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Back Love and Other Lies Save as PDF
Chapters (61)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. Imagine a girl
  4. Prologue
  5. The Foreigner
  6. One
  7. Two
  8. Three
  9. Four
  10. Five
  11. The Skeptic
  12. Six
  13. Seven
  14. Eight
  15. Nine
  16. Ten
  17. Eleven
  18. Twelve
  19. Thirteen
  20. Fourteen
  21. Fifteen
  22. Sixteen
  23. Seventeen
  24. Eighteen
  25. Nineteen
  26. Twenty
  27. Twenty-One
  28. Twenty-Two
  29. Twenty-Three
  30. The Spectator
  31. Twenty-Four
  32. Twenty-Five
  33. Twenty-Six
  34. Twenty-Seven
  35. Twenty-Eight
  36. Twenty-Nine
  37. The Assassin
  38. Thirty
  39. Thirty-One
  40. Thirty-Two
  41. Thirty-Three
  42. Thirty-Four
  43. Thirty-Five
  44. Thirty-Six
  45. Thirty-Seven
  46. Thirty-Eight
  47. Thirty-Nine
  48. Forty
  49. Forty-One
  50. The Hunter
  51. Forty-Two
  52. Forty-Three
  53. Forty-Four
  54. Forty-Five
  55. Forty-Six
  56. Forty-Seven
  57. Imagine a girl
  58. Acknowledgments
  59. About the Author
  60. Also by Ben McPherson
  61. About the Publisher

Elsa turned to me. “I need you to understand that I will forgive you, Cal,” she said. “Though it will cost me.”

“Forgive me for what?”

“For the women. In the bars.”

“What women in bars?”

“Did you think I didn’t know?”

She was smiling as if nothing were wrong. Still, the accusation stung.

“Elsa, nothing has ever happened.”

“It will. For you, there will be a new life with one of these women. But I will forgive you, in time, because the man I married is a good man.”

“Elsa,” I said. “Please.”

Her eyes were clouded with tears. “Perhaps in time you will forgive me too.”

I took a step toward her. “Elsa, what have you done?”

For a moment I thought she would step toward me too, that she would let me take her in my arms. But she stood where she was.

She swallowed hard. She wiped her eyes with the pad of her right hand. “You’re a good man, Cal Curtis. I love you with all my heart. But you still haven’t understood.”

“Then help me understand.”

“We are going to spend some time apart.”

“Love, whatever this is, we can talk it out.”

Before she turned, she gave the slightest shake of her head. Then she left me standing, alone and forlorn.

And all the while Bror stood watching us, his arms folded, smiling.

Forty-Seven

When I rejoined the group I could not see Elsa.

“Cal Curtis,” said Paul Andersen. “Ask me a question.”

I looked at him.

“Anything you like,” he said.

The judges were standing in a huddle farther down the path. I could not see Tvist. Without him, his officers seemed unsure as to how to act.

I looked Paul Andersen in the eye. I could feel his cruelty, could feel the sheer terrifying energy of the man. But I would not be cowed.

“I have no questions,” I said.

“Ask my brother.”

“No questions,” I said. “Not one.”

This surprised him. He looked about him, then drew himself up to his full height. “We are knights. One day we shall return to battle. This is no metaphor.”

He was studying my reaction. He had prepared these words. He wanted the journalists around us to quote him, in English.

“Good for you,” I said, as if to a child. I looked away.

That’s when I saw Elsa. She was on one knee by the rocks that led down to the fjord, her body facing away. She stood slowly, turning as she did, leaving her gray bag at the side of the path. Now she was walking swiftly, knees slightly bent, eyes fixed ahead.