Drowned
Copyright © 2010 Therese Bohman
Originally published in Swedish as
Den drunknade
by Norstedts in 2010.
Published in English by arrangement with Nordin Agency, Sweden.
Translation copyright © 2011 Marlaine Delargy
The translation of this work was supported by a grant from the
Swedish Arts Council.
Poetry excerpts on
this page
and
this page
from “Ophelia” by Arthur Rimbaud, translation derived from the English translation by Oliver Bernard in
Collected Poems
(New York: Penguin Classics, 1997). Copyright © Oliver Bernard, 1962, 1997. Poetry excerpt on
this page
from “Song” [When I Am Dead, My Dearest] by Christina Rossetti, first published in 1862. Poetry excerpts on
this page
and
this page
from “Dolores” by Algernon Charles Swinburne, first published in 1866.
Production Editor: Yvonne E. Cárdenas
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from Other Press LLC, except in the case of brief quotations in reviews for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. For information write to Other Press LLC, 2 Park Avenue, 24th Floor, New York, NY 10016. Or visit our Web site:
www.otherpress.com
The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Bohman, Therese, 1978–
[Den drunknade. English]
Drowned / by Therese Bohman; translated by Marlaine Delargy.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-1-59051-525-9
1. Sisters—Fiction. 2. Family secrets—Fiction. 3. Triangles
(Interpersonal relations)—Fiction. 4. Sweden—Fiction.
I. Delargy, Marlaine. II. Title.
PT9877.12.O48D7813 2012
839.73′8—dc23
2011049352
Publisher’s Note:
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
v3.1
Contents
The self-same force which drives up myriad shoots through clinging mud,
spins threads through tender stems and in a flower’s bud,
brews sumptuous, scented oils, weaves petals’ gossamer glow—
lives in our very being, deep, deep down below.
—OLA HANSSON
,
Notturno
Part One
T
he train is exactly on time as it pulls into the platform. My whole body feels listless as I stand up and get my bag down from the luggage rack above the window. There’s something wrong with my seat, with the mechanism that’s supposed to stop the backrest when you’ve reclined it into the position you want. I’ve been pushed backwards every time the train has accelerated, and several times during the journey I have woken up and discovered that I am practically lying down. I don’t like reclining seats too far back, the feeling of them disappearing behind me always makes me think of a visit to the dentist.
I haul my suitcase off the rack at the end of the carriage as the train stops and the doors glide open.
The heat hits me like a wall, the air is oppressive, not much cooler than the air inside the train, and the sunlight is so bright that it hurts my eyes, I have to blink several times. I feel like I’ve just woken up, my ears are still buzzing from hurtling through a tunnel, I feel as if I’ve been on a plane rather than a train. I don’t like traveling, even if trains are better than planes, less brutal. You have time to get used to the idea that you’re on the way to a different place.
I squint my eyes and see Stella a short distance away down the platform, she is on time too, of course. When she sees me she smiles with her whole face, waves, and hurries toward me. My hands are sticky from the heat and the sweets I ate on the train, but of course she doesn’t shake my hand, she puts her arms around me and pulls me close and I hug her back. The scent of her is familiar, she smells the same as always. Cool.
“How was your journey?” she says. She sounds happy.
“Fine. It just took a long time, that’s all.”
She nods, points toward the small newsstand on the station concourse.
“The car is just around the corner. Do you need any help with your luggage?”
“No, it’s okay.”
She already has her own bag to carry, a brown leather purse that looks expensive. Her entire look
is expensive; she’s wearing a beige skirt and a chalk-white blouse, she looks clean and crisp, as if her clothes have been hung out to dry in the wind coming off the sea, starched by the salt in the air so they didn’t even need ironing. Small pearl studs gleam in her ears. I feel dusty, and the sweets have left a stale taste in my mouth. I would like to brush my teeth.
“I told Gabriel to start on dinner,” she says as we walk toward the car, the wheels of my suitcase trundling over the cracks in the paving stones outside the station, a few gulls circling high above. “Are you hungry?”
I actually feel slightly nauseous, but it wouldn’t be very polite to say so. Instead I nod and she smiles at me, jangling the car keys in her hand.
We drive along past fields of corn. The sun is still beating down mercilessly in spite of the fact that it is nearly evening, the sky is an almost unreal shade of blue, like a vast dome over the open landscape. Stella has put on a pair of dark oversized sunglasses. Mine are in my suitcase, so I have to carry on squinting. She presses a button on the car’s sound system, it’s New Order—
In the end you will submit, it’s got to hurt a little bit
. Stella drums her index fingers on the steering wheel, glances at me and smiles, I smile back. We have time to listen to several more tracks before we arrive. Stella turns off the main road onto a
smaller one, then onto a gravel road pitted with potholes. Dust swirls up behind us and pebbles clatter against the undercarriage of the car, it sounds like a hailstorm. There are still fields of crops on either side, weeds growing in the ditches, thistles gray with dust.
The gravel road ends at a small parking space in front of a yellow wooden house. It’s a beautiful place, with a glassed-in balcony above the large veranda. The garden is full of mature fruit trees, farther away I can see flower beds and rows of vegetables. A black cat is lying on the steps but is woken by the sound of the car engine and slowly ambles away. Stella jumps energetically out of the car, I still feel drowsy.
“Come on, I’ll show you around!”
“I just need to go to the bathroom.”
She looks annoyed for a moment, then seems to realize that this is a perfectly reasonable request. She opens the trunk and lifts out my case, which lands on the gravel with a heavy thud. She smiles at me.
“Have you brought the entire contents of the library with you?”
I’m smiling too.
“I’ll give you a hand.”
Together we carry the bags across the parking area and along a narrow path with sparsely laid-out paving stones, up the steps to the front door and in through a bamboo curtain, the rattling sound makes me think
of a xylophone. Inside, the house is warm and smells of wood, dry and slightly stuffy in a way that is not unpleasant but feels quite homely, like a summer cottage. The hallway is dark but the kitchen is large and light, and the man who is Gabriel is standing by the sink rinsing bright-green sugar snap peas in an old colander. He is tall and dark.
“Gabriel, this is Marina.”
His handshake is firm and his hands are big. His smile is also big as he says it’s good to meet me at last, he stares at me for a moment, gazing into my eyes until I have to look away. Then they start talking about the food, he says he couldn’t get hold of what he wanted for the salad, the store is useless.
Stella looks at me and nods toward the door.
“There’s a bathroom in the hall.”
I take my purse with me and when I look in the mirror above the washbasin I think I should have tidied myself up before I got off the train. I look pale, and my forehead is shiny. My hair is flat and looks dry and brittle, perhaps because of the air-conditioning on the train. I have a pee, then quickly touch up my makeup before running my hands through my hair to try to get some volume into it.
Gabriel is still busy with the salad when I get back to the kitchen, he is slicing radishes very thinly.
“Your sister’s gone to get changed,” he says.
I nod. “Can I do anything?”
“No, it’s almost ready. Besides which, this is your welcome dinner … so all you have to do is feel welcome.”
He smiles.
“Can I get you anything? Something to drink?”
Suddenly I realize I’m thirsty. I should have cleaned my teeth, my mouth still feels sweet and sticky.
“That would be lovely.”
“A glass of wine?”
“I’d prefer water, I think I’m getting a headache.”
Gabriel looks concerned.
“Do you often get headaches?”
“No … not really.”
“Stella does,” he says. “I wondered if it was something that runs in the family.”
“I don’t think so.”
He opens one of the kitchen cupboards and rummages around until he finds a box of painkillers, which he holds up to show me.
“Would you like one of these?”
I nod. “Yes please.”
He runs me a glass of water and passes me the box. The water is so cold it’s almost difficult to hold the glass. I push one tablet through the silver foil. It makes a muted rustling sound, which I like, I’ve liked it ever since I was a little girl. The coldness of
the water produces a stabbing sensation in my head, a moment of unpleasantness before I feel as if my mind is sharpening. I empty the glass in long gulps, the water tastes different out here, pure, slightly metallic.
“The water’s delicious.”
“It’s from our own spring,” says Gabriel. He tips the peas out of the colander into a large porcelain bowl. Stella appears in the doorway, she has changed into a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt. She still looks elegant, even though she’s now barefoot.
“How’s it going?” she says.
“Fine,” says Gabriel. “I’m just going to put the cheese in the oven, then dinner will be ready.”
We eat on the veranda. Stella has set the table beautifully with linen napkins that look old, and a large bunch of flowers in an old porcelain jug with a crackled glaze. Lupins, daisies, red clover. The clover is wilting slightly. It’s just going over, but still has that intense, chilly redness.
“
Trifolium pratense
,” Stella murmurs as she adjusts a drooping flower head.
“Bloody know-it-all.” Gabriel smiles, his voice is kind, as if he’s proud of her really. Stella knows the Latin names of all the plants, sometimes she doesn’t even seem to be aware that she’s saying them.
It’s a little cooler now. Gabriel has made a starter of goat cheese on white bread and a salad decorated with marigolds. They taste peppery, and are delicious with honey drizzled over the cheese. As soon as I swallow the first bite I realize how hungry I am. I have to make a real effort not to gobble my food. Gabriel watches me as I pop a piece of cheese in my mouth and I immediately feel embarrassed, convinced that he will think I’m greedy.
“That was absolutely delicious,” I say when I have finished chewing.
He nods.
“Good,” he says in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, as if he already knew it was delicious and I have given the correct answer. At the same time he always seems to be on the verge of smiling, that’s what I think as I listen to his conversation with Stella; he varies between sounding firm and smiling broadly at something she has said. It’s difficult to tell when he’s really serious and when he’s just pretending.
“So how’s university going?” says Stella, turning to me.
“Okay,” I mumble.
I had hoped to avoid the question, but at the same time I knew it was inevitable. Stella raises her eyebrows.