What should I be feeling?
Despair, sadness? Relief? My relationship with my mother was complicated, to say the least, and in the last few years, since she’d started drinking “full-time,” as one of my aunts put it, we hadn’t seen each other much.
And now this thing with Jesper. Amid all this misery, he gives me the ring, says he wants to share his life with me. I look down at the diamond sparkling on my finger, think that no matter what happens no one can take this away from me. I’m worth it. I’ve earned it.
The door flies open with a bang.
“How many times do I have to tell you, you can’t leave me alone in the store? You’re sitting around smoking while—”
“Nobody’s smoking,” Olga interrupts sharply, and runs her hand through her long, thin hair.
Her comment surprises me. Arguing with Björne doesn’t usually turn out well. He stiffens, stretches his long, thin body, and stuffs his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, which are just perfectly distressed and hang perfectly low on his butt. He shifts his weight back and forth on his cowboy boots, stares at Olga, and raises his chin, making his underbite even more pronounced than usual. He looks like a fish, I think. An evil fish that lurks in murky water waiting for its prey. His dark, matted hair hangs low on his neck as he jerks his head back.
“Did I ask for your opinion, Olga?”
“No, but—”
“Well, then. I suggest you shut your mouth and help me tag jeans, instead of sitting here admiring your new Russian nails.”
He turns around and slams the door behind him.
“Penis,” says Olga, who despite ten years in Sweden still has trouble finding the appropriate invective.
“Guess we better get out there,” Mahnoor says, and stands up, pulls on her blouse a bit as if to smooth it, and opens the door.
—
On the way home I do some grocery shopping. Jesper likes meat and tonight we’re celebrating, so I buy us some tenderloin—the expensive organic kind, even though I can’t really afford it. I buy lettuce, cherry tomatoes, and chèvre to broil on little canapés as well. I spend a long time in front of the shelves at the liquor store. I run my hand over the bulging bottles standing at attention before me. Wine is not my area of expertise, but we usually drink something red. Jesper is fond of South African wines, so I settle on a hundred-kronor bottle of Pinotage.
It’s dark by the time I walk down Valhallavägen toward home. A cold wind is blowing from the north and small, hard raindrops whip into my face. I look down at the wet, black pavement and hurry the final length to the door.
The apartment building was constructed in 1925 and stands right next to the Fältöversten shopping center in a posh part of Stockholm. One of my aunts lived here until her death three years ago. For some unfathomable reason I inherited the apartment, which caused quite a bit of controversy among my relatives. Why should I, Emma, who hadn’t even been close to Agneta, inherit her apartment in the inner city? How did I trick her into giving it to me?
It wasn’t completely irrational. Aunt Agneta had no children of her own, and we did meet now and then. All of my aunts got together sometimes, determined to keep their dysfunctional matriarchy alive, and sometimes I would join them.
I unlock the door, press down on the brass handle. The familiar scent of toast and detergent hits me. And something else, something a little stale that I can’t quite identify. Something organic and familiar. I set the bags down on the floor carefully, turn on the light in the hall, and pull off my wet shoes. I drape my coat on a hanger, then grab a towel and gently wipe the rain off it.
There are two envelopes on the floor. Bills. I pick them up and take them into the kitchen. Put them in the pile with the other bills and reminders. The bundle is alarmingly thick, and I remember that I really need to talk to Jesper about the money. Maybe not tonight, but soon. I can’t just keep putting the bills in a pile. One day they’ll have to be paid.
I call Sigge’s name and get some cat food out of the cabinet. As soon as he hears the creaking of hinges he’s there, stroking himself against my calves. I bend forward, pet his black fur, chat a bit with him, and then go out into the living room.
My apartment is sparsely furnished. I inherited the Carl Malmsten chairs from Aunt Agneta as well. The table and chairs in the hall I bought online and the bed is from IKEA. I have a desk, too, which I found at Salvation Army. It’s covered with books and red notebooks. On top of my job at the shop, I’m studying for my GED. I dropped out of school. Certain things happened to me that made me both unable and unwilling to continue, but school was always easy for me. Especially math. There’s something liberating about the world of numbers. There is no gray area, no subjectivity, no room for interpretation; either you calculated right or you calculated wrong.
I wish the rest of life were that simple.
For a moment I think of Woody. His long black hair fastened in a ponytail at the nape of the neck. His habit of keeping his hand on his cheek while he listened—he always seemed to listen with astonishing intensity. As if all of us had something truly important to say. And maybe we did. I shiver and go out into the living room.
One day I’ll stop thinking about Woody, I tell myself. One day his memory will fade like an old Polaroid, and I’ll continue on as if he’d never existed.
There’s one object of real value in my home—a painting by Ragnar Sandberg hanging in the bedroom. A naïvist composition of football players in yellow and blue. I like it a lot. Mom often suggested I sell it, so we could split the money and she could booze up her share, but I refused. I liked keeping it there on the wall, where it had always hung.
Aunt Agneta left me a little money, too. One hundred thousand kronor, to be precise. Carefully wrapped bundles of hundred-kronor bills that I found in the linen closet. I never told my mom. I knew all too well what she would have done.
I go over to the window and look out.
Five floors below me Valhallavägen stretches out like a giant black artery feeding traffic to Lidingövägen and the center of the city, part of the gigantic circulatory system of roads crisscrossing Stockholm. The rain seems to have grown heavier. It’s beating against my window, leaving oily streaks behind. It must be cold out, almost freezing, I think, and shiver.
I unpack the food, cut the chèvre into pieces, and put them on small canapés. Turn on the oven and prepare the salad. Then I take a shower. Feel the warm water slide over my body. Breathe in the hot steam. Carefully wash every inch of my body with the soap I know he loves. My breasts feel tender and swollen when I massage them. I reach for the shampoo, wash my hair before stepping out of the old-fashioned sitting bathtub.
The bathroom is filled with steam. I open the door a crack, wipe the mirror with a towel, and lean forward. My face looks swollen and flushed. Freckles stand out clearly against pale skin, hundreds of small islands scattered haphazardly across a sea. Some larger, some smaller. Some are fused into clusters, forming irregular continents of reddish skin on the pale sea.
I gently start to straighten out my long, reddish-brown hair with a wide-toothed comb. I examine my breasts. They’re big, way too big for my body, with wide, pale pink areolas. I have always hated them, ever since those small, heinous protrusions started to become visible, like boils on my pale skin. I did everything I could to hide them: wore baggy shirts, walked with a hunched back. Ate too much.
Jesper says he loves my breasts, and I believe him. He lies between my legs, caressing them like two puppies, and talks to one and then the other, infatuated. It occurs to me that love isn’t just what you feel for another human being, it’s also seeing yourself through your lover’s eyes. To see beauty where before you saw only flaws.
I put on my makeup painstakingly. Jesper doesn’t like too much makeup, but that doesn’t mean no makeup, just the appearance of no makeup. It takes a lot longer than you’d think to get that natural look. When I’m done, I dab a little perfume in all the strategic places: my wrists, betw
een my breasts, my neck. Put a little near my groin, too. Then I pull on my black dress, with nothing underneath, dry my feet carefully on the bath mat, and go out.
Jesper is usually punctual. I’m tempted to put the canapés into the oven at seven, but they take only a few minutes so it’s better to wait until he comes. The rain is still beating against the dark panes of the window, with undiminished intensity. Outside, the sound of sirens fades away. I light candles on the table. The draft from the leaky old windows makes the flames flutter, and the shadows in the room seem to come alive, start to move. They wave across the shabby kitchen doors and table. For a moment it feels as though the entire room is rocking, and it’s as if it’s contagious, because suddenly I feel a slight nausea.
I close my eyes and steady myself against a chair.
Think of him.
—
Jesper Orre. Of course, I’d heard of him, seen glimpses of him on TV and in the tabloids. And, of course, sometimes we talked about him at work. We knew our CEO was controversial, in both business and other things. He was basically the bad boy of the fashion industry, with a reputation for being both tough and unscrupulous. When he became CEO, he fired the whole management team within a month and brought in his own gang. More changes followed quickly. Twenty percent of the employees were let go. New directives for how customers should be treated were sent out. Stricter dress codes for staff were enforced. Shorter lunches. Fewer breaks.
When he came into the store that day in May, I didn’t recognize him at first. There was something a little bewildered about his whole appearance. He stood in the middle of the men’s department and spun round and round slowly, like a child standing in the middle of a circus ring staring wide-eyed at the audience.
I walked over and asked if I could help. It’s my job to do that, and the company has manuals with scripted lines that employees should use—another one of Jesper’s ideas that the union didn’t like.
He turned toward me, still with that confused expression, ran his hand over his chest with embarrassment, and pointed to a large orange stain on his shirtfront.
“I’ve got a board meeting in half an hour,” he said, while continuing to avoid my gaze, eyes darting around the store. “I need to find a new shirt.”
“Spaghetti Bolognese?”
He froze, and a hint of a smile crossed his tanned face. Then he met my eyes, and at that moment I recognized him. Luckily, he looked away again, because his presence suddenly felt so overwhelming, so palpable that I didn’t know what to do. And he left me alone in that silence, incapable of handling the situation.
It took a moment or two. Eventually, I collected myself. “What size?”
He looked at me again, and now I noticed how tired he seemed.
Dark circles under his eyes, wide streaks of gray at his temples, and a sad frown pulling down the corner of his mouth gave his face an almost bitter cast. He looked older than in the pictures. Older and more tired.
“Size?”
“Yes—your shirt size, that is.”
“Sorry, of course. Forty-three.”
“And what color would you like?”
“I don’t know. Maybe white. Something neutral. Something appropriate for a board meeting.”
He turned his back to me and peered out into the store. I left and grabbed three shirts I thought might work. When I came back, he was still standing there in the middle of the store. “Do you think you could help me decide?” he asked.
“Of course.”
There was nothing strange about that question; it was part of the job, helping customers to find clothes that looked good. I waited outside the fitting room until he came out in the first shirt, the white one.
“Does it work?”
“Absolutely. It fits perfectly. But try the other ones too.”
The door to the fitting room swung noiselessly back. Two minutes later he came out in the next shirt: a blue-and-white-striped one with a button-down collar.
“Hmm.”
“You don’t like it?”
He looked so worried I almost started laughing.
“No, no, it’s just not right for a board meeting. You should probably wear something a little more…formal.”
He nodded as if ready to obey my every whim and stepped into the fitting room again. “Should I try the third one on too?” he said from inside the stall.
“I definitely think you should.”
I was starting to be amused by all of this. It was like a fun little game I was playing with our CEO, who had snuck into the store incognito. Like a king in a fairy tale who dresses like a beggar to blend in with his subjects.
The fitting room door opened, and he stepped out in a light blue shirt.
“That’s perfect. You should take that one,” I declared. “It’s serious, but not as boring as the white one.”
“So…we sell boring clothes in this store?”
There was a new light in his eyes, and he looked at me with an entirely different focus than before.
“Well, sometimes our customers need boring clothes.”
“Touché.”
He smiled and stopped halfway into the fitting room. “I like your style. What’s your name?”
“Emma. Emma Bohman.”
He nodded and disappeared into the fitting room without saying another word.
—
When I was ringing up the shirt, something happened that would change my life forever. Jesper started frantically searching for his wallet. It was clear he was becoming increasingly embarrassed.
“I don’t understand. It should be…” He searched his pockets, then shook his head in resignation. “Damn,” he muttered between his teeth.
“Listen, it’s fine if you come back with the money later. I know who you are.”
“Absolutely not. Then your cash register will be off. I really don’t want to cause problems for you.”
“Well, if you try to trick me, I’ll send the police after you.”
The joke seemed to escape him. I could see drops of sweat forming at his hairline. They sparkled like crystals under the harsh artificial light.
“Damn,” he repeated, and somehow he made it sound like a question, as if he wanted my advice on this awkward situation.
I leaned forward, put my hand gently on his arm.
“Listen. I’ll loan you the money. Here, I’ll write down my number for you. Pay me back when you can.”
And that’s how it happened.
He took my phone number with relief. On his way out of the store he waved my note in the air, as if I’d given him some kind of diploma, and smiled at me.
—
I glance at the clock hanging above the television. Twenty past seven. Where is he? Maybe he got the time wrong. Maybe he thought he was supposed to come at eight rather than seven. But something feels off. I have never met anyone as punctual as Jesper. He’s always on time and always arrives with fresh flowers in hand. He is, in short, the perfect gentleman. He can seem rude and arrogant, almost brutal at first, but in actuality he is emotional, empathetic, and as playful as a child.
And punctual.
I pour myself another glass of wine and turn on the news. French farmers have dumped tons of potatoes on the ring road around Paris to protest some change to EU subsidies. A tornado hit Sala this afternoon and seriously damaged a new school. Chinese scientists have found a gene that, if it is defective, causes prostate cancer.
I turn off the television again. Fiddle impatiently with my cellphone. I don’t like to bother Jesper, but I’m worried he’s misunderstood something: time, place, date?
I send him a short text message, asking if he’s on his way. Hopefully I don’t seem too persistent.
—
Jesper Orre. If Olga and Mahnoor only knew.
If only Mom could have known.
Something twists inside my stomach. Don’t think about Mom.
But it’s too late. I can already sense her presence in my small living room. S
mell the mixture of beer and sweat. See the pale flesh pouring out over the sofa where she sits slumped over, snoring loudly in front of the TV, a half-empty beer can planted firmly between her knees.
Mom always made a big deal about never drinking anything stronger than beer. Lena, one of my aunts, used to point out that an alcoholic who drank only beer was the most tragic, most inferior addict of all, with one leg in the grave and the other on the way to the grocery store to fill the fridge.
But the saddest part of all was that Mom hadn’t always been like that. At some point long ago, she’d been different. I still remember it clearly, and sometimes I wonder if I mourn the loss of the person she once was more than I do her death.
—
One early memory.
I’m sitting with my mother on my narrow bed. The room’s walls are dirty, covered with the prints of fingers and hands and even feet. “How do you manage to climb these walls like a monkey?” Mom used to say, then sigh theatrically as she’d try to rub away the prints with a damp cloth.
It was dark outside. Someone was shoveling snow in the courtyard. I could hear the sharp blows as the shovel penetrated through the snow and hit the cobblestones below. It was cold inside, and both Mom and I were wearing long-sleeved pajamas and socks. The book about the three little bears was resting in Mom’s lap.
“Keep going!” I said.
“Okay, but just a little longer,” Mom said, yawning, and turned a page that was mended with tape in one corner. She looked at the text with a serious expression on her face.
“Who has been sleeping in my bed?” I read, following the words with my index finger.
I was seven years old and in the first grade. I’d learned to read before I started school.
I don’t really remember how I learned. I guess some kids just pick it up, crack the code on their own. In any case, my teacher had been very happy when she called and told my mom I was way ahead of my classmates when it came to reading. And since, as the teacher pointed out, “reading is the basis for all other learning,” that meant things would go well for me in the future.
The Ice Beneath Her Page 3