Betrayal (2 page)

As if they had each been permanently taken hostage by the other, terrified of being alone.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her standing motionless in the living room. The sound of the TV came intermittently, like a pulse in synch with his heartbeat.

He felt a desperate need to buy some time, cling to something that was still anchored in his old routines.

‘Did you buy milk on the way home?’

She didn’t answer. Fear throbbed in his stomach. Why hadn’t he just kept his mouth shut?

‘Can’t you turn off the TV?’

His index finger reacted automatically but pressed the wrong button. A second of hesitation and his reptilian brain decided not to try again. The feeling of suddenly not obeying pushed the fear aside. He was the one holding the control.

‘Have you met someone else?’

‘No.’

His lips formed his reply by themselves. Like a projecting rock ledge in the plunge towards the abyss. What was he going to do there? On a ledge halfway between being in one place or the other.

‘How long have you felt this way?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, approximately? Is it two weeks or two years?’

As long as I can remember, it seems like.

‘About a year, I suppose.’

How would he ever dare explain? How would he ever have the courage to take the words in his mouth?
What would happen when he told her that for seven months he was somewhere else every second of the day?

With
her
.

She who had utterly unexpectedly come storming into his heart and given him a reason to want to get up in the morning. Who gave him back his desire and his will. She who opened up all the doors inside him that he had barred shut long ago and who managed to find keys to rooms he didn’t even know existed. Who saw him as he really was, made him want to laugh again, want to live. Who made him feel desirable, intelligent, energetic.

Worth loving.

‘But why? And how did you think we could work this out?’

He didn’t know, didn’t even need to lie. In the bedroom lay his six-year-old son. How could he ever do what he really wanted to do and still be able to look him in the eye again?

And how would he ever be able to look himself in the eye again if he stayed and said no to the enormous love he had found?

Hatred passed through him for a moment. If it weren’t for her standing there a few metres away from him in the living room, then he could . . .

Full of accusations she would succeed in turning all the joy he felt into shame and guilt. Defile it. Make it seem base and ugly.

All he wanted was to be able to feel what it was like to live again.

‘We don’t have fun any more.’

He could hear how stupid that sounded. Fucking shit. She always made him feel inferior.

Her gaze felt like a physical accusation. He couldn’t move.

An eternity passed before she finally gave up and went towards the bedroom.

He leaned back and closed his eyes.

One single thing he wanted.

Only one.

That
she
would be here with him, hold him tight and say that everything was going to be all right.

For the moment he was saved, but only temporarily.

Starting now, their home was a minefield.

‘I
s there anything else you need tonight?’

It was the night nurse standing in the doorway. One hand held a tray of pill cups and her other had a firm grip on the door handle. She looked stressed.

‘No thanks, we’ll be fine now. Isn’t that right, Anna?’

The last dregs of gruel ran through the probe into her stomach, and he stroked her brow lightly. The night nurse hesitated for a moment and gave him a quick smile.

‘Good night, then. And don’t forget that Dr Sahlstedt wants to talk to you before you leave in the morning.’

How could he forget that? It was clear that she didn’t know him.

‘No, I won’t forget.’

She smiled again and closed the door behind her. She was new on the ward and he didn’t know her name. There was a lot of turnover of personnel, and he had given up trying to remember their names. Secretly he was grateful that the hospital was chronically short-staffed. At first his constant presence had aroused irritation among the staff, but for the past year they had shown greater appreciation. Sometimes they even took it for granted, and once when he got
stuck in traffic and was delayed, they forgot to change the bulging catheter bag. That made him even more aware that without him she would never get the rehabilitation she needed. If they couldn’t even remember to change the bag.

He pulled over the bed table on wheels and turned on the radio. The Metropolitan Mix. He was sure that somewhere inside behind her closed eyes she could hear the music he played for her. And he didn’t want her to miss out on anything. So that on the day she woke up she would recognise all the new songs that had come out. Since the accident.

He took the skin lotion out of the bedside table, drew a white stripe along her left leg and began to massage it. With even strokes he worked up from the calf, across the knee, and further towards the groin.

‘Today it was really fine weather outside. I took a walk down to Årstaviken and sat for a while in the sun by the boat club, there on our wharf.’

He carefully lifted her leg, put one hand behind her knee and bent it cautiously several times.

‘Good, Anna . . . Just think, later when you get well we can go down there together again. Take some coffee with us and a blanket and just sit there in the sun.’

He straightened out her leg and placed it on the sheet.

‘And all your potted plants are fine; the hibiscus has even started to bloom again.’

He rolled down the bed rails to reach her right hand. The fingers on her left hand had stiffened into a claw, and every day he checked the right one carefully to make sure it hadn’t done the same. So that
she would be able to continue painting her pictures when she woke up.

He turned off the radio and began to get undressed.

The calm he had longed for began to spread through him. A whole night’s sleep.

Nowhere else but here with Anna did the compulsion vanish completely and leave his thoughts in peace. His sanctuary, where he was finally allowed to rest.

Only Anna was strong enough to make him dare resist. With her he felt safe.

Alone he didn’t have a chance.

He was only allowed to sleep here once a week, and he had had to nag them about it. Sometimes he was afraid that the privilege would be taken away from him, even though it was no extra trouble for the staff. The new ones especially, like the nurse tonight, seemed to think it was odd. It bothered him a little; was it so strange that they wanted to sleep together? Good Lord, they loved each other, after all.

In any case, he didn’t care what they thought.

He thought about the conversation he would have with Dr Sahlstedt in the morning and hoped that it wasn’t about the nights he slept with Anna. If they were taken away he would be lost.

He folded his jeans and T-shirt and put them in a neat stack on the visitor’s chair. Then he clicked off the bed lamp. The sound of the respirator was more noticeable in the dark. Calm, regular breaths. Like a faithful friend in the dark.

He lay down cautiously beside her, pulled the covers over them, and cupped his hand over one breast.

‘Good night, my darling.’

Gently he pressed his crotch against her left thigh and felt the preposterous arousal.

He wanted only one thing.

Only one.

That she would wake up and touch him. Take hold of him. And afterwards she would hold him tight and tell him that he never had to be alone again. That he didn’t have to be afraid any more.

He would never leave her.

Never ever.

A
xel seemed to know something was wrong. As if the words they had said the night before had polluted the air. They floated like an evil-smelling menace in the house and made her lose her courage as soon as he refused to put on the striped T-shirt.

She had to pull herself together. Not lose control. He hadn’t actually said he wanted a divorce, after all, he hadn’t done that. Just that he didn’t think they had fun any more.

She hadn’t been able to sleep. She lay wide awake and listened to his fingers tapping on the keyboard in the office, sometimes hesitant, sometimes determined. How could he just sit down and work? She wondered what kind of article he was writing and realised that she had no idea. It had been a long time since they had talked about his work. As long as he sent out invoices and money came in so she could pay the bills, there hadn’t seemed to be any reason.

Always so pressed for time.

For a while she had thought about going in to him and asking, but then she changed her mind. He was the one who should come to her.

Not until around three o’clock did she hear the bedroom door being carefully opened, and he slipped into his side of the double bed.

Axel like a defensive wall between them.

There were only a few minutes left until the meeting as she parked outside the day-care centre. Axel was still in a bad mood, even though she tried to divert his attention as best she could during the drive over. It would be terrible when she left. Axel’s sobbing face behind the window-pane.

How could she cope with that today?

She ran into Daniel’s father on the way in.

‘Hi, Eva, great to see you, I was going to call you two today. We’re having that dinner party on the 27th like we said. Can you still come?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

He glanced quickly at his watch and kept talking as he backed towards his car.

‘We were thinking of inviting the couple that just moved in down the street as well; you know, the house where that old couple used to live. I don’t remember their names.’

‘I know who you mean. So someone has moved into the place now?’

‘Yes, and I think they have kids the same age as ours, so we thought we’d do something neighbourly right away. It’s good to have some place within crawling distance when you go out for dinner.’

He laughed at his own joke and took another look at his watch.

‘Damn. I’ve got to be at a meeting on Kungsholmen in fifteen minutes. Why can’t they ever start half an hour later?’

He gave a deep sigh.

‘Well, then. Say hi to the family.’

He got into his car and she pulled open the door for Axel.

It was always such a rush. Kids who’d just woken up and stressed-out parents who even before they made it to work were worrying about everything they wouldn’t have a chance to get done before they had to rush back and pick up their kids on time. Everyone always in a breathless race, with the clock as their worst enemy.

Was it really supposed to be like this?

They walked through the doors and Kerstin came out from the play-room to meet them.

‘Hi Axel. Hi Eva.’

‘Hi.’

Axel didn’t reply but turned his back and stood there with his forehead pressed against the cabinet. She was grateful that it was Kerstin who greeted her today, because she was the one on the staff she knew best. Since Axel’s first day five years ago, Kerstin had worked as both day-care teacher and director, with an enthusiasm for her work that never flagged. Driven by devotion, as if she could change the world by constantly reminding the children in her care about the importance of empathy and what was right and wrong. Eva was full of admiration and had often been amazed at Kerstin’s energy, especially in view of how exhausted she often felt herself. But on the other hand, Kerstin’s own children were in their twenties, so maybe that was the difference.

The clock was her worst enemy.

She remembered her involvement as the head of the student council in high school; Greenpeace, Amnesty,
the burning will to change things. And she remembered how it felt when she still had the conviction that what was wrong could be fixed, injustices could cease, and if she only put in enough time and energy then the world could be changed. Back then her outrage over the unjust imprisonment of a person on the other side of the globe would make her start petition drives and organise demonstrations. Now that she was grown up and really could do something, she was grateful if she managed to get to a day-care parents’ meeting that affected her own son. The desire to change the world had been precipitately transformed into a hope that there would be enough hours in the day – her outrage into a deep sigh and some guilty spare change in the Red Cross collection box at the grocery store. All to silence her guilty conscience. Always new decisions to make. What telephone plan to sign up with, which electrical company would be most advantageous, where to invest the pension money, which school was the best, which family doctor, the lowest interest on the mortgage. And they all affected her little world: what was best and most beneficial for her and her family. Endless decisions to make, and you still never knew if you had made the right ones. Everyone thinking of themselves first. When all mandatory decisions had been made, there was no energy left to make a stand on the issues that really should matter. The ones that could change what really should be changed. She remembered the ironic sticker she had had on her notice-board in her bedroom when she was a girl: ‘Of course I take a stand on all the injustices in the world. I’ve said ‘bloody hell’ many times!’ She would never be like that. Or so she had thought back then.

‘Are you angry today?’

Axel didn’t answer Kerstin’s question, and Eva went over and squatted down by his side.

‘It wasn’t a good morning. Isn’t that right, Axel?’

Filippa and her mother came in the door and Kerstin’s attention was diverted to them instead.

Eva pulled Axel close and held him tight.

Everything’s going to be all right. You don’t have to be afraid. I promise I’ll work this out.

‘Hey Axel, the meeting’s starting now, everyone else is already inside. Come on, let’s go in. Today it’s your turn to get the fruit from the kitchen.’

Kerstin reached out her hand to him, and he finally gave in, went over to his corner and hung up his jacket. Eva stood up.