My Struggle: Book 2: A Man in Love (14 page)

That is where our night is.

I had a sense the crowds around me were thinning and that the streets outside were dark, but not until I put the book down to go and get a refill of coffee did it strike me that this was a sign that time was passing.

It was ten minutes to six.

Bloody hell.

I should have been home at five. And it was Friday today, when we always went to a bit of extra trouble with the dinner and the evening that followed. At least that was the idea.

Shit. Fuck and bollocks.

I put on my jacket, stuffed the book in my pocket and hurried out.

‘Bye!’ the girl behind the counter said as I left.

‘Bye!’ I replied, without turning. I had to do some shopping before going home too. First of all, I went into the Systembolaget opposite, blindly grabbed a bottle of red wine from the most expensive shelf, after first checking there was a bull’s head on the label, then followed the passage into the mall, which was so big and luxurious it always made me feel shabby, like a hobo, to the staircase and down into the supermarket in the basement, where the selection of goods on offer was the most exclusive in Stockholm, and where a large slice of our income ended up, not that we were gourmets by any stretch of the imagination, but because we were too lazy to walk to the cheap supermarket in the subway in Birger Jarlsgatan, and because I didn’t care two hoots about the value of money, in the sense that I had no hesitation about spending it like water when I had it and hardly missed it when I didn’t. Of course it was stupid; it made life harder for us than it needed to be. Our finances, though limited, could easily have been regular and healthy, instead of me splashing money around as soon as I had it and then living for the next three years on the basic minimum. But who could be bothered to think like that? Not me at any rate. So it was off to the meat counter, where they had wonderful well-hung and matured but by our standards staggeringly expensive entrecote steak from a farm in Gotland, meat which even I could tell tasted especially good, and where there were also some plastic pots of home-made sauces, which I grabbed hurriedly, along with a bag of potatoes, some tomatoes, broccoli and mushrooms. I saw they had fresh raspberries and grabbed a punnet, dashed to the freezer counter and selected the vanilla ice cream with the little label they had just started stocking, and lastly, at the other end of the shop, picked up some of the French waffles that were so good with it, where, fortunately, there was also a till.

Dear oh dear oh dear, now it was a quarter past.

It wasn’t only that I had been away for an hour and a half longer than I should have been, and that she was waiting, but also that the evening would be so short now, as we went to bed very early. For my part, it didn’t matter, I was just as happy eating sandwiches in front of the TV and could go to bed at half past seven if necessary, it was her I was worried about.

Furthermore, I had recently been on a three-day mini-tour doing readings and was going to Oslo to give a talk next week, so the leash was even tighter than usual.

I put the goods on the metal disc that slowly rotated towards the checkout assistant. She lifted them one by one and twisted them in the air until the bar code was over the laser reader, placed them on the small black conveyor belt after the beep, all with somnambulistic movements as if she were moving in a dream. The light above us was sharp and not a pore in her skin was left unexposed. Her mouth drooped at the corners, not because she was old, but because her cheeks were so big and fleshy. Her whole head was bloated with flesh. She might have spent a lot of time on her hairdo but it did nothing to improve the overall impression; it was like titivating the green top on a carrot.

‘Five hundred and twenty kroner,’ she said, looking at her nails, which she splayed for a brief moment. I swiped my card and tapped in my PIN. While staring at the display as I waited for the transaction to be accepted it struck me I had forgotten to buy a carrier bag. When this happened I was always careful to pay, so they didn’t think I had forgotten it on purpose, hoping they would say I could have one free, as they often did. But this time I had no change on me, and it was ridiculous to use my card for such a small sum. On the other hand, did it matter what she thought about me? She was so fat.

‘I forgot to take a bag,’ I said.

‘That’ll be two kroner,’ she said.

I took a bag from the box underneath the cash till and produced my card again.

‘Haven’t you got any cash?’ she said.

‘I’m afraid not,’ I said.

She waved her hand.

‘But I’d like to pay,’ I said. ‘It’s not that.’

She smiled wearily.

‘Go on, take it,’ she said.

‘Thank you,’ I said, stuffing the goods inside and walking towards the stairs which, on this side, led up to a hall with some auction firm’s display cases along the walls. I left by the door there, and NK was on the other side of the street, glittering in the underground shopping street which, on the left, was connected to another mall, Gallerian, and further up on the same side to the Kulturhus, while straight ahead it came out at Plattan and thus the Metro, from which tunnels led to the main station. On rainy days I always walked this way, on others too, for I found everything subterranean fascinating, it was like an adventure. I suppose this must have originated in my childhood when a cave was absolutely the most exciting find we could have made. One winter, I remembered, more than two metres of snow had fallen, it must have been in 1976 or 1977, and one weekend we dug small dens connected by tunnels stretching right across the garden to the neighbour’s. We were like creatures possessed and totally enchanted by the result when evening fell and we could sit chatting deep beneath the snow.

I walked past the crowded American bar. It was Friday, and people went there after work for a beer or before their night out started in earnest, sat with their thick jackets over the backs of the chairs smiling and drinking, their faces flushed, most of them in their forties, while young, slim men and women with black aprons walked round taking orders, placing trays of beer on the tables and collecting empty glasses. The sound of all these happy people, this warm good-natured buzz, spiced as it were with the occasional roar of laughter, met me as the door was opened and a group of five people stopped outside, all busy doing something, whether searching a bag for cigarettes or lipstick, or keying in a number on a mobile and raising it expectantly to one ear, scanning the street while waiting, or searching out one of the others in order to send a smile, nothing more than that, just a friendly smile.

‘Taxi to Regeringsgatan . . .’ I heard behind me. Along the road a line of cars slipped past, slowly and sombrely, the faces in them illuminated by the gleam from the street lamps, which lent them a mysterious glow, or in the case of the drivers, by the bluish light from the dashboards. Some throbbed with the sound of bass and drums. Across the street people were streaming out of NK, where soon there would be a loudspeaker announcement that the store was closing in fifteen minutes. Thick furs, small whimpering dogs, dark woollen coats, leather gloves, clusters of carrier bags. The occasional youthful Puffa jacket, the occasional drop-crotch trousers, the occasional woollen beanie. Then there was a woman running past, holding on to her hat with one hand, the tails of her coat flapping around her legs. Why was she in such a hurry? It seemed to be urgent and I turned my head to watch. But nothing happened, she disappeared round the corner towards Kungsträgården. Three tramps were sitting by the wall on some grating. One had a sheet of cardboard in front of him on which he had written in felt-tip that he needed money for a place to stay the night. A hat containing a few coins lay beside him. The other two were drinking. I looked away as I passed them, crossed the road by the Akademi bookshop, hurried along past the stern somehow faceless façades, thinking about Linda, who perhaps was cross, who perhaps was thinking the evening was ruined, thinking how I was not looking forward much to meeting her. Over another crossing, past the expensive Italian restaurant, a quick glance up at the Glen Miller Café, where two people were getting out of a taxi, and then over to Nalen, the jazz club. An enormous band bus with a trailer was parked there, a white Swedish Broadcasting Corporation bus right behind it. A thick bundle of cables ran from it across the pavement, and in vain I struggled to recall who was playing there tonight, before striding up the three steps in front of our door, tapping in the code and entering. As I started on the stairs I heard a door being opened and shut again on the floor above. From the slam I knew it was the Russian woman. But it was too late to take the lift, so I went on up, and sure enough, a moment later, there she was, on her way down. She pretended she hadn’t seen me. I greeted her anyway.

‘Hi!’ I said.

She mumbled something or other, but not until she had passed. The Russian woman was our neighbour from hell. For the first seven months we lived in the block her apartment was empty. But then one night at half past one we were awakened by a racket in the corridor – it was her front door being slammed shut – and straight afterwards music was played so loud we could not hear each other speak. Euro disco, with a bass and bass drum that made the floor vibrate and the windowpanes rattle. It was as though we had our stereo on at full blast. Linda, who was eight months’ pregnant, had problems sleeping anyway, but even I who was usually able to remain comatose through any sort of noise could forget all about sleeping. Between the songs we heard her shouting and yelling beneath us. We got up and went into the living room. Should we ring the hotline that had been set up for situations like this? I didn’t want to. That was too Swedish for me. Shouldn’t we just go downstairs and ring the bell and complain? Fine, but then I would have to do it. And I did, I rang, and when that didn’t help I knocked, but no one came. Another half an hour in the living room. Perhaps it would stop of its own accord? But in the end Linda was so furious that she went down herself, and then all of a sudden the woman opened the door. And was full of understanding! She stepped forward and laid a hand on Linda’s stomach, and there’s you expecting a baby, she said in her Russian-sounding Swedish, I’m so sorry, apologies, but my husband has left me and I don’t know what to do, do you understand? Music and a bit of wine, it helps me in cold, cold Sweden. But you’re going to have a baby and you need your sleep, don’t you, my dear.

Happy to have made progress, Linda came back up and told me what was said before we went into the bedroom and got into bed. Ten minutes later, just after I had fallen asleep, the infernal racket started again. The same music at the same crazy volume, with the same hollering between the songs.

We got up and went into the living room. It was getting on for half past three. What should we do? Linda wanted to ring the hotline, but I didn’t, because even if in principle this was supposed to be anonymous, in the sense that the house-disturbance patrol was not allowed to say who had rung to complain, it was obvious the Russian woman would know, and with her as unstable as she evidently was, it would be asking for trouble later. So Linda suggested we should wait until it was all over this once and then write a friendly letter the day after in which it would emerge that we were understanding and tolerant, but this kind of volume late at night was in fact unacceptable. Linda lay down on the sofa, breathing heavily with her huge belly in the air, I went to bed, and an hour later, at almost five o’clock, the music finally stopped. The next day Linda wrote the letter, popped it through her letter box before going out in the morning, and everything was quiet until about six in the evening, when there was a terrible hammering and banging on our door. I went to open. It was the Russian woman. Her gritted alcohol-ravaged face was white with fury. In her hand she was clasping Linda’s letter.

‘What the hell is this!’ she shouted. ‘How
dare
you! In my own home! You’re not bloody telling me what to do in my own home!’

‘It’s a friendly letter—’ I said.

‘I don’t want to speak to you!’ she said. ‘I want to speak to the person in charge here!’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re not the man in your own home. You’re chased out when you want to smoke. You stand in the yard, you’re a laughing stock. Do you think I haven’t seen you? It’s her I want to talk to.’

She took a few steps forward and tried to pass me. She stank of alcohol.

My heart was pounding. Fury was the one emotion I was really afraid of. I never managed to ward off the feeling of weakness that flooded through my body in these circumstances. My legs went weak, my arms went weak and my voice trembled. But she didn’t need to notice.

‘You’ll have to speak to me,’ I said, advancing towards her.

‘No!’ she said. ‘She’s the one who wrote this letter. It’s her I want to talk to.’

‘Listen,’ I said. ‘You were playing unbelievably loud music late last night. It was impossible for us to sleep. You can’t do that. And you’ve got to understand.’

‘Don’t
you
tell me what to do!’

‘Well, it’s not me,’ I said. ‘We’ve got something called house rules. Everyone who lives in this place has to abide by them.’

‘Do you know how much rent I pay?’ she said. ‘Fifteen thousand kroner! And I’ve lived here for eight years. No one has ever complained before. Then you come along. You snobby little snobs. “Actually, I’m preeegnant.”’

As she said the latter she mimicked a snob, pursed her lips and stuck her nose in the air. Her hair was unkempt, her skin pale, cheeks plump, eyes staring.

She regarded me with that fiery gaze of hers. I looked down. She turned and went downstairs.

I closed the door and turned to face Linda, who was leaning against the hall wall.

‘Well, that was a clever move,’ I said.

‘You mean the letter?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Now we’re really in for it.’

‘You mean it’s my fault? It’s her, not me who’s gone completely off her rocker. That’s nothing to do with me.’

‘Relax,’ I said. ‘You and I are not at daggers drawn.’