If only she hadn’t.
So many ‘if only she hadn’t’s. So many that it was no longer possible to see when the first one occurred.
They sat in complete silence. He didn’t ask where she wanted to go and she didn’t wonder where he was headed. Just leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes. A silent zone where she was not subject to accusations.
She didn’t open her eyes until the car stopped and the engine was turned off. A cul-de-sac. Some parked cars. Blocks of flats. She remembered the last time she was here.
With an effort of will she turned her head and looked at him. Took in his warm smile and lowered her eyes, let her gaze settle on his hands resting on the steering wheel. She remembered their clumsiness, his fumbling fingers running over her body; she was amazed that he had even dared.
Again an ‘if only she hadn’t’.
‘Thanks for the lift.’
She made a move to open the door. The exhaustion felt like an ache in her joints, a physical plea not to have to move.
‘Wouldn’t you like to come in for a while?’
She let her hand rest on the door handle as she searched for an answer. There was anticipation in his voice, and that was more than she could bear. She opened the car door and the cold that struck her reminded her that she had no jacket. Or money.
She had nothing.
‘I have some pear cider at my place. Won’t you come in and have a glass? To be honest, you look like you could use it. Then I can drive you wherever you like later.’
Wherever you like. Where was that? Was there such a place?
If only she hadn’t.
The whole past chain of events was linked by the ‘if only she hadn’t’s.
But the first link in the chain was Henrik’s. The betrayal. His cowardice. The rage he had directed at her. His lack of consideration.
Kerstin’s judgement echoed in her mind. One must always take responsibility for one’s actions. What did Kerstin know about how Henrik had acted towards her? What he had done to provoke her crime. The impotence she felt. But she would never get the chance to defend herself. Not before any of those who thought they had the right to judge her. The verdict had been handed down and the sentence passed.
Pariah.
But what about Henrik? Didn’t any part of the blame fall on him? Because he was the one who had prompted the whole chain of ‘what if she hadn’t’s.
He got out of the car and she saw through the windscreen that he was walking towards her open door. When he got there he held out his hand to her.
‘Come on now. Just a glass of pear cider. That’s all.’
So tired, through and through. All the way into her marrow. If only she could just follow along, not have to make any decisions.
‘Just a glass of pear cider?’
He smiled and nodded.
‘Just a glass of pear cider.’
She refused his outstretched hand and got out of the car, moving past him. He let his arm hover in the air a bit too long before he slowly let it drop, closed her door and fetched a plastic bag from the boot.
‘Come on.’
He started towards the door of his building. Maybe she was angry when she refused his hand; she didn’t mean to seem unpleasant, she just didn’t want to give him any ideas, not a single hope of anything more than what they had agreed. A glass of pear cider. Nothing more. That’s what he had said and she had accepted.
He turned on the light in the stairwell and showed her in with a gentlemanly gesture, inviting her to go first. He followed a few steps behind. She was filled by a slight uneasiness at his presence, well aware that he had her rear end in his view. She felt exposed and open to his eyes, which could look at whatever they liked. She leaned her back against the wall as he unlocked the door. Four locks.
The last time. The nervousness she felt and how she had pressed herself against him to conceal it. How the images of Henrik and Linda had made her conquer her distaste.
Five days ago.
She stopped inside the door, heard him stick a key in one of the locks and turn it. And then the rattle of the keyring to lock the others and the rustle of the plastic bag he had taken out of the boot.
And she suddenly recalled that he thought her name was Linda. That her camouflage back then had made her brave enough to fulfil her intentions.
If only she hadn’t.
Yet another one.
But now there was no reason why she should reveal her real name. It would just provoke questions that she didn’t want to answer.
‘Welcome. Welcome back, I should say.’
She wasn’t back. The woman who stood before him was here for the first time.
She looked down at her shoes as if it were an impossible task to bend down and take them off. He followed her gaze, knelt down and carefully pulled down the zippers on the inside of her ankles. He placed her hand on his shoulder so she could lean on him as he pulled off her shoes. He held her right foot in his hand for a moment too long, and she could suddenly hear his breathing. She couldn’t put up any resistance, just stood there with her hand on his shoulder and let him hold her right foot. She shouldn’t be here. She ought to leave. But where could she go? And how could she find the energy?
He stood up, gently touched her elbow, led her into the little kitchen and sat her down on one of the chairs. She watched him take two steps over to the refrigerator and caught a glimpse of its contents when he opened it. All three shelves filled with recumbent cider bottles. He took out two, pulled his key chain out of his pocket, and opened them with a red bottle opener squeezed in between the keys. Then he stood with the bottles in his hands, cocked his head to one side and looked at her.
‘How are you doing, anyway?’
She couldn’t say a word.
‘I don’t have a sofa, but you can sit on the bed in there instead. I mean if you want to be a bit more comfortable, that’s all. You look like you need a rest. I can sit on the floor.’
‘I’m fine here.’
He sat down on the chair on the other side of the fold-down table, leaned forward and handed her one of the bottles of cider.
‘Cheers. Once again.’
He smiled and she raised the bottle and drank.
‘That’s the kind you like, isn’t it?’
She read the label on the bottle. Couldn’t tell if this one tasted either better or worse than those she had tasted before.
‘Sure.’
‘Imagine running into each other again like this. It’s really too wild to be just a coincidence, it almost feels like it means something, as if it was fate.’
She couldn’t come up with any good answer but smiled a little so she wouldn’t seem rude.
For a while they sat in silence. Then he got up and went over to the small kitchen counter, picked up the dishrag and wiped off the stainless steel surface. He rubbed it intently and kept checking to see whether the spot was gone.
‘Can you tell me what happened?’
He rinsed out the dishrag and wrung it out, rinsed it again and repeated the procedure one more time before he folded it in thirds and hung it over the tap.
‘Why you’re out walking without a jacket, for example, and where you were going?’
