same crafty look that she had had enough of long ago.
A creepy feeling came over Flora as she lay there in the bed. The blanket felt heavy on her ribcage. Yes, it was like she was again able to feel her own body with all its fragility, down to the smallest cell, as it had been before the stroke. She tried to close her eyes and pretend to be sleeping, but time and again she had to open her eyes slightly to see if the girl was still there, if the girl had changed her position. It became a compulsion.
She found herself listening for the girl’s footsteps, even in the middle of the night. If she could only get those damned white uniforms to understand that she didn’t want visitors any longer. Not by anyone. Not even closest relatives.
At first Flora had been unconscious and didn’t know whether she had visitors or not. When she slowly began to come to, the girl was standing next to her bed. And that feeble voice, that pleading: “Can you see me, Flora? Can you hear me?”
Flora’s tongue felt like dry tree bark.
There was light in the room; a nurse came in. “Does she understand what I’m saying?”
That look the nurse gave before the two of them left together. Flora tried to lift her hand to move the blanket. She wanted to get out of bed, find a mirror, see what had happened to her. They had given her drugs; she had forgotten how she had come there.
But she could not get her hand to lift.
Could not even move it.
During that first period, they had subjected her to a great number of tests. Every day, they had rolled her away to labtest rooms and X-ray rooms. They had stuck needles into her arms; they had tested her foot with instruments and asked, do you feel this, Mrs. Dalvik? Do you feel this at all?
After a while, they’d given up.
They had tied her to a stretcher and two young ambulance workers had rolled her out. It was the first time in ages that she had breathed outdoor air and it sunk in that as far as she was concerned, her life was over. When the ambulance turned out of the driveway, she saw a glimpse of the emergency hospital and remembered the sound of sirens.
At the nursing home there was no such hurry.
Sometimes during the night, she felt a certain closeness, as if Sven was back with her. He was strong and young, just as he had been in the beginning. She wanted to cover her head with the sheets; he shouldn’t see her like this, so old and humiliated. Go, she wanted to scream at him, go back to your French wife.
That woman had died at the height of her greatest beauty. She was the one he had chosen; she was the one who had given him a child. Flora had never been more than a surrogate, however much he had tried to deny this.
If he had only agreed to sell the house, that would have been the ultimate proof that he meant the things he said. That he wanted to start a new life. But he refused. She could get him to do many things, but not this. The house was holy to him. His French wife had chosen it, and she had placed her weed of a child in it as a continual reminder.
Her own womb was barren.
Now it was morning again. There was sound in the hallways, light, curtains being drawn back. She looked toward the window, black and shiny, but the uniforms had still turned on all the lights.
A chipper voice from a white uniform: “Good morning, Flora. Did you sleep well?”
What right did they have to use my first name?
The blanket taken away, hands on her hips and rear. At least she could still pee.
She avoided looking at her skinny limbs and the black hair which had faded to gray.
The white uniform sang; she was just a child with golden locks.
“Now we have real winter Flora. Isn’t it wonderful! A great deal of snow fell last night. And it was cold, below zero. I had to get a ride here from my boyfriend and we almost didn’t make it up the hill. Although he has summer tires still on and they’re really worn out.”
Yes that was it. Snow. The dull scraping of snowplows; that was the sound this morning.
“I’m going to come back soon and wash you up, and then a bit of food would be good, wouldn’t it?”
That chirpy, naive optimism. As if food would taste good in her situation.
Snow… Snow was on the ground when he first took her to the house. She slipped on the slope, and almost fell. He took hold of her arm, but not hard, not as if he wanted to own her.
There was a woman in the house. A housekeeper. She had made dinner and set the table in the room that Flora would later make into her blue room. There was a draft between the front door and the door to the basement. Something was wrong with the heater, even though it was new. He was so touchingly impractical.
Flora’s feet were freezing. She hadn’t taken any indoor shoes with her. Sven found a pair of woolen socks and they were much too big, so she continued to freeze until she drank a glass of wine. Then she became hot and in the mood to laugh.
The housekeeper had come in with the girl. She resembled her father, the same light skin and chin.
“This is my daughter Justine,” said Sven and lifted the girl into his arms. She hugged his neck strongly and refused to shake Flora’s hand. She had to take it back and she felt humiliated.
They finished eating and they were sitting at a smaller table for coffee. The child clung to Sven and would not look up. Finally he carried her from the room.
“You must excuse her,” he said when he returned. “You know what happened. She is at a difficult stage.”
A few weeks later, Flora invited him to her place. She had recently moved into a two-room apartment on Odenplan, next to Gustav Vasa Church but facing the courtyard garden. She had gone home right after lunch, and she still remembered what she had served him for dinner. Baked ox fillets with sauteed chanterelles and fresh strawberries for dessert. Her parents had helped her to find the strawberries, which were out of season, as well as the chanterelles. He was thoroughly impressed.
That evening they slept together. He had been alone for so long that he came right away. They remained in bed and she cupped her hands around his thin buttocks and felt an increasing tenderness.
“Sven,” she whispered.
Yes, she whispered his first name, and he was no longer her boss but a man who had been inside her, and she took his fingers and placed them between her thighs. Then he hardened, grew, and she laid on him and led him into her in a way she had never done before with anyone.
He liked her. Yes, almost loved her. Every evening he returned. She lay in his arms and she told him about Hasselby and about herself.
“I love your name,” he said. “Flowery.”
“It’s not for nothing that I’m the daughter of a master gardener.”
He laughed and tickled her with the tip of his tongue. She turned, mouth next to his knee.
She continued her story from this position.
“My parents owned a garden supply store for over thirty years. They took it over from my paternal grandfather. They intended to keep it in the family, but… well, it didn’t happen like that. We were four sisters with flower names, but it didn’t help; none of us had the desire to grow plants. I’m the youngest. Rosa is the oldest, and then this is Viola and this one is Reseda.”
“Reseda?”
“Yep. That’s her name.”
“And if you were boys?”
“Then we wouldn’t be sleeping together.”
She turned again and followed his hairline with her index finger. His glasses were on the table; his eyebrows were light, almost invisible.
“I mean, what kind of names would they have?”
“I got it the first time. Maybe Root and Branch. Like the Root and Branch of Jesse… My parents really wanted boys. None of us girls wanted the garden store. We had had enough.”
“Were you able to help out?”
“Able? Forced more like it.”
Her father had beaten them with flower supports if they did not obey him. He hit Flora the least, but he was always beating Rosa, the oldest sister. She should have known better. Rosa had no patience and she hated getting
