Beate believes Bea Britt is unhappy, but she does not quite understand why.
I’d love to inherit a beautiful Persian rug, she says to Mum, feel free to tell Dad that, maybe that’ll convince him.
But I do not want to, she thinks, why did I say that, I do not want to inherit it, why do I give in?
Mum sounds relieved when they hang up, but will probably continue dithering, Beate thinks. She will buy the rug but only after a lot of back and forth, and after buying it she will regret it and be ashamed of her extravagance for ages. Then she will forget both the doubt and the regret.
The purchase of an expensive rug is hardly going to be what I’ll think about on my deathbed, she would say, but maybe I will picture the colours and pattern. You have no idea how much I love that rug, I look at it every day and the joy it gives me, Beate!
There are so many things about Mum like that, Beate thinks, way too many. It is not wrong, and it is not right, but kind of vague, not quite as it should be. Not the way Beate wants it to be.
She and Erik have been a couple for three days. Together at his place, at her place and at the campus at Blindern. During lectures they sit right up close to one another, in the breaks they hold hands. Erik does not joke about as much as usual. They stand in a circle with the others outside the auditorium in the breaks, and every time he says something he will glance at her. Is he afraid she will think he is stupid? But she hardly listens to what he is saying, is only aware of his body, of his breathing, of his wrist brushing against her arm.
She feels she can see right through everything and everyone now, that she can read other people’s minds by the expressions on their faces. Several of the girls are jealous, resentful almost. Sølvi will not talk to her. Some of the boys blush and look away when she says something. She sees the coherence in what the lecturer is saying as intricate patterns in the air, and she draws them more than she writes. Colours seem so strong. Smells. And food, it is almost impossible to eat fish balls in white sauce at Frederikke canteen, the floury taste and pudding-like mass in her mouth makes her nauseous. Erik laughs when she complains about the fish balls, goes to the counter and buys chicken salad and a cake for her instead. Now it is almost seven o’clock and there are not many diners left. They sit by themselves in a corner and Erik feeds her with a white plastic fork. He wears a red and blue checked scarf around his neck and smiles the entire time. She needs to tell Mum and Dad about Erik before Mum runs into them somewhere on the campus. It annoys her that she cannot be in peace here. Mum has had her time, now it is Beate’s turn, she feels Blindern should be hers alone.
12
Cessi has called and ordered groceries from the shop in Majorstua. For Mrs Viker, the wife of high-court lawyer Viker, she said in a high-pitched voice, and slipped in an order of five bottles of beer between the butter and oatmeal, as though nothing at all. She had thought about sending Finn to collect the shopping, but there was the matter of the bottles to consider. He noticed things like that, tattled to Hartvig. Not that she could conceal that she had been drinking, it did smell after all. But five bottles are not the same as one. One in the cupboard and four hidden in the cellar. Besides, there was a lot of snow on the ground, and Finn would most likely take his sledge, she could picture the cardboard box turning over and the bottles sliding off into the snow, such that everyone alighting from the tram would see. She put on her coat, lit up a cigarette, left her gloves, it was mild, the weather was foggy, the snow dripping from the dark pine trees. The snowplough had not been around yet, the heels of her winter boots sank into the wet snow and made walking difficult. Still, her body felt light, her waist had got so thin lately, the nursing after the last birth had taken a toll, she was weak, but all the same, she looked better now she was slender, and maintained her figure with cigarettes and coffee. The cigarette smoke tore at her chest, it felt good. Her blouse material was smooth, she felt it rub against her stomach as she walked. She could see in the mirror that she was attractive, oh yes, her face had a sort of natural flush these days. One noticed it in the glances of men. A slight tingling in her breasts, as though something was on the way, milk, or her monthly. She felt so hot, undid a couple of buttons on her coat. If it had not been for Hartvig, and that infernal house. How she yearned for the city. For life. For something to relieve the bubbling excitement, to fall in love if possible, life, life!
The conductor helped her off with the box on her way back. I simply can’t carry anything, she said, I have an inflammation in my arms.
He did not reply.
Oh, goodness, you are well able, I’m sure your wife is more than happy with you. I hope you spend more time at home than my husband, he’s overworked, poor thing, and my son is no doubt out running around somewhere, or else he could have helped.
Right, the conductor said, placing the box on the sledge for her, and fastening it tight with the rope she held out.
She saw several of the men on the tram looking at her through the open door as it made its way up the hill, one of them even lifted his hat. Granted they were simple working men, platelayers. Nevertheless.
13
I am allowed to move home again, but cannot manage to think of anything but the disappearance. It taints everything. The rustle of the leaves in the trees. The grass, the roadsides, lamp posts. The empty street. This is where she walked. I picture her arm being tugged as the dog made for my gatepost, as it always does. Perhaps she had her mobile phone in her hand and took a selfie when the dog stopped to sniff. But there is nobody out there now. The air she moved through is transparent and gives nothing away.
I look over at the boat in the neighbour’s garden, the police have taken off the tarpaulin which covered it, just as they have removed mine. They have searched outhouses and scrub, copses and down by the stream. But what about all the cellars and garages, not to mention the cars? She could be lying in a car boot. Or she might have been moved and placed in a garden after the search parties had been.
The helicopters hang almost stationary in the sky, then go lower, descending towards the rooftops. The noise is piercing, alarming, and lends to the feeling of disaster, but their sound fades as they move onwards over the forested expanse of Nordmarka. After a time they return, and now they appear to be circling over large parts of the city, not just the heights of Holmenkollen. She could be anywhere.
The aerial searches are being called off, they say on the TV news, they serve little purpose, too much time has passed.
The man from the Red Cross rescue team, the one who was in my garden, is interviewed. We’re not giving up, he says. The local community are giving their support, hundreds of volunteers will comb the area, it’s heartening to see.
I do not catch his name, but study his face on the screen. His hairline, lips. The two open buttons on his shirt, his throat, the thin skin in the depressions by his collarbone. His jaws, shoulders. His teeth, shiny with saliva. Those blue eyes. His nose, pores, the dark nostrils. The gleam of the lenses in his glasses.
Beate asks why I have stopped writing. It comes as a shock.
I haven’t stopped, I say, authors often spend several years on a single book, the intervals between publishing can be considerable.
I hardly ever see you writing, Beate says, are you? Writing?
What does Beate know? I think, looking at my bookshelves. They are filled with books I constantly peruse. I listen to the radio, and the sentences dance all around, I lean back in the chair and close my eyes to really take them in. Besides, I receive an income from the state. I have it in writing: Arts Council Norway grant. And then there are my thoughts, they spur me ever onwards. All this falls under the umbrella of writing. That is obvious. It is just that no book comes out of it. But neither God, nor I or Beate can say that there will not be any more. I have tried to stop, but that does not work either, and why does it not work? Because of the fragrance of the honeysuckle in the darkness.
Imagine, I jot down the same evening in my notebook, I do not know anyt
hing about how weather comes about. Yes, of course it is something to do with air and water and heat, but how, that I cannot understand. And photosynthesis, I recall having such a hard time getting my head around that. But now I cannot manage to remember it. I live inside images, as it were. Within the jungle wallpaper in the bedroom. In the dampness and green of the garden. They are pretty much the same thing.
These are the kinds of thing I write, the kinds of thing I think. So far within myself. Now I am getting there, I think, now I am closing in on something literary. But then the thoughts slip away, nothing seems important enough. I cannot manage to create reality. There are writers who can. But not me. So I do not write anything for a while. Oh, wine, raise me up, I think with relief, as it nears evening and I can sit down with a full mug. On the inside, then I am inside.
In the winter I started becoming forgetful. I mislaid things too. My new trainers disappeared, the ones I’d bought in the January sales. I reckoned I had probably left them in the gym locker at SATS, but when I went back they were not there. A brand new pair, Nikes, cost me over a thousand kroners. They were nearly double that price before they were reduced. I am constantly treating myself to things I cannot afford. Or, rather, I have the money, at least when the day of reckoning arrives, cash is more of a problem, because Dad is the one with the money, although most of it is tied up in property. Good old safe and solid property. Skådalsveien is a desirable address. Some day the house will fetch a substantial amount, by which time I might be dead, but in the meantime I have the grant money coming in, as well as the regular amounts from Mum and Dad. They want so much for me to be happy, for me to write and not slave away on meaningless work. But can work be meaningless?
For some people work is the only salvation.
All food is good, all work.
Yes, there ought to be a heaven waiting for me. Then I would not mind so much about being unhappy now. But now is the only thing that matters, that is how it has become, I live life like most people, desperate, in the now.
I simply do not want to believe it.
Reason lags behind.
Jesus. What is it a person does their whole life, apart from subsist, where does the joy come from? Work cannot be everything, it is not enough, I think, me, who cannot even manage to earn a living, but am supported by others. So that I in turn can provide for Georg and Tuva when they need it, which they do continually. I pride myself on helping them. My pride and Dad’s ability to pay. He acted as guarantor when Tuva needed a mortgage. I help her with interest and repayments. Just as I supplement Georg’s student loan so he does not have to work while he is in college. The children are to have the best. They are to have the same as I had. Does that mean the bill will come in the shape of an inability to tackle not having, if faced with those circumstances? Or is that inability a flaw of my own? Is it hereditary, a genetic void?
I remember that awful, exhausting day last winter. It began brightly, with a pale sun and some small snowflakes sailing through the air. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked. I felt in my bones I had forgotten something. What am I doing? I thought. Am I going to sit here and write my childhood or something like that? I, who do not know the difference between living and writing.
The clock was Granny’s, and the desk beneath the only window in the room had belonged to Granddad. Dad did not want them. Their furniture, no thanks, no bloody way, he said. You can have them. But why should I be left with everything, the house, the furniture and interest earnings? I did not know how to maintain a villa and a garden, and besides, what was I supposed to do with all the stuff that came along with it? It filled the cellar, the attic and the old garage, and what there was not space for was piled up on the lawn. They were not mine and nor could I get rid of them. Why? Because they were not mine. But the emotions were. The sentimental value was sky high, too high for one person, and why did it have to be assigned to me exactly? I did not want to have all the time. I did not want to receive and receive.
I went to the shelf by the window, took out the laptop, unzipped its black case, found the lead and plugged it into the socket. It hummed, I opened a blank document in Word and wrote: Owing to the fact that I have not published any books in the last ten years, I hereby wish to relinquish my stipend from the state. And so on. Felt sorry for myself, added such that the funds may benefit others, and thought: ones with youth and promise. There were tears, of course. Over everything I had not become. Failure is also a possibility in life, and I had seized it. I got dressed and walked to the post office, on a clear-cut errand for once, a work-related one. So many times I had been to the post office with letters and applications, struggling with pushchairs and bags, hot in a hat, picking up packages with books and thick envelopes with manuscripts. Now most of it was sent by email, but still, that was not the reason the correspondence had petered out. It had ceased to be urgent, I had plenty of time, so little to prove. So little, so little, I was so little. And so close to death, death. I had got that from Astrid Lindgren. In her old age, whenever she or her sisters phoned each other the first thing they said was death, death in order to get that part of their conversation out of the way. They laughed at that. Lindgren spoke about it on a documentary on the TV, they showed the programme on repeat the day she did actually die. A game for life, right to the end. I was not playing. I slid the letters across the counter to the post office worker. The counters were not fronted with glass any longer, they were open and the money was kept in a safe behind the employees’ backs. It had been like that for many years, but I had not thought about it, that a change had taken place. Even the post office logo was different, more like all the other logos, I found it hard to distinguish the brands, and God knows, perhaps there was no difference between them either, electricity suppliers, Internet companies, mobile phone firms, maybe they all belonged to the same gigantic network. But nobody knows for certain, that is the problem, supposing it is a problem, that the highest authorities resemble God less and less and yet we still believe someone exists with a complete overview. We have not realised that power moves sideways now, like crabs, no longer one at the top, but many alongside each another, moving around all the time.
I went to Baker Hansen and sat down on one of the high-backed, red sofas. Uncoiling my scarf and twisting out of my coat, I went to the counter, ordered and paid by card. Most of the times I had stood like that I had been young, which was how I had been longest, and in a way still viewed myself as being. But I could not look at young men. Nor grown men. The time for thrills and excitement was past. I was no longer a writer. Already too old for men in their forties. I could write what I wanted. Or refrain. The noises in the café: the buzz of voices, clinking of glass, plates and cutlery, mobile phones beeping, this warmth, this hello, what can I get you at the counter, would no longer prompt me to write. The sky was blue, that was all. The sun shone and the snow lay high and white on benches and atop wheelie bins, on the thin branches of bushes, on the head of the statue in Valkyrie plass. The blue tram rumbled past with snow on the roof, and I thought of the cross-country ski tracks, the heavy pine trees in Nordmarka, my children, of lifting equipment and carrying them, steadying them on their feet in the skis, flicking snow from between mittens and sleeves.
A man by the counter looked at me. He was around sixty, greying at the temples and stooped. His scarf was not knotted and his jacket hung lopsided, probably because he had too much in the pockets, in one of his pockets. It was disgusting. I knew the type, they wheedled their way in as soon as they got the chance, and I looked away, demonstrably.
A group of young mothers came in the door. Buggies, babies. I tried to smile at the women but they took no notice of me. I felt spite well up. Mothers of infants think older women do not know how it feels to hold a baby in their arms.
Dad could be tremendously angry at times. There was shoving and pushing against door frames. His and Mum’s bodies. Things thrown and shattered. I hid in my room the night he smashed the folding table he had been given by Granny
. It was not just the blows, the thuds and the sound of splintering wood. But the shouts, the cries. I pictured bodies. Blood and broken bones. I went into the bathroom, switched off the light and locked the door sometimes when they argued. A tender pressure in my stomach as I stood in pitch darkness, listening to the quarrelling outside, a tingling. Because I was safe in the warm blackness, behind the closed door. Finally something had happened. Banging, yelling and screaming.
The maelstrom had taken them. It was like that feeling of anticipation before a journey, joy. I could be anyone, on my own.
Something was erased, I think now, the moment, or the memory of what happened just before the smashing of the table. A rupture, I do not know in what, but it ruptured, cracked, yes, of course it was cracked, and thrust me out, of what I do not know. It triggered an urge that was productive at first, but later became reactive. Because when a trail is first trodden: large destruction led to new destruction. Thereafter, angst, remorse and on many occasions intoxication.
Wine, the blood in my veins, oil on the sea, but the moon hung over the water and tantalised.
Only Human Page 10