The Other Name

by Jon Fosse

  II

  And I see myself standing and looking at two lines that cross, one brown, one purple, and I see how I’ve painted the lines slowly, with a lot of paint, thick paint, two long wide lines, and they’ve dripped, and where the lines cross the colours blend beautifully and drip and I’m thinking that this isn’t a picture but suddenly the picture is the way it’s supposed to be, it’s done, and then I step a little way back from the picture and I stand and look at it and then I see myself lying in the bed at The Country Inn and I think it’s Tuesday today, only Tuesday, and I might as well get up, or in any case get dressed, I think and I sit up on the edge of the bed and I think well now, that was quite a night, I think and I get up and go get my trousers from where they’re lying on the floor and I put them on and I pull my black pullover over my head and I put on my black velvet jacket and then I sit down on the edge of the bed and untie my shoelaces, pull my shoes on, tie the laces again, and I see my black overcoat hung on the chair and I think that I hardly slept at all even though I was so tired when I lay down, or actually, I must have slept, but maybe I just didn’t realize it? I think, and strangely enough I’m not as tired as I was before, I think and I get up and go into the bathroom and splash cold water on my face, once, several times, and I take off the hairband and run my fingers through my long grey hair and and gather up my hair again and tie it in the black hairband and then I rinse out my mouth with cold water, gurgle, spit it out, I do that several times and now I’m ready to go get breakfast, as ready as I’ll ever be, I think, they start serving breakfast at six o’clock, I remember that, yes, I haven’t started forgetting everything even if my hair has turned grey, I usually go to bed early and get up early, around nine o’clock I go to bed and I usually fall asleep right away and I wake up at around four and get up and I’m usually painting by five, that’s how it goes, I think, and I think that breakfast’ll be good and then I drape the long black coat over my arm and I put the brown shoulderbag on and then I unlock the door and turn off the light and I shut the door and I put the key in the pocket of my velvet jacket and I walk over to the lift and I make the sign of the cross while I’m in the lift, I do that every morning, either I just make the sign of the cross or I both make the sign of the cross and say a Pater Noster or Our Father and make another sign of the cross after the prayer, I think and the lift stops with a shudder or two and I go out into the dining room, into The Coffeehouse, because in the morning The Coffeehouse is the breakfast room for the guests at The Country Inn who are eating there, and it’s good to have left the room, I always sleep so well there, in Room 407, but last night I had an uneasy sleep, if I slept at all, but it’s strange, I don’t feel tired, I think, and there’s no one else in the breakfast room, it’s probably too early, I think and I take a big portion of food and go to a table by a window with a view of The Bay and The Wharf and I sit down and then I eat but the food doesn’t taste as good as it usually does because the whole time I’m thinking about Asle, how he’s doing, has he recovered? or is he doing a little bit better at least? will he be discharged today? and if not, then maybe The Handyman can get his apartment keys and then he and I can go get Asle anything he might want, because I can’t take the keys myself, no, to get into his apartment I need to go with The Handyman so he can let me in and then lock up behind me, that’s how it was when I went to get the dog last night, I think, yes, I was so confused by everything going on that I don’t remember some things, I think and I look around and I’m still the only one in the breakfast room and I think that there must not be many guests at The Country Inn at this time of year, plus I’m up early, they’ve just started serving breakfast, and I haven’t seen a single person out walking on The Wharf, I think, and there are no boats moored in The Bay, and everything’s covered in snow, everything’s white, and it’s pretty, I think, but the food doesn’t taste as good as usual and I only manage to eat a little scrambled eggs and a little bacon and a little coffee and even though it’s a shame to leave so much good food behind I get up and go over to the reception and say good morning and the night attendant, someone I’ve never seen before, looks sleepily up at me and I say I’d like to pay for one night and she draws up a bill and I pay it and I hand her the key and I leave and it’s not that dark out, because the moon, it’s a full moon, is shining and the snow is shining white and it’s cold and clear, yes, pretty, definitely, and the stars are shining and the snow has already been shovelled outside the entrance to The Country Inn, yes, the whole pavement’s been shovelled, and now? what should I do now? I think, it’s early, it’s probably too early to go get the dog, because the woman who took him is probably still asleep, the woman who’d lived with a fiddler who eventually just drank all the time and she told him to leave and he did which she’s really regretted since then, but now what was her name? and where was it that she lived? oh, I remember, her name’s Guro and she lives in The Lane, number 3, yes of course, but I’m sure she’s not up yet, or maybe she’s also someone who wakes up early? anyway I can just go to my car first, it must be totally covered in snow but I have a snow brush and scraper in the car, of course, so I’ll go to the car and get the snow off it, I think, and now, yes, now I feel confident about the way, I think and I almost have to laugh at myself, because the way from The Country Inn to the space where I always park my car when I’m in Bjørgvin, in front of The Beyer Gallery, yes, in the place to park that Beyer so to speak assigned me at one point, yes, I know the way backwards and forwards, even if I somehow, unbelievably, managed to get lost on it last night, but that was because I couldn’t see because the snow was so thick, it was practically a blizzard, I think, but now I’ll just walk away from The Country Inn up the street and then take a right and walk a little bit and take a left and take The Lane up to High Street, and go down the pavement a little more, and then The Beyer Gallery will be right there in all its glory, The Beyer Gallery’s address is 1 High Street, and there’s plenty of space to park in front of the gallery, so I’ll just go there first and brush the snow off the car and scrape the ice off the windows and then maybe I can take a walk, or, darn it, yes, after I’ve brushed and scraped the car and maybe started the engine to warm the car up, then I’ll go and ring her doorbell, the woman who lives in The Lane, named Guro, yes, Guro, in The Lane, at number 3 The Lane, and since I’ve got that right I’ll ring the right door at least, I think and I walk down the pavement and then I walk up The Lane and there’s just a narrow opening, no more than six feet wide or so, and then it gets even narrower until it’s just about three or four feet wide, and then it gets a little wider, I think, and now I should look for number 3, and I stop, and I see in the half-darkness, it would have been so dark if it hadn’t been for the full moon, that the number 3 is above my head by the nearest door, and I go to the door and I look at the nameplates next to the doorbells and they say Hansen and Nilsen and Berge and Nikolausen, but there’s no Guro on any label, but since she lives in number 3 her name must be Berge, probably, that must be it maybe, since Hansen is a more common name but not for people from the country, I think, and I look up, and all the windows are dark, and then I turn around and I look at the other side of The Lane and there’s the step that Asle was lying on covered in snow, I’m almost sure of that anyway, and there’s a sign with the number 5 there on the wall next to the door and I go over and look at the nameplates there and they say Hansen, Olsen, and Pedersen and then, thank god, one of the doorbells actually says Guro, but didn’t the woman apparently named Guro say that she actually lived in number 3, The Lane? but I guess I misremembered that too? I must have gone around thinking of the wrong number, I guess the surprising thing would’ve been if I’d actually got it right, and it’s dark in all the windows of number 5 The Lane too, but this must be where she lives? because she’s exactly the kind of person who would write just her first name on the doorbell, I think, so now I know where she lives at least, and I know that she wrote her first name and not her last name, and that I’ve once again messed up some numbers, I
think, and it really was a stroke of luck that she wrote Guro on the door, I think, since I don’t know her last name, but it’s about time I had a little good luck, I think and I say out loud to myself that she’s still asleep, Guro’s still asleep, and I think that I can’t ring the bell and wake her up now, maybe a little later, I think, so first I’ll go brush and scrape the car, start the engine, warm up the car, the whole car, and then I can wake her up, I think and then I think that it was on those steps outside the front door of number 5 The Lane that I found Asle last night, with his body on the little steps in front of the door, outside the front door of number 5 The Lane, so maybe he was going to see the woman named Guro? maybe, because he did have girlfriends he liked to go see, maybe Guro was one of them? and now she has his dog, if there’s not another Guro who lives in the building across the lane? since I thought the woman who took the dog with her said she lived in number 3 The Lane, because that is what she told me, isn’t it? that she lived in number 3 The Lane? so maybe it really is the woman whose last name is Berge who has the dog? and she’s not named Guro? because at first she did say her name was something else, didn’t she? now what was it? it was Silje or something, so maybe Guro isn’t really her name? I think, but what was that other name? the one she said at first that she was called? back at Food and Drink? I think, yes, Silje, that was it, I think and I keep walking up to High Street and when I get there I see The Beyer Gallery up the street, the building containing The Beyer Gallery is there in all its white glory, the gallery is downstairs, Beyer’s apartment is up on the second floor, and I see my car, it’s parked next to Beyer’s car, totally covered in snow, and it’s still a little dark out but the light of the full moon and the streetlamps and the white snow make it bright enough to see pretty well, so now let’s see, I think, and I think that when I saw my car again something like a little flash of joy went through me, that’s how childish I am, I think and I go over to the car and unlock it and get in, so now let’s see if the car starts the way it should, and it will, because it’s a well-maintained car and the battery’s in good shape, I think and I put the key in and turn it and the car starts right away and I turn the heater all the way up because it’s cold in the car, then I get out and go around to the back and open the door and I take out the brush and shut the door and then I start brushing the snow off the car, and it’s snowed a lot, there’s about a foot of snow on the roof of the car, about a foot, yes, I think and I sweep off the snow and I think that when I’ve got most of the snow off the car and scraped the windows I’ll go ring the bell where it says Guro, yes, definitely, and I’ll probably wake her up, but that’s not so bad, she can just give me the dog and then go back to bed and sleep some more, but, yes, I was thinking this whole time that she lived in number 3 The Lane, not number 5, so maybe I should ring the bell where it says Berge instead? because she did say at first that her name was something other than Guro, back at Food and Drink, yes, Silje, or maybe Silja or something else like that? and she said that we knew each other, very well, yes, didn’t she even say that we knew each other in the biblical sense? can she have said that? or maybe something like that? yes, it could be, it’s not totally unthinkable, no, I think and I brush and brush and the car gradually starts to look more or less good, I won’t get all the snow off it obviously but I’ll get most of it off, I think, and now I need to scrape the windows, I think and I open the door to the back of the car and put the brush back in and take the scraper out and shut the door and then I start scraping the windows and both the front windshield and the back windshield have already warmed up a little so it’s pretty easy to scrape the ice off them, then I scrape off the side windows as best I can and then I say to myself okay enough scraping and I put the scraper back in the back of the car and then I get into the car and it’s a little bit warm inside and I sit there and I look straight ahead and I’m both wide awake and very tired, I realize, and now I need to go get the dog, Bragi, yes, that’s the first thing I need to do, I think and I look at the clock and it’s after seven, yes well then I can just go ring the bell at the woman named Guro’s building, she still has the dog, because that’s what the woman who took the dog was called, yes, she was kind of just playing around with that other name back at Food and Drink, I think, and if I’m wrong then that’ll just be one more person mad at me, I think and I turn off the engine and I get out of the car and I lock it and now, I think, I should go straight down to number 3 The Lane and ring the doorbell next to the name Berge, I think, because she said she lived in number 3 The Lane, I’m sure of that, whereas she said both different names were her name, so I’ll ring the bell there, at Berge’s apartment, I think and I walk down the pavement, down High Street, and then yes, yes, I take a left and I’m already in The Lane and I walk down The Lane and then I see the sign saying 3 and I see that all the windows in the building are dark and I go over to the front door and I push the button for the doorbell next to the name Berge and I hear a bell ringing inside, not loud, it’s soft, a faraway ringing sound and so now I just need to wait, I think, because maybe she’s still asleep? maybe nothing’s happening? maybe I need to ring the bell again? after all, I gave a short ring just then, I pushed the button as little as I could since I didn’t want to make too much noise, so now maybe I should ring the bell again? I think and I push the button again and hold it down for longer this time and then I see a light come on in the window right next to me, so she does live on the ground floor, unless I’ve woken up somebody else, but she said she lived on the ground floor, didn’t she? yes, I believe she did, I think and then I stand there and I think that I don’t like this, I’m waking up Guro or whatever her name is now, or maybe even someone else, whoever that might be, and it’s too early, I think, but I can’t just walk up and down the street either, or sit waiting in my car forever, I think and then I see a face appear in the window and it’s a middle-aged woman, no, the face I see is the face of a women well on in years and she comes and opens the window