The Cruel Stars of the Night - Kjell Eriksson [131]
“I’ve been with Evita.”
He could just as well have said he had been with Laura, or so he judged from her expression.
“Now it’s all about other women,” she said and he heard that she was trying to inject an ironic edge to her voice but she failed completely. She sounded miserable.
“I’ve had Evita just as long as you have been in my life,” he said. “You are the one who has seen her as a competitor and not as an asset.”
She said nothing but shook her head and sat up in bed. She was wearing a light-colored tank top that reminded him of summer.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said.
Stig felt a tug in his stomach, fearing what would come next. Convinced he was making the right decision, he experienced this feeling as a solid mass in his body when he had left Laura’s house but this now threatened to crumble completely. To himself he cursed his timidity and steeled himself for what was coming.
“I have too,” he said with unexpected rancor. “I’m leaving you. Now. I don’t want any fighting, I want us to be able to talk and separate—”
“. . . in a clean way,” she filled in.
He nodded.
“Is it Laura?”
“It’s not just her,” he got out, suddenly overwhelmed with sadness.
Their life together suddenly appeared so trivial. Even splitting up became petty.
“It’s not about you,” he said.
“Stig,” Jessica said, “do you know what you want? Is it freedom?”
He nodded and let out a sob. Damn, he thought exasperatedly, she makes me feel sorry for myself.
“Don’t treat me as if I’m underage,” he said. “I can make my own decisions.”
She looked closely at him as if to take measure of his steadiness.
“Okay,” she said. “We’ll sell our shares, rent out the house, prepare Evita for a long-distance trip, and set off.”
He stared at her. He could hardly believe his ears.
“We’ll be able to scrape together a decent amount, especially now when it looks as if the Hausmann deal will go through. I don’t need any of this,” she continued and made a sweeping gesture.
“Then what is it you want?” he whispered.
“Don’t you think I have dreams too? I have been struggling like an animal to build up our life, you know that. We have done it together so I’m not complaining. I saw it as our project. Now you’re getting off because Laura . . .”
“This isn’t just about her. We aren’t really living. All our so-called friends at all our respective dinner parties whine about not having enough time and that they should really devote themselves to living instead.”
With each word he raised his voice. By the end he was snarling.
“Look around you! No one we see lives a dignified life. I don’t want to be like this anymore.”
“I’m not letting you go,” Jessica said calmly. “Not to a completely deranged lunatic. I care about you more than that.”
It wasn’t her self-possession that frightened him but the very fact that she was speaking to him.
“She’s not crazy.”
Stig sank down onto the bed. He felt Jessica’s gaze on the back of his neck. It felt as if a giant glacier was forming in his insides and freezing his internal functions.
Jessica inched herself closer and put her hand on his shoulder. He flinched and became terrified that she was going to hug him. But instead she stood up, crawled clumsily out of the bed, and left the room.
He heard her in the living room. It sounded as if she was moving objects around, picking up.
“Come out here and look,” she called out, but he did not stir from his spot, disturbed by her calm. It would have been easier if she had screamed and yelled.
The sound of her bare feet on the floor as she approached the bedroom reminded him of their Åland vacation the first summer they had spent together.
She appeared in the doorway.
“Come,” she said and vanished again.
He got to his feet and followed her. She had placed herself at the window. The Italian glass vase that they had bought in London, the eighteenth-century goblet they had bought at an auction in Helsinki— a real find—were both placed on the couch, and several paintings were leaning against the back of it.
He looked bewildered around the room.
“These are worth at least four