The Cruel Stars of the Night - Kjell Eriksson [30]
“I’m a virgin,” she whispered.
Stig Franklin came home right when Aktuellt, the news broadcast, started.
“I’m home,” he yelled.
His face in the hall mirror betrayed nothing of the events of the early evening. The worry he had felt in the car on the way home was gone. He had driven with the window down, letting the fresh air blow through the tension and slight nausea.
Now he was both hungry and thirsty and walked into the kitchen. A plate had been left out on the dining room table, also a dish with boiled potatoes and a pork chop with a congealed sauce. He opened the refrigerator and took out a Ruddles County, took a few sips, and sat down on a chair, smiled, and felt now for the first time how tired he was.
He heard the prime minister speaking on the television upstairs but could not tell what it was about. The voice of the reporter was heard from time to time. It was that woman he had never been able to stand.
“You’re drinking strong beer?”
Jessica had come downstairs without him noticing.
“I was thirsty,” he said, and smiled and gripped the bottle as if he was afraid she would take it away from him.
“How was it? It took a long time.”
“She wanted to talk.”
“About B-One, of course. I knew it. What did she say?”
“It wasn’t that. She’s not doing so well.”
“No, anyone can see that. She didn’t talk about the deal then?”
“No, I said.”
“Then what did she want?”
“Nothing in particular. She just wanted to talk. She’s lonely.”
“Living with her father in that haunted house all those years would have broken anyone down. Has she never gotten herself a man?”
“I don’t know,” he said and drank the last of the bottle. “She doesn’t reveal much.”
“If she didn’t talk about work, and doesn’t reveal anything, then what did you talk about?”
“All kinds of things. Her house, that it’s a lot of work. She’s apparently cleaning up after her father. There was junk everywhere.”
Jessica sat down across from her husband. He wanted to have another beer but hesitated. Jessica was a teetotaler.
“She has a crush on you,” she said.
“On me! Never. I’m not her type.”
“Then you’re blind,” Jessica said and stood up. “She hates me at any rate.”
“Now I think you’re exaggerating. She’s just a little jealous of you when you do well.”
Jessica let out a harrumph, left the kitchen, and went to the bathroom. Stig immediately got up and took out another bottle of beer.
The beer did him good. On an empty stomach the rush came quickly. He snapped up a potato and ate it with the skin still on, picked up the pork chop and took a bite. He felt strong in an unfamiliar way. Jessica was bustling in the bathroom. He assumed she was preparing herself for the night and getting ready to spend a few hours in bed with a book. As for him, he wanted to stay at the kitchen table and feel strong, in some way outside his normal life, together with a beer, potato, and a pork chop that tasted heavenly.
“Is there anything on TV?” he yelled, mostly to have something to say.
She didn’t reply, perhaps she couldn’t hear. He got the idea that they should watch a porn film. He had bought a videocassette but the first and so far only time they watched it together was a complete disaster. It made him horny but it only made Jessica mad.
She came out of the bathroom and looked questioningly at the second bottle.
“Tomorrow’s a workday,” she said.
He stood up hastily, but sank just as quickly back onto the chair.There probably won’t be a porn film tonight, he thought. It’s a workday tomorrow.
Jessica disappeared into the bedroom. Stig remained where he was.
“I’m a virgin,” he said quietly and found himself getting aroused as he said it.
Laura was a beautiful woman, but crazy, he had understood that much during the course of the evening. For a while he had even become scared of her. It was unlikely that she was a virgin. What kind of life had she lived anyway?
There was something alluring about her. As if she was a figure from a novel living in a house of