Sleet: Selected Stories

When he came home that afternoon he could hear the forester walking back and forth up in his room. Even though he felt like making a scene, he acted as if nothing was wrong, going out of his way to be friendly, nonchalant. But from this time on — perhaps without even realizing it — he began to collect evidence for his case. There is no detective so imaginative, no bloodhound or hunter so ruthless as a jealous husband.

The next day at recess he borrowed a bike from one of his colleagues. He told his class he had to take a very urgent telegram to the station and that perhaps he would be returning a few minutes late. When he left he actually rode off in the direction of the station, but once he was alone on the road a short while later, he carefully turned off and rode down a little path through the woods. He rode quickly, the bicycle rattling over stones and roots. He would approach the house from the rear and take them by surprise. A few hundred yards from the back gate he slowed down, got off the bike, and leaned it against a tree. He would walk the rest of the way.

At one point he stepped behind a bush and lit a cigarette to bolster his dignity in an otherwise undignified situation. The back gate was freshly oiled, so it didn’t creak. He stepped lightly through the yard, and above the sounds of the birds chirping and the rope repeatedly slapping against the flagpole, he could hear low voices coming from the bower. He drew in thick clouds of smoke from his cigarette as he peeked through the newly clipped bower entrance.

They were lying there in the grass, even though there was a table they could just as well have been using. Granted, they were only drinking coffee and they lay on opposite sides of a large tray filled with coffee cups, plates, and a basket of cookies, but his wife was wearing a pretty scarf which he had never seen before. She was also smoking, which she never did. The tone of their conversation was so low that he couldn’t make out much of what they were saying, just bits and pieces really, though he was trying very hard.

Recess, however, was short, much shorter than he had expected. So even before the teacher finished his cigarette he made his way around to the front of the house, threw open the door so that it could easily be heard, and stamped his feet on the floor as if he had snow on them. Then he moved over to the mirror in the hallway and blew smoke at his own flat reflection to impress it. A few seconds later he heard his wife’s footsteps on the porch steps. As soon as she came in and saw him, she stopped in her tracks. The scarf was no longer on her head.

“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “I thought I heard a sound in here.”

“So you did,” he said, flicking his cigarette on the floor and leaving it there for her to stamp out. Then he went back through the door and brusquely down the steps. He whistled as he passed the bower, which was completely silent now in the midday heat. But no — before he reached the gate he did hear the forester clear his throat and set his cup on a plate.

While the teacher was riding back through the woods, he came unexpectedly upon a small woman whose clothes were drenched in sweat. Right where the path suddenly curved, she was collecting pine cones and putting them in a sack. Her name was Mrs. Mattsson, the mother of one of the two girls he’d overheard in the hallway. As he pedaled past her, he could tell from the expression on her face that she would come to ponder a great deal over this strange midday meeting in the middle of the woods when he was supposed to be at the school, teaching. Stupid, he thought. Stupid, but unavoidable.

Alice got a broom and a dustpan from the kitchen and swept up the tobacco and ashes. Then she drank a few glasses of water and walked around opening windows to keep from suffocating. It was windy out, and she found this a great relief as she leaned out the big living-room window, allowing the breeze to fan the heat of her anxiety. But her relief was short-lived. A burning net with small unmerciful threads was closing around her body. She had to stick her hands inside her dress, dragging fingers across skin, to convince herself it was all just in her head. She wanted to run, but in a direction that did not exist, neither toward the bower nor toward Cederblom’s, nor the road, the school or the woods.

Now it sounded as if someone was coming through the gate. She heard the latch clang as the gate banged shut beyond the bower. A moment later Alice saw the sweaty little woman marching across her lawn, a large sack trailing behind her in the grass. The woman passed very, very close to the bower. As Alice stood there at the window she bit her lip, hoping that the forester would not suddenly call out to her, or come charging out of there, eager to grab and pull her towards him as he often did when they were alone. Alice hurried out and met the woman on the steps of the porch.