Klara jumps off the sofa as soon as she hears the key slide into the lock. She knows it’s George, but still she’s so tense, so close to breaking point, that she runs into the kitchen. She’s grabbing a large carving knife from out of the top drawer, when he enters the kitchen bearing two plastic bags full of aluminium containers from the restaurant.
‘Hey!’ he says and slowly lowers the bags onto the kitchen floor, then holds his hands up. ‘What the hell are you up to?’
She’s holding the knife in front of her, pointing it at him. She points it downwards, then drops it with a jangle onto the tile floor. Then she sinks down and looks up at him.
‘I’m so fucking messed up,’ she whispers, then lowers her eyes. ‘I don’t know what the hell I’m doing any more. I’m being followed, I see men on every street corner…’
He also sinks down in front of her and puts a hand on her cheek. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘I know exactly what it’s like.’
‘You know?’ she says sceptically and looks at him again. ‘I honestly don’t think you can imagine how…’
But he’s not listening; he’s moved his hand from her face to somewhere behind his back and he seems to be pulling something from the waistband of his trousers. When he brings his hand forward again, he’s holding something so big and black and terrifying that Klara scoots back and almost falls backwards onto the floor.
‘What the hell!’ she says. ‘A gun? Are you crazy?’
He holds it in his palm and gently puts it down on the floor between them. ‘You’re not the only one with issues, Klara. Why do you think I’m moving home? Why do you think I’m leaving my fucking dream job? After everything we went through in the archipelago a couple of years ago, then this summer… I didn’t think I’d survive it. And I’m so tired of being afraid.’
She meets his naked, terrified eyes. ‘I didn’t know you…’ she begins.
‘You remember that Christmas in the archipelago two years ago? I was kidnapped by my clients who turned out to be a freaking CIA death squad, as you might remember?’
He smiles crookedly.
‘I shot somebody. And it wasn’t exactly like I could talk about what happened to anyone – Säpo made that abundantly clear. If anyone understands keeping it together with alcohol and work and a little bump now and then, surely it’s you? But after what happened this summer… The Russians and those fucking riots in the suburbs? I haven’t been able to sleep. I think people are breaking into the apartment, I think I’m being followed and monitored. And do you know what the worst part is?’
Klara shakes her head.
‘That I’m not even sure I’m paranoid. Because who the hell knows, right?’
Klara stretches out her hand and puts it on his cheek, caressing it gently. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘Who the hell knows?’
‘So I bought a gun from a guy down in Anderlecht that my cocaine dealer knew.’
He lifts it up and turns it over, inspects it.
‘It’s so damn big. But I didn’t know what else to do.’
‘You bought a gun and applied for a job at the Ministry of Enterprise. Unusual strategy, I’d say.’
George laughs and stands slowly. He puts the gun on the kitchen counter. ‘I don’t know,’ he says. ‘Maybe if I can get out of here, if I get away from my job at Stirling & Merchant and all the bullshit, maybe it will stop? Maybe I can start sleeping again, won’t panic every time I hear a sound I can’t quite place.’
Klara stands up too. ‘You should get help. For real. You can’t live like this, surely you know that?’
George picks up the bags of food and puts them onto the small kitchen table. He looks at her ironically. ‘Good advice. How’s that working out for you?’
*
It’s five o’clock in the morning when Klara slips into the kitchen, opens the door to the fridge, and takes out an almost untouched tub of hummus. Neither of them ate much last night, despite being so hungry when they ordered that George bought basically the entire menu.
‘You sleep about as well as I do.’
She turns around and sees him standing in the doorway, in a tank top and a pair of striped boxers. He’s squinting at her; without glasses his face looks so naked and clean cut, and he’s so… cute? Is George Lööw cute? She truly has lost control.
‘I have some Rohypnol,’ she says. ‘To help me sleep. But I don’t dare use it.’
She has an important meeting in about twelve hours. After she got control of her drinking last night, she couldn’t risk being affected in any other way. Better to be tired than chemically hungover.
‘And here I gave you the bed,’ he continues, passing by her to the fridge. ‘You could have taken the sofa if you didn’t want to sleep.’
Klara dips a piece of bread, chews and swallows while she looks at him evenly. ‘Or you could come into the bed with me?’ she says. Damn, that sounded more forward than she’d planned.
They haven’t discussed what happened on the sofa before he picked up the food, just let it be.
Now he turns around from the fridge, still squinting in the dark kitchen, but with something more confident and interested in his eyes. ‘Is that what you want?’
She doesn’t say anything; she just dips another piece of bread and stares down into the food. Does she? Really?
Then she looks up and nods.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I do.’