The Other Woman

by Therese Bohman

  She points to a corner of the living room where it is easy to imagine a Christmas tree. A tall, expensive noble fir, its lights shining down on Carl and his beautiful family.

  “I missed him the most at Christmastime. I still do. How sad is that? I mean, I’m an adult now, but I still think about it every Christmas, I can see him sitting here, with them …”

  She falls silent. I can feel her breath on my neck.

  “I’ve thought about every detail of his life. Not just about how they celebrate Christmas, but how they do pretty much everything. How they sat around the kitchen table this morning eating their cereal and talking about perfectly ordinary stuff while he read the morning paper, perhaps he asked Mirjam which books she was taking with her on vacation and she told him. You know, that kind of thing.”

  “I know,” I say quietly.

  “He’s so fucking proud of the fact that she reads a lot. I didn’t read that much. I remember him taking me to the library once when I was little. He was probably trying to be a good daddy, I mean it’s a beautiful thing, taking your daughter to the library and showing her that you can borrow books for free, that it gives you access to the whole world and history and so on, it’s like something in a fucking Bamse the Bear comic. It was winter then too, we’d had lots of snow and the weather had turned mild, so the sidewalks were covered in slush. I remember he wanted me to borrow books with hardly any pictures. I don’t know how old I was, I know I was still in elementary school, I still preferred books with pictures in them. There were couches in the children’s section back then, and I sat and started looking through a book I wanted to borrow, and the couch was yellow and he got mad when he saw that my shoes had made big brown marks on the fabric. I got so upset about the whole thing. I knew he was disappointed in me. I knew he thought I was stupid because I wanted to read picture books, and then I couldn’t even sit on the sofa the right way.”

  She reaches for her glass of wine.

  “But Mirjam … I’m sure she’ll follow the path I couldn’t cope with. In ten years she’ll be the one with a placement at the UN, and he’ll be sitting here with his Amarone, bursting with pride and telling all his friends. When they serve those fucking figs. It will be so cool for him to have a daughter he can be proud of.”

  She takes a deep breath, just as I do when I want to stop myself from crying. Then she gets to her feet.

  “I know what we’re going to do.”

  She disappears into the hallway and comes back with her purse, a big leather purse from the eighties, I really like it. I like the fact that she has it with her every time I see her, and that she would never think of carrying her textbooks and notes around in a rucksack as many of her fellow students do. She rummages around, then digs out a square object made of plastic.

  “What’s that?”

  She presses a button on the side of the cube, and a lens pops up at the top.

  “It’s a camera,” she says. “A Polaroid camera.”

  She takes a picture, the living room is lit up by a flash, then the camera hums and spits out a photograph. She holds it up and I see my own face begin to appear, the contrasts slowly growing stronger. It’s a good shot, with the bookcase in the background. My face is almost entirely obliterated by the bright flash, only my eyes and my mouth stand out, it looks dramatic, like an album cover.

  “Cool,” I say.

  She smiles, goes into the kitchen. I hear her opening another bottle of wine. With the wine in one hand and the camera in the other, she tells me to bring my glass and come with her.

  It’s dark in the bedroom. There is a scent in the air, I recognize it from when I was here with Carl. I didn’t think about where it came from then, but now I realize it must be Gabriella’s perfume. It is the cool scent of white flowers, I picture them growing in the shade, crisp and elegant. The thought annoys me, I am slightly drunk because of those big glasses of wine, and now I feel the anger surging through my entire body. It’s as if I can feel her presence, although of course she isn’t here. She can’t even let me pretend to live her life for a little while. All my feelings of loneliness, of being left out, of never coming first are suddenly pointing in one direction, like compass needles that have found a new magnetic field. I want revenge on her, I want to hurt her because of everything she can simply take for granted.

  I have flopped down on the bed. Suddenly there is a flash, Alex has taken another picture of me. The mechanical hum of the camera sounds loud in the silent room, a picture slides out, my face darkens quickly, developing depth and shadows.

  “Good,” Alex says, examining the photograph. “Can you take off your top?”

  I laugh. “You’re kidding me — why?”

  “Because it will look better. More artistic.”

  I am drunk, but I still realize that this is a lie. She doesn’t want to take artistic pictures of me, she wants to hurt them, Carl and Gabriella. I vaguely understand that this is the revenge. This is aimed at Gabriella, although I can’t quite work out how.

  Alex tells me to lie down, look into the camera, then she takes another picture. The camera flashes and hums.

  “And your skirt, take off your skirt. And your tights.”

  She switches on the main light, I blink, I immediately feel uncomfortable.

  “Turn it off, please.”

  She shakes her head.

  “No, it has to be obvious that it’s here. In their bedroom. It’s going to be great, don’t worry. We don’t need the flash now. You look fantastic.”

  I reach for my wineglass on the bedside table, take a big gulp. She takes a few more pictures, then asks me to remove my bra.

  “So that it will be even more artistic?”

  “Got it in one.”

  She smiles, she knows that I know, even if I’m not very clear what I know. I do know that something is happening here. She takes pictures of my face and my breasts, the photographs drop down onto the bed like heavy autumn leaves.

  “What would he want you to do?” she asks. “If he were taking pictures of you, what kind of pictures would he want?”

  I reach for my wine again. Alex sinks down beside me on the bed. I curl up close to her, I feel a little dizzy. I shouldn’t drink any more. She strokes my hair.

  “Photographing you naked wouldn’t be enough, would it?” she says with her mouth right next to my ear.

  I shake my head. No, it wouldn’t. I think of the present he gave me, the pink lingerie. He has asked me to put it on several times since then, and I have done it. I have opened the door to him wearing nothing but the see-through camisole and the equally see-through panties. It drives him crazy, he practically throws himself at me, he is almost violent yet grateful and submissive at the same time. As long as I can make him feel like that it doesn’t matter what I have to do. I would wear whatever he asked me to put on.

  “He’d probably want me to dress in a particular way,” I say quietly. “He likes that kind of thing.”

  “Good,” Alex says, playing with a strand of my hair. “How would he want you to dress?”

  I swallow. I know exactly what he would want, but saying it out loud is embarrassing.

  “He might …,” I begin. “He might want me to look younger than I am.”

  She doesn’t even smile, she simply looks at me and nods. She’s wonderful. I could tell her absolutely anything and she wouldn’t judge me. I snuggle closer, I want her to keep on stroking my hair, but she pushes me away, gently but firmly.

  “We have to finish this,” she says, nodding at the camera.

  “What do you mean?” I mumble.

  She slides off the bed.

  “Wait here,” she says, and disappears through the door.

  My glass is empty but the bottle is on the chest of drawers, and I get up to fetch it. I find it difficult to keep my balance as I fill up my beautiful Finnish glass with Carl’s wine, and I also find it difficult to stop pouring. Suddenly my glass is full to the brim, and I have to take several large gulps to
prevent it from spilling onto the lovely rug on the floor, I slurp down the wine, it is absolutely delicious.

  The room is spinning when I lie back down on the bed. I fix my gaze on the ceiling light. It looks like a big pine cone, it is a designer light. No doubt it was expensive, just like everything else in this place. The only thing that’s cheap is me. I have to smile at that, at the thought that I am lying in the Malmbergs’ marital bed, besmirching it with my cheapness, with my H & M panties and my vulgarity.

  I am still smiling when Alex comes back, she looks down at me and she smiles too, I want to kiss her.

  “Come here,” I murmur.

  She obeys. She lies down beside me and kisses me, then she leans over and touches me, I press my body closer to hers, start clumsily trying to remove her top, but then she pushes me away again. She holds out a bundle of fabric.

  “Here,” she says.

  “What’s that?”

  My brain feels as if it is made of cotton wool. I have almost forgotten what we are supposed to be doing, it already feels somehow distant: the camera, the pictures. Saying I ought to dress in a particular way.

  “Put them on,” Alex says.

  There is a pale lilac top and an equally pale lilac skirt with a pastel-colored floral pattern, short and flared, it is made of jersey with an elasticized waist. The label in the top says 146–152. These are children’s clothes.

  “What’s this?” I say.

  “They’re Mirjam’s, I found them in her closet.”

  “How … how old is she?”

  “Eleven. Nearly twelve. Do you like them?”

  “They’re too small for me.”

  She smiles and pulls at the soft fabric.

  “No they’re not. They’re stretchy. They’re perfect.”

  I swallow. Alex nods toward the clothes.

  “Get dressed.”

  I do as she says. The top comes to just above my navel and strains across my breasts. The skirt barely covers my bottom. I reach for my wine and quickly gulp it down.

  “This doesn’t look much like art to me,” I mutter.

  Alex smiles, weighing me up.

  “It’s absolutely perfect. I told you it would be. Now let’s see …”

  She picks up the camera.

  “Look at me.”

  I gaze straight into the lens, she takes a picture.

  “Pull up your top … and your skirt, just a little bit. Look this way. Turn around.”

  I do everything she says until she tells me to take off my panties, I am embarrassed. She comes back to the bed, lies down next to me.

  “If he was here,” she says in a kind, patient tone, as if she really was talking to a child, “he wouldn’t be satisfied if you kept your panties on, would he?”

  She is right. I shake my head, run my hand up my thigh, reach under the short skirt and start to edge my panties down my hips until she grabs them and yanks them off, drops them on the floor. She looks at me and nods, I nod back. This is how it must be, I realize that now. The room is spinning, Alex picks up the camera once more.

  “What a good girl you are,” she says as the camera hums and the pictures tumble down onto the bed. “Now spread your legs and look into the camera. Excellent. Good girl.”

  We wake up next to one another, it is late morning, a mercilessly sunny early spring day, the sky is bright blue. The herring gulls are screaming, my head is pounding, the light makes it worse, and the gulls, my mouth is dry, I feel sick.

  Alex is already awake. When she notices that my eyes are open, she smiles at me.

  “How are you feeling?” she asks.

  “Not great.”

  It is difficult to talk. This could be the worst hangover I’ve ever had. I try turning my head a fraction, but that just makes me want to throw up.

  “Would you like some breakfast?”

  “No thanks.”

  She looks incredibly bright.

  “They’ve got a fantastic coffee machine. I could make you a cappuccino?”

  “No thanks,” I say again. I’ve forgotten how to say anything else, I can’t work out how to do it, perhaps an important section of my brain has fallen apart, the section that links the realization that I ought to speak with the knowledge of how to actually do it. The bedroom feels stuffy, the bedclothes are hot, the whole room smells of bodies. I want a shower, a cool shower, but I can’t even get out of bed. I fix my gaze on the ceiling light.

  “What shall we do now?” Alex says. She seems to be speaking from a long way off, even though she is sitting beside me. “The best thing would be to leave the pictures around here somewhere and let her find them. Make it look as if he’s tried to hide them, or as if he’s forgotten. We could put them in one of his desk drawers, or the nightstand … but maybe she never looks in there. He might find them first, and that would ruin everything.”

  Only then do I remember what we did yesterday, and it immediately feels wrong, my whole body knows it is wrong. Wrong and sordid. My whole life is sordid, the realization hits me hard, yet in an abstract way; I try to divide it up in my head with all the energy I can muster. My relationship with Carl feels sordid and my relationship with Alex feels sordid, her plans to ruin his life feel sordid and the thought of simply carrying on as before feels sordid, the photographs lying in a thick pile on the nightstand next to Alex feel sordid. Mirjam’s pale lilac clothes are lying in a heap on the floor, just to underline how sordid it all is. I wish Alex would open a window, but I feel too ill to ask her. I hardly know whether I’m asleep or awake. Perhaps I’m still drunk. I close my eyes.

  “We could mail them to her, I think that’s the best idea,” Alex goes on. She still sounds far away, and when I open my eyes I see that she is over by the window, opening it. Perhaps she can read my mind. Fresh, cold air pours into the room, sharpening my brain to the point where I can get my mouth to cooperate.

  “I don’t want to do this,” I mumble.

  She immediately slams the window shut, the glass rattles. She sits down on the bed.

  “Of course you do.”

  I try to shake my head and a wave of nausea floods my body.

  “It’s too much,” I say quietly.

  “After all he’s done, you think it would be too much if his wife left him? It doesn’t even come close to what he deserves, but at least it’s something. A little bit of justice. You like justice. You’re always going on about it.”

  Her expression is challenging as she stares at me.

  In the best-case scenario his wife will leave him. Perhaps he will lose his children. She’s a lawyer, she knows how these things work. She has to realize the photographs revealing fantasies about having sex with his own daughter are enough to make sure he’s not allowed any unsupervised contact with Mirjam. If he is lucky she will handle things discreetly. If he’s unlucky she will tell everyone who’s prepared to listen how disgusting he is, perhaps he’s a pedophile, I mean, what is she supposed to think — he’ll have to move. He won’t be able to stay in a town like Norrköping after that, he won’t be able to continue working with colleagues who think he wants to sleep with his daughter. It could get even worse, she might report him to the police, there will be an investigation, social workers will turn up with concerned expressions among the designer cushions on the sofa in the living room. How will they explain the situation to the children? What will his girls think of him? Perhaps there will be a series of articles in the local press, perhaps even the national tabloids, bold black headlines about the doctor who molested his own daughter, that’s what everyone will think. His whole life as it is today will be over. I never wanted that. I wanted him to realize that it’s me he should be with, I wanted him to ring my doorbell and say that he needs me, I wanted him to kiss me and ask if I still want him and I would say yes, yes, I do, it would be romantic, like in a film, what I want has nothing to do with the pile of photos on the nightstand. Now he will hate me. Everything will be ruined, for both of us. I need to explain all this to Alex, but
the realization of what is going to happen makes my stomach turn inside out and I throw up on the floor next to the Malmbergs’ marital bed as I hear the front door slam behind Alex.

  I dream of ships colliding. Big ships out on the open sea, I am standing on deck and wherever I look I can see nothing but the horizon, the sky is pale blue and a little misty, it is summer and I can smell the sea. It must be a childhood memory of the Gotland ferry that my brain has found and made use of, because the sensation is familiar. My heart feels light, free, and the world is huge, the white ship plows through the waves, forging ahead. Then it collides with another ship. I didn’t see it coming, and the crash is deafening, the harsh sound of steel on steel, the whole vessel shudders, I can see the impact spreading through the hull, the metal giving way with the same sound as when you open a can, the ship on which I am standing is split in half, it capsizes and begins to sink, I can hear a sucking noise as the sea drags it down. I cling to the railing to stop myself from falling into the water, even though I know I will still be dragged down if I hold on, and suddenly I am wide awake.

  It is dark, my heart is pounding. My cell phone is lying by the bed, it is just after five-thirty in the evening. I have slept all day. The room stinks of vomit, and although it makes me nauseous again, I don’t feel so bad. I am able to get out of bed and slowly make my way to Carl and Gabriella’s bathroom. In spite of the soft lighting I look terrible, my makeup is all over the place, my hair is sticking out in all directions, and my lips are dry, stained with dark patches from the wine. I look old. I’m not very old yet, but suddenly there it is in the mirror, the suggestion of wrinkles under my eyes, a sharp shadow over my cheeks, which used to be more rounded. I am too old for this.

  I sluice my face in cold water, swill my mouth with a dab of toothpaste. The shelves contain an array of expensive creams and cosmetics, along with a scented candle, I recognize the brand from interior design magazines, I picture them standing side by side in front of the mirror before they go off somewhere in the evenings; she is sweeping Chanel blush over her cheeks with a big soft brush, he is shaving, watching her and thinking that she is beautiful. She will throw him out immediately. He might have time to pick up his shaving kit, otherwise he will have to go to the twenty-four-hour store at the central station to buy a packet of disposable razors to take to the hotel room he will have to book into, because he has nowhere else to go. He can’t come to me, because I am the person who has betrayed him. I can’t even look myself in the eye in the mirror.