by Karin Fossum
He walked calmly and contentedly up the hill and arrived at the front garden. Let himself in and carefully hung up his coat in the hall. He went into the kitchen. He unwrapped the lasagne and put it in the microwave, then he laid the table in the living room for dinner. He placed the newspaper he had just bought next to his plate and poured water into a jug. Three minutes later the microwave emitted a ping and he burned his fingers as he lifted out his plate. He ate extremely slowly, alternating between reading the newspaper and looking out of the window. The large room had four windows, which let in plenty of light, and he had several green plants, they were lush and verdant. The furniture was the same as when his mother had been alive, it was heavy and solid and he would never manage to wear it out. It didn't bother him that it was old-fashioned. It was comfortable to sit in and he thought it was nice. There was also a large fireplace made from soapstone. On the mantelpiece stood seven crystal trophies, which his father had won at bridge. They were not particularly attractive, but he could not make himself throw them out, in some way they were a family heirloom. A family which would cease to exist when he himself died. In eleven years' time when the bomb went off. As he was sitting there quietly minding his own business, he heard a sudden bang. Something had happened in the street outside, glass was shattering, metal screeched and he jumped out of his chair and ran to the window. Two cars had collided. He stood, as if nailed to the spot, staring at the accident. The cars had come to a stop diagonally across the street; the tarmac was covered with shards of glass. A distressing silence followed. A couple who had been walking on the pavement now came rushing across the street to help. One of the car doors was opened and an elderly man staggered out. He supported himself against the car, slumping helplessly against the metal. Then the other driver stepped out. He, too, just stood there looking lost and cradling his head with both hands. For a while they remained there staring at one another, incapable of action. Alvar's heart was pounding and suddenly the memories came flooding back. They knocked him sideways and he staggered across to the sofa, collapsed onto it and leaned forward over the coffee table. He sat there breathing heavily, trying to pull himself together, but to no avail.
His cheeks were scarlet with shame. The shame that was the reason he would never be able to connect with another human being. To him this shame was visible, his eyes glowed with it and that was why he always averted his eyes whenever anyone looked at him. Even now, after so many years. As the memories overwhelmed him, something inside him ripped open and began haemorrhaging. They had gone for a drive in his father's lemon-coloured Anglia. A Sunday one spring. How old was I then, he thought, seven, maybe eight years old? He was sitting alone in the back looking out of the windows. He could hear his mother chatting in the front. His father drove and said nothing.
'Look at that garden, Emmauel,' he heard, 'look at those roses. They must be Nina Weibull, they're thriving. I think we should consider planting Nina Weibull around the house, they're so hardy. It's some house, I must say. Why do people need so much extra space? I'm so glad I'm not living in a tower block, those flats look like nesting boxes, don't you think? Look at that awful plastic pool in those people's garden. It makes you wonder what people are thinking, it looks so tacky. Oh, a whole wall of clematis! I've often thought that we ought to plant clematis on the west wall, Emmauel, what do you think?'
His father was still silent. He leaned forward and hugged the steering wheel. By now they had reached the countryside and the houses were fewer and far between. The landscape glided past. Alvar sat in the back quietly enjoy the reassuring hum of the engine. He sat with his hands folded and stared; here were some chubby-looking sheep, over there a herd of fat, red cows. From time to time, but not often, a car coming from the opposite direction would pass them.
'Those people have a double garage, would you believe it?' he heard his mother say. 'I can't imagine how people can afford to have two cars. But I suppose they have to. And look, there's also a rusty old wreck blighting their farm. I don't know why people don't have their old cars towed away.'
'Perhaps they need it for spares,' his father mumbled from behind the wheel.
His objections were meek and drained of strength. Alvar's ears pricked up. His parents did not seem aware that he was present in the car, they were in an adult world of their own, and if he wanted to snap them out of that, he would have to ask them something. He did not do that, he was a polite child, he sat very still watching everything they drove past. Some people were out walking their dogs, he saw a couple of cyclists.
After they had been driving for a while they spotted something ahead of them on the road. Alvar sat bolt upright, craned his neck trying to get a good look. It was a car crash. It must have just happened as there were neither police nor ambulances in attendance. One car was lying off the road on its roof, another was crushed and had ended up diagonally across the road. His father slammed on the brakes. The Anglia swerved to the right and came to a halt. People were standing around the wrecked cars screaming. One man had blood pouring from his forehead, another was still in his car, slumped across the wheel. A woman spotted them and came staggering towards them, blood gushing from her head.
Then something happened that Alvar found utterly incomprehensible. His mother started screaming.
'No, no!' she cried. 'We're not going to stop, I'm sure they've already called an ambulance, there's nothing we can do, Emmauel, drive on. Drive on right now!'
Her voice was so panicky that Alvar's heart froze. All three of them remained in the car staring, horrified, at the injured people and the damaged vehicles. The woman with the head wound was approaching the Anglia, Alvar could hear her pleading voice, he curled up on his seat in a foetal position. Again his mother screamed that they should drive on, she was banging the dashboard with one hand; he had never seen her so frenzied. His father clung to the steering wheel struggling with his conscience, torn between the urge to help and the strong woman in the passenger seat who had such power over him. Alvar was now pressing his face against the rear window staring at the injured woman. She stared frantically back at him and stretched out her white hands as if trying to get hold of him.
'Drive on, Emmauel, now!' his mother screamed again.
'But,' his father stuttered, 'they're badly hurt!'
She spun round in her seat. 'So you're a doctor now, are you? Do you know anything about what to do in an emergency situation? No? Now drive! The ambulance is on its way, I'm sure I can hear it coming! I want you to drive now.'
His father put the car in gear; Alvar held his breath. The woman had now reached their car, she was still staring at Alvar with pale, frightened eyes and blood was pouring down her cheeks. Alvar stared back horrified because his parents were running away from it all and he felt a sudden pang in his chest as if a cord had been severed. The magnitude of their betrayal nearly knocked him unconscious. He buried his face in his hands and huddled in a corner, he felt a shame so great that his entire body burned with it. The woman had seen him. He knew he would never forget her eyes and her white outstretched hands, hands he never got to take. His father pushed the accelerator and changed into second gear, the car leapt forward.
'Someone else will deal with this,' his mother shouted, 'it's not our problem!'
'But,' his father said in his meek voice, 'running away like this –'
'We're not running away,' his mother interrupted him, 'we realise that there's nothing we can do. Do you know how to do chest compressions, can you stop bleeding? No, you can't and neither can I.'
'All the same,' his father stuttered, hunched over the wheel, 'perhaps we could have helped them in some other way.'
'And what way would that be? Can you do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation? No, you can't. And we don't even have a first-aid kit in the car, not as much as a single plaster, so how would we be able to help them?'
Alvar held his breath. His mother had become hysterical, she was rocking backwards and forwards in her seat, there were red patches on her c
heeks.
At that moment they finally heard the sirens, faintly at first, then they grew stronger.
'I told you so,' his mother said triumphantly. 'Someone's on their way who'll know how to deal with this; we're ordinary people, Emmauel, we can't get involved with such terrible things, we would only make it worse. You're not supposed to lift an injured person, they could become paralysed. Do you hear, Alvar?' Suddenly she turned towards the back seat and looked at him, her face was flustered. Alvar kept silent, he was terrified. His father gritted his teeth and drove on. At a slightly lower speed now, shaken by what had happened.
Alvar sat on the sofa remembering this incident. And it occurred to him that he had inherited his mother's cowardice. It was linked to an inability to take action and it was sown in him at that very moment. The moment when the woman staggered across the road stretching out her hands and his father had sped away. And Alvar felt that something inside him had been snapped clean off. That was why as an adult he was incapable of connecting with another person. Why he discreetly, but at the same time very efficiently, blocked any attempt at conversations with others. He hated using the telephone, for example. He could barely manage to make a call should a situation arise which he could not manage on his own. Whenever the telephone rang his heart leapt into his mouth. It was ridiculous, and yet it was real. He just wanted to be alone in his own universe, without having to deal with anything. He got up and returned to the window, peering out nervously. A police officer had arrived; he was making notes on a pad.
Later, as Alvar sat in front of his television watching the news, he pondered this cowardice again. It was mankind's worst feature. Everyone sat, like him, watching misery on a global scale while they all thought that somebody else ought to do something about it. His thoughts made him feel depressed and he found a book on the shelf, turned off the television and made himself comfortable. Reading was always comforting. He instantly disappeared into a world of fiction and everything around him was forgotten. He read for two hours, then he went to the bathroom and had a shower. Afterwards he made his packed lunch for the next day, put four shirts and some underwear in the washing machine and returned to his seat in front of the television. He watched a programme until the washing machine had finished. Then he hung his shirts on hangers, turned off all the lights in the living room, cleaned his teeth and went to bed. His eyelids began to close. He thought about this day which was now over. The crash outside his window, the disturbing memories. Nevertheless, he thought, quietly contented, no big, nasty surprises, no situations he was incapable of dealing with. No great joys either, but he was okay, in good health and sleepy. He had sold two pictures. And tomorrow would come and it would be exactly like today, filled with the same activities in the same order. The years would pass and the days would remain the same, broken into short segments, which he would live through one by one. In time he would start to slow down, become more sluggish. His vision would deteriorate, as would his hearing. So his life would proceed until the fifty-three years, which he believed he had been allocated, were up.
Suddenly a thought struck him like someone throwing a spear at his chest. The feeling made his eyes widen. What was this? A distressing feeling of panic. Surely he was not going to start having trouble sleeping now? He had never had any problems with that. Perhaps it was his age, was he about to go through a midlife crisis, like some men did when they reached their forties? He turned over onto his side and pushed the spear away. He felt as if it had scratched him. He exaggerated his breathing, making it deep and even and felt how tired he was. Of course, it was naive to think that nothing would ever happen to him, something happened to most people, surely he was no exception. But what would happen to him? He sensed unease, a touch of dread. But he could see nothing in his future to fear. He sat upright in bed. Went out into the bathroom and drank a glass of water. That was it, he thought, it was thirst, nothing more. He returned to his bed and lay down, closed his eyes. Surely there was an interference in the silence, which he had never been aware of before? Why had he suddenly started noticing things? Perhaps there's something missing in my life? A distraction. He kept thinking about the cat. He wanted a grey one. He wanted a torn. He could put an ad in the paper, or he could think about it, at any rate. Again he turned over in his bed. It was strange. Something in his life was upsetting him, he had a premonition of upheaval. And he could not understand it.
However, the next morning everything was as it always had been. He contemplated the night before and remembered his uneasiness, but it had passed. He shaved in front of the mirror in the bathroom. The growth of his beard was exceedingly modest, but he enjoyed the ritual even though strictly speaking he could get away with shaving every other day. He used a razor. He liked going out into the fresh air and feeling the unique sensation which newly shaven skin always gave him. The weather was a little overcast and he walked along easily and contentedly. A steady flow of people was heading for the town centre. Big wheels turning, he thought, we keep this machine in motion, we don't give up, it's touching. What if we all were to lie down and give up? It was inconceivable. It was a question of keeping death at arm's length. It will come to us, but we pretend it won't, because it's obviously not going to happen today, and probably not tomorrow either, and definitely not next week. That too is touching, he thought. He was not scared of dying. But on one occasion he had articulated the following thought to himself: the last thing you lose is your hearing. So it was possible that he could be lying in a bed and someone would be sitting by his side checking that his breathing and heartbeat had ceased, someone who would then say: he's gone. That he might, in fact, lie there for several seconds knowing that he had just died. What would that be like? Was it the case that some people experienced such a moment? A moment they could never tell anyone about? As far as his own death was concerned he had few wishes, but he hoped that he would be lying in his own bed when it happened. It was less important to him whether he was alone or might have a carer sitting beside his bed. Many died alone.
He walked on and began to wonder why he was so preoccupied with death. Perhaps it was the previous day's uneasiness manifesting itself after all? No, he was in the midst of life and that was the time when such thoughts arose. Children and the young are immortal, he thought, and that is their privilege, but in the end it comes to us all. I'm of an age where I start to reflect and it is a good age. I'm better off now as an adult than I was as a child. Not that I had a bad childhood, not at all. My parents were kind and loving. True, they were shy bordering on awkward. He could find nothing to reproach them for, yet something had been missing. A sense of belonging. He remembered Magnus, a friend from his childhood, who had moved away the summer they both turned thirteen and whom he had never seen again. After Magnus he never made another friend. But he managed fine on his own. Again he thought about other people and how they sought each other out. Not to mention men and women and their eternal search for love. He did not comprehend that either. Did they consider themselves incomplete without a partner? And then there was sex. He realised that he lacked something that many others had. However, many people went without sex, it was perfectly possible to live a celibate life. What if I tried sex, he thought, blushing instantly, would I then start to need it? Maybe. Perhaps it was something you could become addicted to, like food and drink.
He had reached the church and he looked up at the cemetery. This is where I'll end up one day, he thought, and it's beautiful. On a hill above the town. He had put money aside for his funeral and he also had some savings. Seventy thousand kroner. He was a regular saver. He was not saving up for anything in particular, but it was always good to have something set aside for a rainy day. During the time he had worked at Gallery Krantz he had bought some prints and a few drawings. Not expensive items, but pictures that he really appreciated. He had often dreamt of finding the one painting that was destined for him. Because he believed it existed, he had seen it happen many times in the gallery. A customer would enter and stop in
their tracks in front of a picture mesmerised. And they would be rooted to the spot, they would be incapable of returning to their home without this painting. The painting was something they had been searching for, something they had been missing. He never thought it was an act, but a precious moment. A unique meeting between the artist and the spectator, a singular language, which would be understood by a chosen one and would seduce him. Personally he had never encountered such a picture.