him, and he is really sad. Eva called just to say that he really misses you. He wants everything to be back to normal again.’ Gunilla tried to catch Vera’s eye. ‘Just remember, however bleak things seem, he loves you.’
Vera took a deep breath. Yes, that felt like the truth. Despite everything that had happened, she knew that Adam loved her.
But what she said each time he contacted her was the only thing that she was sure she felt: I just don’t have the energy to see you at the moment.
5
Peter forgot the promise he made to Cecilia Åström. He didn’t do it on purpose; it was just that living up to other women’s expectations of him took all his time. But in August, when Kalle unexpectedly showed up in the otherwise empty dormitory to move out of his room, which was next to Peter’s, Peter suddenly remembered the crazy story.
‘You know your room is hard currency, don’t you?’ he said happily as they clapped one another on the back. ‘I heard the most exaggerated sob story, cooked up by somebody desperate to get their hands on these cleverly designed square meters.’ Peter made an elegant gesture, as if he were a well-paid real estate agent showing a luxury condo.
‘Oh, knock it off!’ Kalle looked up from his removal boxes. He was on his way to Kalmar to take a substitute teaching job, and he was thinking hard about where to put what.
Peter continued, inspired. ‘Imagine a nurse who could have been living a life of leisure as a rich man’s wife. But she travels the world instead, working for Doctors without Borders. She’s somewhere in South America for a few months, saving lives. Then some armed guerrillas invade the camp and kidnap everybody they can find, including a colleague, an older Swede!’
‘Shit!’ Kalle said. He straightened up, pulled up his shorts and dried the sweat off his forehead with the arm of his faded Greenpeace t-shirt.
Peter smiled at his friend, who, at that moment, looked more than ever like Fred Flintstone – thick hair sticking up in all directions, grey five o’clock shadow around his chin and hairy, stocky legs.
‘I know! Creative, right?’ Peter was always fascinated by elaborate fantasies. ‘But wait! There’s more! This girl got away, barely, but she hurt herself, broke her arm or something, and got sent home. There’s something wrong, though; the arm won’t heal. She goes home and lives with her mother and then walks straight into the Economics Department and says, like, “How does money work?” Can you believe it?!’
‘Yeah, good question,’ Kalle mumbled from inside a removal box.
‘And now she apparently needs to live here, if you’re not opposed to renting out your room to a one-armed mythomaniac?’ Peter grinned and helped Kalle with the last pile of books about animal behavior and micro-organisms in water.
Kalle wrinkled his brow and actually looked almost sad.
Peter’s smile faded. ‘What the hell, Kalle; don’t you have a sense of humor? Can’t you appreciate a good backstory when you hear one? And think of me who has to live here; what if the girl is half as good-looking as she is creative? Maybe she’s both a damn good storyteller and an SHB 10?
Kalle took a step forward and pushed his index finger into Peter’s chest. ‘I gave you that book to… Do you understand the risks of acting like you do? Of all of this…’
‘What risks?’ Peter asked, interrupting him.
‘You know, different girls all the time.’
‘Oh, you take it much too seriously!’
‘It wasn’t to teach you new sexist expressions,’ concluded Kalle stubbornly.
Kalle was somewhat unusual as a biologist who, in addition to his courses in high-school pedagogy, had taken 15 credits in Women’s Studies. It was actually a little suspicious, but Peter was willing to overlook it. Kalle had been a good dormitory neighbor, and Peter hoped he would come back when his substitute teaching position ended.
‘What?’ grinned Peter. ‘SHB 10? Abbreviations are so practical! “Super-hot babe 10 points” takes so long to say.’
‘And you sound like an idiot,’ muttered Kalle.
‘What…?’ Peter thought he knew what the problem was. ‘If you need a few tips about how to pick up girls, then you can read The Game yourself.’
‘I have read it,’ said Kalle and blushed under his stubble. ‘It gets good at the end, but I guess you haven’t read that part?’
‘Song lyrics. You can listen to them from beginning to end. Somebody cared enough to summarize the most important stuff. But books…’ How in the hell would I have managed to read Lord of the Rings if I hadn’t skipped over all the language Tolkien tried to construct? he thought. ‘You only read as much of a book as you need to in order to get the main point.’ Peter was never one to work unnecessarily. There were easier ways to get ahead.
‘But that’s what I’m saying. The point comes at the end.’ Fred Flintstone looked irritated.
‘Doesn’t seem so to me. Isn’t it an instruction book for repressed unfortunates? “Here’s what all you frustrated nerds should do if you want to have sex with gorgeous girls”.’ Peter made quotation marks in the air. ‘But those tricks… never needed ’em.’ He looked frankly at Kalle.
Kalle sighed, ‘But what if it’s all true?’
‘What?’
‘Just because you sometimes tell huge lies doesn’t mean that she, that girl, is lying,’ continued Kalle as he closed the last jam-packed box. ‘I actually read something about Red Cross workers being kidnapped somewhere in the spring.’
He went over to his desk and turned on his laptop. ‘Have you checked it out? What’s her name?’
Peter couldn’t remember her name, but after another conversation with Cissi and a few clever white lies, he reappeared in Kalle’s room. ‘Vera… what a strange name, sounds like an old woman. Vera Lundberg, and apparently she took the course I taught in the summer. In which case she’s no ten-pointer anyway, the best looking girl in the class was Sandra, SB 8.5,’ continued Peter teasingly.
‘God you’re sick! Incurable,’ Kalle muttered kindly and typed ‘Vera Lundberg’ into the search bar.
‘Thanks. You too,’ smiled Peter.
Six minutes later, the internet had given them the following information:
Vera Magdalena Lundberg turns 30 on January 26. She is the only child of Sven-Erik and Gunilla and lives at the same address – Lingongatan 9, Vindeln. In the summer of 1999 she married a doctor, the now 32-year-old plastic surgeon Adam Henningsson. ‘The couple are keeping their own last names,’ Kalle read out loud from the wedding announcement in the newspaper.
‘Then why the hell does she live with her mother?’ Peter looked at Kalle in bemusement.
‘How do we know? Something temporary. Or something serious. Plastics guy maybe hit her? Wife-beating is a lot more common than people think,’ said Kalle grimly. He got up and stretched his aching shoulders.
Peter
