juice. He spoke excellent English.
“I hope I don’t exactly frolic,” she answered.
“You know that there are both tigers and wild elephants in the area we’re going to,” he said.
He observed her reaction; then he laughed.
“You don’t see them very often. They keep away from humans; they’re more afraid of us than we are of them.”
“But they have attacked humans?” asked Nathan.
“Of course, but that hasn’t happened in a while.”
“Elephants scare me more than tigers,” she mumbled. “Once a man let me ride an elephant. Pappa and I were at the circus. They didn’t ask me; they just lifted me up and plopped me down right on that wrinkly skin. A few weeks later, Pappa told me that an elephant had gone crazy, managed to escape its chain, and ran amok.”
Ben smiled at her. His brown chin was round, his nose wide and flat. He was born in the jungle, but he had received a decent education and even studied at the university in Kuala Lumpur.
“Elephants shouldn’t be in a circus,” he said. “No wonder they go crazy there.”
They sat with Ben for a long time, talking and looking at maps, making long lists of the things that they would do and the things they had to purchase. In the evening, they went out to a restaurant. There was just one dish: fried rice with chicken. Justine was hungry. There wasn’t much meat on the chicken; it was mostly bones. They each ordered a Coke.
Nathan said he longed for a cold beer.
“No beer here,” he said. “I know another place; we can go there next time.”
That night she slept soundly and didn’t even wake up when the
She and Nathan took a shower together. She soaped up his big, light body; she could never get enough of touching him. Her hands could long for him, long to feel his skin, his warmth; he was so filled with life and strength. There in the shower, he had a strong erection, and she knelt and took him in her mouth.
Afterwards, he had tears in his eyes.
“Sometimes, I feel I need to rethink my idea of never getting married again,” he said, stroking her cheek.
“Do you think it would work out? Or do you think that I’ll also become hysterical?”
“You’ll just have to refrain from it.”
She had pulled up her underclothes, they were still a bit damp, but would dry on her body.
He said: “Today we’re going to meet the others who are coming with on our excursion.”
“Who are they?”
“Two Norwegians, I think; some Germans, a guy from Iceland and-believe it or not-a Swede. We’re going to meet them at Ben’s in about an hour.”
Chapter THREE
Her father was not buried in what had been seen as the family grave, the grave where the French wife was at rest. Rather, he was buried on the other side of the cemetery, where the newer and smaller graves were.
Justine heard Flora say to Viola: “Should I let the two of them be together in death, and have all three of us there later? No! Once I die it will just be him and me, just him and me!”
“And little Justine?”
Flora began to laugh. “Don’t you see that little Justine is not so little anymore? Soon, she’s going to be past her best years, overripe.”
Viola’s tone changed, as if she’d been insulted herself. One could see her as “overripe,” almost sixty. She had been bought out by NK and she had been recommended to start her own business. The truth was that the department store did not want old ladies at the perfume counters. They didn’t have the same results in sales; in fact, they could have a frightening effect on the customers.
Viola had no choice but to take the money, and now she was renting an expensive little place near Hotorget. She started Viola’s Body Shop, where she sold soaps, perfumes, and expensive lingerie. She had offered to take Justine as an apprentice; maybe she could be trained to take over the business. A few days later, Justine had indeed gone there. She stood behind the counter in a rose nylon skirt Viola had picked out, and Viola had also made her up and had taken her to a hair salon.
It didn’t work.
“Quite frankly, she’s rude to the customers,” Viola reported later to her sister. “She pretended not to hear what they were asking her; just stood there drifting away in her own thoughts. Take her back.”
“I didn’t try to force her on you; it was completely your idea. I told you it wouldn’t work out. I’ve always said there was something wrong with her mentally, but you never believed me.”
After her father’s death, they lived as usual in the house. Nothing had changed; all the routines remained the same. Flora continued to speak to her husband after she had closed the bedroom door; Justine could hear her voice through the wall which separated them. Flora talked loudly. She rebuked him for leaving her; she threatened to sell the house and buy an apartment in the city.
She also said this to Justine.
“Don’t think that we are going to live here forever and ever. Anyway, it’s not normal for two grown woman to share a house like this. Normal would be that you would have moved away from here many, many years ago; you have just been growing like an abscess on Sven and me during our entire life together. Your father has protected you and overprotected you, but he’s not here anymore. Now I’m free to throw you out. He wouldn’t be offended; he should have thanked me. He knows that everything I’ve done for you has been for your own good. Women understand these things better than men.”
Justine would make herself scarce whenever Flora was in that mood. Sometimes she took the car and drove up to the cliffs near Lovista, wandered on old paths; never for long, though, anxiety drove her back home. What was Flora thinking of? Had she brought a real estate agent to the house, who was now wandering around figuring out how much it was worth?
All this remained unchanged for many years.
During the morning, they drank their coffee on their own side of the table, each fully dressed, neither wanting to appear in a robe in front of the other one. That would be a defeat. Flora was always made up, her eyelashes large and blue. These days they were a bit more uneven; her sight had started to weaken.
When the warm days came, she would move to the balcony or into the garden. She had always loved the sun. She asked Justine for help with the lounger and had her also bring out a carafe with white wine and water. Wearing her strong glasses, she would paint her nails, layer after layer.
Her stroke came on such a day, while she was sitting in her lounger on the balcony. It was a fine, clear spring day, one of the first really warm ones. She was wearing a bikini and she told Justine she had the same bikini since she was a young woman; her body was as cute and small as a girl’s. But now she had difficulty walking up and down the stairs.
Then she said that she had called a real estate agent. “There is an apartment on Norr Malarstrand which I am thinking of buying. One floor with a large terrace. I can sit there and sunbathe. You know how I love the heat.”
“What about me?” asked Justine.
“You’ll just have to find something for yourself. The house is definitely going to be sold. The real estate agent said that there were a number of interested buyers.”
And she sank into the cushions and made herself comfortable. The sun shone on her knotty, hairless legs. She rubbed in lotion, stomach and arms; she raised her glass to her lips and drank.
Afterwards Justine told Nathan that she was extraordinarily angry at Flora that moment.
“So angry that I could have killed her. I thought I could put something into her drink, some poison or something. But where would you get that? Poison? Not like going to the drug store and asking to buy some strychnine. Don’t they use that in the mystery stories? I went to the garden, got in the boat and roared off; Pappa never liked it when I would take off like that: you ought to be calm and careful, he always said. But I was angry,
