Stig Dagerman - A Burnt Child

But when the memory is over, there is nothing left to distract him. He slowly puts his cup aside as he leans over the edge of the table and looks down at Gun’s shoes. He can’t help it. No one can help it. He recognizes them all too well. But he doesn’t let her know.

The strap has come undone, is all he says.

To fasten the strap, he kneels down next to her, very gently and very quickly.

Bengt, I have to go, she says. But she knows it’s already too late. Wait, I have to fasten the strap, he whispers, whispers quite helplessly and puts his hand around her ankle.

But he does not fasten the strap. Instead, he takes off her shoe and sets it down by the leg of the table. She is not surprised. She doesn’t say anything, though she knows that she should. Instead, she places her other foot into his hands. Then he unfastens the strap of the other shoe, and carefully, as though it were made of glass, he places it next to the other one. Then he gazes up at her, not afraid but trembling, like someone on the edge of a diving board being forced to jump. She leans over and looks down at him as one looks down a well, uneasy yet very enchanted. She can’t help herself. But it isn’t his eyes at the bottom of the well. It is his lips. Slowly, they part as if somebody dropped a rock down the well.

After the kiss, he fumbles after her hands as if he can’t see a thing. Nor can he see anything, nothing but her blonde hair with the curved white comb in it. When he finds her hands, one on each hip, he pulls her down to him. She sinks silently to the floor. They sit for a long time between the chair and the table, like two children in the sand. Even though they know the situation is absurd, they are sincere and do not dare say a word. It’s completely silent in the kitchen. The evening casts nothing but shadows through the closed window, and the only thing they hear is each other, though no one is saying a word. Silent and afraid, they hold each other’s hands, each seeking the other’s help against their own bodies. They know that if they let each other go, they will be lost, but if they hold on any longer, they will be just as lost.

I’ve dreamt about your foot, Bengt whispers.

And it’s probably true. As she bends her nyloned foot, he realizes it’s the same foot he has already held in his dream. Then he frees his hands—though Gun tries to hold on to them—takes her foot, and raises it slightly off the ground. It is warm and dry, like a stone that has been basking in the sun. When he puts her foot back down, he says:

You have beautiful shoes.

He knows that he shouldn’t have said it. He just can’t help it. Nor can she help answering.

I got them from Knut, she says, almost inaudibly.

At once, they notice she said “Knut.” She could have said “your father.” But now he is glad she didn’t, because Knut is not his father. Knut is a stranger. And this stranger has given Gun a pair of shoes. This doesn’t really matter to him, but the way she says it makes it clear that she doesn’t know whose shoes they had been. This makes him happy, and it makes her pure. And the one you love has to be pure. Otherwise, you cannot love her.

But to love someone is also to make her pure. So he shoves the shoes into the darkness under the table and asks with burning cheeks: You have a beautiful dress, too.

A question, indeed, but perhaps a question unnoticed. In any case, she does not answer. He takes her gently by the shoulders and feels how naked the material is. But it’s only so naked before he finds out what he needs to know. And to get the answer, he looks directly into her eyes, afraid yet hopeful at the same time, and of course he sees what he wants to see: she has never found out who the dress was meant for. Then he starts to unbutton the red dress. One by one, he takes the soft, tiny buttons and slips them through the holes. Gun watches in silence, watches how his hand sinks lower and watches how calm and beautiful it is.

She knows she shouldn’t. She knows there’s still time to get up and leave. She is very discerning and knows very well what would happen if she left now. They would suddenly hear all the noises from the street again. All the noises in the house, too. For a brief moment they would stand and face each other in shame. Then he would bend down to get her shoes, and as he put them on her feet, she would button up her dress again. How simple everything could be. In spite of knowing this, she doesn’t leave.

She doesn’t leave, because she is paralyzed. Not paralyzed with fear, or desire either. What binds her and what binds him, too, is the beauty of the moment. Nothing is ever as beautiful as the first isolated minutes with someone who might be able to love you— with someone you yourself might be able to love. There is nothing as silent as these minutes, nothing so saturated with sweet anticipation. It is for these few minutes that we love, not for the many that follow. Never again, they realize, would anything so beautiful ever happen to them. They might be happier, more impassioned, too, and infinitely satiated with their own bodies and with each other’s. But never again would it be so beautiful.

This is why she doesn’t leave, and why he continues to hesitantly unbutton the red dress, trying to get it to last as long as possible. But when there are no more buttons, she slowly pulls the dress over her head. Carefully, she pulls the white comb from her hair and places it between them without making a sound.

But the moment before it happens, they look into each other’s eyes. Her eyes are bright and soothing; they hypnotize him into tranquility. It’s because of her calmness that he loves her. And the one we love has to be calm because nothing is as loathsome as anxiety. Never before has anyone he loved been so calm. Never before has he himself been so still. When they come together, they come together in a great moment of peace and stillness. They are not afraid of the unimaginable thing that is happening. All they can feel is that one calm is joining another calm, like a great calm wave washing over a warm calm rock. They do not even pant, but they breathe rapidly yet without difficulty. Their bodies are hot but not sweaty, their lips are not bleeding, just slightly moist, and when they look into each other’s eyes, their pupils do not gleam with the hysteria of desire but with a tender and unexpected serenity.

Afterward, he places the white comb in her hair, delicately, like a flower. They go into his room and lie quietly next to each other for a long time. He doesn’t cleave to her, because he knows he doesn’t have to. She’s not like someone else who you could never let go of, someone who, through her fear of being quickly forgotten, tensely clutches you and forces you to think, think the entire time it lasts, Now I’m lying with her. Now I’m stroking her. Now I’m moving my hands up higher.

They aren’t surprised even after it happened. They speak peacefully with each other, lying on their backs and letting the words fly up to the ceiling as if they were talking to themselves. Because they are so calm, they can tell each other everything without shame and without it sounding like a confession. Nor are they surprised by what they learn about each other. Quite openly, she tells him how she has longed for him every night since that evening when Knut invited her over for tea. Quite openly, she lets him know that she always expected it would happen if only he wanted it to. She also admits to him that she knew Knut wasn’t going to be home tonight.

Just as candidly, he talks about his solitary promenades—al-ways in her direction—about his cold nights outside patrolling the cinema, about his dreams, and that whenever he kissed Berit, he always closed his eyes and imagined it was Gun he was kissing.