In the Name of Love

by Smith, Patrick

  ‘Good.’

  ‘But it’s not just a matter of the will. Aunt Solveig didn’t know who she was letting into her house. They’re certainly not the people she thought they were.’

  ‘Lena, the past is what they left behind them. Why don’t you and they reach an agreement? One of you buy the other out?’

  ‘Why should I buy them out when it’s mine? And where would the money come from? They’re living there rent-free. Anders thinks I should report them to the police for trespassing if they don’t get out.’

  Dan straightened his arms, pushing down on the wheel and breathing deeply. He told himself to let it be, but he couldn’t. It was a hopeless fight. He couldn’t let her get involved in it, not without telling her what he knew.

  ‘Lena. There’s a will. I’ve seen a copy.’

  ‘You’ve seen it? When? Who showed it to you?’

  ‘Nahrin Selavas.’

  ‘I knew it! She’s at work night and day trying to convince people. Well, she’s in for a shock. So is that criminal relative of theirs.’

  ‘The will is signed and dated,’ Dan said. ‘Witnessed.’

  ‘Witnessed by who? By some Yugoslav cleaning woman. How do we know that Aunt Solveig knew what she was doing? The pygmy visited Aunt Solveig every day in the hospital. She got to know the orderlies. How do we know she didn’t bribe one of them?’

  ‘Lena, I don’t think that’s—’

  ‘They’re not the people you and everyone else thinks they are, DeeJay. Not by a long stretch. It’s their way, being friendly on the outside and behind it they think nothing of using you, of cheating you. Believe me, I’ve learnt the hard way! But they’re not going to get away with it for much longer.’

  The rain had stopped. Ribbons of early autumn mist drifted across the fields around them. Dan wished he could think of something to say to calm Lena’s indignation, but she was still excited.

  ‘The whole thing might easily have been set up! Aunt Solveig wasn’t herself towards the end.’

  Dan drove on in silence. Again he was hoping the subject would die out but after a while Lena said, ‘Why did Nahrin show you the so-called will?’

  ‘I don’t know, I can’t remember exactly how it came up. She had a copy there in the drawer and—’

  ‘She’s trying to turn local opinion against me. You know that, don’t you? She’s very clever about it.’

  ‘I think she just wanted me to see their side of it.’

  ‘So now you think I’m being unreasonable?’

  ‘No,’ Dan said. ‘I don’t. I’m sure you’re not. What it all comes down to is a matter of proof. Or else reaching an agreement.’

  ‘Well, I have the proof! I have letters, written by Aunt Solveig herself, telling me how she wanted me to have the place when she’d gone. I spent every summer and Easter and Christmas there for years and years. My father grew up there, it was his home. Aunt Solveig and Uncle Fritjof treated him like their own son. And they always treated me as their grandchild. After Daddy died they said many times that I’d be the one to inherit now.’

  Her voice was vibrant. Dan wondered if Anders had been encouraging her. If Anders felt she’d been wronged he’d pitch in without a second thought.

  ‘There are plenty of people on the island who know how Aunt Solveig and Uncle Fritjof thought of me,’ Lena said. ‘And now that poison pygmy is showing a fake will to fool everyone. It’s disgusting! Well, she’s in for a surprise. I’m a fighter, DeeJay. I learnt it young and I learnt the hard way. I went down to Malmö and—’

  ‘Lena, are you sure this is the best way to go about it?’

  ‘It’s the only way to go about it! Let people know the truth.’ She kicked off her shoes and pulled up her knees to her chin, resting her heels on the edge of the seat as she looked straight ahead. ‘They’re squatting,’ she said. ‘That’s the word for what they’re doing. Squatting. They manipulated Aunt Solveig and now they’re squatting the place in the hope that no one will do anything about it. With a handicapped child, who’s going to throw them off is what they’re probably thinking.’

  ‘Lena!’

  ‘All right! All right! I take that back. Jamala has no part in this, she’s a sweet, innocent kid. But her cousin Gabriel isn’t. He’s the criminal type.’

  ‘How can you say such a thing?’

  ‘Just look at the statistics! Immigrants from the Middle East and Africa are responsible for more crime than all the rest of the population put together. They’re ten times more likely to rape a woman than a Swede or a European or an Asiatic is. That’s their whole culture, their whole dominant male thing.’

  ‘Where do you get that rubbish?’

  ‘It’s official.’

  ‘No, it’s not. It’s rumour. Lena, don’t believe it, it’s junk.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, those particular figures come from the National Crime Prevention Board. And there are lots more like them. Robbery with violence is eight times more likely to be committed by an Arab or a Turk than by a European.’

  ‘The truth is most robbers are never caught and people remember you if you look different, if you’re black or brown or anything but white. So everyone—’

  ‘The statistics are based on criminal convictions.’

  ‘Which says a lot about police racism when it comes to investigating crime.’

  ‘I’m not saying they’re all like that, but you haven’t had to mix with people like the Selavas before. You may not realize it, DeeJay, but you’ve led a sheltered life.’

  ‘Lena—’

  ‘It’s not a fault or anything, I’m just saying – I mean, even on the island, you’re sheltered from what’s going on outside. These people have brought a whole new way of life with them. This is my fucking country! Why should I have to fight for what’s mine? I have letters, I have years and years of living with Aunt Solveig and Uncle Fritjof and suddenly a bunch of people no one knows anything about come along and take over and the land is theirs.’

  Dan said nothing more but he was asking himself, How would a probate judge see this? The Selavas who had been employed to look after the farm had also devoted themselves to caring for the old woman, right up to the end with, as Lena herself had said, daily visits to her in hospital. What’s more natural than that the old woman should write a will leaving the Selavas the farm in gratitude for their devotion? That, surely, was how a court would look at it.

  They were nearing the crossing where they’d take the secondary road towards Herräng. The clouds had disappeared. Out here, well away from the city lights, they saw the starry sky. There wasn’t far to go.

  ‘I hope you’re not turning against me as well, DeeJay? It’s not just the money, you know. Or even the money at all. If they’d been halfway decent about it I’d have been decent with them. But they’re not. And that farm’s my home. I won’t bore you with the story of my life, but it’s the only real home I’ve ever had. I’ve nothing against people like them getting help but – I’m a fighter, DeeJay!’

  Beams from the headlamps flowed out across the fields, making shadows jump in sharply lit patches. Ahead of them a huddled hare grazed beside a rock made white by the moon.

  ‘Aunt Solveig never knew the truth about them. All she’d been told was that they were persecuted in Iraq so they needed a new home. Convenient, wasn’t it?’

  ‘You’re really on form tonight.’

  She turned to look at him.

  ‘You think I’m being unfair?’

  ‘Since you ask me, yes.’

  They had reached her aunt’s house. She squeezed Dan’s hand and then she was gone.

  When he rang her a few days later she didn’t even mention the Selavas. She had other, better news. Anders had been in touch with her and said he might know someone who could help her find extra work that paid really well, a friend who ran a stock photo agency out of Monte Carlo. Johan Ek knew him too and it was talking to Ek at the party that had made Anders think of him. Not having a name as a profession
al would be no disadvantage for stock agencies, Anders said. On the contrary. What they needed all the time were faces that hadn’t been used too often before.

  Dan could hear from her voice that she was excited at the prospect. She said she had a feeling things were beginning to change for her.

  ‘It’s all thanks to you for making me go to the party, DeeJay. Anders says Johan Ek knows a lot of people and I should meet him again. Even if he does refuse to involve himself with the farm. But listen, it’s too beautiful a day to go on worrying about that. What do you say to a long walk? I have to lose a good kilo and a half before I can even think of photos.’

  She arrived around noon and they set off walking at once. She said that she remembered a sandy cove down in the Linkudden reserve, a cove surrounded by rocks that were always warm as long as the sun was out.

  The cove was well over an hour’s walk away, maybe an hour and a half, but Lena said she needed the exercise, so they quickened their pace, making a straight line across meadows and through the forest.

  ‘Are you going to swim,’ she asked him.

  ‘Not on your life.’ He knew that the deep currents on the east side of the island could be icy cold even on a fine September day like this. Lena said that when she was a kid on the west coast, they used to dare each other to be the first to go into the sea in spring once the ice broke.

  ‘And you were the first?’ Dan said.

  ‘Yeah. Always. I wanted to show them.’

  As soon as they got there she stepped behind a rock and undressed. He heard her push off her jeans, underwear, shoes in a single movement before she came out running and passed him on her way to the water. Of the kilo and a half she’d said she had to lose he saw no sign. She gave a single cry when she went in, then swam, with fast clean strokes out into the little bay.

  When she came out of the water her body radiated vitality.

  ‘I did it!’ she said. ‘I did it!’

  Her jaw chattered. Dan was impressed and also moved that she should want to show him she really could do it. But he fought down the desire that the sight of her aroused in him.

  She dried herself on the blanket they’d brought for the picnic. Afterwards she went back to dress.

  As they ate their sandwiches the semicircle of tall rocks around them created the calm of a secret chapel. When he said this to Lena she said that she’d always felt there was something sacred here.

  ‘When I was thirteen or so and things were tough at home I used to come here and ask God to help me so that I could stay for good with Aunt Solveig and Uncle Fritjof and not ever have to go back.’

  ‘Didn’t you get on with your parents?’

  ‘My father was long gone then. And my mother had a guy.’

  ‘Was he unpleasant to you?’

  ‘He was an asshole and I don’t want to talk about him. Not here where it’s so beautiful. Isn’t it beautiful?’

  After a while she said, ‘We should thank God for giving us this beautiful day.’

  After she said this she was quiet. It wasn’t difficult to sense her mood and Dan let her be. She leant her head against his shoulder and he stroked back the fall of hair from her forehead. She took his hands, one in each of hers, and lifted them successively to her lips. He held on to one of her hands after, while they sat there looking out together. From this angle, almost at the level of the sea, the Baltic seemed to go on and on for ever. He felt deeply at peace with where he was.

  Still holding hands they walked along the coast in the sunlight. The leaves on a bush moved as they passed. When Lena went closer to look, a crowd of moth-like insects flew out. They fluttered about and then, one by one, returned to the branches.

  ‘Come and look,’ she said softly.

  Once again the leaf-like insects lifted on a current of air, hovering above their heads before floating back down. Lena picked up a piece of wood made grey by the water. There were traces of a word still carved into its surface: Du. Du. Du. Du. Du. Silently she handed it to Dan. They stood a moment looking down at it. At first he thought the repetition excessive. But then he wasn’t so sure. How did one catch a mood? A golden day like this. He knew that later when he thought back on it he’d think: The five-times-you day.

  As they prepared dinner that evening Lena asked if she could stay the night again.

  ‘Of course.’

  She gave him a kiss on the cheek and started to chop the onions that were to go into their spaghetti sauce while he cut the tomatoes. Despite himself he cast a glance at her now and then. At such times she was altogether natural and enchanting.

  A new bed had been installed in the spare bedroom and they said goodnight on the landing outside the door.

  ‘Do you have an alarm clock I can borrow?’ Lena asked. ‘I have to be up by eight at the latest.’

  ‘I’ve only got one, but I’m up long before that anyway. I can wake you with a cup of coffee if you like.’

  ‘That’d be lovely! But not too early?’

  ‘Don’t worry.’

  In the morning she was still asleep when he went up to look, face down in the bed, a pillow over her head like a teenager. All her efforts to be tough seemed futile now. She stirred but didn’t wake. He tiptoed down the creaky stairs to prepare fresh coffee for her.

  When he went back up with the tray she’d kicked down the sheet, leaving her back bare to the thighs. A tow-coloured light touched everything in the room – her skin, her hair, the wood floor. He put the tray on the night table and reached out to pull up the sheet before she woke. As he eased it along her bare back the edge of his finger brushed the arched flesh. Sleepily she stirred and then suddenly rolled over and gave a shout. Her fists thumped the bed.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Lena. I didn’t mean to touch you.’

  ‘Like fuck you didn’t!’

  She began crying inconsolably.

  ‘Oh, I wish to God all this was over. I wish we were all dead.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Lena, you don’t mean that.’

  For an instant sunlight filled the room again like a rich scent, and then, as suddenly, it was gone. She continued crying, more quietly now until finally she got up. Dan held out a hand to help her.

  ‘Leave me alone!’ she snapped.

  She left the room, crossed the landing and went into the bathroom and closed the door. He heard her vomit. His first thought was that it might be morning sickness. She stayed a long time and when she came out her face was washed clean and her hair was tied at the back with an elastic band. He asked her if she was all right.

  ‘Yes,’ she said shortly.

  ‘Lena? Are you… pregnant?’

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ she said. ‘Is that what you think?’

  ‘I’m just asking.’

  ‘Because with a woman like me it could only be hormones, it couldn’t be a thought or a grief like yours or life or fuck­ing anything else!’

  ‘Lena, stop it.’

  ‘But it’s always the same fucking thing, isn’t it? It’s either being a good fuck or a neurotic cow. There’s no space in between for being human, is there?’

  He felt a surge of dismay. Then the dismay went and a stillness came over him as she sat on the bed and looked straight into his face.

  ‘It’s not you, DeeJay,’ she said finally. ‘I’m sorry I yelled at you. I know you aren’t like that. Your touching me like that reminded me of Gabriel Rabban – he pretended to be my friend but the first chance he got, he tried to rape me. To sodomize me.’

  She took a deep breath. For a moment it seemed that she would cry again but instead she became angry.

  ‘Fucking Arab Christians! They’re so screwed up they can’t even do it normally, they have to fuck a woman up the ass. I suppose that way it’s not a sin for them or something.’

  That his brief touch could awaken such a violent memory left Dan numb.

  ‘I was kind to him,’ she went on, ‘I trusted him, a lonely kid of seventeen on his o
wn out here and his thanks was to try to rape me. It was awful. It was so fucking awful that when I was back in Gothenburg I broke down. I went to pieces, they had to put me in hospital. For months and months. I only got out at Christmas. Jesus, I hate being touched like that!’

  ‘Lena, please – it was accidental.’

  ‘Why does helplessness turn men on?’

  ‘Lena, I don’t—’

  ‘Ask any woman! You can’t even have your wars without defenceless women being raped.’

  Then she was crying again. He sat on the bed beside her. She was crying violently now, shivering, sobbing. Dan was rigid with fear and worry. Had the brush of his finger across her skin been altogether accidental? Or had some instinct made him want to touch her? Either way, was it so terrible? Softly he said her name.

  ‘It was my fault, Lena. I’m deeply sorry.’

  Her shivering had lessened. After a moment she took his hand.

  ‘It’s not your fault. You’re a kind man, I know that. It’s Gabriel Rabban’s fault. If you knew how badly he treated me. And I trusted him, I trusted him all the time until the end when it was too late.’

  14

  Bit by bit over the course of the morning her story came out. It had happened on the little island opposite the farm, Svartholm. Where her Uncle Fritjof used to take her to when he was laying out the nets. She hadn’t been back since he died. Until last summer. When Gabriel came from France to join the family, she’d told him about it and he said he’d love to go one day. In August they went.

  ‘He was on his own here, he knew no one. He was going nuts with boredom. So one sunny day we went over in the boat.’

  She paused a moment. Dan listened carefully, hoping to become again the older man she could trust, to wipe out all memory of that brush of his finger. And so she went on, telling him how she had got Aunt Solveig to make cinna­mon buns and how she herself had prepared a thermos of coffee just as they used to do when Uncle Fritjof was alive. She had taken the key so she could show the hut to Gabriel.

  ‘What a dumb cow I was!’

  She took a deep breath, while she pressed the palms of her hands hard against her eyes. When she took her hands away she looked Dan straight in the face.