“Oh, that’s probably just the light here, nothing to worry about.”
“As a matter of fact, I am a little tired.”
“You are? We’ve had a few weeks off, but maybe you had to work through Christmas?”
“No, no. I’m not that kind of tired.”
“Oh, I know exactly what you mean. It’s this eternal gray weather. If only we had a bit more chill, so that the ice would come; I am so longing for the ice this year. We have not yet been skating one single time. And in the middle of January! Do you think it could be this El Nino thing affecting us all the way here in Scandinavia?”
“I haven’t the vaguest idea.”
“Well, it’s dull, dull, dull, that I know. Tell me, anything new?”
“Not really. How about you?”
“Lots of work, as always.”
“Same here. Same old same old… I’m thinking that it could be last year, or the year before, or the year before that, even. Everything the same. I think I’m getting burned out.”
“Oh my dear, dear friend. Isn’t it fun any more?”
“Fun is as fun does.”
Elizabeth leaned closer over the round, white iron table.
“I’ve heard them say… Curt Luding is thinking of selling?”
Curt Luding was Berit’s boss. He had started the business in the middle of the seventies, and he belonged to the young opposition, the kids who fought at the barricades. In those days, he published underground literature and socially critical novels. He was done with that now. Times had changed.
“The same old rumor,” even as she said it, she felt her stomach lurch.
“You haven’t heard anything specific?”
“No. You?”
“Nah. Nothing worth noticing.”
“Bonniers wants to take over?”
“Well, yes.”
Berit poked at a piece of corn with her fork, put it in her mouth.
“It’s not at all pleasant with these rumors going around,” she said. “Maybe that’s why people are feeling down. That uncertainty. I’m really going to ignore work all weekend long. I’m not going to think about it for one minute! I’m going to try and get out instead, maybe take a long walk this Saturday. Maybe I’ll go out to Hasselby and see to my parents’ graves there, and then take a long walk through nature out there and feel some nostalgia. I haven’t been there for who knows how long.”
On the way back to work, she sneaked into a shop for luxury lingerie on Drottninggatan. She tried on some bras and decided on a red shiny one with underwire and a pair of matching panties. The sharp lighting made her thighs and stomach look like dough.
What you do for a minute of happiness!
She longed for some chocolate and walked hurriedly past the Belgian chocolate shop. She had bought some hand-made chocolate snails there for the boys’ girlfriends last Christmas. Those girls were thin as sticks; they could use a little more weight on their bones.
She felt strange around them. They resembled each other: awkward, blonde, flat-chested. They hung on the boys the whole time, pawing them and whimpering like spoiled children whenever they thought no one heard them. She never would have acted like that with Tor’s parents! His mother would have driven her from the door.
Helle and Marika. Helle was Danish, how she ended up in Stockholm was anybody’s guess. Berit had tried to chat with them, find out a bit about their backgrounds. They were sullen and silent. Or maybe just shy. She kept up her humor for the sake of her boys.
Now it had really started to rain; she opened her umbrella and used it as a shield against the wind. When she was passing the Russian restaurant, she was forced to cross the street. The locale was being scraped bare, an excavator was in the middle of the sidewalk. She wondered what was coming next. She had eaten there a few times. Full-bodied stews and piroges. It had been cozy and warm and, whenever she was really depressed, she had eaten there and gathered her strength.
The elevator to their floor was out of order. She walked up four flights of stairs, trailing a wet line after her umbrella. She hung up her things and went to her office. It was unusually quiet everywhere. Was there a meeting that she had forgotten? No, Annie was sitting at her desk, her arms were hanging down and she wasn’t working. Just sitting there with a lifeless look on her face.
“What’s going on, Annie? Something happen?” Annie motioned her over.
“Come on in.”
Then she got up and closed the door.
“Now things are going to change!”
A shudder went down Berit’s spine.
“What do you mean?”
“Curt’s up to something.”
“Up to what?”
“He’s calling an employee meeting. Not today, not tomorrow, but on Monday of all the damn days of the week.” “Employee meeting?”
“Yep. Apparently something he wants to tell us all together.” “Is he going to fire us?”
“Who the heck knows.”
“But… where is he now?”
“Going to a meeting. Gone the rest of the day. Gone tomorrow, too.”
“Oh, Annie… what are we going to do?”
“Do? Nothing we can do until Monday. Just wait. All day tomorrow and wait all weekend, too.”
“Why did he bring it up now? Why couldn’t he wait until Monday then?”
Annie shrugged. Her hair was a mess. She ought to do something with it.
“What did he look like? How did he make the announcement?” “Like always. A big port-salut cheese for a face.” Berit took a paperclip from the desk and began to twist and turn it, bend it backwards.
“I met Elizabeth at lunch, you know, that blonde who works over at Bonniers.”
“That little gossip.”
“Oh, she’s not that bad. But she was cryptically hinting that Curt was going to sell to Bonniers.”
“We’ve heard that one before, and nothing’s ever come of it.” “Well, what if now is the time? Why do you think he’s calling for an employee meeting?”
“You think. So we can be Bonniers employees.” “You would be. You’re still fairly young. But me, I’m turning forty-six this year. I’m not so sure that The Big Boys will take on an old lady like me.”
Annie was silent for a moment.
“But… if he’s selling the company, he’s selling us, too, like, we’re part of the deal,” she exclaimed. “I mean… we go, too. Otherwise, he has to buy us out somehow. Some kind of employment termination amount.”
“Ha! Do you have a golden parachute I don’t know about?”
“No.”
The paper clip broke and snagged her thumb. “What is everyone else saying?”
“Same stuff. They’re scared shitless. Lotta even got a stomach ache and had to go home.”
Berit went to the kitchen and started a pot of coffee. It was messy and cluttered as usual: dirty coffee mugs, an empty Lean-Cuisine package. She picked that up and tossed it into the garbage, and exclaimed, “Goddamn pit, this place!”
“Come and have coffee,” she angrily called out into the hall, as if it were an order. Everyone came, silent and worried.
The publishing business had twelve employees, including Carl Luding himself. Non-fiction was their best seller. Or had been. They had one real best-selling author, Sonja Karlberg, who wrote old-fashioned romance novels that, strangely enough, were hits with contemporary readers. She appeared to be a mild and fragile old lady, but Annie, who was her editor, began to feel ill the moment that Sonja Karlson called and said she was on the way in. Sonja
