style="font-size:15px;"> Peter felt a strong desire to make everything right. ‘I’m going to try to talk to her.’
Cissi stared at him in surprise, ‘Why?’ Then her face clouded over again beneath her red hair. ‘What do you think you can say to her that will make her a reliable person?’
If there was anything Peter thought about Vera, it was that she was reliable.
When Peter learned from Matt that Vera was at Solbacka, he looked up the address and went directly there. This game would demand an entirely new tactic. He would have to coax her, a bit like he used to do with his mother when she was upset. With sweaty palms, he practised different ways of saying it.
He asked around at the retirement home, and a woman told him that Vera had probably just finished her shift for the day, but that she sometimes stopped by to visit Solveig Marklund in Wing D. Peter looked around, unaccustomed to the institutional environment. A slowly shuffling man with Scottish plaid slippers and a wheeled walking frame helped him find Solveig’s door.
He whispered a thank you and knocked.
A frail woman’s voice answered from inside, ‘Yes? Come in!’ she called in surprise.
Peter took a nervous breath and turned the door handle. He stepped into a strange, female world filled with crocheting, yellowing black-and-white photographs and a scent of… those old-fashioned flowers that his grandmother used to have on the veranda! He smiled a little at the memory. Grandma’s house had been full of strong plant fragrances. Out of reach of her grandchildren she had a whole cabinet filled with small, dark bottles with various herb extracts that she determinedly claimed were useful against every imaginable kind of affliction. One extract was good for treating chicken pox; another for coughs. ‘In the olden days, they would have called me a witch!’ she used to say, extremely pleased with herself, conscientiously caring for everyone around her who was in need.
He felt them looking at him from the small kitchen: a curly, white-haired old woman in a wheelchair and Vera were both staring in surprise. And he could understand why. In his expensive designer clothes, he was like that black Porsche that someone sometimes tried to park among the hand-painted bicycles on Stipend Street. Impossible to melt into the surroundings. But it couldn’t be helped. Force majeure.
Warmed by the memory of his grandmother’s house, Peter pointed carefully at the red clusters of flowers on the kitchen windowsill behind them – ‘geraniums?’
‘Yes, my Mårbacka geraniums. And who might the gentleman be, if I may ask?’ The old woman rolled towards him in her wheelchair, an expression of kind curiosity on her face.
‘Oh, sorry. My name is Peter, Peter Stavenius. I’m looking for Vera.’
‘Yes, she is here, as you can see. By all means, come in.’
He did what he could. He took off his handmade Italian shoes and the wool Armani coat. He unbuttoned his shirt cuffs and rolled up his sleeves before pattering over to the table.
‘Would you like a little tea, Peter?’ Solveig looked questioningly at him from beside the kitchen counter.
‘No, thank you, I’m fine.’
She rolled herself back to the table again. He felt how the white-haired woman studied him, curious but friendly. He felt Vera’s gaze and met it nervously.
‘I’ve come directly from the project meeting. We missed you.’
Vera stared down into her rose-patterned teacup and Peter continued, ‘I saw the text you sent to Cissi. But you can’t quit now. In the first place… Cissi recruited you because she thinks you have your own, interesting perspective, and she thinks there is a lot to it. Also, you’ve got pretty far with it already, isn’t that right?’
Vera held her cup in both hands and looked at him tentatively, ‘Mmmm,’ she said finally and took a sip from the cup.
He took a deep breath and continued:
‘Then there’s the fact that… well, you know Cissi. She’s furious.’
Vera blinked, surprised. After a second she shuddered and answered quietly, ‘Oh, I didn’t think of that.’
‘What’s happened?’ asked Solveig kindly.
Stressed, Vera wiped her hand across her forehead and said: ‘You know, the project I was selected for. I just felt like…’ She glanced self-consciously at Peter and went quiet.
Peter looked at her and continued: ‘You felt maybe that you wouldn’t be allowed to do it the way you wanted to?’
Which was code for his gnawing suspicion, and Peter turned red in humiliation. Vera also turned red and nodded.
Solveig looked from one to the other. Vera broke the silence: ‘Yes, and anyway, I slept really badly last night because I was in so much pain. And I felt like I just couldn’t keep at it when it felt… meaningless.’
The word pierced Peter as if she had said it about him.
Vera wiped her nose with a rose-patterned napkin. She sighed and, turning toward Solveig, continued.
‘So I quit. It’s just that it’s affected my advisor, who has really helped me a lot.’
She looked so sad that Peter forgot himself. ‘It wasn’t that bad. And you don’t have to have much to do with me. I mean, to get your chapter accepted. Talk to her. Explain the situation. I am sure it can be resolved.’
Vera looked at him with worried eyes. She finally nodded with her lips clamped shut. She looked at the wall clock and got up, taking her cup and saucer with her.
‘I’m sorry, but I have to go now. Solveig, thank you for the tea.’
Peter also got up. ‘It’s lovely in here!’ He nodded towards the hand-embroidered lace tablecloth and the elegant porcelain. ‘Perhaps I inadvertently barged in while you were celebrating something?’
‘Sadly, no,’ said Solveig with a little quiver in her voice. ‘It is rather the opposite. Vera might have to stop coming to work here.’ The old woman followed Vera into the hall in her wheelchair.
‘Why is that?’ She’s thinking about quitting the project and quitting here too? What is she planning on doing?
‘My body just aches so much.’ Vera took her jacket off the hanger and sighed. ‘I probably have to take sick leave because of the pain in my lower back.’
‘Well, I can understand if you are in pain.’ Peter squatted gracefully and tied his shoes.
Vera and Solveig looked at him. He stood up and rolled down his shirtsleeves. ‘You’ve been limping for – how long now? Six months?’
Vera nodded. Peter put his hand on his hip: ‘I think you have knots in your… gluteal muscles from walking crooked. That makes your back ache. I have a friend who hurt his foot in a bad kick when he and another guy were practicing jujutsu. Before he was operated on, he got a bunch of problems in other parts of his body, and that was after
