Acts of Infidelity

by Lena Andersson

  The incomplete, unnecessary and for its purposes unclear meeting wounded Ester. She was torn up and called him the next day to say it was better not to see each other at all than have this hankering and temptation without release. An unpleasant fight resulted, in which Olof asked why it was so hard for her to understand that he didn’t want a romantic relationship, but a friendly one.

  She hung up without further comment. This protracted despair was exhausting.

  Three days later when she came home one afternoon, a snus tin was on her entryphone. She saw immediately that it had been placed there with intent.

  Olof used two types of snus and this was the more unusual of the two, herbal and nicotine-free. It was the kind he used when making a bid for health. His attempts at being healthier had always coincided with benevolence and making overtures with Ester and their relationship. He’d usually buy the better-for-your-health snus for the sake of her and their future so she’d see the door to him was open.

  She took the tin upstairs with her into her apartment and opened the lid. A portion was all that remained, almost dry but still pungent. She held it with her fingertips and thought tenderly about how it had recently been tucked under his lip. Her longing for their moments together made her body ache.

  Vera shouted straight down the telephone line:

  ‘You’re interpreting signs! He has not placed a snus tin on your intercom. Ester, I’m seriously starting to worry about you. You’re imagining things. He wants to be with Ebba, you have to respect that! Who do you think you are?!’

  But Ester wanted to be sure. One week later she saw Olof at a theatre festival in Falun where he was in a revival of a production of Death of a Salesman that he’d been in the year before. Ester had been invited to give a speech about the differences and similarities between poetic, dramatic and philosophical language. Afterwards there were drinks and soggy croustades and she talked with her good friend Zoran who’d played Olof’s son in the production. Over the past half year she’d been in touch with Zoran every now and then to see how things were going and to fish for clues from someone working so close to Olof.

  She saw Olof and his wife standing by the wall in the festival tent, and Olof saw Ester conversing with the younger man. Their eyes met. Olof gave her a scornful smile. Because it was appalling to stand beside one’s wife while smiling scornfully at Ester it could only mean that his marriage was crumbling after all, that it was only a matter of time.

  She smiled too, feebly and lacklustre. The wife looked her up and down and took a lap around the room, perhaps courting competition for her husband, far better equipped as she likely was in understanding how to turn a grindstone like Olof.

  Ester touched Zoran’s shoulder, excused herself and went over to Olof. His eyes glittered; he seemed happy to see her. After exchanging a few words about the festival, Ester got straight to the point and asked if he’d placed a snus tin on her entryphone the week before. He flat-out denied it, but did so with such speed, verbosity and understanding that she suspected he wasn’t telling the truth. He tried to frame this assertion as crazy and bizarre but knew far too well to which event and snus tin she was referring for him to seem credible. It all became clear when, with the extra embroidery that burdens every strained lie, he said, ‘Putting snus tins on people’s doorbells isn’t my thing.’ She hadn’t mentioned a doorbell, but on the intercom was a graphic of an old-fashioned doorbell symbol that he’d apparently registered subconsciously. It’s difficult to outwit your own mind, and even harder to control its associations. Moreover she knew that when people said something wasn’t ‘their style’ they were usually lying, just as when they’d studiously repeat an accusation in order to insist on its absurdity. Things that need to be lied about were usually exactly what diverged from the style one wished to cultivate. We all want to believe that what we do out of shame is in fact is not part of our personality, our ‘style’.

  So Olof had indeed been lurking by her front door, sending blank text messages, speaking to her through objects and signs. Clearly he didn’t want to lose her, but instead to stay in intimate but unspoken contact. He wanted no personal responsibility.

  Nothing was decided, nothing lost, he hadn’t made a decision, that much was clear. Ester understood that she had moved him deeply, if such depth existed. She assumed it did, after all everyone had receptors for the sublime.

  Influenced by this knowledge, Ester decided it would be good to have a car, and thereby hurry along this sluggish course of events. Within a couple days she had found a second-hand pea-green Renault Twingo. Cute. Compact. Fast.

  She had driven her new car home and was in the middle of parallel-parking it on Sankt Göransgatan when Vera called to say she’d just left an editorial meeting on Drottninggatan on her way to Sergels Torg and in this short distance alone she had seen five discarded snus tins. One of them was on an electricity box. Did Ester think this tin, too, had been placed there in order to be interpreted?

  ‘But Olof’s snus tin wasn’t lying flat, it was standing up,’ said Ester.

  ‘I’m worried about you. Why aren’t you using your sense and those faculties of reason you’re otherwise so fond of?’

  ‘But I am. And the most reasonable thing is that Olof placed the tin with one last pinch of snus on my intercom. By now I’ve become quite fluent in his sign language. He prefers to express himself so that the situation can be understood without him having to come right out and explain it. Otherwise it might be held against him.’

  ‘If he wants to be with you, he should be with you.’

  ‘Sure. But he wants to and doesn’t want to. So far.’

  For the rest of the spring, Ester kept the snus tin next to her on her desk as she worked. The pinch dried out and went from dark brown to dirty brown to yellowed beige. She considered getting proof by sending it to the Swedish National Forensic Centre’s laboratory in Linköping together with a trace of Olof that she could probably scrape up at home. But individual citizens probably couldn’t send things to the SNFC for testing.

  On one of the last days in May, Olof was to travel to Norrköping and start rehearsing yet another play, a new Swedish drama that was a deconstruction of Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. They were in sporadic phone contact so Ester knew on which day he was travelling. She also knew the difficult season was approaching, the season during which married men disappeared.

  Major delays on the rail network were reported on the news. Without giving it a second thought, she called Olof and said that if he wanted to ensure a timely arrival, it would be best if she drove him to Norrköping. He’d get to see her new car, and she’d read that book about the origins of the universe he’d recommended a while ago and wanted to discuss with her.

  It should be noted, the delays were on the northern main line and the problem had been cleared up in the morning, but she didn’t need to mention that. Surely electrical wiring or some such had been affected in the south too; train trouble usually had chain reactions.

  Olof accepted immediately, he very much wanted to be given a lift to Norrköping. So Ester picked him up on Bondegatan and they drove through the hazy early summer afternoon. Everything was calm and agreeable. Olof was so relaxed even the lines on his face had smoothed out. They spoke about the universe. When he first read the book, he said, he realized just how unlikely it was that the universe and Earth existed and could exist. Presupposing that all the constants had been in the right configuration at a certain point in time was so incomprehensible it shouldn’t have been possible.

  Ester kept her eyes on the road. It was an easy drive. Not a lot of cars were out at this time on a Monday. She replied that of course it was hard for a human brain to comprehend, but clearly it was possible because it had happened.

  ‘If billions and billions of uninterrupted chemical reactions are occurring,’ she said, ‘or “attempting to create the universe”, then at some point one result will be the universe as we know it, and that’s the condition for our existence, whic
h in turn is the condition for our ability to think about its incomprehensibility. The chain of events seems unlikely because we’re reading them backwards. We simply have to subordinate ourselves, and not try to subordinate nature to our consciousness’s understanding of likelihood. The truth is there whether or not we understand it.’

  ‘Right,’ he said and laughed wickedly as though he was reacting to something else.

  ‘Even stranger than the origin of the universe,’ Ester countered, ‘is that people can go an entire life without wondering if it should be lived differently.’

  She trained her gaze on the road.

  ‘Was that a dig?’

  She could tell he felt very close to her today. Only then did he catch that type of suggestion and do so with a smile. The rekindled joy of intimacy lifted her up above the Östergötland plains and made everything beautiful. Nature was at its most delightful on these late May days, she thought, as she drove along the ugly motorway. The light was ethereal, none of the beauty faded, only July would usher in staleness; then dissatisfaction would be a grimy garb cloaking existence, a swathe of mould over all that was alive.

  They arrived in Norrköping around six and, because they were hungry, headed straight to a restaurant by the canal that Olof knew. There weren’t many people about that night, the city and pub were theirs. They ordered shellfish tagliatelle with white wine sauce. The portions were large and steaming hot. They talked about everything that came to mind. It was a notable afternoon and evening. And so of course Olof said:

  ‘I don’t feel good in my situation.’

  He seemed to want to say more, geared up for it a couple of times, but instead looked wistfully over the canal.

  ‘There goes a car just like yours,’ he said.

  Ester watched the car. The same Twingo but in another colour.

  ‘Did you really buy it one day, just like that?’

  ‘I had some savings.’

  She didn’t mention that she’d bought it to drive him around. Ester made sure that everything important she did she did on impulse, so as to avoid being hindered by reason’s wise objections. To her it seemed they always followed in the footsteps of fear and encouraged passivity. If you listened to wisdom and fear, nothing would get done.

  ‘It was cheap,’ she said, ‘and had plenty of miles on it. I don’t know how long it’ll run.’

  ‘Don’t fall asleep at the wheel on your drive home.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  He clearly wanted to say more. Ester wondered about the meaning of his confession about not feeling good in his situation and how he wanted her to take it. Maybe he was also thinking about the stifling summer ahead and wanted to prevent her from meeting someone else, wanted to say that she should wait for him until the summer had passed.

  ‘You could spend the night if you’re tired. It’s a long drive round trip.’

  He continued his earnest pondering.

  ‘But of course I don’t know what the apartment I’m staying in looks like.’

  Ester waited.

  ‘Maybe it’s better if we see each other again in a while?’

  His tone told her that he was finished deliberating and had decided to resist his lust. Sense had indeed followed in the footsteps of fear and had encouraged passivity. But waiting was not difficult when he was wavering. If she only knew that everything would one day change, she could be endlessly patient.

  Their interactions seemed unparalleled and rare to Ester. No one else could have ever experienced such intimacy and taken such delight in another’s company as when things were good between them. And now he was on his way to her. The summer lay ahead of them, the deadliest season for marriages.

  ‘It’s light until late now; driving back to Stockholm won’t be a problem,’ she said.

  Olof seemed relieved and disappointed, and looked out over the canal as if he was trying to catch sight of his intentions and see what they looked like.

  ‘Please be careful,’ he said. ‘Drive safely so nothing happens to you.’

  Ester wanted to see what he was contemplating and looked out over the canal, too.

  ‘I’ll get a lift from the station when the others turn up with the train,’ he said. ‘Otherwise you could’ve driven me to the apartment.’

  He hadn’t quite decided how the evening was going to end; ambivalence left it open a crack.

  ‘I can still drive you to the apartment,’ said Ester.

  When that crack was resolutely shut, there would be a moment of calm amidst the ambivalence, until unease returned and the process began again. It was like the tides.

  ‘No. I’ll go with the others.’

  They split the bill and drove to the station where the rest of the ensemble would soon arrive. When Ester dropped him off, she didn’t kill the engine. It would have seemed too keen and could backfire. Olof made no attempt to get out. He took her hand, which was resting on the gear stick, stroked her thumb with his and said:

  ‘Maybe you could drive me here again.’

  Then he got out of the car, took his bag from the boot and walked towards the train station without looking back.

  She journeyed home through grey-blue air. An early summer’s eve. Ester weighed nothing because bliss makes people light. ‘Maybe you could drive me here again.’ Impossible to misunderstand.

  She could have had him for the night. But she didn’t want isolated hours. To take a leap, people always needed a summer. In August, riots kicked off, wars were declared, and people committed unpremeditated murder. And married people divorced. This evening he’d announced what was to come.

  One and a half hours later, Ester was airing her apartment and so satisfied she could have endured days without contact. But only a little time passed before a text message from Olof arrived. Lying in his nomadic burrow with its scuffed corners and sterile walls, he wrote, thinking about the universe and its constants. How had she explained that the unbelievable had happened, that the universe could come into being? He’d already forgotten.

  Within a few minutes, she replied:

  ‘If everything keeps going and efforts never cease, then at some point everything will end up in exactly the right position in relation to everything else. Once is enough. A continuum of attempts is what causes that single instance. Therefore, the constant striving of chemical reactions should never be stopped, whether you’re an atom or another kind of particle. Thank you for tonight. /E’

  Two weeks passed – tranquil, pleasant weeks during which Ester finished the Frege translation she’d been working on since the winter and had the ease to think about something other than her desperation. Influenced by the mental equilibrium from the Norrköping trip and what had preceded it, she achieved greater clarity about problems of a political-philosophical nature that she’d previously only had a notion of. She refined her points of view, clarified their contours and drafted an essay.

  What more, she’d found a way to bring about another car trip with Olof, this time to northwest Skåne.

  He had a summer house in Nyhamnsläge and Ester had come to an agreement with Vera, who was renting a house in Mölle over the summer, about helping her with the rent for four weeks, so Ester could be geographically close to Olof while she and Vera kept each other company.

  That’s how it came to pass that Ester was lying on her bed, composing a message to Olof supposedly from her Renault Twingo. The car was writing to him to tell him about how it had enjoyed his warm body in the passenger seat and wondered if he didn’t want to do her the honour again. Forget about the car’s extremely trying owner, she didn’t need to be involved, but imagine enjoying the weight of his body and firm musculature once more during a longer trip.

  Clucking with laughter, Olof called her after a break in rehearsals to enquire about the date and time of Mrs Twingo’s intended departure; he was planning on travelling down on Friday. Ester said that Twingo was probably definitely unmarried, but even that would have done nothing to stop the wanton piece of tail f
rom standing on a cross-street near his home with a full tank of petrol at five o’clock on Friday.

  And so it was decided. Ester and Miss Twingo dressed in a pea-green travelling suit waited for him there, dazzled by the fiery branches of afternoon sun illuminating his figure as he rounded the corner. He looked tanned and healthy in his slightly distressed jeans and white shirt with rolled-up sleeves. He stroked the car’s body and enacted a small scene using his entire self and just the right measure of scabrousness, demonstrating how glorious it was to be allowed to enter Miss Twingo’s warm, soft interior.

  Ester laughed gleefully, and then they were off.

  Through Sörmland and Östergötland, the colours of the summer’s evening intensified as they drove. Each year she was as surprised as ever by the evening light in June, violet and marvellous. She would have wanted to keep on driving with him for the rest of her life, no part of her wanted to arrive. But when they were outside Linköping they stopped at a roadside restaurant where they ate breaded fish with remoulade and boiled potatoes which had been left out too long and had acquired a miserable oxidized membrane; she noticed that Olof didn’t share her wish to never arrive. He wanted nothing more than to arrive, arrive in the solitude of his house.

  After the dinner break, when they were again zipping through the greenery and the evening light, Ester asked a question she’d been mulling over ever since she knew she’d be in the same part of Skåne as Olof for weeks.

  ‘What should we do if I run into you and Ebba? In the shop or on the beach or street or wherever people run into each other. How should I behave?’

  His face looked tense. This was not a good question, indeed it was a very bad one. It implied that he had done something that needed to be hidden. According to him, nothing had happened if it was unnamed, uncategorized and unformulated; when everything was fluid, nothing could be distinguished.