The Ice Beneath Her

by Camilla Grebe

“How?”

  “I hung out with the wrong people. And it almost destroyed my future. It took me a long time to…repair the damage I caused during those years.”

  “Did you hurt somebody?”

  He responded with a short laugh, as if I’d said something stupid. Ran his hand through his black hair.

  “Myself, mostly. But that won’t happen to you, Emma. You’re…a good girl. Do you understand? You live in a good neighborhood, and you have family and friends who care about you. You’ll be fine.”

  Disappointment washed over me like a wave. I didn’t want to be a “good girl.” I wanted to be more important, grander, and perhaps more dangerous than that. I wanted to be somebody. I wanted it to be like last time in the storage room. My name in his mouth, his hands on my bare skin.

  I took a careful step toward him.

  “Emma?” He looked puzzled.

  I took another step, put my arms around him, and clung to his warm body. He smelled like cigarette smoke and sweat, and stood completely still, then put one hand on my shoulder, patted it gently like you might pet an obedient dog.

  “It’ll be okay, Emma. I promise.”

  His words provoked me. Who said I wanted it to be okay? I leaned back, but only a little, so I could look at him, catch his eyes. I wasn’t sure, but I almost thought he looked frightened, and I glimpsed something in those eyes, a question perhaps, or worry.

  So I stood up on tiptoe, leaned forward, and kissed him. His lips were hard and small, didn’t feel at all like last time. He jumped back, his whole body trembling, and pushed me away with the force.

  “Emma. What…?”

  There was a scrape and a small bang from outside. I turned around and saw a shadow in the doorway.

  It was Elin. She was leaning forward, as if balanced on the edge of a pool, ready to dive into the water. Her mouth was half open, and she had a can of soda in her hand.

  “Elin,” Woody called. “Come in. I want to talk to you.”

  Elin didn’t move, but the can slid slowly from her hand. It seemed to take an eternity for it to hit the floor and the liquid to spurt out all over the linoleum.

  “Elin,” he cried again, but she had already turned around and started running out of the room. Her worn leather jacket and red knitted cap disappeared through the door as the sound of her steps died away.

  —

  At three o’clock I take a painkiller. My stomach aches, and I’m bleeding. Eventually I slip into a kind of stupor. I don’t know if I’m dreaming or if I just lie there until it’s time to get up.

  My stomach feels better now, much better. Maybe I’m going numb. I feel like I’m slowly turning to stone: cold, hard, indifferent to how the world treats me. The windows are black, and the room is freezing. It’s tempting to stay in bed, but I know I have to get up and do something about my situation. I can no longer be a pawn in Jesper’s game.

  When I decide to go to work, even though I’m no longer wanted there, I tell myself it’s because I have to return the car to Olga.

  —

  “Hi.”

  She greets me without lifting her eyes from the tabloid she’s reading. “Hello.”

  I slide down on the chair opposite her as Olga slowly turns the pages, flattening the paper with one hand. In the other, she’s holding an unlit cigarette. I take out her car keys, put them in the middle of the newspaper.

  “Thanks for letting me borrow your car.”

  “This Eurovision is crazy.”

  I don’t respond.

  “You wanna join me?” She holds up her cigarette.

  I shrug. “Sure.”

  We walk into the hallway behind the kitchenette, the one that leads to the garbage room. You’re not supposed to smoke there, but everyone does anyway. Bundles of compressed cardboard boxes are crammed along the wall. A hand truck leans against the outer door.

  “Want one?” Olga takes a pack of cigarettes out of her pocket.

  I shake my head. “No, thanks.”

  She looks at me with eyes as big and shiny as marbles as she lights her cigarette. Then she leans forward, runs her finger across my cheek. “Jesus Christ, Emma, what happened?”

  “I fell into a bush.”

  She looks doubtful. “Was it him? Your guy? He hit you? If he did, you report him.”

  “No one hit me. But I followed him yesterday. I know where he lives now. I…”

  I hesitate, feel tears coming on. Olga squeezes my arm gently, and I feel those long nails through my cardigan.

  “What happened, Emma? Tell me. Things feel better when you talk.”

  “He…he lives in a big house in Djursholm, and he had another woman there. He tricked me from the beginning. He said we couldn’t tell anyone about our relationship because of his job, and that that was why we could never be seen together. But really, it wasn’t about that. He already had a girlfriend. Can you believe it? It’s just so…sick. And then I thought about that other stuff you said, that maybe he was trying to hurt me. Maybe he is a psychopath. But now I don’t know what to do about it. He’s ruined my life, and I don’t know what to do.”

  Olga sighs and leans back against the concrete wall. Stares up at the bare bulb on the ceiling. A muffled rumble comes from a subway passing deep below us. The smell of damp concrete and mold clings inside my nostrils.

  “Emma,” she says, blowing smoke out slowly. A long trail rises to the ceiling before finally dissolving. “You need to let go of him. You are…obsessed. If that is what he wanted, he has succeeded.”

  “Let go of him?”

  “Yes. You know. Keep moving forward. Before you’ve completely soaped yourself into a corner?”

  “ ‘Painted’ myself into a corner.”

  Olga ignores my comment. “Forget him. Date somebody else. He’s not worth it. You’ve got to move on.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  My voice is thin and weak. I hear a bang, and a puff of cold air sneaks past my ankles. Someone is coming. Olga stubs out her cigarette against the wall, adding yet another black spot to the hundreds already there.

  “Why not?”

  She sounds accusatory.

  “Because…he didn’t just dump me. He took my money and my cat and…”

  “You’re sure he took your cat?”

  “No, but…”

  “When he borrowed the money, did you write any contract?”

  “Of course not. You don’t write a contract with your boyfriend.”

  “Then you’ll never prove it. So you have nobody but yourself to blame.”

  I suddenly feel annoyed. Olga can be so crass, so completely lacking in compassion. She doesn’t seem to notice my annoyance, and instead looks lost in thought. From the corridor outside, steps are approaching. Nonetheless, she lights up again.

  “Maybe you can pursue him.”

  “ ‘Pursue’ him?”

  “Yeah, in court.”

  “You mean ‘sue’ him? For what?”

  “You come up with something.”

  The door opens and Mahnoor peeks in. Her dark hair is set in a knot on her head and her eyes are surrounded by thick lines of kohl. She reminds me of a geisha.

  “You know you can’t smoke in here.”

  “You gonna tell on us?” Olga mumbles.

  “Come on. You can’t both leave me alone in the store.”

  She turns around without waiting for an answer and the heavy steel door slides closed with a sigh.

  “Just like Björne,” Olga says with a snort.

  —

  “So what happened to your dad?”

  Jesper and I were walking along the water south of Tantolunden park. It was one of the rare occasions when we went out together. The heat was so oppressive and the sun so alluring that we couldn’t bring ourselves to stay inside the small apartment on Kapellgränd that afternoon.

  “He died.”

  “Yes, I got that, but what happened? How old were you?”

  “Fifteen.”


  “A sensitive age.”

  I thought about it. Was it actually any harder to be fifteen than twelve, or eighteen? Or was it just something he said, out of courtesy, to show empathy?

  “Maybe.”

  “Was he sick?”

  Jesper stopped next to one of the little garden cottages that lined our path. Geraniums of many colors and porcelain animals filled the little garden. A small dog appeared, ran over to us, and started barking loudly.

  “He hung himself.”

  “Oh my God, Emma. Why didn’t you tell me before?”

  “You never asked.”

  “You should have said something.”

  He pulled me close, hugging me tightly.

  “Would it have made any difference?” I mumbled into his neck.

  “No, of course not. But I could have helped you. Offered some support.”

  “Support?”

  I didn’t mean it to sound ironic, but it did. The thought that he—who didn’t even want us to be seen together—would suddenly be so eager to support me seemed absurd. Jesper didn’t seem to perceive the irony. Instead he kissed me lightly and stretched out his hand.

  “Come.”

  We walked along the water in silence. There were scantily clad Stockholmers everywhere: on foot, on bikes, in canoes. A short distance away, two Asian men were fishing. Their floats bobbing quietly in the calm water near the dock testified to their lack of interest—maybe they were on vacation too.

  Jesper braided his fingers together with mine. Squeezed my hand so hard it hurt my knuckles. But I said nothing, thinking instead about my family disappearing. About Dad and Mom and the apartment and all the things we had in there: broken furniture, pieces of discarded towels and rugs, empty bottles, glass jars of various sizes, with or without lids. Why did we have so much stuff anyway? Who collected it? It must have been Mom, because I don’t remember it getting any better after Dad died. I also thought about all the little things we argued about: washing the dishes, if I could stay out until eleven, the right way to slice a hunk of cheese, and why my mom needed a few beers to relax and feel like a human being again.

  Now nothing remained. Only fragmentary memories of a lost time, of people who died and withered away. Of places and things. Dreams, promises, plans, love, and grief.

  “Why did he kill himself?”

  “I don’t really know. He drank a lot—so did Mom—but I don’t know if that was why. It’s so strange. It’s like I can’t really remember, as if there are holes in my memories. Several years just went up in smoke.”

  “Isn’t that just how it is? We forget.”

  “Is it?”

  He didn’t answer. We had arrived at a small dock. As if by tacit agreement, we walked to the edge, sat down on rotten wood that smelled faintly of tar. Just a few inches beneath our feet the sun danced on water that was ruffled by a light breeze. On the other side of the channel, the apartment buildings of Årsta peeked out of lush greenery, like children playing peekaboo.

  “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but who found him?”

  I leaned back so my elbows rested on the rough wood of the dock. I lay staring straight up at the sky. Small, postcard-perfect white clouds slowly floated by above us. Seagulls circled over the water, screeching in the way seagulls do.

  “Mom found him. He hung himself in our living room. She took a kitchen knife and cut him down. When I came home, he was still lying on the rug in the living room with the rope around his neck.”

  “You saw him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Holy shit. You should have told me, Emma.”

  I didn’t answer, but when I closed my eyes, I saw Dad in front me—lying on his side on the rug with yellow sunflowers, the one my aunt had made. The blue plastic rope was wrapped like a leash around his neck. His face was a strange color, and his tongue pushed out of his half-open mouth. My mother was squatting beside him, rocking back and forth, mumbling incoherently.

  Jesper lay down beside me, his eyes closed against the sun, and placed his hand on one of my breasts.

  “Poor little Emma,” he mumbled. “I’ll take care of you.”

  And in that moment, with the sun on my face, surrounded by the perfect, ravishing beauty of Stockholm, I believed him.

  I truly believed what he said.

  —

  “Don’t forget the hats and scarves.”

  Mahnoor points to the rack by the checkout counter. I nod, but don’t answer. All day long I’ve been waiting for Mahnoor or Olga to tell me to go home, remind me I’ve been laid off.

  But no one says anything, and as the hours tick by I become more and more convinced that they don’t know I got fired, that maybe there’s no contact between HR and our staff. In some strange way, I feel like I could stay here in my bubble for as long as I want, that it’s up to me to decide when my employment ends.

  I slowly start to pull the stand with hats and mittens from the checkout toward the entrance. This constant rearrangement of clothing and furnishings is exhausting. Sure, I know it’s so we’ll sell more, but there are few things that feel as useless as moving mountains of jeans from one end of the room to the other.

  Olga helps me. She grabs the scarves, puts them next to the hats and mittens. I look at the instructions from the corporate office, and then at our store. “I think they’re in the right place now.”

  Olga reaches for the sketch. “Let me see.”

  She looks back and forth between the paper and what’s in front of her, then nods.

  “It needs to be like this,” she says, and moves the hats a bit. Sometimes we get unannounced inspections from the corporate office. They look at everything—from how our signs are set up to whether or not the staff bathroom is clean. If they aren’t satisfied the store gets a demerit, which affects staff bonuses. And we’re the staff. No matter what you think of the management in the corporate office, you have to admit that their methods of control are quite effective.

  “Olga, that thing you said about revenge. What do you think I should do?”

  Olga crosses her arms and frowns. “I don’t know. Meet with him. Tell him off.”

  “And if he doesn’t listen to me?”

  Olga picks up some mittens that had fallen on the floor. When she looks at me again, I can see the irritation on her face.

  “How should I know?”

  The sharpness in her voice surprises me.

  “No, of course. But you were the one who suggested it. I thought you might have some good ideas.”

  She doesn’t answer. Pretends to be busy hanging up a pair of red leather gloves. From the checkout, I hear Mahnoor’s soft laughter as she talks to a customer. I hesitate a second, but ask anyway.

  “He owes me a hundred thousand. Does that mean I have the right to…steal that from him?”

  Olga squirms, but doesn’t meet my gaze. “Why not?”

  I lock the wheels of the rack and rearrange some of the clothes and hats. Make sure they hang neatly on the narrow metal bars.

  “Suppose he has a dog,” I say. “Could I take it? Drop it off in a forest somewhere far away?”

  Olga freezes and finally looks at me. Her eyes are filled with disgust. “Why you want to take his dog? That’s sick.”

  “But he took my cat.”

  “You don’t know that was him. Maybe the cat just ran away.”

  No, I know it was him, I think. But I don’t have the strength to argue with Olga about it. She can think whatever she wants.

  I catch a whiff of perfume, and Mahnoor pops up at my side. Puts her hand lightly on my shoulder.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Oh, nothing special,” Olga lies, and hands her the sketch from the corporate office. “Is it right?”

  Mahnoor compares the sketch and our setup in silence.

  “Very good,” she says, and Olga turns and trips away toward the kitchenette in her sky-high heels.

  I think that no matter what kind of revenge
is fair, I have to do something. I know I’ll fall apart if I don’t. My whole body knows it.

  But what can I do to a man like Jesper Orre? A man who has everything: success, money, women. The logical course would be to retaliate in kind—an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. He snuck into my home, stole my things, my pet. He took my job, my money, my child. But maybe Olga was right and I couldn’t really do the same thing to him.

  Could I?

  As I adjust another hat, I see the ring sparkling on my finger, and suddenly I know exactly what I have to do.

  —

  Watches, jewelry, and silver objects cover the store from floor to ceiling. The room is dim, but several bright lamps stand on the counter in front of me. There’s a worn burgundy leather sofa behind me. A dark-haired woman in a red coat sits in the middle of the sofa, a bag in her lap. When I turn around, she looks away.

  I turn back toward the woman behind the counter. She’s in her sixties, has short blond hair, and is wearing a sweater set and pleated wool skirt. She looks like a woman in a newsreel from the fifties or an aging Doris Day who moonlights at a pawnshop. She lifts up the ring, examining it through something that looks like a tiny telescope.

  “Very nice,” she says. “A lovely stone.”

  “We broke up,” I tell her.

  She lowers her magnifying glass and raises her hand almost imperceptibly, as if wanting to put the words back into my mouth, letting me know that there’s no need to tell her why I’m selling the ring, that this information isn’t relevant here.

  “We get a lot of engagement rings,” she mumbles, and returns to her magnifying glass. When she bends forward, her head is so close I can see the gray hairs sprouting like weeds at her hairline. Without looking up from the ring, she continues:

  “You can get twenty thousand for this.”

  “No more? It cost much more than that.”

  She suddenly looks tired, puts the magnifier on the glass counter. Then places the ring on a small blue velvet cushion.

  “We can’t give you more than that. I’m sorry.”

  It’s quiet for a moment. I look around the store one more time. A Gibson guitar is hanging on one wall. I wonder if it’s for sale. On a shelf to my right are a bunch of gold rings; they look like engagement rings. Hundreds of broken dreams on view under a glass case. The woman on the leather sofa is still there. She looks away again.