Like a purification rite, once and for all.
On that September day two years and five months ago it had been raining for a whole week, but then like an omen the sky split open and turned bright blue two hours before she was to arrive. He had packed the picnic basket carefully. He had even made a quick trip down to Konsum and bought plastic champagne glasses so everything would be perfect.
As usual she was a bit late, twenty-six minutes to be exact, but she had wanted to finish something on a painting she was working on. It didn’t make that much difference; if he had waited a year he could wait another twenty-six minutes.
He had placed a checked kitchen towel over the basket and during the walk down towards Årstaviken she kept asking him what was in it. As usual she babbled on; it bothered him a bit that she didn’t seem to grasp the solemnity of the occasion. She talked about some gallery where she might get a chance to exhibit her paintings, and about how nice the man was who owned the place. The whole conversation made him uncomfortable. He hated it when she met people outside his control. He wanted to know everything she did, who she met and how she acted when she met them. A few weeks earlier he had mustered the courage to talk to her about it, explain how he felt. Something had happened after their talk, something that bothered him. For him everything he told her had been a sign of his boundless love, but somehow she must have misunderstood. It seemed as if she had pulled back the past few weeks. She had suddenly not been able to eat lunch with him as she usually did, and a few times she had pretended she wasn’t home when he knocked on the door of the studio, even though he knew she was there.
Now he would see to it that everything was all right again.
He had thought that they should sit on the bench across from the Boat Club, but when she saw that the gates were open she absolutely had to walk out on the wharfs. She chose the one on the right, and they walked past the few boats that were still in the water, waiting to be taken out for the winter. They walked to the end, and he set the basket down on the concrete. The bench would have been better. She came over and stood by his side, looking out over the water. A lock of her dark hair had slipped out of the clasp at the back of her neck and was lying across her cheek. He resisted the impulse to brush it aside, touch her face.
‘God, it’s so beautiful. Look at the Söder Hospital.’
He looked where she was pointing. The sun made the windows in the enormous white building glow as if fires had been lit inside each and every one of them.
‘I should have brought along my sketch pad.’
He knelt down and took the towel off the basket, placed it like a tablecloth on the concrete, and set out the champagne glasses.
‘Oh,’ she said, smiling in surprise, ‘it’s a party!’
He felt the nervousness now, almost changed his mind. In some way she didn’t seem fully there. Everything would be much easier if she met him halfway, tried to help him out. He took out the potato salad and the grilled chicken, reached for the sparkling wine and stood up.
Her smile. He had to touch her.
‘What are we celebrating?’
He smiled at her, couldn’t say the words, not yet.
‘Has something wonderful happened?’
Now she was looking at him with curiosity, really looking at him. For the first time in weeks he had her full attention. Finally she was back again, with him, where she should always be.
He handed her the glass with determination.
‘Will you marry me?’
He had fantasised about it for months. How her beautiful face would break into that smile that made her eyes narrow to slits. How she would come to him, come close, in complete trust and finally let him kiss her, touch her. She who had always had to struggle through life would understand that he intended to protect her, that he would never leave her, that she never had to be afraid again.
But all she did was shut her eyes.
She closed her eyes and shut him out.
A primal fear came over him. All the terror that she had protected him from for a whole year came flooding in like a great fury.
She opened her eyes and looked at him again.
‘Jonas. We have to talk.’
She took the glass from him and put it down on the wharf.
‘Come, let’s sit down.’
He couldn’t move.
‘Come on.’
She reached out her hand and placed it carefully on his arm, led him cautiously over to the edge of the wharf and got him to sit down. She stared out over the water.
‘I think the world of you, Jonas, I do, but what you said to me a few weeks ago scared me. I realised that maybe you’ve misinterpreted everything.’
I don’t want you to live here any more.
‘I’ve tried to explain things to you but . . . well, it’s my own fault that it’s gone this far, because I haven’t dared, I didn’t want to make you sad. Yes, and our friendship has been terribly important for me as well, I don’t want to lose it.’
I don’t want you to live here any more.
‘This man at the gallery I told you about, his name is Martin, we have . . . he and I have . . . oh, damn it.’
She looked away but in the next instant he thought he could feel her hand on his arm, though it could have been his imagination.
‘I’m so sorry that I didn’t say something sooner. I didn’t realise how you felt until you told me that you didn’t want me to see other people if you weren’t with me. And this thing with Martin. Well, now I might as well tell you the truth. I really believe I can say that I love him. At any rate, I haven’t ever felt like this before.’
He looked down at his arm. Yes, it was there. Her faithless hand lay there on his forearm.
She was touching him.
‘Forgive me, Jonas, but . . .’
Everything went white.
In the next instant she was in the water. Her face broke the surface, shocked and furious.
‘What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy?’
He looked around. There was an old abandoned oar next to him with only half the blade left. Her hands were clutching the edge of the wharf but he prised up her fingers so she had to let go. The next time he saw her head above the surface he shoved the oar against her shoulder and forced her back down. Her deceitful hands thrashed above the surface but vanished. Then she started moving out, backwards; she was trying to escape by swimming out of reach.
The water closed around him. The cold didn’t touch him. Quickly he was at her side and shoved her head under the water. He fought off her thrashing arms and locked his legs around her to get extra leverage. It might have taken ten minutes; time did not exist. Only the feeling that she slowly but surely was ceasing to resist, had submitted to his will and given in.
And then the voice from somewhere that suddenly broke into his consciousness.
‘Hello! Hello! Do you need help? I’m coming.’
She listened carefully while he was in the shower. When she heard him pull shut the shower door, she hurried into his office and copied the letters on the fax. Which of them would best suit her purpose she didn’t know yet; she would take them with her and read them somewhere in peace and quiet when he thought she had gone to work.
She left only a note on the kitchen table – ‘Going to work now, can pick up Axel today so you can work in peace and quiet.’ – and with the originals back in the gun cabinet and the papers she needed stuffed into her briefcase, she pulled on her coat and left the house.