Betrayal

by Karin Alvtegen

‘Pappa and I thought we’d ask if you two would like to come over for dinner on Sunday. I’ve got a moose steak left over from this autumn that I thought I’d do something with. I forgot to ask Henrik when he was here to fetch Axel, but you’re usually the one who takes care of the social calendar. By the way, Henrik is certainly slimmer. He must have lost a few kilos, eh?’

  She sat up in bed again. It was suddenly hard to breathe.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you still there?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what do you say to dinner on Sunday?’

  Sunday? Dinner?

  ‘I don’t think we can make it. Listen, I have to run off to work now, I was just going out the door, I’ll ring you in a day or two.’

  She hung up and sat there holding the receiver to her ear. How could she have been so blind? So damned gullible. Like in a magnetic puzzle, all the bits suddenly fell into place. Late meetings. A sudden conference trip to Åland with lecturers she didn’t know. Phonecalls abruptly terminated when she came in the door.

  She got up, pulled on her robe, and went into the office. There had to be something. A note, a letter, a phone number.

  She started with the desk drawers. Searched methodically through both sides, one drawer after another, half her mind determined, the other terrified of finding confirmation of what she really already knew.

  Never in her life had she believed that she would ever end up in a situation like this. Never.

  She found nothing. Only evidence of their family’s validity. Life insurance policies, passports, bank statements, Axel’s vaccination card, the key to the safe deposit box. She went on to the bookshelf. Where? Where would he hide something that she could never be allowed to find? Was there any single place in this house where she never looked? Where he knew that his secret would be safe?

  Suddenly she heard the front door open.

  Trapped like a thief she hurried out of the room and back to the bedroom. She had to think, had to find out. Who was she? Who was the other woman who was taking her husband from her? Destroying her life. The threat pulsed through her body.

  Just as she heard his steps coming up the stairs, she opened the bedroom door and stepped out.

  They stood eye to eye, two metres from each other.

  An eternity between them.

  He looked surprised when he saw her.

  ‘Aren’t you at work?’

  He kept going, heading for his place at the kitchen table, the everyday sound of the chair legs scraping on the wooden floor. Then he grabbed the newspaper and she lost all self-control. Without hesitation she went over to him, tore the paper out of his hands, and flung it across the room. He stared at her.

  ‘Are you crazy?’

  He still had the coldness in his eyes. An indifference that was just as effective as a police barrier. She was no longer welcome. Armed with his secret he sat safely ensconced, shielded from her attacks, while she stood naked and unprotected, with no effective weapon to use.

  Rage flooded through her. She wanted to strike, wound, crush. Do harm in return. Regain the balance. She hated the weakness he was creating inside her.

  ‘I only want you to answer one question. How long has this been going on?’

  She saw him swallow.

  ‘What’s that?’

  He must have sensed the danger, because he no longer dared meet her gaze. That reassured her, almost made her smile. Slowly but surely she was regaining the upper hand. She was the one who had right on her side. He had lied and cheated and would have to answer for his betrayal, would be put to shame.

  She sat down on the chair across from him.

  ‘All right, maybe you have several going at once, but I was thinking of the woman you were talking to on the phone last night.’

  He stood up, went over to the sink, and drank straight out of the tap. She restrained herself from showering him with all the words that were clamouring to come out. The best torture would be to sit quietly; the worst thing she could do to him would be to force him to speak.

  He straightened up again and turned to her.

  ‘It was just a friend.’

  ‘I see. Anybody I know?’

  ‘No.’

  Short and to the point. He looked straight at her and it made her waver. For the first time in a long while he was looking her in the eye with a steady gaze. Where was he getting the strength, if not from the fact that he was unjustly accused?

  ‘What’s the friend’s name then? And where did you meet her? Because I assume it’s a she.’

  ‘Does that make any difference?’

  ‘Yes. If my husband has such a good friend that he can call her in the middle of the night and wants to talk when I’m in bed in the next room, then I’d like to know about it.’

  She could see that he hesitated, taking an unwashed coffee cup from the counter and putting it in the dishwasher. Then he came back and sat down at the table.

  Husband and wife, face to face across their familiar kitchen table.

  A sudden calm.

  It was now that they should talk. A businesslike pause in the hurricane that permitted them to approach each other, as if they were going to talk about some other couple. All the questions would finally be answered, all the lies admitted. Reality would be unveiled and the truth would stand there raw and naked. What would happen afterwards was like an unspoken agreement and unimportant right now.

  As long as the truth was finally told.

  ‘Her name is Maria.’

  Maria.

  ‘And where did you meet her?’

  ‘She’s a graphic designer at Widman’s.’

  ‘How long have you known her?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘Maybe six months.’

  ‘Why haven’t you told me about her?’

  No reply.

  ‘Why did you call her last night?’

  ‘How do you know I did?’

  ‘Does that really matter? You did call, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I rang her up last night. She’s . . .’

  He broke off and shifted position on the chair, looking as if he would like nothing better than to get up and leave.

  ‘I don’t know. She’s nice to talk to.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Everything.’

  ‘About us?’

  ‘Yes, that has probably come up.’

  She felt sick again.

  ‘So what did you say?’

  ‘Well, I suppose I’ve told her the truth.’

  ‘Which is?’

  He took a deep breath, revealing his reluctance.

  ‘I’ve said that we, well, that I, what the hell, she’s nice to talk to, that’s all. She’s a fun girl.’

  A fun girl.

  We don’t have fun any more.

  Maria.

  Her husband had called Maria from Widman’s last night at one thirty in the morning. He had called and talked with Maria while she lay alone in the bedroom with her hopeless questions and her lacy underwear.

  Bloody hell.

  What had he said? Had he told her about the champagne she had bought and about the trip? The mere thought made her want to throw up. Somewhere there was a woman who knew more about their relationship than she did herself, who possessed information about her life that even she couldn’t find out. She felt betrayed, abandoned. At a disadvantage to a woman she had never even seen.

  Reality was encroaching. The pause was over.

  ‘And how do you think that makes me feel? That you sit there telling her everything about me and our relationship?’

  He glanced longingly at the door to his office, but she had no intention of letting him off the hook.

  ‘Don’t you understand what it feels like? If you think we have problems then I’m the one you ought to talk to, not her.’

  A brief silence. Then the indifference in his gaze again.

  ‘I have the right to talk to whoever I want, you have no
thing to do with it.’

  There was a stranger sitting across the table.

  Maybe he had always been one. Maybe she had never really known him. She had merely lived in the same house with him for fifteen years but never knew who he actually was. She simply didn’t understand his rage. Why couldn’t he at least understand how bad he was making her feel? Or if he did, why didn’t it matter to him? Why did he keep striking when she was already vanquished?

  He got up, and now there was something new in his eyes. Maybe it was utter disgust that she saw.

  ‘You’re just jealous that I’m having fun.’

  ‘Oh, is that what you think? Do you sleep with each other too?’

  She had to know.

  This time he snorted.

  ‘No, what the hell do you think? Just because we like talking to each other and having fun. You can save your fucking fantasies for your fucking business strategies.’

  He went to his office and slammed the door.

  Two years ago they had replaced the glass in that door, working on it together.

  Maria at Widman’s. She’s a really fun girl.

  She saw that the geranium in the kitchen window needed watering, and she got up to fetch the watering can. And then she mustn’t forget to pay that bill for Axel’s swimming lessons.

  She stood there holding the watering can and staring out the window. A van was parked in the neighbour’s driveway, and two men were busy unloading a large assortment of well-packaged appliances. Boom or bust. How different things could be just a few metres away.

  She took her handbag and went downstairs to the front door.

  ‘I’m looking for Maria.’

  She was standing outside amongst the trees in the park. Ringing from inside the house had felt impossible. The mere thought of standing amongst their things and hearing this woman’s voice at the same time was inconceivable. She didn’t really know why, but for some reason she felt a tremendous urge to hear her voice. This Maria at Widman’s who knew things about her that she didn’t even know. What had Henrik said? What had he told her? Somehow she had to regain her equilibrium, create her own advantage.

  ‘You’re looking for a Maria?’

  ‘Yes, Maria.’

  If you have several, then pick the one who’s the most fun and who likes to stick her nose into things that are none of her business.

  ‘You must have the wrong number.’

  ‘Isn’t this Widman’s Graphics?’

  ‘Yes it is, but there’s no Maria here.’

  She hung up and stood there. The adrenaline was pumping through her body but had no means of release. What, there was no Maria?

  In her confusion she went round the corner of the house and saw the van pull out from the neighbour’s driveway. She went in the front door and continued into the bathroom, letting her clothes drop to the floor.

  Why was he lying to her? Why did he say that he was talking to Maria at Widman’s when she didn’t exist? She couldn’t really ask him, didn’t want to admit she was snooping, for goodness’ sake. She had no intention of giving him the satisfaction of knowing that she had stooped to something like that.

  She found them behind the shower gel Axel had given her for her birthday. Mostly she was surprised at his carelessness. Or had they been left there intentionally, as an open declaration of war? Perhaps someone who was so much fun and so good to talk to wanted to consolidate her new territory, make a show of strength as she took over.

  He was lying to her.

  That pig was lying to her, and the contempt for his cowardice aroused a new impulse inside her. A feeling she had never experienced before.

  You must not lie. Especially not to someone who trusted you, someone who for fifteen years had trusted you and believed that you were her closest friend.

  And when the lie also threatened the other person’s entire life, it was unforgivable.

  And the thing you definitely shouldn’t do, without deliberately planning it, was to leave her earrings behind your wife’s eucalyptus shower gel.

  He had stayed with Anna after Yvonne Palmgren left them in peace. The only time he left the room was when he used the microwave in the staff room to heat up his lunch. He wondered how many Gorby’s pirogi and pizza slices he had eaten in the past two years, but hurried back in to Anna before his mind would force him to calculate the exact number.

  Two months had passed, then three. His mother still stayed locked in her room. The compulsion controlled his whole life, but escaping from this mute punishment would just make everything worse. After those nine words, the silence continued. Each night he would hurry off to deliver his newspapers and then rush back home so that she wouldn’t have to be alone. His father stayed away. Now and then, but not very regularly, a letter would arrive with a few thousand-krona notes to pay the bills for the heating oil and electricity. There weren’t very many other expenses in the household. He took money for groceries from his own wages. The house belonged to her, she had inherited it from her aunt. The income from Pappa’s job as a plumber had been all they needed to cover the costs in the family; his mother had never needed to go out and work. Her entire identity revolved around her role of wife to her husband and mother to her son.

  It was a Tuesday when he discovered the classified ads, and it all started with a catastrophe.

  Every night the same ritual. He would collect the bundle of newspapers down by the pizzeria. There were always a few extra copies, and before each night’s delivery he counted the copies so he would only have to take with him the exact number he needed. It was the only way to be completely sure that he hadn’t missed someone’s letterbox. He could never be entirely certain, though; many days the worry had pursued him when he imagined that he had skipped one subscriber and delivered two papers to another.

  First he would count out the sixty-two papers he needed directly from the bundle. Then he took out the plastic sheeting he kept in his backpack to protect the newspapers from getting wet. After that he piled them up in six stacks of ten. He placed number sixty-one and sixty-two directly in the pouch on his bike rack. When he had checked the stacks of ten four times, he was ready to put them in the pouch and get going. Always exactly the same route.

  And then, on this particular Tuesday, the unforgivable happened.

  He had one copy left over.

  Someone had been missed out.

  It was easy enough to check the letterboxes at the houses, but what if someone had already managed to collect their paper and it wasn’t their box that had been skipped? And what about the ten flats in the building above the pizzeria that had slots in their doors? How would he be able to see whether it was one of them he had missed?

  He felt the panic rising.

  The leftover paper burned in his hands and he couldn’t get rid of it. He stood there on the steps outside the front door when he came home, and he still had the newspaper in his hand.

  Sandviken to Falun 68, Skövde to Sollefteå 696.

  He had to read it. He had to read every single word in it to neutralise the mistake.

  He sat down on the steps. It was just beginning to get light. The stone steps were cold, and as soon as he had finished the first page he was so cold he was shivering, but he had to keep reading. Each individual letter of every word had to be seen and respected by the eye of a reader. That was the only way.

  It was on page 12 that he found it.

  ‘Postman wanted for the Stockholm district.’

  At first the words seemed much too implausible, but again and again his eyes came back to them, and after he had read them eight times they were finally transformed into a possibility.

  He knew that he couldn’t keep living at home. The only way to make her start to live again was for him to disappear. He was watching over her, but she didn’t want him there.

  He looked out over the garden. The once well-tended perennials in the flower beds lay withered on the ground, helplessly tangled up with weeds.

  He was the
one who was the weed.

  I don’t want you to live here any more.

  On page 16 everything fell into place. He was meant to have one paper left over on precisely this day, something had seen to it that he would be the one who was forced to read it. For once the compulsion had been on his side.

  ‘1 room w/o kitchen, Sthlm, for rent to reliable person – moving abroad.’

  He sat for a long time on the steps that morning. Later he made the two phonecalls, and four days later he took the train down to Stockholm to go to the job interview. He was back the same evening; she didn’t even notice he was gone. The following weeks were one long waiting period, but he knew that it was all pre-ordained. When the positive news arrived that he had got the job and the room, he took them both as a matter of course. Proud that he had dared.

  He hesitated for a long time outside the closed bedroom door that evening before he finally knocked. She never told him to come in. At last he pressed down the door handle anyway and opened the door a crack. She was lying there reading. The blue shade was pulled down and the bed lamp was lit. She pulled the covers up to her chin as if she wanted to hide. As if an intruder had entered her room. The single mattress on the double bed frame that was twice the width was a reproach. She slept next to an empty space that always reminded her with the most blatant clarity of the degradation and betrayal they had caused her.

  ‘I’m moving to Stockholm.’

  She didn’t reply, just turned off the bed lamp and turned over on her side with her back to him.

  He stood there for a while, incapable of saying anything more. Then he backed out and closed the door.

  The last thing he saw was a glimpse of her flowered robe.

  Yvonne Palmgren arrived at one minute to two. Greeted him curtly and then went to sit down in the chair by the window again. She wasn’t smiling this time. She examined him with a gaze so intense that he regretted agreeing to the first conversation. He took hold of Anna’s hand. Here he was safe.

  ‘I’ve made a few calls this morning.’

  ‘All right.’

  One of the four neon-coloured pens in her breast pocket was missing.

  Three! Oh no!

  He wondered whether she knew. Whether with her solid psychological training and penetrating gaze she could see straight in to his well-concealed hell. The three pens were a sign, a way to weaken him, a declaration of war from her side to prove her superiority.