On Tuesday 2 October, Ante Valdemar Roos woke up at half past five in the morning and had no idea where he was.
At first he didn’t even know what kind of room he was in. It had a high ceiling, and a street lamp or some other source of light was casting yellowish rays through the gap between the thick curtains onto the mirror on the opposite wall, which in turn spread a cobwebby pattern, paler but still yellow, across the bed and the big wardrobe.
Hotel. It came to him after a few seconds. We’re at a hotel.
We? Yes, he and Anna, of course. For a few blank seconds, she too had been absent from his consciousness and that had never happened before. Not since they left Lograna; if there was one thing monopolizing his thoughts and cares, she was definitely it.
Anna, his Anna.
He turned his head and looked at her. She lay there only half a metre from him, in the same big bed; she had her back to him and was curled up in her usual way, barely visible under the puffy feather quilt.
My baby bird, he thought, and gave a laugh. Because that was exactly as it should be. A baby bird tucked up in down. Safe and secure.
And it was the puffy quilt that made him realize they were in Germany; he had stayed at German hotels a few times before in his life. But he couldn’t remember the name of this town, however he racked his brains. He remembered they had arrived and checked in late last night; they had spent the last few hours on smaller roads, avoiding the autobahn. It was their second night in Germany, he had forgotten to buy a map at the last petrol station again and . . . and if the truth be told, he hadn’t been very sure where they had ended up last night, either. He had never really known, and therefore he had forgotten.
But what difference did it make, he thought, if they were in one German town or another? Here they were in a huge double bed, snuggled amongst downy bolsters and pillows that were equally huge and seemed to be full of whipped cream or shaving foam, so beautifully soft. Could they wish for anything more? Could life be better than this?
But even so, he had woken up. There had been a succession of mornings like that now. Anna readily slept until nine or ten, even if she had gone to bed early – it was something to do with that blow to the head – but he was finding it harder and harder to hang on to his sleep. The fatigue in his body and soul cried out in vain for a few more hours, for an extra hour or even a half, but it did not help. He bobbed up to wakefulness like a cork and then it was impossible to find his way back.
Twenty to six. Anna was sure to sleep for another three or four hours. He realized there was an armchair with a little standard lamp by the window; in fact, if he drew back the curtains a tiny bit more, he needn’t even bother with the lamp. He could make do with the dirty yellow illumination of the street lamp and the dawn light that couldn’t be far off now.
He went over to the chair, where he found his half-finished crossword from the day before, the one in the Swedish women’s magazine he had got hold of the day before yesterday. The magazine in which there was also a report of a young man found murdered in the Vreten area between Kymlinge and the Norwegian border, with a picture of a man sought in connection with the case.
He wondered if it was Alice who had supplied them with the photograph. He presumed it was and he presumed she had had to go to some effort to find it. He leafed through to the relevant page and looked at it again. It was one of the worst pictures of himself he had ever seen. He could not for the life of him work out where it had been taken, but he was unshaven and looked sweaty, had his mouth half open and an expression in his eyes that made him look as if he was about to have a stroke. Or was straining to go to the toilet. Bloody hell, thought Ante Valdemar Roos gloomily, as if it’s not enough to be wanted for murder, I have to look like some drunken slob as well.
He sighed and turned his attention to the crossword. Seven down. Nabokov scandal. Six letters, the second o, the fourth i.
Doping, thought Valdemar Roos. It was obvious, even though the Swedish word was actually dopning with an n, but crossword compilers didn’t always do their homework properly. Nabokov was a Russian skier, anyway; he had won an Olympic gold medal and then been found to have banned substances in his blood. It was some years ago now, but the name had stuck in his mind.
He filled in the word, yawned and went on.
He must have dropped off in the armchair after all, because he was roused by the sound of the church clock striking seven. This time he was instantly aware of where he was – that was to say, in an unspecified old hotel in an unspecified old German town – and as he assumed the restaurant on the ground floor would now be open, he got dressed and went down for some breakfast.
He had quite enjoyed his early morning time upstairs, but when he got to the empty, drab-brown dining room – which proved to be down in the basement – and was met by a tired, middle-aged waitress with a sour expression who besieged him with questions about his room number and whether he wanted tea or coffee, his spirits sank. He would have liked to explain to her that he preferred not to have his coffee right away but only once he’d had some yogurt, cereal and a soft-boiled egg, if these were on the menu, but his imperfect linguistic knowledge raised insuperable barriers to such requests, so he merely said ‘Vier ein sechs. Kafee, bitte’, and sat down at the corner table to which he had been directed. He had picked up a paper on the way in, Welt am Sonntag, which was as thick as a novel and several days old, but he started flicking through it just to have somewhere to park his eyes.
Durch, für, gegen, ohne, um, wider, thought Ante Valdemar Roos as the coffee thumped down in front of him. Prepositions taking some case or another, he couldn’t remember which and in any case he was rather hazy about what a case was. ‘Danke schön,’ he said, and the weary waitress shuffled off, leaving him to his fate with the newspaper and coffee.
Well, what is my fate? he wondered. How have I ended up here?
Good questions, without a doubt, and as the contents of the newspaper were refusing to penetrate his consciousness, he started looking for appropriate answers. Without demanding any great depth or precision, but even so.
He had long since realized that the events of these days and weeks were the point of his whole life. His encounter with Anna Gambowska had been written into some kind of musical score of the hereafter, etched deep into his gravestone, and it had been as inevitable as destiny and Alice’s verrucas. I know, he thought, still with his eyes on the paper, that this is the moment my life is alight. It’s what I make of these circumstances that is going to count on Judgement Day. This and nothing else.
And yet I feel so dispirited and tired and fragile this morning in this unfamiliar hotel dining room, he thought. I have Anna’s life and future in my hands, and it is her fate that she met me just as much as the reverse, of course, but sometimes . . . sometimes I feel she doesn’t understand that. She’s so young, and perhaps she just needs time. Time and recuperation, she really does sleep away most of our days, it isn’t fair, or perhaps it is . . . and I, I alone, am the one bearing the burden and taking responsibility in this hardest period in our relationship. It weighs me down so much, this albatross, this millstone round my neck . . . but what the hell? What the hell am I doing, drivelling on in my pathetic and enfeebled state? Albatrosses and millstones? No, by God, decided Ante Valdemar Roos, it’s up to me now to make sure . . . everything hangs together. Hangs together, hangs together, I should have brought the Romanian to breakfast instead of this indecipherable newspaper, of course I should . . . as long as we can find the right words for the circumstances in which we find ourselves, we can usually see the light at the end of the tunnel.
He drank some of his rapidly cooling coffee and reprised that last thought.
As long as we can find the right words for the circumstances in which we find ourselves, we can usually see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Good, thought Ante Valdemar Roos. Damn good – that can be today’s aphorism. I shall remember to write it in my book as soon as I get back upstairs.
And he did. Then he sat in the armchair for a while and read through everything he had written since he started three weeks before – and these words, all these abstract but well-formulated thoughts on the subject of life and its labyrinth, slowly improved his mood. To the point, at least, where he could undertake some practical planning. It was certainly needed, and if nothing else he felt as if Anna demanded it of him. Or as if her condition did, at any rate. Whatever the difference was.
She was sleeping just as before, in the same position as she had been when he left the room. It was quarter past eight now, but she was unlikely to stir for another hour. I wish, thought Ante Valdemar Roos, I really wish she didn’t sleep so much. It feels as though she’s absent most of the time, and this is time that’s so important.
But he had to be patient, he knew that. Healing takes time and care, and not that much more really. In a few days, a week or two, she was bound to be back to normal. By then they would be some way further south. Perhaps in France or Italy, he didn’t know exactly; perhaps some mountain air was what she needed to get better, or the sea.
Then another thought struck him. He’d had to show his ID when they checked in last night. The weedy receptionist with the leather waistcoat and long, horsy face had accepted the excuse that their passports had been stolen, but he still needed some form of ID, he informed them. Even if they paid cash in advance these were different times, and it was not that kind of establishment.
That kind of establishment? Oh well, he assessed the risk as quite small. Of course it would be documented for all time that they had checked into this little hotel in this particular little German town, whichever it was – but it seemed pretty unlikely that this would come to the attention of the Swedish police. And if it eventually did, and he was proved wrong, they would be far, far away by then. There was no great risk of them being tracked down, he thought, even if he had to show his driving licence now and again. It wouldn’t have worked in Sweden, it would have been madness, but down here on the continent it was a different matter, noted Valdemar Roos. Completely different. And when your homeland closes a door, the world opens a window.
They would stay in this hotel in this town for another twenty-four hours. He had paid for two nights and he would make sure to use the day well. First of all he would buy a decent road map and find out the name of the town and its exact location.
Then he would find a chemist’s; Anna’s stocks of painkillers were running low. After that, with these chores out of the way, perhaps they could spend a bit of time at some nice cafe. The weather on the other side of the heavy curtains did not look bad at all; the yellow street lamp had gone out and been replaced by a generous sun.
They could sit there and talk about life, make a few plans together. Most of all he would like her to play the guitar and sing something for him. It was a few days since she had last done so, but he didn’t want to press her if she didn’t feel like it.
It has to come from an actual desire, he thought. The same applies to things in general but that hasn’t been the way in my life so far, that’s been the missing component. Not the only one, but the most important.
And if she didn’t feel like singing, or telling him about her life, then he had a couple of stories up his sleeve. They had come into his mind yesterday evening after she was asleep, and although they were strictly speaking about other people, in completely different circumstances, with a few adjustments he could easily put himself in the leading role.
And this, he thought, was how she not only held his future in her fragile hands but also changed what had already taken place in his life. He was not entirely sure of the real implications of this, and whether it was a good idea in the long run to rewrite his own story. But maybe there wasn’t going to be a long run, as far as the rest of his life was concerned. Maybe it would only be a matter of a year or two, or even just a few months.
Whereas the present, Ante Valdemar Roos formulated it to himself in silent satisfaction, is above all a matter of now and today. You had to be present exactly where you were in time and space, the next day it could be too late, and if you didn’t—
A sound and a movement from the bed broke the flow of his thoughts, and a second later he was out of the armchair and across the room.
She had fallen out of bed and was lying on the floor, and something had happened.
She was shaking. Her body was taut and arched while her nightdress, really just a big white T-shirt, had ruckled up under her arms, leaving one breast exposed, and he could see her pubic hair through her thin briefs. He cursed himself for not being able to avert his eyes from this unwanted intimacy, but that’s the male gaze, like it or lump it, he thought apologetically as he tried to fight back the sense of horror suddenly pumping through his chest and threatening to choke him. What’s happening, dearest Anna? What on earth is happening?
He tried awkwardly to stop the shudders that were running through her body. He grasped the tops of her arms and attempted to at least make eye contact with her, but her face was twisted back and away from him. Her throat was emitting a jerky sort of gurgling sound and the shaking seemed to transmit itself into his own body – at the same time as it grew less violent, thank heaven, and gradually ebbed away before finally stopping.
The whole sequence, from her fall out of bed to the end of the shaking, could not have taken more than a minute, but afterwards, as he sat there with her relaxed body in his arms, he thought it had felt like the longest minute in his life.
Her breath was still coming in gasps and when he felt her pulse it was racing. Her eyes were darting restlessly, as he had seen the eyes of blind people do . . . Oh my God, Anna, he thought, what’s happening to you?
And he caught himself actually praying to God.
He straightened out her T-shirt and prayed to God.
A few minutes later – five or fifteen or maybe only three, he had no idea – she opened her eyes and smiled at him. It was a little bewildered and feeble, but it was a smile.
‘Valdemar,’ she whispered. ‘Valdemar, why are we sitting on the floor?’