Justine put on her sunglasses. She was crying again, and she had a headache.
That evening, her period started. She thought that was the explanation. She told Nathan, forgive me that I was so whiny.”
“I pretty much thought that was the deal. I know women; they have their whiny phases.”
She did not want to be one of those women he knew like that. She crept into the narrow bed. Just wanted him to hug her, nothing more.
He said, “Tomorrow afternoon, I’m going to meet Ben. He’s coming with us on the expedition.”
She took his arm, drew it over her, placed it on her tummy.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“Yes,” she whispered.
He kissed her.
“Turn more to the side so I can hold you for a little while.”
During the night, she bled horribly. She stained not only the sheets, but the mattress underneath. She didn’t want the cleaning women to see it. She tried to clean the stains herself, but it didn’t work.
She and Nathan ate breakfast at a restaurant which was next door to the hotel. They ordered juice and coffee with milk and there was a sweet, creamy mess at the bottom, which appeared to be some kind of sweetener. She stirred it suspiciously. Nathan was eating roti, a dish that looked like pancakes with meat sauce. Men and women were sitting around eating, all using their fingers.
“You might have noticed that they’re using their right hands. Their left hands are unclean,” Nathan explained.
“What do they do with their left?”
“Figure that one out for yourself.”
Justine’s stomach hurt, it cramped like tiny, digging nails. That’s the way it always was, the first few days of her period. No pain medication in the world could help.
“Maybe you should just stay at the hotel,” suggested Nathan. “You look a little ill.”
She thought about the cleaning women.
“I’d rather die. Take me with you.”
They took a taxi through the city. Nathan pointed out a few sights for her: the National Mosque, with its sun feather column and its minaret, which was over seventy meters high. For fun, he used a tour guide’s voice.
“And here to the right, you will soon be able to see the famous twin towers…”
He was acting like an eager boy.
“I love you,” she said loudly. “Oh, Nathan, put me in your shirt pocket and take me with you wherever you go, and never ever take me out!”
The man called Ben was waiting for them in a room with air-conditioning. There was tea and juice on a table. Justine felt a spontaneous confidence in him. He was relaxed and had nothing of calculation or malevolence about him.
“So you’re going out in the jungle to frolic with tigers and elephants,” he joked, while handing her a glass of juice. He spoke excellent English.
“I hope I don’t exactly frolic,” she answered.
“You know that there are both tigers and wild elephants in the area we’re going to,” he said.
He observed her reaction; then he laughed.
“You don’t see them very often. They keep away from humans; they’re more afraid of us than we are of them.”
“But they have attacked humans?” asked Nathan.
“Of course, but that hasn’t happened in a while.”
“Elephants scare me more than tigers,” she mumbled. “Once a man let me ride an elephant. Pappa and I were at the circus. They didn’t ask me; they just lifted me up and plopped me down right on that wrinkly skin. A few weeks later, Pappa told me that an elephant had gone crazy, managed to escape its chain, and ran amok.”
Ben smiled at her. His brown chin was round, his nose wide and flat. He was born in the jungle, but he had received a decent education and even studied at the university in Kuala Lumpur.
“Elephants shouldn’t be in a circus,” he said. “No wonder they go crazy there.”
They sat with Ben for a long time, talking and looking at maps, making long lists of the things that they would do and the things they had to purchase. In the evening, they went out to a restaurant. There was just one dish: fried rice with chicken. Justine was hungry. There wasn’t much meat on the chicken; it was mostly bones. They each ordered a Coke.
Nathan said he longed for a cold beer.
“No beer here,” he said. “I know another place; we can go there next time.”
That night she slept soundly and didn’t even wake up when the muzzien called to prayer at six in the morning.
She and Nathan took a shower together. She soaped up his big, light body; she could never get enough of touching him. Her hands could long for him, long to feel his skin, his warmth; he was so filled with life and strength. There in the shower, he had a strong erection, and she knelt and took him in her mouth.
Afterwards, he had tears in his eyes.
“Sometimes, I feel I need to rethink my idea of never getting married again,” he said, stroking her cheek.
“Do you think it would work out? Or do you think that I’ll also become hysterical?”
“You’ll just have to refrain from it.”
She had pulled up her underclothes, they were still a bit damp, but would dry on her body.
He said: “Today we’re going to meet the others who are coming with on our excursion.”
“Who are they?”
“Two Norwegians, I think; some Germans, a guy from Iceland and-believe it or not-a Swede. We’re going to meet them at Ben’s in about an hour.”
Chapter THREE
Her father was not buried in what had been seen as the family grave, the grave where the French wife was at rest. Rather, he was buried on the other side of the cemetery, where the newer and smaller graves were.
Justine heard Flora say to Viola: “Should I let the two of them be together in death, and have all three of us there later? No! Once I die it will just be him and me, just him and me!”
“And little Justine?”
Flora began to laugh. “Don’t you see that little Justine is not so little anymore? Soon, she’s going to be past her best years, overripe.”
Viola’s tone changed, as if she’d been insulted herself. One could see her as “overripe,” almost sixty. She had been bought out by NK and she had been recommended to start her own business. The truth was that the department store did not want old ladies at the perfume counters. They didn’t have the same results in sales; in fact, they could have a frightening effect on the customers.
Viola had no choice but to take the money, and now she was renting an expensive little place near Hötorget. She started Viola’s Body Shop, where she sold soaps, perfumes, and expensive lingerie. She had offered to take Justine as an apprentice; maybe she could be trained to take over the business. A few days later, Justine had indeed gone there. She stood behind the counter in a rose nylon skirt Viola had picked out, and Viola had also made her up and had taken her to a hair salon.
It didn’t work.
“Quite frankly, she’s rude to the customers,” Viola reported later to her sister. “She pretended not to hear what they were asking her; just stood there drifting away in her own thoughts. Take her back.”
“I didn’t try to force her on you; it was completely your idea. I told you it wouldn’t work out. I’ve always said there was something wrong with her mentally, but you never believed me.”
After her father’s death, they lived as usual in the house. Nothing had changed; all the routines remained the same. Flora continued to speak to her husband after she had closed the bedroom door; Justine could hear her voice through the wall which separated them. Flora talked loudly. She rebuked him for leaving her; she threatened to sell the house and buy an apartment in the city.
She also said this to Justine.
“Don’t think that we are going to live here forever and ever. Anyway, it’s not normal for two grown woman to share a house like this. Normal would be that you would have moved away from here many, many years ago; you have just been growing like an abscess on Sven and me during our entire life together. Your father has protected you and overprotected you, but he’s not here anymore. Now I’m free to throw you out. He wouldn’t be offended; he should have thanked me. He knows that everything I’ve done for you has been for your own good. Women understand these things better than men.”