We opened the ice-cream shop on Tuesday, and the third Ice Age began on Wednesday*. When I say, third Ice Age, I am actually referring to our first winter in Sweden. And when I say, our first winter in Sweden, I mean the snow blizzard of this morning.
Ruan says I have a tendency to exaggerate. I say hyperbole is a way of processing pain. We agree to disagree, which I suspect is why our marriage has lasted this long. What I will admit to is that I was ill prepared for the blizzard. In my defence, South African weather has three variations: warm, far less warm and roasting in the fiery ovens of humid hell.
Ruan and I have been in Sweden for nine months and when winter began, thick snowflakes gently drifted to the ground, performing what I can only describe as nature’s rendition of Swan Lake. Sure, it was colder than what I was used to, but I managed to get by with jogger pants and a T-shirt underneath a puffy winter jacket.
This morning was a different story. On the road to the ice cream shop, a short thirty metres from our apartment, tiny crystals swirled across the sky, flying at my face like needle-like daggers ready to stab my face. The constant gusts of wind made it harder to breath and my eyes watered for reasons I cannot yet explain.
“We are beyond the wall, man,” I groan, dusting off the snow from my jacket. My face is soaking wet.
“Winter is here,” he says, understanding my reference as I unzip my jacket.
“My face is sore and I am crying for some reason,” I gingerly pat the tender apples of my cheeks. “We are so beyond the wall!” I lament. “Who is going to save us? Where is Jon Snow?”
“He is in England, love.” Ruan is watching the inside of a huge mixer. “Stuck in a cost of living crisis like the rest of the northerners.”
“You mean like the rest of the world.” I hang up my jacket, beanie and slip off my boots at the back entrance of the shop. “You know what I think?” I say, sliding on the slippers we brought with us. “Swedes don’t need apartheid to understand mass injustice. Surviving winter every year is their version of mass brutality.”
“Dramatic much?” Ruan smiles.
“Don’t make light of human suffering, hon.”
“Anusha, I hope you’re reminding yourself that this is our first winter here.” Before I can pipe up with a response, Jonas walks in through the customer entrance. Jonas lives in the same apartment building as we do. By all accounts, Jonas hates immigrants. I only say this because our American neighbour, the forever friendly Michael, told Ruan that Jonas incessantly complains about immigrants in the building. On the group chat restricted to apartment owners, Jonas takes issue with how many foreigners are in the building, how many foreigners are not as fluent in Swedish as he and has shared a number of theories that the laundry room worked much better before immigrants lived in the building. Michael says Jonas hates Lidl for the number of foreigners that shop there and from our own encounters Jonas has never greeted, smiled or acknowledged us in anyway.
I’d love to say we are superior in our consideration but Ruan, raised on so much toxic masculinity that he might as well have been fed rage through his mother’s breast milk, plays chicken with Jonas on the pavements leading to our home. Ruan is certain Jonas intentionally refuses to politely walk on one side of the pavement to accommodate other people walking by, and for his refusal, Ruan purposely moves to the centre when he sees Jonas on the roads.
The one time, Jonas walked out of the elevator, past me and another neighbour—the long standing apartment dweller and equally Swedish, Elsa, and as Jonas moved through the second door of the building, Elsa muttered the word, “trångsynt” under her breath. Elsa is about twenty years younger than me, with plum-coloured hair and a tiny tattoo of a flying bird marking her left wrist. Elsa is Magda’s daughter. She switches from Swedish to English with the ease of a UN translator and always smiles at our son when we happen to see her in the building.
Jonas and Elsa are polar opposites.
I don’t believe Elsa expected me to hear her that day or that I would search the Internet to understand the word’s meaning. Often used to describe bigotry or prejudice, the word trångsynt shocked me. Then it frightened me. I have before raised my concerns with Ruan about how ideas might influence citizen behaviour toward us, but Ruan merely repeats his stubborn adage of ons is die mense (we are the people), suggesting that we are equally human and therefore equally deserving. We shouldn’t, to his mind, pander to any suggestion that we are not. Something about Ruan’s Afrikaner ancestry (a mix of German, Dutch and French descent) makes him bullish at the core. Afrikaners are those Africans that will not back down from a fight, even when it’s for their own good. I hate conflict. Maybe it’s the Indian ancestry buried in me, but I would prefer more cooperation and understanding.
“Hej Jonas,” I say, smiling. He ignores me and stares through the glass counter at the compartments of ice cream on display. He mumbles something. “Ursäkta mig, I am still learning Swedish…,” I say, hoping that he catches my drift. I hear Ruan sigh loudly and aggressively behind me. Jonas looks up at me and his mouth has disappeared into a thin line. He says nothing. The moments pass between me and him as I awkwardly smile, waiting for Jonas to make his order while he stares at me unblinking.
“Wat wil jy hê?” Ruan mutters in Afrikaans from behind me. It’s rude to ask someone what they want so bluntly so I start rambling cheerfully about how good the peanut caramel flavour is, scooping it up into a small cup for Jonas to try. He takes the cup and tastes the ice cream, looking away from me and Ruan, he concentrates as though he is the head chef of an expensive restaurant.
I hear the faint chime of the doorbell and see our neighbour Magda walk in. She glances at Jonas and her gentle smile vanishes. Pulling off her gloves, Magda stands away from the door, at arm’s length from Jonas. Seeing them together, I immediately notice how good looking a couple they would make. While we have lived in the building for nine months, Michael has filled Ruan in on all the gossip and inside info. Magda is a department manager at one of the big Swedish banking firms. She is divorced, has never remarried and summers in Denmark every year where her sister lives. Jonas runs his own automotive mechanic shop, managing a small staff that fixes cars privately. He is a widower. I notice that Magda and Jonas have the same misty grey eyes. While Magda is a willowy beauty in deeply lined soft skin, Jonas has a towering physique and haphazard spiky hair. I catch Magda’s eye and she smiles warmly at me. I wonder if a cup of ice cream will work on them both. But hey, there’s only one way to find out.
“Hej Magda, would you like to try our peanut caramel flavour? It’s a free tasting.”
“Okay,” she says and I hand her a small cup. “Michael told us he asked you to manage the shop. How is it going?”
“He showed us the ropes,” I glance back at Ruan who was actually the one taking mental notes in that meeting, “But it is our first week, we may burn the place down tomorrow.” Magda does not laugh. I find myself feeling a different kind of awkward. “I’m just joking,” I say quickly and she nods at me like a teacher to an odd child.
“Michael sa att glassen var gratis,” Jonas proclaims loudly. Before I can switch my brain to better concentrate on his words and decipher its possible meaning, Magda responds.
“Michael actually said any ice cream we buy would be discounted by fifty percent not given to us for free.” Jonas quickly looks at Magda and they’re now staring at each other. It feels like an old Western stand off. I am hoping no one dies.
“Michael won’t mind if we give you both free ice creams,” I cut in. “Ruan and I can cover the cost.”
“Excuse me?” The tone of Ruan’s voice is what I imagine matches his face, even though I don’t look back to find out.
“No!” Magda insists but Jonas’s face, for the first time ever, peels into a smile. It feels like a win.
“Yes, yes, of course,” I say, looking across at my two neighbours. “We can call it our treat.”
“Are you sure?” Magda says.
“Yes, Anusha, are you sure?” I glance back at Ruan and there’s the steady glare that says, he is pissed.
“Of course,” I repeat, dishing out the ice creams and handing one to Magda and Jonas respectively. They file out of the shop and Ruan sighs, muttering the words, you’re too nice. He ignores me for the rest of the day.
The shop’s closing time comes off the back of quiet boredom and once the clock hits three o’clock, we begin clearing up. The concentration of work and our quiet chatter over dinner plans make us deaf to what must have been the chime of the doorbell. Magda and Jonas I notice walk in to the store as a single unit, their bodies intimately close together.
“We wanted to come back and pay you for the ice creams,” Jonas announces, with a pleasant contentment to his face. “We don’t want you getting into trouble with Michael.” Did he say “we”?
“Thank you, but that won’t be necessary,” I say, waving at Jonas as he takes out his wallet. “Did you enjoy the ice creams?”
“Yes!” They both beam.
“Very good,” Jonas says, looking to Magda who places her hand on Jonas’s shoulder, leaning her head on him. “We were talking about holding a party for you two.”
“For us?”
“For everyone in the building,” Magda explains. “A day out.”
“A snow day!” Jonas smiles.
“You can bring your children and we can spend the morning outside, drinking some hot beverage.”
“Glögg.” Jonas nods eagerly.
“Or hot chocolate for the children,” Magda adds.
“I can make snacks for us to eat.” I look to Magda.
“Sure!” Jonas laughs. “It would be nice to try some Indian delights.” I don’t mention that I am not Indian but a South African. The camaraderie feels too good to mess up with details. “And we would like to know more about your…” Jonas looks past me, “people.” Ruan is as silent as the grave.
“We have checked the weather forecast,” Martha says, “and although anything can happen, we should try our luck tomorrow.”
“It will be a fika date,” I say and both Magda and Jonas say “Ja” for yes. The pair lift their hands to say goodbye and stride out of the shop. As the door shuts, Ruan speaks.
“What just happened?”
“Our friendly neighbours invited us to a get together,” I say turning to face him.
“Did you see Jonas?”
“How sweet of him to offer to pay us for the ice creams.”
“He spoke English to you.”
“Yes, he did.”
“Babe, the man has seen us hundreds of times in nine months and look at him.” He points to the wall-sized window that faces the empty street. “And Magda?” Ruan shakes his head, as if sorting through his thoughts. “Do you think they had sex?” he whispers.
“What?” I smile.
“She was hanging onto him like they were long lost lovers.”
“Love changes people, babe. Real love can change the world.”
“Don’t give me that starry eyed BS, you saw what I saw. Do you think they were high? Why are you so nonplussed about this? We are witnesses to a body snatching incident.”
“Maybe Magda and Jonas were inspired to be more open minded.” I glance back and look at the ice creams, recalling the pinch of old magic I added to the the milk.
“Jonas has done a complete 180 on us,” Ruan muses.
“Yeah.” I scoop myself some peanut caramel to taste. “Who knows? By the time Michael comes back from his business trip, the world might be a kinder place.”
*Writing prompt courtesy of Creative Writing in English