Jonny stood frozen in front of his parents, his hand gripping Brittany’s tightly as if for life support. Wilhelm said something in Swedish and then extended his hand to his son. Jonny turned to his mother and bent low to give her a wordless peck on her cheek. A few more words in Swedish, and then he turned to Brittany.
“Meet my parents, Wilhelm and Astrid.” Brittany stretched out her hand and grabbed Astrid’s first. “She doesn’t know Swedish yet, so please make her feel welcome,” he continued in his accented English.
“So pleased to meet you, Mrs. von Lundin,” Brittany said effusively.
“Good to meet you, Brittany.” Astrid nodded, her smile widening only so.
Brittany turned to Jonny’s father. “Mr. von Lundin.” Wilhelm seemed excited to see her, and he stretched out his hand bearing a heavy titanium watch, similar to Jonny’s, before she extended hers.
“Please call me Wilhelm. Nice to meet you. Jonny kept talking about an American girl,” he added. “That was all he would say.”
Astrid focused on her son as they settled into opposite seats. Before Jonny grabbed his napkin, Astrid said something in Swedish that made Jonny tense up immediately. The fire in his look was one Brittany had never seen in him before. He naturally came with intensity, but this glare seemed reserved for hatred. He frowned at his mother, looking like he wanted her to drop dead.
“Är hon veckans leksak, hmm, Jonny?” Astrid asked him.
“Men sluta nu, Astrid!” Wilhelm turned to his wife.
Brittany watched his father address Astrid, his face contorting. What had she said?
“Jag vill bara veta,” Astrid replied with a shrug.
Jonny matched his mother’s stare.
“Var hittade du henne?” Astrid seemed persistent. “Är det bara svarta kvinnor som gäller?!”
Brittany shifted in her seat, clearly excluded from their exchange. Both Wilhelm and Astrid were scanning every inch of their son’s face. Jonny had now lowered his head a few inches.
“Vi ska gifta oss,” Jonny said, no longer facing them, his eyes darting left and right.
Those words seemed to pause Astrid’s fingers, which had still been toying with her pearls. Wilhelm pulled away from his wife and turned toward them once more. His gaze moved from Jonny to Brittany and back.
“Vad sa du?” Astrid asked firmly. From her cadence, Brittany knew it was a strong question. She noticed what looked like shock spread over his mother’s face.
“Jag älskar henne.” Jonny’s voice was stern.
“Men…vad säger du? Hur länge har ni träffats? Är hon så bra i sängen att du har tappat huvudet?!” Astrid sounded desperate in her response.
Brittany felt the air surrounding them rot within seconds. She knew it. They hated her. She shouldn’t have come. She shouldn’t have listened to him. She should have gotten rid of it.
As Astrid continued reprimanding him, Brittany watched Jonny’s hands unfurl, his fingers beginning a maddening dance on the table. His feet started tapping out a rhythm. Brittany recognized this. He was slipping into that space when overstimulation consumed him. She’d learned his mannerisms the same way he’d learned her body. How to calm him down when he got agitated. How to read him because he couldn’t lie convincingly. How to draw him back out whenever he slipped into some abyss. His parents should know this about him by now.
Yet, Astrid continued saying things in Swedish as her son unraveled before her. And it now made sense to Brittany. Jonny had told her his parents always said there was nothing wrong about him. Because, for Astrid von Lundin, that would mean publicly admitting that her blue-eyed, blond-haired boy wasn’t perfect after all.
Brittany noticed him wince and begin to grind his teeth, so she quickly reached over and covered his distressed hands with hers.
“Sssshhh,” she soothed him, leaning in closer and whispering in his ear, “Ssshhh, it’s okay.”
She felt his heaving breath slow down until it evened out again. His fingers stopped moving maniacally, and he threaded them with hers. The storm had passed, and he turned to Brittany. He lifted their interlocked hands to his lips and brushed a featherlight kiss over the back of her hand.
Brittany had anticipated self-consciousness from this public display in front of his parents, but all that seemed to fall away when she looked at him. A man more powerful than Samuel Beaufount; one whose mouth slowly moved over their interlocked hands oblivious to everyone around him. Even the presence of his stoic parents, who clearly seemed disturbed by this display, couldn’t pull Jonny from this raw intimacy. She was staring at a man who would give her everything she’d ever dreamed of. All she had to do was say the word, because he needed her so fully, so desperately, and could no longer control himself.
“It’s all right,” she whispered again, and he nodded. When he looked at his mother, it was through tears. He was drowning in them and had turned into a boy in front of Brittany.
Astrid sat rigidly with her hands clasped. Brittany noticed Astrid’s eyes widen in shock as Brittany calmed her son down, making his eccentricities fade away for a few minutes. A low gasp of despair escaped Astrid. Wilhelm reached over to console his wife, rubbing her forearm. There was nothing more to be said. The air was stifling. Wilhelm slowly got to his feet. He tapped Astrid lightly, prodding her to her feet as well.
“Brittany, I am sorry about lunch,” Wilhelm apologized. “Jonny and his mother need to talk about a few things, and they haven’t seen each other in a while.” Brittany nodded. She would accept his excuse. Right now, Jonny was crying, and her heart was breaking. She wanted to know what his mother had said to have upset him so much.
“Brittany.” It was Astrid’s turn. “I hope we get a chance to reschedule our lunch once we come back from Doha.” Brittany nodded a second time. This had been a mistake. Once Jonny was himself again, she would convince him that they still had a chance to get rid of the pregnancy. She was still in her first trimester. They couldn’t bring a child into this madness.
The older couple slowly linked arms and took their leave, while Jonny’s face remained buried in Brittany’s shoulder as she caressed him. The altercation had drawn some stares, but Brittany didn’t care. She was now ready to wear him with pride, because he was hers.
She pulled his head up, looked into his translucent eyes reddened by hurt, and kissed him. A few moments later, they left Berns and settled quietly on a bench in Berzelii Park a few steps from its front door.
“All my life, she has been like this.” Jonny broke their comfortable silence minutes later. Brittany slowly stroked his neck, willing him to say more.
“Every single girl…woman…I’ve brought home, she has hated,” he said. “I wanted her so much to love you. But she said so many mean things.”
“What did she say?”
Jonny fell silent, and Brittany knew that was his avoidance tactic. He couldn’t lie to her, so he remained quiet. He probably didn’t want to freak her out by telling her what he’d discussed with his parents.
Brittany wanted to know, but she dropped it for now to be picked back up later.
“Look, you can’t force people to feel what they can’t feel,” Brittany continued. “I saw this coming.”
“How?”
“You seriously need me to spell this out?” she asked. He turned to look at her. “You’re white. I’m Black. You’re wealthy. I’m not. You hold the keys to their kingdom. They think I’m here to steal it.”
Jonny studied her intently then leaned in. His mouth covered hers in a sensuous kiss, which elicited a moan from her. His tongue wrestled hers and won. Brittany turned into putty in his arms, receiving his slow, calculated kiss.
“My kingdom is yours.”
He muttered those words drowsily against her lips before possessing them once more.
The next day, she and Jonny arrived at Antonia’s mansion
in Elfvik on Lidingö. The hilltop house looked futuristic, with impressive views of the bay at its feet. They arrived to a generous backyard lit up with firelight—candles and hanging lanterns—long tables dressed with white linen, and decorations etched with sun faces and deep-red crayfish motifs.
Jonny called out to two fair women who had been huddled together in conversation. If Astrid had been rude, then Brittany wasn’t sure what to make of Svea and Antonia.
Because when they turned and saw her, their faces paled like they’d seen a ghost.
MUNA
The first time Yasmiin brought Yagiz home, Muna found him wandering around their kitchen—naked.
Muna had woken up a little past two in the morning for a pee break and had heard rustling coming from the kitchen when she opened the door to her room. The apartment was dark, save for a stream of light from the open refrigerator that illuminated the stark man rummaging around in it. Muna retreated quietly into her room but continued observing him through the crack of her door.
His muscled back was covered in tattoos. They ran from his forearms to his wrists, from the nape of his neck down to the dimple above his toned butt. When he turned around with a carton of milk in hand, they snaked across his chest down to his V-cut before disappearing into dark curls, which framed a profuse member. She’d never seen a naked man before and wasn’t sure that ample size was considered average. She knew she could never look Yagiz in the eye again.
He was holding a small pouch in one hand. Yagiz pulled out a few dark items from it, which he popped into his mouth and began to chew. Muna’s eyes traveled down his length again, transfixed by what she was seeing. When they moved back to his face, she noticed him squinting at her bedroom door.
She quietly shut her door, locked it, and tiptoed back to bed.
Yagiz came around many more nights after that, usually when the girls had retired to their rooms for the night. But they heard him anyway. The banging of the wooden bedframe coming from Yasmiin’s room. His deep growls. Her high-pitched scream that came rapidly, climbing higher and higher.
Muna locked herself in her room, hiding from the discomfort those uneasy, otherworldly sounds brought. She tried to busy herself with her Swedish textbooks and the smiling photos on her magnetic board. Sometimes, she’d pull out Ahmed’s sack and look through those photos again, counting them, studying faces, and putting them back together once Yagiz’s primal grunts got louder. She needed to spare the dead that horror.
Muna had learned to sleep through their sensual violence as summer gave way to autumn and a chill enveloped their suburb outside Stockholm.
Then one night, Yagiz went too far.
Muna was jolted from sleep by a bloodcurdling scream. A deep, male voice was trying to overpower that wail coming from Yasmiin’s room, but she kept shrieking as if staring down death. Muna bolted to her feet and ran out of her door. She met Khadiija, who had also been awoken, standing by the doorjamb of her room. Muna ran over to the kitchen and picked up a dirty pot from the sink, while Khadiija grabbed a wooden serving spoon. The screams had now muffled, but they could hear sounds of a scuffle inside. The girls dashed over to Yasmiin’s door and started pounding as loudly as they could.
“YASMIIN!” Muna screamed. “Are you all right?” she asked in Somali.
The muffled female voice broke back into a scream before a loud slap and a thud. Muna’s pounding got frenzied until she was falling face forward into the room when Yagiz opened the door. She bolted back to her feet, spinning around to face him. His eyes were glazed as if high, and there were scratches all over his face, one that had drawn blood. She held the dirty pan high above her head by its handle with both hands. He looked possessed.
Behind him, Khadiija started hitting the back of his skull with her own weapon, the wooden spoon. When Yagiz turned to face her, Muna swept at his head with the heavy pan, felling the naked man in one swoop. While he was down, she hit his skull with the pan once more. And then again, letting out an air of resolve with each hit. When the man stopped moving, she dropped the pan and looked up to find Khadiija with her arms around a shaking Yasmiin. She was naked, her hair was disheveled, and tracks of black mascara ran down her face.
“I’m calling the police!” Muna screamed as she turned around to bolt out the door.
“MUNA! NO!” Yasmiin cried. “Please, no. Don’t call them. Please… They will take me away.”
“Why? That monster attacked you!” Muna was furious. Yasmiin shook her head as she tried pulling the covers over her bruised skin. Then she pointed to a white sack in the corner of the room. A room Muna had never been inside. But she didn’t have time to explore it. Muna beelined for the sack, opened it, and scooped out a palmful of greenish-brown leaves. She lifted it to her nose to smell. Khat. A relaxing, leafy plant that turned men lethargic. Her father had chewed it often. Many of the older men she’d known growing up had chewed khat. She looked at Yasmiin, demanding an explanation.
“I help Yagiz sell” was all she offered before burying her face in the sheets, sobbing. Khadiija looked at Muna, who was breathing heavily, stunned that she’d taken out a man but also angry that she felt powerless once again. Muna peered down at Yagiz, who was breathing lightly. She saw scratches all over his back too. Yasmiin had given him those, and they weren’t just from tonight. To Muna, Yasmiin had always seemed boy-crazy whenever they indulged in pointless banter at the salon where she worked. This was what happened when girls liked boys too much, Muna decided.
Muna turned back to Yasmiin and asked for his clothes. Then she solicited Khadiija’s help. They dragged the naked man by his arms and feet out the door and planted him in the hallway. They heaped his clothes onto his stomach, set his bag under his head to deter thieves, and locked him out there for the rest of the night. Meanwhile, Yasmiin took a quick shower and changed into a loose, flowing boubou. She started pulling stained sheets off her bed, spotted with a few drops of blood, when both Muna and Khadiija walked back into her room, silently looking for answers.
Yasmiin stopped her task and lowered her head. Several minutes passed between them before she gathered enough strength to talk.
“I was smuggled from Italy to Sweden,” she started to say. Her sisters sat on her bed, ready to listen. One of their trio was now hatching out of her past, and they sat quietly, ready to gather pieces of her broken shell. She turned to regard them with glassy eyes, and Muna became nervous.
“I did many bad things with men in Italy.”
KẸMI
“L-A-G-O-M… Lagom!” José scribbled on the board to exasperation from the class. It was fifteen minutes to eight, and he seemed to be starting a brand-new lecture. “Not too little, not too much, just right,” he said, pacing the room before planting himself in front of Malcolm.
“‘Lagom’ is a word many Americans struggle with.” He added the emphasis for Malcolm’s benefit.
“Right now, yes, when class is almost over,” Malcolm muttered under his breath. Kemi giggled, and they exchanged jovial looks.
José pressed on for a few more minutes before giving them book recommendations and promising a deep dive into the love-hate relationship Swedes had with that word the following week.
As Kemi stuffed books into her large bag, Malcolm’s frame hovered over her, blocking the light.
“Rushing off somewhere?”
“Not really. I was just going to grab some soup on the way home.”
“Do you want to grab dinner instead?” Malcolm offered as Kemi stuffed her bag. “You haven’t told me your story yet.” She looked at him, twisted her lip in thought, and gave in. Sure, why not.
They strolled toward Kungsgatan that evening, wrapped in light coats. Winter was reminding them of its inevitable approach via nippy nights. They walked past two Black men who ignored Malcolm’s nod in their direction as they scurried along. Malcolm laughed, hands in his
pockets, a swagger to his gait.
“Brothers be losing their edge, I tell you,” Malcolm casually dropped.
“You know, I had the same thing happen a few months ago.” Kemi remembered the women she’d walked past who made a tongue-tied show of gawking at her and her outfit.
“I swear, this country will blunt you if you let it,” he continued. Kemi recognized what Malcolm was talking about. She had felt it as people took in her different outfits. If no audible compliments were doled out, then it was the silence speaking volumes. Reprimanding her for strutting around like a peacock.
“Jesus! Where did ten months go?” Malcolm said. “I can’t believe I’ve been here this long.”
“Have you made any friends?”
“I’ve found some fellow expats. The American Club!” he said. “That was how I got my gig too. I play with a kick-ass band twice a week in Gamla stan.”
They found a modest Thai spot where they dined on pad thai while Malcolm shared more about his family and his move to Sweden. He was struggling with the language, no doubt. But what was irking him more than anything was a certain lukewarmness, he said.
“People need to be out in these streets raising hell and protesting shit,” he said as he rolled up glass noodles on his fork. “I mean, did you hear about that Blackface cake from a couple of years ago?” He lifted a loaded fork to his mouth. “Some artist dressed himself as a cake shaped like a Black sister and kept screaming as one government minister cut into it, everyone laughing like it’s a unicorn birthday cake,” he narrated between chews. “And no one burned Stockholm down?”
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