He was filled with shimmering happiness. His midsection tightened; his face relaxed.
“Oh for crying out loud, sit down,” he said. “I can look at your foot.”
She let her arms hang down.
“Don’t you want me to?”
“Sure…”
“You have to be careful with a sprain.”
“Can we go upstairs? If you take the tray with the coffee cups.” “What about the bird? Where is he?”
“Oh, he’s sitting somewhere and stressing himself.”
It was dusty and messy in the library. He saw signs of ice cream on the table. In the window there was a little pot of crocus. The bird was nowhere in sight.
“It’s a bit of a mess here, as you can see,” she said. “It doesn’t bother me. You should see my place.” He placed the tray on the table and pulled up the chairs so that they would be facing each other.
She had painted her toenails red. He saw that when he took off the sock and unwrapped the bandage. Her foot jerked; he could see that she was ticklish.
He saw the marks from the bandage on her skin. They looked like small valleys and he followed them with his fingertips, cupped his hand around her heel.
“It almost looks more swollen now than last time,” he said. “I didn’t rest it enough. It’s hard to stay still.” “Maybe you don’t need to bind it so tightly.”
“Maybe not.”
“Justine, may I ask you something, apropos of nothing.
Have you ever felt that life was slipping way from you?” “Yes… sometimes.”
“Once I’m gone… no damned soul is going to remember me or know who I was.”
“The same with me, I fear.”
“You don’t have any children?”
She shook her head.
“People will remember you as the granddaughter of the man who founded the Sandy concern.”
She smiled slightly, her upper lip was elegantly formed, her lower lip chapped.
“So what?” she said.
“Well, even if you’ve had children, it doesn’t mean that someone will remember you. But you would be a kind of a creator, a part of you would in some way continue living… and into the next generation, too, but a bit more thinned out, of course.”
“You can live a good life without being a creator.”
“Of course, that’s true.”
“Why didn’t you have children?”
“It just didn’t happen that way.”
“It didn’t?”
“I was married for a long while, but no. Nothing happened. She got remarried later on and had a ton of children. Maybe there’s something wrong with me; maybe I don’t have what it takes.”
His hand had begun to move along her foot. He made no move to pull her foot closer. His middle finger worked itself gently under the edge of her tights. He felt her calf, smooth against his finger.
“And you?” he said. “Why didn’t you have any children?”
“I had a child once. It died after only a few days.”
“Oh.”
“It was a long time ago.”
He took his hands away, but she left her foot there, with her toes pointing toward him.
“Your hands felt nice,” she said. “I liked it.”
Hans Peter smiled at her.
“By the way, I have to tell you something. I dreamed about you last night.”
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“Was it a nice dream?”
“Honestly? No. It was an evil dream, where you hurt yourself.”
She stiffened.
“Yes?… And what I was doing?”
“Oh… you were walking on dangerous stones. You stumbled on them and fell.”
“That’s so odd… I’ve thought of you since you were here,” she whispered. “I am so glad that you called. It was looking like it would be a tough day. But it doesn’t feel like that any more.”
“Justine,” he said. “Do you have anyone now, any kind of relationship?”
“No…”
“I’ve thought of you too… longed to come here again. But if you have someone, already…”
“No,” she interrupted him. “There’s no one. The last one ended.”
He got up and went around the back of her chair, stroked her shoulders. She reached up and took hold of him. He backed away; she held on, and the chair tilted until it was on two legs. He carefully got down on his knees and gently lowered the chair back until it reached the floor.
They lay next to each other on the floor. They looked each other in the eyes, no shyness, no strangeness.
“As long as the bird doesn’t show up,” he said in a low voice.
“Are you afraid of him?”
“Well, afraid, not really, but I get nervous when he’s around.”
“Don’t be. He won’t bother us.”
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“I believe he was in the dream, too.”
“He’s my friend. Then he’s your friend, too.”
“I’m going to ask you something, but maybe you’ll slap me; I hope not.”
“I won’t. Try and see.”
“May I take off your clothes?”
Her eyes lit up. He drew the thick sweater over her head and made a pillow for her. Then he moved his hand behind her back and undid her bra. She had small breasts with nipples that turned in. He bent over them, touching them with his lips.
“They’re shy…,” he said. “They don’t want to come out.”
Then he saw her arms.
“My God, Justine! What happened to you! Have you battled a tiger?”
“Almost,” she said. “A cat attacked me last night when I was taking out the garbage. Totally crazy cat.”
“What happened? How did you get rid of it?”
“I had to actually tear it off of me. Maybe it was disturbed by the bird. I was afraid the bird would see it and be scared. As a tiny bird, he was almost eaten by a cat.”
“Unusual that a cat would attack a person like that… what if it had rabies?”
“Nah, there’s no rabies in Sweden.”
“Well, what if you come down with cat-scratch fever or lockjaw?”
“I’m up-to-date on all my vaccinations.”
She nestled into his underarm.
“Kiss my nipples again… bring them out into the light.”
He bent over again and felt how they hardened and began to come out of their hiding places.
Then her fingers were there, agile and searching. They were warm now; they were around his waist, finding the buckle of his belt. The clicking sound when the belt opened. His penis rose into her underarm. He heard a noise around his ears; it seemed to come from inside him. Her hand went around him, held him, measured his strength.
“Wait,” he whispered. “It’s been such a long time, wait… I don’t want to come too soon.”
He drew down her tights and panties. She was strong and round; he gripped her waist and lifted her over
