Acts of Infidelity

by Lena Andersson

  As with all else, love follows the ineluctable principles of evolution. When put under strain, the feeling mutates in order to survive the change in conditions and like all life, it wants first and foremost to remain. People want to love. It’s more important to them than being loved. Ester Nilsson went to great lengths and disregarded what she needed to disregard to keep loving Olof Sten.

  During a short break in Olof’s tour the following week, they met up at Ester’s place and had a home-cooked dinner. She was once again restrained and impartial, free from expectation. They talked it out, and Olof said they had the rest of their lives and being with Ester was wonderful. They made love for half the night, ate breakfast and travelled to the Hellasgården nature reserve where everything held the same promise as the small, hard buds on the trees. They walked for ten kilometres, then spent the entire day and night together as well as the following night.

  The heat arrived suddenly, twenty degrees in the middle of April, and spring burst into bloom. But the season was treacherous, the ground still cold though the sun overhead was warm. This long period of reconciliation gave them time to sync their rhythms and find harmony. Their connection became more earnest and fun, less breathless and fragmented. From this point forward their encounters were light and filled with wondrous desire. Olof was a changed man and didn’t once push her away. No ambivalence was apparent, no complications; she could count on him. As soon as he was back from touring he was with her and if the tour brought him close to Stockholm, she was with him. For Ester, it was like swallowing a capsule of joy with an easily digested casing made of gelatine and doubt. At the weekend he had a duty to his wife but because, according to Ester Nilsson, it wasn’t possible to live like this in the long run, she was sure that time was on her and Olof’s side.

  They often strolled through town, and on one of these occasions when Ester felt a little down and was fretting, he stopped in the manicured garden behind Parliament, leaned over and kissed her worries away. After that they walked into Old Town, where the air offered no resistance and gravity had lost its pull. They floated along Västerlånggatan, their arms around each other, passed Slussen, went up Götgatsbacken and turned on to Tjärhovsgatan, a backstreet that was less trafficked and more anonymous than the lively Folkungagatan. Halfway down Tjärhovsgatan, it was time to part. Acquaintances of his might spot them here, Olof said, and kissed her again with the same intensity. It was Friday; the weekend was fast approaching. He and Ebba were going to spend the night with friends on Runmar Island. Ester imagined it would be an insufferable weekend and each insufferable weekend brought him closer to the inevitable break-up.

  With light steps, she crossed Katarina Cemetery that balmy evening, his kisses lingering on her skin and in the heat of her lips.

  One night, after they’d spent a month in this trusting and reciprocal way, they were lying close together, naked in bed, talking. Olof told her that when he was very young, around seventeen, he became enamoured with an older woman who lived in the building across the street from him; she often sat on her balcony smoking cigarillos. He didn’t know anything about her and didn’t try to find out, but he fantasized about her. She became a fixed idea. The woman had a slender neck and slim arms, and her hair was always arranged in a loose, pretty up-do. He became obsessed with the woman on the balcony but was content having her at a distance and wanted nothing more, so his image of her would never be distorted by the mundanity of the flesh. In his daydreams, he called her Ilse. One day a removal van arrived and the apartment was emptied. Soon it was filled with other people’s items. He never saw Ilse again.

  Olof said that he’d never told anyone the story of Ilse before. He seemed deeply moved by it. Ester was touched by this confidence but found the story so completely conventional she wondered if he’d experienced it or had read it in some embarrassing autobiography.

  This was how she came up with the prank in Karlstad, when ‘Ilse’ was to be waiting on the square at 10 p.m. with an oxeye daisy in her buttonhole.

  They’d laughed so hard and played so earnestly for the past month that Ester couldn’t imagine the flower and the card would be received as anything but a flirty lark, drawing them even closer together.

  It was on the day before Walpurgis Night that Ester Nilsson asked a florist in Karlstad to go to the Scala Theatre with a gerbera from Ilse and a written request for Olof to meet her on the main square. For the rest of the day Ester was filled with her whim and looked forward to Olof calling her right after that evening’s performance, laughing at the joke. She declined Lotta’s invitation to join her for dinner just so she could await his call at home.

  Three days on, he had yet to get in touch.

  They were back to their old ways, that inevitable return. Was the flower from Ilse too intimate? Did his thermostat read: You’ve given Ester a taste and now she wants to devour you. Shrink your flame, push her away, hold her at a distance, put her on a diet of bread and water because this is not working.

  For one week it was silent as a grave. She worried that she’d hurt him.

  On a hot Sunday in May, Olof called. Ester was polishing a collection of texts that were to be published in the autumn and had planned on working the whole day through. She hadn’t counted on hearing from him, and so the joy rippling through her was all the greater.

  ‘You want to come with me to Hellasgården?’ he pronounced.

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘Or maybe you’re working and I’m interrupting?’

  ‘You’re never interrupting. I’ll swing by yours as soon as I’ve showered.’

  ‘Do you have to shower?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, shower quickly then.’

  And so they travelled to Hellas again and walked through the tender green. They ate lunch on the patio of a timbered cabin. The conversation flowed, topics bounced in, were discussed and bounced out, but no mention was made of Ilse or the gerbera. Olof had to go home and take care of something in the afternoon but said that he’d very much like to meet up again in the evening. They could, for instance, go out to eat in her neighbourhood, so they didn’t have to think about cooking. Clearly, he was compensating for something.

  Had he snuffed out the flame he carried for Ester after the Ilse incident, but regretted doing so when he noticed how senseless, quiet and unpleasant life became? Was this like when he set out to lead a healthier life in the new year – sticking to it for a few days before it got boring?

  At seven that evening in May, they met at La Famiglia on Alströmergatan. After dinner, they went back to Ester’s and fell right into bed. The gerbera had still not been mentioned, and Ester needed to bring it up in order to fill the vacuum that was still between them. So she asked if Olof might have seen Ilse recently, perhaps when he was in Karlstad? She must be getting on in years.

  Now, Ester thought, they could at least laugh about it. But instead something peculiar happened. Olof arranged his expression and voice to sound surprised with a hint of indifference.

  ‘Were you the one who sent that flower?’

  The surprise was well-played, so she couldn’t be sure.

  ‘But you’ve known that all along, haven’t you?’

  ‘I thought it was Ebba.’

  By the time Ester had collected herself, she’d understood that a new distancing measure was in play. She sat up to better see his face since he was probably lying to her.

  ‘Never for a second did you think Ebba sent you that flower.’

  Olof looked into the middle distance, where there was nothing to see.

  ‘First I thought it was the stage technicians joking around. But they didn’t know what I was talking about. Then I called Ebba and asked if she’d sent flowers from some Ilse.’

  Ester’s body was no longer close to Olof’s. She couldn’t stand the physical contact. This was like living in a play by Ionesco, she thought.

  ‘You’ll never convince me that you thought it was Ebba.’

  ‘But I re
ally did. She’s got a good sense of humour.’

  ‘At least you thought it was comic. That’s good.’

  ‘The first thing everyone says about Ebba is that she’s funny.’

  Ester was far too sure of their compatibility for her to see the roads down which his emotional life led him. She didn’t know what it was like for Olof, always begging for his cup to be filled and feeling too hollow inside to ever believe he might be swindling her.

  She was already on her feet and fully dressed. It felt like she never wanted to be near Olof again, but knew that tomorrow she’d be filled with longing and would be explaining away his shortcomings.

  Olof stayed in bed, consumed with directing his play and his role in it. He said:

  ‘Ebba was quite surprised when I asked her about it.’

  ‘I can imagine, because you knew it wasn’t her. How could you know that and still call up to ask? I don’t understand. What you’re saying and playing at right now is frightening me; it actually sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself that you thought it was Ebba. Lying about your life is bad enough. If you’re trying to convince yourself of your own lies and want me to believe them, too, then we have a real problem.’

  ‘It hadn’t occurred to me that it could’ve been you.’

  Could this be true? Did he think so little of her? When he received the flower from Ilse, did he really not think of her first? Ilse, whose existence no one but Ester was aware of until recently. But then what kept him coming back to Ester? Why did he want her if he never thought of her? And if he never thought of her, why did he need to cultivate this forced distance?

  A vicious circle of questions. There must be a missing thought, one that was hidden from her and which falsified the premises and as such the conclusions; the simplest and most inaccessible of all being that not everyone took life as seriously as she did.

  Olof’s birthday fell on a Saturday that May. He celebrated on a rented boat in the archipelago with family, friends and his wife. It was the hottest day of the year, and Stockholm’s sheer beauty pained the city’s more sensitive souls. Ester spent most of the day with Elin, and as usual they conducted a detailed analysis of their relationship woes and tried to understand them logically. Elin was having problems with her mother and had qualms about a friend. Ester had her eternal topic.

  ‘When Olof and I see each other, it’s wonderful,’ she told Elin. ‘But it doesn’t go anywhere. I don’t see him reflecting on the fact that two relationships are one too many. He seems to think it’s just enough. But when we talk, it’s not clear if this is in fact what he thinks or if it just happens to be this way. His thoughts and feelings seem to lack a backbone.’

  Elin replied dryly, matter-of-fact.

  ‘No backbone, no morals. And you still want him?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. And I believe everyone has morals. Somewhere deep down, everyone knows what’s right, even if they can’t work out why.’

  ‘Sure. We all have some moral sense.’

  ‘Fatima thinks he’s also seeing Barbro Fors.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Elin gave her a questioning look.

  ‘To balance out me and his wife. But surely no one can carry on like that, no one can be that misguided?’

  ‘Sounds highly unlikely. Have you seen anything that suggests this might be the case?’

  ‘Not really, no. But if it’s true, then I’ve been so wrong about him that I’ll have to sever every nerve in my body that is tuned to him. And I can only do that once I really believe it. Until I’m sure, I’ll always find some way to believe it to be otherwise. And sometimes, quite often really, I do believe Olof loves me.’

  Elin adapted easily to Ester’s needs and said:

  ‘Maybe he’s caught up in something we don’t know about.’

  ‘It seems that way, doesn’t it?

  ‘Let’s say it is until we find out more, and we’ll think about what it might be. But I don’t believe what Fatima said.’

  ‘Thanks. What a relief. Neither do I.’

  They ate an early dinner up on Mosebacke, where the breeze was mild and warm, sitting with the best view of the harbour entrance and the water, the lapping of which could not be heard at that height. Perhaps one of the white boats returning from the archipelago was carrying Olof and his party.

  These bright May evenings were difficult for the existentially wretched, more melancholy than those in dark November. May nights were for the happy and content, and birthdays were among those moments when mistresses were made aware of their number two status, however much they felt themselves to be number one in secret.

  The temperature didn’t drop though night had fallen. The heat lingered in the tarmac and the walls. No cool relief rolled in from the water. You could hardly tell where your body ended and the surroundings began.

  ‘Next year you’ll be there on his birthday,’ Elin said.

  ‘You think? Do you think that disintegration is inevitable?’

  ‘There’s always some disintegration in the end. Everything is constantly changing even if you don’t notice it. Even inside you.’

  ‘Not inside me. I’m in a hermetically sealed chamber. Nothing gets in that changes my feelings. I’m sort of frozen. Love gets freeze-dried in conditions like these. Just add water; everything’s intact. That’s why I fear this could go on for ever.’

  ‘No one is in a hermetically sealed chamber. No such vacuum exists.’

  The boats were like seashells on the water. Ester considered her friend’s words and wondered which boat Olof might be on, but then she realized that the archipelago boats didn’t tie up here, but at Strömmen, a bay further along. Had this occurred to her sooner, she would’ve suggested they find a spot on the veranda at the Grand Hotel, just to be close by.

  Olof’s tour had come to an end, and he was back home. The two final performances were at the Stockholm City Theatre and Ester was in the audience, watching with an aching heart but without flowers and without making herself known. She didn’t want to intrude or embarrass him in front of others.

  His first morning off, the free time that began now and would last all summer, Olof called and asked to meet right away. Ester hurried over to him on Bondegatan. They jumped right into his marital bed, the saturated light and colours of the budding summer that spilled through the window. It was the first time they’d met at Olof’s in this bed. It was a clear shift, one of many, and it had to mean that a breakthrough was nigh. Until now, he’d put the brakes on this step. Ester felt utterly hopeful. Long did they lie in each other’s arms.

  At 1 p.m. they took the bus across the bridge to Djurgården and went to Blå Porten. In the courtyard, bubbling with life, the gulls and house sparrows eyed up their lunch trays. Ester remembered them eating herring here in November one and a half years before, and how heavy her body had become when a few short words left his lips. But now there was lightness in the shade of these lavish trees, and she was savouring it with an agreeable mix of listlessness and acuity. But soon summer would be in full swing – a dejecting fact. The question of the coming months was an abyss, but it had to be asked. And so she did.

  ‘What’s going to happen this summer?’

  ‘I’ll be in Skåne.’

  It sounded so simple. He was going to be in Skåne. And where would Ester be while Olof was in Skåne? He gave her a kind look. She remembered sitting here before, asking a man who she was helplessly in love with what he’d be doing over the summer and getting the same unfeeling reply. She sat with Olof amidst Djurgård’s greenery and lay in his marital bed but had no impact on his life. He was the engine in hers, but she wasn’t even a tiny propeller in his. She would have moved to the desert with Olof Sten; he wasn’t prepared to change anything.

  On this point, Ester was incorrect. She exerted a veritable force on Olof’s life, the force that mistresses exert – no more, no less – a force whose vectors follow a traditional script, wherein summer is the time for the wedded pair and the mi
stress enters patent quarantine until normalcy is restored with the arrival of autumn.

  Soon Olof would travel to his beloved Kullaberg. After the long tour and nearly six months of temporary living arrangements, he looked forward to a summer of rest and relaxation. Ester felt she really should respect this sentiment. She wanted to be generous and tolerant and meet Olof halfway when it was important to him.

  ‘Maybe you could text me sometime during the summer,’ she said.

  ‘Of course I will.’

  They sat in silence with the birdsong.

  ‘I can visit, if you like,’ said Ester.

  He furrowed his brow with agreeable puzzlement.

  ‘That might be difficult.’

  She nodded several times to show that she understood just how hard it would be and how complicated his situation was.

  ‘But I can come and see you in Stockholm,’ Olof said.

  Ester studied his face to see if he were kidding.

  ‘You mean during the summer? You’ll come to Stockholm just to see me?’

  The heaviness waned and her heart sped.

  ‘Or we could check into a hotel for a few nights,’ he said and turned his blithe self towards the sun and shut his eyes.

  ‘A hotel in Skåne?’

  ‘No,’ he said, changing his mind and gently shaking his head. ‘You and I, we’re not going to stay at any hotel. We’ll stay in a castle.’

  Ester’s flickering breaths became shorter and hotter.

  ‘A large castle for us. With fountains and feather beds.’

  ‘Where is that?’ she asked, breathless.

  In many ways, Ester Nilsson was unsuited for this life. She thought Olof was talking about a real castle-turned-hotel in Skåne that he was actually imagining them checking into that summer when Ester came down in person for a few actual days and nights that they had officially put in their diaries.