_There Are Things I Want You to Know_ About Stieg Larsson and Me - Eva Gabrielsson [49]
When the news of these developments got around, I began receiving wonderful messages from my friends. Some of them even offered to be my guarantor so I could borrow money to buy Stieg’s half of our apartment from his family. That’s when I realized that at least I was rich … in friendship.
STIEG HAS been gone now for seven months. I’m barely starting to recover. Today I talked with Gruvstad, the therapist, about this deeply rooted belief I’ve had ever since childhood: a great happiness is always followed by a misfortune that is just as intense. She assured me that this isn’t true and that I mustn’t always be afraid of being punished if I feel good. I came home with a (very) tiny sensation of lightness. I took out a new lamp of yellow glass I’d bought, set it on the glossy white windowsill, and turned it on for the first time. Then I put together a whatnot, an etagere for Stieg’s office, and on it I placed three pictures: the black-and-white photograph of him as a child with his grandparents, in front of their little wooden house; the photo I’d taken of the inside of their kitchen when we went back there; and a snapshot of me. I looked at Stieg and asked him to watch over me. Then I started crying again, with my head hanging, for a long time.
Tuesday, June 7
THROUGH THE Foreningsbanken in Umea, where the Larssons live, I received a bankbook representing what is left—after they’d helped themselves—of a building society account Stieg had: 1,290.63 kronor, or $181.41. What humiliation. What contempt. Aside from that bankbook, no other news from Erland or Joakim.
Friday, June 10
WENT TO Handelsbanken to take out enough from our joint account, Stieg’s and mine, to pay the 8,640 kronor ($1,282) due the lawyers for their inventory of Stieg’s assets. Of the 30,000 kronor that remained, I took 15,000 ($2,250) without informing the estate. I couldn’t care less. I don’t want to have anything more do to with the Larssons.
What I’d like to see passed is a legislative amendment to the law on concubinage. I don’t want other people to suffer the same injustice I did! I called Ronny Olander, a Swedish MP in the Social Democratic Party, and Gustav Fridolin, a Green Party MP. The latter was so shaken by my story that he asked me to send him an email right away with full details.
Saturday, June 11
WHILE GETTING ready to refinish the floor in Stieg’s office, I carried piles of papers into the living room, and so came across some documents from the Ikano Bank. I’d completely forgotten that I’d transferred Stieg’s life insurance policy there. Now I can get money to pay for the trip from Falun to Stockholm to attend the first executive meeting of Expo‘s new board next Thursday. For travel during the day, the ticket costs more, going from 26 to 69 euros (from $34 to $91). I didn’t have enough in my account and won’t get my next paycheck for two weeks.
THE REFINISHED floor is a disaster! I have to call the supplier of the compound used to fill in the cracks. It’s really a miserable chore to make this room over, but I must do it. I can’t subcontract this job. One can’t farm out grief. What with shifting around all I have left of Stieg, various objects and books, he’s everywhere in the apartment. And that reminds me of all the things he was interested in, all he did, all he cared about so passionately…. It moves me and upsets me, and it hurts.
Saturday, July 2
I REDID the floor. I’ve wept nonstop over these few square feet of wood, the tears trickling down between the floorboards on which I knelt, slaving away. What a hell. But why didn’t I do this when Stieg was alive? He would have been so happy to have the floor looking nice. I do have to make over this room now, though, to have a place where I can finish my book on Hallman and organize