The Boy in the Suitcase - By Lene Kaaberbol Page 0,3

past the flag hill and into the woods. He inhaled the smell of resin and sun-parched trees, and for a moment was back with Granny Edita on the farm near Visaginas. He had spent the first seven years of his life there. Freezing cold and lonely in the winter, but in the summer Rimantas moved in with his Gran on the neighboring farm, and then the thicket of pines between the two smallholdings became Tarzan’s African Jungle, or the endless Mohican woods of Hawkeye.

“Looks like we can swim here.” Barbara pointed at the lakeshore further ahead. An old swimming platform stuck into the waters of the lake like a slightly crooked finger.

Jučas stuffed Visaginas back into the box where it belonged, the one labeled “The Past.” He didn’t often open that box, and there was certainly no reason to mess with it now.

“There are probably leeches,” he said, to tease her.

She grimaced. “Of course there aren’t. Or they wouldn’t let the children swim here.”

Belatedly, he realized he didn’t really want to stop her from taking her clothes off.

“You’re probably right,” he said, hastily.

She flashed him a quick smile, as though she knew exactly what he was thinking. And as he watched, she slowly unbuttoned her shirt and stepped out of her sand-colored skirt and string sandals, until she stood barefoot on the beach, wearing only white panties and a plain white bra.

“Do we have to swim first?” he asked.

“No,” she said, stepping close. “We can do that afterwards.”

He wanted her so badly it sometimes made him clumsy like a teenager. But today he forced himself to wait. Playing with her. Kissing her. Making sure she was just as aroused as he was. He fumbled for the condom he always kept in his wallet, at her insistence. But this time she stopped him.

“It’s such a beautiful day,” she said. “And such a beautiful place. Surely, we can make a beautiful child, don’t you think?”

He was beyond speech. But he let go of the wallet and held her for several long minutes before he pushed her down onto the grass and tried to give her what she so badly wanted.

AFTERWARDS, THEY DID swim in the deep, cool waters of the lake. She was not a strong swimmer, had never really learned how, so mostly she doggy-paddled, splashing and kicking. Finally she linked her hands behind his neck and let herself be towed along as he backstroked to keep them both afloat. She looked into his eyes.

“Do you love me?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Even though I’m an old, old woman?” She was nine years older than him, and it bothered her. He didn’t care.

“Insanely,” he said. “And you’re not old.”

“Take care of me,” she said, settling her head on his chest. He was surprised at the strength of the tenderness he felt.

“Always at your service,” he murmured. And he thought that perhaps the family in the dream was him and Barbara, perhaps that was the point of it all—him and Barbara, in the house just outside Krakow. Soon.

Just one little thing to be done first.

SATURDAYS WERE SIGITA’S loneliest days.

The week went by quite quickly; there was work, and there was Mikas, and from the time she picked him up at kindergarten shortly before six, everything was done in a strict routine—cook, eat, bathe the child, tuck him in, lay out his clothes for the morning, tidy up, do the dishes, watch a little television. Sometimes she fell asleep to the drone of the news.

But Saturdays. Saturday belonged to the grandparents. From early morning the parking lot in front of their building was busy as cars were packed full of children and bags and empty wooden crates. They would return Sunday evening laden with potatoes, lettuce, and cabbage, and sometimes fresh eggs and new honey. Everyone was going “up to the country,” whether the country was a simple allotment or a grandparental farm.

Sigita was going nowhere. She bought all her vegetables at the supermarket now. And when she saw little four-year-old Sofija from number 32 dash across the pavement and throw herself into the bosom of her hennaed, sun-tanned grandmother, it sometimes hurt so badly that it felt as if she had lost a limb.

This Saturday, her solution was the same as it always was—to make a thermos full of coffee and pack a small lunch, and then take Mikas to the kindergarten playground. The birch trees by the fence shimmered green and white in the sun. There had been rain during the night, and a