by Jon Fosse
Oh now I don’t know about that, I say
You know it perfectly well, he says
and Beyer’s voice is firm
Yes, deep inside I probably do know something like that, I say
and then we’re standing there in silence and Beyer says that I’ve already achieved a lot, I’ve had my work bought by the National Museum of Art in Oslo, I have several paintings there, and several public institutions have bought pictures, and I mustn’t forget that The Bjørgvin Museum of Art has bought several paintings, still, most of my pictures, almost all, have been bought by ordinary people who really liked my pictures, and that’s also because he didn’t price them too high, a little high but not too high, since actually not a single one of my pictures has been sold for too high a price, he says, so you can’t complain, he says, there’s no reason to be dissatisfied, when I sometimes have even had shows at the Arts Festival in Bjørgvin, I’ve been an Arts Festival Artist, which is maybe the greatest honour a Norwegian visual artist can be given, he says, admittedly there were some people who weren’t happy about the show, there’s always someone who feels the need to act all big and important, and the person who was, and still is, the art critic for The Bjørgvin Times wrote that choosing me as The Arts Festival Artist was extremely strange, there were lots of people who painted better than me, he wrote, that idiot, Beyer says, but the art critic for The Bjørgvin Times has never understood art and it’s strange, Beyer says, that so often the people with the least feeling for what’s good art and bad art are the ones who decide to study art and become art critics, so in a way it was just as well that The Bjørgvin Times doesn’t even review my shows anymore, they did for the first few years, because back then Anne Sofie Grieg was the critic and she always wrote good, thorough reviews, but then the guy who thinks my pictures are too airy, too wispy, yes, too mystical, started writing for them and he only stopped recently and the newspaper started reviewing my shows again, and that’s good too, really, maybe that’s the best thing, despite everything, Beyer says and then he says that I probably won’t come to the opening this year either, will I, no of course not, he says
No, I say
and he says that I’ve never been to a single one of my openings, and I don’t agree to interviews anymore, he says, it was better when I did every now and then, and that was before I stopped drinking, no, I don’t exactly make it easy for him to sell my pictures, I don’t go to openings and I don’t give interviews, Beyer says, and he says that even so, despite that, my pictures usually sell well, usually all my paintings sell, or almost all, and the ones that don’t he keeps and when there are enough for a show of their own he sends them to The Kleinheinrich Gallery in Oslo, and they’re sold there, yes, almost all of them, and the pictures that don’t sell there he takes back, and sooner or later they’ll be exhibited in Nidaros, he says, but my best paintings stay in Bjørgvin, Beyer says and he gives a good laugh and now, yes, now there’ll soon be enough paintings that didn’t sell either in Bjørgvin or in Oslo for a show in Nidaros, the exhibition planned for a long time at The Huysmann Gallery in Nidaros, yes, he and Huysmann have known each other for all these years, it’s planned for this spring, so next year that’ll be no fewer than three exhibitions, one in Oslo, one in Nidaros, and of course the yearly show at The Beyer Gallery, he says, next year I’ll sell more paintings than ever before, Beyer says and he says that we can’t just stay standing around like this chatting away, it’s stopped raining so now we need to get the pictures inside, and then he puts a doorstop under the front door to hold it open and I go and open the door to the back of the car and then I say that I can carry the pictures inside on my own and Beyer says thanks thank you and he says that he’s so eager to see the pictures that he can barely wait, he says and then I go and get two pictures and Beyer goes into the gallery and he opens the door to The Bank and I go in there and I carefully put the paintings down on the floor and then I go back out and get more paintings and carry them inside and then I get the last two and carry them in and put them down in The Bank and then I go back into the gallery and Beyer shuts the door to The Bank and he says that it’s good to have the paintings safe and sound in The Bank, and he says that he’s looking forward to taking what I call the blankets off the paintings like a child looks forward to Christmas presents, yes
That’s how I like to do it, Beyer says
and I have to bring in the paintings wrapped in blankets, he says, and I say yes, right, and then we don’t say anything
Yes, well, typical Bjørgvin weather today, Beyer says
As soon as we get some snow the rain starts, he says
Yes, I say
But it’s good that it lets up every now and then between the showers, he says
And it feels good to have gotten the pictures in here, he says
and then Beyer says that he always waits to look at the pictures, to unwrap them and look at them, until he’s about to hang the exhibition, and since that’s what we always do he’ll do it alone this year too? Beyer says and I nod and I’ve painted the pictures’ titles on the back same as always, haven’t I, on the top edge of the stretcher, and then signed the picture itself with a big A in the lower right corner? he says and I nod and then Beyer says so everything’s as it should be and after he’s unpacked the pictures and hung them the way they’re going to be in the show he’ll take a photograph of each picture and then he’ll price the pictures and prepare a list of pictures with the title and price of each one, in the order they’re hung in, he says
We’ll do it the same way we’ve always done it, I say
Yes, this isn’t our first time, is it, Beyer says
and he says it’s my annual Christmas show, and I think I’ve never liked that expression, Christmas show, it’s really a marketing term, but that’s exactly what Beyer is like, in large part, he’s a huckster, a businessman, and he likes words like that, and in a way it’s good that he’s like that because I need to make money and if Beyer wasn’t a huckster I’d probably be in bad shape when it came to money, I think, and then I think that even though I like Beyer a lot there’s something about him that makes me uncomfortable, so we’ve never truly become friends, we’re too dissimilar for that, maybe it has to do with me being a country kid and he a city kid, maybe it’s because his family are big city people and mine are more humble, just ordinary country people, I think, and I think Beyer’s a good person, I like him, but I do get tired of him pretty quickly, he gets on my nerves, there’s something about his eagerness that gets to me, so whenever we see each other it’s always a pretty short meeting and a bit forced and I tell Beyer I have to leave, I have some errands I need to run, I say, and then I ask Beyer if he’d be so kind as to call me a cab and Beyer says of course of course and then he goes to the telephone and calls for a taxi and then he comes over to me and says that a taxi’ll be here right away and then we stand there by the door to the gallery and look out at the rain and slush and neither of us says anything and then Beyer says just to say something that he’s really looking forward to these pictures, he’s as excited to take them out of their blankets as a little boy is to unwrap his Christmas presents, he says and he says that he has to wait, and not look, not peek, no, he’ll wait until three days before the opening and only then will he take the blankets off the pictures, one by one, and then he’ll look at each picture for a long time before carrying it into the gallery and putting it on the floor where he thinks it should be hung, and then he’ll go and get a new picture, one by one, until all the pictures are standing against the wall on the floor of the gallery and then he’ll stand and look at each picture for a long time one by one and think about how each picture goes with the next one and so on and then he’ll move the pictures around until they’re in the order he sees in his mind, and most of the time, when it comes to my paintings, he can feel sure of it pretty quickly but it doesn’t always go so well with other artists, but it’s important that the whole show is like a single picture, because as soon as someon
e comes into the room they should feel like they’ve kind of entered into a picture, the room itself should be like a picture, a picture you can enter into, Beyer says and I think that it’s obvious that the picture all my pictures come from would in a way fill the room, I think and Beyer says that he doesn’t know what exactly makes it that way, it’s not something to put into words, because you can’t put what a good picture says into words, and as for my pictures the closest he can get is to say that there’s an approaching distance, something far away that gets closer, in my pictures, it’s as if something imperceptible becomes perceptible and yet still stays imperceptible, it’s still hidden, it is something staying hidden, if you can say it that way, my pictures kind of talk to the person looking and at the same time it’s impossible to say what the picture says, because it’s a silent kind of talking to you, yes, that’s what it is for him, Beyer says and then he says that he’s just blabbing away and I see a taxi pull into one of the parking places in front of The Beyer Gallery and stop next to my car and Beyer holds out his hand to me and says thank you thank you and we’ll talk again soon and I say thank you too and then I go out to the taxi and I open the rear door and I get in and I say I want to go to The Hospital
I think I just drove you to The Hospital yesterday, or whatever day it was, The Taxi Driver says
It’s possible, I say
and even though he recognizes me I have no memory of him at all
Yes I do believe it must’ve been you, he says
May well be, I say
Are you going in for a checkup or something? The Taxi Driver says
and he turns his head a little to look at me
No I’m visiting a friend, I say
and The Taxi Driver drives and doesn’t say anything and then he says that it’s always like this in Bjørgvin, as soon as it snows it starts raining, he says, and that’s all well and good as long as it doesn’t get cold enough for the sludge to freeze to ice, yes, then you’re risking life and limb to walk or drive in Bjørgvin, he says, but life must go on, even in icy conditions, The Taxi Driver says and then he sits there silent for a moment and then he signals and pulls over in front of The Hospital and stops by the entrance and he says how much it’ll be and I pay and then I say thank you for the ride and then I go into The Hospital and I go over to the reception desk and the woman sitting there slides the window open and I say who I am and the person I’d like to see please and the woman sitting at the reception desk flips through some pages and then says that Asle has to rest, it’s written here that no one can disturb him, no one can go see him, the doctors have decided that, he needs his rest, he needs to get his rest, he needs peace and quiet, she says and I ask when she thinks I’ll be able to visit Asle and she says that she can’t say and then she says that I can call The Hospital and ask when I can come
I guess you’re saying he’s seriously ill? I say
Yes that’s what that means, she says
But is his life in danger? I say
It’s possible, she says
and I stand without moving and without saying anything
I’m a close friend, it was me who brought him in, I say
and she nods
First we went to The Clinic and then they sent him here to The Hospital, I say
and she nods and says yes if someone is seriously ill then they’re transferred at once from The Clinic to The Hospital
Yes, I say
But I just wonder if he needs anything? if there’s anything I can bring him? or buy for him? I say
and the woman sitting at the reception says that I don’t need to worry about that, he doesn’t need anything besides what he has now, he’s just lying in bed and sleeping most of the time to regain his strength, she says and I say thank you and I stare blankly straight ahead into empty space and nothingness and I see Asle lying there with lots of tubes connected to his body, and there’s another bed in the room with someone lying in it, and then there’s a man in a white coat sitting on a chair, and Asle’s body is shaking and shaking, he’s trembling the whole time, shuddering, and then he suddenly stops and is calm and the man sitting on the chair looks at Asle and then he gets up and goes over and shakes Asle by the shoulder
Asle, he says
Yes, Asle says
and it’s as if he’s saying it from far far away, but he says yes and then the man who shook him by the shoulder goes back and sits down on the chair again and then the woman sitting at the reception desk asks if everything’s all right and I say yes and then I ask her if she can call me a taxi and she says that she can see a taxi sitting outside The Hospital, it’s probably free, she says, so I could go ask if that one’s free first, she says, and if it isn’t free then of course she’ll call a cab for me, she says and I say thank you thank you and then I say that I’ll call tonight to ask if I can come in the morning and the woman sitting at the reception desk says that it’s fine for me to wait until the morning, because they’ll only decide in the morning if he’s able to receive visitors or not, she says, and I say thanks very much, thank you for your help, I say and she says it was nothing and then I go out to the taxi that’s stopped there and it’s the same car that drove me to The Hospital still parked outside The Hospital and I look at The Taxi Driver and he nods and I open the rear door and I get in and The Taxi Driver says that was a short visit and I say that I couldn’t see the person I wanted to see because The Doctor had said that he needed to rest, to sleep, and no one could visit him, I say, that was The Doctor’s decision, I say
Yes that’s how it is sometimes, The Taxi Driver says
Is that why you didn’t drive away, because you thought that might happen? I say
No, The Taxi Driver says
and then he says that there’s often someone in front of The Hospital who needs a taxi, so once he’s driven here, if he’s not called of for another ride, then it’s just as good to wait here, more often than not someone comes out before long who needs a taxi, he says, and now and then it’s like what happened with me, that someone a person wants to visit isn’t allowed to have visitors, for whatever reason, and then whoever took the taxi to The Hospital needs another taxi right away, he says
And where would you like to go now? he says
To The Country Inn, I say
Yes I thought so, he says
and then The Taxi Driver says that he’s sure I’ve ridden with him before, he recognizes me in any case, and he thinks that he’s taken me to The Country Inn before, but he also thinks it was The Hospital, he doesn’t exactly remember, but there’s something familiar about me anyway, yes, now he remembers, his memory is so bad, he’s driven me home to my apartment lots of times, yes, that’s it, he’s driven me lots of times from The Alehouse back to my apartment in Sailor’s Cove, he says and I wasn’t entirely sober then either, no, he says, far from it, he’s driven me home from The Last Boat, that’s it, The Taxi Driver says, yes, there’s no doubt about it now, but no matter how drunk I was I’ve always behaved well, and I’ve always paid, given a good tip, yes, he remembers now, and then, many years ago, he also saw a picture of me in The Bjørgvin Times, I’m a painter and the article had something to do with an exhibition at The Beyer Gallery, so that was why he picked me up there, outside the gallery, he says, and my name is Asle or something like that, isn’t it? The Taxi Driver says and I say yes, that’s my name, yes, and I say I recognize him, The Taxi Driver, I recognize him too
So you’re an artist? he says
Yes, at least I try, I say
But you make enough to live on from that? he says
More or less, I say
Well then, The Taxi Driver says
and then it’s silent
Selling your pictures brings in enough for you to live on? he says
Yes, I say
Yes, aha, he says
and then he says that the kinds of pictures I paint must be really expensive, not for the likes of him, just for rich people, he says and I don’t say anything
Or is that not true? he says
All kinds of people buy my pictures, I say
I don’t believe it, The Taxi Driver says
and there’s silence and then he asks if I’m going to have another show at The Beyer Gallery soon and I say yes, that a show of mine will be opening there soon
Then I think I’ll go look at your pictures, he says
But they probably don’t look like anything? he says
Anyway it probably costs a lot to get in, right, to your exhibition at The Beyer Gallery? he asks
and I say that it doesn’t cost anything, anyone who wants to can go look at the paintings, I say and The Taxi Driver says well then he’ll definitely go take a look since now it’s like he knows me a little, the artist himself, yes, so he’ll go look at my pictures because he likes paintings well enough, yes, even if they don’t look like anything, the most important thing is for the picture to say something, kind of, that it’s not just scribbles and smears but painted to really say something, yes, that’s when he likes the painting, The Taxi Driver says and he turns around and looks straight at me before turning back forwards, he likes a painting if it has something to say, yes, he says, so he might really like my paintings, and since he’s driven me home so many times he’s now pretty interested in seeing how I paint, and now that he thinks about it he feels like he’s driven me when I was sober too, yes indeed, he says and I see The Country Inn up ahead and The Taxi Driver pulls over and stops in front of The Coffeehouse
Yes well here we are, he says
and he turns his head to look at me and says how much it is and I hold out the money and he says yeah of course he remembers me, he’s driven me home from The Alehouse, The Last Boat, so many times, how could he not have recognized me at once, no, he says, and Asle or something, that’s my name, right? he says and I say yes and I pay and then The Taxi Driver says that this year he’ll go look at my paintings, for sure, he says