The Cruel Stars of the Night - Kjell Eriksson [49]
He went on in this way. The horselike aspect in his appearance was reinforced as he became carried away by his own eloquence and neighing laughter. The guests squirmed nervously in their chairs; Mrs. Simonsson became more impatient as she was serving ice cream for dessert.
The colleague concluded his remarks with a toast. Laura felt a purely physical relief as the guests reached for their glasses. Her intuition signaled catastrophe.
Her father, on the other hand, sensed nothing. His good mood made him open a dusty bottle of Taylor’s when the guests left. It was a gesture of goodwill to her mother, who loved port. They sat in the bay window. Ulrik Hindersten was optimistic. He talked about buying a house in Italy. Laura sat down on the floor by her parents and listened. Her mother sat and listened dumbstruck to how detailed the plans had become. Outside Arguà, not far from Petrarch’s grave, her father had seen an old three-story house, admittedly in disrepair but fully functional. With the house came an olive grove and a garden that sloped to the west. He described almost passionately the knotted olive trees and the little terrace with a pergola where grapevines created a pleasantly filtered light and coolness.
“We can live there large parts of the year,” he explained. “You can cultivate the garden and I can do research. Sometimes I will of course have to travel back to Sweden but I think the department will only be happy if I am not there so often,” he said, smiling with rare self-irony.
Her mother didn’t say anything, just stared out into the garden.
“You’ll have to leave the apple trees, but you’ll get oranges and olives instead,” Ulrik said and placed his hand on hers.
Laura didn’t know if it was the unexpected show of affection or the thought of the garden in Italy that made her mother suddenly burst into tears. Only later did she understand that her mother was more clearheaded than her father. She had known there would never be an olive grove.
“It won’t present any difficulties for Laura either,” her father continued. “Her Italian is as good as mine. She’ll adapt. Don’t worry.”
Laura shivered. How many times had she replayed this scene in the bay window to herself? She remembered every line, every expression, and her mother’s beautiful but sorrowful, almost transparent profile.
It was as if she did not have a body, as if her father were speaking to a creature whose veil-thin skin contained something immaterial.
Laura reached out and grabbed her mother’s ankle. The answer was an almost imperceptible head movement.
Several months later—when the garden was blanketed under the first snow—her mother returned to the topic of the dinner and especially “The Horse’s” speech.
“They’re not like other people,” she said. “When they say one thing they mean another. Remember how ‘The Horse’ talked, how he praised your father. Everything was a lie. Everyone sensed it, everyone except your father. If the decision to appoint your father to the professorship had been made, then ‘The Horse’ would not have said a single word, perhaps would not even have come for dinner. But he came, ate like a horse, and deliberately talked nonsense. He enjoyed it. He knew your father would never receive his title.”
“But why did he say those things?” Laura asked.
“So the fall would be even greater. The higher he could get Ulrik the greater the disaster. It’s like that china figurine,” her mother said and pointed to the figure of a girl in the window. “If it topples out of the window it will break in two, but if you drop it from a great height it will smash into a thousand pieces.”
Mother and daughter, united for a few minutes of conversation, knew their husband and father all too well. He would never make his peace, accept the way things were, and be content to end his career as an associate professor.
Laura allowed her gaze to glide from the figurine to the garden. A line of snow