got on the highway that she realized that she forgot to ask the bird’s name.
She let him live in her room. She brought in a tree from the garden and placed it in a Christmas tree stand. She anchored the tree with a hook in the wall. The tree became the bird’s sleeping perch. After a few hours, he had pecked off every single leaf on the branches.
He liked to be in the kitchen or come to her when she was sitting and looking out over the water. She began to find his droppings everywhere. At first she was careful to spread out newspapers and clean up after him. Now this happened more sporadically, when she realized that the house was hers and hers alone, and she must take care of it because her things were worth taking care of.
And so was she.
The animals: small animals, with snouts, shimmering fur tufts. Or the deer, standing still right where the forest met the meadow, wet nostrils, the whites of its eyes. On the other side of the shading roots, they surrounded her, circled in, and she was Snow White, left behind by the Hunter. She thought of him and a light swelling arose between her legs; she had already had her first blood, but she was still a child, and yet.
And he led her into the forest and lifted his rifle. Aimed right at her left breast.
She sat next to the dead deer once he left, she looked at its wound. He had dug around in there, taking its heart with him. What was a deer? She did not know, but the body was mangled and now the Hunter was carrying its heart to the woman who lived in Snow White’s home.
I did what you asked me with the girl.
Sudden fragility, then the mirror, looking at her reflection.
Satisfaction.
The foxes came, and the mice. And like snowflakes, the feathers of the owls fell upon the place where Snow White was sitting, warm and covering snow.
Animals made Flora ill, made her shudder and feel nauseous. A cat sneaked into the front hall, and she chased it out with a broom, its fur and tail straight up.
When Pappa said good night, Justine told him about it.
His face melted and he stroked her hand weakly, for a long time, but weakly.
Every evening for evenings on end, she asked Pappa for a pet. A cat or a dog or a bird. Maybe he would have liked to give her one, but Flora’s moods controlled him completely.
“They are flea-covered, filthy things,” she would say and her painted, porcelain eyes would stare without mercy. “Bacteria. Smells. Animals are animals and should not be in human homes.”
The blue fox fur was another matter. It was dead. She received it one day in the middle of winter, a conciliatory gesture. Flora often needed to be appeased.
Chapter SIX
Berit Assarsson was late getting out for lunch. She didn’t know where she wanted to eat, her hunger had dissipated, but she still needed to stuff something into herself if she was going to make it through the rest of the day.
She was editing a book on sailing. She really didn’t know all that much about sailing, but since the book was going to be published and she had been given the job of making sure that it was ready to go, she didn’t want to reveal her weaknesses to all and sundry.
Tor had had a boat when they met, and of course it was nice to glide out among the islands and seek night harbor in a protected cove. But all the rest of it. He lost his temper easily and expected her to keep track of all the ropes and their ends, and in a crisis he always forgot that she just couldn’t do it. So there were always arguments and hard feelings.
They sold the boat and bought a summer place instead. For a summer place, it was fairly large, a house built at the end of the nineteenth century situated on Vat Island. It had been winterized, so they were able to celebrate Christmas there, which they often did. This past Christmas, both of their sons brought their girlfriends with them.
Berit went into the food halls at Hotorget. It was just past one o’clock in the afternoon, and the worst lunch crush was over. She ordered an avocado salad with shrimp and a large cafe au lait and sat down at one of the tables near the flower department. Such wonderful tulips you can get nowadays, what wonderful colors! If only the weather would change to be just a bit colder so that snow would come and lighten things up a bit.
The avocado was somewhat hard. She thought about going back to the counter and complaining, but she didn’t. How many times had she sat here in the food hall and eaten lunch? At least once a week during all the years she had been employed at the publisher’s. She tried figuring it out in her head: 46 weeks a year times fourteen years would be, would be, would be…
As a matter of fact, she had been traveling when she turned forty-five last year. Tor had surprised her with a roundthe-world ticket.
“Couldn’t you have waited until I turned fifty!” she exclaimed, practically alarmed over his sudden generosity.
He had hugged her quickly and clumsily.
“Who knows whether we’ll still be around then.”
So they went and were gone for almost two entire months. So that was eight weeks and therefore eight times when she didn’t eat in the food halls. She dug around in her purse for her mini-calculator, but didn’t find it. She had to take out a ballpoint pen and work it out just as Miss Messer had taught them during their schooldays so long ago.
Six hundred times or more she had had lunch here in this little restaurant near the bottom of the escalator. Over six hundred times!
Well, Berit, this is your life!
More and more often she felt sad over her condition. She felt that her life had passed its peak, and quite a while ago at that, and now everything was too late.
Everything, what everything?
She sometimes talked about this with Annie, who had the office next to hers. They had both begun at the publishing house at the same time, both had been home with the kids for a while before then, both had sons.
Everything… you’ve been waiting for, everything that was supposed to happen.
Annie agreed. Even though she was four years younger, she was thinking the same thing.
She was far from being old. Sometimes men still looked at her with that special look in their eyes, but usually only after they had been introduced. Otherwise, she was hardly ever visible. Of course she took care of her body, took care of her face, never left her house without her make-up on, not even in the countryside. Every fifth week she went to her hairdresser, a handsome black man, who knew exactly how best to cut her hair.
Too bad he’s gay, she thought. I’ve never done it with a black man. She turned red from shame at the mere thought.
She let her eyes wander around the food stalls, as she almost always saw someone she knew while she was here, and sure enough, here comes Elizabeth, gliding across the room. Elizabeth had an unusual way of sashaying so that everything that was in her way was swept aside.
She saw Berit, and turned her mouth to a smile.
“Darling Berit, here you are all alone; can I join you for a minute? What are you having… cafe latte? I’ll take one as well.”
“I have to go soon, but go ahead and sit down. I don’t have to rush.”
Elizabeth also worked in the publishing business, at Bonniers, in the big white building on Sveavagen.
“How are you, darling, you seem a bit pale?”
“I do?”
