something disturbs my sleep….but I don’t recall falling asleep. I remember and it was late…. it takes awhile to orient myself—still within dreams ….of crashing waves and piers and pirate’s beds
And then get the vaguest sense of last night’s conversation …. Jörn—but what is that annoying sound ….?
“What is that? —and why won’t it stop?!”
“That’s your phone,” Jörn says to me from behind my head
“Jörn,” as it slowly returns to me our conversation last night—or early this— “what time is it?” I ask him
“Snälla du! —svara på din jävla telefon!”
I say,
“what?”
as he reaches across me to get it from the table next to me and then drops it next to my head,
“it’s seven-thirty-two according to your phone, so we’ve had roughly three hours of sleep —and it’s Stina, so I think you better answer it,” he tells me as I cover my ears
But then the phone stops
“Oh thank god!” I say and bury my face under the pillow
but then it is only a few minutes later when
I hear Jörn curse under his breath and only once I come out from under the pillow can I hear someone tapping at the door
“She’s at the door,” he whispers to me
I start to say “answer it—“ until I realize that there is her proposition to deal with still and finding Jörn here would cause inconvenient suspicion
I watch him jump out of bed, and then swiftly grab his clothes and all evidence of his presence and then walk straight towards…. the bookcase? —and still stark naked— disappear behind it! and then he shuts it like a door! …what else, a spy glass?
Knock! knock! knock! (Stina)
While still a bit stunned yet more angry suddenly, and jump into motion mumbling to myself,
“who goes knocking on bedroom doors of someone else’s house?” searching for clothes so that I can answer the door and not be naked —where did my clothes from before disappear to …? And in search of anything to wear…. and wondering how things disappear ….I dig into my suit case and put on whatever haphazardly comes out. Ending up with a Hello Kitty t-shirt and black pinstripe trousers
and I do manage to get it zipped up before her next round of banging which gradually has begun to get louder
and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror (yikes, knullruffs), stepping into my Harley Davidson boots on the way to the door
“Yes??!” I say swinging open the door just as she had begun to knock again.
I can see I have set her off balance
But she looks at me and slowly starts to smile,
“nice look for you. Office attire or—?”
“Is there a reason you are knocking at the door at seven thirty?” I ask stepping outside the door into the hallway
“It’s seven-forty-five,” she says, “let’s go chat on the pavilion, do you want coffee?—they just made it fresh.”
“No, I want to go back in there and sleep for two more hours and then have a shower.”
“Let’s grab two coffees,” she says this as if I never said anything, “you will want to know what I have dug up on your sister—“
But my hand is still on the door handle,
“well, can you—do you mind if we…. it just seems it’s kind of too early in the day for grim, wicked sisters—“
But all lame attempts at fake friendliness disappears as she suddenly gets impatient,
“I need to ask you if you have given any more thought to our earlier conversation?”
“You mean about Jörn?” I ask
“Shhst!!!” she looks around and gives me an evil-eye look and after a moment where she is sure we are alone in the hallway, she says, “you know that’s what I mean. Well? Have you?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“So, you mean—you want me to—“
“You were his lover before, how unpleasant can it be?” she asks me very matter of fact
I almost laugh and have to fake a cough,
“and I get?”
“We can talk about the details but—first you would have unlimited access to information—“
“Why do you want to go after her?” I ask
“Who says I do?” she asks and laughs, “oh, no, no, no—people like your sister are small potatoes; she’s not exactly big terrorism and for international purposes, could you imagine I could care about your deranged Qanon organization—“
“Mine?” I ask, “it’s not mine. Don’t confuse me with—“
“Your sister.”
“Right!” I say but then I get her meaning…. “oh….” and think about that. But what exactly does she expect me to do with information like that? ….no, she’s just baiting me but because I think about what Jörn said I say,
“I mean…. sure— I’ll do it,” pretending more interest in what she said
“You know we are going after Retnuh,” she watches my face reaction and then she says, “so you will go back to being with him and be able to let us know where and what he is and up to?”
“Up to….?” I say
Then suddenly from behind us we hear,
“Stina!”
Jörn —freshly showered and wearing a pressed suit as if on his way to a board meeting ….is suddenly walking briskly towards us.
And once again, between them, I feel painfully underdressed by comparison in my Hello Kitty as I seem to be emerging from my sleepy haze and now notice what Stina wears; red dress and —again, spike heels
“Jörn!” Stina does her fake laugh, but then rattles off, at lightning speed, several phrases that leave me in the dust with my current grasp of their nuances of pronunciation
Jörn says, in English,
“Marcus is waiting for you in the courtyard.”
But then it is the strangest reaction! She says nothing at all in response and seems to momentarily look a bit taken by surprise before I see her face go bright red and then suddenly rush off without a single word
I look at Jörn,
“that was great! Thank you!”
“Well, we have another problem,” he tells me
“Ok….”
“You know that movie ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner’?”
“The original or—“
Jörn shakes his head and says,
“let’s just say that this would be called, ‘Guess Who’s Coming for Breakfast!’”
“Who’s coming?”
“My parents. So I need you to act like everything is fine between us.”
“Your parents are in Sweden.”
“My parents are at JFK. Surprise! I just got off the phone with Pappa.”
“You didn’t mention they were coming.”
“I didn’t know until five minutes ago —and it is the last thing I need as now as you know, it seems I am currently the moderator for an international spy convention….which was not something I’d had expected either.”
