As I lay there quite motionless, staring at the desk under the window, only half an hour from having to pick up the kids, the phone lit up. I looked at the display. It was a 0047 number. A mobile. But Gunnar couldn’t get to me unless I answered, I told myself, then felt an immediate wave of relief as the number was superseded by Yngve’s name and it began to ring.
“Hello?” I said.
“What a terrible drama this is with Gunnar,” he said.
“I know,” I said. “I’m really sorry. But at least he’s not dragging you into it.”
“She’s my mother too, you know.”
“Of course.”
“Did you know he thought about her like that?”
“No. I had no idea.”
“Me neither. We’ll just have to hope he doesn’t go to the papers. What is the publisher saying about it?”
“They want to accommodate him as far as possible. They’ve got some lawyers looking into it.”
“What are they saying?”
“I don’t know. They’re still looking at it.”
I could hear he was upset. Why couldn’t I just have left well enought alone, why did I have to go and poke around in such a sewer of old resentment?
I dropped the phone into the charger and went into the kitchen, ate two slices of bread with liver paste and pickled beetroot while standing by the counter, well aware that on an empty stomach it would be virtually impossible to get the kids home without taking my annoyance out on them at some point. I washed the bread down with a glass of water, wondered if I had time for a cigarette on the balcony before I went, then decided to have one on the way instead, lifted the trash bag out of the bin under the sink, tied a knot in the top, and sat down on the mat in front of the door while I put my shoes on. After that I took the keys from the cupboard, picked up the trash bag, and took the elevator down into the basement. The door that led to the storage rooms belonging to each apartment was open, a man came toward me, it was our neighbor on the other side of the landing, a huge brick house of a man, he was in his sixties and naturally I ran into him now and again on my way up or down, he always filled in the uncomfortable little pauses with some comment about the weather, often padded out with a supplementary inquiry about the climate in Norway. I said hello, he said there’d been a break-in during the night and that I should check our storage. I told him we had nothing valuable in it, and they’d be doing us a favor if they’d made off with what there was. He didn’t appreciate the comment, burglary was a serious matter, or maybe he just didn’t understand what I said. Probably that, I thought to myself, and went out through the other door and down the passage to the refuse room.
I slung the bag into the big garbage container, which was completely empty, and went back out of the dingy, grubby space and along the passage again, where I noted that the pane in the outer door at the top of the stairs had been smashed. It often happened. The first bike I owned in Malmö disappeared after three days, I’d been stupid enough to leave it outside after locking it. The next one I made sure to always leave locked in the basement, only one time I forgot to lock it, and surprise, surprise, the next day it was gone. They’d had so much time they’d unscrewed the child seat and left it neatly on the floor before making off. Another neighbor, an elderly woman who got stuck between floors in the elevator one morning, thumping her fists against the door, her shaky voice calling for help, had said when we moved in that the place was like Chicago. I loved that expression for the fact that while Chicago had been the very epitome of crime and violence in the fifties, the image had lived on, into the new millenium, in the minds of the old. It was like Chicago here, they stole bikes from the basement and broke into the storage rooms, where would it all end?
The light outside was bright and I put my sunglasses on. The air was warm, though not still in any way, a breeze came from across the street and the leaves of the tree in front of me rustled. The cars were tailing back at the traffic lights. Pedestrians were crossing, their hair blowing about in the gusts. People on the sidewalk passed me like shadows, I saw nothing, registering only their movements, regulating my own automatically according to theirs. Past Åhléns, Hemköp, Maria Marushka or whatever the hell it was called, the shop Mom always went into whenever she came to stay, Myrorna, 7-Eleven, and then, on the corner of Norra Skolgatan, the Hojen bike shop. The street lay sheltered from the wind, and heat rose from the asphalt. Cars rolled gently, almost unnoticeable in the swarms of bicycles on their way from Möllevangen to the city center. The owner of the little immigrant store stood on the step and looked around. I stopped at the nursery entrance and tapped in the entry code. They were out playing in the yard. There was a water sprinkler in the middle, surrounded by children, some of them naked. They shrieked and giggled. A bike with a trailer attached stood parked a bit farther away. It belonged to one of the parent couples who’d been there when we started coming. Many others had come along since then, we were already veterans. The problem was I’d written about this particular couple in the second book.
But for the time being I felt safe. None of the people I could see in front of me here in the yard knew anything of what I’d done. Book 2 wasn’t out for another two months yet, and the way things were going it was more than doubtful it would ever get to be published in Swedish.
“Daddy!” shouted John, and came running across the asphalt.
I lifted him up and tossed him in the air.
Vanja was sitting on a swing together with Katinka, they’d seen me and were yelling as loud as they could. Heidi was standing, her face visible in the open window of the little playhouse next to the sandpit. She noticed me and came running out. I lifted her up too. Then I went over to the staff to hear if everything had been all right. All fine, they said, the children had been cheerful and full of beans.
Half an hour later, I finally managed to get them together and accept the fact that it was time to go home. John was in the stroller, Vanja and Heidi walked along on either side, holding the handle tight. Vanja chattered all the way. Heidi said something now and then, completely unrelated to what her sister was talking about, while John sat quietly, staring out at whatever appeared in front of him. When we got to roughly the same place as the day before, Heidi again refused to continue, and it took ten minutes before we got going again. Outside Hemköp it was Vanja’s turn, no way was she going to let me do the shopping before we got home. Couldn’t I take them home first and then do the shopping? I tried to explain to her that we couldn’t do that while Mommy wasn’t at home, but she was having none of it. Five minutes later, after I said they could each have a bun, we walked through the automatic doors into the chill of the busy supermarket. John wanted out of his stroller, he said, I tried for as long as I could to hold him off, he wasn’t nearly as disciplined as his sisters, to put it mildly; he could stop in front of something he decided he wanted and not budge before I put it in the basket, or he could suddenly take off on his own, but eventually I gave in and lifted him out of the stroller. Over by the milk I realized he’d disappeared. I told Vanja and Heidi to stay put and went down the aisles looking to both sides. I found him by the dog food, lying on his back looking up at the ceiling. He chuckled when he saw me. I grabbed the collar of his T-shirt and lifted him up, carrying him like a sack over my shoulder back to the stroller, and he screeched and giggled all the way until he realized he was going back in the stroller and went sulky. I bought a pack of yogurts, which settled him a bit, and then we walked back down the aisle to the checkout, where I paid, bagged what we’d bought, and went out into the sunshine again. Vanja and Heidi munched on their buns. We crossed over and went into the shopping precinct, not to buy anything, but because it was a shortcut. It wasn’t far from the back entrance to the playground. I carried Heidi for a bit so as to get on, she sat on my arm, and with the other I carried the bags and pushed the stroller. After a while I put her down and picked Vanja up instead, anything else was out of the question, everything had to be in equal shares. When we got
to the playground, which was teeming with children, I sat down on a bench and smoked a cigarette while they darted around from one piece of equipment to the next. After only a few minutes John came toddling up to me, he flopped forward onto the bench and said he wanted to go home. I tousled his hair and said we’d be going soon. No, now, he said. No, soon, I said. And then my phone rang. I was quite unfazed, the only people who knew my mobile number were people I trusted. Private number, said the display.
“Hello?” I said.
“Hello,” said Geir. “Are you out and about?”
“Yeah, I’m at the playground.”
“How are you feeling?”
“I haven’t jumped off the balcony yet. I take it all out on the kids instead.”
“You’re not the type to commit suicide,” he said. “Your method’s to stick your head in the sand.”
“True,” I said. “But the most fascinating thing about the ostrich isn’t that at all. I saw this documentary about them once. They’re huge and really strong, and with the claws they have they can be lethal, so do you know what the farmers do to get close to them?”
“Put a sack over the ostrich’s head?”
“Well, once they get that far, yeah, they go completely still. But before that. Before they go up to them and put the sack on.”
“No, what?”
“They hold a stick up above their own heads. A broom handle, whatever. As soon as the ostrich sees something taller than itself it won’t attack. Its brain is that tiny. Ha ha ha!”
“Ha ha ha!”
“It’s got three rules it lives by. If a broom handle comes along that’s taller than me, I stand still. If I’m threatened, I stick my head in the sand. If someone puts a sack over my head, the world disappears and I no longer exist.”
“Those are your rules you’re talking about.”
“Why do you think I mention it? Still fascinating, though, don’t you think? The ostrich is such an ancient creature. It doesn’t need a bigger brain, it’s looked after itself perfectly well all this time.”
“You can keep your fascinations to yourself.”
“It’s the same with crocodiles and sharks. They’re so ancient. They behave quite mechanically, there’s no improvisation, no element of choice for them, they’re not able to assess anything. If something falls in the water where they happen to be, they open their mouths and try to swallow it. Whether it’s a plastic container, a mine, or whatever, it all goes in, down the hatch. I love it, the thought of everything once having been so primitive and simple, a kind of biological-mechanical world, and the fact that a few creatures descend from that and are with us here now.”
“I hear primitive, simple, biological-mechanical, and guess what, crocodiles and ostriches aren’t the first things that occur to me.”
“You’re the last Freudian.”
“Everyone is. They just don’t know. I’m telling you, Eros and Thanatos, that’s all you need. But in your case, the ostrich maneuver isn’t going to do you much good now. You’re going to be visible everywhere when your book comes out. You’re going to be an ostrich without sand.”
“Hang on a minute. I feel an inspiration. There’s a poem coming on … I am John Lackland, ostrich without sand, dim and witless, you understand.”
“That’s the spirit! Well done, Karl Ove! There comes a point where you’ve got to laugh. It’s the only thing you can do. Life’s a comedy. Everything’s stupid when you come to think about it.”
“That wasn’t me talking. It was someone else, talking through me. I’m just an instrument. The truth is I’m at my wits’ end.”
“That’s why I prefer Cervantes to Shakespeare. Comedy is truer than tragedy. You’ve got to laugh at it all.”
“That’s because you’re from Hisøya. You people never take life seriously. You’re all nihilists and cynics. But I’m from Tromøya. The very focus of gravity and tragedy.”
“I thought that was Athens?”
“Well, you thought wrong. People often get Arendal and Athens mixed up. Aristotle was from Froland, and Plato came from Evje, they say. The Cynics originated on Hisøya. Aristophanes lived in Kolbjørnsvik. And Sophocles hung out in Kongshavn.”
“Yeah, if you say so. Anyway, I was only calling to ask if we needed to bring some bedding with us, duvets and whatever else.”
“Don’t bother. We’ve got everything here.”
“OK, good.”
“Speak to you later then.”
“Not much choice, I’m afraid.”
* * *
As soon as we got home, Vanja, Heidi, and John disappeared off into various corners of the apartment while I dumped the shopping bags on the table and put the things away in the cupboards and the fridge, slashed open two packets of fish cakes, and fried them while I got the potatoes and some cabbage on the boil and grated some carrot. I’d only cleaned the kitchen the day before, now it was a mess again, and I decided to try to tidy up a bit while the dinner was getting ready, but managed only to empty the dishwasher before having to change John, he’d dirtied his diaper, and what usually took just a few minutes now turned into a performance, we’d run out of wet wipes again and I had to wash him down with the hand shower in the bath. He cried at the top of his voice as soon as I put him in the tub and kept trying to climb out again, I gripped his arm with one hand and showered him with the other while he howled.
“All finished,” I said once he was clean, and turned the water off. “It wasn’t really that bad, was it?”
He carried on howling. I lifted him onto the floor and rubbed him dry with a big bath towel. I realized I could forget all about getting him into a clean diaper and a clean pair of shorts, he’d just have to go around with no clothes on until dinner. Then Vanja yelled, and Heidi began to cry. I left John and went to their room to see what was going on. Heidi cried even more.
“What’s happened?” I said.
“Heidi hit me!” said Vanja.
“Vanja hit me!” said Heidi.
Vanja had been teasing, as she did from time to time, and Heidi, who wasn’t as verbal or as quick yet as her eighteen-months-older sister, had hit out at her in desperation.
“You’re not to tease, Vanja,” I said.
“I wasn’t teasing,” said Vanja. “And she hit me!”
“I know, that wasn’t nice of her. You shouldn’t hit, Heidi.”
I looked at them in turn.
“There, are you friends now?”
They both shook their heads.
“In that case, I can’t leave you on your own together. Heidi, you can come with me into the kitchen.”
“No,” she said.
John padded into the hall, barefoot and naked.
“Vanja, then?”
“I want to stay here,” she said.
“Can I leave you here together, then?” I said. “With no fighting?”
Vanja nodded. Heidi shook her head.
“OK,” I said. “I’ll leave you here. But any fighting or crying and you’ll have to work it out yourselves, do you hear? I have dinner to make.”
I went back into the kitchen, where John was trying to climb into his chair. The children eating undressed was one of the things I wouldn’t allow. I went to the bathroom and got a clean diaper, then dug out a pair of faded gray shorts both Vanja and Heidi had worn when they were little, and a green T-shirt with a blue dolphin print on it, which I got him into before lifting him up into the battered old high chair. The fish cakes were almost black on one side, I flipped them over, turned the heat down, poked a testing skewer or whatever it was into the biggest of the potatoes, which was still hard in the middle, put the plates out on the table, filled the jug with water, got some drinking glasses and put them out, and the knives and forks, took a serving dish from the cupboard on the opposite side, and handed John one of Vanja’s little plastic dogs, only for him to throw it disdainfully on the floor, announcing that he was hungry and didn’t want fishcakes.
I took the last of the
clean items out of the dishwasher, and put them away in the cupboard and the drawers. Heidi started wailing again. A moment later she came into the kitchen and clutched me tight, then stepped back and told me between sobs what Vanja had done. I didn’t quite understand what she was saying, and told her dinner was ready and that she could sit down at the table. The potatoes weren’t done yet, but the smallest of them were probably OK, and I needed to get some food into them now.
I strained the water from the potatoes, put them one by one into the dish with a spoon, slid the fish cakes from the pan onto the same dish, cut the cabbage up and arranged it around the edge, and put the grated carrot in a little glass bowl on its own.
“Vanja!” I called. “Dinner’s ready!”
I put two fish cakes on each of their plates, along with a potato I skinned for them, got up again and went to get Vanja, she was sulking on the floor with her back against the wall and wouldn’t look at me when I crouched down in front of her.
“Food’s on the table, Supergirl,” I said. “Come on, come and get your dinner.”
“You only listen to Heidi,” she said.
“That’s not true. I didn’t even hear what she said, if you really want to know. Come on. You need some dinner in your tummy. That’s why you’re fighting.”
“Why?”
“Because you haven’t eaten.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“OK, just come when you’re ready.”
I sat down at the kitchen table again, cut their fish cakes up for them, placed a small portion of cabbage and a bit of carrot on their plates, even if I knew they wouldn’t touch it. I spooned a pile of vegetables onto my own plate, followed by five fishcakes, and had devoured the lot in minutes. It was ten to six. I got up and started loading the dishwasher. Heidi slipped down from her chair.
My Struggle, Book 6 Page 16