‘Don’t turn on the light.’
He heard her voice a few metres away and pulled back his hand that had automatically been searching the wall for a light switch.
‘I can’t see a thing.’
She didn’t answer. He heard the sound of a glass being set down on a table. A faint light from the porthole began to materialise and then the contours of a chair. He stood there trying to let his eyes adjust. Didn’t want to risk tripping over something on the floor. But he had to figure out what to say.
‘How are you feeling?’
She didn’t answer this time either. Only a faint snort broke through the throbbing engine noise.
He stood in silence a long time. The initiative was his but he didn’t know what to say, what words he could use to make her understand.
‘Do you have anything to drink?’
‘No.’
He heard her pick up the glass and take a few gulps.
This was not going to be easy.
‘Linda, I . . .’
He had palpitations now. He felt so much and could explain none of it. She who had been his closest friend. Who had understood him so well. Who had made him feel so good. Who had made him dare.
He heard her change position. Maybe she was sitting up.
‘What do you want?’
Four words.
Each by itself or in some other context completely harmless. Utterly without gravity in themselves. Merely a question about what he wanted.
But at this moment the words coming from her lips were a threat to his entire existence. Now he would be forced to make the choice he would have to live with for the rest of his life. Open the way towards the future he would freely choose, here and now. Now he had a chance. Or did he? That was precisely what he didn’t know any longer, whether he actually had any other choice. And that’s what made it all so hard. He no longer knew. Maybe this was the only alternative. Maybe the decision had already been made, over his head.
By Eva.
Again.
Shit.
Surely Linda realised that everything had changed, didn’t she? That it wasn’t so easy any more? She couldn’t ask him to make such a big decision without giving him a chance to think or figure out what was going on.
‘If you still don’t have anything to say then you might as well leave.’
There was a coldness in her voice that scared him. He was on his way to losing everything. Both what he had and what he dreamed of having. Both. What would he do then? If he was left all alone.
‘Please, can’t we just turn on the light so I can see you?’
‘Why should you see me? It doesn’t seem to be anything you want.’
He felt the rage building. It was such a shame for her! She was lying there so pitiful and refused to make the slightest effort to try and understand or meet him halfway.
She was the one who spoke.
‘I just want to hear your answer to my question. That’s all I ask and it doesn’t matter if it’s in the dark. What is it you want, anyway?’
He could see her contours now. She was sitting up in bed. A single cabin the same as his.
‘It’s not that fucking simple!’
‘What isn’t simple?’
‘Everything has changed.’
‘What has changed?’
Now he could also make out the floor, and he went over to the chair, picked up her jacket that was hanging over the back and placed it in his lap as he sat down.
He gave a heavy sigh.
‘I don’t know how to explain.’
‘Try.’
Shit.
Shit, shit, shit.
‘It’s not as if my feelings for you have changed, that’s not it.’
She sat in silence. It was harder to make out her contours from this angle. Maybe it was true that it was easier to say what he had to say without being able to see her.
‘It just feels like . . . I know it sounds strange, but . . . Eva and I lived together for almost fifteen years. Even though I don’t love her . . . I just can’t fathom that she has been with another man for a whole year. Without saying a word. I just feel so stupid.’
The darkness was working in his favour. He didn’t need to see her or show his shame. And he didn’t want her questions and accusations. He wanted her support. Her understanding.
‘I’ve never told you about this. I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone, not even Eva. It’s a long time ago now, back in Katrineholm before I moved to Stockholm.’
A girl he had loved. Unconditionally and to distraction. At least he had thought so. Twenty years ago, with no frame of reference. Everything new and untested. Untried. No limits.
‘There was a girl there, Maria was her name. She was a year younger than me. We moved in together in a little bed-sit in the city right after high school. I was really in love with her . . .’
The price had been high. He had risked everything but not for a second had he felt secure. It had been a crazy balancing act from the beginning; he had loved her more than she did him. Every waking moment was a struggle to regain balance. Every day a paralysing fear of losing her, a fear that in the end controlled his whole life. And he had good reason to be afraid. He never succeeded in trusting her, in spite of her protestations that everything was as it should be. She had lulled him into a false sense of security which he finally had to believe in because he had no other choice. Until his suspicions had been confirmed by the testimony of others.
‘She went behind my back. I had a suspicion about it the whole time, but she assured me that it wasn’t true. But in the end she admitted that she had met someone else.’
Never again will anyone do me so wrong. Never be able to fool me like that. I will never again let anyone all the way in.
Twenty years later and the wound was still there. He had kept his promise. Until he met Linda. She had forced him to dare.
Now Eva had sabotaged everything by picking the wound open again.
He heard her drinking from the glass. Sensed her movements as shadows in the dark.
‘I have only one question. What is it you want?’
He closed his eyes. Gave an honest answer.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Then I want you to leave.’
‘Linda, please.’
‘I know what I want, I’ve known it for a long time, and I’ve told you about it. You told me what you wanted too, but I realise now that you didn’t mean a word of it.’
‘Yes I did.’
‘You most certainly did not!’
‘Yes I did, it’s just that everything is different now.’
‘Well, so be it. Then there wasn’t any more to it than that. You find out that your wife is doing it with someone else and suddenly we don’t mean shit any more. Bloody hell!’
She lay back on the bed again.
‘Linda, that’s not what this is about.’
‘Then what is it that has changed so much? If it’s not your feelings for me? Just a few days ago we went and looked at a flat together!’
Give me a year on a desert island.
With all my choices intact.
‘Can’t you wait for me?’
‘Wait for what? For you to see if you can get her back?’