Method Acting

“We need to talk”, Gaby announces, her voice dropping deep. Her nostrils always flare when she is serious, and her resonance moves down to her chest. It’s a cue for me to listen. She means business when her nose widens. I set down my white coffee cup. The standard IKEA mugs you would find in any small Swedish island. Three stripes of coffee run down the red lipstick smudge where my lips met the rim. I don’t want my Americano to grow cold. I prefer when the heat lingered briefly on the tip of my tongue. You can manage a lukewarm cappuccino or flat white, but not an Americano.

“I am not sure if you are committed to the relationship anymore. It seems like I have to drag you out every time. I can’t even tell if you even enjoy spending time with me. I understand your mental state, but I need some assurance,” she says, her voice filled with disappointment rather than anger. She is a Swede after all; nobody taught her to be angry. She never had to perform anger, with her happy family and near-perfect life. Her biggest tragedy in life is a pet allergy. She is a simple person, or would it make sense if I say “normal” person? She sought happiness, she looked forward to life. She wants a house and children at some point. I dread commitment. I refuse to see differences when things are going well, commonalities are enough to indulge.

She’s right, though. Ever since I lost my job, I haven’t been putting myself out there. The curtains on my French window, the only source of sunlight in my apartment, remained shut. I avoided everyone, especially Gaby. She, of all, was making it hard for me to perform the low phase. I needed to feel pity and needed to perform it properly. Even saying “I’m between jobs” or “I’m looking for the next opportunity” felt like I was denying myself the tragedy. It must be “I lost my job.” It must carry the weight of a certain loss that I wanted the other person to feel when I say it. Not that I particularly liked the job, but the fact that I lost it felt like an important detail to underline. Swedish social security has me covered for the next year, with food and rent taken care of, but I still craved a particular emotion, a genuine loss. A little bit of tragedy needed to be in the air, and I made sure of it.

I began by canceling plans. No more concerts, no more bars; they were reserved for happy people. I could only afford myself the comfort of a fika with an americano and a cinnamon bun at Coffee House 72, one of the cheapest cafes in Södermalm. I would straight away reject her ideas for backpacking trips, claiming I had to be in the city to line up interviews. I knew none were coming up but, remaining in character was an essential tool for method acting. I couldn’t slip.

I only agreed to the Vaxholm boat ride because it was covered under a standard Stockholm travel ticket. It was the absolute maximum value for money in Stockholm travel. You got a 90-minute boat ride on a 75-minute ticket, and if planned properly, you could connect to a 40-minute train ride on top of it from my apartment in Barkaby, a new suburban residential hub on the northwestern edge of Stockholm city. I agreed, as taking advantage of the system would suit the role of an unemployed Indian woman. Everything must be squeezed.

Vaxholm was one of the hundreds of islands surrounding Stockholm. Not sure if it was the biggest, but the most popular one. The boat ride offered a serene calmness, the first I experienced in weeks. We stood at the stern on the lower deck of the small, two-level ferry. I wanted to reach down and catch the spray of Baltic Sea water churned up as the boat steered forward. Seagulls filled the cloudy purple sky, and the water below, with a tint of brown, was crowded with ugly jet skis. The sight annoyed me, spoiling the landscape that my eyes wanted to capture. Gaby was busy island-spotting and occasionally shared her observations: “Oh, that one is too rocky to grow a garden, or this one is too small and wouldn’t exist in a hundred years.” We both agreed the small red cottages on the edges were far more charming than the big mansions. I felt a sense of happiness immediately followed by a rush of guilt for being happy. How could I allow myself the pleasure of travel?

I had already failed my working-class upbringing simply by being unemployed. A white woman could never understand the weight of that failure. Maybe Annie Ernaux will. She knew what it meant to be working class, someone with a summer house would never understand the burden of generational debt. It didn’t matter that I am trans, I still needed to perform the duties of a firstborn.

What could she possibly understand as a cis, white, bourgeois woman with white-collar parents? I wanted to accuse her. I wanted to make her feel guilty; arm twist the conversation, but the green vein running down her arm made the performance all the more difficult.   

It was not that I didn’t love Gabriella; in fact, losing her would hurt more than being unemployed. She was one third of the reason I remained in this cold, distant society where shopping malls closed at 5 PM on weekends, and most cafes sold no more than three types of pastries. Budapestrulle,  Morotskaka and the standard sticky Kladdkaka. 

I met Gaby two years ago at a ride week event organized by a sapphic group to meet new people. The venue was a lesbian run bistro; one of the legendary spots on the waterfront, as I would learn later. A game of sapphic bingo play was put together for icebreaking, with extra lead-up questions like “What’s your fav queer novel? What are the other events you are planning to attend?” How else would two people in Sweden even talk to each other?

The sheet was filled with 16 prompts. “Owns a flannel shirt, been to a Lady Gaga concert, has U-Hauled, seen The L Word, owns a sex toy, had a threesome,” and so on. You approached a stranger, asked a random question and if both answered “yes,” you signed off on each other’s sheet. There was a gift bag for whoever finished first, but it was safe to assume no woman was keen on the prize.   

As an Indian, I was playing it safe, carefully avoiding all the sexually explicit questions. By the time I bumped into her, only the awkward ones were left. A 5’10 brunette with freckles and mild curls. I assumed her reading glasses were tucked somewhere between her water bottle and umbrella in the 15” mustard-colored Fjällräven. The current novel that she was reading would be safely lying with a custom-made bookmark placed just shy of the halfway mark. A brunette with freckles must wear glasses. She was wearing a flannel, an easy point. My sheet was already signed by one Erika against that prompt. Why Erika?

Owns a sex toy… I played it shy, avoiding eye contact. She answered with a cool, unhinged, “of course.” I said, “Me too,” a complete lie, but I wanted my name on her sheet. She signed GABY in capitals, “short for Gabriella,” she introduced.

“Do you have any nickname?” She was already extending the conversation beyond the polite necessity. In New York or London, you would brush that off, but in Stockholm, a huge sign. I couldn’t afford to miss it.  “You could invent one for me,” I replied. I wish I knew how to wink. Is winking even a thing? What’s the sapphic equivalent?

She smiled with near-perfect teeth as I signed my name ANANYA in capitals, copying her. I thought the capital was a vital detail. I noticed her olive-green Birkenstocks as she walked past me to fill her six remaining slots. I counted the empty boxes, but did she sign every sheet in capitals? I couldn’t say, but she signed mine in capitals.  

We followed the standard Swedish routine. Exchanged Instagram handles, scheduled a fika three full weeks in advance, dodged heavy political topics, shared hobbies. She liked walking in the woods and jogged three days a week. I preferred lifting but refused to flex my biceps when she asked. “It’s such a macho display for a trans woman to perform in public,” I told her. I wasn’t inviting her for private viewing but secretly wished she’d read it that way. I must perform my gender. 

She read Deborah Levy and Patti Smith; I swooned over Annie Ernaux and Natalia Ginzburg. All my favourite writers are women, socialists or communists. She held a particular interest in philosophy and passion for queer theory, while I could deliver a flawless lecture on Kollontai. She was in her late twenties, I in my early thirties; a small gap but a huge difference. I naturally took on the role of the wise one.

We struck a delicate power balance, like the universe was settling into equilibrium. Balance is critical in love; you cannot climb too high nor sink too low. You have to find a sweet spot, like the window seat next to the exit on metros facing the direction. I am sure some moderately famous white guy with an American accent would have said something quotable like “Everything in this world is about power, including money, love and sex”.  

Gaby is half- German and half-Swedish, which explains her freckles and red hair. She fell instantly in love with my dosais. All white people fall for dosais, at least three that I can name. There is something inherently sapphic about rolling the thin golden crispy layer with three fingers and dipping it into vibrant chutneys. Or perhaps it’s the primal instinct of having to eat with hands. The cultural hype for Indian food among white liberals worked in my favor. I could invite her home and steal a kiss. She smelled like a mix of raspberry, jasmine and lavender. Jasmine reminded me of home. She could be home, I thought.

Gaby wore her grandmother’s tan leather-strapped Cartier when she wasn’t running, and tapped her index finger against the table while waiting for food. She always asked for receipts and paid with a physical credit card. Before leaving the apartment, she checked twice for keys, wallet, mobile and headphones. She never wore new clothes without washing them first and took pride in the three jumpers she had upcycled. She sneezed after sex and preferred sleeping on the side of the bed closest to the wall. She flossed her teeth for four minutes and cleaned the toilet bowl daily before going to sleep. She switched between pale green and light pink nail polish endlessly and did not own a single pair of clothing in bright vibrant colors.

We had a routine in place; she couldn’t function without one. We visited modern art museums on Fridays and drank two glasses of red wine over dinner. Merlot for her, and Pinot Noir for me. She was particular about her palette and would usually ask if they had both by glasses when going through the menu. I stuck with Pinot Noir because it was the only wine I knew when I arrived from India five years ago. Ordering in a fine-dining establishment was the ultimate test an immigrant must pass.

So much of your social legitimacy depended on how you hold your knife, where you rest your napkin, the size of your bite and whether you could chew without making a sound. She had her concerts lined up, and we split the bill like every couple. She baked cookies when she came over and demanded cuddles when she was sleepy.

I admired that about her; she could ask and not let me assume. Her German genes did their job fairly well.  I could guess, but my overthinking usually spiralled beyond my ability to control. I would then observe everything; Wasshe fidgeting? How often did she check her phone? How long did she laugh at my jokes? How many times did her voice crack? I was very particular about my jokes; I took immense pride in them.  

I would then have to continue tracking how long before we repeated the restaurants, which woman’s names surfaced in our conversations and how often. If the same name popped up three times in a week, should I worry? I was far too good at assuming, usually the worst, so it was a relief when she spelled it out.  

The thickness of her flannels grew, and layers under my skirts multiplied as the temperature dropped. We planned picnics during summer, road trips for autumn and spent our winter evenings inside galleries. She handled the driving, and I counted the non-Volvo SUVs on the highway. I was too delicate when it came to directions and driving. It wasn’t a performance but a genuine shortcoming. A cliché autistic trait she would tease. “I already have enough adjectives under my belt,” I would retort. I enjoyed our gender roles. They were stereotypical, but we all need some cliches to feel “normal.” My femme presentation was a hard-earned crown that I was not giving away to someone for whom it was granted as birthright. I refused to be mistaken for a they/them. It might work for others, but she/her recorded the violence of my past far more accurately.    

It was all too good to be true. Like a manifestation out of a daydream when I packed my suitcases in Chennai. Life wasn’t supposed to be this easy or predictable. I did hold back, was careful, doubtful and measured before committing. I even dropped “I am with you only for the visa” jokes only after I got my PR. Her obsessive attention to detail bothered me even after I cracked the OCD jokes. I wanted reasons to be annoyed. I couldn’t imagine surviving a relationship where there were no reasons to be annoyed or resentful. She challenged my intellect, her knowledge in history and art ran deeper. Her painting skills outclassed my writing abilities. I enjoyed being powerless for the first time. I had never let my guard down like this before, and there are days I wondered if I could sustain it in the long run.

I suspect it must be one of the reasons I felt strangely lighter and calmer when the layoff was announced. Life went back to normal. It was unpredictable again. I did get angry, a flash of rage over losing the job like a cis white man. I did not drag my brown trans ass through endless hurdles to be made redundant by a bunch of timid Swedish men. If it had been Americans, I could understand, but being done by Swedes cut deep. I couldn’t decide what bothered me more; having to check the price tag of every item, swapping overnight oats with nuts and seeds for a simple omelet, or Gaby’s unbearable kindness.

She became extra nice after I lost my job, and I hated her for that. She stopped talking about concerts, not even one mention of Patti Smith visiting Stockholm. I looked up the price, and the 75€ ticket would be too much; but I wanted her to mention Patti in a different context at least. Was her love being replaced by kindness, which may soon be destined for pity, and finally turn into contempt? I couldn’t stop spiraling. I noticed every tiny shift; when she didn’t touch the wine menu, when she suggested hunting for books in the Facebook Marketplace. When Friday evenings became movie nights.  

I still remember the first time I lied. I did not have a headache that day. Slowly, I stopped showing up. Today we met after three weeks for the trip, the longest gap since our friendship turned romantic. The strain was evident, and I know I orchestrated it. Gaby was perfect for good times, but right now, she seems completely out of place for the tragedy I am trying to perform.

As the disappointment in her voice cools down my Americano, I know it’s time. She cannot learn anger because of me.