The Double Silence Read Online Free PDF Page B

heavy, sweetheart?’
    He turned around and stretched out his hand to take her suitcase. When she handed it over, he grimaced and dropped it on the ground with a thud, as if it were impossible to hold. She smiled. She was happy to see Sam in such good spirits. He’d been unusually tired lately. The new film had taken most of his waking hours. Leaving on a trip right after the film wrapped was clearly exactly what he needed. The fact that he was the one who’d come up with the idea for their destination contributed to his good mood. They had never gone as a group to the Bergman festival, which was held on Fårö every year in late June. Sam had gone ever since the first one five years earlier, since he was a devoted admirer of Ingmar Bergman. This year the festival was dedicated to Bergman’s memory, since the world-famous director had peacefully passed away at his remote residence on Fårö in July of the previous year.
    Andrea went back inside the house to get a few last items and make sure all the doors were closed and the lights turned off. Across the street she saw Håkan and Stina going through the same procedure. She waved happily to Stina, who was running from the house to the car, hunching her shoulders against the rain. Andrea paused to watch her friend. Howlovely she was. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was dressed almost like a child, in a pink raincoat, short skirt, and flower-patterned wellington boots. Even though she was thirty-seven and the mother of two, she looked like a young girl.
    Stina knew things about Andrea that no one except Sam knew. Her innermost and deepest thoughts.
    She would never forget the time when Stina’s own candour and sensitivity had made her reveal everything about herself. They were alone in Stina’s house. Both Håkan and Sam were out of town, and Stina had invited Andrea and her kids to dinner. The children had played noisily until they all fell into bed. Then Andrea and Stina had sat in front of the fireplace with a bottle of wine. They’d talked about life’s problems. About guilt and shame. And then, for the first time, Andrea had told someone other than Sam about her darkest secret. Stina’s face looked so soft in the glow from the fire; she had listened attentively and they had talked all night. Andrea had never felt so close to anyone before. Stina became the sister she might have had. She would always cherish their friendship. There were no barriers between them.
    Andrea shook off these thoughts. She was glad that in spite of everything she now had such a good life and such good friends. Their extended social circle included a dozen couples with children of more or less the same age. Within that circle was the core group, whose friendship was even stronger. It consisted of her and Sam, Håkan and Stina, John and Beata. Six adults who jointly had eight children, and it often felt as if the group was big enough. That was why they frequently held their own dinner parties and celebrations – something that the others in their social circle did not really like, just as they did not like being excluded from the trips that the three couples took together.
    She looked in the children’s rooms, and noted with pleasure that they had tidied things up before they left. Amazing that they’d become so neat and orderly. She affectionately pictured her children’s faces. In a not-so-distant future they would be moving away from home. Several of her acquaintances were already worrying about that prospect, when they would be alone in the house, at the dinner table, and in front of the TV inthe evening. That wasn’t something that bothered her. She and Sam often talked about everything they were going to do, all the trips and excursions they would take when they finally had plenty of time for each other. She longed to have her husband all to herself. Sometimes she even felt jealous when he laughed and talked too much with the kids. It felt as if he had forgotten about