In Every Mirror She's Black

by Lolá Ákínmádé Åkerström

  But Kemi had summoned her, touting the importance of a face-­to-­face meeting. Now she glared at Kemi, who seemed to be looking at her in confusion.

  “Thanks for the offer to hang out, truly,” Brittany said again. Yes, of course she wanted to check out new bands and meet other expats, but right now, she had a lot on her mind.

  “Look, I know how hard it is to make friends and force yourself to get out there. To be vulnerable,” Kemi said. “Sometimes, this all feels like quicksand. Pulling us into spaces where we get so complacent, we lose our edge.”

  “Tell me about it,” Brittany muttered. She hadn’t washed her own clothes since she moved to Sweden. She hadn’t shopped for groceries herself, and she could count on both hands how many times she had cooked a meal. She had become a trophy, constantly being polished by Jonny and his staff to do nothing but shine. She couldn’t go out to the American club and have a bunch of fellow citizens judge her because a wealthy man had swept into her world.

  “So, why did you come here?”

  “You mean besides for your husband?” Kemi said.

  Brittany laughed. Sister got jokes.

  “Jonny isn’t that convincing.”

  It was Kemi’s turn to laugh and nod. “Well, he convinced you to marry him and have his baby, so…” Kemi attempted humor. Brittany didn’t laugh, and Kemi cleared her throat to change the subject. “I wanted to explore something different. Shake up my life a little,” Kemi said.

  “And has Sweden shaken up your life?” she asked.

  “Oh, I’m definitely shook for sure!” Kemi said. Brittany watched a smile spread across her face. “Tobias remained standing once the dust settled.”

  “And Ragnar?” She saw the grin quickly leave Kemi’s face.

  “What about Ragnar?” Kemi asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Just wondering if you guys work together a lot or what,” Brittany said. “He’s Jonny’s best friend and always acts suspicious of me.” She shrugged. “Didn’t you witness that display in the lobby? Is he like that with you too? I’m still trying to figure him out.”

  “Ragnar and I have a respectful relationship here at work,” Kemi said, though her voice sounded weak.

  “Really?”

  “Yes, we’re managing a project together.”

  “And he respects you on his team? Actually sees you as an equal?”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  Brittany smirked. “If you ask me, I think he’s low-­key racist.”

  “Low-­key racist? What does that even mean? You’re either racist, or you’re not,” Kemi said defensively.

  “You know what I mean,” Brittany said, irritated. “He’s obviously prejudiced. He always looks at me with such spite.” Brittany remembered the way Ragnar had visually ravaged Kemi at her birthday party. Clearly, Kemi seemed to be witnessing a different side of him. Not the mucky, self-­important bits that Brittany knew made him a complete asshole to her.

  “From what I gather,” Kemi started, “Jonny and Ragnar have been friends since they were toddlers. Knowing Jonny’s wealth and history with women of color, I’m not surprised Ragnar is super protective of his friend.”

  Brittany peered at Kemi, her face heating up. That judgmental bitchiness had surfaced again. She saw Kemi close her eyes, as if realizing what she had said.

  “Well, I’m not a gold digger, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “I’m so sorry.” She was apologizing again. “Of course not. I didn’t mean it like that.” Brittany got to her feet, and Kemi hopped to hers as well.

  “Thanks for the invitation,” Brittany said, pulling her bag over her shoulder. “Nice seeing you again.”

  “I swear I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I get those looks every single day. Especially from his family and friends,” Brittany said. “I just wasn’t expecting it from a sister too. If you will excuse me…”

  She left Kemi standing behind in the room, all alone.

  * * *

  Jonny drove them home from his office in silence, bypassing the tunnel toward Lidingö, opting instead for a scenic ride through town. Brittany looked out the window, still mulling over her conversation with Kemi.

  “How much do you need Kemi?” Brittany turned to him.

  “What do you mean?” Jonny frowned, still focused on the road.

  “I mean, how crucial is she to your team?”

  “She landed us one of our biggest clients. I can’t afford to lose her.”

  “Even if she keeps disrespecting your wife?” She saw his jaw tense.

  “What are you saying?” Jonny seemed confused. She turned back toward the window. “I’m not firing her for you.” Jonny’s tone was terse. Brittany remained tight-­lipped. Jonny had promised her he would do whatever she wanted. Now Kemi seemed to be off-­limits for him.

  “You know I would do anything for you, right?” Jonny looked for confirmation from her. She didn’t answer him. “Right?” She knew she was provoking him.

  When she still didn’t answer, Jonny made an abrupt U-­turn and started driving them back in the direction they’d come.

  “Where are you going?”

  Jonny didn’t answer but kept driving until he made a left instead of a right back onto Strandvägen, and Brittany recognized the route. He was taking them to his hobbit cottage. His solace in the city.

  When Jonny opened the door, the place looked lived-­in. There was a half-­drunk glass of wine on the dining table. A few books on the floor by the sofa. Had he been hiding out here often behind her back? Was Sylvia, their housekeeper, regularly swinging by and keeping this place clean for him?

  “Jonny…” She turned to find him pulling his shirt out of his trousers, unfastening buttons, his eyes heavy on her. “What are you doing?” He tossed his shirt aside. “Jonny?” He slid up to her, grabbing her hand in one fluid motion and leading her up the staircase.

  Once up in the loft space, Brittany was struck by his unmade bed, the duvet in disarray, and she yanked out of his grip.

  “What is this? Are you having an affair?”

  “What? Never!”

  “What’s going on here?” She padded around the room, pulling at misplaced items: a pillow on the floor, pieces of torn paper dotting the room. She picked up a piece with the words, “Förlåt mig, Maya…” “Forgive me, Maya…” written and then crossed out over and over again.

  Before she could fully decipher its contents, Jonny was upon her, grabbing the note from her hand and spinning her around to face him.

  “I swear to you.” He looked crazed. “I’m not having an affair.” His fingers dug into her upper arms. “I would never lie to you.”

  “Then what is all this?” She bent low to pick up another piece of paper with her daughter’s name crossed out multiple times. “Why are you writing Maya’s name like this?”

  “I need a break from it all sometimes.” Jonny began to cry. “It’s so overwhelming. All this.” His fingers boring into her arms started dancing.

  “Us?”

  “Yes.”

  Brittany stepped back, her heart pounding faster. Was he regretting their life together? She backed away, and he sank onto the bed, cradling his head in his hands. She let him cry until she noticed him rocking from side to side. He was slipping into that dark space his mind created whenever he got overwhelmed, and she needed to pry him back out. She settled in front of him, and his arms circled her waist, pulling her to stand between his legs. He rested his head on her belly, crying. She let him sob.

  Jonny had only cried three times in their relationship. He’d been devastated when his parents had rejected her. He’d cried at their court wedding. And when Baby Maya had come, he’d sobbed as he cradled his child.

  Brittany threaded her fingers through his hair, soothing him, letting him weep against her unti
l his breathing evened out.

  Then Jonny’s grip around her waist tightened.

  * * *

  The sound of silence hung in the room along with the scent of them. They were lying in bed, facing each other. Jonny wasn’t asleep but his eyelids were pulled shut.

  “Maya…” she whispered into the space between them. Jonny’s eyes bolted open, and he peered into hers with that gaze, but he stayed quiet. Brittany studied him, looking for signs. He simply stared back. “The most beautiful name you’ve ever heard, huh?”

  Jonny remained taciturn. He ran his hand down her shoulder, following her arm, and then dipped by her waist. Before moving on to her hip, he paused at a small rise of fat along her waistline. The little love handle she was still working off with her personal trainer after birthing Maya. He gave it a pinch before leaning in to silence her with a kiss.

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about…von Lundin.”

  Ragnar’s words floated in between them. The heaviness of those words sat on her chest, pushing her deeper into the plush bed.

  Something didn’t feel quite right, and it was all connected to that name she’d seen scribbled on pieces of shredded paper.

  Her daughter’s name.

  MUNA

  Muna’s move to Gunhild’s apartment the following week had been relatively smooth. Not only was she getting new lodgings, it was also with someone she deeply cared about. Besides Ahmed’s sack of memories and photos of her deceased kin, Gunhild was her only family.

  She didn’t have a lot of possessions, choosing instead to save as much as she could over the years. Before moving, she’d bought a small, wooden box from a secondhand shop and transferred all the contents from the dirty sack with the precision of a brain surgeon. She had poured the brown, cinnamon-­colored sand into a fist-­sized plastic Tupperware bowl and had carefully placed it into the box as well, preserving Ahmed’s memory the best way she could.

  In due time, she would find the perfect moment to share him with Gunhild.

  “Muna!” Gunhild lit up when she saw the girl at her door.

  Muna pressed the keys of her former apartment into Gunhild’s delicate hand before receiving the older woman’s hug. Gunhild turned to lead Muna into the airy apartment, her graying blond hair framing her small head like a helmet. Muna kicked off her sandals by the door and followed her in. They walked right into a living room that seemed stuck in the sixties with vintage-­looking cabinets, floral Victorian lamps with fringes, dark-­red velvet couches, and a wooden piano in the corner with the word Bösendorfer etched into it.

  Every available surface area seemed to be holding knickknacks from all over the world. Wooden elephants, babushka dolls, and many other items Muna couldn’t recognize, like a bronze sculpture of what looked like a wall and many stairs, and a wooden pole with scary-­looking faces carved into it.

  The only photo in the place was of a young Gunhild with long, blond hair wearing shorts. The background looked tropical. Africa maybe. She was leaning against a large canoe, and sitting inside the canoe was a Black man with an uneven Afro, a thick beard, and an unbuttoned shirt.

  Muna had found it odd that there were no photos of Gunhild’s late husband. She had told Muna that she had been married for thirty years to a Swedish man from the north. Norrland. Even when they had found out she was barren, the man had stuck around, Gunhild had said.

  Sixty-­three. Muna had found out a week after they’d initially met that Gunhild was sixty-­three years old—­well, sixty-­five now—­and had no children of her own.

  “What are all these things?” Muna swept a hand over the souvenirs and memorabilia Gunhild had amassed over decades as a traveler. Gunhild met her question with a smile that pronounced her crow’s-­feet.

  “Don’t worry, we have time to discuss all that,” she said as they continued toward one of the rooms. Gunhild pushed open the door to a room that had a double bed hidden under a large knitted blanket with fringes around its edges. There was a white dressing table with a large mirror and a chair with a lace doily hanging over its arm, parked beneath the table. A distressed armoire made from mahogany stood in a corner as her wardrobe.

  The whole setup looked like an oversize dollhouse to Muna.

  “This is your room.” Gunhild paused by the door, knob still in one hand. “It’s my guest room for when family comes over…if they come over.” She finished with a chuckle that felt pained to Muna.

  “It is so pretty.” Muna beamed. “Thank you.” She turned to give her a subdued hug. Gunhild was looking more tired than usual.

  “Good! Settle in. I’ll get some fika ready.” She turned to go, shutting the door behind her.

  Muna took in her room. This was all hers, and it was so pretty. She dropped her bags in a corner and removed her hijab. She went over to her dressing table, pulled out the chair, and settled into it. She assessed her dark-­brown face and arched eyebrows. Now she had a table where she could properly apply makeup like those dainty ladies in movies. She turned her face to the right, then the left, caressing her profile. She started giggling until it bubbled into a laugh of joy.

  Gunhild had prepared sandwiches for them. Four slices of generously buttered sourdough bread topped with a single slice of cheese each, thinly sliced cucumbers, and slivers of red bell peppers.

  She had brewed green tea for Muna and a cup of black coffee for herself. A sponge cake baked in the oven for later.

  Quietude washed over them again as they ate and sipped.

  “I want you to be happy,” Gunhild said.

  “I know. I promise I will be an accountant,” she said.

  “Promise it to yourself, Muna. Not to me,” Gunhild stressed before sipping more coffee.

  “Are you happy?” Muna saw shock spread over the older woman before her eyes softened again behind large, thinly rimmed glasses.

  “Yes, of course. I was happily married for many years until he died,” she said. “I told you this.”

  Muna wanted to know all about the Black man with the uneven Afro in the photo and why he was the only one left in this house and not her dead husband, who had stayed by her barren side. Muna wanted to understand.

  “Were you married to the man in the photo?”

  Gunhild paused mid-­drink. “What photo?”

  Muna got to her feet, scurried out of the kitchen where they’d been eating, and out into the living room. She carefully pulled the frame off its shelf and came back to the kitchen with it, setting it down between them. Gunhild took in the photo, warming over memories it held. She looked up at Muna.

  “That was a dear friend from a long time ago. I spent a lot of time in West Africa as a young student,” she said. “Ghana, Benin.” She placed her coffee down. “Togo…” She lingered on that country.

  “This was not your husband?”

  “I already told you it was a friend and my husband was from the north of Sweden.” Gunhild’s tone turned terse. Before Muna could utter another inquiry, Gunhild grabbed the frame, slowly pushed off her feet, and moved toward the living room. She didn’t set it on the shelf. Instead, she shuffled slowly toward her own room with the photo in hand.

  Guilt bubbled up in Muna. She hadn’t wanted to upset Gunhild. It seemed asking about that photo and her husband had poked at wounds that were still healing. She had so much more to ask, including why Gunhild was working so hard to help refugees like her.

  Maybe it had to do with the man in that photo she grabbed and ran off with. Or the baby she had gotten rid of.

  Maybe if she shared Ahmed with Gunhild, then the older lady would open up fully to her. If she showed her everything he’d handed her, maybe Gunhild would learn to trust her and realize she wasn’t alone. Because the apartment Muna had just moved into belonged to a lonely woman. One who didn’t want to die a slow death alone and had moved Muna in as company.

  Muna
reached for another meager slice of open-­faced sandwich with her plan solidified.

  Twenty-­One

  KẸMI

  The weeks following Brittany’s uncomfortable birthday dinner and Kemi’s equally uncomfortable apology meeting had been filled with tension at work. Between Greta, who barely engaged with her, and Ragnar, who was now pacing their halls frequently, she was finding herself in a space feeling more constrictive with each passing week. Everything at work was being made more potent by Ragnar’s presence.

  Meetings were the worst time of her workday. Besides the fact they were called often for the most mundane reasons to reach consensus for a decision that one person could have easily made, she always felt on the periphery of their conversations. She was still at basic conversational Swedish, and it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough, and she could sense restraint among the directors. They wanted to speak freely in Swedish but were being forced to speak halting English.

  With Bachmann firmly in Ragnar’s hands creatively and Greta back at the helm, Jonny had gallivanted off again, muttering something about yachting with his family along the Dalmatian Coast. Kemi pictured Brittany lying on a stupendously expensive yacht, probably donning an expensive white bathing suit, wearing an oversize brimmed sun hat with oversize sunglasses. She wondered what Brittany had run away from to get onto that yacht.

  The weed growing within Kemi had begun to twine around her sanity, strengthening with each convolution. A new leaf popped out whenever Ragnar was near, protected in the greenhouse of their attraction.

  Until one day, after an infuriating meeting, Ingrid got a peek into its nursery.

  Ingrid had called an impromptu meeting after an anonymous employee had leaked to the press that Jonny was never around and didn’t really run the company. The real hero was Greta, Anonymous had complained. Jonny was basking in glory that was rightfully hers. That insider had gone on to leak about how sexist their working environment was. The male directors had assistants, while—­besides Greta—­none of the other female directors had one.