“You can’t read in that light,” he said. “You’ll ruin your eyes.”
“No.” She put down the book. “That’s one of those lies that people spread. You can’t ruin your eyes by reading in too little light. There can never be too little light.”
He smiled faintly and walked over to her.
“Wait, don’t sit down.” She disappeared, then came back with a few towels and placed them on the sofa.
He sat on them. “I could have gotten them myself,” he said.
“I wanted to get them,” she said, “if that’s okay.”
There was silence for a moment.
“What were you reading?” he asked at last.
“Your book,” she said, holding up Kafka’s Amerika. “You never have time to read, after all.”
“What do you think?”
“Tricky,” she said. “But when you get into it, you can’t put it down. You think you understand, and then you realize you don’t understand anything.”
“I understand,” he said.
“Do you?” she said.
They laughed briefly.
Then she fingered his clothes. “You’re really wet. I’ll help you get them off.”
“You don’t need to-”
“Yes,” she said, “I need to.” She slowly undressed him.
He allowed himself to enjoy it, wholeheartedly.
“I’ll probably have more time to read now,” he said as she pulled off his pants. “And we’ll probably have a little more time together, too.”
“But you haven’t caught that Montana Murderer yet.”
“Kentucky Killer.”
“When are you actually going to catch him?”
“Never,” he said calmly.
She pulled off his soaking-wet underwear and threw it onto the pile of drenched clothes on the floor. “You don’t look too bad, Paul Hjelm,” she said, “for a middle-aged, lower-level official.”
“You don’t look too bad, either,” he said. “As you can see.”
She smiled and started to undress.
He reached for the candle. He put it out-and burned himself. “Ow, hell.”
“You’re so clumsy,” she laughed, lying down beside him.
He watched the wick. The glow ebbed until no light was left. “There can never be too little light,” said Paul Hjelm, letting himself go.
Outside, the rain streamed down.
About the Author
Arne Dahl is an award-winning Swedish crime novelist and literary critic. Bad Blood is the second book in the Intercrime Series.
About the Translator
Rachel Willson-Broyles is a freelance translator and a Ph.D. candidate in Scandinavian Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her other translations include Jonas Hassen Khemiri’s novel Montecore and the play INVASION! She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
