* * *
She lies under the bush and has no idea what time it is. She has a watch, but it’s too dark for her to see it, she has the feeling it would be easier to wait if she knew HOW much longer she had to wait, now that she has to wait for a wet, dark eternity that smells of rotting leaves and earth. It smells of rain, her jacket gives off loud squeaks, she doesn’t like the way things have gone, that she’s scared of the noise, that generally she’s just a little frightened, she realizes. She doesn’t know what time it is, it bothers her, she would love to know what time it is, if she went down onto the road she could find out, she could just jump up onto the road, hold her arm up under a streetlight and see what time it is, it might even be possible to see before she gets to the road, the glow from the streetlights might be strong enough, she’ll try anyway, she’ll get up at least from the ground that’s now seeping in through her trousers, she stands up. She’s cold right through, stiff, her bike is lying in the ditch, she feels quite affectionate when she sees it, she touches the handlebars, scrambles up the bank to the road, over the crash barrier, pulls up her sleeve, looks at her watch: it’s a quarter past twelve. A quarter past twelve! Not later! FUCK, she screams. Damn, she says. She looks around, the fjord frightens her. It’s pitch-black. She hears rustling. The bush where she’s been hiding frightens her. It’s all black. She scrambles back down into the ditch, picks up the bike, struggles not to slip back down the embankment, but manages to get up, lifts the bike over the crash barrier. But she can’t get started in bottom third. She pushes the bike homeward.
* * *
Suddenly she hears the sound of a car behind her, she wonders if she should jump down into the ditch, but it’s too late, the car pulls up alongside her, it’s Alvin’s van, Alvin sticks his head out the window, his cheeks are red, he clears his throat. “So, here you are in the middle of the night,” he says. “Well, so are you, by the looks of it,” she says, and he doesn’t reply. “Problem with the bike?” he asks, and she tells him the gears aren’t working, something happened when she was going to shift up to fourth, the whole system collapsed and she couldn’t fix it. “I’ll drive you home,” Alvin says, stops the van, puts the bike in the back, and she gets into the passenger seat. She’s despondent, doesn’t have anything to say, she’s cycled ten kilometers in bottom third, missed the last ferry in the world, lain under a bush and gotten wet, and is now sitting in Alvin’s van, who obviously has been at Susanne’s, he’s got a bite mark on his hand, it’s red. “So, were you trying to keep fit?” Alvin asks, he doesn’t look at her, and she doesn’t look at him either, she looks out at the fjord, which lies there pitch-black, it’s raining, she likes the sound of the windshield wipers. “No,” she says. “Have you been at Susanne’s?” she asks, it just pops out of her mouth, she didn’t even have time to think. Alvin doesn’t say anything for a while. She feels the heat from the seat warming her wet clothes, she leans her head back, still looking out at the fjord. “Why do you ask that?” he says. She nods at his hand. “You’ve got a bite mark on your hand.” “Huh?” he says, and looks down. “Oh God,” he says. He’s quiet for a while. “Don’t suppose you’ve got any makeup with you?” he asks, she has to laugh. “I’m afraid not,” she says. She can see now that Alvin is desperate. His face is bright red and his forehead wrinkled right up to the hairline. He’s gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles are white, staring at the road ahead as if it might suddenly leap up and hit them. His jaw is clenched, his lips are trembling, and then Alvin starts to cry, quietly, his whole body sobs with tears, the van goes slower and slower, it’s evident that Alvin can’t see where he’s going, because they’re driving onto the other side of the road, “STOP,” she shouts, as the front of the van veers over the midway marker, and Alvin jumps and slams on the brakes. The van stops.
* * *
The rain drums on the roof, Alvin puts his head down on the steering wheel, she just tries to listen to the windshield wipers, the quiet hum, the slight whine as they pull themselves over the window, she watches them, they make a pattern that’s like Chinese fans. She doesn’t know what to say, if she should try to comfort him. It feels absurd to be sitting in a van in the middle of the night with a forty-year-old man who is sobbing and crying, it’s as if every fiber in her body is crippled by shyness, while Alvin slowly but surely stops crying and just sits there with his head on the wheel. “You coooouuuld…,” she starts, “you could say that it was me who did it, you could say you were driving along and you saw me cycling at full speed, out of control, swinging back and forth across the road … that I was shouting and crying and in a real state … that I was high on hash and ecstasy that I’d gotten from some guy … that you’ve noticed on the ferry, from the other side … a thin, creepy guy from Ålesund … who I met on the quay and it looked like I bought something from him, and I was cycling around completely out of control, and you had to try to stop me and get me to come down before you drove me home because you didn’t want me to get into trouble … and I was totally out of order, and you had to wrestle with me, I was wild, I shouted and swore and screamed, and then I bit you as hard as I could on the hand, you started to bleed, even, and now you have to take an AIDS test as soon as possible.” She looks at him, he has a strange look on his face, as though he’s struggling to hold back the laughter. “I mean it, Alvin,” she says, and then Alvin starts to laugh, he laughs and laughs, and she can’t understand why, she is hurt. “What?” she says. “Is it really that unlikely that I’d cycle around high on hash and ecstasy?” “No, no, no,” Alvin says, but she can tell that it is, that it is utterly unlikely that she would cycle around, high on hash and ecstasy, and she thinks that maybe it’s so funny, and wrong, because she said two drugs, so she says, “Well, or heroin then,” and Alvin laughs even more, and now she’s really hurt and upset about everything, and she starts to cry. Alvin stops laughing and takes her hand. “Don’t cry,” he says. “And you’re telling me,” she says. “Pah,” Alvin says, and squeezes her hand, and says they have a deal. “Deal,” Alvin says, and then he starts the van and they drive home along the fjord.
Trapeze
Frans Ekman creeps from his bed and looks out the window, where his own tiny piece of Bergen is revealed: a narrow street and a man walking his dog. The dog does his business as the man whistles at a woman in a purple suit who walks past. The man who whistles doesn’t seem to be aware that the attention doesn’t make the woman happy, only angry and upset. She suffers from a form of paranoia that means that she misinterprets everything: for example, if someone had said that her neat little purple suit was elegant and fitted her perfectly, she would think that they really thought it was horrible and that she had no taste, and was therefore pathetic. Because of her paranoid disposition, this woman once shot a man, her lover at the time, because she thought he was also fucking the caretaker’s wife. She served her sentence. And now the petite woman thinks that she’s had enough for today, yes, enough, she starts to cry, silently, but the man doesn’t see, he has to pick up the dog shit, and he still thinks it’s disgusting, even though he’s done it so often that you would think he liked it perhaps just a little: a warm, moist consistency between the fingers, maybe even a little rub back and forth, inside the plastic bag.
* * *
The man then throws the bag of dog shit up onto Frans Ekman’s small balcony with great confidence, as if his arm knows exactly how much force is needed for the bag to land on Frans Ekman’s balcony. Frans Ekman stands in the window and exchanges a look with the man, who is Frans Ekman’s brother. Then Frans Ekman opens the door to the balcony, without looking at his brother, picks up the bag, and, holding it between two fingers, walks straight through the flat, opens the door out into the hallway, goes out through the door, opens the cover in the wall opposite, and drops the bag of dog shit down the rubbish chute. Then he goes back into the bathroom. Washes his hands. Pulls off his pants, sits on the edge of the bath and suddenly feels that life is unbearable. That he can
’t carry on like this. That something has to change. Somewhere, somehow.
* * *
Frans Ekman looks down at his feet. The floor heating has made them glow; he gets into the bath, turns on the shower. The warm water soothes his body like a caress, and he stands completely still for a while, letting himself be caressed. Then he masturbates to an inner picture of the young girl downstairs who Lena is so jealous of because she’s young, only seventeen, and also has large breasts, which of course Lena doesn’t, and she’s so blonde and beautiful and thin, unbelievably thin for having such large breasts, something’s not right, Lena often says, it’s not natural, she’s cheated, and he simply has to understand that when he looks at her breasts, it’s not breasts he’s looking at, but two disgusting bags of silicone, and if that turns him on, well then maybe it’s not breasts that turn him on, real breasts that is, at all; the real thing, and that is something totally different, has a life, has lived (like Lena, but Lena would never bring herself to say that, Lena is in no way young and thin, and perhaps not beautiful either). Lena is Frans Ekman’s “lover or,” as she’s called herself, and they share a smile, an understanding that’s grown from Lena’s persistent question: “Am I just your lover, or…?” an understanding that suits them quite well, as Lena, on a good day, thinks that the humorous twist is to her advantage, that she is or, in other words that she is more than a lover to him. Frans doesn’t see any point in denying this, as things work well as they are, even though he doesn’t really know what they are and what’s going on, he knows practically nothing anymore, apart from the fact that he’s now standing in the shower and thinking about the girl downstairs, and is she the one you think about when you stand masturbating in the shower, Lena has been known to ask, and if she’s the one you think about then, if it’s her you want, well, no, you don’t need to answer, I know that’s the truth, don’t even try to deny it, no, don’t touch me, go away, I don’t want to see you, OUT! And this is followed by a long monologue from Frans, who is standing on the other side of the locked bathroom door, reassuring Lena (who is standing inside the bathroom looking at her small breasts in the mirror and sobbing quite loudly, and thinking it’s always like this, always! And when is she ever going to experience anything else, to be loved, for example, when is she going to be loved, she never will be, never) that he never thinks of anyone other than her, that it doesn’t work like that for him, it might do for others, but not for him, that he thinks about Lena all the time, when he’s masturbating and when he’s not masturbating, and at that point, Lena says: DO YOU? Because her heart sparkles at the thought that he thinks about her even when he’s not masturbating, that she’s more than a sex object and a lover, that she really means something to him, and Frans says, in a slightly muted way, “Yes,” which makes Lena melt completely and open the door.
* * *
Frans showers with the young girl from downstairs in his mind’s eye: she’s standing with her back to him when he goes into the laundry in the basement, carrying a basket of washing, she’s leaning over, pulling the wet clothes out of the washing machine, and she’s wearing a very short dress and Frans suspects she’s not wearing any panties underneath, but he can’t be sure, because it’s quite dim in the cellar, all he can see is a shadow and then she turns toward him with hooded eyes and tugs at her dress. Through the rush of the shower, he hears the phone ring, but he can’t face answering, suddenly he can’t face anything, he stands completely still until the phone stops ringing, then he gets out of the shower, dries himself with a towel that smells of perfume. The telephone starts to ring again and Frans sees on the display that it’s Lena calling from work, as she always does, in case he’s managed to find someone to be unfaithful with in the time it takes for her to get to work, take the elevator up to the fourth floor, walk along the corridor with a thumping heart and into the office to pick up the receiver, dial the number, and normally he answers, so he can be left in peace, he knows that she’s calling to see what he’s doing, whether for example he’s fucking the girl from downstairs, I’m eating, he says, I was still asleep, he says, yes, it is nice weather, but today he says nothing, he doesn’t answer the phone, and he realizes that it might be fatal, not to answer, and yet he doesn’t, it rings and rings, but he doesn’t answer. The ringing stops. He picks up the phone, records a new message on the answering machine: “Hi, it’s Frans. I’m afraid I can’t answer the phone right now, as I’m in the basement fucking the girl from downstairs up against a washing machine, but if you leave a message after the tone, I’ll get back to you as soon as I’ve shot my load.” Then he stands for a long time looking at the phone, with his heart pounding, until he finally grabs the receiver and changes the message back to the old one.
* * *
Frans goes into the kitchen and makes a cup of coffee, he sits with his head in his hands over the coffee that steams up into his face, but he can’t be bothered to move it, he thinks about Lena, sits there for a long time pondering. He doesn’t know if it’s worth it, he misses his brother, sighs heavily when he realizes for the first time, for real, that his relationship with his brother has shrunk to that one look every morning after the bag of dog shit has been thrown onto Frans Ekman’s balcony, and all because of Lena, who was Frans Ekman’s brother’s girlfriend a year ago. Frans suddenly has problems breathing, he stands up, goes into the living room, opens the balcony door, tries to breathe, and then lies down on the sofa and thinks what a crap day it is. And he thinks about Lena, that he should perhaps have said with more feeling that she suited the color of her new purple suit, when she stood there, ready for work, sashaying back and forth in front of him so he could see her from every angle, as he lay in bed and couldn’t face getting up. He should have said that it suited her, because it really did, she actually looked sexy in it, but then something possessed him to say in answer to her “No, you don’t really mean that,” that she was right, that he thought, if he was going to be honest, that it was a terrible color that made her look as old as she was. Whereupon she marched out and slammed the door, determined not to call him all day, as punishment, until he said something to make it all right again.
* * *
And now Lena’s coming up the stairs. But Frans can’t hear her, he can’t hear anything, he’s sleeping off his misery. Lena comes up the stairs, only this time, again, with a gun, she has a gun in her bag, and she’s standing in front of the door, rummaging around for her keys, she feels frozen inside, she sees what’s waiting for her, she knows what’s waiting for her, splayed legs are waiting for her, blonde hair, Frans’s ecstatic face, she is frozen inside as though she were cold, but she’s not shivering, she holds the gun in her hand in her bag and walks slowly into Frans’s flat, into the living room, where Frans is lying stretched out. She stops, looks at him, moves closer to study his face for signs of what she knows was happening on the sofa before she came in, she moves closer, listens to his breathing, deep in and deep out, his mouth is open, and he’s drooling onto the cushion, she sees that his hair is wet and as she stands there with the gun in her hand in her bag listening to his breathing, the drumroll reaches a crescendo, she feels a pain in her chest, or her back, which might at first be mistaken for affection, affection for the sleeping, innocent Frans, but which is in fact Frans Ekman’s brother’s knife, Frans Ekman’s brother is standing behind her and has stabbed her in the back, he thinks it’s about time that he showed them, got them back for all the pain they’ve caused him.
* * *
Good people, but still not able to get things right.
Blanchot Slips Under a Bridge
This is the story of how Maurice Blanchot slips under a bridge one day.
* * *
Maurice Blanchot woke up one morning with Arvo Pärt playing in his ears, without being able to explain why. He looked up at the ceiling and heard the piano notes in his head, loud and clear. At the same time, he saw a bridge in Prague, and he saw the wide gray river that flowed under the bridge, and the blackbirds
that flocked and circled dramatically above. And in the middle of the bridge: nothing. Everywhere on the bridge: nothing. He couldn’t remember having ever seen the bridge, nor having dreamed about it. It was suddenly just there in his mind’s eye, when he woke up, with the music he could not remember having heard, or dreamed. His head was full of something completely new.
Knots Page 7