Strangers: An Exclusive Short Story

by Camilla Grebe

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  Contents

  Strangers

  Excerpt from Some Kind of Peace

  Extended Sneak Preview of More Bitter Than Death

  A Conversation with Camilla Grebe and åsa Träff

  STRANGERS

  We will remain strangers.

  A brief encounter, a chance meeting: two worlds that graze each other fleetingly. And in an instant, new paths open up—for a second, there is a possibility that the story will actually change course, that our lives will become intertwined and something tremendous and improbable and wonderful will happen.

  The First Woman

  She had red hair. And the sun turned it into a gleaming halo billowing in the faint breeze as she approached on the sidewalk along Stockholm’s Götgatan. There was a considerable amount of self-assurance in her stride, as if she were convinced of her own worth, as if she owned the dirty asphalt, damp with morning dew, that she was walking on. She held a red leather purse in her hand and was swinging it back and forth like a pendulum. It was worn and, frankly, really ugly. Actually, upon close consideration, everything about her was a little worn. She was a little too old to be swinging her hips in that cocky manner, a little too fat for those tight jeans. And there was a hint of gray in that mane of red hair.

  But she walked with assurance anyway, radiating the promise of soft skin, strong hands, and an ample bosom.

  He saw all of this: the self-assurance in her stride, but also the strands of gray in her hair, the wrinkles between her breasts, and the worn clothes. But that didn’t matter to him, because she was beautiful and desirable and sort of worn, in a good way. He liked things with a patina, that had been used, that life had taken its toll on, tamed. And there was no difference between a woman and her body. It was the evidence that she had lived and that just made her more attractive. He breathed the smoke deep into his lungs and then tossed his cigarette aside.

  About a block away.

  Still plenty of time to make sure everything was in place. With great effort he struggled to his feet using his crutch. The morning sun warmed his cheeks and he reminded himself that he had to stop by 7-Eleven and buy a coffee, later that is, after he was done loading everything up.

  She didn’t seem to be in a hurry. Her gait reminded him of some sort of dance. He didn’t know yet if she was the right one. He couldn’t decide. She had to come much closer. They had to talk. She had to help him. He didn’t like unhelpful women. He didn’t want unhelpful women. The whole world was full of narcissistic, unhelpful women.

  Half a block.

  He checked to make sure everything was in place. The table was on the sidewalk. The crayon marks on the tabletop were clearly visible in the morning sun. The small van was pulled over and ready to load. The teddy bear was on the floor, the pacifier, too.

  Now he could smell her scent: citrus mixed with sweat and a hint of musk. As if she’d come straight from her lover. That made him both happy and excited. He liked women who had a strong personal scent. Rubbing each body part with creams and oils, removing all the natural odors and replacing them with synthetics was against nature. And a person who went against nature would eventually be punished.

  He absentmindedly scratched at his cast—as if that would help with the persistent itch along his ankle. His cast was covered with drawings and small notes written in wobbly letters: “I love Daddy” and “Anton is a pig.” He reminded himself that he needed to clear out some of the toys from the back of the van; there were way too many in there. Two or three was plenty. It was starting to look like a mobile day care instead of a means of transportation. It was never good to overdo things. The subtle details communicated the message best.

  Fifty feet.

  He prepared himself, using his arm brace to maneuver up onto the sidewalk and over alongside the table until he reached the short end that was farthest away. She’d seen him. He slowly ran his hand through his thick, dark hair and set his brace down on the ground, supporting himself on the table so as not to lose his balance.

  “Do you need help?”

  He glanced up at her with an expression that he hoped was both startled and pleasantly surprised. And the truth was that he actually was surprised—it wasn’t usually this easy. Fish didn’t just leap out of the ocean right into your boat. Money didn’t rain down from the sky. Women didn’t just walk up and offer their services totally voluntarily, without some ulterior motive, wondering what was in it for them.

  He scrutinized her more closely. In the unforgiving light of the morning sun, he could see that she was heavily made up. Black eyeliner framed her small, dull gray eyes. Thick layers of powder formed little sausage shapes in the wrinkles around her eyes. Her lips were dry and chapped and totally bare, giving her a pale, unhealthy appearance. As if she were suffering from severe anemia.

  He forced himself to smile.

  “Sure, if you could just take the other end and go up into the van first?” he suggested. He smiled broadly, exposing his perfect teeth. Was she a mind reader, too, this little whore?

  “Unbelievably decent of you,” he mumbled when she took hold of the table.

  As she bent over, wide holes gaped in her snug-fitting jeans, her flesh swelling out of them like freshly risen bread dough. It reminded him of his mother, who always wore clothes that were too tight, hoping they would help her lose weight. And that in turn brought up a bunch of images that severely disturbed him: empty knocked-over wine bottles on the vinyl flooring, cigarette butts in the toothbrush cup, his mother’s underwear in the hallway along with unidentifiable men’s dirty clothes. The scared, skinny dogs that howled with hunger and the black speckled spiral flypaper that hung like streamers in the dirty windows.

  “Is this good, like this?”

  He stared at her blankly as she stood there, all they way in the back of the van. No, it really wasn’t good like this. She gave him the wrong vibe. It was never going to be right, he was sure of that.

  So he said, “Nah.”

  “No?” she asked.

  “No, it’s not good,” he replied slowly. “You’re not good. Even my mother is better than you, you get that? Even the dogs wouldn’t want to come near your fat ass.”

  She stared at him in disbelief, as if she couldn’t process what he’d just said. But something told him that she understood anyway. That in spite of everything, some reptilian part of her degenerated brain was sending out small warning signals to the rest of her body, because she started to slowly make her way out of the van’s interior toward the safety of the sunlight outside.

  “You’re messed up,” she said and then turned around and walked away without looking back.

  The Second Woman

  The second woman was wearing a suit and carrying a computer bag made out of some sort of rubbery material. His first reaction had been negative; career girls had never been his thing. But as she came closer, he saw her soft, childish face without any trace of makeup. Her skin was pale and reminded him of untouched, newly fallen snow or the flour his mother used to pour onto the big breadboard: soft, white, malleable. In fact, she looked just like a child, a child wearing a suit. That brought up conflicting feelings of sympathy and lust in him, which was a sure sign that he was on the right path, a
nd he felt his pulse speed up.

  Unlike the first woman, she pretended she didn’t see him. She kept her eyes trained on the ground ahead of her and her hand clenched tight around her purse.

  “Uh, hi. Excuse me . . .” he said.

  She hesitated a second before stopping and looking directly at him for the first time. He saw disinterest and . . . fear? That made him even more convinced that she was actually the right one.

  “Yeah, I’m just trying to get the table up into the van, but, well, it’s not that easy.” He gestured at his cast with a smile.

  She looked dubious, glanced around, clenched her purse closer to her body, but she kept standing there on the sidewalk.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I’m . . . in a hurry.”

  “It’ll just take a minute. I promised my daughter I’d be home by ten,” he said. He could feel her hesitation, and that made him even more eager. He had to remind himself not to be too pushy.

  “Well, if you’re in a hurry, I can ask someone else. That’s fine.”

  “No,” she said, raising her hand. “That’s not what I meant. Of course I’ll help you.”

  She carefully set her computer bag down on the sidewalk and looked around yet again. Sunday morning, not many people out and about. She seemed to decide that she could leave the bag unattended for a minute.

  “Like this?” she asked, grabbing the long side of the table.

  “I think it would be better if . . . Could you hold it from over there instead and then back up into the van first? That would be easier for me.”

  Again she stopped and looked at him with a furrow in her pale brow.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “What do you mean ‘why’?”

  “Why would that be easier for you if I go into the van first?”

  He laughed and shrugged. “I was just thinking . . .” he began.

  “What were you thinking?”

  Now her arms were crossed over her chest and suddenly she didn’t look as childlike and soft as before. He realized that she was probably older than he’d thought, at least thirty, at any rate pushing it.

  “I thought it would be easier for me if I didn’t need to climb all the way into the van because of my cast,” he said slowly and very calmly, his eyes trained on her.

  “Well, I don’t know . . .” She was standing completely still now, looking him in the eye.

  “I don’t know if I want to get in that van,” she clarified, nodding into the van, which was filthy and full of toys and old newspapers and other junk.

  He had to remind himself again not to be too eager. He sighed and pulled out a cigarette, which he lit and inhaled from deeply.

  “I understand. You’d probably get your nice suit dirty.”

  “It’s not that,” she said.

  “Oh,” he said.

  A middle-aged man with two German shepherds was approaching them, about sixty feet away.

  “Oh, all right,” she said with a sigh and walked around to the short end of the table. “Let’s do it.”

  “Perfect,” he said, putting out his cigarette.

  They lifted the table. The sun was reflecting off the shiny but worn tabletop and he was forced to squint. Just as she was about to back into the dark space in the back of the van, he heard a voice from the sidewalk.

  “Hey, do you need any help with that table? That looks heavy.”

  He swore to himself. Just what he needed now, a chipper do-gooder out walking his dogs who simply had to go sticking his nose into things.

  “We’re fine,” he said, forcing himself to smile.

  “You can’t lift that,” the German shepherd man said with a sneer, ordering his enormous dogs: “Sit. Stay. Good. Now stay there.”

  And before he could stop him, the man had kindly but firmly pushed him aside and taken his place at the long end of the table farthest from the van.

  “Uh one, two, and . . . There. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Can you get out of there?” the German Shepherd man asked.

  The woman with the pale face was standing all the way at the very back of the van with the table between her and the doors.

  “I don’t know. Oh, my God, there really isn’t much room in here. It’s almost impossible to get past this table.”

  No, well that’s exactly the point, you stupid cunt, he thought. There’s exactly five inches between the table and the wall of the van. Or there is if you push it all the way over against the one side. The whole point is for you to get stuck in there and stay put. The point is that you and I and the fucking teddy bears in the van will drive far, far away. The point is that I will tape your snooty little mouth shut with duct tape and slowly slice open your clothes with the wallpaper knife. The point is that I’m going to fuck you until you choke on your own vomit.

  That’s the point.

  But he didn’t say any of that.

  “Yeah, I guess it is,” he said.

  The German shepherd man brushed the dust off his pants and looked at him as if he were expecting an expression of gratitude or something along those lines. He couldn’t respond. He sank down on the sidewalk instead and sat there with the leg in the cast stretched out in front of him. It was so unfair. All that preparation wasted—the removable cast, the disarming toys, the carefully selected table. The convincing.

  A whiff of freshly baked bread and coffee emanated from the bakery next to them, which was just opening. The city was waking up and soon the street would be filled with people out for a Sunday stroll, which would make his job even harder.

  “But, my God, it’s almost impossible to get out . . .” The woman’s whiny voice could be heard from inside the van as she forced her way past the heavy table. She hopped down onto the street and looked at him. Her face wasn’t pale anymore, but pink. Big red splotches had spread over her throat.

  He turned his face away. She wasn’t particularly attractive like this. He couldn’t help but wonder if she would have looked like this when he fucked her. If so, that would have been unfortunate and would definitely have diminished part of the point.

  The woman and the German shepherd man disappeared down the sidewalk. He could hear her voice complaining in the distance: “He didn’t even say thank you. Did you notice?”

  The Third Woman

  The stroller was full of groceries and difficult to push up the hill. Sweat beaded up on her forehead and upper lip and between her breasts, and she regretted having worn her leather jacket that morning. Wilma was awake now, too, and it was only a matter of time before she got hungry and started screaming. So far she was content to lie quietly, watching the cars and people with those sluggish baby-who-just-woke-up eyes of hers.

  She stopped, took off the jacket, and as she mashed it down underneath the baby, on top of the bags stuffed with groceries and diapers, she quickly leaned down over Wilma and gave her a kiss on the forehead. Wilma was sweaty; she squirmed and turned her face away from her touch.

  She wondered if Wilma still had a fever. She’d had a fever and congestion for a week and had been sent home from day care. Two days later Wilma still had the fever, but since she’d had to go to work, she had given Wilma some Tylenol and taken her to day care anyway. Of course it had gone great.

  If her ex wasn’t such an egocentric pig, maybe he could have helped her out. After all, he was still Wilma’s father and that was what fathers did, wasn’t it? Helped out by taking care of their own kids when they were sick?

  “Excuse me. Do you think you could give me a hand? I can’t really manage to get this into . . .” asked a young guy in a T-shirt and jeans, and with one foot in an enormous cast, which was covered with colorful drawings. His shoulder-length hair was dark auburn and sparkled in the sun.

  Cute. He was actually really cute.

  Without giving it a thought, she ran her eyes over his muscular arm
s and down to his left hand. No ring. Just a bracelet made of plastic beads.

  She decided she was definitely feeling helpful today.

  “Sure. I’ll just park my stroller over here.”

  Wilma whined halfheartedly as she pulled out the canopy to keep the sun out of her eyes.

  “Where do you want me to lift from?”

  The guy set his crutch down on the curb with difficulty and pointed at the table.

  “I was thinking maybe you could lift from there and back into the van?”

  “Sure.”

  She walked over to the short end of the table and picked it up. It was much heavier than she’d thought it would be. Old, massive, and made of some sort of dark, exotic hardwood. She slowly raised it while sucking in her gut and sticking her breasts forward a little.

  “Jesus, what’s this made of? Lead?” she joked.

  He smiled at her and raised his eyebrows. “It’s good exercise. Ready? Let’s go.”

  She slowly backed her way into the dark, cramped space. The air was stuffy and filled with dust. She smelled the faint scent of motor oil and tobacco and almost tripped over something soft and shapeless on the floor, a teddy bear.

  “So you have kids, too?”

  “Yup, Anton. He’s three.”

  “Cool.”

  She was almost all the way in now. She wanted to ask if Anton had a mother, too, and if so, where she was, but she stopped herself. She was way too nosey, and guys did not like nosey women.

  The table hardly fit in the cramped space, and she wondered to herself if she was going to be forced to climb over it to get back out.

  When she felt the front wall behind her back, she carefully set the table down.

  “Is this good?”

  “Perfect. You don’t know what a huge help you’ve been to me,” mumbled the guy, who was now a dark silhouette outlined against the square, light-filled opening. She could hear Wilma crying outside.

  “Could you help me lift the table to the side so I can get out?”