In other words, this: being in Kåre’s house with Wanda’s skin care products in the cupboard under the sink, and Kåre, who just keeps crying and crying. She says to him that maybe he should go and lie down for a bit, sleep, maybe that will help? He gives her a hug and says yes, it might. He’s going to go and lie down, and sleep for a while. Are you sure that’s okay, will you be all right on your own for a couple of hours? Kåre asks. Yes, of course, Sigrid says. Kåre kisses her on the forehead with dry, hard lips and then leaves her, and the way in which he strokes her shoulders, and the fact that he’s walking away from her as he does it, gives her the feeling that this won’t work, that it’s over. What should she do? Should she just pack her bag and leave?
* * *
She walks around his flat as quietly as she can. She looks at the bookshelves, which are long, with double rows of books. She tries to see which ones have worn spines, which ones he’s taken out time and time again, she smells them, they smell sweet, possibly of tobacco, she opens some of the books, the paper is coarse against her fingers, the ink of each letter pressed into the paper, these are old books, Sigrid thinks, and reflects on the fact that she’s now looking at something that he’s looked at, something that’s meant something to him, but she can’t grasp it, she just smells the sweet smell of the paper and feels slightly sick. She’s trying, she thinks with corners of her mouth turned down because she’s feeling sick, to break through and grasp something that is essentially him, but instead feels sick! These books make her feel sick, the smell makes her feel sick. She understands what that means: that deep down, she isn’t one hundred percent sure that this is one hundred percent right. That she has to convince herself that it is, certainly when he suddenly bursts out crying and seems to be very unsure as well. She thinks about his card with the wooden chair on the front and feels reassured.
* * *
She’ll sit down. She’ll sit down on one of his chairs and think, like a secret message to herself, that now she has sat down, that’s what she’s done. Beloved are those who sit down. There’s not a lot of furniture in the living room, and most of it is dark wood with smooth leather, but it’s exactly how she wants to live when she grows up: simple, light, and peaceful. A bit worn, shabby, but clean, simple. Wide wooden floorboards. And an old black lacquered rococo table by the window with a glass vase with a single stem of pink lilies; they look like grotesque mouths, she thinks, each with five protruding tongues. She sits down on the dark leather chair (now she is sitting down) by the rococo table, she feels the cool leather against the backs of her thighs.