Because in the end it had all turned into a perpetual power struggle. By then Annika was already growing in Alice’s womb, and with her birth the fight was over. The schism that Alice felt had stifled the last remnants of her creativity and put her permanently in Axel’s shadow. She had tried to fight her impulses but couldn’t tell whether they were coming from inside or had been sparked from the outside. While Axel felt legitimised to pursue his dreams, her duty had been to renounce hers. The children and what they demanded of her became a threat to all that had once been her destiny: their shouts that disturbed her in the middle of whatever she was doing; their tears that she was expected to soothe; their dependence that ensnared her.
Alice Ragnerfeldt swallowed hard and stared into space. Only the eternal ticking of the kitchen clock held her in the present.
Because what was threatening to suffocate her and had been so obvious again and again was actually only a glimpse. A glimpse that forty-five years later she would give anything to experience again.
To have another chance. To do better.
J
an-Erik was still sitting there with his morning paper when Louise came into the kitchen. Louise had said goodbye to Ellen then had spent a long time in the bathroom. When she reappeared, her face was made up and she had a towel wrapped round her head. He followed her with his eyes as she walked over to the freezer, took out a bag of rolls, and put two of them in the microwave. Efficient movements and small hard smacks as she set things down.
He turned a page of his newspaper without having read it.
‘Coffee’s ready, it’s in the pot.’
Stupid thing to say. Where else would it be? She didn’t reply, just took a cup out of the cupboard and poured, took the rolls out of the microwave when it pinged, and put cheese on them with no butter. Sitting at the table she pulled out the arts section of the paper and took a bite of the roll.
The mood was like day-old ice; a brittle surface over deep water that had to be traversed, with each step tested cautiously. Two people, so intimate that they ate breakfast together in their bathrobes, yet the chasm between them so great it was perilous to try and bridge it. There was nothing to say, about anything. Not even if he made an effort. He was able to make conversation with anyone if he had to, with anyone except her, this woman sitting across from him at the breakfast table dressed in her bathrobe.
The restlessness made his whole body itch. It was twenty-four hours until his next trip.
She turned a page of the newspaper. Drank a little coffee. Scraped up the crumbs from the roll and gathered them in a neat little pile.
The silence was paralysing. It made his heart pound. He had an urgent need to say something to normalise the mood, but there was nothing to say, absolutely nothing. When he could no longer stand it and was just about to get up and leave, his glance happened to fall on the crumbs, a dry heap a moment ago, now wet and flat. He sat there transfixed on the crumbs. The next moment his misgivings were confirmed when two more tears landed right next to the spot. What he had found intolerable a moment ago was suddenly nothing compared to the dilemma in which he now found himself. Louise was crying. His cool wife who never showed any emotion except varying degrees of irritation was sitting across from him and crying so that tears were falling. But what aroused greater horror was the realisation that he was expected to console her. He had no idea how to handle such a situation, how to deal with behaviour that was beyond all personal experience. All he knew was that her tears had melted the day-old ice that a minute ago had seemed so deadly, but which he now realised had been shielding what was underneath, something that was even worse. Something that would now have to come to light as soon as he admitted that he’d seen her cry.
For a moment he sat in bewilderment, going over his options. More tears were falling from her cheeks, and soon the option of pretending he hadn’t noticed and could flee would be no good. He never had a chance to choose. Without raising her eyes she reached out her hand and fumbled for her coffee cup. The next moment the contents were spilled all over the tabletop. The mishap was all that was needed to rob him of any possibility of salvaging the situation.
‘Fucking shit!’ she said. The sobs she had been trying to suppress took over completely.
His reaction was instinctive – he gave a slight laugh.
‘It’s only a little coffee.’
She hid her face in her hands and sobbed harder.
He sat stock still, waiting. He had never seen her cry before, had no idea what it meant or how he was expected to react. Minutes passed. Minutes in which she cried and he desperately tried to cope with the situation. Naturally he should get up, take the few steps round the table and embrace her. Try to soothe her pain. He couldn’t do it. Her silent appeal made something knot up inside him. He felt a rope come coiling across the table to ensnare him.
‘We simply can’t go on like this.’
He stopped breathing. Scrabbled about in his past but found nothing that could give any guidance. He so wanted to be able to get up and leave, simply pretend that he’d heard nothing and go on his way. Away from the tears and the conversation he didn’t want to have.
‘I don’t really understand what you mean.’
The next moment her eyes were on his, and he shrank from the sudden contact.
‘What do you mean, you don’t understand? What is it you don’t understand?’ She quickly wiped her cheeks and rubbed her hand under her nose, almost urgently, as if she had just tossed a hand grenade and knew that the time she had left was limited. And yet he could see that she hesitated. That she wanted to say more but something was holding her back.
‘I can’t go on like this any more.’
He swallowed. The spilled coffee was soaking into the newspaper and turning the news brown. He wanted to fetch a cloth but didn’t dare move.
‘We never do anything together, we don’t even talk to each other. It’s as if Ellen and I were living here alone. You’re never home. And when you are, then… We…’
She broke off. Looked down at the table and held her hands up to hide her face. She got up and went to get the kitchen roll. She blew her nose and ran a finger under her eyes. She had always been particular about her appearance,
but right now she was dissolved, exposed, and he saw that she was suffering.
He was used to her anger; the sudden outbursts of wrath that justified him in keeping his distance and holding his armour intact. Now she had stepped straight through it. She had stopped fighting and acknowledged her weakness, begging for comfort and understanding.
He preferred her anger.
She came back to the table. Her tears had stopped flowing but her face was swollen. White streaks ran down her cheeks and mascara had smeared under her eyes.
‘We never touch each other.’
Her voice was shy and he saw that she was blushing. Her throat was flecked with crimson and she lowered her eyes, fiddling with a well-manicured fingernail at the wet heap of crumbs that he cursed himself for ever noticing. He could feel his heart pounding. Everything he had avoided talking about for years suddenly took shape as a terrible bonfire between them. In his confusion he raised his arm and glanced at his wristwatch, and although her eyes were focused on the tabletop she noticed the gesture.
‘Are you in a hurry or something?’
‘No, no, not at all.’
He picked up his coffee cup and noticed his hand was trembling.
Across the table, she took a deep breath as if to take a running start.
‘I’m prepared to fight for Ellen’s sake, but I haven’t the strength to do it alone.’
A few seconds passed in silence. The revulsion he felt was so intense it made him feel sick.
‘I have a suggestion,’ she said.
Now came the fear. To be forced into the bedroom and be expected to have sex with her.
‘I want you to start going to therapy.’
‘What?’
The phrase came so unexpectedly that his fear temporarily vanished.
‘Therapy? What sort of therapy? Why should I do that?’
She didn’t reply. Just looked at him for a moment too long, then released him and went back to her pile of crumbs.
‘I’ve been going for six months, and it’s helped me. Maybe it would be good for you too.’
The astonishment he felt was genuine.
‘You’ve been going to therapy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I didn’t think you’d be interested. We don’t usually tell each other things in this family. We’re seldom even in the same room, and you never answer your phone.’
The caustic dig moved them quickly to familiar ground, where he at once found his footing. These endless reproaches. He worked his arse off to make ends meet, and yet she was never satisfied. Their spacious five-room flat, for which the seller had accepted a considerably lower price because their name was Ragnerfeldt. She seemed to have forgotten the difference between rights and privileges. He had pulled off the trick of putting food on the table by spreading memorable words through his lectures and starting up organisations to improve the world. He was useful. Both to the world and to his family. It was thanks to him that Axel Ragnerfeldt’s unique prose was now associated with humanitarian aid efforts. What his father had written about had been transformed in his hands into something concrete; it was on his initiative that all these aid projects had been started. He had become someone that people listened to, and he was treated with respect. He had proven that he was somebody to be reckoned with. And yet all he encountered here at home were these constant accusations and sour looks.
‘Another option is for us to go to therapy together, to a marriage counsellor. If you’d prefer that.’
No, he certainly would not. He didn’t want to go to any
therapy whatsoever and sit there gazing at his navel and digging through his childhood potty.
‘And what if I don’t want to?’
She seemed to sense his repressed anger and started at his new tone, yet her voice remained calm and composed.
‘Well, then I don’t know. Then it seems like you don’t think this is worth fighting for. I really don’t know.’
He was trapped. Chained hand and foot. His anger took over completely, at this woman who could sit there with her ultimatums without even realising what sort of leverage she held. The fact that he didn’t have a choice, although she tried to make it sound as if he did. His rage purged his conscience clean, and he got up from the table. With all the self-control he could muster he pushed in the chair.
‘Okay. I suppose I’ll have to think about therapy then. But that doesn’t mean I want to go or think I need it.’
She reached for her handbag hanging from the back of a chair. She took out her wallet and handed him a business card.
‘I got this from my therapist. We can’t go to the same one, but this is somebody she recommended who’s a specialist in—’
She broke off and looked away.
‘In what?’
She looked at him timidly and put the card on the table.
‘In the sort of problems that you, or rather we, may have.’
He stopped short and stared at the card. He slowly reached out, picked it up, and lowered his eyes to read it. Robert Rasmusson. Licensed psychotherapist and sexologist. And then in smaller type below: couples therapy, separations, sexual guidance and erectile dysfunction.
He clenched his teeth.
Without a word he left the kitchen and went into the bathroom. He locked the door and just stood there. His emotions raged between flaming anger and something else he didn’t recognise. The need to go back to the kitchen and
scream the truth in her face was so strong that he had to go to the sink and cool off his face with cold water.
I sure as
hell don’t have any problems with my erection! You’re the one who’s
the problem! I can get it up with anyone I choose, as long as it’s
not you!
He looked at himself in the mirror then splashed his face one more time.
The business card in her wallet. So clever, on the very morning she could no longer hold back her tears. She had fooled him once more. She had used the oldest female trick in the book to force him to listen to her. He read the card again, his wet fingers leaving dark spots on it. He resisted the urge to flush it down the toilet. Everything was suddenly a huge mess. It was five past nine. He would have to take care of all this later, try to work out a strategy.
He was due at his mother’s flat in twenty-five minutes.
He was in a foul mood by the time he was walking up the two flights to Alice Ragnerfeldt’s flat. Marianne Folkesson wouldn’t be arriving for half an hour. He had made a point of getting there in good time to ensure that his mother was not drunk before he let a stranger into the flat. After two short rings he fumbled for his keys, but then she opened the door. That was a good sign. She was dressed, her hair combed, and she was apparently sober.
‘Hi, Mamma.’
He stepped into the hall and hung up his coat. Everything seemed to be in order. He held out the bag of cinnamon buns he’d bought on the way over.
‘Come here, I have to show you something.’
Without taking the pastry bag she vanished into the kitchen. He bent down, pulled off his shoes and followed her. She was sitting on one of the chairs when he entered the room.
‘Look at this.’
She pulled up the legs of her trousers and looked at him urgently. He peered at her feet and calves.
‘Do you see it?’
‘See what?’
‘Don’t tell me you can’t see it.’
He leaned forward and looked more closely.
‘What am I supposed to see?’
‘It’s swollen. The right calf. Can’t you see it?’
She pointed. He kept his eyes on the linoleum and tried to hide how disgusted he was. She released her trouser legs and let them drop over her calves. Then she reached for a newspaper clipping on the table. Triumphantly she handed it to him. He straightened up and scanned the text.
‘But you’ve already had your kidneys checked, and they didn’t find anything wrong.’
‘That was four months ago. I can feel that there’s something wrong now. Everything matches with that list. See for yourself. Headache in the morning, fatigue, itching, swollen legs. I know something is wrong.’
He turned round and went to put the bag of buns on the worktop.
‘I made an appointment at the Sophia Clinic,’ she said.
With his back to her he closed his eyes. He knew what another doctor’s visit would mean: the brave attempts by the staff to conceal their irritation over Alice Ragnerfeldt’s constant demands for new examinations, which took away time from the patients who were really sick.
‘Shall I put on some coffee?’
‘It’s in the thermos. The appointment’s on the eleventh at 8.50 in the morning. Can you drive me there?’
He took out three cups and three plates from the cupboard.
‘I’ll have to check my diary.’
He had intended to finish the sentence by saying that otherwise they’d have to ask Louise, but he was instantly back to the morning’s conversation. The mere thought of her gave him heart palpitations.