Chapter 77
By this point in their marriage, problems had arisen.
Or rather, reappeared. Perhaps that was the right word.
He and Olivia had started going to couples’ therapy, and the previous day’s session was still on his mind.
In front of their therapist, a very likable man in his sixties who always wore clogs, Olivia had blurted a frustrated heap of words:
“He closes himself off, he doesn’t share his feelings. He doesn’t talk. I think it has to do with all the stuff that happened when he was young. It’s a trauma he hasn’t processed. I’ve tried to help, but he can’t do it.”
“Trauma,” the therapist repeated, as though the word were a stone you could hold up to the light and inspect from many angles.
“His best friend died. It was an accident, but—”
“Sander,” the therapist interrupted in his practiced way. “What do you think about what Olivia is saying?”
He was silent for a long time.
“Olivia’s mom—I mean, your mom, Olivia—is a psychologist. Your father is a principal. You come from a family that talks about everything. You have vocabulary for all the ways you feel. That’s one thing I love about you, that it’s so simple for you.”
“It’s not simple.”
“But you have the language. I don’t.”
“You are a Swedish teacher,” Olivia said evenly.
“There are different kinds of languages,” the therapist gently interjected.
“And it’s not easy for me to open up like that.
I understand that it’s expected of me both at home and here, in front of both of you.
That’s what you two do, Olivia, that’s what we’re supposed to do in this room, I’m not stupid, I know that.
” He took a breath. “I just can’t, I think, even if I want to. For you.”
“For us,” Olivia corrected. “For the kids. So they learn that it’s good to talk about things. God, sometimes I think you don’t even understand that you’re a parent. With everything that entails. It’s like you’re still a teenager, like you got stuck back there.”
But he hadn’t. She was wrong.
He wasn’t stuck, hadn’t been for a long time, and maybe this was what confused him most of all. That it had been possible to move on. You can get used to anything, or endure it for as long as you must.
The words lingered in his mind as he read that page of the newspaper. He recognized the lecturer’s name: Ardelius, now Professor Emeritus. The man from Stockholm.
—
That evening, he holed up in his office and read student papers.
Then he got in the car and went to the college.
The lecture was held in one of the auditoriums he remembered; he’d been here often in the parenthetical era his college years now felt like.
Sander felt both very young and much older than he was as he took a seat in the back.
True to form, he’d brought a notebook; he opened it to a blank page and clicked his pen.
Ardelius was sitting in the front row, paging through his papers.
Sander stared at the back of the old man’s graying head as if he hoped the professor would feel it.
“Well, let’s see if this is worth a listen,” a familiar voice said.
He turned. Indeed, it was him. Older and grayer, of course, just like Sander himself, as though time had brought them closer in more ways than just career-wise.
“Yes, I’ve heard this speaker is an interesting one,” Sander said with a smile.
Lundstrom laughed. What followed was a silence between them. His former teacher was the first to break it. “So you ended up staying.”
There it was again. This time, it was given as a fact.
“Yes, that’s how it turned out.”
“Does it feel right?”
“For the most part.”
Lundstrom nodded as if a hunch had been confirmed.
Then they both turned to the retired professor who walked spryly to the podium and adjusted the microphone. The room fell silent.
“Is it true that you became a teacher?” Lundstrom whispered.
“Yes. Swedish and English.”
“Why?”
“I’m not really sure. It just happened.”
The professor’s talk went on for forty-five minutes. Then he stopped abruptly—perhaps he’d been living according to the university timetable up in Stockholm for so long that it was part of his internal clock now.
“Right,” he said. “That’s that. Thank you.”
Now and again, Ardelius had looked up from his notes to search the sea of faces. He’d squinted up at the corner where Lundstrom sat and seemed to nod in recognition. Sander couldn’t tell if the professor recognized him too.
There was a Q&A period. By the time that was over, it was almost eight thirty and the audience was quick to exit the auditorium. Sander hovered behind Lundstrom, who walked down the steps and approached the podium. A bright gleam in those cool, intelligent eyes.
“John,” Ardelius said. “Good evening. I’m so glad to see you.”
Lundstrom offered his hand. The old man took it warmly between his own.
“It’s been ages.”
“Yes, perhaps it has. Time is strange, when you’re old.”
While they chatted, Sander lingered nearby, waiting. After a moment, the professor turned to look straight at him. Sander stepped forward.
“I just wanted to say hello. I don’t know if you remember me.”
Ardelius squinted behind thick glasses. “No, I’m afraid I don’t. I’m sorry.”
“Eriksson,” he said hesitantly. “Sander.”
The old man took him in, his face unchanging. Sander wanted to vanish from sight, hide his blazing cheeks and his darting gaze.
“Did you study with me?”
“I never got the chance. But I was going to, it was my plan to.”
“I see,” the professor said uncertainly.
“Oh, of course, that’s right.” He smiled faintly.
“Now I remember.” Whether he was just saying it or whether he truly remembered Sander was impossible to say.
He smiled wearily and all at once he seemed to long for his hotel bed.
“Have a good evening. Thanks for coming, both of you.”
Sander went home to Snostorp and Backav?gen, Olivia and the children, his mind somehow at ease, relieved of a burden he hadn’t even known he was carrying. No one missed him out there in the great big world. Maybe it was just as well that he had stayed.