When we pull up outside my apartment, he keeps talking.
“Where do you live?” he asks.
I point to my window, facing onto the street, the lower section covered in baking parchment.
“On the ground floor?”
“Yes.”
“Do you like living here?”
“It’s okay. It can get a bit noisy outside on the weekends, that’s all.”
He nods, looking at my window.
“Well, thanks for the ride,” I say to break the silence, even though I don’t really want to go.
He has unbuttoned his coat, he’s wearing a shirt and a woolen sweater underneath. When I was growing up I didn’t know a single man who wore a dress shirt for work. I can hardly take my eyes off it. He looks at me and smiles.
“Are you working tomorrow?”
“No. I’m not sure when I’ll be in again.”
I don’t know if it’s my imagination or if he really does look disappointed. There is a hint of what must be his cologne in the car, it is spicy but soft, like cinnamon, it smells warm. I would like to be close to him, I suddenly think, breathe in that scent. I undo my seat belt, wanting him to say something that will keep me sitting beside him for a while longer, but he doesn’t say anything. He waves to me as I close the car door, I wave back, hearing Emelie’s voice in my head. Watch out for married men. What do you know about married men? Enough. I know you need to watch out.
There is a party at the School of Art on Saturday. Niklas has been invited by someone he knows and he has invited Emelie, who has invited me. When I arrive at Emelie’s she immediately puts a glass of wine in my hand and sits me down on her bed while she carefully tries on a selection of dresses. It’s obvious that she’s already a little tipsy, and that she’s nervous, and even though she’s asking me which dress looks best, I realize that she’s actually asking which dress I think Niklas will like best.
He meets us on the way to the party, gives her a hug, and greets me politely but with a certain amount of reserve. I am well aware that he doesn’t like me. It really shouldn’t bother me because I don’t like him either, but I allow myself to be provoked by the way he looks at me, by the fact that he always makes me feel cheap. I’m sure it’s not his intention, he’s very well brought up, he’s attractive in the way that the children of rich, attractive people are, in a completely self-evident way, his whole bearing speaks of yachts and tennis lessons and studying abroad, it’s part of his body: a mixture of good health and worldliness. I am uncomfortable in his company, because he seems uncomfortable in mine, he has the ability to make me feel judged. And cheap, from a purely concrete point of view, because he has a much better apartment and more expensive clothes, a supercilious accent and a supercilious way of coming out with everything he has picked up about French philosophers at the university, but also in a more subtle way, as if there is something about me that bothers him.
I have always known that there is something vulgar about me, something I cannot hide. It is embedded within me from generations gone by, it is not going to disappear because of a couple of college courses and a few college parties, I have felt it all my life, even as a child: the aura around some of my classmates was different, more solid somehow. Even though I have never been anything other than perfectly wholesome, there were certain individuals who somehow always managed to be even more wholesome, who always had more practical clothes, surrounded themselves with possessions that even as a child I realized were different. Perhaps at the time I didn’t realize that they were more expensive, they appealed to me because they were more rustic, gave a more solid impression. Bicycles that seemed to be of higher quality, notepads that seemed to demand neat handwriting and good spelling, with their encouragingly tasteful design. Raincoats and boots that weren’t the cheapest because their wearer would soon grow out of them, but were well made and practical, handed down from older siblings, yet they were not unfashionable because they had never been fashionable in the first place. Beautiful, practical cases for musical instruments — they had lessons after school, of course; no cavities in their teeth, and then their hair: simple styles that were easy to look after, and their names, even the names of these children were solid and simple: Elin and Emma and Klara and Sara, carrying with them the promise of good behavior and eventually good grades, good future prospects, good career opportunities, unshakable self-confidence.
Since then I have disliked such uptight perfection out of a sheer sense of self-preservation, while envying it at the same time, and despising myself for doing so. Sometimes I have thought that my whole being is vulgar, that I am made up of components that are a little too much, each and every one: my body is slightly too voluptuous, my mouth slightly too fleshy, nothing about me is toned down or cute, I like high heels and lots of makeup and tight clothes. It’s as if something about my posture, or my aura, is more tangibly sexual than almost any of the girls I have met at Emelie’s parties, at the university, in the student bar, and guys like Niklas find this provocative, or disgusting, perhaps even frightening, it’s as if there is something about me they can’t handle. I have noticed that it is guys like him, the educated, modern guys, those who are most aware that it is unacceptable to divide women into madonnas or whores — they are the ones who make sure they have a girlfriend who could never be mistaken for the latter.
Perhaps the men who are interested in me are the kind who are aware of that vulgarity within me but are not frightened by it, men who are interested anyway, or perhaps for that very reason. Perhaps they are men who are vulgar themselves. It makes me wonder about Carl Malmberg.
Norrköping School of Art is in one of the former industrial areas, right next to the Museum of Labor, which also used to be a factory — that was where my grandmother worked. The School of Art is new, it was established just a few years ago. It’s really supposed to be a School of Sculpture, and there are rolls of chicken wire and great big sausages of clay wrapped in plastic everywhere, there is plaster dust on the floor, but most of the students are working on completely different art forms: video, performance. People come here from all over the country to study. A short distance away on the other side of the Museum of Labor and the Motala River is the statue of Moa Martinson, who also worked at the looms, she gives an impression of no-nonsense sturdiness, it seems to me that she is looking right through the buildings, keeping a stern eye on the art students and thinking that they ought to get a haircut and find themselves a job. I also think that she is looking at me with a critical expression, she can see that I want to go to bed with her husband. Traitor, that is what she thinks of me.
First-year students’ expressionistic creations made of chicken wire hang from the ceiling. Outside the walls of the school the water thunders past, hurling itself down a drop and landing in a cascade of foam before surging on through the town and out to sea. You stop noticing it after a while, the noise fades into the background but is ever present, you can feel it right through the building, a slight vibration. I’m sure the whole place will collapse one day, come crashing down into the water, and these priceless works of art will be lost forever. I can’t help smiling to myself.
People around me are eating a vegetarian chili, there are paper plates everywhere and the smell of dampness and cheap tinned vegetables pervades the room, it reeks of student accommodation. On the tables there are candles on paper plates, you’re allowed to smoke indoors, so I light up because I’m bored, I will go home when I’ve finished my cigarette. I can see Emelie and Niklas not far away, talking animatedly to each other, Emelie is gesticulating enthusiastically, it’s obvious she’s in love.
I am about to get up and leave when I see someone I recognize in the middle of a group of people by a door leading out onto a balcony. She notices me at the same time, waves, extricates herself from the group, all of whom appear to be dressed in black, makes her way over to me, gives me a hug.
“Great to see you,” she says, her mouth close to my ear so that I can hear her above
the music. “I wondered when we’d meet again.”
“Did you?”
She smiles, her mouth, painted with dark red lipstick, is almost unnaturally large in her face.
“I said we ought to get to know one another, didn’t I?” she says. “And I don’t say things I don’t mean. You have to come to the after-party.”
It is a mild night, the air is almost warm, a late fall night when you can go out with your jacket open, it feels unreal. I am just tipsy enough. I am so self-aware that alcohol doesn’t always affect me: even when I have drunk a great deal there are often moments when it is as if I am observing myself, evaluating what I say, realizing that I am babbling, coming out with things I haven’t thought through, being ridiculous. “You’re making a fool of yourself!” my brain says to a different part of itself, and that embarrasses me, makes me pull back. I very rarely feel the way I do tonight, as if a great calmness has descended over all my senses. I am not sleepy, my brain is sharp, but it feels comfortable, it has settled down and for once it is simply letting things happen, without raising any objections.
Alex wants us to drop by someone she knows who lives in the center of town. Someone else texts her the entry code, and soon we are standing inside a beautiful elevator with teak paneling and brass details and a soft, warm light, we are slowly moving upward. The party is in a big apartment on the top floor, there is a generous terrace and we stand side by side, smoking and gazing out over the town in the dark, warm evening.
I point toward the harbor, toward the orange lights that are visible even from this far away, the floodlights illuminating the empty quays.
“Sometimes I think I should get on a ship,” I say. “Like Harry Martinson did. Fish up cables from the bottom of the Atlantic.”
Alex looks at me, her eyes locking onto mine. Her eyes are magnetic, I think, which sounds perfectly reasonable in my current state.
“Stop it,” she says.
“Stop what?” I say, partly irritated, partly curious because she is challenging me.
“Do something real instead,” she says. “Write a book. Just sit down and write. Or do something you can write a book about. Don’t keep wandering around and dreaming.”
She passes me a bottle of sparkling wine that she has stolen from the host of the party, I don’t know if it’s a man or a woman. I take a few swigs but end up pouring too much in my mouth, it runs down my chin, down my throat and my chest. Alex laughs. Then she reaches out and traces the rivulet of wine with her finger, sticks her finger in her mouth and licks it.
When she notices that this makes me uncomfortable, she smiles with satisfaction.
“You’re such an innocent,” she says quietly.
“No I’m not,” I protest.
“So what do you do that isn’t innocent?” she says. Her expression is teasing. I feel my cheeks flush, possibly with embarrassment because she makes me feel childish, but also with pleasure because she seems to be interested in me, in what I do and ought to do.
“I have a lover,” I say.
“What kind of lover?”
“A real lover. Not some guy I just sleep with, but a real … man. It’s kind of like in a film, he’s much older than me … and he’s married.”
Alex smiles, sizing me up. It’s a smile that makes me think that I like her, and that I want to get to know her. That I should have met someone like her a long time ago.
A guy who looks as if he’s still in high school suddenly staggers out onto the terrace, grabbing the balustrade next to Alex for support.
“You’re interrupting,” she says sharply.
“I live here, for fuck’s sake,” he replies.
We both laugh. He looks angry and confused, but Alex offers him his own wine until he cheers up and puts his arms around our shoulders, telling us we’re the prettiest girls who’ve ever been in his apartment, and we laugh again and I think that at long last things are going to be different.
Then it is as if my brain gives me permission to think about Carl. At first it annoys me, the sense that yet again I need someone’s blessing, which Alex has now given. But then my irritation is washed away by all the other thoughts, they are much stronger, surging forward as if a dam has been breached, like a river carrying me along. A weighty feeling of excitement settles in my body, wrapping my mind in cotton wool. I think about him when I am at work, when I am standing in front of the enormous dishwasher feeding in crate after crate of dirty dishes, when I am wiping down table after table in the cafeteria, when I am scrubbing and cleaning and drying the heated counters and the heated cabinets and the heated trolleys.
I imagine his hands on my body as I stand at the dishwasher, he is standing behind me, I close my eyes and think of his hands finding their way inside my clothes, how it will feel when they touch my skin for the first time. The smell of dampness in the utility room becomes a part of my fantasy, and eventually it is so intimately linked with him that it begins to feel erotic, until a sudden wave of excitement floods my body every time I walk into the room and smell the dampness and in the steam from the dishwasher I picture his hand on mine, on my thigh, I see him kissing me.
He is standing by the newspaper kiosk next to the main revolving door, I see him as soon as I start walking down the stairs. He catches sight of me before I get to the bottom, he watches me as I walk toward him. This makes me feel awkward, I don’t know where to look, I am afraid of tripping. I should have put on some lipstick.
“Hi,” he says when I reach him.
“Hi.”
“What a day.”
It is raining, it has been raining all afternoon, lashing against the cafeteria’s big windows, drumming on the windowsills. Inside the main door the floor is wet and dirty, the parking lot outside almost seems to have dissolved in the pouring rain. The shrubs are almost bare now, just a few intensely red leaves still cling to the black branches, the water dripping and trickling from them.
“Actually, I don’t mind as long as the temperature stays above freezing,” I say.
He looks at me with curiosity, as if I have said something interesting. Then he turns and walks toward the door. I stay where I am because I don’t know if he was waiting for me or someone else or if he was waiting at all, I don’t know whether to follow him or not. After a couple of steps he turns around.
“Coming?”
“Oh, yes, I …”
“I saw you this morning,” he says as he leads the way. “I happened to walk past the cafeteria, so I knew you were working today.”
“It was kind of you to wait.”
“My shift just finished, so I thought …”
The sentence dies away, he gives me a little smile. Today his car is parked right next to the projecting roof over the entrance, so we don’t have to get wet. He deactivates the alarm and before he opens the passenger door he glances around to check if anyone has seen us. It is dark outside, although some light spills out onto the cars parked closest to the hospital, but in this weather there is no one around who is thinking about anything other than protecting themselves from the downpour.
We talk all the way home. This time I pluck up the courage to ask him some questions too, where he lives, where he’s from. He was born in Stockholm, but lived in Uppsala for a long time.
“You don’t have an accent,” I say.
He smiles, seems delighted that I have noticed.
“You could be right. Neither do you.”
“I’ve done my best to avoid it.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because I come from Norrköping.”
He laughs this time, his short, loud laugh.
“I thought the accent sounded terrible when I first moved here,” he says. “But I’m used to it now, and sometimes I think it can sound pretty cute.”
I shake my head, smile. We have arrived at my apartment, I notice that I have forgotten to turn off the lamp in my window. Carl Malmberg notices it too.
“That looks real cozy,” he says.
He’s right, it does. It is dark outside, and the Vietnamese lantern gives off a soft, warm glow. He has switched off the engine, there is silence inside the car, the only sound is the rain hammering on the windshield. He clears his throat.
“It would be nice to see your apartment sometime,” he says.
He looks at me, his gaze steady.
Suddenly I feel as if I am holding my destiny in my hands, weighing yes against no, that at this precise moment I have the chance to change things. We are making a pact right now, I think. This is when I ask him if he would like to come in and he says yes and nothing will ever be the same again. What happens from now on cannot be undone.
“Would you like to come in?” I say.
He glances down at his watch, nods. I know he is going to say yes.
“Great,” he says.
We get out of the car, he locks it, and we dash through the rain to the apartment block and, inside, over to my door. He stands behind me as I open up, I can feel his eyes on my back. I have rarely felt more present in the moment, I register everything — the grain of the wooden door frame, his scent, the key sticking slightly in the lock before it turns — while at the same time I am acting entirely on instinct.
He follows me in, closes the door behind him. Then he turns around and looks at me. His presence fills the entire hallway, the entire apartment. Then he moves forward, places one hand behind my head, draws me toward him and kisses me. It is a firm kiss, I put my arms around his neck and press my body close to his, he kisses me harder, I feel dizzy, I cling to him. He takes a deep breath.
“Jesus,” he murmurs.
He pushes me away, his expression almost accusing, before he kisses me again, opens my jacket and slips his hands around my waist, but soon they find their way downward, he holds me tight, presses me close.
The Other Woman Page 5