A Neverending Affair (20 page)

There was a letter with a stamp from Rome among the bills and commercial mail. People rarely wrote letters these days, unless it was for Christmas, anniversaries, etc. Monika had noted the handwriting. “Met someone in Rome, did you?”

“I meant to tell you
,” he said hesitantly.

“Oh, the fabulous Ronia, was it?”

Olaf consented by lowering his gaze.

“So why didn’t you tell me?”

“Guess I forgot.”

“Olaf, don’t give me that crap
. I know how strong your feelings were for her. I know you left Liv for her. I know you were madly in love. I know that when we met you were still like a wounded bird, trying to fly, but the wings were not working properly. Do you think I was blind? Do you think I am blind? How do you think I feel living a whole life in the shadow of your great love, knowing I am just a substitute for something you always long for—but will never have? I remember a few years ago when we met this Selma. When she mentioned Ronia, you blushed, stumbled and fumbled in a very awkward way. There is no way you ‘forgot’ to tell me. I would say it is the opposite, the spell of that witch, or bitch is still over you. Was it nice fucking her in romantic Rome?”

“Monika, don’t call her a bitch.”

“You are trying to evade the core of the topic.”

“I did
not fuck her in Rome,” Olaf said, addressing the immediate challenge first. “You have to trust me on that. What can I say? She meant an awful lot to me. I know you are jealous, even if you never said it like this before. I met her in Rome, that is true. It was also in Rome we broke up in 1999. This was the first time I saw her since. We only exchanged the French style of cheek kisses and shook hands. We spent a few hours talking before I flew home. There is nothing between us. There has been nothing between us since we left each other in Rome in 1999, for heaven’s sake, and there is nothing between us now.”

“Ah, now I see, that is why you
‘missed your plane’ and had to take a later one. You blamed the traffic. Oh God, I thought I could trust you.”

“You can
,” he said. He took the letter and put it in fire without reading it to prove his point. He saw her handwriting disappear in the flames.

Monika put down her pen. She looked out the window. The immense Siberian landscape passed by. Birch trees with brown-orange leaves, larch trees in yellow and vast
expanses of fields. Desolated industries, small houses with a little vegetable patch within the perimeter of a boarded fence, only the cabbage still growing, the rest of the soil looking black and rich. It probably looked much the same now as hundred years ago, she thought. It was a good idea to take this trip to get closure. Writing down the story had helped her understand how little she could have done, in any case.

Rebecka, her dau
ghter of thirteen, sat opposite her and looked at her with a sad expression.

“Mum, why
are you writing this? I like that you write. I think you are a great story teller, but why do you write about someone that hurt you so much. You know I love Dad, I always will, but I also know he really hurt you. Not willingly, I know, but certainly he understood, or he would have if he tried. I don’t know what is worse: that he understood and still did it, or that he simply didn’t understand? Anyway, I don’t think you should write about him.” 

“My child, people like your dad and that bitch
—I know I am unfair here. I have no basis for calling her bad things, or anything, I don't know her. At any rate, people like them make the world spin; they create all the miracles of the world. They also make all disasters. They are the makers, so to speak. They have passion. If they don’t spend it on messing up their own lives and the lives of others, they can do a lot of good. Some of them do both—like your father—some of them do only good, and some of them only make a mess. But there are people like me that bring them into existence. If we didn’t write about them, if we didn’t tell their stories, if we didn’t admire them, even when they hurt us, if we didn’t follow them, even when they don’t want us, they would not exist.”