‘Put on something nice, Anneli,’ Hans calls out as he steps through the door such evenings.
Before they leave, Mother comes to say goodnight. Then she is beautifully dressed and her perfume is sweet and strong and drifts around the entire bedroom. Marianne can almost see it. Sometimes she reaches out to try and capture it in her hands, but when she puts her hands to her face she can smell nothing.
Some evenings Mother and Hans bring guests home with them when they return, but these guests don’t come to eat. It is late, and Marianne has been in bed for hours, but she always wakes up when she hears the front door open. It sounds different when they bring guests. Happier. And she listens as they turn on the music, hears them talk, sing and laugh, and the glasses chink.
The girls come and go. The babysitters. Some often enough to become real people. Like Annette who lets her sit on the sofa in the living room and watch television until late. Annette wants to be a movie star and Hans has told her he will try to help her. If she looks at Annette and squints a little, Annette is almost as beautiful as Mother. But when she looks properly she can see that Annette’s blonde hair is dark near the scalp, and her teeth are crooked. Annette says she needs to lose weight, but as soon as the front door has closed behind Mother and Hans she goes to the kitchen and opens the fridge to see what’s there. Mother always puts out a bowl with nuts and sweets for Annette, but Annette still checks the fridge. And when she finds an opened bottle of wine in there she pours herself a glass. Marianne has to promise not to tell anybody. Then they sit together in front of the TV. Marianne doesn’t much like TV, but she likes to sit there with Annette and feel like a grown-up person.
One evening when Mother and Hans return, Mother comes into her room to whisper goodnight as usual. Marianne lies with her eyes closed. She can never be sure whether Mother thinks she is asleep, but it doesn’t matter. This is what they always do. Mother tiptoes across the floor in her stockinged feet, and bends forwards and whispers goodnight. She never waits for an answer, but turns and leaves as quietly as she has entered, pulling the door closed behind her. But this evening she stops on the way out. She stands by the half-open door with her hand on the door-handle. It’s dark in the bedroom but the hallway beyond is bathed in warm yellow light. Mother stands absolutely still just inside the bedroom door. It is strange. Why is she standing there? So still. Marianne cautiously shifts her head a little off the pillow, and she can see into the hallway. And there is Annette with her back against the front door and Hans very close to her. She can only see his back and a little of Annette. She can see how Hans tilts Annette’s face upwards with his fingers under her chin, while his other hand pulls up her shirt a little and then slides inside. Then he bends forwards and it looks as if he is kissing her. All is very quiet and she can hear the sound of the cars driving past far below in the street.
Finally Mother moves, but instead of leaving the room she walks back to Marianne’s bed and sits down. Marianne keeps her eyes closed and Mother says nothing. She just sits there. When Marianne eventually opens her eyes a little and peeks at Mother, she can see that Mother is looking towards the window, where snowflakes slowly and soundlessly dance in the darkness outside. She has taken out her hair clasp and is slowly running her fingers through her hair that falls over her shoulders. It is not until Marianne has to move her legs a little that Mother suddenly seems to come to. She turns her head and puts her hand on the blanket over Marianne’s chest.
‘Goodnight Marianne,’ she says very softly, and the voice is not like her usual one. Then she makes a little sound, like a quiet cough, and says a little louder: ‘Goodnight, and sleep well.’
This time she doesn’t tiptoe, but walks across the floor with heavy steps, her heels pounding the parquet. When she reaches the door she seems to hesitate for a moment. There is the sound of the front door opening and closing. When the bedroom door finally opens, the yellow light flows into the bedroom and Mother is a silhouette. There is the sound of Hans’s rapid steps along the hall. It feels like a very long time before Mother finally steps out into the hall and pulls the door closed behind her. It’s as if she has taken the light with her and the room seems darker than before.
Annette never returns. And Marianne stops thinking of the girls as real people. They become like everything else here.
Foreign and fleeting.
14.
The very best part about my life with Ika was our joint project. To me, it felt as if for the first time in my life I was working together with another human being in an instinctive, almost telepathic way. I realised I had never experienced anything like this before. I had collaborated with other people both professionally and privately of course, but I had never felt that we were sharing the same task. Quite the opposite: we had divided the tasks between us. Not even in my marriage had I felt such a connection. My husband and I had lived beside each other, but I had had no insight into his world of ideas, nor he into mine. Never before had I experienced the joy of a truly joint project.
It felt as if I had been given a new life, or rather as if I were finally alive. I felt my cheeks blush from exertion as well as excitement, and each time we returned home after a day of labour I sat down filled with the kind of exhaustion that is good, and infinitely satisfying. I had no idea whether Ika was experiencing something similar.
We both had our assigned roles, and Ika was the project manager. But we did everything together. We needed each other. He had the plan in his head and he knew exactly where everything belonged. When we were out searching for material, he always knew exactly what he was looking for.
‘Not that one, we need a bigger one. And darker,’ he would say if I held up a rock. Or, ‘We need more feathers. Grey ones.’
We had no stockpile; we collected our items one at a time, as we needed them. We never found something we liked and then created a spot for it. It was always the other way around. The plan took precedence, and then we searched until we found exactly the right item. Very early on I realised the plan inside Ika’s head was complete and very detailed, and that it did not allow any impulsive adjustments.
We never noticed any interference with the installation: we always found it exactly as we had left it. And it weathered wind and rain without being damaged.
We didn’t work every day. It took well over half an hour to get there, and some days there was not enough time. But as the days grew longer it became easier to spend time there after school. Weekends, we often brought a picnic lunch and stayed all day. We never invited anybody else, not even George. He probably wondered what we were doing – what was taking up so much of our time. But he never asked. And it didn’t feel right to bring someone there before we had finished.
One day when we returned home later than usual, and sat at the kitchen table eating in semi-darkness, Ika suddenly looked at me across the table. Well, ‘looked’ might not be the right word, it was just the quickest little glimpse before he lowered his gaze again. Still, it surprised me.
‘Have you ever had a child?’ he asked.
I was completely unprepared for the question and I choked on my tea. Slowly, I put down the mug and tried to collect myself.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I would have liked to, but it never happened.’
‘Do you have a mum and dad?’
I shook my head.
‘No, they died a long time ago.’
‘A sister or a brother?’
Again, I shook my head. ‘No,’ I said, hesitating for a moment.
‘I did have a brother, but I lost him,’ I said eventually.
An extended pause followed.
‘I can be your child. And your brother, if you like.’
His eyes were stubbornly fixed on his empty plate.
‘Would you?’ I said, and it turned into a whisper, because I could not quite trust my voice. ‘You know, Ika, that would be the very best thing that could ever happen to me. The very, very best.’
He nodded.
And without another
word, he picked up his plate and walked over, placing it in the sink. Then he left the kitchen.
I heard him brushing his teeth and walking into his small room.
After a while I got up, and went into my bedroom. I bent down and knocked softly on the partition wall that separated our rooms.
There was a quiet knock from the other side.
‘I – never – wanted – a – fucking – child!’
The words come one at a time, almost in a whisper, yet they roar louder than anything she has ever heard before.
She is kneeling on the floor in front of the dollshouse. The parquet is cold against her shins and she shivers a little. She looks at the little people living in the house: a mother, a father, a little girl. And a baby. She has turned on the light in the living room and placed the mother by the piano. The baby is in its crib in the children’s room upstairs and the little girl is sitting on the floor near the piano. She hasn’t quite decided where to put the father doll. She is holding him in her hand when she suddenly hears Hans’s voice from the kitchen.
‘Yours, that was fine. We had agreed that. But I NEVER wanted one of my own. NEVER! This will ruin everything.’
She has never heard him speak like that. Hans keeps saying things she doesn’t want to hear. Even though he doesn’t raise his voice, it feels as if he is shouting. She wants to cry, but this is so terrifying she is struggling just to breathe. She sits cold and stiff, and she can’t make even the slightest move. The tips of her fingers tingle and when she looks down at her hands she realises she has broken the father doll in her clenched fist.
Mother is having a baby. Marianne knows because Mother has told her. The day before, Mother came into Marianne’s room and sat down on her bed. She took up one of the cushions and hugged it to her chest.
‘I’m going to have a baby, Marianne,’ Mother said quietly without looking at her. Then she just sat there with the cushion in her arms and her neck bent. Neither of them said anything. But slowly, slowly Marianne felt something extraordinary happen. It was as if something light and warm began to spread inside her. There would no longer be just her. There would be one more. A sister. Or a brother. There would be two of them.
Smiling, she looked up at Mother and met her gaze. And her smile died, because Mother was crying. She was squeezing the cushion and she was moaning and rocking back and forth, as if she were in pain. Marianne could not understand. She could think of nothing to do or say. She stood beside the bed, waiting. Finally, Mother stretched out her hand and took hers.
‘You will have to help me, Marianne,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
Marianne nodded. She was no longer smiling, but the warmth and light were still there inside her.
‘I will help you, Mother,’ she said. She sat down beside Mother, and Mother’s hand rested on her lap. She wanted Mother to feel the warmth, and she leaned closer and put her arms around her waist. They sat like that for a long time.
Now, as she sits on the floor, her ears alert even though she doesn’t want to hear, she tries to hold on to that moment. And she finds it again. The warm light lives inside her and nothing can take it away. Not even those awful whispered words.
She hears the front door shut with a bang that reverberates through the rooms for a very long time. And now she is finally able to move again. She walks slowly into the hall. She stops at the kitchen door. Mother is sitting on a chair at the table, her face turned towards the window. It is midday but she is still wearing her pink dressing gown. Her hands lie flat on the table in front of her. The silence is terrible, and that silence belongs to Mother. Marianne is outside, watching.
She stands there for an eternity, her bare feet balancing on the wooden threshold.
Then Mother turns her head and looks at her. She can see that Mother has been crying again. There is a bright red blotch on her cheek, and she lifts her hand as if she wants to hide it, then she lets her hand drop back onto the table. They are as if frozen stiff; Mother on the chair, Marianne in the doorway.
Marianne takes a tentative first step and walks slowly across the floor. As she reaches the table Mother opens her arms and pulls her close. She presses her face into the soft pink material and she can smell Mother’s perfume. Mother slowly puts her arms around Marianne and it feels as if they become one. Mother rests her chin on Marianne’s head. She can feel tears falling into her hair.
‘It will be a beautiful baby,’ Marianne says quietly.
Mother doesn’t respond, just keeps holding her tight.
‘Yes, Marianne, it will be a beautiful baby,’ she says after a very long time. ‘And you will help me, won’t you?’
Marianne presses herself hard against Mother’s chest and she can feel her heart beating. She wants this moment to last a long time. She holds her breath and tries to be absolutely still. She knows that even the slightest movement, the softest sound, will end it.
Afterwards nothing will ever be the same. Everything has changed; it is as if something has suddenly pushed her closer to her mother. They are together, just the two of them, in this new world. Not by choice, but because they have to be. There is nothing else for either of them.
It is no longer just alien and lonely in the large apartment. Now it is dangerous, too.
Still, deep inside, she carries this new warmth.
A sister.
Or a brother.
15.
We slowly slipped into a comfortable rhythm, Ika and I. I picked him up every day from school, and most days we went to spend time on our project in the afternoon. When we were home, he either played the piano or was in his room listening to music. I had bought him a small portable player but he seemed to prefer my computer. I was happy because it meant we were listening, if not together, then at least at the same time. It felt as if we shared it.
His homework was a source of frustration. I met his teacher the week after he came to live with me. She had been nice enough but she was a little guarded and vague, as if she were reluctant to fully acknowledge her part in Ika’s education. I was left with the impression that her overall reaction was relief that Ika was now not solely her responsibility. Ika, for his part, never expressed any feelings about school. As with food, he seemed to accept it with a kind of neutral lack of interest. He never demonstrated any wish to skip school, but nor did he express any enthusiasm at leaving in the morning. He never volunteered anything about his school days, and his responses to my questions were monosyllabic.
I soon discovered that he possessed streaks of ability. He was very good at drawing. Not figurative things, but geometric shapes. He could draw them with the correct perspectives and extraordinary detail. But they were never alive – there was no creative element involved. He also had an uncanny ability to learn things by heart. Some things. Things with rhythm. But also in this there was something lacking. It was as if he never took in the meaning. It was all about the rhythm.
He didn’t seem to listen when I read him stories or pieces from the paper. I wasn’t sure whether he could read in the proper sense of the word. He knew the letters of the alphabet, I knew that. But it was hard to tell whether he could absorb the messages contained in the words and sentences. He never asked me to read to him. It was only when one day I pulled out my old tattered storybook, the only belonging that remained from my early childhood, that something seemed to change.
After we had made a room for Ika out of my wardrobe I had been forced to go through my things and I had slowly worked my way through cupboards and drawers till I finally reached the bookshelves in the living room. I was on my knees on the floor and opened the worn book. I held it up to my face and took in the dry smell, let my palm run over the pages. The book had naturally opened at the beginning of my favourite story, ‘Lasse i Rosengård’. Although Grandfather had started reading it to me when I was very young, he had made no attempt to avoid the frightening parts, or soften them. But he always held me on his lap when he read.
There I was on the floor,
a middle-aged woman in a house on the other side of the earth, and all the feelings that were forever associated with the words that had been stashed away for so long washed over me. I read and I remembered. I remembered how the story had frightened me, but also how secure I had felt in Grandfather’s arms. I hadn’t noticed that Ika had entered the room, but I suddenly felt him standing nearby.
I looked up.
‘I have kept this book since I was a little girl,’ I said, and held it up with the cover facing Ika. ‘My grandfather used to read it to me.’
In his usual fashion Ika said nothing, but walked over and sat down on the sofa.
‘Would you like me to read a little to you?’ I asked. He didn’t respond, but he moved over as if to make room for me beside him. Not very close, but still on the sofa. I walked over and sat down at a mutually comfortable distance.
And so I began to read to him. Slowly, since I had to translate from Swedish as I went. He showed no impatience but sat absolutely still, almost without blinking. His face was expressionless, as usual. After a while I was too absorbed in the text to notice anything around me. When I eventually paused and looked up I could see that Ika sat with his arms around himself, rocking a little. I was overcome by an almost irresistible longing to pull him towards me and hold him in my arms.
‘Would you like me to stop?’ I asked instead. ‘Is it scary?’
He didn’t answer, but he shook his head. It was hard to know what he meant.
‘Read,’ he said finally.
And I continued.
‘And Grandmother was right. Mrs Terror never left Lasse alone. Each time Lasse went through the forest she would be hiding behind a rock, or behind a tree trunk, waiting for him. He never quite caught sight of her, but he knew that she was there and that she could fall upon him at any moment. So what? you might say. Surely he could have asked her to make herself scarce and leave him alone? Yes, one might think so, but Mrs Terror is no ordinary woman – she is one of the worst witches on earth. And she has made greater heroes than Lasse from Rosengården take flight.’
Memory of Love (9781101603024) Page 9
