by Linda Olsson
“What would you like to know?” Pau smiled. “I don’t really have much to say about them. I just paint them.”
“The one in the hallway downstairs is absolutely . . .” Emma made a futile gesture with her hands.
“There you go. It’s not that easy to know what to say. I think it suffices to look. Absorb what you can. I don’t like to try to explain what I had in mind with my paintings. I might know what I wanted to express. And I certainly know what they mean to me. How I felt when I painted them. But if my works have a different effect on other people, I really don’t mind. All that matters is that they have an effect at all. That the observer is touched by them in some way. Apart from that, there is no right or wrong way to see my paintings.”
He stood up and went to collect the paella pan. The smell was wonderful, and I realized I was hungry. Before sitting down, he served Emma and me a generous portion each.
The rice was perfectly cooked, slightly burned at the base and golden yellow from the saffron. On top there were pieces of fish, mussels, cuttlefish, sausage, and chicken.
“I would like to apologize for my behavior yesterday.” Emma put down her cutlery and looked at Pau.
“There is nothing to apologize for.” Pau smiled again and stretched out his hand and placed it over Emma’s. “Nothing at all.”
“Yes, there is. And I’m so very sorry. I just didn’t think. And I destroyed such a wonderful day.”
“I had a perfect day, Emma. Truly. It’s been a long time since I took out the boat. Your visit finally made me do it. Really, I’m just grateful.”
But Emma still looked upset.
“I’m the one who should apologize, Emma. I started the whole thing when I jumped overboard. My fault. But let’s forget it now.” I raised my glass and toasted.
We took our time. Savored the food. I’m not sure how, but Pau managed to move the conversation to entirely different matters. He talked about his childhood. About his grandfather and other eccentric ancestors. About the fishing that had been their livelihood. After a moment, I forgot everything else and listened attentively. And I could see and hear how much Pau loved this place. I realized how firmly anchored he was here. In his house. Where his family had lived for generations. And I felt more and more strongly how new and how fleeting my own relationship with this place really was. My roots were superficial and fragile. But they were the only roots I had ever grown anywhere.
When we had finished the meal, Pau disappeared downstairs with the dishes. He returned with fruit and cheese. He topped up our glasses and asked if we would like to come inside and see his studio. We followed him, and he turned on the light and the room came to life. The walls were completely covered with paintings and in the center was an easel with a canvas covered with a cloth. I looked inquiringly at Pau, but he didn’t seem to notice. He made no sign of intending to show the painting. Instead, he began to talk.
“It was my mother who made me paint. She was artistic, and I think my interest made her happy.” Pau’s figure cast a long shadow on the wall behind him. “As I remember it, she was always by my side. At first as a teacher. Later as an active observer. She still sits by my side when I paint. Well, at other times too. I carry her with me always.” He smiled. “My father, on the other hand, had in mind for me to study. That I was to do what had been denied him. I think he wanted me to become a lawyer. Or an accountant. Something that would make me financially independent. He was given a position in my grandfather’s construction business when he married my mother. I don’t think he ever felt quite free, even though he did well and the firm prospered. He took over when grandfather died. Well, it really was my mother who inherited it. She was an only child. Then my sister, Laura, took over when my father died. Not me. The only time I ever heard them discuss the matter, my mother pointed out that she was the one who had inherited the company, and that it was very suitable that her daughter took over.”
Pau looked pensive.
“When you are a child, you have no perspective on your parents. They are just Mother and Father. You can’t imagine them being different from how they are. Not until you are an adult, if then, can you see them as individuals. And when I consider my parents now, I understand how much they must have loved each other in order to manage to live as they did. I understand how hard it must have been for a proud man like my father to work under his father-in-law. It must have been like a lifelong apprenticeship. A whole life of proving to your in-laws that you were worthy of their cherished daughter, their only child. But I do think he thought it was worth it.”
I glanced at Emma, and she looked as if she was listening attentively. Her eyes were fixed on Pau.
I swallowed again and again, unable to speak. Finally, I excused myself and went downstairs to the bathroom and filled my hands with cold water. Then I placed my cool palms on my cheeks. I saw my reflection in the mirror. The dim light was flattering. Not only had Emma managed to get me into the red dress, but she had also removed the clasp from my hair. I remembered the last time I had worn the dress. And worn my hair hanging loose. Not in this house but up on our own terrace. The very first time we had guests in the house. The evening we celebrated officially becoming a couple. I danced. Laughed. And I felt beautiful. I could see myself in Maya’s eyes, and I knew I was beautiful to her.
I lifted the shoulder and tried to take in the smell of the red fabric. I remembered Maya and how she had rested her chin there when we danced. But I smelled nothing at all now.
Pau’s story had affected me more than I realized at first. The description of his parent’s love touched something sensitive deep inside me. Scratched the thin scab that had formed over the most painful something.
A long life of ceaseless love. Requited love. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to grow up surrounded by it. Or to experience it.
I rested my hands on the washbasin and looked straight into my eyes.
“Couldn’t I have had just a little more time?” I whispered. “Time to prove that no sacrifice would have been too great? That my love would have lasted our whole lives?”
I left the bathroom and slowly walked across the room and stood in front of the blue painting. Now I thought I could see Pau as a little boy, with his mother by his side, perhaps with her hand gently against his back as he focused on moving the brush over the canvas. I could see her leaning back on her chair and squinting to see how the entire work looked on the easel. How the two of them, their heads close together, discussed some detail. I imagined Pau’s father entering the room and his mother raising her free hand and her husband taking it in his. Then standing behind his son and placing his hand on his son’s head.
I looked up at the canvas, where the blue tones merged, deepened, dissolved, and then intensified again. And I understood, as I had never before, that this painting could not have been created without that love that Pau had described. That his art had its origin in the love that had surrounded him all his life.
When I came up the stairs, I stopped on the top step. Emma and Pau were dancing. They moved softly to the tango music. Their light clothes stood out against the darkness behind them, and it looked almost as if they were stage lit. I watched Emma bend backward, Pau’s arm around her waist, and lift a sandal-clad foot against his leg. I stood still, unable to take my eyes off them.
Then I turned and walked quietly down the stairs again and out the front door. The air was cool against my bare arms and legs when I stepped out into the alley. I stopped for a moment and looked up at the sky. It was clear with sparkling stars and a moon that shone with a bright white light. I could still hear the muted tango music behind me as I walked up the stone steps to my house.
* * *
I pulled off the dress and returned it to the wardrobe. I stood under the shower for a long time before I went upstairs and made my bed. I sat naked on the sofa, in the dark room, with the box on my lap. My hand quickly found wha
t I was searching for. Maya’s little perfume bottle. I pulled out the glass stopper and poured a few drops onto my finger, ran the finger over the base of my throat, behind my ear, and between my legs. Then I slid between the sheets. The fragrance was faint but it still filled the entire room. The entire world.
* * *
I woke in the aftermath of an intense orgasm. Without opening my eyes, I tried to hold on to the dream. I had been inside. I had loved. And I had been the loved one as well as the lover. I had watched and had allowed myself to be watched. I had run my hand over the skin of my stomach. And I had felt the excitement of caressing. And of being caressed.
I pulled the sheet over my head and could still smell the faint perfume in the warmth inside. At the same time I felt I was not alone in the room.
When I pulled down the sheet and turned my head, I could make out the silhouette of Emma’s body curled up on the other sofa. She lay with her back to me and had pulled up the blanket so her feet lay exposed. She had socks on and for some reason the sight moved me. The impression was that of a small child. The short hair, the narrow back, and sock-clad feet.
I folded away the sheet and snuck across the room and lay down beside my sister. I felt that she woke up, but she didn’t move. I stuck my nose into the warm space at the bottom of her neck and stretched out a hand gently to stroke her hair. Then I pulled the blanket over us, and I think we both dozed off. Or perhaps we had never really woken up.
Later I felt Emma move and sit up, and I did the same. We sat looking at each other, a little dazed.
“Don’t ever do that again, Maria.”
I cocked my head, not understanding.
“Don’t ever leave me again.”
She sat straight up, her legs crossed. I had a vision of a little nocturnal bird. An owl perhaps.
“I promise.”
“Not without letting me know. That’s all you need to promise.”
“I promise,” I repeated. “I just didn’t want to intrude. You looked so beautiful up there, dancing.”
Emma’s short laughter startled me.
“For someone so smart, you are really stupid. Don’t you understand anything?” She shook her head.
But she said nothing more, just stood by the sofa, looking down on me.
“This you won’t have to share. That’s for sure. You may not get it, but this is all yours. Has always been yours. If you could only open your eyes and see it.”
Then she turned and disappeared down the stairs.
I pulled on a shirt and a pair of jeans and followed. But Emma had disappeared into her room, and I carried on downstairs to have a shower.
When I returned upstairs, she sat at the table in the patio, as usual, smoking.
“Will you come with me today?”
I nodded.
In the alley she took my arm and stuck it under hers, and we strolled along the quay to the town square and the bakery. On the way back, Emma suddenly stopped.
“How about we take a swim? I know we have no swimsuits, but surely we can jump in wearing our underwear? I can do it now.”
I looked at my sister and couldn’t resist a smile.
“We surely can!”
Emma was quicker than I and took herself unsteadily across the pebbly beach and into the water. I followed. The water was cool but our skin adjusted soon. We dove. We swam. We floated side by side. Our eyes on the morning sky above.
Let everything stop right now, I thought. But nothing ever stops.
Eventually, we got out and pulled on our clothes and walked back.
* * *
We had finished our coffee and our croissants and lingered at the table. The little red-chested bird was nowhere to be seen, and the sky was clouding over.
“Just a few more hours and I will be on the bus, on my way.”
“Oh, right. We were going to see if we could book a taxi. I completely forgot.”
“I didn’t forget. I changed my mind. I’m not sure why, but I prefer the bus. For some reason it feels more . . . well, normal. As if I’m just going away for a little while. I leave as I arrived. It feels like leaving things a little open. I’m not sure if you understand. To leave in a taxi feels like a flight.”
“Oh, perhaps. I’m not sure. But it feels good, leaving things open.”
“But it won’t work. There is only the early morning bus. So I asked Pau to help book me a taxi to the terminal.”
I checked my watch.
“That soon?”
“Yes, I have a train to catch. That’s how it has to be.”
She looked at me, and I couldn’t quite read her expression. A kind of anticipation?
“But you will be back, won’t you?”
Then she smiled. “If you invite me.”
“Like last time, you mean?”
Now she laughed. “No, not like last time. If you invite me as if you mean it. Then I’ll come. But it won’t take me two years to respond. I don’t have that time.”
I nodded.
“Christmas?”
“Maybe.”
“With Anna and Jakob?”
“Maybe.”
“And then we’ll go to Barcelona. And you will see my gallery.”
* * *
Emma’s taxi wasn’t a taxi. It was Marcello in his dusty car. He was early and he carried Emma’s suitcase up the stairs to the road. Emma and I followed slowly.
“Mother didn’t give me much. But she gave me two sisters.”
“Me too,” said Emma. “I have two sisters, even if only one is walking here beside me.” We didn’t really say much more. By the car, we held each other. Emma felt so light in my arms.
Marcello closed the door behind Emma, and as they drove off I saw her wave.
* * *
When I came back to the house, the girl was already there. I had forgotten she was coming to clean. She was in the kitchen wiping the counters.
“Shall I change the sheets in the bedroom?” she asked, and nodded toward Emma’s room.
“Yes, please. My sister just left.”
I went upstairs and sat on the terrace. It was cool and the sky was gray. The sea looked dark and uninviting. It was difficult to believe that we had been swimming just a few hours earlier. After a little while, I went inside and pulled the sliding doors closed behind me.
I sat down at the table and opened the laptop.
* * *
Pau’s door was closed and I could see no light in the house. But I knocked. It took a while before he opened.
Suddenly I had no idea why I had come. Or what to say.
“Emma has left,” I said. And I could hear how idiotic it sounded.
But Pau stretched out a hand and pulled me inside. I handed him the bottle of wine that I had brought. He took it and then put his arms around me.
“Would you like something to eat?”
I shook my head.
“I would just like you to sing to me, Pau. About all the blue.”
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