Sail of Stone

He wouldn’t have to.

He ordered another glass from the woman, who couldn’t see him. He drank with his back to the couple, who sat by the window and looked out over the viaducts and the sea.

Frans hadn’t been the first.

In the currents, the bodies embraced each other.

Jesus. Jesus!

When he came out he passed a truck filled with fish. He knew where it came from and where it was going. The truck raced down, on its way west. He smelled the odor of fish through the diesel fumes, or he thought he did. Naturally he only thought so.

The truck disappeared down into the tunnel, a danger for anyone coming the opposite direction. He waited for the crash but didn’t hear anything, not this time. He only heard the familiar roar as the motor forced itself up the hills on the other side.

He would never go there again. Never again!

He walked east. He had a meeting.

9

Aneta Djanali made breakfast with her bad dreams winding around in her head like a lingering fog. She put water in the kettle but forgot to turn on the power and waited in vain, standing at the kitchen counter, until she realized what had happened and looked around to see if anyone was standing there smirking.

No one was standing there.

Sometimes she missed having someone there to let out an indulgent laugh at her absentmindedness. Who was always there. Sometimes Fredrik was there, and there was nothing wrong with his indulgent laugh, but he wasn’t always there.

And she wasn’t always in his kitchen, at his counter.

Was this what being a live-apart couple was?

No. That presupposed a relationship that could be called a relationship, something accepted and… and, well, confirmed, established.

Something obvious. For both people. They weren’t there, she and Fredrik. Why weren’t they there? Or were they on their way there without needing to confirm it, or even think about it?

Life is complicated.

She toasted two pieces of bread at the same time. It was more complicated than toasting one slice, but compared to other parts of her life it wasn’t particularly complicated. She spread butter on the bread, sliced some cheese, spooned some blackberry marmalade on the cheese. Simple, easy actions, like brewing tea: milk in the bottom of the mug, pour in the tea, two sugar cubes, stir, let cool.

Drink the tea. Eat the bread.

Empty the brain.

For fifteen minutes.

The moon was still up when she came outside, but it was lingering, pale, behind thin clouds, like in a fog. Her car was in shadow from the sun, which shone happily in another part of the sky. The car was cold when she got in, the scent of night still in the leather. Everything from the night was lingering this morning. That’s what she thought.

She drove south. There was a line of cars at Linneplatsen. Three lanes, keeping time. Some idiot kept revving the engine, stared at her, revved it again, staring from his Audi.

Should she throw open her door and show her ID?

The light turned green and the idiot flew away, on his way to Le Mans, the Nurburgring, made it seven yards, swerved to the left, accelerated, on his way to a late start in Monte Carlo, roared past a few asphalt mixers and the road worker farthest out lost his cap in the rush of wind.

Aneta lifted the phone and called the officer at dispatch and gave him the disappearing license plate number on the car up ahead.

No goal today for Audi.

She had seen the flash of racism in his eyes.

You soon became sensitive to such things. A sunburn from Africa always caused reactions, no matter the year, decade, century, millennium. You know, of course, that all humans have their origins in Africa? she said once when Fredrik was playing racist. Yes, playing. That was at first; then he had stopped.

She passed Sahlgrenska Hospital going up the hill. She drove into Toltorpsdalen, which sounded like it belonged in a fairy tale. She turned left at the church and crept over the damned speed bumps, fifty yards between each one. Workers in vehicles hated the speed bumps: bus drivers, taxi drivers, delivery people, police. She looked around. The people in the neighborhood hate the speed bumps sometimes; the more accelerations, the worse the air. Fair Toltorpsdalen already had the city’s worst air even before that; it was among the worst in north Europe.

In Krokslatt everything sloped downward. She rolled without accelerating off of Krokslatt’s Parkgata and parked behind Sorgard School.

It was idyllic. The city was of two minds here, on the boundary between the crude downtown of Molndal and the abyss of the big city that began at Liseberg. It was quiet here, Fridkullagatan ran like a protective arm to the west and the north; here it was calm like the eye of a cyclone. A person who stayed here found peace.

Anette Lindsten had not stayed here. Why she had left the protective pocket of Fredriksdal for the condemned Kortedala was a question that only love could answer. Anette had moved to the windswept district of seasons for the sake of love, a district where the authorities were now blowing up their own buildings, and when even love had been smashed to pieces, Anette had returned here, home again.

Aneta stood outside the house, which was hidden behind a hedge that would be difficult to climb over or chop your way through. The house was wooden, like most houses here, built between the wars, expanded during the welfare period, well cared for in less fortunate times, these times. Aneta hesitated outside the iron gate, which had recently been scraped and would soon be painted again. Why don’t I leave these people alone? What answer do I want? I am tired of this shit, tired of women having to live long lives of fear, in exile in their own country, worse than that, living in protected places like refugees, hidden from state entities and their verdicts, and from the powers that be, which is me, us, the police. Them, she thought. I wouldn’t haul children out of a church on order. It has been done before and those pictures are not in the most beautiful albums of humankind’s time on earth. Now Anette is hiding here at home. Is that enough for her?

She saw her hand ring the doorbell. All I want is to see that Anette is okay.

Her hand rang again. She could hear a dog barking inside; maybe it had been audible before. The door was opened and within it she saw jaws opening, and not to smile. The dog growled. She knew a Rottweiler when she saw one. In most cases it was a matter of striking first.

“Quiet, Zack!”

She could see the top of the man’s head as he bent toward the muscular monster down there. What did the people of Fredriksdal say about them when they were out for a walk?

The man turned his face to her.

She didn’t recognize him.

“Yes?”

He had opened the door halfway.

“I would like to… have a word with Anette,” said Aneta. She felt caught off guard. She didn’t understand why.

“She isn’t here,” said the man.

The dog growled in agreement and turned and disappeared.

“But she moved home,” said Aneta.

“What? What do you mean? And who are you, by the way?”

She finally showed her ID and said her name.