In Every Moment We Are Still Alive by Tom Malmquist

Author:Tom Malmquist
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2018-01-30T00:00:00+00:00

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All the books I have not read or have read and do not want to read again I put in removals boxes. In the flyleaves of some of them are little Christmas greetings or congratulations from friends or old boyfriends of Karin’s. Two of the books she has borrowed from Hornstull Library. Doris Lessing’s The Fifth Child and Nina Bouraoui’s Nos baisers sont des adieux. They must be at least a month overdue. The library card has to be shredded, I’ll need to do that, after the funeral I have to go to Hornsbruksgatan 25 and say: Karin Lagerlöf won’t be borrowing any more books. I fetch a scouring cloth from the cupboard under the sink. The door of the guest room is closed. It sounds as if Lillemor is turning on the bed inside and leafing through a newspaper. I don’t hear Livia. I go back and clean up the mess around an over-watered and leaking Monstera, or Adam’s rib as it is also called, and in the process I almost wipe away a couple of coffee stains under Karin’s desk. She avoided caffeine during the pregnancy. So the coffee stains must be older than 26 August 2011, Karin’s thirty-fifth birthday, the same morning that she put aside the champagne from Reims and came back with a Clearblue digital pregnancy test indicating that she was pregnant, in her second or third week. I save the stains, photograph them, then go and get Karin’s coffee cup from the corner cabinet, in fact it’s an antique teacup from Gefle porcelain factory with a gold rim and a crinkled surface. I sit on Karin’s chair and try to imagine her writing on her laptop and spilling the coffee. She must have been bringing a full-to-the-brim cup towards her while at the same time twisting towards the bookshelf. On the edge of the shelf I see an A4 sheet with transparent tape on it. Karin’s slightly slanted handwriting in green felt-tip:

TO BE PURCHASED BEFORE MAY

Pram

Changing table

Cot

Sheets

Pillow

Duvet

Raincover or parasol for pram?

Nappy bag

Sling?

Babybjörn

Car seat Bathing oil

Hat

Comfy trousers

Cardigan

Jumper, warm

Overall

Socks

Babygros

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