Certain Signs that You are Dead

by Torkil Damhaug

  It had been a mistake to take her along to his mother’s birthday party. The imbalance in what they knew of each other had become even more distorted. He was behind, spending far too much time trying to work out who she was, trying to pin her down. But sooner or later he’d manage it.

  His phone rang, he picked it up, in his mind’s eye seeing the stone staircase in Togo, the fourteen steps down to the basement.

  It wasn’t her. He took the call anyway.

  Trym didn’t ring that often. Sigurd knew at once what it was about. First all those preparatory phrases. You’ve got to come back and plant the potatoes, that was one of them, an inside joke they’d kept up from childhood, from the days when their father still planted potatoes. Self-sufficiency, that was another one. Their father’s belief that a time might come when they would have to provide their own food. But Sigurd wasn’t in the mood for joking. He conveyed as much to his brother, that he was busy.

  – Can you lend me some bread?

  The sixties slang was supposed to take the edge off the question, normalise the painful truth that Trym was still living up there on the farm, still in the same bedroom and almost twenty-five years old, with nothing else to do but sit in front of a computer screen, and what made things even worse: that he had to call up his kid brother and ask for a loan.

  – I already have done, Sigurd reminded him.

  Brief pause.

  – I ain’t forgotten. Just need a bit more time.

  – You’ve got too much time, said Sigurd, but then didn’t go on. Didn’t say: what you need to do is move away from your father, get yourself a job, get yourself a life. – Fuck, no, Trym. I’m not lending you any more until you’ve paid back what you already owe me.

  – I’ve got something going, his brother offered, his voice weak.

  – Sure you have. You’ve gambled away every single krone.

  For a moment he was tempted to relent. It wasn’t big money they were talking about, maybe a thousand or two. Had he thought it would help his brother he wouldn’t have hesitated, but giving him money only made things worse and tied him ever more firmly to the farm.

  Again that image: standing on a crate by the eyehole in the barn loft, peeping down at the lawn in front of the house. A car parked by the tool shed. A blue Renault. If he makes an effort he can still recall the registration number. And Trym holding him back as he’s about to climb down from the loft and do something or other, still not knowing what that might be.

  – Gotta go, he concluded. – Got someone waiting for me. Keep in touch.

  He headed towards Vestbanetorget. Needed to walk. Seven weeks now since he’d met Katja at Togo. Close to four since she’d moved in. He thought about her too much. Even when he was supposed to be working. That was okay, probably had to be that way for a while. The first phase and all that. But this was the first time she had failed to keep a date. He pulled out his phone again.

  That was when he saw her.

  She was getting out of a car, a black Audi with tinted windows. He stood on the edge of the dock. She ducked back inside again, wearing a short black dress, too short to be standing like that; he could almost see her G-string, and every guy staring over in that direction wanted to have his hands round those thighs. Maybe she was retrieving something, or saying something to the driver, or kissing him. Because it was a he, Sigurd was in no doubt that it was the outline of a man’s head he was seeing in the driver’s seat.

  She emerged again, closed the car door and started walking up along the dock, and he noticed the looks she was getting, felt certain she noticed them too, that they did something to her, affected the way she walked, the way she held her head. He ducked behind a play frame on the quayside and followed her after she passed, saw her take out her phone and start tapping. A few moments later he received her message. Delayed, sorry, something came up.

  She stopped outside L’Olive; the head waiter opened the door for her. He explained something to her, gesturing with his hands.

  Sigurd strolled up to them.

  – Back again, chief? said the head waiter.

  Katja turned and saw him, put an arm around his neck, brushed her lips against his cheek.

  Sigurd let her do it. – Is that table still vacant?

  – Sorry, chief.

  – Can you fix it?

  He moved his hand in the direction of his jacket pocket, and the head waiter winked.

  – Just give me a minute or two, I’ll see what I can do.

  After they had sat down and he had ordered a bottle of champagne, she put her hand on his arm.

  – Are you annoyed?

  She spoke differently from the way she had done in the very beginning. She adapted quickly, though her accent was still unmistakably southern Swedish.

  – I never get annoyed, he told her, touching the tattoo on her shoulder with his finger. Angry, he might have added, but never annoyed.

  She looked out across the fjord. In the evening light her eyes seemed to contain ever-deepening layers of colour. He watched them as she made her excuses. Apparently some Vanessa or other had called her, and the battery on her phone was flat, and there were other problems, but mostly it was because this Vanessa wouldn’t let her go before she’d helped her with her nails. No Audi, no male driver whom she had to bend over and whisper something or other to, maybe touch his lips, meanwhile showing off her arse to half the men in Oslo. For a moment he was tempted to ask who the man was, but decided against appearing to be a vulgar peeping Tom.

  Back home she undressed in front of the bed. The thought of that Audi had still not left him. It would not disappear as he lay there on the blue sheet, already naked, watching as her clothes were loosened and dropped to the carpet. As she bent over him, head shaking, eyes wide in exaggerated admiration, he could still see the car in his mind, and he continued to do so for the rest of the night, no longer as a disturbance but now something that fired in him the desire to conquer her, obliterate who she was and create her as something new. She showed him things he had never done with any girl before, drove him to do them. And who was it showed you? he thought somewhere inside, but he could see that it worked, twice, three times, and then for a moment it was as though the black Audi had been worth it.

  That was what he needed it for.

  3

  Sigurd’s own view was that he had made a lot of progress in working out his strengths and weaknesses as a fighter. First and foremost was his ability to read his opponent. This prepared him for what was to come, meaning he could change his guard so quickly that any attack often evaporated completely. MacCay seldom offered praise, but in various ways showed him how valuable this quality was, that it was perhaps the essence of what it was he was trying to teach others. Not just to see the movements, but to read the opponent as a person. Interpret a look, a stance, realise what an opponent was going to do even before he knew it himself. Most people moved according to set patterns, which they found difficult to change, leaving them easily exposed. The best varied things the whole time, changed things unexpectedly, made themselves hard to read. The good were able to make use of an opponent’s mistakes, the best were able to create them.

  Three times a week MacCay gathered a few pupils he had faith in. It wasn’t often that new members were admitted to the group, but on this particular Wednesday he’d put Sigurd up against someone he didn’t know, a guy with a Moroccan background who was also a brown belt. Someone said his name, but Sigurd didn’t want to think of him as a name; the Moroccan would have to do. That was part of the training too, to make your opponent nameless. Later they might talk, or they might not.

  The Moroccan had taken part in tournaments in Sweden and was said to have done very well. Now he’d gone up a weight class. The first round was spent checking each other out. The Moroccan was quick, but no quicker than Sigurd. His forward-leaning stance showed that he was more of a wrestler than a boxer and would probably aim to get his opponent on to the floor.

  To keep all other tho
ughts out was a part of the training. The person who thinks about the sex he’s going to have later on is going to lose the bout, MacCay used to say, and he’d taught them a few simple tricks of concentration. There was one thing they were allowed to take into the bout with them. Not as a thought but as an image. Something imagined that they could put aside and pick up again after winning. Recently it had been Katja who appeared when Sigurd concentrated and allowed an image to form. Katja lying on the blue sheet, with her eyes closed, face divided by the light from the window.

  Things changed in the second round. The Moroccan began to look tired. Something half-hearted about his attacks; he tried a scissor takedown, pulled back, but not in the same way, always varying things, going right, left or moving backwards. A step forward, a medium-high kick, predictable. And then suddenly he left himself open. Sigurd saw into the opening, waited for maybe a microsecond. Then something exploded in his temple and the next thing he knew he was lying on the mat with the Moroccan over him and his arm locked in a kimura hold. The Moroccan applied a little pressure, as if to show how easily he could break the arm if this were not training.

  Sigurd had to tap his submission. He looked up at the silhouette in the light from the window. The Moroccan removed his helmet and spat out his gumshield, smiled down at him, not in mockery, just to register that in the group’s inner ranking he was now above Sigurd.

  He wanted them to eat out, a new sushi restaurant near the city hall. Stroll down through the park in the evening light with his arm around her.

  Katja couldn’t. Had to meet a girlfriend. She offered details, the friend’s name, the same Vanessa he’d already heard about but never met. She talked about what they were going to do, even where they were meeting, and the keenness with which she provided all these details made him doubt.

  While she was getting ready, he sat at his computer and looked at a lecture he was to give at the weekend. He could still feel the blow that had knocked him down, had seen it coming; it was as though he had let it happen deliberately. The Moroccan was no better than many others he had beaten. Sigurd was quick enough; there was nothing wrong with his reactions and reflexes, nor his strength and precision. It was something else he needed to work on.

  Your greatest weakness is also your strength, and vice versa. MacCay had drummed this into him from his very first lesson. Pain causes anxiety. If you can keep this anxiety separate, keep it compartmentalised, you can endure a great deal of pain. Sigurd thought he was good at this. But it was also about anxiety at the prospect of causing pain, a fear that the aggression accumulating inside you would take over, that you would lose control, and therein lay the key to understanding his weakness, MacCay said. That hesitation about entering the space that opens up in front of you, exploiting the advantage you’ve fought your way towards, making the decisive strike.

  Katja emerged from the bathroom, stopped behind him, read over his shoulder. He concentrated on the keyboard. Participants in the weekend seminar were already network leaders who had been on board for some time. They knew the Newlife products and would be capable of asking questions it made sense to be ready for. Was it correct that the tablets they sold to postpone the onset of ageing affected the genes in the skin? Might there not be serious side effects if they started altering people’s genes?

  – You’re so clever.

  She smelled of a new perfume. It gave him a jolt somewhere in his head, more or less the same place where the strike from the Moroccan had hit him. He held her round the neck, kissed her; she pulled away.

  – Vanessa’s waiting, I promised—

  She interrupted herself, lifted her skirt, sat across his lap.

  – Stay awake and wait for me.

  He grunted, glanced down at the few lines he had managed so far.

  – Promise me.

  Her steps across the floor, listening to them, as though there might be something in the way she moved that could tell him more about her. When he heard the click of the front door closing, he got up and stood at the window. Moments later she appeared. He watched her walking away, the motion from the slender heels up through the pelvic arch. He imagined holding her back, lifting that thin crimson dress up above her arse. Forbidden to others, permitted to him.

  Her mobile phone lay on the dresser in the hallway.

  He picked it up, put it down again. The keyboard lock hadn’t turned itself on yet; a message had arrived just before she left. He opened the toilet door, turned suddenly, pressed a couple of keys, postponed the lock for another few minutes.

  While he was pissing, he thought about it. Did he need to know who had sent that message? Or who she’d called while she was in the bathroom? He flushed. Let the idea of looking through her phone disappear along with the water from the cistern.

  On his way to the kitchen he picked it up again and activated the screen. Took a Bonaqua from the fridge, drank, realised he was actually thirsty. The bottle was half empty by the time he put it on the table, next to her iPhone. He opened the settings, navigated through to the screen lock, turned it off.

  Just then, it rang. He dropped it; it landed in the middle of the table and lay there with the display uppermost: call from a number beginning with 93.

  Half a minute later, his own phone rang. The same number. He knew it was her.

  – I must have forgotten my mobile phone. You haven’t seen it, have you?

  – No.

  – Not heard it, either? I just called it.

  He imagined the look on her face when she realised she had no phone with her.

  – Seen nothing, heard nothing. Have you checked your bag?

  – Of course, she groaned. – Can you have a look round?

  He wandered through the flat. Heard the sound of her breathing, as though she’d been running.

  – Found it. In the bathroom.

  – Shit.

  – Can you manage without it?

  – What do you think?

  He opened the contacts list. Apart from his own and a couple of others, the names were unfamiliar. This was necessary, he told himself. Find out those tiny details that she refused to reveal about herself, a little bit here and a little bit there, a jigsaw puzzle in which she would presently appear complete. And once he had that whole picture? The thought almost made him laugh. Siri and the other girls he’d been with had wanted him to know as much as possible about them. But every relationship ran the risk of turning into a series of predictabilities. When it reached that stage, it was already over. Maybe what was needed was for him never to cease being surprised, for the things he thought he had discovered to turn out to be wrong after all.

  He found a message from Vanessa. It was still possible to put the phone down without transgressing any limits. The message was four hours old.

  You coming to Malmö this weekend?

  He read it twice, maybe three times more. Tried to square it with the fact that this friend was actually in Oslo and due to meet Katja in a few minutes. He opened the message that had been sent at 17.12, four minutes after Vanessa’s.

  Have to know this evening. Egertorget six o’clock.

  The recipient was in the list of contacts as IH. He heard the key in the door, put down the phone, remembered he’d fiddled with the lock setting, navigated, turned it on again.

  She was standing in the doorway.

  – Is it still in the bathroom?

  He took it over to her, held her by the arm, pulled her towards him.

  – Sigurd, she protested. – I really don’t have time for this.

  He kept hold of her, didn’t relent. He had her pressed up against the wall.

  – Vanessa can wait, he murmured.

  He left the car in the car park below Tinghuset, jogged over to Øvre Slottsgate, found a table next to the window in 3 Brothers with a view across Egertorget. Ordered Bonaqua and coffee. He’d picked up a newspaper from somewhere, began leafing through it. She was lying. He had a right to know why. It wasn’t the thought of spying that made hi
m uneasy. What bothered him as he sat there was the danger of being caught, of looking like a loser, someone out of control who’d left himself exposed and would just have to take whatever got through his guard.

  His phone vibrated. Message from Jenny. When had he started calling her that? Long before she moved away from the farm. When had he realised that this was something she was going to do? Long before he stood on that crate up in the barn loft and looking down saw the blue Renault outside the house. He’d always known.

  He was on the point of calling Katja’s number when he saw her. She was walking up past the government building. Stopped at the entrance to the metro, looked round, sunglasses, hair gathered at the back in a ponytail that glinted black in the evening light. In his mind’s eye he saw the basement steps at Togo, fourteen of them, black stone. For an instant he thought of crossing the square, putting his arms around her, holding her tight and taking her back home again.

  One minute passed, two. She paced up and down, small, restless steps. He picked up his phone again, took three or four pictures, knew he’d have to delete them. A man walked past, sort of half stopped. She looked at him, and maybe she nodded. But then he carried on walking and Sigurd decided to quit this sneaking about and go home and do something useful. Then he saw her set off walking in the same direction as the man. Sigurd slapped a hundred-kroner note on the table and ran out. Looking for that crimson dress and those bare shoulders, the black ponytail that swung from side to side like a pendulum. All those looks when they were out had made him feel proud. And alert. He’d traced an invisible line around her, patrolled it. But she wasn’t a trophy. He wanted to figure her out. Know everything about her. That’s why I’m walking along here, he thought, because I want to know. I’m not jealous, but I do want to know everything about you, Katja.