I slowly sat up on the sofa. I ran my hands through my hair and wondered if I had ever really gotten over her. Since Sunita I hadn’t had any long relationships. I compared all women to her. I searched in vain for that spark, that intensity…
I realized I was never going to experience that sort of erotic charge and intense tenderness again. Occasionally I wondered if she still thought about me. Did she remember me? Did she remember any of our adventures and secret meetings, or had she suppressed it all? On some level she must still miss what we had. A bit, at any rate. How much had she and her family had to pay to W.R.D.?
The sun had gone down. It was dark inside the apartment, but I couldn’t be bothered to switch on any lamps. I alternated between lying down and glaring at my worthless possessions, and sitting up and scratching my head. Evening passed and turned into night. I ought to have gone to bed, but I could just feel myself getting more and more upset.
“I don’t understand,” I said to Maud when she eventually picked up, sounding slightly drowsy. “I don’t think this is fair at all.”
I heard her clear her throat at the other end of the line.
“No…hmm…I heard that your amount had been adjusted,” she said.
It was the middle of the night. Maybe she was trying to get some rest between calls. Maybe she’d actually dozed off? Obviously even she needed to sleep sometimes. Either way, right then I didn’t care. I’d been lying on the sofa for hours, getting worked up about the unfair calculation. I felt I had to vent my frustration.
“Adjusted?” I said. “It was doubled!”
She was moving something. A duvet, maybe, or a blanket.
“Yes, I looked through your file afterward and, well, it’s an impressive result, I have to admit. They managed to get your figures badly wrong upstairs in—”
“But my friend Roger—” I interrupted her, before she immediately interrupted me, as usual with a practiced harangue. She could probably do it in her sleep.
“It’s best not to try to make comparisons,” she said. “It’s incredibly hard to see the differences if you haven’t been trained and understand the system.”
I didn’t care about that now. I felt like I’d heard enough.
“I think it’s deeply unfair,” I went on. “The more I think about it, the worse I feel. I mean, I haven’t done anything at all with my life. Not a thing. I haven’t traveled or studied or applied myself to anything…I used to drift about with my mates and talk a lot of rubbish and hang out at bars. And now I sit here every day watching films or playing games or listening to music. In the past few years I’ve always gone to the same supermarket and bought the same cereal for breakfast. I get the same coffee from the same café, I still work at the same place, and I basically stand there doing the same thing every day. Then I go to the same restaurant and get takeout. I even go to the same kiosk when I want ice cream. I usually grab a Pizza Grandiosa, ‘X-tra everything, 40% more taste,’ and heat it up in the microwave. If I want to push the boat out I buy a Nogger ice lolly for dessert. Two, even. I never go out. I don’t see any friends. That’s no sort of life!”
“Why don’t you go out?” Maud said.
She sounded more alert, but her voice was still a bit hoarse. More than usual, anyway. For a moment I caught myself wondering if she was wearing nightclothes. How did she prefer to sleep? At the same time, I was too upset really to think about her like that. For once, I was just too angry. Sad, even. And I noted how effectively that strangled any tendency toward flirtation.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I hadn’t thought about it until after I spoke to you. You tell me I have to pay because I’ve had it so easy, but in actual fact I’ve had a really shit time.”
“But you had all the prerequisites for…” she began.
“That just makes it worse,” I said.
I could feel I wasn’t far from bursting into tears, at the thought of all the things I could have done. Sunita—should I have chased after her? Should I have gone to India and found out where she lived and tried to take her away from there with me? Where to? Back to Sweden? To live in my apartment, as the partner of a part-time shop assistant at Jugge’s Flicks? Would she have agreed to that? Tears pricked my eyes, making me sound more strident. It probably came out more aggressively than I intended.
“That’s the saddest thing of all. I had every opportunity, but what the hell have I done? Nothing. Nada. Not a damn thing.”
Maybe she was scared, or just worried that I was going to start crying over the phone, but she sounded much softer now.
“How did that happen, then?”
“How the hell should I know?” I said. “It just did. The years passed. You don’t think. Everything’s all nice and familiar, and I suppose I’m frightened of getting hurt or something…I don’t know…I’ve always avoided conflict, and I’ve always been really happy if I could get away without quarreling with people. Before, I used to be happy when I managed to avoid things, it felt like some sort of victory, you know, like I’d gotten away with something and didn’t have to do something I didn’t want to. Like being let off homework at school, or managing not to get beaten up in the playground. But now…God, I don’t know, it feels like I’ve been fooled somehow, as if everything I avoided was actually…”
I could feel my eyes stinging.
“Well…actually life itself.”
I couldn’t hold back anymore. I started to howl into the phone. Bellowing like an animal. I didn’t care what she thought. She was welcome to think it was unattractive and awkward. Oddly enough, she didn’t seem remotely worried. Quite the contrary. She said in a gentle voice: “So what would you like to do?”
I lay down on the floor on my back. Looked up at the ceiling and tried to breathe calmly. The floorboards actually felt fairly cool.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Anything. I might have liked to travel, meet people. More girls. Tried different things…You know, maybe do something illegal…”
I closed my eyes and snorted the snot back into my nose.
“Nothing, really. I suppose I should just have been more aware of what I did have. I mean, we talked about the sun and all that before…”
“You said you liked the view,” she said.
I noticed that I had raised my voice.
“Exactly. So why the hell didn’t I go outside? Why didn’t I take the chance to enjoy everything a bit more?”
“Why didn’t you?”
I stared up at the ceiling. There were cracks in it. Hard to see where they started. It was like it had cracked in several different places at the same time. I found myself thinking about really old porcelain. After a while I lowered my head to stretch my neck.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I suppose I’m just a—what do they call it?—a creature of habit.”
“Yes, we’ve noticed.”
“What? How?”
“I mean, our inspectors.”
I stretched my neck some more, back and forth, grateful for the hard floor that didn’t move when I did. It was nice. Almost like a massage.
“Inspectors?” I said.
“They’re the ones who give us information. They’ve also noticed that you’re—how shall I put it?—a person of regular habits.”
“Horribly regular,” I said with a snort. “It hasn’t struck me before, but it’s pretty damn tragic.”
I rested my head back on the floor.
“Are you being honest now?” Maud asked.
“Yes,” I said, clearing my throat to get my voice back under control.
“I mean, this isn’t just something you’re saying to get the debt down? Like when you said you were anxious?”
“No.”
I lay there on the floor thinking. Thinking about life. About all the times, the moments, that were gone for good. All the encounters and people. Quite without warning I realized that tears were welling up in my eyes again without me being able to do anything to stop them.
“And I miss my mum,” I said in a cr
acked voice. She said nothing for a while. Just waited. Let me catch my breath.
“You were very fond of your mother,” she said, more as a statement than a question. I couldn’t bring myself to answer. I nodded to myself and sniffed.
We were both silent for a few minutes. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d opened up to anyone like this. It felt good, in a way. Like a new me. She didn’t seem to have anything against it. She could have hung up if she didn’t want to listen. But she let me go on.
“We went camping one summer in Närke,” I said.
“I know,” she said. “I saw.”
“You did?” I said. “Yes, of course you did.”
“Let’s see, 1984, wasn’t it?” she said, but corrected herself immediately. “No, ’85.”
“Probably,” I said, trying to wipe the tears from my cheeks. “It rained the whole time,” I added, for safety’s sake.
“Yes, I saw that as well,” Maud mumbled.
“Mum and me. And Dad and my sister, of course…We hired a caravan.”
“A mobile home, wasn’t it?” Maud said. “The year before you hired a caravan. A Cabby, Model 532. In 1985 you had…Ah. Sorry. You were about to say something…”
I went and got a piece of kitchen roll to blow my nose on.
“Right, yes, a mobile home.”
We said nothing for a bit. I blew my nose as quietly as I could.
“Did you like the rain?” she said.
“Well, I don’t like it when it rains nonstop…”
“No, of course not, but on that occasion it seemed to match your profile.”
“Really? Yes, it was nice sitting there. We didn’t really do much. We just…Well, what can I say? We just were.”
I heard her leaf through her file again.
“Hmm. Yes, you score very highly for that week. Health, relationships, intensity, the oxygen content of the air…Yes, across the board, actually.”
“We played Uno,” I said, feeling that I was about to burst into tears again.
“Sorry?”
“Uno,” I said. “That’s what we played.”
She said nothing for a moment.
“Oh. What’s that?”
“Uno. It’s a game. You’ve never heard of it?”
“No, I haven’t, actually. Is it like Monopoly?”
“Sort of, but easier.”
“What’s the point of it?”
I couldn’t help smiling.
“What’s the point of it?”
She sounded suddenly bewildered.
“Yes?” she said bluntly.
“I can’t actually remember anymore. I think you have to get rid of your cards or something. Well, it’s not important. You’ve never played Uno, then?”
“No.”
“We should try it one day,” I said.
She didn’t answer.
It was somehow easier to talk to her now. It felt more like talking to a friend. Even if she was still using that factual tone of voice. I realized that to her ears I must sound like an extremely sensitive, intuitive person. She was so correct. So definite. I suddenly got the impression that I was the opposite. But what did that mean? Wrong? And abstract?
“You’re good at Sporcle,” she said. “You get very high scores. Especially on film titles and directors.”
“Too right!” I said. “I’m right up there…well…somewhere in the middle.”
She laughed.
“You don’t have to cover up anything,” she said. “Anyway, we’ve already got the information.”
“Mmm,” I said. “Okay, I’m pretty good.”
I ran my hand across the floor. I ended up with a pale gray strand of dust on my fingertips. I really should get the Hoover out.
“Is it fun, your job?” I asked after a pause.
“I’m not sure about fun,” she said. “It’s exciting to be part of the big change, and the work feels useful…I mean, it’s an important task…”
“That Georg,” I said.
“Yes?”
“He’s…What’s he like?”
She thought for a moment.
“I don’t know the people up there very well. But as far as I know, he’s smart, and knows the procedures very well. Out of everyone at W.R.D., he’s probably the one who’s best at—”
“Does he dye his hair?”
She fell silent again.
“Hmm…” she began. “Does he dye his hair? I don’t actually know.”
“I bet he does,” I said. “He reminds me of a character in a film.”
“Oh?” she said.
“I just can’t remember which one.”
I crumpled the piece of kitchen roll into a ball and dabbed my cheeks again.
“Have you always liked films?” she asked after a brief pause.
I sniffed a yes down the phone.
“How long have you worked in the video shop?”
I thought she ought to have that in her files, but took a deep breath and thought about it. I cleared my throat and made an attempt to steady my voice.
“Er,” I said, “it must be nine years now.”
She said nothing at first, as if she too was wondering if this really sounded like a ten-million-kronor life.
“So what’s your favorite film?” she asked eventually.
“My favorite film? Oh, I don’t know, it’s so hard to choose. I almost always think there’s something good in every film…”
I could hear her smiling at the other end.
“I could have guessed that,” she said.
“I mean, it’s so hard to pick just one film.”
She muttered in what could been agreement, or just an indication that she knew I was going to say that as well.
“But there is one scene,” I said, after a pause. “In a Bosnian film called The Bridge.”
“The Bridge?”
“Yes, it isn’t a very well-known film. You probably haven’t seen it, but…it’s, I don’t know…I often think about that scene.”
“Why do you do that?”
“It’s…How can I put it? It’s good. It’s a good scene. Anyway, what’s your favorite film?”
She coughed.
“Mine?” she said. “Oh, I don’t watch a lot of films.”
I was on the point of saying I could have guessed that, but stopped myself.
“But you must have seen some?”
“Well,” she said, “nothing very memorable.”
“So what do you do, then?”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“I work,” she said quickly, and laughed.
I joined in. These conversations of ours were starting to feel fairly intimate. As if we’d crossed a boundary. As if we could talk about things that really mattered. Openly and honestly. Without embarrassment.
“No, but seriously?” I said.
She didn’t reply at first.
“Well, I do work a lot, you know.”
We both fell silent.
“So, what do you like most?” I eventually asked. “Films? Music?”
She laughed again. Unless it was more of a giggle.
“Art? Theater, maybe?” I went on.
“No, not theater,” she said.
“No?”
“No, I don’t know…”
“Books?”
More silence. It was obvious that she wasn’t used to this sort of role reversal. She wasn’t at all comfortable answering questions, and would much rather do the asking herself.
“What do you do to relax?” I persisted.
“Well,” she said, “I like reading the paper…”
Another silence, and I didn’t really know what to say. I let my eyes drift from the ceiling to the sofa with its threadbare cover. She made a rustling sound, then drank some more tea or coffee. I tried to imagine her at home. The silence was still fairly comfortable.
“What amount did you get?” I said.
“No,” she said firmly. “We don’t discuss our pe
rsonal amounts with…”
She didn’t finish the sentence, and I never found out what she was going to call someone like me.
“Okay,” I said, “but you could still tell me, couldn’t you?”
“It’s completely against the rules for an employee to divulge…”
“How about bending the rules a bit?”
She didn’t answer at first.
“Like I said, it’s best not to make comparisons,” she said. “It’s not helpful.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But…?”
She was breathing through her nose. I imagined I could see her smiling.
“Well, it came to a fair bit,” she said.
“How much?”
She laughed.
“Look, I really shouldn’t…”
I could almost see her top lip curl. She was probably hoping I would leave it at that, that I would realize I had gone too far and drop the subject, but when I didn’t say anything she finally came clean:
“700,000, more or less.”
We were both silent for a while as the amount hovered in the air between us.
“But,” I eventually said, “that’s nothing!”
“Like I said, it’s extremely difficult to make direct comparisons…”
I sat up.
“So what is it about you that means—”
She raised her voice as she interrupted me.
“Sorry, it was stupid of me to agree to this. I really don’t want us to discuss my private—”
“But that’s incredible,” I went on. “What have I got that you—”
“Like I said, it’s hard to see how everything fits together…”
“Why didn’t you end up with a higher—”
She interrupted me again, loudly.
“I got a low score in affirmation! Okay?”
“Okay.”
“My muscarinic cholinergic system doesn’t allow for high results in certain areas,” she said, then fell silent as if she thought I should make do with that as an explanation.
“Mmm,” I said. “And in the sort of language you can actually understand?”
“I scored very low in the individual aspect. Low durability in the reward section.”
I pondered those words for a moment.
“What does that mean?”
“That I’m bad at…Oh, I don’t know…”
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