Love and Other Lies

by Ben McPherson

  There was no mistaking the familiar sound of her breathing.

  In.

  In.

  Out.

  “A colleague will be in with your phone.” He watched me for a moment. “I’m very sorry to add to your burden.” And with that he was on his feet. “But you are a strong man. I am sure this will not break you.”

  Oh, Elsa, I thought. What have you done?

  In the park below the police station the grass was greener than in our suburb. Men lay, shirts off, or kicked soccer balls up the incline, laughing and shouting. A clamor of children’s voices; birdsong; traffic. If you wanted Scandinavian multiculturalism, here it was. Blond girls in bikinis sunbathed next to dark-haired women in headscarves. Young men grilled meat on portable barbecues, drank beer from cans. For a moment it was possible to believe that yesterday had not happened, that the country had not been attacked.

  Was Tvist trying to knock me off my axis? Showing me that video had been a cheap move. And all the while he had smiled, and all the while he had expressed concern. It was misdirection, I thought, pure and simple: Trust me. Doubt your wife.

  I found a bench in the shade of a tree. I would wait here for Elsa, and she would have an explanation. As Elsa always did. We would not allow this man to divide us. There was a strength in Elsa and in me that Tvist could not hope to understand.

  I half turned, sat watching the smokers at the entrance of the police station as they laughed and flirted in the sunlight. I could almost taste their smoke in my mouth, could almost feel their nicotine coursing through my veins. Perhaps Elsa would have cigarettes. Perhaps we would sit here together, smoking, as we planned our next move.

  Eight

  Fidelity was Elsa’s religion. She insisted that it become mine.

  We must each focus on the other’s left eye; we must put all desire from our minds. We must make love. We must not fuck.

  And so in the early days of our relationship we tried not to fuck. In numberless positions. Time and again. We would manage for a while to fill our minds with thoughts of respect and of peace, to listen to our partner’s breaths and to hear our own breaths reflected. But desire took over every time, and we would laugh, and kiss each other deeply, and I would feel the orgasm begin to build within me and Elsa’s spine would arch and she would push back hard, and we would forget tantric breathing and ignore inner peace, and one of us would begin to thrust, and we would agree—breathless now—that we should slow down, and neither of us would, and oh, her breasts and her lips, and oh, and the strength in her supple thighs.

  And in the stupid way that young men do, I asked Elsa the most stupid of questions:

  “Do you ever think about other people?”

  “Do I ever think about other people?”

  We were lying naked on Elsa’s bed, legs entwined, exhausted by an afternoon of whisky and failed tantric sex.

  “I mean, sexually.”

  “I understood that, Cal.” She reached across me for a cigarette, which she lit.

  “And?”

  “If you don’t withdraw the question, I will be forced to answer it.”

  We locked eyes.

  “You seriously want me to withdraw the question?”

  “You seriously want me to answer?”

  “Yes,” I said, because I was twenty and stupid. “I seriously want you to answer. Do you think about other people?”

  “Okay, Cal. I do think about other people. Sometimes I long to be touched by other men. Sometimes. But this is a fantasy, and you are a jealous man, and I do not want my fantasies to hurt you. Please do not ask me more such questions.”

  “Good-looking men?”

  “Who fantasizes about ugly men? Of course, good-looking men. Please stop.”

  “Because you cannot tell a lie?”

  “Because you do not need to know my every thought. Jesus.”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to force down the jealous anger that was rising in me. “That’s fair. That’s a reasonable point.”

  After all, Elsa had a right to her own thoughts. I breathed out heavily, tried to refocus my mind.

  Although . . .

  “Matter of interest,” I said, as casually as I could. “What is your type?”

  “What is my type?”

  “Or who?”

  “Please, Cal.”

  “Anybody I know?”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “You want me to withdraw the question?”

  “I want you to withdraw the question.”

  “I won’t.”

  She reached across me, rolled the tip of her cigarette around the ashtray, then she sat up.

  “Then before I answer your question, please understand that, although I do think about other men, I do not plan to be unfaithful to you.”

  I laughed. “That’s reassuring.”

  “You should be reassured. Assuming you care what I do. Instead you are sarcastic. Which makes me think that you do not care.” She was staring very hard at the tip of her cigarette. For the first time it occurred to me that I had hurt her.

  I ran my hand down her arm, eased the cigarette from her fingers into mine. Still she would not look at me. I took a draw, then offered her the cigarette.

  Her eyes flicked to mine, then flicked away. “You’re a fucking idiot if you can’t see I have feelings for you.” She looked at me, checking that I understood the weight behind the words.

  “Maybe I am a fucking idiot.” A moment of pure elation. “I really didn’t know.”

  She was watching me keenly now, and a thought was forming in my mind. A terrifying thought that I almost didn’t dare speak.

  “What?” she said.

  I shook my head.

  “No, Cal, I’d really like to know your reaction to what I just said.”

  “You don’t need to know my every thought.”

  “Don’t laugh at me. I really want to know what you’re thinking.”

  “Okay. All right.” I took a long, tantric breath. “This is what I was thinking: I was wondering if you love me, Elsa.”

  She laughed in mock outrage. “Not fair.”

  “That was—in all honesty—what I was thinking . . .”

  “You’re going to force me to tell you if I love you?” She was smiling at me, almost daring me . . .

  “Am I going to like the answer?” I said. “Because in that case, yes, I am going to force you to answer.”

  “Slightly fuck off,” she said, as if she were considering the thought. “But also, okay. Here goes.” She paused. Looked at me. Laughed. “Fuck.”

  “What?”

  “Ask me the question again.”

  “Elsa,” I said. “Do you love me?”

  She sat up, composed herself formally, legs crossed, arms at her side. “Yes, Cal. I love you.”

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Wow, what?” I could see the beginnings of uncertainty, of disappointment.

  “Elsa?” I reached out, brushed the hair from her face. “You are completely out of my league. You do know that, don’t you?”

  She smiled. “Kind of, I guess. But also no. You’re funny, and you’re gentle, and I’m pretty sure you love me. I feel we are on the way to something very intimate. But you didn’t ask me quite the right question yet.”

  “What question is that, Elsa?”

  “Ask me if I love you more than any man I’ve ever known.”

  And now, the image of her, on that screen, at night, in somebody else’s room.

  Nine

  Some change in the balance of the day, as if a cool wind were blowing.

  The smokers parted, turning as he passed among them. He paused, stood for a moment, watching over the park as a king might watch over his people, magnificent in his vestment of gray. Father Bror, whose hands had steadied me as he passed me a cup of coffee, while we stood watching the island from the shore, waiting for the news that never came. It had been a simple gesture, filled with humanity and kindness, and for a moment it had
made me feel that after all there might be hope for Licia.

  Bror. Just Bror.

  He was walking slowly down the path toward me, looking neither right nor left. Behind him the smokers drew on their cigarettes, watching him all the while. I should thank the man, I thought, for the comfort he had brought me at that moment. Such quiet power he had; such peace; such charisma. Did he see me sitting under my dark tree? He passed so close I could have touched the hem of his vestment, yet I did not move.

  I let him pass. I got up, walked to the center of the path, stood shading my eyes against the light, watching him go. By the road at the bottom of the slope he stopped, arms folded, as if waiting for a gap in the traffic.

  I should speak to the man. It was that simple. I looked around. There was no sign of Elsa. But as I resolved to approach Bror a silver Land Cruiser drew up. He got in and the car sped off.

  When I got home I stood at the threshold of Vee’s room, watching my daughter playing her game. She was frowning at the screen, her bottom lip curled against her teeth, hands gripping the game pad, eyes wide. On the screen her avatar was attacking the roof of a house with a pair of hand axes.

  I began to turn away.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  I turned back. “I didn’t know you’d heard me, Vee.”

  She smiled, but did not turn from her screen. “The key, the door, your footsteps . . . you know . . .” Her avatar picked up a large sniper rifle from behind a bookcase.

  “All right, Miss Supersense. Mum not home yet?”

  “I thought she was with you.”

  “So you put Franklin to bed by yourself?”

  “Yay expressed breast milk. Yay carrot smoothie. Yay soiled diaper.”

  “Vee, I’m sorry—”

  She turned, smiled, cut me short. “Don’t sweat it.”

  I had waited on my bench for an hour. Elsa had not appeared. Her phone was off.

  I walked through the living room to our bedroom. Franklin lay in his cot, clutching and unclutching his fists, sucking on the nose of his bear. I slipped my hand into his, and he gripped it. “Beautiful child,” I whispered, and he stirred, turned on to his back, opened his eyes, shook his fists excitedly.

  “Dddd,” he said.

  “Shhh, love. Shhh.” I shielded his eyes with my hand, sang the only Norwegian lullaby I knew:

  Sleep in peace

  Little man

  Dream of mint and clover

  “Mmm,” said Franklin. “Mmm.”

  “Sleep, little man.”

  Dream so sweet

  And travel, fleet

  Sleep, my sweet wild rover

  When I lifted my hand away, Franklin’s eyes were closed.

  I stood in the hall, watching Vee in the light of her screen. Behind her the door to her sister’s room was open, but Licia’s window blind was closed.

  Vee’s avatar crouched at the top of a high tower, aiming with a hunting rifle at a girl in a blue beret far below. Vee fired twice. The girl crumpled to the ground. Her possessions scattered on the grass.

  Eliminated WhoKTDid

  No sound beyond my daughter’s breathing. Her avatar jumped down from the tower to where the girl with the blue beret had stood.

  “Vee, have you had any weird friend requests recently?”

  “Dad, we had this talk literally a hundred times.” She turned so that I could see the exaggerated roll of her eyes. “I don’t friend with randoms.” She turned back to her screen. Her avatar climbed up the tower, began scanning the horizon for movement.

  “Okay. But how about people calling themselves knights?”

  “Ew. People with knight gamer tags are the worst. They’re all, like, I don’t know, Sir Fragalot, or Damselpleezer. Easy to kill, though. Watch.”

  Her avatar switched weapons.

  “Is that a rocket launcher, Vee?”

  An amused smile. “Yepp.”

  On the screen Vee’s avatar fired two rockets at a distant tower. The tower came crashing down. A tiny figure began running from the scene. Vee’s avatar took her hunting rifle, aimed, and shot the figure dead.

  Eliminated Kruse8or

  “Kruse8or,” said Vee. “See what I mean?”

  “And how big a thing is racism in this game?”

  “I really wouldn’t know.” She turned toward me again, irritated now. “It’s a game, Dad. It helps me not to think.” She turned to the screen again. “You can watch, but I need to concentrate.”

  That question of Tvist’s: it could wait until she was more receptive.

  I walked across the floor, through the door into her sister’s room. I opened the blind. I lifted the latch, tilted the window open. Beyond the hedge I could see dogs running lazy arcs across the open parkland, crazed in the heat of the sun.

  Around me, everything as Licia had left it. No pictures. No mess. Everything simple and unadorned, tidy and orderly, though the mirror was coated in dust, as if appearance did not much matter to Licia; as if the way she looked were merely a detail. So strange for a teenage girl to be unaffected by the usual social pressures. It had gotten so that we almost wished Licia would share the normal teen neuroses, we would joke, that she would put herself out there on Instagram, make a few very public mistakes. At the very least she could go out and have some proper fun.

  The dress Licia had worn to the island had been so uncharacteristic. How lovely to see her looking so young and so poised.

  World at your feet, Licia.

  On the desk was a recent edition of the Bible, and beside the Bible a small pile of math books. By Licia’s mirror was a poem written on plain card:

  Be simple

  Be pure

  Be true to the faith

  Be mindful

  Be kind

  Be true

  The card was torn at the end, cut vertically after the word true, as if the lines were part of a longer poem. I took the card, turned it over. On the reverse was a handwritten note:

  You are exceptional, Licia.

  You will achieve the exceptional.

  Until that day keep putting one foot in front of the other.

  Remember to breathe!

  She had written the note to herself. My sweet Licia, so dogged and so determined to succeed. She had signed and dated the note. Six months ago.

  I felt a sob threatening to engulf me. But I would not let myself cry; not now, while Vee was being so strangely adult. I walked back into Vee’s room, sat on the table beside her screen, facing her. Her eyes flicked to me, then to the screen. Her gunsight hovered over a distant figure.

  “You know your mum was a good shot, Vee . . .”

  She shook her head. “Was she?”

  “She never told you? She could down twelve single foot-square metal plates at one hundred meters. Eight seconds. With a .22 pistol.”

  She sighed. “I get where this is going. You think I’m a weirdo sicko freak for playing this.”

  “We don’t. As I was saying, your mum—”

  She turned to me. “Mum stopped shooting, right? That’s the end point of this story? We’re not gun people.”

  “Your mum realized each of those targets could have been a human being.”

  Vee took off her headset. “Fine.”

  “Vee, honey . . . it’s not that we don’t understand your need for escapism.”

  “You don’t, Dad.”

  “Sure I do.”

  She turned for a moment. “I’m pissy and I’m mean and I don’t deserve a sister.”

  I ruffled her hair. “Only sometimes.”

  “Yeah. Well, this time I called her Alicia Don’t-Call-Me-Stupid Curtis.”

  “Okay, that’s not great, Vee.”

  “I know.” She bit down hard on her lower lip.

  “Want to tell me what provoked it?”

  “She called me unhygienic. Like I smelled because I didn’t shower before school. I don’t smell. And Licia showers way too much. Like three times a day. Anyway, I feel terrible for saying it.” />
  I took her in my arms and held her for a while.

  “Do I smell unhygienic to you?” she said at last.

  I laughed. “You smell of soap and candy.”

  The sound of footsteps on the computer speakers. Vee pulled away, swung in her seat, picked up her controller. On-screen her avatar picked up a shotgun, crept into the shelter of a bush. Another figure appeared on-screen. Vee’s avatar sprang from the bush and fired twice, killing her opponent.

  A key in the lock.

  I heard the front door swing open. A bag dropped to the floor. Vee’s eyes flicked toward the hall. “You should be asking Mum about that priest guy.” I heard Elsa take off her shoes, heard her pad through to the living room. The television came on.

  Vee was looking up at me, making sure I had understood her meaning. I nodded.

  We had both seen how her mother reacted to Bror.

  Ten

  In the living room Elsa sat slumped in the sofa.

  “I went to Hedda’s for coffee,” she said. “I walked home.”

  “I waited for you. Which left Vee looking after Franklin.”

  “Sorry.” She avoided my eye, flicked the channel on the TV. “The police and their fucking questions, you know?”

  “Franklin is asleep, so it’s all good.”

  Something stopped me from asking her about Bror. Some need to digest what I’d seen before sharing it with her. That strange sense of godliness, as the smokers parted around him.

  She took my hand, though she did not look at me. She seemed worn out. Done in.

  I sat down beside her. On CNN a woman in a red two-piece was looking down at a large notebook. “Mounting criticism of your response during this rapidly unfolding crisis. Particularly on the issue of locking down the islands after the explosion in town.”

  “The Internet stuff bothered me,” I said.

  Elsa turned. “What Internet stuff?”