Her lips against his neck, against his spine.
“Justine, you were so wonderful… You made it so good for me.”
“You, too.”
“How much of your life do you want to keep for yourself?”
“What do you mean?”
“I want to get to know you. I long to find out about you. I am so light and happy. I can’t remember ever feeling like this before.”
“Sure you have,” she said. “You certainly have.”
Inside himself, he would have chosen that she would have answered differently, that she also had never felt like this for another man. He remembered what she said about a relationship that ended.
“To be here at the very beginning…,” he whispered. “To have everything still in front of us… wishes, desires.”
She didn’t answer. He was lying in her arms, but she didn’t change position. He got loose so that he could contemplate her. Those blonde eyebrows, the line of freckles over her cheeks and nose, those small, childlike breasts. His hand slid down her ribcage; her skin was damp with both his and her sweat.
“Justine, dearest… am I being too hasty? Taking things for granted?”
“No,” she mumbled. “I don’t think so.”
He kept talking.
“This desire, this craving… not just that. There’s something else, a sense of belonging that I never felt with anyone before, not even my ex… certainly not with her. From the minute I saw you in the snow, already then I knew that there was something about you that I couldn’t let slip away from me. Could you let me into you, into that essence of you, and I don’t mean just physically.”
But even while he was speaking, he felt how his muscles were getting ready, how his flabby penis was now beginning to fill with blood again. She felt it too, and she looked down and smiled carefully. Her hand placed in the right spot, he grew against her palm. Do it like that, yes… do it… again.
She said that they had to eat. He borrowed her robe; she put on her long, green, knit dress and nothing else. In the kitchen, she fried some bacon and eggs.
“You get hungry after a hangover,” she said. “Of course, I try and diet, but right now I am so hungry, I can’t help myself.”
“Don’t diet,” he said. “You are exactly how you need to be.” The bird flew down with them. She gave him the same food they were eating, and he swallowed it with greedy bites. She poured some beer for them. They sat at the little kitchen table and looked out at the hill. It had stopped raining. He heard himself say something about the weather. It sounded so banal, but he couldn’t help himself.
“It looks like winter is over for this year,” he said. “Even though there’s still some ice, it’s going to break up soon. The papers said a man had drowned in Lake Mälar.”
“They were looking for him yesterday. They must have found him.”
“I don’t get how people can take risks like that.”
“Me neither.”
“I’m just wondering… did you live here with that man? With the one that you’ve broken up with?”
“No,” she said. “No, I didn’t. He had an apartment in the city.”
“Were you together long?”
“More than a year.”
“Why did it end?”
She poked at some crumbs, drew them together into a small heap on the table.
“Hmmm… something happened to him… we went to the rainforest together, to the jungle. He had so many ideas, he wanted to start adventure trips for Europeans, you know, with long stays in the jungle. You were supposed to eat and live out there, great hardship. I went with him. He was going to create the trip route and make contact with the people living there who could be helpful and maybe work with the hikes and things. But then… something happened… Actually, I don’t really want to talk about it.”
part two
Chapter ONE
A noise woke her. A knock. She was wide awake right away. She had slept stiffly and straightly, arms down her sides. Sweat covered her body, gave her goose bumps.
She looked around in the room. Nathan wasn’t there. Another knock, then the door opened.
A woman stood next to her bed. She wore a scarf which covered her forehead and even her shoulders. She stared at Justine.
“Cleaning!” she said, loudly in English.
“Cleaning? No, you don’t have to clean up; it is not necessary,” Justine replied in English. She sat up, leaning against the wall, with the sheet up to her chin. The aroma of curry swept in through the doorway. From the street, she could hear the sound of motors, and a thumping sound, as if a huge jackhammer was attempting to beat something into the bedrock.
The woman grimaced, turned, and disappeared. The door shut.
Justine carefully got up. She felt dizzy. She went into the shower room. Her head felt like exploding. A piece of paper was on the floor and while she was sitting on the toilet, she saw a gecko creep in underneath it and hide itself. Something was written on the paper. She read while she was still sitting: Out and about a few hours. See you this afternoon. Kisses.
She didn’t dare touch the paper. She took off her panties and laid them on the bed, afraid that the geckos would creep into them and make themselves at home. There was only one towel. Nathan had used it; it was hanging on the chair. Between the walls and the ceiling, there was a gap. She heard shrieking female voices speaking a foreign language.
She washed herself carefully in the lukewarm shower water. She felt tender and aching all over. The trip had taken over thirty hours. In London, they had to wait in a crowded, smoke-filled lounge, whiny children, not enough seats. She had to go to the bathroom, but was afraid to leave the lounge, fearing that their flight would be called while she was gone. When she said this to Nathan, she noticed that he was irritable.
Then they had to run across the entire large terminal to find the right gate. Nathan did not like losing control of the situation. He didn’t like asking directions.
Once in the airplane, their seats were far apart. Nathan ended up among the smokers. She ended up next to an elegant Belgian couple wearing fine clothes. She felt big and bloated. She turned and looked for Nathan, but couldn’t see him. She stopped one of the young flight attendants, all of whom were gliding around in beautiful dresses. In halting English, she requested to change places. The flight attendant was named Hana; her name was on a small brass nameplate over her breast. Hana moved her lips; they had been carefully painted. Hana’s lips told her that if she wanted to change places, sorry, she had to work that out for herself.
The Belgian man was listening in.
“Next to husband?” he asked, deciding to take part in the conversation.
“Yes,” she said in English.
The man shook his head.
“Very long journey,” he muttered.
She decided that she did not have the energy to confront all these foreigners, speak English, fall asleep next to them, long for Nathan. She stood in the aisle, and it was extremely narrow. She worked her way toward the back, looking for Nathan. Nathan was wedged into a middle seat. He gave her a pained smile.
“Damned airline,” he said.
“I asked them to help us, and they said we had to work it out ourselves.”
“I’ve asked these people sitting next to me, but they won’t move. They’re smokers.”
An attendant pushed past her, carrying some pillows.
“It’s best you go sit down again,” he said. “You’re in the way.”
They took a taxi to the hotel. The heat was oppressive and surprising. On the wall of a house, she saw an enormous thermometer; it showed 34 degrees Celsius in the shade. She looked in her backpack for her sunglasses but didn’t find them. As they drove through the suburbs, she tried to think that the city was beautiful. She looked at the palms and the bushes with large red blossoms, which were growing along the median strips. She was so tired that she felt ill.