In the Name of Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

contractions she habitually used flowed into each other, the cross of a ‘t’ carried over to start the first syllable of the next word. It was her way – quick, concentrated, full of movement. The last entry was on 6 June: D 12.00 Bakf. Op. On 6 June 1984, two days before she died, she met him ( D ) at 12.00 for an early lunch in the restaurant annexe ( bakfickan ) behind the Opera House ( Operan ) and afterwards they went shopping for things they needed out here – dishcloths, towels, sheets… The following morning they took the boat and less than forty-eight hours later she was dead.
    He picked up one of the earlier pocket agendas that she’d kept in her drawer, let his married life flash by – meals, weather, work, dinners, trips with friends, moments of sudden flurry in the rhythm of the years that flowed. The happiest scenes that came back unsolicited were simple, even banal. Crossing the park together to the shops she took his arm, hugged it as if in a sudden thought that remained unspoken. Only her face was visible. Clots of snow heavy as wet ash brushed past her eyelids when she looked up at him. In the grocer’s they picked vegetables, apples, a huge chunk of a single cheese, walnuts, breathed the smell of coriander and cardamom. The Baltic evening shone black as polish about the street lamps when they came out. Beyond, at the edge of the trees, he saw their kitchen window lit up, the redwood of the cupboards, the copper wall tiles that glowed through the dark, distant as a camp fire beyond the black branches.
    Those thousands of days and nights that passed, what, if anything, did they add up to? A couple who agreed, disagreed, argued, laughed, loved, shared winter nights with friends, wine stains on the tablecloth, glasses everywhere. In the sudden quiet after the last of the guests had gone they slept like children, without thought. Inconsequential, inexplicable days. What else? They’d gone to the theatre, had supper after, seven or eight of them in a pokey restaurant, argued and laughed until late in the night. Interludes in a sea of work. Their living room caught a glimpse of Lake Mälaren, their bedroom overlooked Pontonjär Park. The usual furnishings, the usual fittings. Not once did it occur to him that it was all preparing to blow apart. There should have been a countdown. But it struck like lightning, a sudden flash and she was gone. The ship sailed on without her.
    He thumbed through the pocket agendas for a few more years before giving up and putting them back in the holdall. The box with her rings went in next. Maybe Carlos’s friend Zoë would wear them in New York one day. The notion of such continuation was strangely comforting. Then, in a flash that pierced him, he saw Connie dancing – naked except for those rings – in the bathroom of their flat in town, the scowl Michael Jackson made famous looking back at her from the mirror as she turned and twisted and belted out Just Beat It, Beat It, Beat It, Beat It , No One Wants To Be Defeated, Beat It, Beat It, Beat It . A Saturday morning one summer long ago. In a few hours they would take the boat to another island where they’d spend the weekend with a couple of friends. He remembered flicking past their initials a moment ago in one of Connie’s agendas, G+C and, underneath, the date and the words Första bad! Kul! Meaning the season’s First swim! and Fun! G was for Giovanni, an Italian doctor working in the same hospital as Connie, and K was for Kerstin, a fashion designer and old school pal of Connie’s, who had introduced them. Preparing dinner with Giovanni Dan had looked up through the kitchen window and seen Connie and Kerstin walk down to the sea in long bathrobes. The bathrobes were beautiful, bought in Venice. Giovanni had a certain grandeur in his hospitality. He also had a fine baritone voice which broke into song now as he too looked out the window – Quanto è bella, quanto è cara! – while the women disrobed and dove