The main thing was that this was a home, our home, where we would grow old and keep our dentures, each in our own glass. It was marvelous.
It was after six when Bjørnar’s car finally pulled into the driveway. The two older kids were using their iPads, while Alva was watching cartoons. I was waiting for him when he walked in the door, but when he saw me, he looked down and waved me away with his hand.
“I’m tired,” he said. “I’m not up to talking about this now.”
“We don’t need to.”
“But what were you thinking?”
“I don’t know. There were so many numbers, and it all happened so fast. I was trying to take notes. And then I tried to do a few calculations on my own . . .”
He shook his head, but didn’t say anything.
“I had the thought that we might be able to call the second runners-up and see if they were interested in taking over at their final offer price,” I said. “Then we could just make up the difference?”
“Yeah, we might have to do that. I’ll have to do some calculations, but I’m beat right now.”
“But maybe we could keep it? That would probably be best.”
“You’re probably not actually qualified to evaluate what the best course of action would be.”
“No . . . Did everything go all right in court?”
“I had a little trouble concentrating after lunch. What were you thinking?”
“I . . .”
“We agreed, right? Didn’t we agree?”
“Yeah, but I didn’t want someone else to be living in our house! You know? Well, at least not Ms. Shabby Chic. I bet she drives an Audi. Or the ‘children’s wing’ people.”
I made my airhead face and added air quotes.
He sighed.
“Do you want a glass of wine?”
“We can’t afford wine anymore.”
“But we already bought it.”
“OK, sure, but let’s wait until after the kids go to bed. Right now I want to eat and take a shower. And be alone for a little while.”
I thought about saying that you couldn’t be alone in this house and that was really part of the problem, but instead I went into the living room where the kids were. Later I noticed that Bjørnar had his math calculations out at the kitchen table, and when we were sitting on the sofa just over an hour later, each with a glass of wine, he gave me a look that showed he was wondering if I might be a little dim, mentally.
“I don’t get what you were thinking,” he repeated.
“No. What are we going to do?”
“First and foremost we’re not going to let you be responsible for anything.”
I looked away.
“And I cannot cut back after all.”
“What do you mean? At work? Had you been thinking about cutting back your hours at work?”
“I’m just saying that now I can’t, whether I want to or not.”
“Should we call Ms. Shabby Chic?”
“We’ll keep it for one year and see how it goes. And then we can try to sell again if we find that it’s too expensive. And hopefully the market doesn’t change too much during that time.”
I tried to laugh, but all that came out was a small croak.
“But you’re going to need to do all the work when it comes to selling this house: the real estate agent, the appraiser, the staging photos, packing, cleaning. Everything. From now on this is your project. I’m going to have to work as much as I possibly can if we’re going to be able to afford this. It didn’t occur to you that we were going to have to pay for the agent or the closing costs or the title transfer fee, either, did it?”
I shrank and opened my mouth, but he kept talking.
“If you’re going to apologize, you can forget it. Just let me know when you’ve sold this house. That’s what I want. And next time, you could stick to the plan we agreed to.”
“But we did agree to make an offer.”
“For almost a million kroner less than the one you ended up making.”
“Luckily I almost never buy new underwear.”
“What?”
“The underwear I’m wearing today, I bought it when we were on that BritRail trip fifteen years ago. I saved us some money there, anyway.”
“You know, that’s not even funny. You’ve almost bankrupted us. Do you get that?”
I nodded and took a gulp of my wine. It was a little hard to swallow.
“I’m going to bed. I’m exhausted.”
“I’m going to bed, too,” I said. “Just so you know.”
I took a few good swigs from my glass and tried not to listen to the sound of rumbling from the Deep.
11
Bjørnar looked up from the paper with an expression that showed he didn’t understand what I was talking about.
“We have to tell the kids we bought a new house,” I repeated.
“Oh, yeah, that,” he said tiredly. “Be my guest.”
But when they looked at me, their faces were way too full of anticipation, as if they expected to hear that we were going to Legoland or they would be getting their own iPhones.
“Your father and I are getting a divorce,” I finally said.
I didn’t really know what I was thinking. At any rate I never thought they would take me seriously. It was supposed to be kind of a warm-up joke. I mean, it was totally unlikely that we were going to get a divorce, even with my almost bankrupting us. But when I saw Ebba’s and Jenny’s faces, I realized it had been the wrong thing to say. It was totally wrong.
“What?” exclaimed Ebba, and I could see a faint quiver in her lower lip.
“You’re getting a divorce?” Jenny said slowly.
“Are you completely nuts?” Bjørnar asked.
I tried to laugh, but croaking was still the best I could do.
“We are not getting a divorce,” Bjørnar explained. “What your insane mother is trying to tell you is that she spent absolutely all our money, along with quite a bit of money we don’t have, buying that house we went to look at last weekend. So we can’t get divorced, because we can’t afford it. We’re going to move, all of us together. In just a few months.”
“Ta-da!” I shouted and flung out my arms. “Then you’ll each get to have your own room. How great is that?”
They looked down at the table.
“We’re not getting a divorce,” I repeated. “That was just a bad joke. Daddy and I love each other very much, right?”
“Right now I love you slightly less than I used to.”
“But we usually love each other.”
“You’re going to have to shape up,” he said, setting down his newspaper. “I have to go.”
“I don’t want to move,” Ebba complained. “I want to stay here.”
“I totally want to move,” Jenny said. “But I don’t get where?”
“We’re going to move to that red house Daddy and Alva and I went to look at last weekend. The one you guys thought was lame. It’ll be wonderful. Right, Alva? Alva?”
“What?” she asked without looking up from the iPad.
“We’re going to live in that house with the M&M’S. Isn’t that great?”
“I like M&M’S.”
“There, you see?” I concluded.
Bjørnar leaned over and gave Ebba a hug.
“I’m sure it will be fine, Ebba, honey. But right now we have to go. I can give you guys a ride. Mama has to drop Alva off at preschool, and then she has to get busy selling the house we live in now. For a lot of money.”
“Someone will snatch it up in a flash. No problemo!”
I called the real estate agent who had recently sold our neighbor’s house.
“Yeah, a lot of people thought that house was too big, so there may be some interest on the market for your property,” she said.
“Great,” I said. “Maybe you could call some of the people who were interested in the neighbor’s house? We’d actually consider selling our place without listing it. The
whole process is so exhausting—the photo shoot, all the open houses, flyers, all that business—we’d actually love to skip all that, save a little money, save ourselves a little stress.”
The real estate agent chuckled softly.
“There’s no way out of it. If you want to sell, you have to take the whole enchilada. But I could come over and take a look—now, actually—and give you an idea of what I think an appealing list price would be and go over my terms. What do you say?”
“Sounds good.”
Twenty minutes later both she and her Mulberry bag arrived at the door.
“I would love to sell this house,” she said. “Should we sign the papers?”
“I have to discuss it with my husband first.”
“Oh, really? I doubt you’ll be more satisfied with anyone else. Look, I already filled out the form for you. All you have to do is sign here and here and here.”
“Hmm,” I said. “We might as well get this ball rolling as soon as possible.”
Two hours later, I had signed a contract with the agent and had an agreement for the photographer and the appraiser, and for the next couple of days, everything that happened fell under the header of Selling the House. It was almost like when I became a mother for the first time and the whole world revolved around spit-up and the color of Ebba’s poop.
Just a tiny bit more hollow and depressing.
It wasn’t until I saw the Filipino au pair sitting at the bus stop that I thought of her and her flood-ravaged family. I made a U-turn and then pulled into the bus stop.
“Hello!” I called out my window. “Would you like a ride?”
She eyed me skeptically, but ultimately nodded. I leaned over to open the passenger door and simultaneously shoveled a few wadded-up facial tissues and cracker crumbs off the seat.
“Did you get in touch with your family?”
The au pair nodded.
“Yes, they’re fine.”
“Great news! I’m so glad!”
And that was actually true. Right at the moment I did feel quite happy. The photographer who took pictures of the house earlier in the day thought our house had been “delightfully styled” and concluded, “Good location, well maintained, nice size, and realistic listing price. It’ll sell in a flash!”
I squirreled those words away, hiding them inside me like a treasure.
And now the au pair said her family was safe. There were good vibes in the universe. This day was the beginning of something good, a portal to happiness, to selling the house, to a magical shield, to Bjørnar loving me again.
All the fear that had amassed was obviously just silliness. Our buying that house wasn’t hubris. Nothing was moving around in the Deep.
The house was a gift.
12
But when the day of the open house arrived and I hadn’t showered in three days and my whole life had narrowed to considerations of what to move out and what to leave, how the furniture should be arranged to maximize the feng shui, which cleaning and polishing techniques produced the best shine, and how much money we should invest in flowers, it was hard to distinguish gifts from burdens.
Maybe it was because I walked around in a constant state of low blood sugar or because I’d scarcely slept, but a buzzing had settled in my body. Or a trembling. I felt like I was electric, without knowing how to switch off or how to pull out the plug.
Because everything had to be perfect.
Especially since suddenly, in the last few days, so-called experts had showed up on the radio and TV talking about a residential housing bubble that might burst at any moment. I didn’t get where these people came from. But now that they were here, they wouldn’t quit talking.
“The worst thing you could do right now,” they claimed, “is buy before you sell. And it’s going to get worse. I wouldn’t be surprised if prices fall by ten to twenty percent.”
I’d stopped listening to the radio when I was in the car.
“I wonder if I’m coming down with some kind of heart disease,” I’d told my doctor. “I have a lot of chest pain all the time. It’s like an iron hand is squeezing my heart. It’s hard to breathe. And I can’t really stand up straight. I’m sort of hunched over all the time.”
“Your blood pressure is fine,” she’d said, “but you’re low on B12. I’m going to schedule you for injections.”
It still felt like I was having a constant heart attack, though. Even when seven people came to the open house.
Because none of them made an offer.
“Why isn’t anyone making an offer?” I complained to our agent over the phone. “A lot of people said they were interested.”
“The market decides.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“There won’t be any offers unless the market is interested.”
“Is the market interested in other houses?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“On the market, as I said. It’s selective.”
“A selective market?”
“Right. You just have to be a bit patient. If this keeps up, we might want to consider lowering the asking price.”
I put my head in my hands and sat like that until there was a knock on my office door and Frank poked his head in.
“Doesn’t it say ‘Testing in Progress’ on my door?” I asked, not looking up from the desk.
He closed the door partway to check.
“No. Are you giving an exam right now?”
“No. Come in.”
Over the last few weeks Frank had been growing the kind of beard that made him look like he had been raised by wolves. I hadn’t been up to commenting on it. He insisted it was his new girlfriend’s idea, but no one believed she existed anywhere other than inside his own head.
“I can’t really talk now,” I told my desktop, “because the testing is actually starting soon. I’m administering some exams for the University of Bergen, via VideoLink.”
“I notice that you’ve been proctoring a lot of exams lately, but that’s fine. I’m leaving early today. I’m meeting my girlfriend.”
“Great.”
“She’s from Lillesand.”
“I see.”
“She’s a real estate market analyst.”
“Really?”
There was a moment of silence.
“Have you guys sold your house yet?” he finally asked.
“No.”
“Wasn’t there someone who was going to make an offer?”
“No.”
“But you said that, didn’t you?”
“She changed her mind.”
“Why?”
“Didn’t like the tiles in the bathroom.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t know.”
“What’s the plan now?”
“The market will decide, but it’s selective.”
“Are you going to have more open houses?”
“Saturday. Another house on our street is for sale, too. We’re going to have a new open house on the same day as theirs.”
“Same kind of house?”
“Yup.”
“Uh-oh.”
I looked at him.
“What did you just say?”
“I said uh-oh.”
There was that stabbing sensation in my chest, more intense than before. I tried to detect whether any pain was radiating to my arms, because according to the doctor that was a sure sign of a heart attack.
“I have to go,” I said. “I’m giving a lecture.”
“I thought you said it was an exam?”
“That too.”
“Did you hear that I’m going to Russia?”
“Is that where your girlfriend lives?”
“No, she’s from Lillesand. Like I said.”
“Huh.”
“Internationalization.”
“What about it?”
“That’s why I’m going to Russia.”
“Right.”
“I was selected to be part of the delegation that’s going to look into the feasibility of setting up an exchange program with Saint Petersburg State University. Because of my extensive internationalization expertise.”
“I thought Peter and Ingvill were going, too?”
“Yes, but they don’t have the same expertise. Peter’s coming just because he happens to have been to Russia before, and Ingvill . . . Well, to be honest, I don’t really get why she’s on the committee at all. She has neither the academic clout nor the background in bilateral exchange agreements.”
“Ugh.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’m just glad I’m not going.”
“Not just anyone gets selected to be part of a delegation like this.”
“No, obviously. Anyway, I have to get going now.”
I hustled Frank out the door and locked it, before jogging down the hall murmuring my silent thanks that at least I wasn’t going to Russia.
I was still doing that ten minutes later as I tried to summarize Lacanian ontology in the foul-smelling chemistry lab I’d been assigned to teach in.
“What is real,” I stated, “is everything we can’t capture in words or thoughts, everything that can’t be categorized or explained, like desire or trauma.” Or Tehom, I thought to myself. “And in Henry James’s The Turn of the Screw, ‘the real’ is all the unwritten letters, everything that remains unsaid, all the ghosts.”
I could tell they had divided themselves into pretty much two camps. Half the class was tuning out and surfing the Internet on their cell phones, but the other half was on the verge of getting it. And I knew that if I just played my cards right, we could quickly reach the point where on the last day of the semester they would climb up onto their chairs and declaim:
O Ingrid! My Ingrid! Our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every Tehom, the prize we sought is won.
That was my dream scenario, to lead them to an epiphany and then experience a moment of all-encompassing acknowledgment that would bathe the entirety of my pedagogical existence in golden light. Because I was the captain of this ship. And I was leading us all toward the final goal.
Life-altering insight. Fundamental understanding.
So I gave it my all. I drew diagrams and scribbled incomprehensible words on the board and managed to push aside all thoughts of the selective housing market. For a while, it seemed as if Lacan had designed all his incomprehensible theories with Henry James in mind, as if the two of them worked in perfect symbiosis. The one shed light on the other and vice versa. It was like I was burning with fever. I was in the zone and had a continual string of new epiphanies myself. The whole lecture was like one enormous victory lap.
The Marvelous Misadventures of Ingrid Winter (The Ingrid Winter Misadventure Series) Page 6