Some Kind of Peace by Camilla Grebe, Åsa Träff Read Free Book Online

she’s a smart girl. Sure, she has had some tough experiences, but she’s moved on and she’s done it with her own strength. How many people do you know who have stopped using drugs on their own? Just as an example. And now she’s met a guy who you intuitively think is bad for her. If he really is, then Sara herself will be able to break up with him, with or without your help. And Sara must be able to continue to have her own experiences. Should she never again risk being hurt? Never again feel pain? Then she probably has to live the rest of her life away from other people.”
    Aina falls silent and gives me time to let her message sink in. I know she’s right. I only wish that Sara could wait a little.
    It’s early. Too early.

One mild summer evening I followed the other one, her slutty colleague. I followed her the whole way from Medborgarplatsen to Hornstull Beach via Mariatorget and Fogelströmska High School, as twilight fell over Söder. I was careful to keep a distance so she wouldn’t see me. But I didn’t need to worry, because she never turned around, just walked as if she was in a hurry; as a matter of fact she was almost scampering, she looked a little crazy .
    Like an overgrown kid .
    At Hornstull, she veered off and went down toward the water, the market, and the outdoor café by the pier. I watched as she embraced a man, kissed him lightly on the mouth, and sat down with him at the café .
    I was sitting on a pile of lumber at a safe distance, smoking, while I observed them through the throngs of people; she looked cheap but I have to admit, not without a certain style. She was wearing a pink T-shirt dress with a deer printed on the chest and a deep neckline that she consciously let slide down over one shoulder to reveal an angry green bra strap. Bare, tanned legs, worn Converses on her feet, her hair tied back in a careless bun .
    The man across from her looked younger than her. He was wearing worn jeans, a hoodie, and something that looked like a Palestinian scarf wrapped tightly around his bearded neck. His long, frizzy hair was fastened in a ponytail at his neck .
    I really wanted to know what they were talking about, but it was impossible, even though they were sitting only a few yards away, with the loud mass of people scurrying back and forth the whole time .
    Then the other one leaned over toward the man and played with a lock of hair that had come loose from his ponytail. She smiled and looked at him with a gaze that could not be described in any other way than horny. The guy in the Palestinian scarf took her hand, laughed, and squeezed it. She laughed back, wriggled out of her shoes, and unabashedly put her feet on his lap .
    I leaned forward to see better. The man’s facial expression had frozen and he was squeezing her hand harder now. It looked white. She grinned, and as I leaned forward I could see her feet kneading, massaging, and caressing his crotch. A sudden wave of nausea and dizziness forced me to turn around and take a deep breath of the damp night air .
    Suddenly everything was spinning. I wanted to get away from all this decadence, away from all the bodies, all the flesh and desire. All the emotions that I had to exert so much energy to restrain .
    The filth, the sweat, and the stench of the crowd oppressed me with renewed vigor, and suddenly the people in front of me seemed to flow together to create a single large organism. A stinking, moaning, passive amoeba of human urges and desires that encircled me as I sat helplessly, with a cigarette butt between my fingers .
    I got up and shakily left the place: disgusted, nauseated, and without looking back .

The evening has turned into a black, late-summer night, and the air around me is damp and raw. My house rests like a sleeping animal between softly rounded rocks and pine trees forced to their knees by the wind. I hear the sound of the sea as I jog along the narrow gravel path toward my door. I have to remember to install some