Falling

by Simona Ahrnstedt

  We’re at the Beefeater Inn. Götgatsbacken. Can you come?

  Alexander read the message from Isobel again, worried that he’d misunderstood her. As if he could. There was nothing he wanted more than to go to her. Wherever she was. And whatever the hell the Beefeater Inn was.

  He pulled on a jacket, texted her he was on his way, and climbed into a cab within five minutes.

  * * *

  He glanced around the bar. It was a typical street corner dive, not one he’d been to before, not one he would’ve chosen.

  The place smelled of stale beer and fries. Dusty plastic plants in the corners and green faux leather on the wall-mounted benches.

  “Over here,” Isobel called. She waved from a corner table deeper inside the bar.

  When he got to the table, she smiled broadly.

  Her eyes seemed a little unfocused The table was covered in glasses and bottles and bowls of nuts. Isobel was sitting with four men. Three of them bearded and sturdy looking.

  The fourth was Sebastien Pascal.

  Isobel flashed him the same blinding smile again, but this time Alexander caught sight of something else behind it, as if she was holding up a façade. She introduced them.

  “Sven and Christian are MSF doctors. We’ve worked together over the years. Øystein, here, is one of our logisticians, one of the best. We were in Liberia together.” She paused, a heartbeat. “And you’ve already met Sebastien.”

  Her voice was neutral, but the unspoken words between them thundered in his ears.

  Alexander shook hands with the men, one after another. Sebastien last. He took Sebastien’s hand firmly, much harder than he had when they’d first met in Skåne. If something broke, there were plenty of doctors here to look at it.

  Alexander sat down in the only empty seat. He was opposite Isobel. Sebastien to his right. The other men were spread out, with Isobel in the center. Alexander had a hard time looking away from her—she was positively glowing. This was no dumped woman; she was a queen with her court. Three knights and a snake.

  “Sebastien dropped in,” she said, apropos of nothing.

  So. He was here as backup. That was fine with him.

  A waitress came over to take more orders. Alexander asked for a bottle of lager, leaned back in his chair, and took it all in. Isobel pulled out her phone, tapped away at it, and he received a message.

  He’s Christian’s friend. I had no idea he’d be here.

  He looked at her across the table, happy that he got to be her knight in shining armor.

  She hiccupped.

  Are you drunk? he mouthed.

  “Very,” she replied, and gave him a tipsy smile.

  “Alexander, how do you know Isobel?” It was one of the bearded superheroes who spoke.

  Alexander had forgotten their names; Isobel was all that mattered.

  “He’s an international jet-setter. That’s how we met,” said Isobel.

  No one seemed to notice how illogical her answer was. But when Alexander saw the number of bottles on the table, he wasn’t surprised. They all seemed acutely intoxicated.

  “You know she’s a legend, right?”

  Alexander’s eyes lingered on Isobel’s beautiful, laughing face. She was at ease no matter where she was, even here, on a Monday evening, in a dive bar.

  “That doesn’t surprise me,” he said, his gaze fixed on her gray eyes. “She’s one of the most impressive people I know.”

  Their eyes met over the table, and he knew that she knew he was trying to ask for forgiveness.

  “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me about the legend of Doctor Sørensen.”

  “They’re exaggerating,” she said, waving her beer in the air.

  “Come on, tell him about the time you bought all the medicine in Port-au-Prince.”

  She shook her head.

  “I’d love to hear.”

  “Okay, okay, okay. It was after the earthquake. We were getting patients who’d been poisoned by something. It turned out they’d gotten drugs from a fly-by-night medical center. My coworker and I headed over there and realized they were prescribing cancer meds to everyone no matter what ailed them. We tried to buy it all, but they refused; I guess they realized they could get more for it elsewhere. So eventually I told them I knew Zlatan Ibrahimovi and that I’d get his signature for them if they’d let me buy all the medicine.”

  “They knew who Zlatan was?” Alexander asked with a smile. He loved how she looked—happy, carefree, mischievous. “I never realized he’s so famous.”

  “Everyone knows who Zlatan is, no matter where you go. At least everyone outside of North America. He is the greatest soccer player, after all—every child in every third world country dreams of becoming Zlatan. In many countries he’s bigger than ABBA, Björn Borg, and Ikea combined. Anyway, we bought all the medicine they had, and then we spent a whole day breaking the vials.”

  “Tell him what happened with Zlatan,” the logistician said, slapping his hand on the table and laughing.

  “I managed to get in touch with his manager. He sent me two signed photos and I sent them on to Haiti.”

  The bearded men hooted with laughter and toasted, their beer spilling onto the table.

  “So this is what MSF doctors do when they go out? Tell tall tales?”

  “Yeah. There was a doctor, when we were in the field, who got kidney stones. Do you know how painful they are?”

  Alexander shook his head.

  “They say it’s one of the most painful things you can experience, one hundred on a scale from one to a hundred. It hurts so much you literally can’t keep still. We had to take the doctor to the hospital, and they wanted to keep her in. But she refused to stay, didn’t want to take away space from other patients. And she also refused to stop work and head home, like any normal person would have done. So we got some painkillers, and everyone went to bed. She had instructions to wake us up when she needed the next injection. But instead she let everyone sleep, injected herself—which is pretty fucking hard-core—and then assisted with something like ten operations the next day.”

  “Shit.”

  “And that’s not all. A couple of days later, she got a serious infection in a cut, self-treated it with antibiotics and stitched herself up. And then she got pneumonia. She still refused to go home. This was in Iraq. A refugee camp. She worked around the clock. I think she was coughing more than her patients at the end. Eventually, she stepped on a used needle. When that happens, it’s standard practice to take HIV medicine—it’s a preventative measure. But that treatment can make you very sick, and it did, of course. She had so many side effects she couldn’t even stand up.”

  “What happened?”

  “I had to go home,” Isobel muttered. “Under protest.”

  They burst out laughing.

  He looked at them.

  “You’re all insane. That was you?”

  “It was my first trip with MSF. I was terrified they’d think I was useless.”

  “I told you, she’s a legend.”

  “Isobel does everything better than anyone,” Sebastien said, and his mouth curled slightly. “Like a little machine. Oui?”

  “She’s better than a machine, Sebastien,” one of the bearded men said, laughing, and Isobel smiled. But Alexander could see that Sebastien’s words had hurt her. Isobel, with her constant struggle to be good, always doing her best. And that asshole sat there and mocked her for it.

  Alexander gave Sebastien a long look, came up with a thousand ways to strangle him.

  Sebastien snorted and got to his feet.

  “I’m going to see if they have any decent wine,” he said, and headed for the bar.

  Alexander’s eyes followed the Frenchman. Watched him position himself at the bar. Alexander hesitated. Heard the others start to talk about yet another trip. Made up his mind. He got up and strolled nonchalantly over to the bar. He pushed his way through to where Sebastien was standing.

  The Frenchman looked surprised,
and Alexander gave him his best polite, harmless face, as though he was only there to order another beer and exchange a few manly, everyday platitudes. It was a basic poker tactic. Hide your intentions from your opponent while you looked for weaknesses, analyzed what kind of player was in front of you. Alexander had grown up with bullies and could spot one in an instant. The Frenchman was a classic specimen, a hyena who preyed only on the weak. Alexander could handle someone like him with one arm tied.

  “So,” he said as jovially as he could.

  “So?”

  Alexander flashed his teeth, made himself tall and wide. He pressed Sebastien against the bar, as though the people behind had pushed him. He smiled. “You and Isobel were together?”

  Watchfulness in Sebastien’s eyes. Not an experienced player, or not when he faced an equal anyway. “I don’t know what she said.”

  “No?”

  “I had an adult relationship with Isobel. That’s all.”

  “She was your student.”

  “She was over eighteen, and I was the course leader, hardly anything to cry about. She got no special treatment. Plus, she was the one who threw herself at me.”

  Alexander took another step forward. Dropped the poker analogies and changed tack. He puffed out his chest, pushed against Sebastien, stared.

  Sebastien’s eyes began to wander. “Look, I don’t know what lies she told you, but I don’t appreciate you threatening me like this.”

  “I don’t give a damn what you appreciate. And I’m not threatening you.”

  “Then what do you want from me?”

  “I’m going to put this as plainly as I possibly can. So there’s no misunderstanding between us. What with the language barrier and all that, you know. If you so much as think anything that Isobel might not like, if you get to her, if you say a single fucking word that I interpret as insulting to her, I’m going to put a hand on your neck, and I’ll squeeze and squeeze until your eyes pop out.” He raised a hand and Sebastien jerked back. Alexander smirked. He put a hand on the Frenchman’s shoulder and patted him lightly. “See the difference? That was a threat.”

  Alexander got his beer and took it back to the table. He gave Isobel a wide grin.

  “What were you guys talking about?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Don’t remember. Anatomy, maybe.”

  Corny? Sure. Pointless? Probably. But what was he meant to do? After all, he was there as Isobel’s knight. And a knight had to stand up for his queen.

  He sat back down. Looked at the two bearded men. They were cocky and arrogant, but if anyone had the right to think of themselves as cool, it was MSF doctors.

  “The next round’s on me,” he said. “Now, tell me more about the legendary things you’ve done.”

  Chapter 41

  Isobel knew something had happened at the bar, because Sebastien looked like he’d been punched in the gut, whereas Alexander simply sat down in his chair with an innocent look on his face. But Alexander was never innocent. Sebastien left the bar and approached the table with furious steps, and she assumed that whatever it was, it was about to escalate.

  She had panicked when Sebastien turned up, and she sent a message to Alexander without thinking it through. But it felt unexpectedly good now, as though Sebastien really was as unimportant to her as she wanted him to be. A difficult and manipulative bastard, absolutely. But not the least bit important.

  Isobel was so lost in her thoughts that she missed what was said between the two men. She heard terse phrases and then saw Sebastien place a heavy hand on Alexander’s shoulder.

  Oops, that was probably a mistake.

  Alexander had frozen in his seat, and it was like watching a golden panther prepare to strike. Sebastien said something in an angry, low voice, and Alexander leaped up. It all happened so quickly that she would’ve missed it if she’d blinked. Alexander’s fist shot out and Sebastien staggered backward. French phrases she didn’t often hear began to stream from Sebastien’s mouth. Alexander ignored him completely and grinned at her instead, as though he wanted praise. She shouldn’t appreciate the fact that he was fighting, but you had to give Alexander credit—he only went for men who really had it coming.

  “Isobel, I . . .” he started, but an enormous security guard turned up behind him and put a huge arm around his neck.

  “Out,” he bellowed.

  Alexander rolled his eyes. “Sorry,” he mimed over his shoulder, though he didn’t look especially apologetic. It actually sounded like he was whistling. She stifled a laugh when she recognized the tune: “La Marseillaise,” the French national anthem.

  “That was interesting,” Sven said slowly once Alexander had been escorted out.

  “You okay, Sebastien?” Christian asked as he picked up the chair that had been knocked over when Alexander leaped up.

  “He’s a psychopath,” said Sebastien. He pushed his hair back and rubbed his jaw.

  Isobel’s eyes moved between them. She got slowly to her feet, and then she did something she’d never done before. Something she had only ever seen in films. She took her beer, a full glass, and emptied it over Sebastien.

  “Va te faire voir, s’il te plaît,” she said, sweeping her hair from her face. She ignored Sebastien’s spluttering and hissing. “Night,” she said to the others, who were staring open-mouthed at her, and left the restaurant.

  Outside, she breathed in the cool night air.

  “Hi, babe,” she heard, and when she looked to one side, she saw Alexander standing with his hands in his pockets. He was looking at her.

  “You get thrown out too?” he asked.

  “Nah, but I guess it was just a matter of time,” she said with a smile.

  “What did you say to him?”

  “Go to hell, please.”

  Alexander burst into laughter.

  She grinned. She really was drunk. It skewed her judgment, and for now she liked the feeling. She’d certainly regret it tomorrow, but the whole point was that she didn’t care about tomorrow. She opened her purse, took out her lip gloss, and touched up her makeup.

  “What do you want to do now?” he asked, his eyes caressing her lips.

  “Don’t know. My plan for tonight was to sleep with them. But I’ll have to reassess the situation.”

  “Is that so? All of them, or just a couple?”

  “All of them. Apart from Sven. He’s married. Actually, Christian’s married too, now that I think about it. And I’ve already slept with Øystein.”

  Alexander raised an eyebrow.

  “Not recently,” she explained.

  “I’m glad, I have to say.”

  “It wasn’t the best plan, I realize that,” she said as they started walking down Götgatan, toward Slussen and the Old Town. She giggled. He took her hand as they walked, held on tight.

  “Øystein enjoyed stuff like feather sex.”

  His grip tightened. “Feather sex?”

  “Yeah, you know. You lie there and touch each other with a feather for hours, to get close to the other person.”

  Alexander shook his head and his eyes watered with repressed laughter. He got such nice lines around his eyes when he laughed. It made him look more like a human and less like a perfect Grecian statue.

  “I fell asleep in the middle of it. We broke up not long after that.”

  “I can kind of understand that. And Sebastien? What did you have planned for him?”

  His voice sounded breezy, but Isobel knew it was an important question, not least for herself.

  “I don’t want anything to do with him. Nothing at all.”

  “Was that why you sent me a message?”

  “I knew you’d come.”

  “How?”

  Isobel stopped.

  “Because just before I went out, I found out that the Medpax hospital in Chad had gotten a brand-new oxygen machine. A man who finds, buys, and manages to ship an oxygen machine to a pediatric hospital in Chad is someone you can rely on.”

  “I c
an be nice sometimes,” he agreed.

  “Yes, you can.”

  He pulled her close.

  “But I can also be an ass. Sorry I left you the other night. It was just too much to think about. That’s a crappy explanation, but I want to apologize anyway.”

  “I regretted saying anything. I’ve missed you these past few days.”

  “Not as much as I missed you.”

  He laid a hand on her cheek and kissed her. She leaned in to him and breathed him in. “I could even put up with some feather sex with you,” she mumbled against his mouth.

  He started to shake with laughter. “Shoot me if I ever suggest it. Should we go in here?”

  They were outside the restaurant Gyldene Freden, a pale yellow building that had housed the same establishment for almost three hundred years. She nodded.

  They got a table and Alexander ordered a bottle of champagne which Isobel suspected cost roughly a week’s pay. She decided she didn’t care.

  “I want some cheese, too. Alcohol makes me hungry.”

  “Cheese,” Alexander agreed.

  In a dim corner of her mind, Isobel knew there were things she had done and would do tonight that she would regret tomorrow. Not least the fact she had drunk so much, she thought, as a waiter uncorked the bottle and poured the wine into tall glasses for them. But for now, it was still today, and today it was great to be giggly from champagne, to sit in a luxurious restaurant in the Old Town, to let herself be drawn to him again.

  He reached for her hand over the table. “I thought a lot about what you said.”

  “That I’m messed up?”

  “Messed-up people are the best kind.”

  “I see why you and Leila get on so well. She likes people who are messed up too.”

  He stroked her palm, ran his thumb along the lines, raised it to his mouth, kissed it. “What we did. I want another chance with you. Can I?”

  She blinked.

  “Okay,” she said, wondering if this was one of the things she would regret tomorrow. That she had just said yes to more sex with Alexander.

  * * *

  Much later, they strolled home through the night. They walked through the whole of the Old Town, sauntered through the center and eventually made it down to Vasagatan. They stopped every ten meters or so to kiss, like teenagers without anywhere to go.