Betrayal

by Karin Alvtegen

  She didn’t answer.

  ‘Isn’t that a kind of betrayal too? That the one you think loves you is really just staying with you out of duty and consideration?’

  She looked down at the floor again.

  He went on. ‘What about all the people who actually live their whole lives together and are happy? If it’s like you say it is, they were just lucky. It didn’t have anything to do with how they actually behaved?’

  When she didn’t answer he stood up and went over to the window. Stood there with his back to her. Then he gave a heavy sigh and went back and sat down.

  ‘So you don’t think it’s possible to learn to love another person, decide to love him and then do one’s best?’

  ‘No. I don’t believe that.’

  Now he had got his answer. Now she wanted to leave.

  He sat with his head bowed and his hands in his lap. So naïve. He thought that he loved her, he didn’t even know her, didn’t even know her name.

  ‘Please, can I borrow some clothes now?’

  Slowly he looked up at her again. The disappointment in his face was obvious.

  ‘Are you in such a hurry to leave?’

  In silence their eyes met. She gave up, turned and went out to the kitchen; he hadn’t been lying, he had really put her clothes to soak in the sink.

  Fucking idiot.

  She met him in the hall on her way back. In his outstretched hands he held a pair of folded jeans and a red college pullover. She took them gratefully.

  ‘Thanks. I’ll send them back later.’

  He made no comment. Merely nodded towards the bathroom.

  ‘You can change in there.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Just one thing.’

  Her only thought was to leave.

  ‘I’d be happy to give you a lift somewhere if you like, but there’s something I’d really like to show you before we leave. Maybe you might consider doing this for me, as a sort of farewell. It will only take a couple of minutes.’

  Anything, as long as he unlocked the door afterwards.

  ‘Of course. What is it?’

  ‘It’s outside.’

  Even better.

  She went into the bathroom and changed. She heard him rattling his keys in the front door and hurried as best she could. He had a jacket and shoes on when she came out, and she quickly bent down and pulled hers on. He stood quietly inside the front door with the plastic bag he had taken from the boot of the car in his hand.

  ‘Are you ready?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And you promise I can show you this?’

  She nodded again.

  ‘Cross your heart?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Let me out now, for God’s sake!

  He went out in the stairwell and turned on the light. He pushed in the light button four times although the lights went on after the first one, and then locked the top lock. Then back to the light button to press it again before he locked the second one. She watched in astonishment the strange procedure and at the same time took the opportunity to wonder where he was taking her. Everything would have been much easier if she at least had her wallet.

  They went down the stairs in silence. She first, he following. On the ground floor he passed her and she saw how he pulled down the sleeve of his jumper as protection before he touched the handle of the front door.

  Then they were outside.

  ‘It’s down here, just below the common.’

  She hesitated. A path leading into the woods.

  ‘You promised.’

  Something in his tone made her realise that she had better keep her promise.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You’ll see. But it’s something really beautiful.’

  They started walking. The path sloped down and soon she glimpsed water between the trees. He didn’t say a word. Just below the common, he had said, but their walk was a good bit longer. She was just about to protest, plead that it was too cold, but didn’t.

  ‘Here. It’s over here.’

  A house and a sign but it was too dark to see what it said. An iron gate and a chain-link fence around it. He turned off the walking path, went over to the fence and raised it so there was about half a metre’s room between the ground and the bottom of the fence. He nodded to her to crawl under it.

  ‘Can we really go in here?’

  ‘There’s no danger, I’ve been here plenty of times. Don’t worry about getting dirt on those jeans.’

  She didn’t want to, but she had promised. If she refused now, she’d have to walk back to town. She sighed, got down on all fours and crawled under the fence, stood up and brushed off her knees.

  He followed.

  She looked around. Boats covered by tarpaulins. ‘No trespassing.’ The sign was readable now: ‘Årstadals Boat Club’.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Just out on the wharf over there. The one on the right.’

  It was cold without a jacket and she shivered as they made their way through the boats to reach the wharf. Then they went out on the pier and she did as he said, followed it to the right. He was right behind her. When she reached the end of the pier she stopped and looked around. The woods to her right, to her left the island of Södermalm across the water.

  She turned around.

  ‘What was it you wanted to show me?’

  He gazed out across the black water, as if he wanted to draw out his answer as long as possible.

  ‘Something you have never seen or experienced before.’

  ‘And what’s that?’

  She felt impatient now. Impatient and freezing.

  He stood completely still. Then he placed his hand over his heart.

  ‘Here.’

  ‘Come on now, stop it. I want to go now. If you don’t intend to give me a lift then I’ll walk.’

  A furrow between his eyebrows.

  ‘Why are you always in such a hurry?’

  ‘I’m freezing.’

  She regretted the words at once, they could be taken as an invitation to warm her up.

  He looked out over the water again.

  ‘I’m going to show you what real love is.’

  And then his eyes back to hers.

  ‘If you have time for it.’

  This was starting to feel unpleasant, but her irritation was greater than her fear.

  ‘But I’ve already explained that I’m married. I thought we were finished talking about that.’

  ‘You understand that real love is when you love someone so much that you’re prepared to do anything to get the one you love.’

  ‘Oh please . . .’

  He interrupted her.

  ‘That’s how much I love you.’

  ‘You don’t even know me. You have no idea who I am. And whatever you say, you can’t force me to love you, it doesn’t work that way. I love my husband.’

  Suddenly he looked sad.

  ‘All I want is for you to be happy. Why can’t you let me make you happy?’

  ‘I really have to go now.’

  He took a step to the side and blocked her way. She tried to pass him on the other side but he blocked her again.

  Her uneasiness was growing stronger and she realised that it was best to admit it.

  ‘You’re scaring me.’

  He smiled sadly and shook his head.

  ‘How can you be afraid of me? I’ve told you that I love you. He, on the other hand, the one you’re in such a hurry to go home to . . . Why don’t you just let him go? Or even better, tell him to go to hell.’

  She rubbed her arms to try and warm up.

  ‘Because I love him, that’s why.’

  He sighed.

  ‘How can someone like you love a man like that? You deserve someone so much better. And Eva, if you want to be completely honest with yourself, deep inside you know that he doesn’t love you any more.’

  A sudden jolt through her body.

  Eva? What the hell. E
va?

  ‘How . . .’

  She couldn’t find words to formulate the question. Everything had suddenly changed.

  ‘It’s so sad to see a woman like you believe that you have to be like Linda to be loved. That you even use her name. Linda is a whore, she’s nothing compared to you.’

  She stood mute. Mute and suddenly robbed of all frame of reference. Who was this man in front of her? How could he know? She was scared now, really scared, robbed of all control. Every cell in her body signalled that she had to defend herself. That he was a greater threat than she could ever have imagined.

  ‘How could you be so stupid to believe that some roses had made him change. I know how jerks like that operate.’

  He lifted the plastic bag he had brought with him and emptied it over her head. Instinctively she put her hands up in front of her face to shield herself. She felt the contents fall over her and all around her. And then the smell. She looked down at her feet. Twenty red roses. Cut off and stolen from her coffee table.

  She stared at him, terror-stricken.

  ‘Now, on the other hand, now you are receiving them out of true love. But I, I who truly love you, love you for who you are, I’m not even allowed to rest my head for a while on your lap.’

  She looked around. Water on all sides. Not a person to be seen. A train passed by on the bridge far off behind him. The sounds of the city. All quite close but out of reach.

  ‘I wanted to give you time to understand that you can trust me. That I will always be there for you. I’ve already got to know Axel, so it wouldn’t have been any problem if we just took it easy in the beginning. But you don’t want to. You’re forcing me to prove how much I love you.’

  She backed up a step, felt with her foot behind her and realised that she was dangerously close to the edge. Then he took a step towards her, put his hands on her shoulders and looked straight into her eyes.

  ‘I love you.’

  She never felt the fall. Only an icy cold surrounding her and pressing all the air out of her lungs. Her body came up to the surface and took a deep gasping breath, with a furious will to survive. She reached out for the pier but couldn’t find it. In the next moment something closed around her body and pulled her down, down below the surface. With all her strength she struggled to keep her head above water, arms flailing as she tried to defend herself against the weight. Then she suddenly felt his lips on hers, his tongue pressing into her mouth. His legs clamped her in an iron grip and pressed her down, down into the darkness, down in the icy cold. Time did not exist. Only the terror of everything unfinished, that it was all too late now. Then she felt her resistance start to fade, how she slowly but surely yielded to his will and gave in.

  Silence. And in the silence she heard more than she had ever heard before.

  A boundless silence. Behind her, in front of her, all around.

  She willingly surrendered herself to the peace that surrounded her.

  Finally.

  She didn’t have to fight any longer.

  Everything was good.

  ‘Maybe you think I’m foolish, sitting here talking to you like this, but somewhere I’m sure you can hear me. I don’t know if you can understand, but it feels so clear that you will always be a part of me, maybe that’s how it is for all mothers, that the bond is never really cut, it just becomes extra clear when . . . oh Eva . . . my beloved, lovely little Eva, how could it turn out like this?

  ‘Forgive me. It doesn’t do any of us any good for me to sit here and cry but . . . it’s just so empty and lonely without you. Your father, he, I don’t know, we try to support each other as best we can but he, he can’t even bear to come here, even though I tell him it would surely be good for him.

  ‘Oh, if you could only give me a sign, anything at all, just show me somehow that you can hear me.

  ‘Axel asks about you all the time, it’s hard to know what’s the right thing to say. He’s started going to a different day-care as well, but I don’t quite understand why it was necessary to do that, now that . . . but Henrik refused to listen. He got so angry when I tried to convince him to let Axel stay where he was. I only thought it would have been best for him if everything didn’t have to change all at once. And you two, who did so much socialising with the other day-care parents. And in the neighbourhood. You used to have such a good time. We saw the boy that Axel used to play with, the dark-haired one. Is his name David or Daniel, I don’t remember? Anyway, he and his parents walked past on the street while we were out in the garden. Yes, Erik was there too, because we were helping Henrik saw down some bushes but Axel was in the house. Anyway, I thought it was a bit strange because they just walked right by as if they didn’t see us, or rather as if they didn’t want to see us. And Henrik, he just stood there and didn’t try to make contact either. I don’t know, I thought it felt odd, the two of you used to see them a lot, I thought. But maybe it’s hard for them to know what to say to us now that . . . People behave so strangely. I would like nothing better than for people to talk about you.

  ‘Little Axel. He’s grown so quiet. I’ve tried to get him to talk about how he feels, but . . . he doesn’t say much, he’s just waiting for you to come home. But things are going better and better at the new day-care, even though he wants me to stay with him there. Yes, I’m the one who has to take him there because Henrik, he . . . well, I don’t know but I should probably tell you the truth, we’re quite worried about him, I think he’s actually started drinking too much. Several times when I’ve called in the middle of the day it sounded like he was quite drunk, actually. It feels as though he’s isolating himself more and more, he doesn’t even seem to be working just now.

  ‘It’s so hard to know what to do, it’s obvious that we’re worried about how Axel is doing. How he’ll react to all this in the long run. We’ve told Henrik that Axel can stay with us as often as he likes, or that we can come there if it feels more comfortable to be at home, but . . . I think he wants to sell the house and move out. We’re trying to talk him into waiting a little longer, until we know for sure that . . . I know how much you’d like to stay living there.

  ‘Oh, it makes me so mad when I think about all you had ahead of you, once you’d finally made up your mind to make a change.

  ‘I’d so like to be able to ask you if it’s our fault, Erik’s and mine. Did we do something wrong that made you have such guilt feelings? Was it something in the way we brought you up? We were on your side, we would always be on your side, didn’t you understand that? How could you believe that anyone would judge you because you had finally found love in your life? I get so angry at you for being so stupid that you only wanted to run away from everything. I just don’t understand how you could do that to Axel. And why didn’t you tell us how bad you felt, why didn’t you let us help you?

  ‘Forgive me. But there are so many questions.

  ‘You can’t stop fighting, Eva, promise me that, if nothing else then for Axel’s sake. They told us that the chances are fifty-fifty for the examination tomorrow, and we mustn’t give up hope yet. I’m sure that the doctor is right, the one who said that he thought you could hear us. Erik hasn’t asked many doctors; apparently there’s a doctor at Karolinska who’s a specialist in this type of injury, I think his name is Sahlstedt or Sahlgren. We’ve tried to get hold of him but he seems to be on holiday this week and next. They said we should call him when he comes back.

  ‘Dear Eva, you have to keep fighting, you have so much to live for. If you knew how grateful I am that he was with you, that he managed to rescue you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man love anyone so devotedly. In the midst of all this I’m so thankful that you have him, that however things go tomorrow, the two of you managed to have the time together that you did.

  ‘It feels a bit easier for us to know that you had a chance to experience it even though you did what you did. And that he is here with you. All the time.’

  ‘Is there anything else you need tonight?’

 
; It was the night nurse standing in the doorway. One hand held a tray of pill cups and the other had a firm grip on the door handle. She looked stressed.

  ‘No thanks, we’ll be fine now. Isn’t that right, Eva?’

  The last dregs of gruel ran through the probe into her stomach, and he stroked her brow lightly.

  ‘Good night, then. And if I don’t see you before the end of my shift, good luck in the morning.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  She smiled and closed the door behind her. He liked the staff better here at Huddinge Hospital. They knew how to appreciate his efforts and openly showed their admiration at his devotion.

  Forty-three days.

  And tomorrow the final examination would begin. Tiny electrodes would be inserted and would measure one last time whether the activity in her brain had increased.

  In a few days they would know.

  He took her hand to drive away the worry that was trying to get to him.

  ‘Everything will be fine, darling. We’re fine where we are.’

  Then he pulled back the covers and raised up the light-blue County Council Hospital gown, took the skin lotion out of the bedside table, drew a white stripe along her left leg. With even strokes he massaged the calf, continuing across the knee and further towards the groin.

  ‘Your mother is really a fantastic woman. I’m so glad she and I are getting along so well.’

  He carefully lifted her leg, put one hand behind her knee and bent it cautiously several times.

  ‘Good, Eva.’

  He went round the bed and drew another stripe on the other leg.

  ‘Did you hear that we were talking about letting Axel come along sometime too? But she’s probably right, we ought to wait for the results of the EEG first, so we know what to tell him. It might be best if I met him somewhere else before we see each other here. Maybe I should take him to Gröna Lund amusement park, would he like that? Or maybe Skansen would be better?’

  He straightened out her leg, arranged it on the bottom sheet and drew his index finger across her cheek. Reached for the brush and ran it a few times through her hair.