“Agneta Lind.”
Hans Peter flipped through the register. He didn’t recognize the name, but he recognized the situation, married men looking for their unfaithful wives.
“I’m sorry, but we don’t have any guest by that name here.” “Don’t mess with me. I know she’s here.”
Hans Peter shook his head. Now he had to be tactful. The man was large and strong, and he wore a buttoned, somewhat worn coat, and around his neck he wore a gold chain with an amulet.
“She must have registered under a different name.” “That would be hard to know.”
“Don’t you have to require someone to show their ID?” “Actually, no.”
The man had tried to look as intimidating as possible, but now he took a few steps back and sank into the sofa. He hid his face in the elbow of his coat. It sounded like he was crying.
“Damn it all to hell. If you knew how degrading this is…” These were always difficult situations. What was a person to say? Whatever he said could be the wrong thing. He waited. “If I describe her… would you recognize her?”
“Please understand… we can’t do that. We have to protect our guests.”
The man wasn’t listening.
“She’s… thirty-eight, but you’d never know. Everyone thinks she looks younger. She has short hair, dyed red, but it’s not red everywhere… and now that bastard…”
“Why do you want to find her?”
“She’s my wife, dammit! She’s here with her lover, and I don’t give a damn that she is here. I’ve tracked her down. Tre Rosor was written in her planner. She’s never been too clever. Tre Rosor, that’s the name of this place, right? Isn’t that the name of this fucking hotel?”
“Yes, but this is not that kind of a hotel.”
“What do you mean, that kind?”
“We don’t have a… bad reputation.”
“That’s not the point here.”
“All right… but… there’s no person by that name here.”
“Her lover… I know who he is. I’ve seen him. He has glasses and funny outfits, some kind of fucking lawyer who is upstairs screwing her, I’ll kill them both.”
He really ought to throw the man out or call the police. That would be the right thing to do.
Instead he said, “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
He made a shrimp sandwich for the man and put on a large pot of coffee. Suspiciously, the man bit into the sandwich, and a few shrimp fell off onto his knee. He chewed loudly and looked around with quick glances.
Once the man drank a cup of coffee, he started to calm down. Hans Peter hoped he would go away soon.
“That was great!” said the man and swallowed the last bite of the sandwich. “An unexpectedly warm welcome, I’d call it.”
“Thanks.”
“I’m Bjorn. Bjorn Lind.”
Hans Peter did not want to know the man’s name. He didn’t want the man to get to know him better either. But against his will, he began to chat, just like him to land in situations that he really ought to know how to ward off.
“Have you two been married long?”
“A couple of years at least.”
“But it’s not been going so well for a while, right?”
“I certainly don’t think so.”
“What about her?”
“Hell if I know. Never heard her complain.”
“Have you talked about a divorce?”
“Not at all. But I know that she has others on the side. I can feel it. She says she’s going to the movies with a friend but in reality…”
“Maybe she really went to the movies.”
“Fuck that idea.”
“What’s your line of work?”
“I own my own business. I have a message delivery service and a couple of cars. She was one of the drivers. That’s how we got together.”
A fish came to the surface and snapped some air. The fish did that at times, when they needed extra oxygen. Hans Peter wondered if they knew that they were captive. At any rate, they could see out through the water and the glass. Whenever Ariadne approached, they all swam up to the surface at once; they knew she was bringing food; they recognized her.
“If your wife is seeing other guys, maybe she has a reason,” he said carefully.
“What do you mean, a reason?”
“Well, maybe she’s not so happy with how you two are doing. For me that’s what happened.”
“Well, life’s not always a bouquet of roses!”
“Of course not.”
“But maybe it is here at the Tre Rosor, ha, ha?”
Hans Peter laughed.
“What about you?” the man said. “You married?”
“Have been.”
“There you see how easy it is.”
“Yep,” sighed Hans Peter.
“Did she take off? Or did you?”
“Well, neither of us took off exactly. We just… drifted apart.”
“But Agneta and I… we…”
“Can you two still talk with each other?”
“Talk this, talk that.”
The man grew quiet. He took up one of the newspapers and flipped through it, mostly to have something to do with his hands. Someone was walking along the hallway upstairs. Just think if there really were an Agneta Lind among the other guests? Think if she came down dragging her lover behind her. Hans Peter tried to remember who had checked in during the evening, what they looked like, had there been a woman with short red hair? He didn’t remember one.
“Hey,” said Bjorn Lind, as he with great effort got to his feet. He now appeared completely sober. “I’m going now. Thank you. I mean it. Not sure for what. Maybe the food, if nothing else.”
Hans Peter couldn’t read any longer. He couldn’t comprehend the words. He washed up the cup and the small plate, rinsed the coffee pot. A feeling of depression was settling into him without his really knowing why. He wished that the night would go by quickly. He wanted to go home and lie down. His legs were aching, as if he were coming down with a fever.
Chapter NINE
After a long break, the girl began to visit her again. The girl had changed. There was something unfamiliar about her, something in her bearing. As if all the knots in her spine had been smoothed out and she had returned to being that Justine she had been when she was little. And she held that persona up like a shield whenever she stepped into the room.
Yes, even that, her way of walking was different, no longer that careful pattering that relatives of sick people got into the habit of doing, but she would open the door and walk right in. With a terrible screech, she would pull a chair to the bedside and sit there without moving, straight and cool. Sit there and stare directly at her with that
