Into a Raging Blaze (3 page)

She had always wanted to be a diplomat. She had fought to get here, first as a student and a research assistant at the Department of
Law in Uppsala, then as an unpaid volunteer at Amnesty in Stockholm, followed by a short internship at the embassy in the Hague, and finally as a summer temp at the MFA, before a longer-term temporary position. Now she was here. She was in. Sometimes she would think on her way to work, Here I am, walking along, a diplomat. One of the key people at the Security Policy Department of the MFA.

And then she had Jamal: a new man.

She smiled, got out her makeup and applied concealer using her fingertips, then a little rouge, added a little more mascara to her eyelashes, glanced into the mirror—approved—and stepped out into the department again.

In the kitchen she got a large coffee from the machine. There was no milk in the fridge. Then it occurred to her that there hadn't been any milk in the fridge for months. The ministry had been the subject of a draconian 200 million–kronor cutback, and all departments had been forced to cut costs. Most had cut travel, blocked acquisitions, and stopped using consultants and contractors. The deputy Head of the Security Policy Department had gone one step further. Apart from making the expected savings, she had also written a two-page memo banning the purchase of milk and cookies. Carina laughed to herself as she remembered the department meeting where they had been informed of the decision. No more departmental milk and, with great seriousness, they were informed that anyone who wished to offer guests coffee would have to source the accompaniments themselves—under no circumstances was the department's account to be charged. By now the memo was a classic—mocked extensively. But who needed milk? She only needed the coffee.

The Head of Department's personal secretary, Birgitta, was in the mail room using the photocopier. They smiled at one another.

“Here you go.” Birgitta handed over a small bundle of papers. “They're from Nils. He wants to know what you think. Aren't you clever, helping him out? I'll make an appointment for you,” she said, before patting Carina amiably on the arm, collecting her papers from the photocopier, and disappearing.

On paper, Birgitta was merely one of many administrative resources in the Ministry, but in practice she held much of the real power. The small, old fashioned but very elegant woman, who wore tweed suits, scarves, and little brooches, was the one who ruled over the appointment calendar of the Head of Department. She refused to keep it electronically; instead, everything was entered into a large leather-bound book that only she had access to and which always accompanied her to meetings. Those who didn't stay on good terms with the department head's secretary never got an appointment with the head, were never informed about meetings until the last second possible, and were generally vilified by the administrative personnel. Birgitta was very probably quite terrible to have as an enemy, but for some reason she seemed to like Carina.

The mail slot was half empty. She hadn't bothered emptying it for a couple of days. At the top there was a report about the latest developments in Mazar-e Sharif, then a report about the troubles in Nigeria, embassy reports from Pristina, London, and a special report about an attack in Kabul, as well as details of meetings with the Russian interior ministry. Over twenty reports—all interesting reading—but nothing that required her immediate attention.

Even the driest documents gave the impression that you were treading through hidden rooms, ready for exploration: grand halls, underground vaults. To read an embassy report was to come close to the low-key, confidential conversations taking place in Brussels, Paris, Washington, and Moscow. Carina always read quickly but accurately. Sometimes she would stop on a well-formulated sentence about al-Qaida's worldview, about the intrigues of the Russian Duma, fitted into a conversation over lunch at Quai d'Orsay. When she found a really interesting report, she would feel quietly excited and discreetly happy. Reports with titles such as
Afghanistan—Monthly threat assessment, August 2011
or
The “single narrative” of European home-grown terrorism: a British perspective
had an irresistible appeal. To read and analyze reports like that was an important part of why she loved her job. Her ability to peel away the layers to reveal the underlying structures, expose implied opinions and find
meaning between the lines had made her a respected member of the department. She enjoyed being able to skim through a report and split it up into its component parts. Even crusty dry reports from a Directorate General of the European Commission could generate a sort of glow. They were real to her. There were whole worlds hidden within their cool and formal, meandering and lengthy sentences. They weren't just words, they were the secrets that formed the future.

She gathered together a pile of papers and slammed the mail room door to make sure it locked. On the way back, she swung by Johan Eriksson's office, but he was on the phone so she went on, stopping in the kitchen to fill her coffee cup.

At lunchtime, she hurried to the nearby shopping mall and ate quickly at one of the oval salad bars. She had managed to finish writing up the material for the foreign minister and felt jittery due to low blood sugar. The mall was full of people milling from shop to shop around her. She let her thoughts wander. On the way out of the office, she had put her head around Anders Wahlund's door—her new unit head. A new boss was always a cause for worry, which was precisely why she wanted to show that she was friendly, as well as get her first impression of him. But his office had been empty.

A hand brushed her shoulder, making her come to.

“Hi, darling.”

It was Jamal—her Jamal, standing there in the sea of people, smiling his beautiful, wide smile at her.

“Hi.” She slid off the bar stool and embraced him.

She was once again struck by how good-looking he was. Jamal was tall, thin, and had dark, curly hair that he tried to comb down into a normal hairstyle. He was wearing a dark suit, white shirt and a wine-red tie, and looked every part the Ministry of Justice civil servant that he was, but better-looking than the others. The slender face and the dark, serious eyes that always seemed to be pondering his surroundings made him appear almost noble, like a young prince. Beautiful people always had the upper hand, and Jamal was beautiful, even if he appeared not to realize it.

“How are things?” he asked.

“Good. Give me a kiss.”

Jamal smiled and kissed her lightly on the mouth. His lips were so soft—she wished he hadn't leaned back so quickly instead of letting her kiss him longer. But Jamal was careful. He looked at her tantalizingly. She had noticed how reserved, almost distant, he could be with people he didn't know. Far too many colleagues were in the mall at lunchtime—someone might see them kissing and then the whispering would start. She was still surprised that she had gotten together with this reclusive, earnest man who didn't miss any nuances. Jamal was so radically different from her last boyfriend, she reflected with satisfaction, that there were no similarities whatsoever.

“Are you catching the crack-of-dawn flight tomorrow?”

She nodded. The morning flight to Brussels at seven was notorious. She pulled him in toward her, slid her hand into his jacket, and stroked his back. She would have liked to slide her hand under his shirt to feel his skin, but she knew that Jamal wouldn't like her doing that in a place like this, among people.

“Do you have time for a coffee?”

“Sorry.” He gestured vaguely over his shoulder toward the government district. As a legal adviser at Justice, he was constantly bombarded by different demands and orders from the justice minister. Carina had told him that he worked too much. Even by her standards, he worked too much. She had never seen anyone who was as thorough as Jamal—it was as if he thought that the smallest error might cost him his job. “I have to finish writing some things. The minister's going to the Hague tomorrow and the deadline for her portfolio is this evening.”

“Oh, love.” She carefully placed a hand on his leg.

“It's the usual,” he said. “See you on Friday?”

She nodded. He smelled so good—she could breathe in the scent of him when he stood close to her. It wasn't long until the weekend; just a trip to Brussels and then they could finally be together. She leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth. He laughed, as if taken by surprise, and kissed her back.

She had almost stopped caring about men. It made life so simple. She lived alone in a one-bed on Luntmakargatan, right in the heart of Stockholm, worked at the Ministry and, during her free time, swam, read, watched horror films, and sometimes grabbed a drink with colleagues—it was an uncomplicated life. Especially since her ex-husband Peter had finally stopped calling her, which he had been doing for the last few months. Her life had a new sense of ease. For the first time, she was being left in peace and starting to feel like herself again.

The relationship with Peter had been a big mistake and, as is so often the case with big mistakes, it had been committed gradually, in small steps. With hindsight, it was impossible to understand how she had put up with it. Ten years of her life, with the last two or three blurring into a gray haze. She should never have stayed so long.

Peter had been studying medicine when they met. He had impressed her. He told her about how absurd, yet fantastic it was to dissect a human being, described how beautiful the human body was on the inside. He pondered ethical dilemmas, issues about the final stages of life, because he wanted to make a difference for patients who were in the most difficult, irrevocable situations. She fell in love. She was studying law, but she rarely socialized with her own classmates; Peter preferred to socialize with his and she had nothing against that, as most of hers were tedious eager beavers. When he started to earn a living, Carina still had a year of her studies remaining, which was when something happened. He complained that she wasn't earning any money. That was holding him back, he said. He felt he was paying for everything. When she started working as a volunteer for a human rights organization, he would often point out that she could make much more if she took a job in a law firm. When they had gotten together, he had claimed he was bohemian and “cool,” but over time he became more irritated by her. He thought she was careless, and that her temper was annoying. She was so over the top—couldn't she just calm down? She never
understood his need for calm. Why should she calm down? With time she came to understand that he didn't really mean “calm.” He meant quiet and controlled—controlled by him. He would be irritated if she talked politics too much. “Stop lecturing,” he would say. She dominated conversations and didn't give him space—she stole the limelight, he would complain. They got married anyway. Perhaps she had thought things would change—that marriage would lift everything to a new level. They had a big church wedding in one of the oldest churches in the city, followed by dinner for one hundred and fifty guests. They planned and saved for over a year. It was hard to grasp that she was the woman in the photos with the extravagant hairdo and the enormous wedding dress.

When she got the job at the Ministry, Peter was happy at first, but he wouldn't even contemplate moving abroad. They moved to a larger apartment. He had very clear views on the decor and would hide or throw out anything not to his liking. He was a food lover and liked to decide what they were going to eat and drink. He thought that she drank a little too much wine. He said things about her body—that she was unfeminine, that she should work out more—so she joined a gym. She met her old friends less and less. At dinners and in the company of his friends, Peter was delightful and charming; sometimes she caught sight of the man she had fallen in love with. She thought she was happy, in the grand scheme of things. Bored, perhaps, but happy. It was ten years before she realized late one evening how far things had gone.

They had been invited to a dinner. The host was a close friend and colleague of Peter's and everyone present, apart from her and the hostess, were physicians. That was how they socialized—with Peter's colleagues. A substantial portion of the dinner was dedicated to gossiping about people at the hospital and talking about vacant positions. Late in the evening they had gotten into a long-winded discussion about a senior physician that Peter hated. When one of his colleagues suggested that female senior physicians could never be as good as male ones, Carina became angry and began to disagree, and it was then that it happened. Peter was very embarrassed
and just stared at her as if she were vermin. That was how she remembered it. There was a tense silence around the dinner table. Nobody agreed with her, not even the women present. Peter tried to laugh away her angry questions, but when she didn't give up he hissed at her to come with him to the kitchen. There, he asked her what the hell she was doing. She should hold her tongue, he said. The dinner continued. Afterward she couldn't understand what she was doing there, didn't understand what these people had to do with her and, above all, she didn't know who the man was who later sat beside her in the taxi home. He had slowly worn her down and made her weak, undermined her with his little rules and prohibitions, his sharp comments and silences, threats and pleading, a never-ending range of restrictions that made her start to consider her every action through his critical eyes. The Peter she had fallen in love with was gone. But the sterling Carina who wanted to eat, drink, discuss, fuck, and laugh had also disappeared. She didn't recognize herself, and that frightened her.

At home, she had, as Peter put it, made a scene. Years of self-control evaporated when Peter began to complain about her behavior during dinner. She broke some of their china on the black marble kitchen counter that Peter had insisted upon, screamed at him that he was an asshole, that he had always been an asshole, and that it was over. She got him to retreat to the bedroom, whereupon she tore through their wardrobes, gathered a few clothes that she shoved into a bag, and left. Sofie, the NATO desk officer, had let her sleep on her couch. A month later Carina and Peter were divorced.