by Jon Fosse
So, my name’s Guro, she says
and I shake her hand and hold Bragi with just one hand
And my name’s Asle, I say
Okay, now we know at least that much about each other, she says
and there’s something like mockery in her voice
Our names, she says
Yes, I say
and it’s silent for a moment and then she says she’ll go to the next show I have at The Beyer Gallery, and that it’ll probably be during Advent this year the same as every year, that’s always when they have it, she says and she’s gone to all my shows, she says, and we get to The Country Inn and I say I’ll go in and ask if there’s a room free for me, and she says she can wait outside, in case it’s full, you never know, and if it is I can always, as she’s already told me, spend the night at her place, she says and I thank her and she says she might as well go inside with me and then I open the front door and the woman named Guro goes in ahead of me and I go in after her with the dog in my arms and I see that it’s the old guy from Bjørgvin, The Bjørgvin Man, sitting at the reception desk, where he’s been for all these years, he’s one of the people I know, one of the people who’s checked me in and checked me out of The Country Inn before, he’s a polite older man from Bjørgvin, and I see that there are a lot of keys hanging on the wall in the reception area behind The Bjørgvin Man, so there must be rooms available, I think
Good afternoon, or good evening I should say, The Bjørgvin Man says
So this is the fellow who’s out and about tonight, he says
and he looks at me and then at the woman standing behind me
Or rather the two people, he says
and it seems like he recognizes the person I’m with and he stands up and bows
Ye, yes, I say
You don’t have a room for me, do you? I say
You mean for the two of you? he says
No, just for me, I say
and at that same moment I think that maybe he didn’t mean me and the woman apparently named Guro but me and the dog
I see, The Bjørgvin Man says
Well for me and my dog, I say
You’ve got a dog with you? he says
Yes, I say
and I think that I don’t want to get into the whole business of why I have a dog with me
It’s not actually allowed, having a dog in the room, The Bjørgvin Man says
And you’ve never had a dog with you before, he says
No, I say
Well, I don’t know, The Bjørgvin Man says
and Guro says that she can take the dog with her, and I can get him back tomorrow, she’s always liked dogs, and she used to have a dog herself, but that was back when she was a girl, she says
I’m sure we can work something out, The Bjørgvin Man says
Because, he says
and suddenly there’s a long silence
Because, well, yes, since it’s you, one of our regular guests, yes well I think I can make an exception, I’ll hardly lose my job over it, he says
and I stand there and I don’t know what to say, because I’ve never brought a dog to The Country Inn before
As long as the dog doesn’t bark, The Bjørgvin Man says
No, he won’t as long as I’m with him, I say
That’s good to hear, he says
Because even if there aren’t that many guests at the hotel tonight, I’m sure they won’t exactly want to be woken up by a yapping dog, he says
Of course, I understand, I say
But I can take the dog with me, Guro says
and I think that she said she was called something else when we were talking at Food and Drink, Silje or something like that, I think, but now she’s said many times that her name is Guro and now I think of her simply as Guro, I think
Your usual room is free, The Bjørgvin Man says
Room 407, I say
and I say that this trip into Bjørgvin came about a bit unexpectedly, I usually reserve a room in advance and The Bjørgvin Man says yes he knows
Yes, great, that room, same as always, I say
Your room is free and since it’s you we’ll take the risk and assume everything’ll be fine with your dog, he says
and I say thank you, thanks very much, and I say that as long as the dog is with me he won’t start barking
That’ll be fine, your room is ready and waiting for you, The Bjørgvin Man says
and he takes a key off the hook on the wall behind him and he hands me the key and he says have a nice stay and he’s sure I can find my own way and that I know when breakfast is served and all that as well as he does, he says and I say thank you, thanks, everything’ll be fine, I say and I turn around and Guro is standing there and I say thank you so much for your help and she says it was no problem, and then she says she hopes we run into each other again, and I say that yes I’m sure we will and then we shake hands and say goodbye and then I walk towards the lift and she walks towards the front door and then she stops and then she says
But what about breakfast? she says
and I turn around and look at her
You’ll have to leave the dog alone then, won’t you? she says
You have a point there, The Bjørgvin Man says
You can’t bring the dog to breakfast with you? she says
and I say I hadn’t thought of that and The Bjørgvin Man says he wouldn’t recommend it, and why did she have to bring up breakfast? hasn’t today been long enough? aren’t I exhausted? can’t I get a little peace and quiet? I need to go to sleep, and I suddenly realize how totally exhausted I am, I’m so tired I might collapse right here
You have a point, The Bjørgvin Man says
and I don’t know what to say and Guro says that she can take the dog with her and I can get him back tomorrow morning, she says and I realize I can’t talk about it any more, I’m done, the dog’ll sleep wherever it’ll sleep, I think and I look at her
I’ll come back here at ten o’clock with the dog, she says
Or you can come by and ring the bell around then, or earlier if you want, she says
and I nod and then Guro says that if I want to get the dog then, or earlier, or later, well I know where she lives, it’s on The Lane, number 5 The Lane, she says, as she’s said before, she says, so she lives right near The Country Inn, you just take a right and then take the first right after that and the first narrow street you get to is The Lane, uphill to the left, she says and she smiles and The Bjørgvin Man looks at me and Guro walks up to me and I hand her the dog and I say his name is Bragi and she takes the dog and the leash and The Bjørgvin Man says that it’s probably for the best, all things considered, yes, even for the dog, maybe, he says and I turn around and walk towards the lift and push the button with an up arrow and the lift comes and I turn around
Goodnight, I say
and both the woman apparently named Guro and The Bjørgvin Man say goodnight and I open the lift door and I hear the front door close and I go into the lift and I press the button with 4 on it and then I stand there in the lift and it jolts into motion and I feel so tired, so tired, so unbelievably tired, I think and I think that it was a good thing I drove back to Bjørgvin, because imagine what might have happened to Asle if I hadn’t? he was lying there covered in snow, he was sick, he was shaking constantly and kept collapsing, falling down and just lying there, and what would have happened if I hadn’t come back to Bjørgvin? I think and the lift moves slowly upwards, it’s an old lift and it rises slowly, and with little jolts, and I think that now I don’t want to think about Asle any more, or about anything else, now I’m tired, so unbelievably tired, so now I’ll just go straight to bed, I think and the lift gets to the fourth floor and it stops with a jolt, and bobs up and down a little, and I look at the lift door and it feels like forever before I can open it and I go out into the hall and suddenly I don’t know if I’m supposed to take a right and go down that corridor, or if I’m supposed to take a left and go down that one, e
ven after having stayed in Room 407 so many times I’m still not sure, dammit I’ll just go either left or right and then see where I am, I think, and I feel really angry, as I should, I’m angry at myself, I seriously curse myself and I take a right and I see 400 on a door and I go down that corridor and the numbers on the doors get higher and higher so I am going the right way and there, there at last, is 407 on a door and I use the key and I unlock the door on the first try and then I go into the room, turn on the light and then take off my brown leather shoulderbag and put it down on a chair and then I take off my black coat and I hang it on the chair and then I go right to the bed and lie down without taking any of my clothes off, even the black velvet jacket I’m wearing, and my shoes are still on, and then I breathe deeply in and breathe slowly out several times and then I fold my hands and I make the sign of the cross and I say to myself Pater noster Qui es in cælis Sanctificetur nomen tuum Adveniat regnum tuum and I stay lying down and I say to myself Our Father Who art in heaven Hallowed be thy name Thy kingdom come and I think God’s kingdom does need to come, but it already has come, I feel it, whenever I feel or realize how close God is, yes, he is all around me like a field, or maybe it’s his angel, my angel, that I feel? I think and may God protect him, may God protect Asle, let Asle get better again, I think and then I think that it won’t be long now before I too come to God, to God’s kingdom, I think and then I breathe in deeply and I say inside myself Kyrie and then I breathe out slowly and I say eleison and then I breathe in deeply and I say Christe and then I breathe out slowly and I say eleison and I say that over and over and then I just lie there quietly and stare straight ahead into empty space and at first I don’t see anything and I just feel how tired I am and then I see a canvas there on an easel and I see two lines there that cross each other and then I hear Åsleik say St Andrew’s Cross, he says it with his provincial pride, St Andrew’s Cross, and suddenly I feel an aversion to the whole picture, there’s nothing more to do with that picture, just get rid of it, be done with it, because it’s done, despite it being so unfinished it’s done, it’s finished, the way it’s painted is just the way it is and the way it’s going to stay, it doesn’t need any more, the big white canvas and then those two lines crossing, the lines forming a cross, and that’s it, obviously what I was painting was Asle but I don’t like to think like that, not now, because now I’m at peace, and I say to myself Pacem relinquo vobis Pacem meam do vobis and I say Peace I leave with you My peace I give unto you and I don’t know what more I can do with the picture, it’s stiff, it’s dead, it’s just two lines, two thick lines that cross in the middle, it doesn’t have the light in it that a good picture needs to have, it’s really not a picture at all, it’s a St Andrew’s Cross, Åsleik says, and he’s right, and then he says it again, St Andrew’s Cross, he says and he puts a heavy stress on the words like he’s proud of knowing them, proud that he, Åsleik, knows a term like that, something like that is what he’s saying in the way he says the words, and things like that just make him look stupid, putting on that provincial pride makes him worse than he is, I think and I lie there and think that I just need to forget that picture, or try to forget it, but the picture is firmly in my mind, because some of the pictures I paint get lodged inside me but most of the other pictures I have lodged in my mind are pictures from life, not my own paintings, yes, these glimpses of something I’ve seen that stayed with me and that torment me, actually, because I can never get rid of them, and that I try to paint away, and in a way I do manage to paint them away, or in any case paint them into being something that doesn’t just exist in my mind, something that isn’t stuck in there, in a way, I think and I think that all the paintings for the show I’m having soon at The Beyer Gallery are already finished, so if I had thought of it I could’ve brought them with me and delivered them to Beyer today, or maybe tomorrow morning, I think, but I don’t always think in such reasonable ways, or plan well, for example this morning I just decided to drive to Bjørgvin to go shopping and then I did, and I think that tomorrow when I get back home I’ll put aside that picture with the two lines, the St Andrew’s Cross, as Åsleik says, yes the picture should be called St Andrew’s Cross, and I’ll paint the name, the title, in black oil paint on the top edge of the stretcher, the way I always do, and then I’ll paint a big A on the picture itself, in the lower righthand corner, the way I also always do, unless I’ve already done that? haven’t I already added the picture’s title and signed it with a big A and taken it off the easel and put it aside with the other paintings that also aren’t done stacked together with the stretchers out between the bedroom door and the hall door? haven’t I done that already? I think, but if I haven’t then I’ll put it aside as soon as I get home tomorrow, I think and then I’ll take out another painting I have stacked in that pile of unfinished pictures, of pictures I’ve almost managed to finish as good pictures but not quite, pictures that are missing something, that I can’t figure out what to do with and have to let sit for a while, when I get back home to Dylgja, finally get back home to Dylgja, I’ll take out one of the paintings deep in the stack, which means one of the unfinished paintings that I set aside a long time ago because I wasn’t entirely happy with it, I wasn’t satisfied it was the picture it needed to be, I think, and then I think that I need to put the paintings stacked in two piles next to the kitchen door with the stretchers facing out from the wall into the back of my car and drive to Bjørgvin and deliver them to Beyer, because those are the pictures I’m done with, there’s a stack of big ones and a stack of smaller ones, and it’s those pictures that I set aside and decided I was done with after I realized I couldn’t do any more with them, I made those pictures as well as I could make them, I don’t know how good they are but I know that I can’t make them any better, so they’re ready for the next show, yes, there are always either too many pictures or not enough, I think, but if Beyer feels there are too many he just puts the ones he doesn’t want to include in the show in the side room, The Bank, as he calls it, and I do need to drive the pictures to The Beyer Gallery soon, it’s getting kind of urgent, so I need to get it done, because Beyer hangs the pictures up himself, and he puts a lot of thought into the installation, I think, and it was thanks to Beyer that I could make it as a painter, because for someone to live off painting pictures he’s really got to stick it out, I think, yes well more or less the same thing is true of probably every profession or craft, even if being an artist is supposed to be different, not a job like ordinary house painting but one that’s out of the ordinary, noble and special, there’s something affected about the whole thing, to tell the truth, actually I’m ashamed to be an artist, an art painter, but what else could I have been? and now, anyway, now that I’m so old? no, unfortunately I’m not much use for anything else now, besides painting pictures, because I’ve always been clumsy, in everything, yes, even when I draw or paint, yes, it’s hard to believe it, it can’t be because I’m physically unable to do something well that I can’t do it, no, it must be something else that prevents me, and I don’t know what it is, so I would have been a bad tradesman, that’s been true ever since I was a kid, and as for anything to do with maths I can’t do it, that’s for sure, and nothing with writing either, or, well, actually to tell the truth it’s pretty easy for me to write, there was nothing wrong with my style in school and I was pretty good at English, yes, I even used to be able to write in English well enough, and German too, and I enjoyed reading books in both English and German back in the day, there were quite a lot of words and idioms I didn’t understand but I got the meaning one way or another, and then I read Swedish and Danish books too, of course, it was back when I was going to The Art School that I started reading foreign books in the original languages, because a lot of the literature Professor Christie referred to was written in either English or German, especially German, and occasionally in Swedish or Danish, rarely in Norwegian, and then always written in Bokmål, never in Nynorsk, and for a lot of the books I wanted to read I had to ventur
e into the stately University Library and ask to borrow them, and since I was going to The Art School I was allowed to borrow books from there, and not many of the books Professor Christie mentioned were available at The Public Library, and I read and read and didn’t understand even half of what I read, probably much less than that, but it sort of didn’t matter much, I understood some of it, and what I did understand gradually helped me learn more and more of the language I was reading, because even though I had dictionaries I didn’t like looking things up in them so I’d either guess what a word meant or, most often, I could figure it out from the context, the word had a clear meaning when it was in context with other words, so yes, I was pretty good at languages, it was mathematical aptitude that I always had a problem with, and what I totally don’t have is a sense of direction, a sense of place, plus I’m so clumsy, so it’s true probably the only thing I could have ended up doing was painting pictures, and if I wanted to make a living I needed to paint, and that’s both good and also wrong, but that’s what I did and kept doing, I painted picture after picture, I did that at least, and when I wasn’t painting I often spent hour after hour just sitting and staring into space, yes, I can sit for a long time and just stare into empty space, at nothing, and it’s sort of like something can come from the empty nothingness, like something real can come out of the nothingness, something that says a lot, and what it says can turn into a picture, either that or I can stay sitting there staring into empty space and become completely empty myself, completely still, and it’s in that empty stillness that I like to say my deepest truest prayers, yes, that’s when God is closest, because it’s in the silence that God can be heard, and it’s in the invisible that He can be seen, of course I know my Pater Noster and I pray with it every day, to tell the truth, at least three times a day, and often even more in fact, and I’ve learned it by heart in Latin, and learned it by seeing it before my eyes, I never memorize mechanically because I can remember written things by seeing them, a bit like pictures, yes, but I try to only remember the written things I think are important to remember, and unlike with pictures I’m able to turn off the memory of written things, and then I made my own translation of the Our Father into Nynorsk, and of course I know that by heart, yes, I can see it in my mind, but still it’s probably these moments when I’m sitting and staring into empty nothingness, and becoming empty, becoming still, that are my deepest truest prayers, and once I get into the empty stillness I can stay there for a long time, sit like that for a long time, and I don’t even realize I’m sitting there, I just sit and stare into the empty nothingness, and probably in a way I am the empty nothingness I’m looking at, I can sit like that for I don’t know how long but it’s a long, long time, and I believe these silent moments enter into the light in my paintings, the light that is clearest in darkness, yes, the shining darkness, I don’t know for sure but that’s what I think, or hope, that it might be like that, I think and I lie there and I think now I need to go to sleep soon and I’ll pray one of the quick prayers with my rosary, my usual kind, because it’s not that often that I pray in my own words, and when I do it’s for intercession, I’m embarrassed when it comes to that, if I pray for something that has to do with me then it has to be to let me be good for someone else, and if it specifically has to do with me then I pray that it should be God’s will that it happen, yes, Thy will be done Fiat voluntas tua On earth as it is in heaven Sicut in cælo et in terra and I am so tired so tired I need to sleep but I’m probably too agitated to get to sleep, I think and then I sit up on the edge of the bed and stand up and I take my black velvet jacket off and hang it on the back of the chair with the brown shoulderbag lying under the black overcoat and then I push my heels against the floor and kick off my shoes and I take off my trousers and I leave them on the floor and then I take off my black pullover and drop it on top of the trousers and the room feels cold and then I turn off the light and get into the bed and I tuck the duvet tight around me and I gather my thoughts and then I think may God be good and help my friend, Asle, to get better, he’s too young to die, he paints pictures that are too good for him to have to die now, yes, I don’t presume to know what’s best for Asle better than God but that’s what I want, and I think that I can hope that in all humility, and as meekly as I can I pray to God to please let Asle live, let him regain his health, yes, yes, I pray to you, dear God, that you will make Asle better, I think and then I stay lying there and looking into the emptiness before me, into the dark nothingness, and I must be tired, tired, so tired, but maybe I’m too worked up to get to sleep? I think and I think that maybe I paint better when I’m under pressure, when I need to finish a few more paintings for my show? because even though I like painting, yes, there’s often a lot of pain in what I paint, and in me too in a way, because these pictures lodged inside me, yes, they’re almost all connected to something bad that I remember, the light is linked to the darkness, yes, that’s how it is, and there are painters who don’t like getting rid of their pictures, who’d rather keep them, not sell them, but I’m happy every single time I sell a picture, happy to be free of it, almost, and maybe that goes back to when I was a boy and made a few kroner by painting pictures of neighbours’ houses and farms, back when I was still a kid, but it made me happy to do that, yes, to paint pictures and then get rid of them and get money for them, and it still makes me happy to this day when I sell a picture, yes, selling the picture in itself makes me happy but then also, yes, I have to admit that I think this way too, when I sell a picture I’m also giving away, almost like a gift, the light that the picture has to have in it, yes, it’s like I’m passing on to someone else a gift that I myself have been given, I think I’ve been paid for the picture itself but not for the light that’s in the picture, because that’s something I was given and as a result I have to give it away again, and that light, yes, it’s most often connected to something bad, to pain, and suffering, I might say, if that’s not too big a word, and I’m paid for the painting itself, for the picture, but not for the light, and the person who buys the painting is also given some of the light, and the suffering too, the despair, the pain that’s in the light, I think, and if there isn’t any light in the picture well then I keep it, a picture’s not done until there’s light in it, even if that light is invisible, I think, yes, even if no one else can see the light, just me, it has to be there, see the light, yes that’s what they say, he’s seen the light, they say, and if they only knew how right they were, even if they always say it about someone they consider more or less lacking in wisdom and intelligence, someone not entirely of this world, as they also say, with a certain mockery, but what difference does it make? because I see what I see, I’ve seen what I’ve seen, I’ve lived what I’ve lived and I paint what I paint, so they can say whatever they want, I think, yes actually that’s another reason I’m happy to sell pictures, because I’m passing along the light, I think, and since I also make my living from the pictures I paint, since I’ve never made my living from anything else, I obviously need to sell the pictures! how could I live off my painting if I didn’t sell my pictures? no, I’d have been in a bad way, destitute, there are plenty of painters who live in the most dire poverty, even if most of them try to hide it and peacock around and scatter money to the winds once they manage to make a few kroner, but I’ve never been someone like that, I’ve never spent more money than I needed to, I think, usually less in fact, if you want to put it that way, yes, I’ve lived modestly, they say, and I’ve always managed to get by, I think, and one of the reasons was my being so modest, even thrifty, probably to the point of stinginess, even penny-pinching as the old folks say, the fact is I just don’t like to spend money, and I’ve never liked to spend money, but I need it just like everyone else, even if all I like buying is canvas and tubes of oil paint, yes, all kinds of painting supplies, but I like buying those things so much that I have so much canvas and turpentine and so many tubes of oil paint and boards for stretchers and brushes and rags and whatever else that I
basically don’t need to buy any more of any of it for the rest of my life, almost, and I’ve stored most of it up in a room in the attic, it’s all up there, well organized, everything where it belongs, I think, and still I keep buying more new supplies rather than using what I have up in the attic, like how I bought a roll of canvas at The Art Store today and a good amount of boards for stretchers at The Hardware Store, but it feels like that was so long ago, yes, like it was ages ago that I was in The Art Store and The Hardware Store, even though it was earlier today, but yes well when it comes to buying what I need to paint with I never think about saving money, and that probably goes back to my childhood too when I sold a picture and with the money I made I bought canvas and tubes of oil paint and turpentine, I think, lying in bed at The Country Inn, in Room 407, in the bed I’ve slept in so many times before, and I am so tired so tired and I can’t sleep, because how is Asle doing? what’s happening to him at The Hospital? because Asle needs rest, they said he needs to get his rest now and that’s why I couldn’t go see him, and of course I didn’t argue, I just left, and it’s only to stop thinking about Asle that I’m thinking about all these other things, all the things I usually think about, because Asle needs to get some rest, that’s the best thing for him, The Nurse said, and that’s why it was best that I come back again tomorrow and ask if I can see him then, she said and I said I could do that, but if he’s asleep when I come by he’ll need to keep sleeping, because he needs to rest now, what’s important now is that he sleep as much as possible, she said and I said I’d come back tomorrow and ask if I can get anything for him, if he isn’t asleep then, and if he is asleep then that’s great, I won’t get him anything, I’ll just come back another day, because I live a long way north of Bjørgvin, in Dylgja, if she knows where that is, I said and The Nurse said that she didn’t know and I said well no it’s such a small place that almost no one has heard of it, I said and she said well then that’s what we’ll do, I should come back tomorrow or some other day, and I can call first to see if I can come and we’ll tell you how it’s going, she said, that’s how it went, or is that just something I’m imagining? that it went like that? that The Nurse and I had a conversation like that? I think and anyway now I’m lying in bed at The Country Inn, in my regular room, Room 407, and I can’t get to sleep and I think that a lot of the people who are supposed to know what’s good and what’s bad, what’s good art and what’s bad art, don’t think much of my pictures, yes, for several years now painting pictures wasn’t something you should do if you wanted to be a real artist, paintings as such weren’t real art, and during that time the people who painted pictures were obviously said to be less worthwhile, they weren’t considered artists at all, just illustrators past their expiration date or something like that, and the worst of all were the people who painted pictures and then sold them, who put pictures they’d painted on sale, yes, the people who painted pictures someone actually wanted to buy were the worst, because where was the art in that? weren’t such pictures mere entertainment? purely commercial? nothing but something to put on a wall? something to hang above the sofa since after all something has to hang there? maybe yes maybe no, but in any case it’s not art, they would say or think, but I know what I’m doing, I know the difference between a good picture and a bad picture, and I know I can paint pictures that only I can paint, because I have my very own inner picture that all the other pictures come from, so to speak, or that they all try to get to, or get close to, but that one innermost picture can’t be painted, and the closer I am to that inner picture when I paint the better I paint, and the more light there is in the picture, yes, that’s how it is, I think, and what I’ve seen and lived, and know deep inside, in my innermost picture, is also something I want to tell the world, something I want other people to know, or to have hanging over their sofa for that matter, because I want to, yes, share what I know, show it, yes of course it can’t be said but maybe it can be shown? at least a little of it? and insofar as it can be shown I want to show it to someone else, since it’s true, I’m sure of it and I know it’s good, it’s good for me and it’s good for other people too, and what I want to show to other people has to do with light, or with darkness, it has to do with the shining darkness full as it is of nothingness, yes, it’s possible to think that way, to use such words, and it’s also something that comes from the picture I have inside me that I see when I see something that lodges itself inside me and that I can never get rid of again, these flashes of pictures, clear pictures, that I have in my mind and that torment me, yes, it’s true, and it’s been like that since I was a boy, there are so many pictures like that, there are countless such pictures, like those black boots of Grandfather’s on the road in the rain, one dark night, or Grandfather’s hands, shining, glowing, in a flash, and some pictures come to me again and again while others just lay there in a group sort of resting, and emerge only rarely, but one that comes to me again and again is Ales’s face in the rain, in the darkness, the rain running down over her despairing face, but in all the pain, all the suffering, there’s her light, that black light, yes, I should be ashamed of myself but my eyes are starting to get teary as I lie here, the light, the black light in her despairing face, the invisible light, those desperate eyes, twisted, her mouth half-open, and the rain running down her face in the dark night, or the opposite, yes, glittering on Ales’s thoughtful peaceful face when she disappears into herself and in this movement becomes like part of an incomprehensible light that streams invisibly from her face, yes, there are so many faces in my mind, some in pain, some resting, and most of all faces that are just there, unconscious in a way, just full of, yes, what exactly, yes there are so many faces that they’re about to merge together into a single face, I think, and then from Ales’s face spreading out all over shines the light of care and tenderness on all that she’s looking at, I think and now I need to sleep, I am so tired so tired and I’m just lying here thinking thoughts that I’ve thought so many times before, I think, but I can’t sleep, lying here in my bed at The Country Inn, Room 407, the room I always stay in, as long as it’s free, and if it isn’t I rent an adjacent room, I stay in Room 409, or Room 405, and all those rooms are small and look out on the backyard, I think and I lie there and I can’t sleep and tomorrow I’ll take a taxi to The Hospital and look in on Asle and tell him that I went to get his dog, and ask him if I can bring him anything, buy him anything, I think and then I’ll take a taxi to The Lane and then I’ll pick up his dog and then I’ll walk to my car parked in front of The Beyer Gallery and it’s probably totally covered in snow by now, but obviously I have a good snow brush and a good scraper with me so I’ll manage, I’ll get the car ready to drive so that I can drive to Dylgja and get back home, because I so wish I was back home and lying in my own bed and not at The Country Inn, yes, even though I’ve spent so many nights here in this bed too, it just isn’t my own bed, it’s a bed where lots of other people have slept too, and where lots more people will sleep in the future, that’s how it is, yes, in fact it’s so obvious that why think about it? why think these thoughts? because sometimes I really like being at The Country Inn, after all that’s why I’ve stayed here so many times, that’s why I always stay here whenever I need to spend the night in Bjørgvin, and I can’t count the number of times I’ve spent the night at The Country Inn, so obviously I’m comfortable here, but I just can’t get to sleep tonight, it’s impossible, I don’t know why, but I’m too restless, I can’t sleep, everything is like it’s crumbling and falling apart and I see Asle lying in bed with The Nurse and The Doctor standing next to the bed and they’re saying something about him needing an IV, something like that, and then The Doctor takes his pulse and I see Asle lying there asleep, his long grey hair hanging down past his shoulders and then his whole body jerks and shakes, while he’s sleeping his whole body is shaking and The Doctor says they should give him even more of some kind of medicine or another that he says the name of and The Nurse says they’ve already given him as much as t
hey can and The Doctor says yes well in that case they should probably just wait a little and then give him more later, he says, and Asle’s long grey hair, the shaking, the jerking and then I see The Nurse and The Doctor leave the room and then Asle is lying there and he’s asleep and his body is trembling the whole time, and it’s wrong to be looking at this, I don’t want to see it, and it was good that I found him, when he was lying outside the door of number 5, The Lane, covered in snow, I think and I can’t sleep and I think it was good that I drove back to Bjørgvin, and now why did I do that? it makes sense that I would think of it but why did I actually do it? I don’t totally understand, it was like something was forcing me to, or guiding me to do it, I think and I see Asle on Father’s shoulder and he’s sobbing and sobbing and the crying has taken on a kind of life of its own, and he’s twisting and writhing, because it hurts, his stomach hurts and Father is walking back and forth carrying him and rocking him back and forth in his arms and Father has left the upstairs bedroom and Father said he’d take Asle out into the hall so that at least Mother and Sister could sleep, he said, and Father walks and carries Asle, holds him against his shoulder, rubs his back, and Asle cries and cries and his crying gets louder and sharper, he’s gasping, he’s crying in bursts, he’s crying so loud that it almost sounds like shrieks and Father rubs and rubs his back and then Asle’s body gradually relaxes and the crying gets weaker, it turns into breathing, and Father walks back and forth with him, and Father and Asle and the breathing and the stroking of Father’s hand on Asle’s back are like one and the same movement and then Asle goes away, he disappears from the pain, from the stabbing in his stomach, and Father walks back and forth with him across the upstairs hall and then Father opens the door to the bedroom with his free hand as carefully and quietly as he can and Father and Asle go into the darkness and he hears Father from far away whisper he’s sleeping now, he’s finally asleep and he hears Mother say that’s good, he’s been crying for such a long time, she says and he realizes that Father has put him down in his bed and spread the blanket over him and then Father has lightly stroked his hair and then Asle has disappeared from there into his calm breathing, and into his calm sleep, and with his face turned aside he lies there breathing evenly and Father goes and lies down next to Mother and she says softly that Father must be so tired, first a long day of work, from early in the morning until late at night he’s been out gathering pears, and then now, at night, all the way up until now, late at night, Asle’s been screaming and Father was walking back and forth carrying him, she says and Father says that he is tired and that he’ll try to get to sleep and I see Asle lying there and his body is shaking, jerking up and down, he’s trembling, and then I see Asle being held against someone’s breast, he’s a little boy, it’s not Mother’s breast, it’s another breast, but he feels warmth from a breast against his cheek, he is almost pressing his cheek against the breast, yes, he’s leaning all the weight of his little head against the woman’s chest and I see that most of her chest is covered by a dress, a flower-patterned dress, it’s green and there are white flowers on it and it goes down in a V at the neck and behind the V are two big breasts, like two O’s pressed against each other and Asle puts his little little hands on one breast and the woman holding him in her arms laughs and smiles and she rocks him back and forth against her chest and he looks at her and he looks at her chest, and at the crack between her breasts, and he thinks it looks like a butt, is she holding him against her butt? he thinks, she can’t be, can she? there’s no butt up top is there? and he doesn’t understand, so he needs to ask, Asle thinks and he asks if she has her bud up here, because he can’t say his “t”s, and then he hears a sudden laugh burst against his ears and laughter fills the room and the woman holding him against her chest bends forward and laughs so hard that Asle is moved up and down and she holds him tight to her chest and he feels her movements, and he’s sort of hanging in mid-air, but she’s holding him tight, she’s holding him even tighter to her chest than before, yes, she’s sort of clutching him to her chest and she laughs and laughs and Asle sees Mother standing there and she’s bent over with laughter and he sees Grandmother standing there and she too is laughing and laughing and he understands that he’s said something strange, and he doesn’t totally understand what was so strange about what he said, and then the woman holding him to her chest starts to walk across the room and he hears her say can you believe the things he says, really, she says, and just two years old too, Grandmother says, yes that was really something, what he just said, Mother says and then the three women laugh again, but less wildly now, not as loud and sharp, more slow and kind, and Mother says well they should go sit down at the table, the coffee’s ready, she says and Asle twists free and the woman who was holding him at her breast puts him down on the floor and then Asle stands there and he looks at his Grandmother who has sat down at a table and then he goes over to Grandmother and he hears the woman who’d held him against her chest and put him down say he’s a good walker even though he’s so little, and Mother says yes he’s a toddler now, she says, and he goes to Grandmother and she says now come to Grandma my boy yes, she says and Grandmother holds her arms out towards him and he goes towards Grandmother’s arms and he reaches them and she takes him under his arms and picks him up and puts him on her thigh and then she hugs him to her and all at once he is in her good warmth and she rocks him a little in her warmth and I see Asle lying there with his hands down by his sides and his whole body’s jerking up and down and there are several tubes attached to his body running up to a metal stand and I see The Nurse standing next to him put her hand on his forehead and then The Doctor opens the door and walks in and The Nurse says it’s bad, the spasms need to stop soon, she says and The Doctor nods and he says that they’ve given him what they can give him now, they can’t give him any more, he says and they stand there without saying anything and then The Doctor says he doesn’t know how this’ll end, if he’ll make it, and The Nurse says yes, yes it’s bad, she says, and the question is whether he should be kept under constant observation now, she says, if he needs to be moved to a room where he can be kept under constant observation, she says and The Doctor says that would be best and I lie in bed at The Country Inn, in Room 407, and I can’t get to sleep and I see Asle lying there, shaking, trembling, jerking, his long grey hair moving up and down and I hear The Doctor say no it doesn’t look good and The Nurse says the question is whether he’ll make it, she says and The Doctor says it sure looks bad, but maybe these spasms will stop soon, or at least get weaker, he says and Asle needs somebody with him at all times, The Doctor says, maybe he’s strong enough to pull through, he says, yes The Nurse says and I see someone come in and they wheel his bed and the metal stand with all the tubes attached to his body out to the hall and into a lift and they take the lift one floor up and then Asle is wheeled down a corridor and then he’s wheeled into a room where there’s already a man lying in a bed and a man in a white uniform sitting on a chair and I see that Asle’s face is almost totally grey and the man sitting there stands up and goes over to the bed Asle’s in and helps wheel that bed over to the wall opposite from where the other bed is and then Asle lies there and his whole body’s shaking, trembling, the jerking is going through him the whole time and then Asle just lies there and he wakes up and he looks at the man sitting on a chair in the room and the man sitting there says Asle should just sleep, he needs to rest now, what you need now is rest, sleep, he says and Asle shuts his eyes and then he just lies there in his shaking and I lie in bed at The Country Inn, Room 407, and I see Asle standing next to Father and he’s looking down at a hole in the ground and he knows that the box with the wreaths and flowers on it is going to be put down into the hole and his Grandfather is lying there in the box and he was big, tall, broad-shouldered, enormous, and then Asle feels tears coming into his eyes and people are standing around the open hole in the ground, lots of people, and they’re all standing far enough away from the hole in the ground so that
there’ll be room for the people carrying the white box with his Grandfather inside and they’ll be able to walk next to the hole in the ground and there’s a mound of dirt past the end of the hole and Asle stands there and he sees the pastor, in his black pastor’s robe, with his white pastor’s collar around his neck, come walking in the lead and behind him are the men carrying the white box with his Grandfather inside and Asle looks at the box and he feels a fear take hold of him and he sees the pastor step aside a little and take his place and then he’s standing there in his black pastor’s robe with the white pastor’s collar and the men with the box come closer and closer and Father steps back a little and Asle steps back with him and everyone else steps back a little too and then the men carrying the box with all the wreaths and flowers walk past Asle and he sees that they’re walking bent to one side, because it’s heavy, carrying Grandfather, big as he was, Asle thinks, and they put something like a frame with straps across it over the black hole in the ground and the men lift the box over the hole in the dirt and they carefully put the box down on the straps across the top of the hole that are attached to a frame and then the pastor speaks and he throws earth onto the box and he says from dust you come and to dust you shall return and then the people standing around the box start singing Nearer My God To Thee and then one or the other of them starts lowering the box down into the hole, down, down, and Asle puts his hand into Father’s hand and then they stand there, Asle and Father, and watch the box with Grandfather in it being lowered farther and farther down into the dirt and then the box is out of sight and now Asle can’t hold back his tears any more and the tears start running down his cheeks and he holds Father’s hand and all he feels now is Father’s hand and people start walking away from the hole in the ground where the box with his Grandfather in it is now down in the earth, surrounded by dirt, and it’s a long way down to the box, and to his Grandfather, and Father goes almost all the way up to the edge of the hole in the dirt and then Asle looks up at Father and he sees Father standing and looking down at the box and then he too looks down at the box and while everyone else walks away he and Father stay standing and looking at the box where his Grandfather is lying and eventually it’s just Asle and Father there and Mother and Sister and Grandmother are behind them and then he hears Mother say