by Jon Fosse
Because they are paintings, right? he says
Yes, I say
Good, paintings are what I like, he says
and I say take care and he says thanks you too and then I open the door and get out and then I go right into The Coffeehouse and there, at the window table nearest the door, a woman with medium-length blonde hair is sitting, and her hair looks like the hair of the woman I met the day before yesterday, the one who showed me the way to The Country Inn when I somehow managed to get lost in the snowstorm here in Bjørgvin and who watched Asle’s dog, who lived in The Lane, who was apparently named Guro, but then again there are so many women with medium-length blonde hair, and there’s a suitcase and a couple of shopping bags next to her, so it can’t be the woman I met the day before yesterday, but the woman sitting there does look like her, she really does, so it might be her, I think and I walk into The Coffeehouse and it’s empty inside and I pick a window table as far back as possible and I take off my brown leather shoulder bag and put it down on a chair and then I take off my black coat and put it on top of the shoulder bag and I go over to the counter and I pour myself a coffee, and I take milk in my coffee, and then I go to the cash register and I see that they’ve hung up the lunch menu, so I can buy lunch now if I want, and I look over the menu and I see that there’s nothing there I want, they sell homemade meatballs every day at The Coffeehouse but I don’t feel like that today, or like any of the other dishes either, because I’m not that hungry, just a little hungry, it’s like I have to eat just a little something, I think, so I’ll probably get the usual then, I think and I say I’d like bacon and eggs please and the woman sitting at the register says that’s fine, I can just find a table and sit down and she’ll bring me my food, she says, I just need to get my own knife and fork, she says and then I get a knife and fork and napkin and I go put them on the table and then I go and get The Northern Herald, which is on a pole along with The Bjørgvin Times, and The Northern Herald is a good paper, every so often there’s the rare good review of an art exhibition, sometimes of mine, not always just sarcastic criticism like in The Bjørgvin Times, I think and I cautiously peek over at the woman with the medium-length blonde hair and she looks exactly like the woman who helped me the day before yesterday, so it must be her, but surely it’s just someone who looks like her because otherwise she’d surely have recognized me and said hello, or said something like wasn’t I going right home yesterday? or had I driven back into Bjørgvin from Dylgja again today? she might have said, but she’s just sitting there with a cup of coffee reading a newspaper, or looking at a newspaper anyway, and there’s a suitcase on the floor next to her, and a couple of bags, so she’s someone who’s visiting town and is about to go home again, or maybe someone who’s about to catch an express ferry either north or south, since the ferry-boats are docked not far from The Coffeehouse, you just need to go a few hundred feet along The Pier and then there you are, and that’s why there are often people who are about to take an express ferry sitting and waiting in The Coffeehouse, and if they need to spend the night in Bjørgvin they like spending the night at The Country Inn, I think and the woman’s probably someone visiting town and most likely she’s spent the night at The Country Inn and now she’s sitting and waiting for an express ferry, you can say speedboat so why can’t you say speedferry? and it’ll go express, of course, to somewhere north or somewhere south, I think and then I realize that she’s looking at me in a way that seems to mean she knows who I am and then she looks back down at her newspaper and then she looks up again and I think she definitely recognizes me, or at least knows who I am, I think, but even if I can’t see any difference between her and the woman from the day before yesterday, because I can’t, it can’t be the woman from the day before yesterday, so she must be recognizing me from something else, maybe she’s someone who saw a picture of me a long time ago in The Bjørgvin Times, when I was the Arts Festival Artist or something, and there were also some interviews in The Northern Herald before I totally stopped giving interviews, because if she was the woman from the day before yesterday she would absolutely for sure have said something to me, no, you again? hello, nice to see you again, something, she would have said something like that, but the woman sitting there now is just shyly looking down at a newspaper and sitting as if she’s just thinking her thoughts, and I’ve found a window table all the way at the back of The Coffeehouse, and there’s no one else here, just me and the woman with the medium-length blonde hair sitting at a table near the front door with a suitcase and a couple of bags next to her, and I’m sitting at a window table looking out, down at The Pier, at The Bay, and I think that even though there are two newspapers you can read for free at The Coffeehouse I always read only The Northern Herald, never The Bjørgvin Times, because The Bjørgvin Times is full of stupidity and foolishness and nothing else, I think and it looks like that’s the paper the woman with the medium-length blonde hair is sitting there reading while I sit here paging through The Northern Herald, and it’s really unbelievable how much she looks like the woman who helped me the day before yesterday, no, I don’t want to think anymore about that, because it’s eerie, almost uncanny, I think, and then there’s the fact that I can’t go see Asle, that must mean he’s seriously ill, yes, maybe even dying, anyway it’s possible that he’ll die, and it was mostly to visit Asle that I came to Bjørgvin today, and also to deliver the pictures, but that could’ve waited a few days, and then I was thinking I’d go sit in St Paul’s Church but that totally slipped my mind, yes, after I’d gone to The Hospital and hadn’t been allowed in to see Asle I thought that all I wanted to do was go to The Coffeehouse and then drive back home to Dylgja, but there was no big hurry to take the pictures to Bjørgvin, actually I could’ve waited a few days before taking the paintings to The Beyer Gallery, I didn’t need to drive to Bjørgvin until next week, so it was really only to look in on Asle that I drove to Bjørgvin again today, because maybe he needed something? maybe I could get him something from his apartment? something he wanted, maybe a sketchpad? a pencil? yes, everything’s kind of run together a bit for me, I think, it’s all a bit mixed up in my mind, but the day before yesterday I drove to and from Bjørgvin and then back to Bjørgvin again because I suddenly decided I needed to go see Asle, and I found him lying in the snow, he could have easily frozen to death, it was so cold, so it was certainly good that I came back, yes, no matter how much driving I’d just done, I think and then I see a woman come over and she has a plate with bread and eggs and bacon in her hands, the bacon is nice and crispy, the bacon at The Coffeehouse is always cut in thin slices and then almost charred, and then I feel how hungry I am and this’ll be good, I think, because crispy bacon and eggs at The Coffeehouse, no, there’s nothing better to eat than that, not in Bjørgvin anyway, unless it’s the potato dumplings they serve at The Coffeehouse every Thursday, I think and I start eating right away, and I certainly was hungry, that’s for sure, and it tastes good, and the reason I like bacon and eggs so much probably has something to do with always thinking it was so good when Grandmother made it for me when I was young, she fried the bacon and then fried the eggs with onions, and that might have been the very best thing in the world when I was little, I think and I eat and I take a sip of coffee and then I hear footsteps and I look over and I see the woman with the medium-length blonde hair, the woman named Guro, walking over to me and she says no, I’m back in Bjørgvin again? wasn’t I going to drive straight home? she sure was surprised to see a man with a grey ponytail sitting there in the back of The Coffeehouse, and she thought it must be me, she was sure it was me, she says and I think that it must be the woman who was by the door who’s come over, and that she seems to be the woman I talked to the day before yesterday, who took the dog to sleep at her place, and I look at the front door and the woman who was sitting by the door is still sitting there and looking down at her newspaper, and the suitcase and bags are still on the floor next to her, and the woman talking to me now, yes, this is Guro, and she l
ooks exactly like the woman sitting by the door
What a surprise, she says
I thought you had to drive home, after you picked up the dog, she says
and I nod and chew and swallow the food in my mouth and then I say that I did drive home but then I thought it was time to bring the paintings for my next show to The Beyer Gallery, I say and the woman named Guro says that I usually have one exhibition a year at The Beyer Gallery, during Advent, it opens a little before Christmas, she says
Yes, I say
And I’ve seen, yes, well, I think I’ve seen every one of your exhibitions, she says
and I don’t say anything
And I’ve bought two paintings, too, she says
and she says that she’s probaby already told me but it’s been many years since she could afford to buy pictures, now she can’t, it was back when she lived with, yes, The Fiddler that she could afford paintings, but he’d cleared out to East Norway and moved in with some woman or another
And then I got some from you too, she says
and I look at her
You remember that much, don’t you? she says
and I don’t understand what she means
Since you’ve been in my place so many times, she says
and she smiles and winks at me
And spent the night lots of times too, she says
and I don’t understand what she’s saying, what she’s talking about
But you probably don’t remember that, you were probably drinking too much back then? she says
and she asks if she can sit down and I say of course she can, yes, please do, I say and she says that after she buys a cup of coffee she’ll come and sit down and have a chat, she says and I see her go over to the counter and I eat the rest of my bacon and eggs and I think that now I’ll again never get away from this Guro, I think, because, no, there’s not something wrong with her, but I can’t exactly say that I enjoy her company, I just wanted to sit by myself for a while, I think and I pick up my coffee cup and I drink up all the coffee and Guro comes back with her coffee cup and she puts it down on the other side of the table and she says she comes by The Coffeehouse almost every day
Yes, The Coffeehouse is like a second home for me, she says
and we don’t say anything
And it’s good that you can’t buy beer or wine at The Coffeehouse, she says
and she says that otherwise she might all too easily do that, but in the morning, yes, during the day, it’s better to avoid alcohol, she says, when he couldn’t do that anymore was when it started to go wrong with The Fiddler and even then she didn’t touch alcohol until late afternoon at the earliest, but sometimes she gets tired of sitting in the apartment with her Hardanger embroidery and then she likes walking over to The Coffeehouse, she says, yes, to see people, and run into people she knows sometimes too, sometimes there are people from back home there, people she knows from when she was growing up, visiting town on holiday, because nowadays almost everyone from the country comes for a visit at some point, well, no, not everyone, there are lots of people she knows who never leave where they’re from, she says, it just never seems to happen, the same way they sort of never seem to do anything, yes, Hardanger was where they were born and Hardanger was where they stayed, and some of them have probably never seen anywhere else besides where in Hardanger they were born and raised, she says, it was like a rule in earlier times, for many of them, to stay where they were born, Guro says and I realize that I don’t want to say anything and I think that I have to say that I have an appointment, something I need to do, that I have to go
Sorry, I have to go, I say
What? Guro says
Why? she says
I don’t have much time, I say
You have to go? she says
Yes, I say
That wasn’t much of a chat, she says
But you really should look me up next time you’re in Bjørgvin, she says
and I say I will
You promise? she says
and then she smiles
You used to do it a lot, she says
and we don’t say anything
But you don’t really remember do you? she says
And I got a bunch of small pictures from you, she says
And then I bought two big ones, she says
Yes, my apartment’s like a little gallery of your paintings, she says
I don’t have much time, I say
Yes, I understand, she says
See you around, I say
Yes, see you soon, she says
and I get up and put on my long black coat and I drape the brown leather shoulder bag over my shoulder and I say bye and she says bye take care and then I go and now I should go straight to my car that’s sitting parked outside The Beyer Gallery and then I should drive home to my good old house in Dylgja, and it’ll be good to get home, it’ll be so good to have a little peace and quiet, I think and now I shouldn’t look at the woman sitting alone near the door, the woman who looks exactly like Guro, yes, there is no difference at all between them, I think, so now I just need to get outside and then I’ll walk to my car that’s sitting outside The Beyer Gallery, and then I’ll drive home to Dylgja, and it’ll be good to get home, I think, and I get outside and I go up the pavement and then I take a right and I walk for a bit and then I take a left and then I go up The Lane and it was 3, The Lane, where she lived, right? the woman who says her name is Guro and who says that I’ve been to her place so many times, and that I’ve given her paintings, but just small ones, and that she bought two paintings herself, and that her apartment there in The Lane is like a little gallery of my paintings, I think and it’s grey nasty weather, it’s been raining, and I walk through slush, the street’s pretty slushy, but luckily it hasn’t gotten cold enough for the slush to freeze into ice, otherwise it would be hard to walk on this steep Lane, but now it’s fine, except just a little slippery, but if you have good shoes on it’s fine and I do, I think, and I get to the top of The Lane and I turn right on High Street and I see my car parked in front of The Beyer Gallery next to Beyer’s car and I go straight to my car and I get in and it starts on the first try and I turn the heat on full blast, because it’s cold in the car, and I turn on the windshield wipers because the front windshield is totally covered with rain and sludge and then I pull out of the parking space and then I drive the roads I know, that I’ve driven on so many times, the way Beyer taught me to drive back in the day so that I could get out of Bjørgvin, and I realize that I’m not thinking about anything, it’s like there’s been too much for me, and it feels good to be driving, I notice, and the car just needs to warm up and then everything’ll be good, and now I shouldn’t think about anything, I think, and I realize that I don’t have any desire to paint, and it’s been a long time since I haven’t wanted to paint, and then there’s the picture with those two lines that cross, I don’t want to see that picture again, I have to get rid of it, I have to paint over it, because it’s a destructive picture, or maybe it’s a good picture? but in any case I don’t want to sell it, but maybe I can take it up to the attic and keep it with the other pictures I don’t want to sell? I think and I reach the country road and the car is more or less warm now and I drive steadily and calmly, almost slowly, north and I feel something like happiness inside me, almost joy, because now I’ll be home soon, now I’m going back home to my house in Dylgja, and if I don’t want to paint anymore then I don’t have to and it does me good to think that, to think that if I don’t want to paint anymore I don’t have to do it, I think and I drive north and I don’t think about anything, I try not to think about anything and I don’t look at the building where Asle’s apartment is, in Sailor’s Cove, and I won’t look at the brown house where Ales and I used to live, or at the turn-off where I stopped the day before yesterday and saw the two young people in the playground there, I think and it’s raining but the roads are clear and it’s not slippery driving on them and I feel so tired and that’
s not so strange, because I drove to Bjørgvin today despite everything, and I brought my paintings to Beyer, and now I’m driving home again, and I went to The Hospital, and I wasn’t allowed to see Asle, and I went to The Coffeehouse and got some food and talked with Guro there and also saw someone who looked exactly like her, a woman sitting near the front door with a suitcase and two bags next to her, so no wonder I’m tired, I think and I fall into a kind of daze, and it’s nice driving a car when I don’t think about anything and just pay attention to the driving, yes, there’s something about it I really like, just driving along not thinking about anything, I think and now I’m at Instefjord and I take a left and I drive out along Sygne Fjord and now I won’t look up at the grey house where Asle’s sister lives, in Øygna, the woman who’s also named Guro, I’ll just keep driving, I think and I drive slowly and steadily along Sygne Fjord and I think that I don’t want to look at Åsleik’s house and farm when I get to them either, I think and I keep driving, and I drive past Åsleik’s farm and I just keep driving, and I really like driving, because even if the roads are small and winding I really like it, I think and all the snow is gone now, the roads are clear, I haven’t noticed any ice anywhere, and I see my house, my beautiful old house, and I’m filled with happiness and I turn into the driveway and I drive up and stop the car in front of the house and when I get out of the car I hear Bragi barking, poor Bragi, I wasn’t thinking about you, I totally forgot about you, I think, poor you, you must be hungry and thirsty, and you must need to go out too, I think and it’s so terrible, Bragi’s barking, I think and I go into the house and I hear Bragi scratching at the door to the main room and I open the door and Bragi comes to me and he’s jumping up at me and he’s barking and wagging his tail and I pet his back