Free The Invoice by Jonas Karlsson

world, but she would have to go home and get married before she turned twenty-five. That was nonnegotiable. The family already had a number of candidates lined up back at home. I never really understood the point of that whole tradition of arranged marriage and the caste system, apart from the fact that it was the father who took the decisions, and that she belonged to a higher caste than most people and that this fling with me would be regarded as absolutely inconceivable. The sort of thing that simply didn’t happen. It was so far beyond the bounds of possibility that it was unthinkable.
    Eventually the whole family would be reunited back in India. But in the meantime she was able to live a relatively free life here in Sweden. The only requirement was that she studied hard and was still a virgin when she returned to Bombay.
    She wasn’t.
    She was very careful to start with. Me too. We talked a lot. Mostly about films, but gradually more and more about each other. She would light candles and incense. She had dark eyes—almond-shaped, that’s what people say, isn’t it?—and incredibly soft skin. Long hair, and oddly full cheeks given the fact that she was otherwise fairly slender. She often complained that her backside was too broad, and that her nose was too big, but she was actually astonishingly beautiful. I loved just looking at her. I told her, and I think she rather liked the fact that I did that. She was always beautifully dressed, in green, yellow, and red fabrics that looked extremely expensive.
    —
    We took every precaution we could. We never spoke to each other in public, and rarely let anyone see us together. We never phoned each other, and came up with a special code and secret signs that no one else would be able to understand. A twist of a bracelet would mean that there was a sealed letter at the reception desk where I came and went fairly regularly to pick up films and packages for the film club. To start with they were just short messages: “9 p.m.,” for instance. Which meant that at nine o’clock precisely I would step through the door on the other side of her block, cross the courtyard, and be let into her apartment a couple of minutes later. Never any knocking on doors. Never any doorbell.
    Once we were there we would stand for a while in the big living room, just looking at the view. We would talk about the weather and university, maybe about something that had happened. Sometimes she would offer me mineral water or juice of some sort. Then she would very slowly start to take off her thin layers of clothing, almost in passing, while we talked about something else or watched a film. When the film was over we would sit still and just wait. Breathing. Inhaling each other’s scent. Looking into each other’s eyes. Sometimes for several minutes. I never imagined I would ever meet a woman like her. In a way, I was just happy to be near her, but the prohibition of love and our mutual caution—the tentative way we approached each other physically—meant that the air in the room was charged with desire.
    Only after a number of weeks did we actually touch one another, slow, feather-light strokes, and it was even longer before we kissed. Slowly but surely we shifted the boundary of what was permissible. Once or twice relatives or guardians or governesses or whatever they were showed up. On one occasion, the state I was in meant that I had to hide on the balcony. Otherwise, I was a special tutor who was helping her with her studies. Maybe I was given a title and name, I don’t know. They would spend a long time talking. I didn’t understand a word, but to judge from their behavior it looked like they accepted her explanation. That uncle of hers never appeared. Maybe he had people who checked up on her for him. Either way, everyone seemed happy, and she remained unsullied in their eyes. None of them seemed able even to entertain the thought that anything untoward might be taking place in that