I WENT TO THE OPERA for a midday dance performance. I had no plans. I went to distract myself from something. The orchestra pit was shuttered and the fact that the lights were on in the auditorium made me feel awful, it was all wrong from the start, I wanted darkness and I wanted to feel outside of real life and real time, wanted the sensation of being asleep or at the airport. A dancer walked across the stage with a machine that displayed a digital message, in Swedish and English: VäNLIGEN STäNG AV ERA TELEFONER—PLEAS TURN OFF YOUR PHONES. I wondered if the misspelling was intentional, and the fact that I couldn’t know only entrenched my misgivings and angst, feelings whose sources I couldn’t identify when I tried, when I ransacked myself and my day up until that point.

I turned off my phone and the lights dimmed. The dancers were wearing almost no clothes. They resembled votive offerings, bodies like melting wax. They were pressed against a piece of glass that grew greasy, foggy. The formation brought to mind a mass grave. I started to imagine what it was like to be among them, the smells and the heat. It was not sexual. My interest was in the allusion to violence; that’s where I wanted to participate. It was the sound of the dancers’ feet against the floor, the skin against the glass, the pressure of the muscle, the hard bone just below.

Sitting there, I never lost track of time. Everything unfolded very slowly.

Afterward I stood for a long while on the stairs leading down to Gustav Adolf’s square, the phone in my hand a cool, shiny stone while I waited for it to come back to life. My heart was thumping. I had been struck by a strong premonition that Helena had tried to call me right when I wasn’t available. But there was nothing, nothing had changed in the short span of time I’d spent in the dark and I felt both relieved and disappointed, or maybe it was the same feeling I gave two different names. I messaged Josef. She’s something special that choreographer isn’t she, he replied, there’s nobody like her.

I walked along the water; the rapids whirled furiously. I fantasized about the voice mail she hadn’t left, imagined her telling me that her father was dead, imagined her saying: it was terrible, her voice resigned, he was afraid, she wished she’d never have seen his open eyes. I pictured scenes I’d seen in movies. I imagined the events that would ensue and which might very well already have occurred without my knowledge: plans made for his likely tasteful funeral, in lieu of flowers the family prefers donations to be made to some charity or research fund, white roses or calla lilies for the family members to hold.

Suddenly I realized, it was obvious, he was already dead; this was the reason for her silence. But to presume that, to reach out with condolences, it would be cruel if it weren’t true. There was nothing I could do.

I missed Helena. I missed yet another family I did not belong to.