I was tired and I was drunk. ‘I’ll deliver the message,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell her I’ve come straight from the whale and Jonas is sorry. I’ll tell her that.’
I was too tired and too drunk to say any more.
We paid for our last two pints and sat for a while. Mainly because we couldn’t stand up.
When we finally did, we sort of joined ourselves together on the way out. Like Siamese twins. The doorman held the door for us and we lurched out on to the pavement.
We stood there, swinging and swaying like two young lovers who can’t stand to say goodbye. ‘Where are you going?’ I said.
‘Prestestien,’ he said. ‘But I need a taxi.’
‘Well,’ I said, ‘you’ve got a choice between the statue of Holberg and the fortress.’
‘I’ll try the fortress,’ he said. ‘At least it’s in the right direction.’
‘Well. Have a good crossing.’
‘You too. Which way are you going?’
‘To the heights,’ I said.
He looked at the sky. The grey cloud cover had peeled away and you could see stars between the shreds. ‘Up there?’ he said.
‘Not that high up,’ I said.
Then he thumped me on the shoulder.
‘Remember the Alamo, Reidar,’ he said.
I didn’t have time to react to his suddenly calling me Reidar.
He’d already gone. He went weaving along Bryggen. An advertising executive in a suit with a briefcase in his hand and a coat over his arm, a man with a tattered reputation and a vulnerable love somewhere inside him. One of the many who’d landed on the wrong planet in the wrong century. One of the many …
I turned and headed the other way. I could see that lonely light in my office window across Vågen. Two floors above the cafeteria on the second. But I couldn’t cross the market to turn it out. It could shine until tomorrow. Like a beacon in the night. A secret message to all shipwrecked souls.
I walked towards the heights instead. Up towards the fire station at Skansen and the endless high plateaus. Up towards two quick aquavits and the window-blind. Nothing else was waiting for me. I didn’t need anything else.
Not today. Not tomorrow. But some day. Some day.
20
When you wake from a dream you feel as if you’ve been slung on to the floor. I opened my eyes. I was awake. I was naked under the quilt and I was very much aware of my nakedness. I’d been dreaming of a woman. Of a woman whose hair wasn’t red and it wasn’t brown. But floated like music around her face. And she was smiling. Her smile hung in the air after she was gone. It was like the cat’s smile in Alice in Wonderland. One of those smiles that drill right into you and never die away until you’re lying in your grave. One of those smiles that spring up as beautiful flowers from the earth you’re lying under. When it’s spring again. And when you’re dead.
When you’re dead and the mountains all around the city stand there as they always have, and the sky bends down over houses that have been demolished and houses that have been built.
And there’ll be Mondays when you’re dead. And people will walk and drive to their jobs. And they’ll stand around in shops and they’ll sit in offices, and they’ll take buses and trolleys. When you’re dead and it’s spring and all your women are dead. Except one.
She’d smiled at me and had told me her name. Wenche Andresen, she had said. And her face had become fuzzy. Blurred. And a little boy had called to me from a long way off. A clear little boy’s voice. And he’d run towards me with a football under one arm. He was wearing trousers which were about to be too small for him. It was Thomas. No. It was Roar. And I’d tried to hang on to her smile, to the half-moon that had come loose from one of the drawing-pins and had fallen part of the way down, and I’d tried to pull myself up by it and – I woke up.
I rolled out of bed and on to the floor. Reached up and fished the alarm clock from the bedside table. Peered at it. Past twelve. I’d forgotten to set the alarm. What if somebody had rung the office? Somebody who wanted me to walk the poodle. Or find a runaway washing machine. Or the snows of yesteryear.
My mouth tasted of withered grass. It was that one aquavit too many.
The six – or was it seven? – pints of beer lay in my stomach like lead weights. There’d be trouble with the spark plugs today. I wished I hadn’t been slung sideways out of my dream.
I tiptoed to the bathroom and turned on the shower. Soaped myself slowly from head to toe. And I stood with my eyes closed. I stood there until the hot water was gone. After two minutes under the cold I was conscious enough to turn off the tap.
I towelled myself warm again. Then did a fast combination of relaxing yoga exercises and battery-charging neck and stomach exercises on the living-room floor. Then I went to the kitchen.
I needed tea. A lot of very weak tea with a lot of sugar in it. I needed thin-sliced wheat bread topped with big juicy slices of cucumber and tomato. And a lot more tea. With a lot more sugar in it.
By one-thirty I was able to get in the car.
I drove down to the office and turned off the light. Then I sat and stared at the walls which had tuned grey-green in the mouldy daylight.
It was March. Spring would come soon. All our winters would melt away and spring would clear a path inside us like a smiling willing woman – a woman whose hair was neither …
I thought about Jonas Andresen and what he’d told me. I thought about Wenche and what she’d told me. And I decided that no one marriage is like another – especially not to those involved. Nobody sees things the same way.
Wenche and Jonas Andresen had told me about two entirely different marriages; they’d told two entirely different stories of adultery.
It had been a game neither had won. And for some reason or other they’d dragged me in. As a referee. Or a linesman. Or God knows what.
I looked at my watch. Almost three. How long would she be in her office at the naval base? Until four? I could call her. Or I could drive out there and report in person. But what could I report? Tell her I’d drunk so many pints with her former husband that I’d lost count? Maybe I ought to put them on the bill. If I had a bill to put them on.
At least I could drive there. There were more than enough fun and games to amuse even the choosiest private investigator. I could stroll in the woods. Go a few rounds with Joker and his gang. Acquire a few bruises. I could argue with Gunnar Våge. Get stuck in the lift with Solfrid Brede. Drink vodka with Hildur Pedersen. Play Parchese with Roar.
I could kiss Wenche Andresen.
I touched my mouth. Her kiss was still there. Like a memory of being young. It had been a long time since anybody had kissed me at all. I haven’t got a kissable mouth. Not as far as strangers are concerned anyway. And only a few people ever get to be more than strangers. And they aren’t about to kiss me.
I thought of Beate. Tried to remember how it had felt when she’d kissed me. But it was too long ago. Too many dark moonless nights ago.
So there were a lot of possibilities. I locked up the office. Didn’t turn on the light. Walked down. Started the car.
This day was about to die, just as all our days die inside us one by one. Until we wake up one morning from a dream and discover that we haven’t woken up but have gone on dreaming. And all days become one day and all nights melt together.
And your bottles of aquavit sit there getting dusty until somebody comes along and drinks them for you. And a doctor or a letter-addressing company or someone who peddles one-room flats takes over your office.
But then you don’t have to worry any more. No more utility bills. No more heartbreaks.
21
I parked and sat in the car. Nearby a thin young man leaned against a high curving street light. Thumbs in the pockets of his faded jeans, black leather jacket half open, cigarette dangling limply from one corner of his mouth and an expression like the onset of a plague on his face. Joker.
His eyes had followed me as I’d parked and now they
clung to my face like leeches. I got out. Looked around sort of accidentally. The Lyderhorn was in its usual place and so were the four high-rises. Nothing had moved or collapsed.
Automatically I looked up at Wenche Andresen’s flat. Light shone through the windows. Then I glanced at Joker. Our eyes met. He shifted the cigarette to the other side of his mouth.
I looked around me. Looked back up at Wenche Andresen’s fiat. There was somebody walking along the balcony in front of the flat. It might be …
‘Come for another whipping, Hopalong?’ His voice was reedy.
I looked him up and down and walked over to him. ‘Maybe you’d like to be my horsey,’ I said.
When I got closer I could see the sweat on his downy upper lip. His gaze wavered.
‘I don’t see your mates, the trusty ladies-in-waiting,’ I said. ‘Have they had it? Want to go one-on-one? Is that it? Without steel? The song says it’s steel in the arms and steel in the legs. Not in the fists. Sure as hell not in a switchblade. It’ll really hurt when I stamp on your fingers. Some of them could get smashed. Then you wouldn’t be able to play with your moustache for a couple of months.’
His voice was even reedier. ‘I don’t want to fight you, mister. Not right now. But I’m warning you. Don’t step on my toes –’
‘I said fingers.’
‘Because it gets dark out here in the evenings, and –’
‘Who said I planned to spend my evenings out here?’ I looked up again without meaning to. Now the door had opened. There was somebody standing there, but from this distance …
‘Looking for your whore?’ Joker said. ‘Don’t worry. She’s got company. The old man himself. Andresen.’
So it was Jonas Andresen I’d seen.
I got so dose to Joker he started shaking. ‘Call her that once more, little one, and I’ll break you in two and I’ll send you by Line Transport in two different packages. To the same address. That way you can bet you’ll never meet up with yourself again.’
His eyes narrowed but whether from fear or anger I couldn’t tell. ‘And don’t bother my mother,’ he said. ‘Because then I’ll kill you!’ That last came out as a falsetto.
I wanted to smash him. Hard and quick in the stomach so he’d fold up and meet my other fist on the way down. But I didn’t. I thought of his mother. Of Wenche Andresen.
I looked up again. Her door was still open. Something was wrong. But what?
Then I saw her. She was running out of the stairwell. Holding something. Then she disappeared into her flat.
I stood there. Staring. Barely aware of Joker beside me. I glanced sideways. He’d followed my gaze and was looking up. ‘What’s going on?’ His voice was suddenly young and weak.
Then Wenche Andresen reappeared in the doorway. She was walking strangely. Uncertainly. She came straight to the balcony railing. Leaned over it. For a second I almost thought she was going to jump, throw herself into space and float down toward us like a huge bird.
But she didn’t. I could hear her screaming at this distance. ‘Help. Somebody! Help – somebody. Help! Help!’
Then the gaping doorway swallowed her again. I moved. Heard Joker behind me.
He was running in another direction, but I couldn’t think about him. The only thing I could think about was a woman named Wenche Andresen. Who wasn’t a bird. Who was screaming, ‘Help! Somebody!’
That somebody had to be me.
22
I rushed into the lift area. A note on one of the doors said Out of Order. The other lift was on its way down, but I couldn’t wait. I ran to the stairway and started up. I stopped half-way to catch my breath. Checked the front of the building.
No bird had taken off yet. Yesterday’s acquaintance, Solfrid Brede, was on her way out. She must have been in the lift that worked. She’d got over her panic.
I climbed. Blood pounding behind my eyes. I began seeing dancing black specks. My breath sounded like one of those autumn gusts that suddenly come sweeping around corners.
Then I was there. I lurched out of the door to the balcony and sort of trotted the last lap. Sick to my stomach.
The flat door was still open. I didn’t bother ringing.
I didn’t have to go far. Just inside the door was far enough. More than far enough.
Jonas Andresen lay on the floor. Partly on his side, partly curled around the lethal midpoint of his last moment. A bleeding hole in his belly.
Both hands clutched at the torn shirt as if to keep his life from escaping. But it hadn’t helped. Life had seeped out of him like air from a leaky balloon. Somebody had holed him with the decisive blow. His eyes now stared at eternal peace. His body had lain down to rest some time ago now. He wouldn’t be drinking any more pints of export. He wouldn’t be doing anything at all.
And standing over him was Wenche Andresen, her back to the wall, a bloody knife in her hand. There was a silent shriek, a frozen cry of Help! Somebody! Help! on her face. A nightmare outlined clear chalk-white marks on a face that would never be exactly the same again.
I heard his voice inside my head. What was it he’d said last night? When you finally meet her – really meet your own dream girl then you feel you’ve got all the time in the world, that your whole life’s before you and that you can wait …
But Jonas Andresen hadn’t had all the time in the world. Hadn’t had his whole life before him. And he hadn’t been able to wait. He’d met his dream girl and then? Bye bye. Exit. He’s gone.
His moustache looked very moth-eaten now. Glasses sat crooked. His shirt was ruined and his suit rumpled. He lay in a lake of blood. And he didn’t have a life-jacket and he didn’t need water wings. But he looked peaceful. As if he’d just bent down, picked a flower and inhaled its scent.
Jonas had entered his last whale and he’d never come out again.
All the rest of us – the survivors – we stood on the outside. We who’d carry the black banners of his death.
I got myself together. Tried to note details. A broken jam jar absurdly lay beside him. The red jam had already mixed with his blood.
I went to Wenche Andresen and carefully took the knife away from her. By the handle. It was a switchblade. The kind Joker would use.
But Joker hadn’t used it because I’d been standing and talking to Joker. Who had used it?
I glanced at Wenche Andresen. Her eyes were huge. Black. Terrified. ‘I-I came up from the cellar with the jar of jam. He-he was lying there. I don’t know what I did. I must have … as if it could do any good.’
‘You pulled out the knife?’
‘Yes. Yes! Was that stupid of me, Varg?’
‘No, no. Not at all.’ Sure it was stupid but who’d have the heart to tell her that?
‘Did you see anyone?’ I said.
‘No.’
‘Did you take the lift?’
‘No. The stairs. I don’t like … Oh, Varg. Varg! My God! What’s happened?’
‘Wait a minute. Just hold on.’ It wasn’t necessary, but just to be sure I bent and felt for a pulse. I wasn’t going to be the one who talked while life ebbed from a dying man. But there was no pulse. He’d long since been called to that innermost office at the end of that farthest hall where he’d be judged by the last of his bosses.
‘Did he call and say he was coming?’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘No. I had no idea. I had to go down to the cellar and get a jar of jam and when I came back – there he was. Lying there. Just like he is now. I guess – I must have dropped the jar – and the knife. It …’ She looked at her empty hand. The knife was gone. It lay on the chest like a poisonous snake in a museum. But it couldn’t bite now.
‘But you left the door open when you went for the jam?’
‘Out here? Of course not. Are you crazy?’
I shook my head. No, I wasn’t crazy.
‘He must have let himself in with his own …’
I looked around the floor. There weren’t any keys lying there. But he’d probably
put them back in his pocket.
I quickly tried to reconstruct it. He’d let himself in. Nobody home. He’d gone back to the door. Opened it. Somebody or other had been standing outside.
Or he hadn’t locked the door behind him and somebody had followed him in. Or had somebody already been waiting for him in the flat?
No. That didn’t make sense. Nothing did. A body on the floor never did.
A last thought hit me. ‘Roar,’ I said. ‘Where’s Roar?’
She shrugged helplessly. ‘Out somewhere.’
I went to the outside door and carefully shut it. Checked that it was locked.
Then I stepped over Jonas Andresen, passed Wenche Andresen and made a phone call.
23
After I’d phoned, I came back to Wenche Andresen and led her out on to the balcony. She needed fresh air. I needed fresh air. And I wanted to stop Roar before he got into the flat.
In the pale grey March afternoon we stood on the balcony with its view of the Lyderhorn. The Bukkehorn clawed at the low-lying sky. When you approach from the sea, the mountain lies there like a sleeping demon. From here it looked like a demon’s fang, stained dirty brown by old blood.
Wenche Andresen was silent. She stood with her arms clasped around her as if she were cold. Her face had closed up once again. It had closed over a sorrow and a pain no one else could understand, for sorrow and pain are lonely things. Like love.
She was wearing a blue polo-neck and a grey cardigan. Dark blue corduroy trousers and jogging shoes. The hair around her pale face was dishevelled and her mouth had a bitterer crimp to it than it had ever had.
I wondered where she’d be spending the night. I was afraid she’d end up in an oblong room with a tiny barred window, a bunk, a washbasin and a pail. The circumstantial evidence was too strong. No matter what she’d say, I knew what they’d think. The ones on their way. I knew what they’d say. I’d heard them before.
Yours Until Death Page 11