Babylon (2 page)

‘I thought you were going to study today?’

She immediately regretted the underlying reproach. She was still glad to see him. In theory, her criticisms were justified, which was why she still made them, but the feeling remained that she wanted to be with him. That, right now, she was happy to be the one he wrapped his arms around, and no one else. But that feeling didn’t last. As soon as they parted, doubt crept in.

In recent months she had thought he seemed more distant, physically and emotionally. He had been revising in the university library for a couple of evenings each week, and when they were together he either appeared distracted or overcompensated by being particularly nice. Sometimes he simply switched off his mobile when she rang.

He passed her on his way to the sink, where he quickly rinsed out his mug, filled it with water and took a couple of gulps before pouring the rest away.

‘I’m just off. Axel’s waiting, we’re going to work at his place.’

‘When’s the exam?’

‘Monday. But I’ve got an assignment to hand in as well.’

He cut a large piece of the rapidly drying out cheese and popped it in his mouth. She watched his jaws work, feeling her disappointment grow.

‘And I thought you might like a bit of time to yourself.’

His casualness seemed forced. The voice of her therapist echoed in Rebecca’s head.
See if you can ignore the signals. Can you decide not to act on a particular feeling immediately?

‘Actually, I’ve had a bloody awful day.’

His eyes darted round the kitchen; he couldn’t meet her gaze.

Rebecca’s problem was that the signals were clear. They were real enough to fuel her jealousy. The other night she dreamt Henrik stubbed her out beneath his boot like a cigarette butt. Yet she knew she had overreacted many times before.

‘Is it method and theory, or whatever it’s called?’

‘
Method and Theory in Classical Archaeology
. It’s a doorstop of a book. I’d be lying if I said I’d read it from cover to cover, but it does go on. It tells you stuff that’s obvious. I’ll pass the exam, don’t you worry.’

It hadn’t taken long to work out that Henrik was good at starting things but not at following them through. But he had managed to complete half of his modules. Perhaps this was a sign that, after living a semi-adult life of casual jobs and daydreams, disorganised studies and half-hearted efforts to become a jazz musician, he had finally found his vocation. It was only natural that he couldn’t quite go the distance. Rebecca knew, more than anyone, that the road to hell was paved with good intentions.

You couldn’t live other people’s lives for them, but Henrik’s enthusiasm a couple of years ago had been infectious. It had given her hope that one day they would be financial equals.

‘That old saying that someone whispers in your ear before you’re even born and tells you what your role in life will be – I believe in that more than ever,’ Henrik had said after his first module in archaeology. ‘If you’re lucky you find out what it is early in life, but whenever it happens, it feels fantastic.’

Henrik could live by his wits, duping others into
believing
him. It wasn’t that he was stupid. Or lazy. He still devoured piles of books that weren’t on the reading list, which proved that his passion was real. Unfortunately this passion didn’t cure his deep-rooted problems with authority. He overslept, missed tutorials and seminars, handed in assignments answering different questions from the ones his tutor had set. He complained to Rebecca about the syllabus, the staff (with just a few exceptions), and the faculty as a whole. He made up excuses as though she were his mother, and his aim was to pull the wool over her eyes and not his own. She was all too familiar with the process. He was clearly beginning to tire of the whole thing.

Rebecca turned her back to him and started to put the food away in the fridge.

‘You’re meeting up this late?’ She deliberately kept her voice neutral.

‘I told you, I’m just leaving.’

Henrik fetched Rebecca’s big Marimekko bag from the bedroom. With deliberately purposeful gestures (or so she thought), he placed the book in the bag along with a couple of other reference books and a notepad.

‘I’ve bought a bottle of red,’ she couldn’t help saying. ‘If you’re not too late back, I mean.’

Was he avoiding her gaze?

He paused. ‘I’m not sure. I’ve still got loads to write. And Axel’s asked me to help him with a couple of things he doesn’t understand. I wouldn’t wait up if I were you. I think we’re really going to get stuck in tonight. Get everything out of the way.’

He went into the hallway and opened the cloakroom door. Rebecca hated herself for following him.

‘By the way, have you heard back about your student loan? I can
barely afford to pay the mortgage on top of everything else. And I’m sure it’s going to cost a fortune to get the boiler fixed, or whatever we have to do . . . I thought I might watch that film you rented yesterday.’

She was saying anything just to keep him there. Instead of answering, he leant over and planted a cool kiss on her lips, then put his hands on her shoulders and held her away from him.

‘Rebecca . . .’

She sighed.

‘Do we have to talk about this now? Everything will turn out just fine. Trust me.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘I’ve got to go. But if the worst comes to the worst, I can always earn a bit extra a couple of nights a week. A couple of gigs now and then and we’ll be fine. No problemo, baby!’

The door closed behind him.

Fuck
. She walked upstairs slowly, flopped onto the bed and switched on the TV. The window was ajar, and she could hear noise from the street below. Voices and laughter rose and fell; there were footsteps on the pavement. Suddenly she heard the front door open.

She rolled onto her side and put one foot on the floor. ‘Hello?’

‘Sorry, only me. Forgot something.’

She heard Henrik rummaging around in the hallway, then he swore loudly as something fell on the floor and smashed.

‘I hope that wasn’t my grandmother’s vase,’ she shouted, just as she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror. The sinews in her neck were fully extended, making her look grotesque.

‘No . . . fuck. No, it was just a glass some idiot had left on the stairs. Me no doubt. Shit . . . Listen, sweetheart, I’m horribly late, I’m going to leave you to clean this up. I’ll wash up for the rest of the week, promise. Love you!’

He left for the second time. Rebecca turned up the volume so she wouldn’t have to hear him setting off towards Mariaplan, where Axel lived alone. She pulled a blanket over her legs and made a nest of pillows. In the ad break she would go down and fetch a glass of wine.

3

Henrik was in a hurry. He almost came off his bike outside the ICA supermarket when his wheel got stuck in a tram line. Luckily, he managed to put one foot on the ground, suffering a severe blow in the solar plexus but emerging otherwise unscathed. He reflected on the fact that he was the only person who cycled without a helmet these days, the last rebel in a circle of acquaintances who were mostly the weary parents of small children. Even Rebecca had fallen in line. When she was in a rush in the mornings, she would slip her contact lenses into her pocket and put on her thick glasses and shiny red helmet. He didn’t even recognise her then.

He carried on along the cycle track at a more measured pace, down Bragebacken to the car park on the edge of Slottsskogen Park. In the past this spot had been rumoured to be a haunt of rent boys, and all manner of shady dealings were supposed to go on. He hurried on when he saw a black van parked behind the deserted ice-cream kiosk.

But the kiosk would be opening up soon. The long winter was over. The demonstration that had taken place the previous day was usually the first sign of spring. The weather was always good on May Day.

Henrik was in his usual state: hungover but content.

Today outdoor types were hunting for the best spot for a barbecue. The May evening was the warmest of the year so far – no doubt the festivities would continue well into the small hours. Just as he was passing the Domen College of Art, his mobile beeped:
c u wknd 4 revision. nd 2 wrk hrd
.

Axel. Should he tell him the official version of events? Axel wouldn’t ask questions; Henrik’s relationship with Ann-Marie Karpov was hardly news to him.

Sometimes Henrik had the feeling that the knowledge bothered his friend. Perhaps it had something to do with the firm convictions
Axel held, even though he rarely made a big deal of them. Axel had only brought the affair up once, and had been blunt:
And what the hell does she see in you?
Even if that sort of comment wasn’t good for Henrik’s self-confidence, at least it was honest. Henrik valued directness.

They hadn’t been friends for very long, although they had passed in and out of each other’s circles for several years now. They first met at the Nefertiti, back in the good old days; Henrik played regularly at the jazz club and Axel seemed out of place – but then again he did everywhere. Henrik took pity and bought him a couple of beers out of his fee. Later, they had kept on choosing the same courses. When they both enrolled for archaeology, they couldn’t help exchanging a wry smile: ‘Fancy seeing you here . . .’

But it had taken a week in the creative chaos of Istanbul for Henrik and Axel to become close. Before the study visit they had never spent time together one on one. Axel was regarded by fellow students as the slightly eccentric country bumpkin, whose defining feature was his fanatical opposition to computers. He and Henrik were both independent when it came to their work, and in any case it was rare to strike up close friendships in adulthood. But it just so happened that on the trip to Istanbul they both wanted to experience the feeling of being in one of the world’s most fascinating cities; they weren’t interested in downing shots, going to noisy bars or even to the techno clubs with belly dancers at the top of the Galata Tower, where the dry air was dotted with nesting swallows. And, as a result, they unexpectedly found each other.

Axel had become the person Henrik spent most time with, apart from Rebecca.

And Ann-Marie.

Because it was during this trip that Henrik and Ann-Marie Karpov, researcher and tutor in the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Civilisations, had also found each other.

Afterwards, Henrik found it difficult to understand how it had all happened. The triumphant scale of the city, the bewitching blend of the past and the future – Henrik at least was overwhelmed by the countless museums he visited, by the hustle and bustle of Beyoglu at night. Everyday life had begun to seem distant, irrelevant.

Their hotel lay between the historic Sultanahmet Mosque and the point at which the waters of the Bosphorus flowed into the Golden Horn and Lake Marmara. In its salons the raki and sweet Turkish wine had flowed in a most un-Swedish manner during the trip’s spontaneous seminars. He remembered Ann-Marie watching him through the curtains of mist. His sense of reality had diminished; he had thought:
Go with the flow
.

What she had thought was less clear, but so far he had chosen not to speculate on her reasons. She was an authority in the subject he wanted to master more than any other. Her self-confidence made her attractive, in fact she was positively beautiful for a woman in her fifties, with a steel-grey bob exposing her long neck and defined facial features.

She saw something in him that he sometimes, though not often, doubted was really there. Admittedly he wasn’t bad-looking, even if he had to admit in moments of self-doubt that a shaggy pageboy haircut was more charming on the twenty-four-year-old musician he had once been than the rather too mature student he had become. And his leather jacket, which he alternated with 1950s jackets, had been around since his youth and was threatening to fall apart.

He was definitely one of the more gifted students in the class. Their first conversation had arisen from his studies, which was only to be expected. Karpov had admired the way he challenged the limitations of the syllabus and asked for advice on the areas he wanted to pursue further. She had given him encouragement, and on one occasion they had conducted a long and remarkably relaxed conversation over coffee.

She intrigued him. Those who knew Henrik could have seen it in the very first week: he wanted Ann-Marie Karpov. And Ann-Marie Karpov had fallen for him – not immediately, but later, in Istanbul. Since then they had been a couple, albeit only to a limited group within the thick stone walls of the archaeology department. Their relationship was a secret from the rest of the world.

He just had to take the chance. Not to seize the opportunity when Ann-Marie Karpov offered him the post as her lover would have been just as absurd as Alice deliberately ignoring the key to Wonderland, just as stupid as those cowards on game shows who answer quits when they should have said double. You had to believe that double is better
than quits. Perhaps this was what all those who were unfaithful claimed, but surely there was a kind of logic there that balanced out his guilt.

OK
was his only response to Axel’s message. There were limits to how dishonest a person could be. Forcing others to lie for him was definitely overstepping the mark.
If
Rebecca should ring Axel, against all the odds, and if Axel was stupid enough not to realise what was going on, then the entire house of cards would come tumbling down. In which case, so be it. At least it would mean an end to all the lies.
Inshallah
.

He thought about Rebecca with a pang of conscience as he cycled out of the park and down Rosengatan; his guilt was partly genuine, partly liberating. Rebecca’s pathological jealousy had been a constant source of problems in their relationship. She had started seeing a therapist again, ironically after an ultimatum on his part. This might seem particularly heartless, given that he was now acting out her worst fears. But he still wasn’t ready to end the affair.