moment when he came.
All of a sudden he was conscious of his own panting. He was lying with his knee in one of her shoes, and realized that they hadn’t even closed the door. A cold draught was making his sweaty skin shiver.
‘We can’t stay like this,’ he said, sliding out of her.
‘Oh, Thomas,’ Sophia said, ‘I think I’m in love with you.’
He looked at her lying beneath him with her blond hair spread over the parquet floor, lipstick smeared on her cheek, her mascara under her eyes. A sense of incredible awkwardness suddenly came over him, and he looked away and stood up. The room swayed a little. He must have drunk more than he thought. From the corner of his eye he saw her get up beside him, still wearing her bra, her skirt awry.
‘That was wonderful, wasn’t it, Thomas?’
He gulped and made himself look at her, slender, slightly fragile in her half-nakedness, defenceless and breathless as a small child. He forced himself to smile at her, she was so sweet.
‘You’re wonderful,’ he said, and she stroked her hand quickly against his cheek.
‘Do you want coffee?’ she asked, closing the front door and unzipping the back of her skirt, letting it fall to the ground along with her bra.
‘Please,’ he said as she walked naked through the apartment. ‘Thanks.’
A moment later she was back, wrapped in an ivory dressing gown, and holding another one, wine-red.
‘Here,’ she said. ‘The shower’s on the left at the end.’
He took the dressing gown and considered the shower for a moment. Even if Annika was asleep when he got home, it wasn’t worth taking the risk.
Sophia had disappeared off to the right somewhere; he thought he could hear the hiss of an espresso machine. Cautiously he stepped into the room in front of him, and found himself in a studio with an eight-metre ceiling and huge windows facing the dull city sky. The walls were brick, the floor the same oiled oak as in the hall.
He couldn’t help being impressed. This was what an apartment should really look like.
‘Sugar?’ Sophia called from the kitchen.
‘Please,’ he said, and hurried towards the bathroom.
He showered quickly and thoroughly, using the most neutrally scented soap he could find, scrubbing his crotch with a sponge. Took care not to get his hair wet.
She was sitting at a table of smoked glass in the designer kitchen when he came in wrapped in his wine-red dressing gown; she was smoking one of her menthol cigarettes.
‘You have to go home?’ she said, framing it as a question.
He nodded and sat down, wondering what he was feeling. Mostly he felt pleased. He smiled at her, touching her hand.
‘Right away?’
He sat for a moment, then nodded. She put the cigarette out, pulled her hands away and put them in her lap.
‘Do you love your wife?’ she asked, staring at the table.
He swallowed. He didn’t know what to say, didn’t actually know whether he did or not.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I think so.’
He let his subconscious conjure up images of Annika, and his response to her.
Once, when he was still living with Eleonor, he had dreamed about her, and in the dream she had had burning hair. Her head had been covered with flames, singing and dancing around her face, and she was quite unconcerned about it. Fire was her natural element, it ran like silk along her back and shoulders.
After that night he had often imagined her like that, as someone who dwelled in fire.
‘She’s boundless, somehow,’ he said. ‘Has none of the barriers normal people have, can put herself through pretty much anything if she’s set her mind to it.’
‘Sounds a bit uncomfortable,’ Sophia said.
He nodded slowly. ‘And fascinating,’ he said. ‘I’ve never met anyone like her.’
Sophia Grenborg smiled at him, a careful, friendly smile. ‘I’m glad you came.’
He smiled back. ‘So am I.’
‘Shall I call a taxi?’
He nodded again, then looked down at his hands, waiting quietly as she went out to the phone.
‘Five minutes,’ she said.
He drank his coffee; it was too strong and too sweet. Then he stood up and put the cup on the draining-board. He went out into the hall and quickly gathered together his clothes, pulling them on with concise, efficient movements.
Once he had pulled on his coat and found his briefcase she slid up behind him, a light shadow of perfume and apple-scent. She wound her arms round his waist, laid her cheek against his back.
‘Thanks for this evening,’ she whispered.
He blinked a few times, turned round and kissed her gently.
‘Thank
She locked the door behind him, and he could feel her watching through the spyhole in the door until the lift carried him down with it.
His taxi glided up soundlessly through the thickening snow, and he jumped in when he suddenly noticed it. From the back seat he told the taxi-driver his address, Hantverkargatan 32.
He must have dozed off, because the next moment they were there. He fumbled for his business account card and paid, gathered his things with some difficulty, pushed the door shut and stopped to look up at the house.
The lights in the flat were still on. He glimpsed a shadow moving inside.
Annika was still up, even though she was always so tired in the evening, after all those years on the nightshift.
Why wasn’t she asleep? What was she doing, wandering from room to room?
There were only two reasons. Either she was still working or else she suspected something, and once these thoughts had formulated themselves in his head the result was inevitable.
Guilt and regret hit him in the guts like the kick of a horse, the utterly fundamental paralysis that comes from unwelcome awareness. He couldn’t breathe; his diaphragm contracted and made him collapse.
Oh, good God, what had he done?
What if she found out? What if she understood? What if she already knew? Had someone seen something? Had someone called? Maybe someone had tipped off the paper?
He was breathing raggedly and with some difficulty, forcing himself to be sensible.
Tipped off the paper? Why the hell would anyone tip off the paper?
He was on the verge of losing his grip.
Slowly he straightened up, and looked up at the windows again. The sitting-room light was out now. She was on her way to bed.
And he saw her in front of him with fire for hair, clutching an iron bar with both hands, poised to strike.
He felt like crying as he unlocked the front door, unable to think how he could bear to look at her. He walked up the two flights of stairs with silent steps and stopped outside the door, their door, the big double doors with the stained glass that Annika thought was so beautiful. And he stood there with the keys in his hand, shaking, a vibration in his stomach like a jamming jazz band, looking at the doors with strange eyes until his breathing was calmer, something like normal, and he could move again.
The hall was dark. He crept in and closed the heavy door quietly behind him.
‘Thomas?’
Annika popped her head out of the bathroom, and took the toothbrush out of her mouth.
‘How did it go?’
He collapsed on the hall bench, feeling utterly empty.
‘It was a devil of a meeting,’ he said. ‘Everyone’s in shock.’
