The Viper (2 page)

He didn’t love her, but she was nice to be with, beautiful to look at, and pleasurable to make love to. She was delicate and petite, light as a feather. He could lift her up like a child. He had never heard her complain or whine or question anything. He had never seen her look at another man when they had been out together.

And yet … He was under no illusions. She had left Stephen to be with him. And now their time together was at an end. It was possible that he could take her with him. Though she would never ask him to. In that case, it was up to him to invite her. He had considered it, but he had another life waiting for him, besides which, she was what she was after all. It would be a strange mixture of private life and business.

Their time together was over. He would leave and she would remain where she belonged. Alone. Free. Available. Who would she move on to after him? Someone he knew? Had she already made arrangements? Would she be slipping into another man’s bed already tomorrow? Look at him with that longing gaze and say, “He wants to come to Kass.” Suck his cock?

He met her gaze as she looked up at him and he realized in an instant that he didn’t have the slightest inkling of what was going on in her head. Was that the look of sad farewell he saw in her dark eyes, or was it just an act, like when they narrowed with desire and arousal? Was she in fact indifferent? Did she hold him in contempt? Was she smiling inside though the corners of her mouth were angled slightly downward? Was she laughing to herself?

He surprised himself. He wasn’t normally a brooder. Resolutely and very deliberately he pushed the thoughts of Kass out of his mind. All these questions were pointless. They were in the midst of a parting of the ways. She was no longer his concern, nor he hers.

It must have been a moment of sentimentality that had caught him unawares. It wasn’t like him. He adjusted his clothes, buckled his uncooperative belt, and picked up the red silk dress from the floor.

She eyed him with a look of mild incredulity.

He reached out and helped her up. Her skin was warm against his fingers, but the warmth and fragrance meant nothing to him now. He held out the dress.

“You’d better go now,” he said.

Her lower lip, pursed just a moment ago, drew in and tensed up. Her gaze still sought out his, questioningly, as if there was something left to say.

He handed her the dress and slowly walked over to the table in the other room to see if there was any wine left in the bottle. Behind him he heard her get dressed.

2.

The ring of the telephone rattled loudly through the house. It always rang louder when it was him, cutting through time and space.

Kristina hurried through the living room, into the kitchen. Her feet were damp inside her socks. She was late. She hated to be late when he called. She wanted to be well prepared, composed, her breath steady, dry between her toes. Arvid was perceptive. Always detected the slightest ripple on the surface.

She pulled out one of the Jugendstil oak chairs from the dining room table, sat down, and took three deep, focused breaths without giving a single thought to the arm that would soon reach out toward the rattling telephone, trying to remember what Noriko had said during Wednesday’s session. She admired that woman’s enterprising spirit. To come all the way from Washington with her husband and settle down in Gotland of all places. Within just a few months she had set up a yoga center behind Japanese rice paper blinds in a building opposite the Statoil station in Havdhem.

Two years ago, Kristina would never have dreamed of doing yoga. It was far too alien to her. Perhaps it was the fact that Noriko was Japanese, at least by extraction, that had piqued her curiosity. Japan figured constantly in her life, after all, albeit from a great distance. Her life had become rigidly structured around the daily calls from Tokyo, and in some strange way it was as if the Wednesday yoga classes with Noriko helped to balance them out, loosen things up.

She lifted the receiver. It was 2 p.m. in Levide on Gotland, 10 p.m. in Tokyo.

“Hi, darling. How’s everything? All right?”

Arvid’s voice was deep and composed as usual, crystal clear even though it had sped across half the world to reach her.

“Just fine,” she answered.

Her voice was clear and steady, but wasn’t it pitched just a tad higher than usual?

“I’m coming home,” he said. If he had picked up on her voice it certainly didn’t show.

“I see, when?”

She already knew that he would answer tomorrow, or possibly the day after. He always preferred short notice. If it weren’t for the fact that he always wanted to be picked up at the airport he might not have given her any notice at all.

“No, I mean, I’m coming home.”

She sat there silently, adjusted her grip on the phone, didn’t understand.

“For good. It’s over. Ended. Just like that, from one day to the next. Pretty amazing, huh, after ten years?”

She still sat there silently, as darkness enveloped her. The second hand on the kitchen clock was preparing to spring forward another step. A faint electric impulse was on its way down a wire.

There it jumped!

How long could she remain silent? Dumbstruck, she must be allowed that much, right? Not for too long, though. And then of course it was not simply a question of answering, but also what she answered, and the tone of her voice. She would have needed a score to follow, and at least two weeks to prepare. But instead she sat there, like an idiot, struck by the proverbial bolt from the blue.

The second hand took another leap forward.

She
was
an idiot, not just like one. Of course this day was bound to come. She had known that all along. Nothing could have been more certain.

Three seconds. Her time was up.

“Arvid!”

Perhaps she wasn’t an idiot after all. For a moment she was quite pleased with herself. His name, spoken a little lingeringly with a slight gasp. Of course the latter was caused mostly by her having completely lost control of her breathing, but it sounded good, as if joy had taken her breath away.

“I’ve been so busy here that it hadn’t really sunk in till now … It’s going to be damn nice to come home. And the best thing about it is that from now on I’m completely my own man. I don’t ever have to work another day in my life if I don’t want to. We can live where we like, do as we please. I will never have to be away like this again, that I can promise you.”

“That’s just incredible.”

Joy, joy …

She had to struggle to understand what he said when he continued. It was as if the sound in the receiver faded out, just like the light in the room had done. When Kristina finally understood what time he had to be picked up in Visby and had hung up the phone, she didn’t dare get up. If she just remained sitting there she would survive a little while longer, but if she got up she would fall straight through the floor, be swallowed up by a vast blackness, and disappear forever. Which perhaps wasn’t such a bad alternative, when she came to think of it.

But she wanted to live.

Who the hell was she really? She had known this day was coming after all, and yet she had chosen not to see it.

She leaned forward with her hands clasped tightly in her lap and her eyes squeezed shut in order to block out the feelings that were flooding her breast and screaming catastrophe.

“I’ve behaved like a fucking ostrich,” she whispered to herself.

Suddenly realizing that she actually looked quite a lot like one, sitting there doubled over with her eyes closed, she straightened up and opened her eyes.

She looked out over the big, spotless kitchen, self-consciously old-fashioned in style, but actually brand new and patinated at a cost of over ten thousand crowns per cupboard. She had chosen that kitchen, negotiated the price, supervised its installation, caused a fuss over a door that would not close properly, saw to it that it was put right, and the price knocked down. And the rest of it: tiles, stove, fan … She had had time to take care of all that. Though naturally always with Arvid’s consent.

She’d had years to prepare. She could have planned everything down to the smallest detail and then just disappeared one day. What was it that had made her stay? Was it that she didn’t think it could be done or was she just stupid? Sure, he kept her on an allowance so she didn’t have much money to speak of, but she could have put some away. If she had started … say two years ago, back when those thoughts first began to take shape, back when she and Anders … She would certainly have been able to save four thousand or so every month. That would have amounted to nearly a hundred thousand in cash. How many times hadn’t she dreamed about it, even made plans to escape. No! A new, secret identity … But had she lifted a finger to actually put any of it into action?

She started to cry, but transformed her sobbing into a cold, contemptuous laugh. She was laughing at herself. She deserved it. She could have been on her way by now, but no.

Of course Arvid would have realized something was amiss as soon as she didn’t answer the way she was supposed to, but she’d have been long gone before he’d be able to do anything about it, perhaps in another country, with a hundred thousand in cash that would leave no trail. And with a new name, new personal identity number, new hair color … He wouldn’t have had a chance of finding her.

What was going to happen now? She and Anders? She would have hit herself if she could. Given herself a good hard slap across the face. For Christ’s sake, she was forty-seven years old, a grown-up several times over. What was wrong with her?

Anders!
she thought, she had to call Anders.

Anders. She almost started crying again at the thought of him. She had gotten her life back, but she had carelessly gone and lost it again. How could it have happened? How the hell could she have been so … well, what? Stupid? Useless? Ineffectual? Spineless? Blind? It had been so strong—for two years she had been so filled with not just love and passion, she was only too well acquainted with those two sentiments, but also happiness, trust, and even … hope.

Suddenly she felt her chest seize up and she went completely cold. It was as if she had opened her eyes anew, even though her eyes were already open. She got up and wheezed loudly as she gasped for air.

Was it really that simple, was that really how it all fit together? Had she shut herself away in love yet again? Like an animal in a cage, grateful and content, not to mention obsessed with her daily supply of fodder, unable to see and think beyond the bars that imprisoned her?

She staggered toward the front door as fast as she could. It felt as if her windpipe had been laced shut and her heart had stopped beating. Gray spots began to dance across her field of vision. Was she about to faint?
No,
she thought.
I’m not damn well going to faint.
What kind of a fucking solution was that? Was she really that pathetic? Was that the sort of person she was? No, that wasn’t her, she wasn’t going to be like that. Not any more. She kicked the shoes that were lined up so neatly in the entrance hall, including Arvid’s brown calfskin oxfords that he hadn’t put his feet in for months, desperate to find a release for her rage. The shoes flew in all directions and the shelf on which they stood was knocked askew.

She struggled for air. It was easier to breathe after her outburst. She staggered up to the door and managed to get it open. Fresh air streamed in toward her. Perhaps it wasn’t too late yet. If she scraped together all she had; cash, jewelry, that Kosta Boda vase that had been valued at seventy thousand just last year; she could put that in her bag, too. Could she sell the car, or would that get the police onto her? Was it in his name or hers? She realized that she didn’t know. She hadn’t even managed to find that out.

But what difference did it make? No point in whining about it, or looking back. Better to focus on her current options. Pack a suitcase with clothes, jewelry, and that damned vase. Take the car to the mainland and sell it in Stockholm, then on to … It was shortly past two. She could be in Stockholm in seven hours if she took the boat that left at a quarter to five. When did the car dealerships open? Say, ten o’clock. By eleven tomorrow morning all that could be taken care of.

She came out onto the front steps, took a few paces forward, filled her lungs with air, she was almost breathing normally now, stepped down onto the freshly laid footpath. And stopped.

She froze in midstep, and stared at the viper that lay coiled up on the warm limestone pathway a little more than two meters in front of her.

3.

Things can change when you’re gone for a long time. Time waits for no one.

Emrik Jansson, however, did wait. He stood on the narrow stretch of paved road with the black tires of his bicycle lined up on the gray band of gravel along the shoulder. His long, white beard was yellowed with nicotine around his mouth, as were the fore and middle fingers of his right hand. He gripped the handlebars tightly with both hands. He had stopped biking over a year ago. These days he only used the bicycle for support. Better that than one of those four-wheeled contraptions you always saw the old biddies at the home wandering around with. You had to accept your fate, there was no getting around that, but you could do it with a little more decorum. He was eighty-seven years old, so there wasn’t really much to say on that score. He was heading downhill. Singing his last refrain. Whistling his evensong.

A small dragonfly with an iridescent blue abdomen came buzzing along the road in fitful flight. Emrik Jansson followed the dragonfly with his gaze until it vanished out across a field. There was nothing wrong with his eyes. But his legs were unsteady and his hearing wasn’t too good.

His hand trembling slightly, he reached laboriously into his inside jacket pocket and took out a pouch of tobacco. He unfastened the tape seal, rolled open the pouch, and inhaled the aroma of moist rolling tobacco. Inside the pouch lay three ready-rolled cigarettes he had had the foresight to prepare ahead of time. Trying to roll one while holding onto his bicycle was more than his strength and coordination could handle. He took one of the cigarettes, put it in his mouth, and returned the pouch of tobacco to his inside pocket before pulling out a plastic lighter from his trouser pocket and lighting his cigarette.