[2013] The Heart Echoes

by Helena vonZweigbergk

  Can she continue to live this way, with all the consequences?

  “So, what about the dance school?” Sandra says. “Shall we close it down? It feels like I’ve been forcing you to participate, and I don’t know if I can keep carrying all the weight anymore.”

  “But I’ve been out because of my injury,” Per counters.

  Sandra sighs. “You know that’s not the only reason. From the very beginning you’ve never been keen on the whole dance studio idea. So now I’m wondering what you really want. I need to get a full-time job, and you’ll have to work at least part-time because your pension won’t get you very far.”

  “Which you seem to enjoy pointing out. And you’re right. I didn’t even finish high school, as you know. I focused all my attention on my dancing. And now all I get is—”

  “I know all that, Per. Everything is unfair. It is. It really is,” Sandra interrupts.

  “Thanks for telling me. I never would have guessed that on my own,” he answers sarcastically.

  No. Sandra pauses, deciding to drop everything she was planning to say. Per is smiling at her, a hastily summoned smile because they’re both reacting to the spitefulness that has suddenly made its entry once again. Like a nasty, elusive shadow it rushes past, and Sandra feels her whole body tense.

  Per takes a swig of wine and attempts another smile. Sandra thinks that for once she doesn’t care. They need to talk about things differently.

  It has to be possible.

  “So let me ask you again. What should we do with our life, Per? Now that it’s just you and me, I mean. We need to decide how to fill our days, plus make a go of things financially. Then maybe we can do some traveling.”

  Per takes another drink. “Scrape together enough for a charter flight to Torremolinos with the other cheapskates, you mean?”

  “Yes, for example. Although you don’t have to look at it that way.”

  “Forget it. I think things will work out with the dance school. We can put together some fancy special events for the fall.”

  “But are you sure you want to do that?”

  “Yup. It’ll be fine.”

  Per’s mood has sunk, and his smiles seem more and more forced. He lights another cigarette and looks around. Sandra has no other questions to ask except to reiterate, “Are you sure?” And she realizes that he’s not about to give her a more extensive answer. He’s just not equipped to do so. Why has she always refused to see that?

  It’ll be fine.

  That’s as much as he can say.

  Suddenly Sandra pictures her own face in the mirror at the dance studio when she was dancing with Josefin.

  Look at you, she thinks. Who are you? What do you want? Can you feel the rhythm, the strength, the sense of resolve?

  She stares into Per’s eyes, as much as that’s possible since he’s wearing sunglasses. She’s been seeing everything through his eyes. She has spent her entire adult life acting as his assistant. She started the dance school in an attempt to make them equals, and yet she has been totally dependent on him wanting to take part.

  But when she looks at herself, who does she see?

  Is she too cold? Is that what she has become? Or is she simply terribly unhappy and unable to decide what to do?

  The next day Sandra has agreed to go back over to Lena’s place. She’s going to help her sister take out the trash and clean up the apartment. Per has promised to sell the watch and then go over to the tax office to pay the back taxes. After that, Sandra will be free, at least for a while. She has been given a reprieve. The company she created in both her name and Per’s can continue to pay their salaries through the month of August. But after that, they’ll either have to begin teaching dance classes again, or else start over with something else entirely.

  With some reluctance, Sandra heads for Lena’s apartment. She wants to spend time with her sister, and yet she is dreading it. When she rings the bell, her heart is racing, and she can feel her face involuntarily trying out different expressions. Should she smile? Look sympathetic? Or would it be better to look serious?

  Sorrow sneaks in, trying to decide for her.

  Sandra worries that it’s taking an ever firmer grip on her wrists, pulling her downward. Yet she’s ashamed to find herself fighting against it.

  Ashamed that she is trying so hard to hold on to some sense of joy and life.

  But when Lena opens the door, all of Sandra’s anxiety evaporates, because her sister is standing there, looking much the same as usual. She motions for Sandra to come in, gesturing in that impatient way of hers. She asks Sandra if she’d like a cup of tea. In the next breath Lena tells her that she is finally making time to put away her winter clothes.

  No fear, no embarrassment, no pretentiousness. Just Lena and daily life. Putting away her winter clothes. Getting ready for summer.

  Sandra goes into the kitchen to make the tea. While she waits for the water to boil, she looks around the room, which is so reflective of Lena’s personality, her passion and creativity. There are things she has brought back from her travels, and a table lamp that Sandra remembers from their childhood.

  She realizes that she’s secretly trying to take in all that is Lena. This is the home that her sister created on her own, something Sandra has never done. Over the past few years she and Per haven’t done anything creative together with their home. As Sandra stands there in Lena’s kitchen, she’s filled with a smoldering and shameful desire for her own room, her own apartment. She tries to picture how it would look.

  “How’s it going?” Lena is standing in the doorway, holding a pile of woolen sweaters.

  “Fine. I was just thinking how nice you’ve made everything look in here.”

  Lena looks around the kitchen, as if trying to see it as an objective observer. “Really? I guess so. I’ve always liked this room. At least I used to.”

  “You have so many lovely things, and—how should I say this? It’s so personal. Like this, for instance.” Sandra picks up a big cup with a floral pattern. It looks like it might be an antique, made from the most delicate and fragile porcelain with a gilded rim.

  “Take it,” Lena tells her. “I’m tired of it.”

  “No, no. That’s not what I meant at all.”

  And it really isn’t. Spending time in Lena’s apartment has simply changed Sandra—as if she is truly seeing everything for the first time. For instance, the fact that it’s possible to have such a lovely cup. Or such a nice chair to sit on. Or a beautiful blanket draped over the arm of the sofa.

  Sandra watches her sister moving about the apartment, demonstrating that possessions can be treated with care and attention.

  Lena tells Sandra that at the beginning of every summer she shakes out her woolen sweaters and places them in a sealed plastic bag so they won’t end up moth-eaten. Sandra sits in an armchair, holding her teacup, and watches as Lena gets to work.

  She picks up one sweater and holds it out to her sister. “Feel this,” Lena says. “Isn’t it amazing? I bought it in New York. You can’t get this kind of cashmere here in Sweden.”

  Sandra touches the sweater, which feels as soft as a caress. The sweater is an intense blue color.

  “Well, that’s not really true,” Lena goes on. “You can get almost anything anywhere these days. Nothing is special anymore.”

  She smiles briefly, her expression melancholy, as she puts the sweater into the plastic bag.

  “You do everything so neatly,” Sandra notes. “I’d never take the time to put everything away like that.”

  “I love doing this sort of thing. Taking care of my clothes is the best therapy I know. I feel so calm when everything is nice and neat.”

  “I get that. But I’d still never do it myself.”

  Sandra continues to watch Lena.

  “Haven’t you ever felt lonely living on your own like this?” she asks. “Is this what you’ve always wanted?”

  “Hmm,” Lena murmurs as a shadow falls across her face.
<
br />   What about love? Sandra wants to ask. Yet Lena’s noncommittal reply and the way she is pressing her lips into a tight line stop Sandra from asking any further questions.

  Lena keeps moving back and forth from the wardrobe in the hall to the living room, where she piles various garments on the coffee table. She’s starting to look tired and withdrawn.

  “You’ve been free all your life. I’m a little jealous,” Sandra says.

  Lena sinks into an armchair next to the sofa, giving Sandra a sad look. “You are?”

  “Yes, it’s true. I’m jealous of your freedom.”

  “My freedom,” Lena repeats in a toneless voice. “What have I done with all that freedom?”

  Sandra is suddenly aware that Lena is crying. Tears spill down her cheeks every time she blinks her eyes. Sandra goes over to her and takes her hands.

  “I’m sorry for asking you such stupid questions, Lena. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

  “I don’t mind your questions,” Lena says in between sobs. “In fact, I’d like it if you asked me even more questions. I want you to know who I am. I don’t want to be the free and happy and crazy Lena. Or the tragically alone Lena who never managed to get things together. I want to be a person with nuances. Don’t you see that? Not just some one-dimensional cardboard figure, as if I’m nothing more than a bunch of dumb ideas.”

  The doorbell rings, and Lena stops crying. She wipes away her tears and asks Sandra to go and see who it is.

  Sandra opens the door to Astrid, who isn’t pleased to see her sister. She walks past her and goes into the living room to join Lena. She tells her she left work early and wanted to drop by for a visit. “I hope that’s okay,” she adds.

  Sandra thinks she can detect a trace of uncertainty in Astrid’s voice, but she feels a bit put out by Astrid’s arrival. She comes sweeping into the apartment wearing a slim-fitting red jersey dress and stylish sandals. There’s an air of elegance about her. Sandra ruffles her unruly hair, sensing that Astrid is regarding her with suspicion, as if Sandra were some hag who had crept in when the homeowners were looking the other way.

  “You’re not working?” Astrid asks Sandra.

  “I just came over to help Lena clean up a few things.”

  Astrid raises her eyebrows but all she says is, “I’ve brought some pastries so we can have coffee.”

  Astrid goes into the kitchen. A few minutes later she comes back with a plate of sweet rolls and slices of caramel-almond cake.

  “I’ll help you clean up, too,” Astrid tells Lena.

  Damn Astrid, Sandra thinks. Curses race through her mind. Fucking Astrid. She always has to take charge and make sure everything is done right, as if she’s the queen of propriety.

  Astrid offers her sisters some cake, saying it’s getting chilly outside, but it’s supposed to warm up next week.

  “That’s good, isn’t it, Lena? I’ve heard the weather on Fårö is going to be great.”

  All three sisters eat a piece of cake, and then Lena says she needs to lie down for a while.

  “I’ll come back tomorrow,” Sandra tells her in a low voice, trying unsuccessfully to keep Astrid from hearing her.

  “I will, too,” Astrid says firmly.

  Lena doesn’t reply. She goes into the bedroom and crawls into bed before her sisters are even out the door.

  Should she have guessed this would happen? Should she have known?

  Sandra is standing in the kitchen of her apartment, screaming into her cell phone.

  “Are you out of your mind? I should have expected this would happen. You’re fucking hopeless! I can’t think of anybody in the whole world who is as hopeless as you are!”

  Her pulse is beating so hard in her ears that she can hardly hear Per on the phone. She stares at the two bags of groceries on the kitchen counter. She spent a little more than usual so they could celebrate the fact that their financial troubles are over, at least temporarily.

  Or so she thought.

  “But I’m telling you I had the watch in my pocket. I went out around noon, just to have some lunch with Magnus, and I know I had it with me then. I’m telling you I—”

  At that point Sandra abruptly ends the call. She is shaking all over. She presses her hands against the counter as one sentence keeps repeating in her mind: it can’t be true, it can’t be true, it can’t be . . .

  Her phone rings again. And again. But she refuses to pick up. She doesn’t want to hear any more lame excuses or stupid and confused reconstructions of what might have happened.

  I’ll tell you what happened! she wants to shout. You were drunk! That’s what happened! You can’t do anything right anymore. Don’t you see that?

  Panic-stricken, she wanders around the apartment. She pauses in one doorway after another. Emilia’s room. The bedroom she shares with Per. The living room. The kitchen. Their whole life, for so many years, has been contained in these rooms. In the kitchen Sandra finds a newspaper open to a partially solved Sudoku puzzle. She picks up the paper, rips out the page, and shreds it into little pieces. Then she sinks down onto a chair and cries.

  What a disaster we are, she thinks. A real disaster. The drunk and the parasite. How pathetic that I thought things had turned around. How stupid that I thought I could make things work this time.

  Sandra gets up and stumbles into the bathroom to blow her nose. The consequences of what she has just learned begin to crowd her mind. The imminent financial ruin, the payment schedule that will be set up by the tax authorities. And having to hide the news from Lena, because she must never, ever find out about this.

  So what’s left? She is shipwrecked and her life raft is floating away. What can she do now?

  Suddenly she hears a sound in the front hall. Per has come home, no doubt bursting with regret and more excuses.

  She stalks out to the hall to find him digging through the pockets of his jacket, which is hanging on a hook.

  “Shit. Here it is,” Per says with a chuckle. Then he sees Sandra’s tearstained face.

  “Sweetheart, take it easy. It’s here.” Per holds out the box with the watch and gives Sandra a big smile. “I’m sorry I scared you. I was upset myself, as you can imagine. But then I remembered that it was really chilly when I went outside, so I came back here to put on a different jacket. I’d forgotten all about that. I thought some bastard had swiped the watch from my jacket because it was hanging on the back of my chair while I had lunch with Magnus.”

  Sandra crosses her arms and sinks down onto a chair in the hall. Per sets the box on her lap, but she makes no move to touch it. She hates Per. She hates his stupid expression and moody temperament, she hates the wine-soaked vulgarity and childish excuses.

  “How the hell do you even function anymore?”

  Per’s smile fades, and he, too, crosses his arms. “I found the damn watch, okay? So let’s go out and sell it somewhere.”

  When Sandra stands up, her legs feel wobbly as if she might collapse at any moment. And when she speaks, she’s surprised at the deliberate and forceful sound of her own words. “I have one demand if the two of us are going to continue living together. You have to stop drinking. Even you have to realize this can’t go on.”

  “One glass of wine at lunch? That’s all I had!” Per yells. “Are you saying that’s why I thought I lost the watch? That’s not the reason. Haven’t you ever lost anything? Or forgotten anything? That doesn’t make me tell you to stop drinking!”

  “Oh, come on, Per.”

  “If this were France or Italy—” Per stops in midsentence.

  “I’m serious, Per. No more wine,” Sandra warns. “And one more thing. I don’t want to keep running the dance school anymore. I just can’t handle it. In the fall I’m going to look for some other job. I don’t want to . . . live this kind of life anymore. Something has to change.”

  Per glares at her. “And I suppose I’m the one who has to change? How nice.”

  Moving slowly, rigid with sorrow but with grea
t resolve, Sandra puts the watch in her bag. She glances at the wall clock and realizes there’s still time to get to the pawnshop before it closes.

  “I love you, and I want to find a way for us to stay together,” she tells Per. “But if it’s not possible, then it’s not possible. Take a few days to think about it.”

  She pushes past Per and leaves the apartment. Out on the street, she shivers. When did it get so cold?

  Sandra pays the taxes and is filled with renewed hope. It will all work out. And, for the time being, the watch is still at the pawnshop. Maybe she’ll eventually be able to get a loan and buy it back. She calls Astrid’s home number to tell her what she has done. She wants her sister to know that she hasn’t misappropriated the watch; she has simply borrowed it. In spite of everything, she wants to reach out to Astrid. They’re going to need each other.

  But Viktor answers the phone. Sandra asks him how he’s doing, and whether he has fully recovered from the awful episode in Copenhagen.

  “Well, uh . . .”

  “I think it might take a while to get over something like that,” Sandra says. “But you’ll be fine. You just need time.”

  “Yeah. I know. That’s what Mamma and Pappa Michael said, too.”

  “Your mother and . . . So, has Astrid been in touch with Michael lately?”

  “Mamma? No. Who told you that?” Viktor asks.

  “I thought that’s what you just said.”

  “No. But they both came to see me in the hospital.”

  “Oh. Right. And I suppose Astrid talked to Michael afterward.”

  “She did?”

  “Er, probably not,” Sandra quickly adds.

  Maybe Astrid needs someone to talk to, she thinks. Me, for example. Because there can’t be many people who know about the situation with Michael.