Exiles by Elliot Krieger Page A

are so many things I don’t cook.”
    “I’m a vegetarian,” Melissa said.
    “It seems to me damned hard to be a vegetarian in Sweden. No vegetables,” Spiegel said.
    “Sad but true,” Melissa said. “But there’s always rice. Sure you guys don’t want some?”
    “Rice, I can cook. But I will add something else, something you will like.”
    “Great, but maybe not right away. I’ve got rehearsals at night and all.”
    “Every night?”
    “Every night this week.”
    “Next week, then,” Jorge insisted. “Is that okay with you?” he asked Spiegel.
    “Fine. Dinner’s like a regular thing with me.”
    Jorge laughed. “If you like,” he said, “invite a friend as well. We can be a quartet. Like the Beatles.”
    “Sure,” Spiegel said. “I’ll ask that vackra svenska flicka in our class.”
    Jorge looked at Spiegel, puzzled. “Karin?” he said.
    “ Fröken Fält .”
    Spiegel saw Jorge to the door, and walked with him down the rough cement stairway—elevator still out of service—to the lobby. They stood for a moment in the courtyard by the front door. The ground was littered with the debris—planks, pieces of scaffolding, toppled buckets—tossed aside by the construction crew, which had left the job at sundown, that is, in the early afternoon. Jorge lit a Players and looked up at the windows in the adjacent building.
    “I live up there,” he said. “My old woman could be watching me, even now.”
    “Old lady.”
    “Yes. She trusts me. But you know, a man must have his, what do you say?—his foreign affairs?”
    “Sure,” Spiegel said. “It’s a free world.”
    “It’s good,” Jorge said, “if she’s looking, for her to see me here. With you.” He took a long draw on the cigarette, then crushed it out in the rubble with the toe of his black boot. He blew out a last wisp of smoke, then he lifted his gloved hand, looked up, and waved at a row of dark windows. As he waved, a light flicked on.

4
    A great paved wasteland split the city of Uppsala like an open wound. To the south was the old city and the pseudo-Gothic towers of the church, the castle, and the university. To the north lay the new city, office buildings of concrete and gleaming glass, the boxlike student tenements, and the long strips of residential housing that at last gave way to the farms and hills. The dividing line that separated the two worlds of Uppsala was the shopping mall, a long pedestrian walkway lined with window displays of teak furniture, stainless-steel kitchenware, cotton fabrics of bold geometric design, and ultralight winter clothing. Spiegel made his way among the drifts of crusty snow, stepping gingerly along the strips of cobbled pavement that had been cleared down to the bare ice. A wind cut to his bones, and he pulled the toggles to tighten the grip of his parka hood. This is not a day for people, he thought. It’s a day for sled dogs.
    When he reached the pottery warehouse at the far end of the mall, Spiegel stood in the doorway and slapped his mitts together to knock off the snow. It took him a minute to clear the steam from his glasses, another minute to kick the ice from the soles of his boots so that he could walk casually through the aisles, gazing up at the shelves stacked with teapots, canisters, Dutch ovens, and thousands of pieces of plastic dinnerware in a rainbow of colors. Suitable for play school or dollhouses, Spiegel thought. On display along the walls were radios and electronic appliances. Some men behind a counter in what seemed to be a repair shop were hunched over pieces of circuitry, probing about with stripped wire. A worker stood on a ladder, gently placing baskets on an upper shelf, while another ripped open packing crates stuffed with white straw. A bored cashier leaned against her register, flipping the pages of a fashion magazine. No customers, Spiegel noted. He made his way toward the back of the store, where he saw a man sitting on a stool by the doorway, idly polishing