Acts of Infidelity

by Lena Andersson

  ‘What are you going to write?’ Olof asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The purpose of your research is to write something, isn’t it?’

  ‘What research?’

  ‘Your research into the two plays.’

  ‘My research, yes. I never know how that will turn out. As well you know, I can use all of my experiences.’

  ‘So the research was mostly for the fun of it? A pretext for coming here?’

  His eyes were glittering, but because Ester had decided to act differently this time she didn’t admit to anything. She didn’t clarify the subtext. This equilibrium was achieved at the expense of sober inner distance. Protecting herself meant that there was instantly less closeness.

  ‘I don’t differentiate between utility and pleasure. I take pleasure in utility and find utility in pleasure. And displeasure.’

  ‘That, too.’

  ‘Especially that.’

  ‘Sounds worrying.’

  She didn’t reply, nor did she offer a disarming smile.

  ‘I’d like to be able to do what you do, writing. Actors are so dependent on other people. It leads to fellowship, sure, but also dependency.’

  These comments about affinity, these transfers from his account to hers were coming hard and fast that night.

  ‘In which sense can’t you write?’ Ester asked.

  ‘I just can’t.’

  ‘You mean you can’t write anything fit to print?’

  ‘I mean at all.’

  The pale incandescent light that had seemed sharp and insidious in November was now warm and enveloping. They sat there talking for over two hours.

  Then Olof spoke with new simplicity:

  ‘Shall we go to bed?’

  The beds in the bedroom were pushed together this time. No black bra was on the floor and there was no stiff silver necklace on the bedside table. They lay close together. It was self-evident and needed no discussion. But Ester was afraid of the backlash and barely dared allow her hands to graze his hot skin.

  ‘You’re not going to regret this in the morning, are you? Or in ten minutes?’

  ‘You can tell I won’t,’ he whispered as if the two of them shared no history, as if the last time they’d shared this bed hadn’t been awful.

  Caressing her body, Olof whispered: ‘Can you stay another night? You can go to Stockholm tomorrow while I’m on stage, pick up some clothes and come back.’

  His impulses were like fireworks – sparkling, extravagant, dying.

  ‘I’ll stay as long as you like,’ Ester whispered.

  A few hours later before she fell asleep, she noted that the day that was coming to a close was exactly one year since her arrival in Arvidsjaur.

  The morning after was the moment for dialectical backlash. If such a backlash were to come, it would come now. There would be no avoiding it. She had to find out the truth, so she pressed herself against Olof’s back, her arm around his stomach. And she got an answer. What Olof did indicated that this was the dawn of a new era and the past had been put behind them. He patted her hand. This small gesture was a sign of affection, an assurance that she could relax, and an acknowledgement of previous poor form.

  They slipped inside each other’s bodies anew. The February morning sneaked a peek through the half-open blinds to find out what happiness and pleasure looked like in undiluted form. Then they showered, ate and chatted. The day awaited and Olof wanted them to go into town. Ester didn’t question the reasons for or the meaning of the change. If he was asked to formulate it, it would lose its indeterminable vagueness, forcing definition’s contours upon it. He would catch sight of it and feel regret. Now it was a matter of being flexible and crossing her fingers.

  They went out. The winter sun stung their eyes, but was not warm. They held hands and walked to the town centre. The shapes and colours seemed brand new, box-fresh. The world was a different place than it had been the day before, and Olof Sten was behaving as if he’d crossed a border and reached a point of no return.

  They talked non-stop not about themselves, but about the world. Olof recited a stanza of a poem by Tegnér, which he’d written his thesis in literature on before drama school. The stanza went like this:

  ‘But thou, Mankind! art worthy to be lauded,/ God’s likeness thou, how true, how genuine!/ Two lies of thine have also to be added:/ One is called woman, and the other man./ Their tune is honour bright and faith requited,/ Sung best while taking one another in./ Thou Heaven’s child! thy single truth is plain,/ ’Tis branded on thy brow: the mark of Cain.’

  ‘Beautiful but terrible,’ Ester said. ‘Deeply disheartening.’

  ‘The truth is often terrible,’ Olof said.

  The number of buildings grew denser as they neared the centre of Norrköping. Cautiously, Ester mentioned what he’d whispered the night before, that she could stay another day, but Olof replied that it would be too complicated and risky. You never knew what Ebba might do even if they weren’t planning on seeing each other this weekend because she was working. Theoretically, she could barge in at any time.

  ‘At least we get to spend time together now,’ Olof said.

  ‘And it’s wonderful. But it’s the nights one wants.’

  The change was indeed substantial, for he said:

  ‘There are nights in Stockholm, too.’

  And Ester floated forth on wadding and cotton.

  They strolled the streets, visited an art exhibition but looked at each other more than at the art, walked until they arrived in an old industrial area that had been turned into a museum where they decided to have lunch. Sitting there with a selection from the buffet on their plates, Ester asked Olof about past relationships, his experience of love and how the relationships had begun and ended. Now seemed like the right time for a deepening of this kind. In his ambivalent days Olof would’ve been irritated, but now he told her about a woman he’d been very close to many years ago, during his previous marriage.

  ‘Did you have a romantic relationship?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  Slippery, Ester thought and felt some of the weight return, but positive; he’d never spoken so openly before.

  ‘So you had a relationship while you were married to the mother of your children?’

  ‘Towards the end. While it was in decline.’

  Again, slippery. His eyelids fluttered.

  ‘Did you end up being a couple?’

  ‘For a time. She died of cancer.’

  ‘While you were living together?’

  ‘No, later. A year or two ago.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘Eszter.’

  ‘Like me?!’

  ‘But with a “z”. Her mother was from Hungary.’

  He seemed to want to lighten the mood because with a laugh that lingered in his hapless smile, he added:

  ‘You know I’m not good with change; I like routine and repetition.’

  But Ester hung on tight, unwilling to depart from earnestness now that they finally dared inhabit it together.

  ‘Why did it end?’

  Olof looked around, troubled, the questions were getting to be too many, but he answered them.

  ‘It fizzled out.’

  Fizzled out. The phrase worried Ester deeply. Things rarely fizzled out mutually. The person saying they did was usually the one who had lost interest and stopped getting in touch, fallen for someone else, wanted to make a clean break. One person’s fizzling out was often another person’s misery.

  Ester wondered to herself how Eszter would have described it. But she was dead. She sensed something terrifying, but on a level she wasn’t about to heed. What had happened over the course of the past day was far too incredible to disrupt with a moment of worry. Her passions had finally quieted, desire was stilled, body and psyche were in harmony, and without resorting to power play she was with the man who lived inside her day and night. A new era awaited them, Olof had made that clear. She’d contend with
her doubts later.

  They made their way home through sun-drenched streets. Ester was tired from the lack of sleep and from not being used to the light. It was after two o’clock. She said she should start making her way to Stockholm. This time, she had to be disciplined and not hang around, better leave too early than too late. Independence, if but performative, was her new lodestar. She had to attempt an approach that had not previously failed. This progress couldn’t be laid to waste by showing a lack of restraint.

  There was something clarified about Olof’s person. His facial muscles were relaxed, cruelty and distancing jeers were no longer a way out. He said that if she didn’t have to go home just yet then he’d very much like her to stay until he had to leave for the theatre around five.

  ‘Then I’ll stay,’ she said.

  ‘That makes me happy.’

  When they got home, they napped on the bed pressed tight each other. They woke up at the same time and Olof said:

  ‘Well, hello. Fancy seeing you here,’ whereupon they embraced each other and the lust came rushing in. He stuck his hands inside her pants and whispered:

  ‘Making love with you is incredible. But we don’t have time.’

  ‘Yes, we do.’

  It wasn’t yet twilight. Light spilled into the apartment as only late-afternoon light in February can, scattering bright squares, rhombuses and dots around the room.

  Olof showered and Ester sat on the toilet seat enjoying the sight of his naked body, being with him, touching him whenever she fancied. From past the edge of the forest, the sun stared at them. She mentioned that there were five weeks until the spring equinox, meaning it was as light in the evenings now as it was when October turns into November. Olof said that was strange because the end of February feels much brighter. The difference must come down to expectation, they agreed. In February when you’ve got used to the dark, every ray of light was a gift, while in October it was the deprivation of light that once was. The result was the same, but the experiences much different.

  They held each other tight in the hall.

  ‘I’d like to skip work tonight,’ he said, ‘go to a restaurant with you, eat steak frites, drink a large beer and relax.’

  ‘That would be fantastic. But your public would weep.’

  Laughing, he stroked her cheek.

  ‘Hardly. You think too highly of me.’

  On the early stretch out of Norrköping, she drove in the livid twilight that sheathes the landscape right before darkness falls, completely content.

  The silence of the weekend that followed was unlike other silences. Ester made sure to work hard while her body was still content and the desire for replenishment hadn’t yet made her restless. She wrote for half of Saturday and half of Sunday, and otherwise she read. They didn’t call each other. It was his last weekend in Norrköping, he’d said he was going to clear out the apartment and then go to Stockholm for a few days before heading out on a long national tour. On Sunday afternoon, the first worry came creeping. Shouldn’t he want to call her? Not be able to help it? She kept at it, but her work was heavier now. Words, words, that’s all we have to confer. Words were worn down by thousands of years of use but also acquired their exceptional impact from those very years of usage. Should she desist? The world had enough books already and even if excess was a prerequisite for exceptional specimens she didn’t have to contribute to the rubbish so that the flowers of others could grow on the dump.

  She pushed through and stayed her course a little longer. Nothing ever got done if you thought it was meaningless. In order to have the energy to care about life itself, you had to exaggerate its importance.

  By evening, the distress caused by Olof’s silence became acute and the night grew long. She understood that she’d never have another good night’s sleep without that hot body next to hers; once you’ve felt it, the loss will be eternal, eroto-romantic awakenings are irreversible.

  By mid-Monday, worry had become agony. The fear of repetition forced Ester to take the measure that was most sure to lead to repetition; she texted him a little hello. When no reply came, she fell into a torture chamber. From down there, she called Olof and asked how he was doing.

  ‘Fine, thanks. Just great. The birds are chirping, it’s spring.’

  His carefreeness did not include her, just the spring. A person in possession of great longing and a hole that isn’t being filled with what she has chosen can even be jealous of birdsong. No mention of the incredible turn they had taken was made. The wordlessness was difficult. For Ester, a phenomenon didn’t really exist until it was articulated. For Olof, it disappeared with articulation.

  ‘Have you been thinking of me at all?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What have you been thinking?’

  ‘That we had a nice time.’

  Nice? Wasn’t it more than nice?

  ‘What do you think will happen now?’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘Us.’

  ‘If we’ve got to talk about us all the time, I’m going to lose interest in this.’

  Not a great comment but she clung to the word ‘this’. They now had something he called ‘this’. Olof said that he’d read about an exhibition on the origin of man in Dagens Nyheter that morning and wanted to see it with Ester. She’d also read the article, but she wasn’t after companionship at a museum. Last week’s reset had been for naught; what had prepared her for happiness then was misery now. The old fear consumed her: that all would be snatched from her as soon as she was holding it in her hands.

  ‘So we’re not going to sleep together?’ she asked.

  Olof sighed. ‘Aren’t both possible?’

  ‘Indeed they are. In that case, I’d gladly go to the museum with you.’

  Thus they set a date for Thursday at noon at the Fältöversten mall on Östermalm. Olof must have chosen the place because of some errand he had in the area, Ester thought, because it wasn’t on the way to the Swedish Museum of Natural History where the exhibition was; he was probably thinking they’d take the subway together to Frescati.

  At five to twelve, she was at the Valhallavägen entrance. She began to freeze in the harsh cold, so she went into the mall to warm up, came back out, waited. At ten past twelve Olof hadn’t shown up yet. When she, with certain hesitation, called and asked where he was, he was at the other end of the shopping centre at the Karlaplan entrance.

  His negligence had returned, the touch of disarray before their dates. There was a marked difference between her arrival on Thursday night in Linköping when he’d sorted out her parking as well as their exact meeting place and time. Now everything was loose and approximate again. If there was even the tiniest sum in his account, everything went wrong, was done by half and left hanging. Annoyed, she walked through the Fältöversten mall. She was sure they’d decided on the Valhallavägen entrance. Her heightened suspicion towards this kind of negligence and its root stemmed from eroded trust. It had been worn down long before she met Olof and was further eroded with each new love.

  She walked on to Karlaplan. There Olof was, waiting and his face gave nothing away. The first words from his mouth were that it was lucky she hadn’t shown up right at noon because a friend of Ebba’s had come along and stopped to chat. Olof’s concern bewildered Ester. He must have decided to leave Ebba, anything else would be incomprehensible considering what had transpired between them over the past fifteen months, culminating this past week. Most likely he was mentally preparing for the day when all his friends and enemies would find out that his relationship with Ebba was over and he’d started a new one. So why worry about a friend of the wife seeing them together? Rather, he should welcome such an encounter because it could help him spread the message that he was having such a hard time voicing.

  Ester didn’t ask about it. It wasn’t the time. It was never the time. She walked towards the subway and Olof asked where she was going.

  ‘To the Natural History Museum.’

 
; When he understood that the exhibition about the origin of man wasn’t at the Swedish History Museum down by Djurgårdsbron Bridge as he’d thought, which to her relief explained why he was at the Karlaplan entrance, he suggested that they go to Liljevalch’s spring exhibition on Djurgården Island instead.

  They did and afterwards, they lingered long in each other’s arms, huddled in a corner of Liljevalch’s cloakroom.

  On the bus from Djurgården, Olof’s sister called. Ester heard him say that he’d ‘never been better’ which filled her with a well-being greater than any she’d ever known. She touched him as he did her, they were sitting as close to each other as they could get.

  They were en route to the Passport Office on Kungsholmen. Olof’s passport had expired. He was going to Rome over Easter, to Rome with his wife, on the trip they’d arranged in the autumn. Maybe they couldn’t cancel it? Ester thought Rome would deal them a death blow. Travelling together with a wife one was about to leave couldn’t be anything but unbearable.

  At the Passport Office they saw an actress Olof had worked with on a production a few years before and who he’d been wary of since, which really meant that he thought she was wary of him and his talents. Olof didn’t go over and say hello, instead he waited for her to notice him. She didn’t. This made him feel neglected, insulted and under-appreciated. Ester pointed out that the woman had in fact not seen him. He asked if Ester didn’t think that actors were an unusually silly sort and acting itself was ridiculous. All that posturing and dressing up?

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Actors are so affected.’

  Through this exchange, Ester understood that Olof was in close mental proximity to her; only then did he speak ill of his work and those who engage in it. When he wanted to push her away, he’d reference his guild to underscore her status as an outsider.

  Ester observed these shifts with tormented empathy and thought that when he was with her, this self-loathing would disappear.