‘Erica, promise me you’ll drop all this.’ He put his hands on her shoulders and forced her to face him. His clear eyes were unusually steely for Dan.
‘I don’t want anything to happen to you, and if you keep poking about in this I’m afraid you’re going to get in over your head. Let it go.’
Dan’s grip on her shoulders tightened as he stared into her eyes. Erica opened her mouth to reply, dismayed at Dan’s reaction, but before she could say anything she heard Pernilla’s voice from up on the wharf.
‘So, the two of you are having a cosy time, I see.’
Her voice had a coldness that Erica had never heard before. Her eyes were flashing and she kept clenching and unclenching her hands. Both of them had frozen at the sound of Pernilla’s voice; Dan’s hands were still on Erica’s shoulders. Like lightning, as if he’d burned himself, he snatched his hands away and stood at attention.
‘Hello, dear. Did you finish early today? Erica just came by with a little lunch and wanted to talk for a while.’
Dan jabbered on frenetically and Erica looked back and forth between him and Pernilla in astonishment. Erica hardly recognized her. Pernilla gave her a look of pure hatred. Her hands were clenched so hard that her knuckles turned white, and for an instant Erica wondered if she was going to attack her. She didn’t know what was going on. It had been years and years since they’d cleared the air about her and Dan. Pernilla knew that they no longer had feelings for each other, or at least Erica thought she knew. Now she was no longer sure. The question was, what had brought on this reaction? She looked back and forth from Dan to Pernilla. A silent power struggle was going on, and Dan seemed to be losing. There was nothing more for Erica to say, and she decided it would be best to slip away quietly and let them handle it on their own.
She hastily gathered up the cups and thermos and put them back in the basket. When she walked down the wharf, she could hear Dan and Pernilla’s agitated voices breaking through the silence.
He was indescribably lonely. The world was empty and cold without her, and there was nothing he could do to thaw the cold. The pain had been easier to bear when he could share it with her. After she vanished it was as if he had to endure both their pain, and it was more than he thought he could bear. He dragged himself through the days minute by minute, second by second. Reality outside him did not exist; all he had was the consciousness that she was gone forever.
The guilt could be divided up into equal bits and portioned out among the guilty. He did not intend to bear it all alone. He had never intended to bear it alone.
He looked at his hands. How he hated his hands. They carried both beauty and death – an incompatibility duality that he had learned to live with. Only when he caressed her had his hands been entirely good. His skin against her skin had driven away all the evil, forced it to flee for a while. At the same time they had nourished each other’s hidden wish. Love and death, hatred and life. Opposites that turned them into moths flying in circles closer and closer to the flame. She was burned first.
He felt the heat from the fire on the back of his neck. It was close now.
She was tired. Tired of cleaning up other people’s filth. Tired of her joyless existence. One day followed another with no differentiation. She was tired of bearing the guilt that weighed her down day in and day out. Tired of waking up each morning and going to bed each night and wondering how Anders was doing.
Vera put the coffee on the stove to boil. The ticking of the kitchen clock was the only sound to be heard. She sat down at the kitchen table to wait for the coffee to be ready.
She had spent today cleaning at the Lorentz family’s house. The house was so big that it took all day. Sometimes she missed the old days. Missed the security of going to the same place to work, the status that went along with being the housekeeper for the wealthiest family in northern Bohuslän. But she didn’t always feel that way. Most often she was glad that she didn’t have to go there every day. That she no longer needed to bow and scrape to Nelly Lorentz. The woman she hated beyond all rhyme and reason. And yet Vera had continued to work for her, year in and year out, until time finally caught up with her. Housekeepers went out of style. For over thirty years, she had lowered her eyes and muttered ‘yes, thank you, Mrs Lorentz, certainly, Mrs Lorentz, right away, Mrs Lorentz,’ at the same time as she repressed a desire to put her strong hands around Nelly’s frail neck and squeeze until that woman breathed no more. Sometimes the desire had been so overwhelming that she hid her hands underneath her apron so that Nelly wouldn’t see how they shook.
The kettle whistled to signal that the coffee was ready. With an effort Vera got up and straightened her back before she took out a battered old cup and poured the coffee. The cup was the last remnant of the wedding service they had received from Arvid’s parents when they got married. It was fine Danish porcelain. A white background with blue flowers that had scarcely lost any colour at all over the years. Now this cup was the only piece left. When Arvid was alive they had used the dishes as their good porcelain, but after his death it didn’t seem to make much sense to distinguish between the everyday and special occasions. Normal wear and tear had taken their toll over the years, and the rest Anders had smashed during an attack of delirium more than ten years ago. This last cup was her most prized possession.
She sipped the coffee with pleasure. When there were just a few drops left, she poured the coffee into the saucer and drank it with a lump of sugar between her teeth so the coffee filtered through. Her legs were tired and sore after a whole day of cleaning; she had propped them up on the chair in front of her for a little relief.
The house was small and simple. Here she had lived for almost forty years, and here she intended to stay until the day she died. It wasn’t actually very practical. The house stood high up on a steep hill, and she often had to stop and catch her breath several times on her way home. It was also much the worse for wear and looked shabby and run-down both inside and out. The location was good enough that she could get a pretty penny if she sold the house and moved into a flat instead, but the thought had never entered her mind. She would rather it rot away around her than move. Here she had lived with Arvid, after all, those few happy years of their marriage. In that bed in the bedroom she had slept outside her parents’ house for the first time. Her wedding night. In that same bed Anders had been conceived. And when she was very pregnant and couldn’t lie in any other position but on her side, Arvid had crept close to her and lain behind her back, caressing her belly. In her ear he had whispered words about how their life together was going to be. About all the children who would grow up in their house. All the happy laughter that would fill this house in the years to come. And when they grew old and the children had moved out, they would sit in their rocking chairs in front of the fireplace and talk about what a wonderful life they’d had together. They were in their twenties back then, incapable of imagining what was waiting for them beyond the horizon.
It was at this kitchen table she’d been sitting when she got the news. Constable Pohl had knocked on the front door with his cap in hand, and as soon as she saw him she knew what was coming. She had held her finger to her lips to stop him from speaking, and instead motioned him to come into the kitchen. She waddled after him, in her ninth month of pregnancy, and slowly and methodically made a pot of coffee. As they waited for the coffee to boil, she had
