Black with fear. Or hatred. That was what had
made him so uncomfortable that he hadn’t . . .
At first he had ignored it. He had waited for the
feeling. Thought of other women he had had, all the
times it had worked. But the feeling didn’t come
and after a while he had asked her to stop touching
him. There was no reason why she should be
allowed to humiliate him.
She obeyed like a robot. Made sure she kept her
end of the bargain, no more, no less. There were
six months to wait until Oleg’s custody case
became time-barred. He had plenty of time. No
point getting het up; there would be other days,
other nights.
He had gone back to the beginning, but he clearly
shouldn’t have had the drinks. They had numbed
him, made him unresponsive to her caresses and
his own.
He had ordered her into the bathtub and made a
drink for them both. Hot water, soap. He had held
long monologues about how beautiful she was. She
hadn’t said a word. So quiet. So cold. In the end
the water had gone cold too and he had dried her
and taken her to bed again. Her skin afterwards
was bumpy and dry. She had started to tremble and
he had felt her beginning to respond. Finally. His
hand had moved downwards, downwards. Then he
had seen her eyes again. Big, black, dead. Her gaze
fixed on a point on the ceiling. And the magic was
gone again. He felt like slapping her, slapping life
into her lifeless eyes, slapping her with the flat of
his hand, seeing the skin flare up, become inflamed
and red.
He heard her taking the letter from the table and
opening the clasp on her bag.
‘We’ll have to drink less next time,’ he said.
‘That goes for you too.’
She didn’t answer.
‘Next week, Rakel. Same place, same time. You
won’t forget, will you?’
‘How could I?’ she said. The door closed and she
was gone.
He got up, mixed himself another drink. Jameson
and water, the only good thing to . . . He drank it
slowly. Then he lay back.
Soon it was midnight. He closed his eyes, but
sleep wouldn’t come. From the adjacent room he
could hear someone had put on pay-TV. If it was
pay-TV, that is. The groans sounded fairly lifelike.
A police siren cut through the night. Damn! He
tossed and turned. The soft bed had already made
his back go stiff. He always had problems sleeping
here, not solely because of the bed. The yellow
room was and always would be a hotel room, an
alien place.
A meeting in Larvik, he had told his wife. And, as
usual, when she asked he couldn’t remember the
name of the hotel they were staying in. Was it Rica,
he wondered? If it finished late, he would ring, he
had said. But you know how it is with these late-
night suppers, darling.
Well, she had nothing to grumble about. He had
provided her with a life that was more than she
could ever have hoped for with her background.
Thanks to him, she had travelled the world, lived
in luxurious embassy residences staffed with
servants in some of the world’s most beautiful
cities, learned foreign languages and met exciting
people. She had never had to lift a finger all her
life. What would she do if she were left on her
own, never having worked? He was the basis of
her existence, her family, in short everything she
had. No, he wasn’t that bothered about what Elsa
might or might not think.
Nevertheless, it was her he was thinking about
right now. He should have been there, with her. A
warm, familiar body against his back, an arm
round him. Yes, a little warmth after all that
coldness.
He looked at his watch again. He could say the
supper had finished early and he had decided to
drive home. Not only that, she would be happy.
She absolutely hated being on her own at night in
that big house.
He lay there listening to the sounds coming from
the neighbouring room.
Then he got up and quickly began to dress.
The old man is no longer old. And he is dancing. It
is a slow waltz and she has rested her cheek
against his neck. They have been dancing for a long
time, they are sweaty and her skin is so hot it burns
against his. He can feel her smiling. He wants to
continue dancing like this, to go on simply holding
her until the building burns down, until time stands
still, until they can open their eyes and see that they
have come to a different place.
She whispers something, but the music is too
loud.
‘What?’ he says, bending his head. She places her
lips against his ear.
‘You have to wake up,’ she says.
He thrust open his eyes. He blinked in the dark
before seeing his breath hang rigid and white in
front of him. He hadn’t heard the car arrive. He
turned over, gave a low groan and tried to pull his