even more doubtful.

“What’s that white stuff on your clothes?”

Haver looked down at his chest and blushed.

“Ann was baking,” he said sheepishly. “I must have brushed against something.”

“Oh, she was baking,” Rebecka said and disappeared into the bedroom.

He looked around. The kitchen was sparkling clean and everything had been put in its place. The counter gleamed. The only thing that marred the picture was a candle that had burned halfway, and a glass of wine with some dregs left in the bottom. Candle wax had run down in a striking pattern over the verdigris-coated candlestick, an object Haver had inherited from his grandmother. He still remembered how she would light it on family celebrations and special holidays. The wineglass was green and he recalled buying it with Rebecka in Gotland during their first trip together. The wine was a red wine that Haver had bought for New Year’s Eve, which they had been planning to celebrate with Sammy Nilsson and his wife.

He heard her moving around in the bedroom. The roller blind was pulled down, a dresser drawer was shut, and the bedside lamp was turned on. He could imagine what she looked like, the tight-lipped attitude and slightly abrupt movements she made when she was upset.

He opened the refrigerator and took out a beer, then sat down at the kitchen table and waited for the storm to break.