In the Name of Love

by Smith, Patrick

  ‘I feel sorry for people who are lonely, I really do. I’ve known too much of it myself. I wanted to be an older sister to Gabriel. There was a difference in our ages, he was seventeen and I was twenty-one. I thought the difference was enough. But he must have planned the whole thing from the beginning. When we got to the island he said he didn’t swim, so I went in alone. And while I did he took my towel and clothes and the basket to the hut. When I came out and asked him why he said it was because he’d gone for a walk and he was afraid someone would steal them. There were other people around, people who’d come on boats and were sunbathing on the rocks, most of the women were topless like me. I mean it could hardly be safer and I didn’t suspect a thing. But as soon as we went into the hut to get the towel and the picnic basket he closed the door and tried to kiss me. He said he’d been wanting to do it since he first saw me. He began pawing me. He grabbed my breast and so I slapped his face. I slapped him hard. Then he got angry. He forced me down, he had my face against the boards and he was trying to pull my bikini pants off. I kept struggling but I couldn’t get up, he was too heavy. I screamed. I screamed as hard as I could. He said to shut up but I went on screaming and someone called out asking if everything was all right. A man came to the door and hammered on it. When Gabriel jumped up, I ran past him and out. People were staring but I didn’t even stop to get my clothes. I ran straight to the boat. Aunt Solveig didn’t see me when I got home. But Nahrin did. She asked where Gabriel was and I said he was still on the island. “And how’s he going to get home?” she said. I told her he could drown for all I cared.’

  She stopped again. Dan knew she was expecting a reaction but he was too shocked to say anything. It didn’t seem possible. He couldn’t see Gabriel doing such a thing.

  ‘Well, there you have the story of the Selavas family and me. That same day the pygmy must have told Aunt Solveig because Aunt Solveig asked me if I’d taken off my clothes in front of Gabriel on Svartholm. I tried to tell her what had happened but she didn’t listen. The sin of taking off my clothes in front of a boy like Gabriel was too much. She said I had to understand that Gabriel was brought up in an old Christian family, a family that had been Christian since the time of the apostles – she really believed all that guff – that he was brought up to respect women, not to see them half-naked. She said Gabriel wasn’t used to the way Swedish girls behaved and that it was wrong to have provoked him. Then the next day she told me the best thing was for me to go back to Gothenburg for the time being, to keep away from Gabriel until he’d had a chance to settle down. I tried to explain to her what had really happened but she was too well prepped by the pygmy. I was so angry I packed and left right away. And now they’re trying to take the farm away from me. You see how they work? I sometimes wonder if that whole outing wasn’t planned, if it wasn’t the pygmy who told Gabriel to get me to take him to Svartholm.’

  She talked on about all the summers she had spent at the farm with her Aunt Solveig and Uncle Fritjof, how happy she was then. Until the Selavas arrived.

  ‘It was so fucking unfair! And on top of everything else he started sending me letters in Gothenburg telling me how much he loved me and how he missed me every minute of every day! Jesus Christ! That he hadn’t meant to do me any harm, that he had been in love with me from the beginning and now the island was empty without me. Well, fuck that! If I’d been stupid enough to answer just one of those letters, even if it was only to tell him to fuck off, the pygmy would have seen to it that Aunt Solveig saw the envelope arrive so that they could say I was still chasing him.’

  ‘Maybe he did love you?’

  ‘You call that love? When I was back in Gothenburg I had a breakdown. In the hospital I decided to let it be for a while. I thought that when I was in better shape I’d write to Aunt Solveig and explain the whole thing. Only in the meantime she died and the Selavas had it all sewn up by the time I got here.’

  Dan no longer knew what to think. He felt sure Lena wasn’t lying to him, but what exactly had happened? The fact that other women were sunbathing near them on the island made it seem natural for Lena to be topless, but maybe it wasn’t natural to Gabriel. Lena had learnt young how to be sexually provocative – Dan saw that the first time they met. How was a seventeen-year-old like Gabriel Rabban meant to interpret it? Why had she gone into the hut with him? It wasn’t difficult to imagine Gabriel misunderstanding, even if it did nothing to excuse the way he behaved.

  When she was leaving, later in the morning, she said, ‘DeeJay, can we be friends?’

  The question surprised him.

  ‘We are friends.’

  ‘I mean really friends. Friends who trust each other, believe each other. Don’t you want that?’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ he said. ‘Of course I do.’

  Her voice as much as what she said made him uneasy and the uneasiness increased after she had gone. Had she really been afraid he might take advantage of her like Gabriel Rabban had tried to do? Was she so unsure about the way he felt for her? But what exactly did he feel? he asked himself.

  The next afternoon, when he rang to talk to her, her aunt said she’d already gone. She’d left early that morning, taking the first bus to Stockholm. The aunt sounded anxious. She even asked Dan if he had any idea where Lena might be staying.

  ‘Probably the same flat as before,’ he said, trying to reassure her.

  ‘I rang there. I’ve rung several times this morning. There’s no answer.’

  Again he tried to reassure her but she interrupted.

  ‘I know she spent the weekend with you. Was there anything wrong? She didn’t seem herself and she left so suddenly this morning.’

  ‘I don’t think so. If I get hold of her I’ll tell her to ring you.’

  After that he phoned the flat in town repeatedly but got no reply. He kept trying over the next few days.

  * * *

  In the midst of all this Carlos rang from New York. He said he was using Zoë’s family’s phone and could Dan ring him back? It was touching to hear how his voice changed at the mention of her name. When they were connected again Carlos chatted on about her, something he hadn’t done before. He said her business was going really well. ‘She’s taken on another designer, a Swedish girl who gets Swedish magazines for the latest interior trends. Zoë passes them on to me so now I know the King is still getting flak for insisting the flag over the palace be flown at half-mast in honour of Olof Palme. It really impressed Zoë. Here the Republicans painted Palme as a rabid Bolshevik. When I told Zoë she said, “Good for your King!” The funny thing is I’d never thought of him as my king before.’

  This conversation had clearly led to other things for in the next breath Carlos said that maybe living in Sweden might be better in the long run after all. Zoë and he agreed, he said, that despite its unique attractions, New York might not be the best place to raise children – if ever one wanted to have children, he added. Dan’s heart quickened. How happy that simple phrase made him. Carlos said that the Swedish woman Zoë had taken on even suggested setting up a branch in Stockholm. At once Dan told him that he’d have a chance to meet the famous Johan Ek here on Blidö if he wanted to.

  ‘He has a summer place only half an hour away. We’ve run into each other a couple of times.’

  Carlos was impressed. Dan added that he’d met Ek in Stockholm too.

  ‘I can easily introduce you.’

  ‘You know him? Sure! I’d like that,’ Carlos said.

  Scheming wouldn’t be too strong a word for what he was doing, he knew that. Nevertheless the glow of happiness continued to warm him long after they’d hung up. It’s not just for myself, he thought, I’m protecting Carlos too. After all, in his line things must be fiercely competitive in New York. And that business about a family. Of course it would be better to raise children in Sweden.

  When he mentioned this to Sune, Sune started in on him. He gave Dan quite a lecture but Dan couldn’t listen.

  ‘Oddballs like you a
nd me must learn how to let go,’ Sune said. ‘We don’t have a natural talent for controlling people so everything becomes a battle.’

  All this was too rational for Dan’s mood. He was ashamed of wanting to stage-manage Carlos’s life, but he also exulted in what it might lead to. There was really no talking sense to him.

  Instead he told Sune he was worried about Lena Sundman. At first Sune thought he meant her fight to take over the farm. True she was caught up in what she saw as her entitlement, her right to assert her claim as a member of the only real family she’d known, but not letting go was making her life a misery, Sune said.

  ‘This thing of playing come-hither-and-have-me covers a lot of conflicts in her.’

  Dan said he had come to a similar conclusion himself.

  ‘She hasn’t yet got over Bertil’s walking out on her when she was a kid,’ Sune said. ‘I don’t think greed is what motivates her. In fact I wonder if she wouldn’t have kept the Selavas on as long as the place was formally hers. Let them run it. What else could she do with it? Not sell it, I don’t think. She sees it as her home. In fact it may be that all she needs is the acknowledgement that she has a home – her father’s home.’

  Clearly he didn’t know about the rape story and Dan had already decided not to go into it. The whole story left him uneasy. He didn’t doubt that Lena’s version was accurate from her point of view, but how had Gabriel seen it?

  ‘What are her chances?’ he asked Sune. ‘Do you think Solveig Backlund really did leave it to the Selavas?’

  Sune looked out the window. Gabriel was at work in the garden outside.

  ‘Look at him! The way he digs, the way he feels the con­sis­tency of the soil with his fingers. You can see that working with his hands is his metier.’

  ‘Lena says she has letters from Solveig Backlund saying she was leaving the place to her.’

  ‘It’s not the same thing. She’s told half the island about them but what do they signify? True, some people are beginning to feel maybe this business with the Selavas went too fast. But I’m pretty sure the law will confirm the validity of the will.’

  As Sune saw it, there were a lot of factors a court would consider in the Selavas’s favour. Before they came there two and a half years earlier, Solveig Backlund had been on the verge of doing what she least wanted in the world, selling the farm and going into an old people’s home. Then the Selavas appeared. They worked night and day, taking care of her as well as keeping the farm going, just for their keep. They even brought Gabriel up from France to help. Where was Lena Sundman all that time?

  ‘I’m not blaming her,’ Sune said. ‘She was young and she had a life of her own on the other side of the country. And even when she came here on holiday did she ever scrub a floor? Mangle a sheet? I doubt it. Solveig loved her being there, no question of that, but towards the end she needed help and the Selavas provided it. They cooked and cleaned and cared for her, day and night. You don’t have to be Solomon to see the right judgement there, do you?’

  ‘How well did you know Lena when she was here on the island?’

  ‘She came to see me from time to time. As she did with a lot of people who knew her father well. The priest and his wife, for instance. Why do you ask?’

  ‘No reason. I was wondering how much support she feels she can count on.’

  ‘She’d have mine if she could reach an agreement with the Selavas. They’ve had too much pain to be put through any more. If they came to this country it was to find refuge here. Let’s show them they weren’t mistaken.’

  As he left he stopped to talk to Gabriel for a few moments. They both looked towards the window and saw Dan watching them. He waved and went back to ringing Lena’s number in Stockholm again. This time someone answered; a man who didn’t give his name though Dan recognized the voice – Lennart Widström. He said Lena wasn’t there. As he spoke Dan heard Anders Roos say ‘Who is it?’ in the background.

  ‘Is Anders there?’ Dan said. ‘I’d like to speak to him.’

  When Anders came on Dan went straight to his question. ‘Do you know where Lena is? I’ve been trying to get hold of her.’

  ‘She’s here in town. Why?’

  ‘Why?’ The abruptness of the question caught him short. ‘I was just wondering how she’s doing.’

  ‘She’s all right.’

  ‘Is something wrong?’ It struck Dan that maybe Anders didn’t want to talk in front of Widström. ‘Do you want me to ring you a little later?’

  ‘We’re on our way to a meeting. I’ll be tied up all afternoon.’

  ‘Her aunt is worried, she asked me to try to get hold of her.’

  ‘There’s nothing to worry about. Lena’s all right.’

  ‘Her aunt doesn’t think so. Do you have her phone number?’

  There was a second’s silence. Then, very carefully, Anders said, ‘I have the feeling she needs to be left in peace for a while.’

  There was a protective note in his voice. Dan asked him again for her number. This time Anders said he didn’t have it. She was flat-sitting for someone. That was all he knew.

  ‘Does she have your number?’ Anders asked.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Then she’ll ring you if she wants to.’

  ‘Just ask her to ring her aunt,’ Dan said and he hung up.

  What had come over Anders? His claiming not to know where Lena was staying seemed so unlikely that Dan took it as an affront. But once again it struck him that maybe it wasn’t him Anders was trying to protect her from. Maybe he didn’t want to say her number in front of Widström. The more Dan thought of this, the more likely it seemed. Flat-sitting sounded like something Anders or maybe even Madeleine had arranged for her. He remembered how dejected Lena had been in Paris after lunch with Widström. Would Widström expect a return for the flat he’d lent her in Stockholm too? Maybe flat-sitting was a way of freeing her from that.

  Shortly after his call, while he was still in the kitchen, Gabriel came and tapped on the open door. He said that his grandaunt wanted to know if Dan would come to eat with them that evening.

  Dan said yes, he’d like that very much. He assumed that Sune had been invited too, that that was why they’d both looked towards the window at the same time while they were talking.

  ‘I can give Sune a lift,’ he said.

  Gabriel shook his head.

  ‘It’s only you.’

  By candlelight Nahrin and Jamala were different shades of amber but their eyes seemed startlingly alike. The child spoke fluently with her hands, tapping her grandmother’s arm to get her attention. Seeing Dan watch them, Gabriel said, ‘She wasn’t born a deaf mute, you know. She became that way after the killing.’

  Jamala looked at him. She seemed to understand what he’d said although Nahrin had earlier told Dan she couldn’t lip-read Swedish yet, only Chaldean. Her eyes flitted from face to face as they spoke.

  Josef had dressed for the occasion: a dark suit, a white shirt, a dark tie. And, although the sleeves were slightly too long, the shoulders too wide, he looked undeniably respectable, the ex-teacher from Mosul.

  ‘Solveig told me to make use of the clothes,’ he murmured softly in French. ‘Her husband’s.’ Dan understood his need to explain. The gift of used clothes did not demean him.

  Dinner turned out to be a single dish. It was, as Sune had said it would be, delicious. Nahrin cut straight down through the pot and carefully lifted out each slice with its different layers. Red kidney beans on top, then meat, then aubergine and onions, all of them interspersed with cinnamon sticks, whole cardamoms and cumin seeds, and finally rice in a crunchy bottom layer.

  ‘The best part,’ Gabriel told Dan with a grin. His lips shone with juice from the meat he chewed, making his mouth look soft as a ripe fruit. Dan had a fleeting memory of what Lena had told him, then dismissed it. He was in no position to judge. Nahrin ate with great delicacy. She cut the meat into tiny morsels, speared each one, lifting the fork with care.
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  They talked inconsequentially during the first part of the meal. Whenever Nahrin or Josef had difficulty finding a word in Swedish, Gabriel came to their aid. He told Dan that the delicious crunchy layer resulted from cooking the rice in olive oil at the bottom of the pot. The flavour of the spices soaked down, as did the juice of the meat. Dan asked what sort of meat it was. Was it the spices that give it its gamey flavour?

  For a moment Josef seemed confused. He turned to Nahrin. Intrigued, Dan looked at Gabriel. It was obvious that he had something he was bursting to say.

  ‘Is it—’ Dan began.

  ‘Sure,’ Gabriel said. ‘I potted a deer. The hunting season’s opened, hasn’t it?’

  Nahrin spoke sharply to him and turned to Josef. But Gabriel was still looking at Dan. Dan resisted the temptation to ask him if he had a licence.

  ‘A single shot through the heart at forty metres. Not bad, eh?’

  Dan remembered Johan Ek’s dog. Shot between the eyes. Rights of access, Ek had said, didn’t mean you could walk up to people’s houses and stare in their windows. Both Nahrin and Josef looked embarrassed. Jamala made signs to Nahrin which seemed to ask what was going on. Nahrin raised her hand, fingers spread: Not now. The choice for Dan was clear. Either he pushed his plate away to show his disapproval of the wrongdoing, or he went on and enjoyed it, in which case he was complicit. But how many locals had never broken the hunting laws? There were no police on the island. And in a community as enclosed as this people did not inform on each other. Better to take the law into your own hands. Dan went on eating. He saw Nahrin and Josef exchange a glance. First the birth of the calf, now this sharing of a poached deer. Gabriel gave him a look of approval.

  Once the meal was over, Nahrin said something and Gabriel got up and told Dan he was going to give Jamala her Swedish lesson before bed and he’d say goodnight now in case Dan was gone when he came down.

  ‘It take time,’ Nahrin explained. ‘He teach her to read better in Swedish. Two Swedish pages of her book each night. He translate the words she not know and she read his lips.’