‘Yes, Emily, I have.’
The breath she had held she now let go in a small sigh. She closed her eyes briefly. The timbre of her voice was that of a young woman turning from the open grave. ‘All right,’ she said, ‘all right.’ And then, ‘At least you’re honest. I suppose it’s the only virtue you have left.’
‘I have one more. I love you, Emily.’
She moved suddenly into the yellow light, her glossy black hair reflecting the light and her green eyes flashing. ‘Stop saying that. I despise falsity. How can you say you love me, and how can I believe it? How can you pretend romance with one woman, and hours later-or before, for all I know-possess and make love to another? What kind of person are you anyway?’
‘Emily, try to understand.’
‘I don’t want to understand that kind of perfidy.’
‘Try to hear me out, Emily. I have a right to my side of it. You gave Lee hers, to my detriment, and now be generous enough to give me mine.’ He collected his thoughts, and then spoke with frank urgency. ‘On the way to Stockholm-no, it was first in Copenhagen on a tour, and then on the Malmö ferry-I met a pretty young Swedish girl, a good, decent girl, as good as you and more decent than I, but with standards somewhat different from our own. She never knew who I really was-doesn’t know to this day. I had merely met her, had drinks with her, and charming conversation, and that was all there was to it. Then, the evening of the banquet in the Royal Palace-remember?-when I became so drunk, and you had properly turned me away-well, after the banquet, there I was, plastered and floating in self-pity-Lee told you my condition in Miller’s Dam after Harriet died-so there I was, filled with guilts, loneliness, rejected-and I wanted someone to reassure me that I was a human being. Then, in my stupor, I thought of Lilly-not love or sex, because I was too far gone-I thought of a woman’s warmth-hadn’t thought of it for years, and I missed it-and then there was Lilly-that’s her name, Lilly Hedqvist-and impulsively I went to her, and without a word, a question, the slightest hesitation, she took me in, a stranger, foreigner, a nobody as far as she was concerned. She put me to bed, and I slept it off. When I woke up in the morning, I tried to sneak out and let her be, but she wouldn’t think of it. And so what happened-it just happened in a natural way.’
‘I don’t want to hear of your disgusting amorous conquests,’ said Emily with bitterness.
‘This was no conquest at all. I had a need to be wanted, and she had the gift of kindness. I don’t know what was in her mind, if anything. Maybe she sensed my emptiness, my defeatism-there I was, brought down by drink, and exhaustion, and too many years-and so she gave her love and restored my belief in life. If there is one other soul on earth who thinks you have some worth, then life is possible. When I left that morning, I had no planned thought of seeing her again. But then, soon, the need came-it was after another bad evening. I had been drinking heavily with a well-known Swedish writer, and he had some inside information about how I’d got the prize.’ He paused, considered, but then it did not matter. ‘He had evidence that I didn’t get the prize on merit, but because I was needed as a political pawn-my most popular novel was anti-Communist-and because I had so little that had been propping me up, this information shattered me. I wanted to go to you. But I was afraid of your own fragile sensitivity. So I went to Lilly because I had been there before and had come to believe she would not fail me. And she didn’t. That’s all there is to this great affair that Norberg goaded me into revealing-and I could kill myself for being so immature as to take her dare-but it was necessary, too. I won’t say more or less about Lilly than I believe is true. I have affection for her, respect and affection-why shouldn’t I have?-but what I have for you, Emily, is love.’
‘Please don’t-’
‘A man knows these contradictions are possible. On the one hand, I could accept one young girl’s sympathetic tenderness and physical love-and on the other, at the very same time, give my heart to another woman who seemed unattainable.’ He stopped. Then he said, ‘There’s my explanation. I can add nothing more to it, if you have no understanding of it.’
Emily was gazing fixedly at the opposite wall once again. For some seconds she did not speak, and at last she spoke without looking at him.
‘I wish I had such understanding, but I don’t have it,’ she said. ‘I don’t understand such things about men in general or you in particular. Maybe by some neutral judgment, you are in the right, and I am in the wrong, but this is what I am, and I have to live with my emotions and expectations.’ She paused, and now spoke with rising intensity. ‘I can’t bear looking at you or being near you or being touched by you, when I know that for days I was being treated like a pitiable half-woman-which I may be-and being courted-if that is what you were doing-by the least part of you, and knowing that you only found even this possible because the most of you had to have and could enjoy a full woman in the night. I can’t find the right words-it’s all nerve ends-but it has to do, for me, with feeling inadequate and somehow cheapened.’
She turned her head towards him. ‘You say you love me. I don’t know how it is possible, and I don’t know what the word love means to you, but I know what it means to me-and-and with me it is a different word altogether. But if you do have-let me say regard-if you do have regard for me, then the best thing you can do is to leave me alone.’ Her hurt green eyes had filled, and he had a sudden impulse to hold her-or shake her, or make love to her-but he could do nothing.
‘Go away,’ she said. ‘Go to your Swedish friend, and let her fill your wants-let her love you again and again-but just don’t come near me, not now and not ever.’
She jerked her head away from him and buried her face in the pillow.
Craig lifted himself off the corner of the bed and dragged his feet across the carpet to the doorway and through it. He retrieved his hat and coat, all too slowly, hoping beyond hope that she had the inconsistency of all women-as Harriet had once had-and that she would recall him, because she loved him, too.
But no voice beckoned from the bedroom.
Craig went to the entry, and then into the hotel corridor, closing the door softly behind him.
He felt dislocated in time and purpose. He had no taste for dinner. His appetite was long gone. He had no interest in his room, where Leah might lie in wait, expecting his anger and relishing another opportunity to remind him of his debt. He had desire for nothing but oblivion.
He made his way to the elevator and descended to the bar.
He was lifted skyward in the triangular cage at Polhemsgatan 172C, and when it creaked to a halt at the sixth floor, he fumbled to open the cage and be out of it.
Only once he stumbled, which was not bad, not bad at all, he congratulated himself, for one who had been drinking steadily, alone, for over three hours.
He knocked on the door with the ‘C’ and squinted at the window and fire escape nearby and he waited. It was important that she be in tonight, the most important thing in their lives.
And then came her voice through the panel. ‘Ja?’