WHAT IS THERE TO TELL ABOUT THE ACTUAL DEPARTURE?

The publicity around the private grief? The newspapers that pushed into our lives. Stomped on what was painful. Magazines with cover pictures from our first times together. Smiling and happy faces with black captions: “HIS NEW LIFE WITHOUT LIV. READ THE END OF THE STORY.” In our misery we were on an intimate footing with half of Scandinavia.

A reporter called in friendly commiseration and said that I could choose’ to tell the truth myself, or else place the press in such a position that they would have to write their own version. Another asked if I had the telephone number of his new woman.

I had to sneak out of a hotel room and run down the back stairs because there were photographers waiting at the main entrance. Dark glasses to conceal a grief—a little human suffering running by in a picture makes for good sales. Especially when the text furnishes an intimate account of disaster.

I remember standing in a back alley among garbage cans and laundry lines, waiting for a car. In my dramatic way I experienced the situation symbolically and decided that I couldn’t spend the rest of my life like this. Among garbage cans.

I remember friends waiting at the airport when I arrived in Sweden right afterward. I was frightened and shy before all the looks and remarks. The girls had champagne and placards. They were standing in hippie fashion, waving their texts which said: “LIFE GOES ON.” “

I laughed for the first time in ages and spilled champagne on the terminal floor.

We stayed up all night at Bibi’s house. Four or five women, each with a love story to relate. Each with a place, somewhere on earth, where they could no longer return.