“Just come to read the newspaper,” Tore said, reaching her.
“You’re always welcome here.”
While Tore settled in, Iris relaxed back into her day. This was her library, her domain. She breathed in the smell of paper and started to push the trolley down an aisle, returning books to their rightful places.
Then two hands, hugging her from behind. She was about to turn around when she spotted the familiar pair of Converse on the floor. “Excuse me…” said the voice, hands sliding up her stomach, cupping her weightless breasts. She closed her eyes, enjoying the touch for just a moment. “… I’m looking for my wife.”
Rolf pressed himself against her back, nibbling her ear, an erection against her spine. Back in the day, she would have giggled.
“I want to fuck you,” he hissed into her ear.
“Not here,” she said, pulling away.
“Come on, Iris. Where’s your sense of adventure?”
When she didn’t respond, he released her.
“So…” he said grumpily. “How was your meeting?”
“It was fine, thank you.” She turned to face him. “What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to see you.”
“I thought you disliked this non-creative environment. I believe you called it ‘conventional and uninspiring’ the last time you were here.” It had upset her and she wanted to get him back. This was her home away from home.
“Iris…”
“Perhaps you don’t like it because it’s not displaying your art?”
“Anyway…” He stroked her hair. “Who was that woman I just saw leaving?”
He had seen Lena even though she had left through the back door? Was he spying on her?
“Lena,” she said. “She’s part of the council meetings.”
“Right. She’s hot. Available?”
“No.”
“That doesn’t normally stop you,” he said, stroking her cheek.
She gave him a disapproving look. “Rolf, don’t.”
“Right, you don’t talk about it anymore, I remember.”
He scratched the Jimi Hendrix moustache, sulking, and she pulled his ponytail to lighten the mood, just like she would have in the old days.
“Get out of here,” she said playfully. “I’ve got a group of second graders coming any minute.”
“Oh, baby.” He kissed her intensely; his relentless desire for her was still arousing. “If only people could see you like this… this wild thing. Everyone thinks you’re so fucking polished.”
She laughed.
“Let’s not tell anyone.”
“So this Lena…?”
“She’s a colleague. You’re not getting jealous with old age, are you?”
He winked at her. “Just making sure everyone appreciates you as much as I do.”
She picked up a book and demonstratively placed it on a shelf. I have a job to do.
“Okay, I will leave you to it,” he said. “I’m sure you have your reasons.”
The mood changed as he backed away. He was upset about being rejected, but she knew he wouldn’t want to fight. No matter how much he loved starting debates in the media, he despised conflict with her.
“I should mind my own business,” he muttered.
“You should.”
She glanced at him as he left, the flamboyant shirt disappearing around the corner, acknowledging that she still loved the man she had married over twenty years ago. Her mother hadn’t been quite so thrilled at the time.
”I give you one year,” she had said. “He’s too elusive.”
It gave Iris immense pleasure to prove her mother wrong. At the time, however, she had felt disappointed and upset, especially since her mother had been a rebel herself. Brought up in Ireland, she had run off with a Swedish sailor at a young age and her family had never forgiven her.
Iris hadn’t intended to live an alternative life with Rolf. It was just that with Rolf, you had to take it or leave it. And so she had agreed to take it.
Chapter 10 – Erik
March 2016
An agonising week and a half has gone past without Anna’s condition changing. She’s not better but she’s also not worse; Erik is supposed to seek comfort in this. Only the colour on her face has changed, from a bruised purple to a yellowy green.
She’s in the same ward, the same room, the same bed. Everything is unchanged, even the depressing view of the two-storey parking garage, the dreary cement cold and uninviting. Every time he looks outside, it’s as if the world is grey, even the clouds look like they’re mocking him with their greyness.
Anna also remains in the same position. Don’t they move her?
Her still frame unnerves him. If only she could wake up and argue with him. Anything but this silence.
“She looks kind of weird, Daddy. When is she going to wake up?”
The doctors keep saying ‘if’ but the boys stick to ‘when’. It worries him, because no one knows for sure. Despite this, he tries to remain optimistic in front of the boys.
“Her body just needs to heal, buddy.”
Sebastian kisses her cheek and tells her to please get better soon.
“We need you at home,” he whispers in his mum’s ear.
How will Sebastian cope if Anna doesn’t make it? Lukas on the other hand, is handling it better. He seems more oblivious, driving a car down Anna’s leg, pretending it’s a road, her knee a mountain. At least until his grandmother tells him to stop. Mum’s big cuddly arms can be deceiving, her wagging finger turning her into a total killjoy. Give Lukas a break, he wants to say, but he doesn’t. He is too tired to argue. Being in the hospital with the children is exhausting.
*
When they arrive back home, the white postbox with daintily painted flowers on it is filled with ‘get well soon’ cards from people in the town, mainly parents, students and colleagues.
“People prefer to send a card than to come over,” he comments.
While he thinks people are cowards for hiding behind their precious wooden doors, he’s secretly happy. If someone did visit, he wouldn’t know what to say. Even the short conversation with the neighbour was awkward.
“Well maybe they don’t know how to express themselves,” Mum says. “That’s understandable after all. At least a card is better than nothing, it shows they care.”
He shrugs. “Sure.”
The boys ask to watch TV and Mum lets them without asking his opinion. It’s okay, he doesn’t mind too much. He’s used to Anna calling the shots and making up the rules.
Mum has more or less moved in and handles Sebastian and Lukas. Out of the hospital, the boys and Mum are good at sticking with the program of ‘business as usual’. The counsellor has suggested this approach. Erik tries to adopt it himself but he feels a constant unease, an unreachable scratch under his skin. The continuity that surrounds him helps though. The day care hours remain the same, everybody must treat the boys as they did before, and at home… well, Erik probably hugs them more than normal.
He does that now, even though they are heavily invested in Tom chasing Jerry. Competing with the cat versus mouse race, Erik kneels down and holds Lukas. “I’m here for you,” he says.
“Mm,” Lukas responds, his eyes on the screen.
Erik inhales the scent of his son, a mixture of washing powder and dried ketchup. Then he lets him go. Time to switch. The never-ending battle with twins: giving the children the exact same amount of attention.
“Come here, Sebastian,” he says.
Sebastian hugs him hard, burrowing his head into Erik’s chest. His hair smells of baby shampoo. Anna hasn’t wanted to upgrade to adult hair products yet.
This is my life, he thinks. These children. I am never letting them go.
But in that moment, he has to, because Lukas is laughing so hard that Sebastian withdraws from Erik’s embrace to see what’s so funny. It’s comforting to see that they’re still able to be carefree children.
Er
ik leaves them to it and joins Mum in the kitchen. She’s busy making coffee.
“I can’t compete with cartoons,” he complains.
“They’ll grow out of it,” she says amused.
Outside the window, a few boys are making their way home from ice hockey training, their sticks slung over their shoulders as they cycle down the road. It looks unsafe but also very normal. It’s as if nothing has changed out there. The world continues as if Anna wasn’t attacked.
In that moment, Erik decides not to go back to the hospital. The band has a gig this evening. He hasn’t told Mum and the guys aren’t exactly counting on him but maybe he could go? Be normal for one night.
Mum puts two cups of coffee on a tray together with a plate of rye bread covered in soft prawn cheese. His favourite. Mum knows how to look after him. She carries the tray into the living room where they both slump into a Poäng armchair each, rocking back and forth a couple of times. They’re both feeling drained.
The police interviewed Mum today. Apparently she told them she couldn’t think of anyone who would want to harm someone as ‘truly wonderful’ as Anna.
“It won’t be easy for the police,” Erik agrees. “Everyone loves her.”
“I know,” Mum says gravely. “I really don’t understand what could have happened. How could someone like Anna be attacked? I mean… I don’t know. I just…”
“You don’t have to understand everything,” he says.
“But it’s such a small town,” she continues. “This isn’t Malmö or Stockholm. Surely everybody knows everything about everybody? I mean, someone must know who did this. And why. She’s so caring, Erik. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know.” But he doesn’t know about everybody knowing everything.
He puts the bread in his mouth, chews and looks out over the garden. The hedge bordering onto the road and the neighbours’ plots needs cutting. Normally Anna would remind him of this.
“This is Mörna,” Mum says. “Only what… ten thousand people live here?”
“It’s a sleepy town,” Erik agrees. “But we’re not particularly friendly with anyone. Maybe because of Anna’s job we’ve been quite private.”
He’s always hated the weekend trips to the supermarket, when they would have to stop every five minutes, bumping into parents who would want to discuss their child’s progress. Anna didn’t mind and would happily chat while he disappeared down an aisle. Even though he also worked locally, few people seemed to recognise the guy who painted their house.
“The police will find the person who did this,” Mum says confidently. “They have to.”
“Maybe it was just a random act, a criminal travelling through town who happened to see her alone?”
Have the police thought of that possibility?
“I’m sure they are looking into it, Erik. You need to let them get on with their job.”
Linda Johansson hasn’t revealed any possible results related to the note he provided them with. There’s a need for ‘confidentiality during the preliminary investigation’ apparently but she ‘thanks him for his cooperation’. Fucking fantastic. So he must just sit there and do what exactly? He can’t stand it.
“Mum, tonight…”
“You’re going to the hospital?”
He drinks up his coffee and wipes his mouth on a flower-clad napkin.
“I thought maybe I would hang out with Rob… I feel like I’m going nuts.”
Mum raises her eyebrows and he can tell what she’s thinking.
“Sure, whatever,” she says and gets up to do the dishes, her back to him.
“I mean, I think it would be good to…”
“Fine.”
She doesn’t sound ‘fine’ and so he doesn’t go. He doesn’t want to deal with Mum’s disapproval. Not now. Until he’s found a new routine, he needs her. Should he drive back to the hospital? The thought of Anna being there alone makes him feel guilty, and what if she wakes up and he’s not there? It’s unsettling. But at night, when the ward is eerily quiet and only the disheartening sound of machines can be heard, it scares him, the tense white walls and the stretched over-washed linen adding to the intimidation. Everything around Anna has been set up to look perfect, masking her frailty.
When the boys are bathed and in bed, he stays in his room and flicks through the TV channels. He ends up watching an old war movie, Where Eagles Dare. Anna used to like it, especially Clint Eastwood’s performance. She would fall asleep of course; she rarely made it through an entire film. He imagines Anna next to him, her head resting on the pillow, gently snoring. But all he can see is her swollen eye, the cut lip, the cheeks covered in a gradient of yellow and green.
He turns to face the wall and goes to sleep.
*
In the morning, while Mum and the boys go about ‘business as usual’, he drives to the hospital. There, he sits in Anna’s room, on a stiff wooden chair, watching his wife. He would feel better if he could do something, help in any way. Everyone treads so damn carefully around him. They feed him coffee regularly but then they go about their day while he simply sits there, his eyes darting from Anna, to the muted TV, to the window. Green city buses and yellow long-distance buses pick people up and drop them off. That’s the most exciting event there is. Cars drive past too. Mostly Volvos. Sometimes he counts them.
Mum pops in to see him, which breaks the monotony. She has a habit of disturbing the staff however, asking them a million questions about the respirator, Anna’s position in the bed, her brain activity, the bruising, her ribs – are they healing? – and her hair. Is someone washing her hair? Mum has also inquired about the security measures at the hospital.
“What if her attacker comes back to finish the job?”
“We’re taking it seriously,” they were told, but there’s no guard outside Anna’s room.
“Maybe that only happens in the movies?” he tells Mum.
When Mum leaves, the nurses sigh with relief, and so does Erik but he does have a few questions of his own.
He asks the nurse: “What’s the security really like here?”
“People can’t just come and go,” she says. “We have tight controls.”
That sounds true. Thinking about his own visits, he realises that no one can enter the ward without buzzing the door first. A nurse needs to tick your name of a list before he or she can let you in.
“What if someone asks for her, someone who isn’t on the approved list?”
“That’s unlikely to happen. No one should know where exactly she is,” the nurse says. “She’s been registered as an anonymous patient.” She smiles faintly. “Just like a famous person would be.”
“Right,” he says. Comparing his wife to a celebrity doesn’t feel particularly appropriate. Still, he’s content. He’s asked and has received an answer. That’s responsible.
Perhaps as a result of Mum’s constant nagging, the nurse is washing Anna today, revealing the bruises on her body. It’s the first time he witnesses these.
“I’m sorry,” she says, looking up at him. “Maybe you should wait outside.”
“It’s okay, I just…” He can’t finish the sentence.
He’s thinking: it’s just that I haven’t seen her naked in so long. The skin is so white, creating a sharp contrast with the vast, blood-filled patches where she was beaten. He wants to turn away but he can’t. He forces himself to look, to follow the lines of the veins as they merge with the discolorations. His eyes linger by the scar from where the twins were born. Under her navel, close to the dark pubic hair. He closes his eyes, remembers the birth. The failed epidural, Anna’s discomfort at the doctor’s tugging hands. Her pain but then also their joy. Two healthy boys. He loves his sons.
He opens his eyes and watches the nurse’s caring hand sweep up and down Anna’s legs with a sponge, the flesh melting into the mattress.
“Can she… feel anything?” he asks. “I don’t want her to feel any pain.”
“I’m very gent
le,” the nurse assures him.
Gentle. He was a gentle lover. Anna appreciated that; it made her feel safe and adventurous. She often made him blush. Not that he would ever admit it, not even to Rob, but he was pretty straight-laced. Anna, however, wanted to try everything ‘at least once’. It made them grow closer and stronger, and when she returned to Sweden from her week’s holiday in Spain, he quit his job and followed her. He told her his contract was up even though it wasn’t. He was in fact giving up the opportunity to join a local band. He just couldn’t let her get away.
After the C-section, they waited two months to have sex, as per the doctor’s recommendation. Then another month and yet another. Anna wanted to lose the weight first. She was worried it was going to hurt and she didn’t want to risk another pregnancy, yet she no longer favoured birth control. Abstinence seemed to be her new preference.
“You would be a really good nun,” he said once, a joke she didn’t appreciate.
Perhaps he didn’t try hard enough or he didn’t compliment her enough. All he knows is that the few times they did have sex, she didn’t let go as fully as the girl he married. He hasn’t been able to discuss it with anyone.
The nurse moves up to wash Anna’s chest. She has amazing breasts. It’s wrong. He can’t stare. Sitting quietly, he glares at the walls instead. He doesn’t feel like getting up, just wants to sit here, in the same room as his naked wife. Him and his thoughts, the splashing of sponge in water, sponge on skin, sponge back in the water, soothing him.
“I love her,” he says to the room.
“Of course you do,” the nurse says. “I’m really sorry about what happened.”
He doesn’t want to think about it. Instead he concentrates on the landscape someone has carelessly framed and stuck on one of the walls. It’s completely uninspiring. Not a person in sight. Just grass and water, a cloudy sky. He squints, looking for life. A bird even? But no. The painter obviously had a bad day. Just like he is right now.
When the nurse finally leaves, the overpowering respirator takes over the room again. The sound of the machine gets on his nerves. He stands up and paces around the room, the plain décor not stimulating in the least.
When I Wake Up Page 5