can see it from the balcony. Gabriel showed it to me yesterday when we went for a walk around the houseand he said everything is more or less the same here really, and the bedroom upstairs was big and empty and the floorboards creaked in a way I don’t remember at all from the summer and I thought no, nothing is the same here. And the fruit tree was shining from across the field.
I pour my coffee into one of the blue-and-white cups. There is an unopened carton of milk in the refrigerator and I think that Gabriel must have bought it for me, he remembered I take milk in my coffee. He drinks his black. I flick through the newspaper on the kitchen table without reading a single article, the letters in the headlines seem to be moving around in front of my eyes. Perhaps I’ve cried so much I’ve damaged my eyes. Maybe protein from my tears has stuck to them, in lumps that will stay there forever and make me go blind eventually. I have to knock wood, I rub the thick surface of the kitchen table hard with my fingers, I blink rapidly several times. I am perfectly normal. There is nothing wrong with my eyes.
I see something moving outside the kitchen window, at first I think it’s a branch but then I see it’s Nils. I open the window and speak to him and he immediately runs to the front door, I can hear him meowing. When I let him in he rubs himself against my legs. He’s wet, his entire coat is covered in little drops ofwater, he looks as if he is studded with diamonds. I tear off a sheet of paper towel and gently wipe his back, he looks at me in surprise.
He goes and lies down on the sofa in the living room, where it is still warm from my body, curling up on the blanket. I want to lie down beside him, I want to curl up too and stay under the duvet, but I have to start sorting out Stella’s things, I can’t stay here indefinitely. They’ve let me start the C-course in art history even though I haven’t finished my assignment from last semester yet, they made an exception, special circumstances. I cried in the senior tutor’s office, I have cried everywhere. I miss seminars these days, I have been given permission to take slightly more time off than is really allowed, but I have to promise to read, it’s for my own good, I mustn’t get too far behind because otherwise it will be difficult to catch up. My books are in the guest room, not even unpacked, I ought to make a start tonight, I won’t get any more of my student loan if I don’t achieve a certain number of points this semester, that’s a horrible thought.
When I get upstairs I can see the apple tree sparkling across the field. Perhaps they’ve forgotten to switch the lights off, or else it’s so dark outside that they come on automatically even though it’s the middle of the day. The sky is gray, the color of lead, as if there were snow in the air, but the temperature is wellabove freezing and the only thing that comes is rain. The lawn felt spongy yesterday, sodden. It will turn into a bog if it carries on raining.
Stella’s clothes are still hanging in the big closet in the bedroom. There’s not a great deal, she didn’t keep anything she had no use for, I quickly go through the closet: jeans, sweaters, a few winter coats, shoes, some dresses, the suits she used to wear when she had a meeting in the council offices, negotiating budgets, things she didn’t really want to do. Gabriel has told me to take whatever I want and put the rest in bags so that he can give it away to charity, but I don’t want to keep anything. Everything smells of Stella, it’s as if the entire closet is impregnated with her cool perfume, I shove the clothes into plastic bags, I just want rid of them. The only thing I can’t bring myself to push into a bag is her white angora cardigan. It hardly smells of anything, perhaps a faint hint of fabric conditioner with an apple scent, perhaps slightly musty, she probably hadn’t worn it for a long time. I run my fingertips
I pour my coffee into one of the blue-and-white cups. There is an unopened carton of milk in the refrigerator and I think that Gabriel must have bought it for me, he remembered I take milk in my coffee. He drinks his black. I flick through the newspaper on the kitchen table without reading a single article, the letters in the headlines seem to be moving around in front of my eyes. Perhaps I’ve cried so much I’ve damaged my eyes. Maybe protein from my tears has stuck to them, in lumps that will stay there forever and make me go blind eventually. I have to knock wood, I rub the thick surface of the kitchen table hard with my fingers, I blink rapidly several times. I am perfectly normal. There is nothing wrong with my eyes.
I see something moving outside the kitchen window, at first I think it’s a branch but then I see it’s Nils. I open the window and speak to him and he immediately runs to the front door, I can hear him meowing. When I let him in he rubs himself against my legs. He’s wet, his entire coat is covered in little drops ofwater, he looks as if he is studded with diamonds. I tear off a sheet of paper towel and gently wipe his back, he looks at me in surprise.
He goes and lies down on the sofa in the living room, where it is still warm from my body, curling up on the blanket. I want to lie down beside him, I want to curl up too and stay under the duvet, but I have to start sorting out Stella’s things, I can’t stay here indefinitely. They’ve let me start the C-course in art history even though I haven’t finished my assignment from last semester yet, they made an exception, special circumstances. I cried in the senior tutor’s office, I have cried everywhere. I miss seminars these days, I have been given permission to take slightly more time off than is really allowed, but I have to promise to read, it’s for my own good, I mustn’t get too far behind because otherwise it will be difficult to catch up. My books are in the guest room, not even unpacked, I ought to make a start tonight, I won’t get any more of my student loan if I don’t achieve a certain number of points this semester, that’s a horrible thought.
When I get upstairs I can see the apple tree sparkling across the field. Perhaps they’ve forgotten to switch the lights off, or else it’s so dark outside that they come on automatically even though it’s the middle of the day. The sky is gray, the color of lead, as if there were snow in the air, but the temperature is wellabove freezing and the only thing that comes is rain. The lawn felt spongy yesterday, sodden. It will turn into a bog if it carries on raining.
Stella’s clothes are still hanging in the big closet in the bedroom. There’s not a great deal, she didn’t keep anything she had no use for, I quickly go through the closet: jeans, sweaters, a few winter coats, shoes, some dresses, the suits she used to wear when she had a meeting in the council offices, negotiating budgets, things she didn’t really want to do. Gabriel has told me to take whatever I want and put the rest in bags so that he can give it away to charity, but I don’t want to keep anything. Everything smells of Stella, it’s as if the entire closet is impregnated with her cool perfume, I shove the clothes into plastic bags, I just want rid of them. The only thing I can’t bring myself to push into a bag is her white angora cardigan. It hardly smells of anything, perhaps a faint hint of fabric conditioner with an apple scent, perhaps slightly musty, she probably hadn’t worn it for a long time. I run my fingertips
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