Jeremias did not like seeing the poverty either. It was enough to turn off the stylish avenue and walk one or two blocks on a side street to discover the enormous difference between the nouveau riche and the poor. She especially recalled an old Russian woman who tried to foist a china set on her, perhaps inherited, beautiful but not complete and with several of the pieces chipped. The old woman, wrapped in an endless number of shawls, held out several cups, pointed down at her feet where the rest of the set was. Her eyes were running, and her hands, partly hidden by cut-off gloves, were chapped. The price was ridiculously low. She repeated it mechanically several times.
Henrietta got the impulse to give her the desired amount and let the babushka keep her porcelain, but could not bring herself to practice charity. She had the idea that begging and street selling should not be encouraged.
A few blocks farther away she changed her mind and returned, but in the archway where the old woman had been standing there was now only a man urinating against the wall. He grinned at her, said something, and turned his body so she could study him more closely. It splashed around her legs.
“If it’s like that in central Moscow, what’s it like in the outer areas?” she asked the same evening.
They were having dinner at a Swedish-owned restaurant, a few blocks from the hotel. Jeremias was a regular there and was received with almost exaggerated friendliness in the lobby. Already in the bar, where they had a few drinks before dinner, he was tipsy and had that somewhat bloated appearance. It was as if his cheek muscles did not work properly. Henrietta suspected with good reason that he and Oleg had a head start already that afternoon.
“No reasonable people come here,” Jeremias had answered. “What do you think, Oleg? You know what it’s like. Tell us a little something from the slums, you know!”
He thumped his Russian partner on the shoulder. He pretended not to notice, but Henrietta could see that Oleg did not like either the exhortation or the thumping.
During dinner they talked widely and broadly about business in the chambre separée where they were sitting. Henrietta got the impression that her husband wanted to show off, and that made her depressed. She closed herself off and tried to focus on the food.
The only benefit she had from the dinner was when the Swedish executive chef came out in the dining room, made the rounds, and also slipped into their own little section.
“Here’s the chef!” Jeremias shouted. “He’s the one who prepares all this good food. A damn good guy! He’s Swedish! From Uppsala, besides.”
He pulled on the chef’s sleeve but then completely lost interest.
“That was really good,” said Henrietta.
The tall chef had to lean over to hear what she said. He had a nice smile and winked meaningfully at the loud company. Several of the guests had no more than poked at the food, a few had put out their cigarettes on the small plates of mashed potatoes, others had only eaten the meat and pushed the trimmings to the side. The tablecloth was covered with roasted vegetables and turnips. In the middle of the table were two bottles of vodka.
“Ungrateful,” said Henrietta, and got a vague movement of his head in reply.
She understood that he could not comment on his guests.
“But you liked the food?”
“Very much,” she said, and got another, slightly shy smile. “You shouldn’t have to cook for these types,” she said.
“I made it for you,” said the chef, “and that’s more than enough.”
“Are you from Uppsala?”
He nodded, smiled again, this time a little broader, placed his hand on her shoulders and squeezed lightly, an unprofessional gesture to be sure, but for her the smile and momentary touch were what she would recall. Everything else about that evening she preferred to forget. Above all the retreat to the hotel, which among other things involved stops at a couple of nightclubs, and then Jeremias’s impotent attempt to take her from behind while she removed her makeup. She didn’t have the energy to care, she knew he wasn’t capable, and just pushed him so that he fell backward and remained sitting on the bathroom floor, stupidly drooling and limply waving one arm.
That was the last time she went along to Moscow. Nowadays she didn’t want to hear a word about Oleg, oil, gas, or Russia.
And she did not want to be taken from behind. Or from in front either, for that matter.
She put the last dishes in the dishwasher and started the cycle, then glanced out at the street again. The man had moved a few meters, but still stood just as passively as before.
He was starting to really get on her nerves and it struck her that perhaps that was the point. He was a hired provocation, she realized, his appearance was not such that on his own he would come up with the idea of standing outside a house, just glaring.
His mission was not to injure, no; it was the look of the man, his stubborn staring, that was the message, she suddenly understood.
But why? There could only be one reason. Russia. Business deals. She could think of no other reason. They had no score to settle with anyone, the street where they lived was normally very quiet, nothing unforeseen ever happened, no break-ins and no damage during all the years they had lived there. Everyone knew everyone in the area.
But this man was unknown, an intruder, with intentions that were not good.
She knew, or sensed rather, that Jeremias was moving in a gray area. Probably all Westerners did who were successful in the former Eastern bloc countries. Obviously more or less, but Henrietta had an idea that in Jeremias’s case the past few years it had slipped over to more.
Was this one of Oleg’s men? He looked like a Russian, dressed in simple, cheap clothing. Oleg was a bandit, she realized that early on. A cruel man, she had seen that in his facial features and eyes. Whenever he smiled it was with calculation or scorn.
She took out a pen and the pad she usually wrote shopping lists on, sat down at the kitchen table and wrote down a thorough description of the man: blue-white gym shoes, stained brown pants, a green summer jacket with breast pockets, under that a dark shirt, maybe blue or green. His hair color was light. The bushy sideburns and beard stubble that was certainly several days old underscored the slightly dismal, worn-out impression. He looked tired and occasionally yawned, as if he was bored, tired of standing there and hanging out, but forced to. Hired in other words.
He had a brown shoulder-strap bag. It did not appear to contain much of anything and did not seem to bother him. She picked a marker on the neighbor’s fence, a dark knothole, to use to calculate his height.
When she finished taking notes, she smiled to herself. This felt good. Now she had a description, whatever significance that might have. But she had done something, not just nervously checking every minute or two whether he was still standing there.
If she had not grown up with an alcoholic father, who when he was drunk hit both her and her mother, she might have gone out and asked what his business was, who his employer was.
The news report was over. The remote control rattled against the table and the TV fell silent. It was deathly quiet in the house. After a few moments, which felt like centuries, she heard the rattle of glasses. She knew he was pouring a whiskey.
“Coward,” she mumbled furiously, mostly due to the fact that the cowardice applied just as much to her.
The next morning he would travel to Moscow and be gone for three days. That was a relief. Then the idea was that they would sail for a week in the archipelago, for the first time without Malin and Hampus. That was not something she was looking forward to.