A Necessary Action

by Per Wahlöö

  ‘Yes, yes, we’ll pay you tomorrow,’ he said irritably. ‘We’ll go up to the owner and pay him. But we’ll damn well have the meat in that case.’

  The shepherd jabbered on in his almost incomprehensible dialect.

  Two civil guards came up out of the darkness and shone their torches. When the shepherd caught sight of them, he stopped abruptly and seemed to sink into his rags. He stood there with his head down, as if waiting to be beaten. His whole body was shaking, but perhaps that was just old age.

  ‘We must apologize,’ said one of the civil guards. ‘Sheep should not be on the road and they’re supposed to have proper bells on them.’

  The other one went up to the shepherd, lifted his head by putting his finger under his chin, and barked a few sentences in gutteral Catalonian. Then he boxed the old man’s ears and the old man began to weep.

  Dan Pedersen and Willi Mohr climbed up into the camioneta again.

  The civil guards saluted.

  The truck rolled on.

  Five minutes later the bay opened out before them and they saw the scattered lights of the puerto. Out at sea they could see the petrol lamps of the calamary boats like a pearl necklace of etched white points of light against the dark water.

  Dan Pedersen let the camioneta free-wheel until it stopped by itself in the middle of the quay.

  They sat down outside one of the bars facing the harbour and ordered vermouth and iced-water. It was a trifle cooler here, and it smelt of the sea.

  They had only been sitting there five minutes when Santiago and Ramon came sauntering along the quay. They shook hands, pulled out two cane chairs and sat down at the table.

  Dan Pedersen went into the bar and fetched a chess set, placed the board between himself and Santiago and began to set out the pieces.

  Willi Mohr sipped carefully at his vermouth as he watched the others.

  Ramon looked listless and depressed, although he hurried to smile when he felt himself observed. Several times he held his forehead and the back of his head as if he were trying to loosen an invisible noose. Now and again he looked covetously at Siglinde’s naked feet and long bare legs.

  Siglinde kept shifting her body as if she were uncomfortable and she kept changing the position of her legs. Sometimes her eyes flickered from one person to another. In between she looked at Dan, her eyes running down the length of his body and often resting on his face or hands. She seemed nervous. Perhaps it’s the heat, thought Willi Mohr, who had no great experience of women.

  The chess game was rather uneven at first. Dan Pedersen made some inspired moves in the middle of the game and took several pieces. A moment later he grew careless and lost a piece. Then he concentrated and played coldly and systematically to make the most of his lead.

  Willi Mohr gradually went over to watching only his opponent.

  Santiago saw that he was losing and his situation worsened slowly and inexorably, but he did not give up. The look in his eyes deepened and grew more and more ill-humoured. He made no more mistakes, but it was already too late. For each move he was driven nearer and nearer to the impotence which is one of the logical conclusions of this nerve-racking game.

  Not until Dan Pedersen took his queen with his freed pawn, did Santiago give up.

  Willi Mohr had the impression that he would have done almost anything to hinder his defeat.

  ‘Did you win?’ said Ramon.

  Santiago shook his head and his brother’s face clouded. When he noticed that Willi Mohr was looking at him, he laughed again.

  ‘You played well today,’ said Dan Pedersen magnanimously. ‘I slackened off for a while, I know, but you played well all the same. But you concentrated too late.’

  They shook hands and Santiago smiled, not very convincingly.

  Dan Pedersen put the chessmen away, got up and took the set into the bar.

  Siglinde irritably changed the position of her legs again and let her eyes follow him.

  It was quiet in the puerto and everyone was waiting for the small cool breeze from the sea. Only a few people were still sitting outside the cafés facing the harbour. It would soon be one o’clock and the bar-owners with no more customers had begun to close up.

  ‘I know what we ought to do now,’ said Dan Pedersen. ‘We ought to go and bathe once more and then go to bed.’

  ‘Out by the lighthouse in that case,’ said Santiago.

  ‘Aren’t there a lot of civil guards out there?’

  ‘Only one or two. They patrol the mole and the shoreline. It’s usually quite easy to see where they are.’

  ‘We haven’t any bathing-costumes,’ said Siglinde.

  She didn’t say it in protest. She was simply being informative about the fact.

  ‘That doesn’t matter, does it?’ said Dan Pedersen. ‘We all know each other, and anyhow it’s dark.’

  Siglinde shrugged her shoulders. It really did not matter.

  2

  Siglinde came out of the water last. She was swimming in a wide circle with long lazy strokes and the luminescence of the sea floated in fine phosphorescent streaks along her body.

  She and Dan and Willi Mohr were bathing farthest out by the lighthouse, where the breakwater ended in a circular pierhead made of concrete and large, crudely cut blocks of stone. Santiago and Ramon, who had swimming trunks, were a few yards farther in. To appear without a bathing-costume was a punishable pleasure and the risk of being caught not worth taking.

  The night was thick and black and inpenetrable, but every sixteenth second the light from the lighthouse swung round over their heads. Each time it brought with it a pale uncertain light, weak and nebulous, but still sufficiently strong that one could make out objects round about.

  They had left their clothes on the parapet.

  Dan Pedersen had climbed up on to the parapet and all that could be seen was the glowing tip of his cigarette.

  Willi Mohr was standing right up by the edge of the pier, looking at the distant lights of the puerto.

  They enjoyed the pleasant coolness as the air slowly dried their skins.

  There was no sign of Siglinde, except the thin pale green tracks in the darkness showing that she had swum towards the shore.

  Soon afterwards the water could be heard pouring off her body.

  ‘Help her up, will you,’ said Dan Pedersen. ‘The stones are hellish sharp down there.’

  When Willi Mohr heard Siglinde trying to find a foothold on the rocks, he took a step down the stone stairway and put out a hand in the dark.

  She found it at once, and her hand was cold and wet and firm. He pulled her slowly until she had her balance and he felt very clearly the well-trained elasticity in her body as she thrust off with her foot and swung herself up on to the flat stones.

  Willi Mohr could not see her, but he knew she was standing just beside him on the stairway.

  At that moment the light from the lighthouse cut through the darkness above and for one or two seconds he saw her in the light of its trailing reflection.

  She was standing with her feet apart, her toes turned slightly inwards, her arms hanging loosely, and she was holding her head to one side to shake the water from her ears and to get the short blond wisps of hair away from her forehead. Her shoulders and breasts and forearms were covered with circular drops of water, which looked so firm and definitively shaped that one ought to be able to pick them off one by one without breaking them and collect them in one’s hand like small glass pearls. Her nipples were large and stiff and the skin in the finely-drawn circles round them was wrinkled and contracted. Lower down the water ran down her hips and in two clear channels from the soft hollow above her navel, down over her curved stomach and was then caught up in the curly patch of hair growing up from her loins. The hair was black and thick and glittered with thousands of small drops of water.

  She was standing so close that Willi Mohr saw all this very clearly, but he had no time to notice her face.

  He tried to avoid being influenced
by the functional beauty in her body. For the first time since they had met, it occurred to him that she was beautiful.

  And this was a completely objective observation. He thought.

  Then the light had gone and he heard someone draw in his breath just behind him.

  Dan Pedersen was still sitting on the concrete wall, his cigarette glowing in the darkness.

  Willi Mohr heard Siglinde moving, listlessly and roughly. Then she walked swiftly past him and over towards the parapet.

  When the lighthouse beam swung round the next time, she had already put on her dress and was smoothing it down over her wet body. She had evidently not bothered to put on her underclothes.

  Willi Mohr thought he saw someone standing a few yards away.

  ‘The patrol is coming this way now,’ said Santiago, from out of the darkness.

  His voice was calm and ordinary.

  ‘Yes,’ said Siglinde. ‘Get dressed you lot, please.’

  ‘God, how you do nag,’ said Dan.

  He jumped down and began to pull on his trousers.

  ‘I could stay here for hours,’ he said to Willi Mohr, who was standing nearest to him. ‘Good idea, this bathe.’

  ‘Very,’ said Willi Mohr.

  They had driven as far as they could and the camioneta was standing on the tarmacadam slope just beside the irregular pile of rough blocks of stone which constituted the foundations of the breakwater. As they climbed over the stones, two civil guards came up from behind the truck and shone their torches on them. They saluted Siglinde and nodded to Dan Pedersen and Willi Mohr. Then they took Santiago and Ramon to one side, made them raise their hands above their heads and searched them, idiotically thoroughly and lengthily.

  Finally they switched off their torches and disappeared into the darkness.

  ‘What were they looking for?’ said Dan Pedersen.

  Santiago grimaced and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘Don’t know,’ he said.

  ‘I’d never put up with that,’ said Dan.

  3

  Dan Pedersen drove quite slowly on the way back from the puerto. Perhaps he was thinking about the sheep and the weak-minded old man. The engine roared and rattled and now and again in the beams of the headlights they saw the eyes of cats prowling along the edges of the road. The night was still warm but the breeze in the open truck was pleasant. Willi Mohr was sitting, as usual, behind Siglinde.

  He noticed that she was still finding it difficult to sit still. On four or five occasions she put her arm along Dan’s shoulders and then at once took it away again. Once she leant her head against his shoulder.

  Willi Mohr could not help thinking that he had seen her naked only a short time ago.

  4

  They came to the house in Barrio Son Jofre and Willi took the large key out of the crack in the wall and began to fiddle with the lock.

  Siglinde suddenly made herself small, crept up against Dan Pedersen and put her arm round his waist, which was bare below the edge of his carelessly knotted shirt.

  When they had taken two steps up the stairs, she stood on her toes and whispered something in his ear.

  ‘Darling old thing, what is the matter with you?’ he said.

  As if he had just become aware of her presence.

  She stood on tiptoe again, bit him lightly on the ear and whispered: ‘I want you. I’ve wanted you all day. I’m all peculiar.’

  He put his arm round her shoulders and felt her skin turning warm and damp. Although he could not see it, he knew she was blushing.

  ‘Isn’t it awful,’ she said.

  They walked slowly up the rest of the stairs. Then he turned her towards him and put his arms round her. They kissed and through her thin frock, he felt her body, soft and warm and alive. Then he let her go and went into the room.

  Siglinde let the raffia basket containing her sandals and underclothes and cigarettes drop to the floor and remained where she was, with her back to the wall, as if she were something someone had put down and would soon come and fetch.

  Dan Pedersen lit a candle and stuck it on one of the bedposts. Then he closed the shutters, took the blankets off the bed and laid them out on the floor. Now and again he looked at Siglinde, who was still standing by the wall, watching him. She smiled, an uncertain stiff smile.

  He put one hand against the wall to support himself as he took off his rope-sandals. Then he unknotted his shirt, hung it over a bedpost and took off his trousers, unhurriedly. Finally he took off his watch and put it down on the stool by the bed.

  Siglinde was still standing by the wall over by the stairs and although he was at the other end of the room, she could see him very clearly in the soft vibrating light. He was rather thin but very sunburnt and the white triangle from his swimming trunks was sharply outlined like an alien area on his body. She liked looking at him, especially his waist and stomach and his sex. And his legs, which were long and sinewy and covered with almost white hairs.

  When he came towards her across the floor, she bit the tip of her tongue and stared at his body.

  She did not move.

  Dan Pedersen stroked her lightly across the cheek with the back of his fingers. Then he bent down and taking hold of the hem of her dress with both hands, he gently drew it over her head. She helped him by straightening up away from the wall and raising her arms.

  Siglinde was naked. Again she stood immobile against the wall.

  He put his hand on her hip, which was dry and warm and friendly. Then he bent forward, drew with the tip of his tongue from her collar bone down over her right breast and caught up her nipple between his lips. It was large and hard and tasted salty from the sea. After a second or two he took it further into his mouth and bit it, lightly and very carefully.

  Siglinde did not move, but she had begun to breathe more quickly.

  He straightened up and looked at her, drawing his hands across the curve of her stomach. Then he pushed his fingers through the thick hair, stiff and obstinate, and she moved her legs a little to open the way, to be able to feel his hand better.

  With his other hand he stroked her head and throat roughly and took hold of her slim neck.

  She liked his hands.

  For perhaps the five hundredth time, he felt a vague and simple surprise that her loins seemed so large and broad and generous in relation to her body in general.

  He caressed her with his open hand between her legs, first swiftly and lightly, then more slowly and more purposefully, with a growing sense of possession.

  Siglinde trembled and moved her legs again. A little further apart so that she opened herself completely and let him feel the whole of her flooding soft expectancy and hidden passive strength.

  She raised her right hand and drew her splayed fingers down his face, increasing the pressure along his chin and throat, and then scratched him swiftly and hard down his chest. Then her hand changed, grew soft and spread across his stomach, and again strong and demanding as it slid round his loins and stayed there. She caressed him, hard and roughly, often changing her grip.

  They spoke to each other.

  ‘Am I doing it too hard?’

  ‘No, no.’

  ‘You must take me now.’

  ‘You haven’t your pessary on you.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  Dan Pedersen bent down, laid his right arm round her thighs just above the back of her knees and lifted her over his shoulder, easily and swiftly.

  He carried his wife across the room and carefully put her down on the outspread blankets.

  He tried to kiss her body, but she flung her legs apart and pulled him down over her, wildly and violently. She pressed her pelvis up against him desperately and took him inside her at once, long and hard and releasing.

  She was panting for breath and flung herself about wildly beneath him, as if pinned down. When it came for her, she put the soles of her feet on the warm stone floor outside the edge of the blanket and lifted him up in an arch whilst with
a locked embrace round his hips, she tried to press him even deeper into her body.

  Then the cramps came and released her from her impotence and lassitude. They began deep inside and then ran along her vagina and spread in concentric waves through her body. Her convulsions were transmitted through her thighs and calves and reached the soles of her feet as a slight tremor.

  Siglinde lay flat on her back with her arms down her sides and outspread legs, and she felt her husband emptying his longing into her body.

  After a while she put her arms softly and tenderly round his back and waited. She knew it was not at an end yet.

  They lay like this for twenty minutes or perhaps half an hour, while the candle on the bedpost burnt calmly on.

  Then Siglinde felt how he grew inside her and how the contact increased between myriads of small nerve ends and she knew it was her turn.

  She slowly drew up her legs and with her toes drew a line along his legs and hips, then lowered her legs again, just as slowly, and began from the beginning again.

  She grew deep and soft and simply an expectant friendly cradle and he took her, for a long time, and she placed her round heels in the small of his back and lay with her knees drawn high up and her arms round his back. He was hers and she clung to him with her arms and legs and thought she would never wish to let him go. But a little later she let go and brought her legs up round his arms so that she lay doubled up and completely smothered by him, and when it was necessary she bit her own hand to stop herself crying out.

  Then she lay still.

  Dan Pedersen knew he could take her again in an hour or two, if he wanted to, but he also knew that it would be quite unnecessary.

  He thought that he had not been really concentrated on her all the time and that annoyed him.

  He carried her to the bed and arranged the sheets, blew out the candle and got into bed.

  Siglinde Pedersen was happy. She had drawn up her left leg across Dan and was sleeping with her head against his shoulder and her open loins against his thigh.