Studio Sex

by Liza Marklund

  “But Sweden’s a neutral state,” Annika said with surprise.

  “Yeah, sure,” Berit said tartly. “Birger Elmér used to have lunch with the American ambassador and their Secret Service chief in Sweden. And Elmér and the Prime Minister Olof Palme met quite often. ‘I’ll handle the politics, you keep the Americans happy,’ Palme told him. ‘I’ve got to walk in the demonstrations, meanwhile you take care of the Americans.’”

  “And a copy of their archive has suddenly shown up.”

  “I’m convinced that the originals still exist,” Berit said. “The only question is where.”

  “What about the domestic archive?”

  “It was entirely illegal and contained detailed personal data about people who were considered the enemies of the Social Democrats. Somewhere in the region of twenty thousand names. Everyone on that register was to be imprisoned if war broke out. They might have found it difficult to get a job and they were excluded from all union work. You didn’t have to be a Communist to end up like that. It was enough to read the wrong papers, to have the wrong friends. Be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  They sat in silence for a while.

  Annika cleared her throat. “Still, these things happened forty years ago. In those days people were sterilized by force and DDT was sprayed everywhere. What makes these papers so important today?”

  Berit pondered the question. “They are most likely full of unpleasant details about bugging, breakins, and stuff like that. But the really sensitive material is gone: the whole picture.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Berit closed her eyes. “In practice it means that high-ranking Social Democrats were American spies. Today, the proof of repeated deviations from Sweden’s official neutrality that may be hidden among these documents would be worse than the systematic registration of political affiliations. The Social Democrats didn’t just lie to the nation; they were horse-trading under the table with the superpowers. This wasn’t completely without risk. The Soviet Union knew what was going on in Sweden, the spy Wennerström had seen to that. It was accounted for in the Russians’ war preparations. Sweden was probably a primary target if war broke out, precisely because of this double game.”

  Annika looked wide-eyed at Berit. “Jesus Christ. Do you really think it was that bad?”

  Berit drank the last of her beer. “If the activities of IB were to be thoroughly investigated, down to the last vile detail, it would be devastating for the Social Democrats. They would lose all credibility. Completely. The key is in the archives. The Social Democrats would find it difficult to form a government for a long time if they came to the surface.”

  The young people left the restaurant and spilled out loudly onto the street. They left an abstract pattern of peanuts and spilled beer on their table. Annika and Berit followed them with their gaze through the window, saw them cross the busy road and walk to the bus stop, where the 62 bus rolled in and the youngsters climbed on it.

  A thought suddenly occurred to Annika. Should she tell Berit about the Ninja Barbies?

  Berit looked at her watch. “Time to go. My last train will leave soon.”

  Annika hesitated and Berit waved to the waiter.

  Never mind, Annika thought. No one’s ever going to find out.

  “I’m off tomorrow,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

  Berit gave a sigh and smiled. “I’ll have to give this IB stuff everything I’ve got for a couple of days. Though I’m enjoying it, really.”

  Annika returned her smile. “Yes, I can see that. Are you a Communist yourself?”

  Berit laughed. “And you’re spying for SAPO, I guess!”

  Annika joined in the laughter.

  They paid the check and stepped outside. Slowly the evening had changed color and texture and become night.

  Seventeen Years, Eleven Months, and Eight Days

  Time is rent apart, leaving deep marks. Reality tears love to pieces with its pettiness and tedium. We are both equally desperate in our ambition to find the Truth. He’s right; we have to share the responsibility. I lack consideration; my focus is blurred; I don’t concentrate fully. I take too long to reach orgasm. We have to come closer, commit completely, without interference. I know he is right. With the right kind of love in your mind there are no obstacles.

  I know where the problem lies: I have to learn to harness my desire. It comes between our experiences, our journeys into the cosmos. Love will carry you anywhere but you have to have absolute dedication.

  His love for me is beyond words. All the wonderful details, his concern for every aspect of me: his choice of books for me, of clothes, music, food, and drink. We share the same pulse and breath. I have to rid myself of my egotistic tendencies.

  Never leave me,

  he says;

  I can’t live without you.

  And I promise, again and again.

  Tuesday 31 July

  The draft woke her up. She stayed in bed, eyes closed. The sharp light from the open window penetrated her eyelids. It was morning. Not so late that she would feel depressed about having slept through the whole day, but enough for her to feel rested.

  Annika pulled on her dressing gown and walked out into the stairwell. The cracked mosaic floor sent a welcome chill through her body. The toilet was a half-floor down; she shared it with the other tenants on the top floor.

  The curtains flapped like big sails in the breeze when she came back into the apartment. She had bought thirty yards of light-colored voile and draped it over the old curtain rails— with striking effect. The walls all through the apartment were painted white. The previous tenant had rolled on a coat of primer and then given up. The matte walls reflected and absorbed the light at one and the same time, making the rooms seem transparent.

  She walked slowly through the living room and into the kitchen. The floor space was clear as she had hardly any furniture. The floorboards shimmered in gray and the ceiling floated like a white sky high above her. She boiled some water on the gas stove, put three spoonfuls of coffee in a glass Bodum cafetière, poured the water, and pushed down the filter after a couple of minutes. The fridge was empty; she’d have a sandwich on the train.

  A torn morning paper lay on the floor inside her front door. The mail drop was too narrow for it. She picked it up and sat down on the kitchen floor with her back to the cupboard.

  The usual: the Middle East, the election campaign, the record heat. Not a line about Josefin. She was history already, a figure in the statistics. There was another op-ed article on the IB affair. This time she read it. A professor in Gothenburg demanded the formation of a truth commission. Right on! Annika thought.

  She didn’t bother going down to the basement to have a shower but washed her face and armpits in the kitchen sink. The water didn’t get icy cold now, so she didn’t need to heat any.

  The first editions of the evening papers were just out, and she bought both from the newsdealer on Scheelegatan. Kvällspressen led with the IB story. Annika smiled. Berit was the best. Her own pieces were in a good place, pages eight, nine, ten, and center spread. She read her own text about the police theory. It was quite good, she thought. The police had a lead that pointed to a person close to Josefin, she’d written. It appeared that Josefin had felt under threat and had been scared. There were signs that she’d been physically abused before. Annika smiled again. Without writing a word about Joachim, the police theory was there. Then came the stage-managed orgy of grief in Täby. She was glad she’d kept it concise and to the point. The photo was okay. It showed a few girls next to some candles, not crying. She felt good about it. The Rival had nothing special, apart from the sequel to the piece “Life After the Holidays.” She would read that on the train.

  A hot wind was rising. She bought an ice cream on Bergsgatan and walked down Kaplansbacken to Centralen, the railway station. She was in luck, the Intercity train to Malmö was leaving in five minutes. She sat down in the buffet car and was
first in line to buy a sandwich when it opened. She bought her ticket from the conductor.

  Only she and three Arab men got off the train in Flen. The bus for Hälleforsnäs left in fifteen minutes and she sat down on a bench opposite the municipal offices and studied a sculpture called Vertical Tendency. It really was terrible. She ate a bag of jelly cars on the bus and got off outside the co-op.

  “Congratulations!” Ulla, one of her mother’s workmates, shouted. The woman stood over by a flowerbed in her green work coat, smoking a cigarette.

  “For what?” Annika smiled at her.

  “Front page and everything. We’re proud of you,” Ulla yelled.

  Annika laughed and made a deprecating gesture with her hand. She walked past the church and toward her house. The place looked deserted and dead, the red rows of forties houses steaming in the heat.

  I hope Sven isn’t here, she thought.

  The apartment was empty and all the plants were dead. A horrendous stench came from a forgotten garbage bag in the kitchen. She threw it in the garbage chute and opened all windows wide. She left the dead plants to their fate. She couldn’t be bothered just now.

  *

  When she went home, her mother was genuinely happy to see her. She gave her an awkward hug, her hands cold and clammy.

  “Have you had dinner? I’ve got elk casserole cooking.”

  Her mother’s latest boyfriend was a hunter.

  They sat down at the kitchen table, her mother lighting a cigarette. The window was ajar and Annika could hear some kids fighting over a bicycle in the street. She looked out toward the works and the dreary gray tin roofs that stretched out as far as the eye could see.

  “Now tell me, how did you do it?” Her mother smiled expectantly.

  “How do you mean?” Annika said, returning the smile.

  “All that success, of course! Everybody’s seen it. They come up to me at the checkout and congratulate me. Great articles. You’ve been on the front page and everything!”

  Annika bowed her head. “It wasn’t that difficult. I got a good tip-off. How’s things here?”

  Her mother’s face lit up. “Oh, I have to show you!” She got to her feet. The cigarette smoke eddied in the air as she moved over to the counter. Annika followed it with her gaze as her mother returned to the table. She spread a bunch of photocopies in front of Annika.

  “I like this one,” she said, rapping her knuckle on the tabletop. She sat down and took a deep drag on the cigarette.

  Sighing lightly, Annika looked at her mother’s papers. They were prospectuses from various real estate agents in Eskilstuna. On the one that her mother had indicated with her knuckle she read, Exclusive splitlevel house w/ high standard, sunken bathtub in a tiled bathroom, L-shaped living room, den w/ fireplace.

  “Why do they abbreviate with?” Annika wondered.

  “What?”

  “They’ve abbreviated about the shortest word of the sentence. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Annoyed, her mother waved aside the smoke between them. “What do you think?”

  Annika hesitated. “It seems a bit on the expensive side.”

  “Expensive?” Her mother snatched the Xerox copy from the table. ” ‘Marbled hallway floor, tiled kitchen floor, and a basement bar’— it’s perfect!”

  Annika heaved another silent sigh. “Sure, I was just wondering if you can afford it. One point three million is quite a lot of money.”

  “Look at the others.”

  Annika leafed through the sheets. They were all monstrosities on the outskirts of Eskilstuna, situated in districts with names like Skiftinge, Stenkvista, Grundby, Skogstorp. All with more than six rooms and a big garden.

  “You don’t like gardening,” Annika remarked.

  “Leif is a nature person.” Her mother put out the half-smoked cigarette. “We’re thinking of buying something together.”

  Annika pretended not to hear. “How’s Birgitta?” she asked instead.

  “She’s okay. She gets on really well with Leif. I think you would like him too, if you met him.” A tone of accusation and injury was in her mother’ voice.

  “Will she get to keep her job at Right Price?”

  “Don’t change the subject.” Her mother straightened up. “Why don’t you want to meet Leif?”

  Annika got up and walked over to the fridge, opened it, and had a look inside. The shelves were clean but almost empty.

  “I don’t mind meeting him if it makes you happy. But I’ve been so busy this summer, as you can imagine.”

  Her mother disregarded the tone in her voice and also got up. “Don’t rummage about in the fridge. We’ll be eating soon. You can set the table.”

  Annika took a small pot of low-fat yogurt and closed the fridge door.

  “I don’t have time to stay for dinner. I’m going out to Lyckebo.”

  Her mother’s mouth became a thin white line. “It’ll be ready in a few minutes. You could wait.”

  “I’ll see you again soon.” Annika hung her bag over her shoulder and hurried out of the apartment. Her bicycle stood where she had left it. The back tire was flat. She pumped it up, fastened the bag to the rack, and pedaled away toward Granhed. She cycled past the works and glanced at it out of the corner of her eye. The works— beating heart of the small community. Forty thousand square meters of deserted industrial park. Sometimes she hated it for all it had done to her during her youth. Twelve hundred people had worked here when she was born. By the time she left school, that number was down to a few hundred. Her father had had to go when they cut it to one hundred and twenty. Now there were eight workers. She cycled past the parking lot. She counted three cars and five bicycles.

  Her father couldn’t deal with being unemployed. The lousy job had been his life. He never got a new one, and Annika had a feeling she knew why. Bitterness is hard to hide and unpleasant to hire.

  She cycled past the entrance gate to the canoe club and automatically speeded up. That’s where they’d found him, half an hour too late. His body temperature was too low. He survived for another twenty-four hours at the hospital in Eskilstuna, but the alcohol did its part. In her darkest moments she felt it was just as well. And if she thought about it, which she rarely did, she suspected she had never allowed herself to mourn him properly.

  A thought entered her mind. He’s the one I take after. Immediately she brushed the thought aside.

  After the turning to Pine Lake, the road became narrower and full of holes. It weaved through the trees. She didn’t like the late-summer color of the trees. The dense vegetation was so sated with chlorophyll that it was no longer breathing and was exactly the same shade all over. She found it monotonous.

  Forest paths crisscrossed the road from the right and left. Locked barriers blocked off all the roads on the left-hand side; this was the perimeter of the Harpsund compound.

  The road climbed and she breathed heavily as she stood up and pedaled. The sweat ran down from her armpits; she’d need a dip in the lake after this.

  The turning to Lyckebo appeared as unexpectedly as it always did. Almost every time she nearly missed the side road in the sharp bend and skidded slightly as she braked. She unhooked her bag, leaned the bicycle against the barrier, ducked under it, and waded through the tall grass.

  “Whiskas!” she called out. “Little kitty!”

  A few seconds later she heard a distant meowing. The ginger cat emerged from the grass, the sun glittering on its whiskers.

  “Whiskas, sweetheart!”

  She threw the bag in the grass and let the cat jump up into her arms. Laughing, she lay down among the ants and rolled around with the cat, tickling its stomach and stroking its soft back.

  “But you’ve got a tick, you little rascal. Hang on, let me pull it out.”

  She took a firm hold of the insect that had bored into the cat’s fur and pulled. She got it out in one piece. She smiled. She still had the knack.

  “Is Grandma home?”

  Th
e old woman sat in the shade under the old oak tree. Her eyes were closed and she had her hands clasped over her stomach. Annika picked up her bag and walked over with the cat bouncing around her legs, rubbing against her knees and meowing; he wanted more cuddling.

  “Are you asleep?” Her voice was no more than a whisper.

  The old woman opened her eyes and smiled. “Not at all. I’m listening to nature.”

  Annika gave her grandmother a long hug.

  “You’re thinner every time I see you. Are you eating properly?”

  “Sure.” Annika smiled. “Now look what I’ve got for you.” She let go of the woman and rummaged around in her bag. “Look at this,” she said brightly. “For you!”

  She held out a box of handmade chocolates from a small factory on Gärdet in Stockholm.

  Her grandmother clapped her hands together. “How sweet of you! I’m touched.”

  Grandmother opened the box and they had one piece each. It was a little too rich for Annika, who didn’t like chocolate that much.

  “So how are you?”

  Annika looked down. “It’s hard going. I’m really hoping they let me stay on at the paper. I don’t know what I’ll do if they don’t.”

  The old woman looked at her, a long warm gaze. “You’ll make it, Annika,” she said in the end. “You don’t need that job. You’ll see it will all work out.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Come here.”

  Grandmother reached out and pulled Annika down onto her lap. Gingerly, Annika sat down and placed her forehead against the woman’s neck.

  “You know what I think you should do?” Grandmother said in a serious tone. She held her grandchild and slowly rocked her from side to side. The wind rose and the leaves on the aspen tree next to them rustled. Annika saw Ho Lake glitter between the trees.

  “You know I’m always here for you,” Grandmother said. “I’ll be here whatever happens. You can always come to me.”

  “I don’t want to drag you into it,” Annika whispered.