Jensen Beach: Swallowed by the Cold: Stories

Henrik thought so too, though he couldn’t tell what difference moving the vase had made. He took another sip of his drink. “Yes,” he said.

The salmon she’d prepared was very good, and the wine she’d chosen matched the fish well. The asparagus was crisp. The potatoes reminded him of the early summer. With every bite, Henrik felt assured of his presence. He was happy to be with Helle, happy to act, however temporarily, as though they weren’t hiding their relationship. Until now, it hadn’t occurred to him that he’d felt any anxiety about the nature of their affair. He spent a good deal of his energy, of course, concealing it from his wife and from Peter, but he’d always known that if it became too difficult to keep up the lie he’d simply stop, which meant, now that he thought of it, he’d been unafraid to lose Helle. He hadn’t at all taken her seriously. But now, in her house, he began to imagine that this could be his life. It very well could be his life. He and Lisa didn’t have children. There was nothing to stop him from leaving her. She was young and attractive and had a good job. She’d find someone else. There was a man at Lisa’s work, Tomas or Patrik or David, whom he knew she found attractive. Perhaps she’d already met someone of her own. This sort of thing happened all the time. People grew tired of one another.

After dinner she opened the bottle of red wine he’d brought. They moved from the dining room to the couch. More than once, Henrik looked to the table, its empty plates and flickering candles, and tried to imagine what he might be thinking five, ten years in the future when looking at a similar scene. Would he feel the same happiness? Would he remember this day? It was September tenth. Helle reminded him of the date when she brought up Anna Lindh. It was the day before the five-year anniversary of Lindh’s assassination and Helle was curious, she said, to see how the media would address the issue. Anna Lindh was the foreign minister in 2003, widely expected to be next prime minister when Göran Persson’s second term expired. She was stabbed to death in the NK department store while out shopping with a friend.

The music stopped playing and Helle got up from the couch to put it back on. She stood at the computer, her back to him. “Same music fine with you?

“Of course,” he said. “Anything at all.” He was feeling a little drunk, but pleasantly so.

“In the last five years,” Helle said, returning to the couch, “there’s been a change, don’t you think? We’re less safe.” She paused here and retrieved her wine glass from the coffee table. “Or maybe it’s only that we know now just how unsafe we are,” she said.

She stretched her leg out toward him and rested her foot in his lap. Henrik massaged her foot with his free hand. He took a sip of his wine. After he swallowed, he said, “Well, I feel safe.” He didn’t mean to disagree with her, but the idea that he could feel anything other than happy at that moment seemed strange.

“That’s not the point,” she said. He felt the weight of her foot on his leg. Her heel pressed into his thigh. Even his shortcomings — his affair with Helle especially — had seemed to him part of the man he was supposed to be, and he’d found comfort in this. It was who he was and that felt safe. He did his best to ignore the rising anxious feeling in his chest. “The point is that the possibility exists now. Obviously, it always has. Anna Lindh was killed after all. But what I mean is, we understand now, all of us do, that such things happen. We live terrified of them every day. Even if you won’t admit it.”

“I can see what you mean,” he said.

“It’s a symbol,” she said. “Our 9/11.”

The day of the assassination, Henrik had been at work downtown. He’d worked for Nordea Bank then and was at the branch office next door to NK. The stabbing occurred in the late afternoon. The department store had been closed immediately and a large crowd of shoppers and office workers gathered in front. He could see them from his window. The news of Lindh’s stabbing was everywhere that afternoon. Colleagues of his refreshed news websites repeatedly, eagerly shouting out any developments. Just before five, he’d left the office. He remembered being annoyed that a crowd had gathered near the scene of the murder, where very little actual information might be found, delaying his walk to the metro. He felt himself returning to that irritation. “9/11?” he said. “That’s ridiculous.”

Helle straightened and pulled her foot back from his lap. She smiled at him. It wasn’t an unfriendly smile but it was forced. He noticed for the first time that her teeth were crooked.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said.

“No, you’re right,” she said. “It’s a silly comparison. Something I heard on the radio this afternoon on the way home from work.” She placed her wine glass on the table.

He started to say something about the tsunami in Thailand and all the Swedish tourists who’d died there but stopped when his phone rang. He was grateful for the interruption. A colleague’s name flashed across the screen. “It’s Lisa,” he told Helle. “I’m going to answer. She’d think it was strange if I didn’t.” They both rose from the couch, Helle heading toward the kitchen and Henrik to the hall. The phone continued to ring. He ended the call and held the silent phone to his ear. “This is Henrik,” he said as if he were answering. Helle, holding a plate in each hand, turned and smiled at him before disappearing into the kitchen. “Yes, it’s fine,” he said to the phone. He concentrated on pausing long enough to give the impression that he was listening to Lisa speak. “Everything is going well. Just having dinner with Peter and some others.” He knew Helle would be unable to hear him over the music. Still, he continued speaking. “My flight is at noon tomorrow. I should be home by four.” Helle passed into view again. She leaned over the table and blew out the candles. He watched her leave the room with more dishes. “Yes,” Henrik said, “I love you too.”

On his way to the kitchen, he stopped and picked up the single remaining plate from the table. This he set on the counter beside Helle, who had begun washing the dishes. Their forks and knives were laid in a neat line on a white dishtowel next to the sink. He kissed her neck. Simple domestic gestures with Helle had always been exciting to him, more forbidden somehow than sex. “Can I help?” He reached for the towel she had over her shoulder.

“Don’t,” she said, placing a washed plate, facedown, to the right of the silverware. “I’m nearly done. We’ll leave what’s left for the morning.”

He watched her rinse a few more dishes and place them on the counter as well. She slowly patted her hands dry and took a last sip of her wine before emptying the glass and setting it in the sink. Henrik placed his glass there too. He kissed her again and she smiled at him coolly.

She led him to the bedroom. She lit a candle on her bedside table. “Turn off the light,” she said. He did and in the candlelight watched her shadowed figure undress in front of him. He would have liked to see her body more clearly, but felt nervous to ask for this.

They made love, and apart from a single incident in which he pushed his elbow into her ribs and worried that he’d hurt her, he enjoyed himself and was again happy.

When they were done he lay in the warm sheets, the pillow uncomfortably tucked under his neck. The air in the room was cool. Her bed smelled unfamiliar. He’d almost fallen asleep when all at once the pain in his neck became overwhelming. He lifted his head and reached to adjust the pillow. The pain he felt and the actions he took to relieve it reminded him of the look she’d given him when he’d pressed his elbow into her ribs. They’d been on their sides and Helle turned over so that her back was to him; he moved to reposition himself on top of her, but as he did so, his arm became pinned beneath his body and hers and he slipped, putting his weight on his other elbow, which pressed into her side. She’d winced and turned to look at him.