Mistress as Perpetrator: The Bait-and-Switch of Male Guilt in Lena Andersson’s Acts of Infidelity

Poet Nicole Yurcaba reviews Lena Andersson’s Acts of Infidelity from Other Press, 2019

In Lena Andersson’s emotionally-charged novel Acts of Infidelity, readers follow the tormented relationship of Ester Nilsson—translator, prolific writer, and poet, and Olof Sten—erratic actor extraordinaire and womanizer-in-denial as it consumes three years of their lives and snuffs out with a single text message sent from Ester to Olof’s wife, Ebba. In poignant prose that wrenches readers’ guts and leaves them empathizing with Ester, Andersson’s novel also places the role of the ever-scrutinized and eternally judged “the other woman” in the position of an emotional abuse victim. By its end, however, the novel’s focus switches from Ester’s raucous emotional tidal waves as she navigates her and Olof’s on-again-off-again romance to Olof’s disillusionment and denial, as well as his male privilege, which position him to twist the true story of the affair and cast Ester as a stalker and a rapist, roles he actually convinces himself she fulfilled because he does not want to admit his own major part in the affair.

When their relationship first unfolds, Ester observes about Olof “His ability to make precise observations.” This ability makes Ester happy, and she espies “but that’s not what had drawn her in, for infatuation is primitive, not sophisticated.” Ester participates in the relationship with Olof believing he liberates her in ways no one else can or has: “You love those who give free rein to the parts of you with which you are comfortable and feel at home, whether or not those parts are rotten or healthy, scuffed or polished to a shine.” Though Ester possesses this awareness, she sees only the good, the positive, the affirming in Olof, and she convinces herself she is in love wit him, despite her view that infatuation is primitive. Olof at first resists Ester’s pursuit, but he eventually consents, and the relationship progresses into one consisting of more contact, including copulation. Nonetheless, at various points, Olof expresses denial by, at the most random times, telling Ester “We’re not in a relationship.” Olof’s verbal denial of his relationship with Ester is an example of how Olof’s male privilege allows him to determine the parameters of Ester’s relationship without Ester’s input, and the denial creates a type of plausible deniability that Ester cannot possess within the relationship because of the instituted power structure defined by a patriarchal society. By stating “We’re not in a relationship,” Olof establishes that no matter how Ester might dispute his denial and no matter what evidence she might present to the contrary, he is free from the guilt and the adultery engaging in a romantic relationship with another woman might incur. Olof’s pursuit of Ester via romantic interludes at designated places across Sweden contradict his verbalization, nonetheless.

Olof, too, is older than Ester. While many concur that any relationship possesses a power imbalance, others agree that age-disparate relationships possess an even greater power imbalance since the power and experience gap widens. In terms of socio-economic balance, Ester seems to possess the advantage: she is a successful, well-respected writer and translator. Olof is an actor who seems to rely on the income and status of his wife Ebba’s notoriety as a respected doctor. Although Olof determines the relationship’s parameters by posing times and places of interludes and ultimately deciding when he and Ester can meet, he relies on Ester’s willingness to buy him gifts, pay for meals, and at one point buy a car in which to transport Olof wherever he and she please. Despite Ester’s frustration with the financial scenario, she does not defy or protest, for she fears losing Olof, knowing he holds the ultimate say in whether or not their relationship continues.

Ester too enters a form of denial, and it is perpetuated by the a key factor of male privilege exhibited by Olof: Olof interrupts, even overshadows and ignores, Ester’s desires, needs, assertions. She states, “True passion, fire in the blood, couldn’t be communicated to those who were cast in stone. They didn’t understand it. If you could resist something because at some point, one day it might cause pain, it was something you could live without altogether.” She convinces herself Olof lives “in agony—like that of an abused child faced with its parents’ rage, the relief when it dissipated—and thought that one must show great understanding toward the broken.” She observes Olof’s habit of preempting disappointment “by disappointing,” and she resolves to herself “One must endure and be patient with those who have been damaged by their environment.” Ester sees Olof as a victim of his circumstances, particularly his miserable marriage, and she sees herself as guiltless. She possesses sympathy for him, something she believes no other human can offer Olof. This sympathy and savior-like attitude overshadow Ester’s reason, at first.

Ester contemplates the mistress’s role as defined by a patriarchal society, observing that traditionally, a mistress “will toy with a man, using him to pass the time, but love him she will not…She liberates the husband from tristesse and the mutual vulnerability of coupledom, while destroying the marriage—enemy of the wife and divider of womankind.” Ester believes she does not fit this definition because she “loves” Olof and continually confesses her love for him to him. She does, however, desire to see Olof’s marriage to Ebba end, though at the novel’s beginning she does not want the responsibility for the marriage’s ending. Ester does not see herself as toying with Olof either. Instead, she eventually does recognize Olof’s emotional and sexual toying with her midway through the text. Furthermore, Ester begins recognizing that she, not Olof, is the victim of circumstance, since Olof holds power in the relationship by defining and redefining the relationship’s sexual boundaries, his intentions, and his pursuit of Ester. Eventually, Olof grows more and more defensive when Ester insists Olof push Ebba toward divorce because though Olof does not possess the self-inquiry or self-awareness to recognize his lack of blamelessness in the relationship, Ester, and readers, do. Thus, the aspect of male privilege Olof exerts is that which allows for men to participate in promiscuity without having to face contempt or derision.

This lack of culpability granted to Olof because of his gender allows the bait-and-switch to occur. After Ester, who reaches a point of desperation as well as exasperation in regards to her relationship with Olof, texts Olof’s wife Ebba and confesses the three-and-a-half year affair to Ebba, Olof engages in psychological terrorism. He does so by claiming he is the victim, that Ester pursued and stalked him, that he was afraid of her, even though for three-plus years he also engaged in the relationship. Rather than accepting and admitting to his role in the affair with Ester, because the patriarchal nature of society places Olof above Ester, male privilege allows Olof to make decisions without question, including those that allow him to engage in violence and control. Olof portrays Ester as the perpetrator, thus controlling both relationship as well as the narrative about the relationship, as well as the consequences about to overtake him because of his actions. Olof shifts blame in its entirety onto Ester, and he convinces himself and Ebba that Ester is “psychopathic” and “a stalker,” while resorting to cell phone harassment and calling her reporting to scream “Cunt!” and “Pig!” at her.

This psychological terrorism reveals how Olof truly views women—as disposable, as easily shapable. Without culpability, Olof twists the affair’s details and begins a ravenous rumor-fest during which he spreads slander and lies about Ester’s character. Nonetheless, no one, not even a close friend of Ester’s whom Olof contacts, commands Olof to stop—another “right” Olof has due to male privilege. Technically, because of his privilege, had Olof truly seen and believed Ester to be the stalker he accuses her of being, Olof could have asked for legal protection without being seen as selfish or special interest. Two years after Ester informs Ebba of her affair with Olof, an acquaintance of Olof’s, a quiet and critical scenographer, encounters Ester one day in a park as Ester sits reading. The scenographer describes Olof’s marriage as a series of accounts, and Ester’s action of texting Ebba created an imbalance of those accounts, forever filling Ebba’s, so much so that Ebba could now control Olof. The imbalance became the catalyst for Olof’s psychological terrorism, yet the scenographer remains convinced the blame was Ester’s alone, even though what it revealed is the fragility of the male ego despite that ego having the privilege.

Acts of Infidelity begins as a romance to end all romances, but it ends as a tragic story about one woman victimized and left with her reputation barely intact due to one man’s negligence, misogyny, and privilege. It is psychological, examining the consequences of chosen and formed environments, as well as the long-term damage fostered by those consequences. More importantly, despite its modernity and universality, it is a reminder to women of the second-class status they hold in even the most progressive countries, where even “privilege” and “human right” are still too often confused.
           
           
Nicole Yurcaba is a Ukrainian-American poet and essayist. Her poems and essays have appeared in The Atlanta Review, The Lindenwood Review, Whiskey Island, Raven Chronicles, Appalachian Heritage, North of Oxford, and many other online and print journals. Nicole holds an MFA in Writing from Lindenwood University, is the recipient of a July 2020 Writing Residency at Gullkistan, Creative Center for the Arts in Iceland, and is a Tupelo Press June 2020 30 for 30 featured poet. Her poetry collection Triskaidekaphobia is forthcoming from the UK press Black Spring Eyewear Group in 2022.