What’s it matter? Ikea is Ikea.
It most certainly is not, Anita said. It has to be Slependen, where we used to go, don’t you remember, Beate? You and me and Bea Britt. Tuva and Georg. How the three of you used to run riot in the ball playground. There is a difference between Slependen and Furuset and it has to do with the feeling, they are two different places.
Why did Anita have to be so beautiful? Being with her was far too pleasant, I lost all power to resist, went along with everything. Beate smiled and looked out the window beside her, did not say anything to me. Was it because the carpet was lying in the way? Or did she not want to speak to me, was something wrong? Perhaps it was visible. That I had become a child. That I was old and obsolete. Passive and indistinct in the corner of the back seat, with Anita and Ståle sitting in front, as if they were my parents. Jesus, I remembered when I was the one who drove them here and there, helping them move, collecting them at the airport. It was a hassle, Tuva and Georg were small and had to come along. They wailed in the back seat, I was sweating, and neither Anita nor Ståle had a clue. They had no idea how to pack properly, how to strap things onto the roof rack, fill up with petrol or mollify difficult toddlers. I hardly knew myself, but I did it.
I moved at a slow tempo at Ikea. I stood for ages looking around for the water. The tray in my hands. The plate of meatballs on the tray. When I eventually caught sight of the tap, it took time to find somewhere to put down the tray while I got the water. There was a long queue and a lot of people, I was jostled around, the water sloshed about in the glass which sailed back and forth on the tray. I made it to the table where Beate, Anita and Ståle were already eating, put down my tray, but discovered I had forgotten cutlery. I fetched a serviette, a knife and fork and filled a glass of juice from the dispenser that I had not paid for. As if it were Ikea’s fault I was on the verge of tears.
It was Ikea’s fault. Or their profit, all depending on how you looked at it, yes, because they made good money from our emotional fluctuations as we manoeuvred our way between the sets of shelves, it was unbearable, this urge to amass, our demand to consume, that was what they exploited, the all-round pressure which forced us to the very limits of our endurance. We searched for things but could not find them, tried to choose, but could not manage, and yet we had to, we had to take something home with us. When we were close to collapsing we went to the café, and that was when it could happen, when we sat across from one another at the table and met our most fundamental needs for food, drink and rest. That was when we could feel. That emotions welled up, that they gave rise to tears, was due to the pressure within, the fact that we could finally express ourselves, suddenly came to the fore for one another, almost complete, or at least surprisingly multi-dimensional.
I was unable to take part in the conversation, had enough to do with cutting up my food and chewing. As though I had just learnt how. Beate looked at me. I thought that I was perilously close now to sinking in her estimation. Puncturing her admiration. Was she disappointed in me? Horrified at seeing things were not as she believed? But it was as she believed, really. I was the strongest of them all. I had the answers she needed, except that they had taken on the wrong colour along the way, no, not colour, they had darkened, become black.
Anita related some gossip from work and everyone laughed. I sat there with my false laughter, without my children beside me. Tuva, Georg. I let them down by appearing so pathetic. Bereft of my Persian rug, my own car, without a man, without an authorship, without an exterior. And Anita did not talk to me, only at me.
Oh, how I longed for this to be over, I wanted to get back to the house, into the living room, onto the sofa, open a bottle of wine and turn on the TV.
There was nobody there who could see me, nobody who knew.
I had to hold out.
It was best not to say anything.
No matter what I said Anita would absorb it, make it into something else, something impossible to contradict.
That’s the strangest thing I’ve ever heard, she would say, I just don’t get it. Words came easily to Anita and she was used to talking, she talked rings around people with unflagging energy, set things straight, categorised and stated her opinion, you could not fault how she phrased things. So good to get this out into the open, she would say, to clear up this misunderstanding, because I, and here she would place her hands on her chest, had the feeling that you were rejecting me. What did I think, that she was trying to, like, push me away or something? No, that was ridiculous, she honestly had no clue what I meant, it was artfully done. Push me away from what exactly, and why in the world would she, no, where was I getting all this?
So I could not say anything.
I could outdo her of course.
I could carry on the same as her. Laugh loudly and at length, speak in a lively way, but only to Beate and Ståle. I could avoid making eye contact with her. Pretend I did not hear what she said. Forget to get her coffee when I fetched a cup for everyone else. I could adopt all her techniques, I could call her next week and say I wanted my rug back, I could invite Beate along on a holiday, oh, there was so much I could do to make me and Anita more alike, to bring us onto the same level, two rivals, evenly matched. I realised that was the price to be paid in order to win back my friendship with Anita. But was it even a friendship any longer? Ugh, I was not interested one way or the other, I had no desire, absolutely none, I was devoid of desire.
The black dog was here. So there was not much I could do. On the contrary, I had to do as little as possible, keep my movements to a minimum so as not to aggravate the pain. I could not face more pain. The sight of the dog was my only hope. It was so beautiful. So smooth, so warm. Mine. I had to give in to it, I thought. Not move. Stay put within the house, drink wine. I thought of my plants, almost bursting their pots, the stalks resembling branches down at their roots, the dust settling upon them, how I usually spray the green leaves with water, when my hand was very small, Mum used to guide it to help me get clumps of potato on my spoon. I could peel tomatoes, bake bread, grind coffee beans and grow herbs. I could make my life resemble the pictures in art books, the paintings of French kitchens; pheasants, chickens and vegetables. The pictures gave off no smell, but I knew what chaos it must have been, the sound of voices and scuttling feet, the aroma of blood and boiling soup, the white light, the colours, shadows, something glimmering, something warm against my ear, small twitches, white and gold, as I lay on my back in the pram.
That is how it could have been, aesthetic, a compensation for everything, an adult life adapted, cut back, not great, but not bad either. Then Emilie came along with her dog.
28
He has rung a number of times and I see him bring his finger once again to the doorbell. I watch him from the window. He must have been at it for a few minutes. He managed to stir me from the sofa and I have had time to make it down into the dark cellar. The light from the lamp outside falls diagonally across his face, casting dark, shifting shadows beneath his eyes, beside the bridge of his nose and around his mouth. His cap is pushed back. Those white brows and glaring pale blue eyes, like a husky. He is wearing black gloves, I see them when he takes hold of the door handle, pulling and shaking it. I hear his voice but not what he is saying. Then he lets go of the door and stands motionless, thinking perhaps, or listening, before taking a step back and looking up at the front of the house and the darkened windows. I have not put any lights on. The neck of a bottle is sticking up sideways from his pocket. He brings it out and takes a mouthful. It is vodka, Smirnoff, I recognise the red and white label from the shelves of the Vinmonopolet. He suddenly looks in the direction of the cellar window. I back up, duck down. Thirty seconds or so pass, followed by the tinkling of breaking glass, I piss myself. I guess it is the bottle, he has either dropped or thrown it on the flagstones, he has not broken the window, my thighs are soaking wet all the same. I have a build-up of saliva in my mouth. I want to groan to relieve the pounding of my heart, but do not in
case he might hear me. He shouts something, fury in his voice. In between the shouting and the mumbling I make out individual words: you, fuck. Emilie. Cunt.
I have sat down on the floor. Do you want to see Emilie, is that what he is yelling, do you want to see Emilie? The wet denim stings my skin, the odour of piss fills my nostrils. It goes quiet, but I know he has not left, I have not heard any movement, no gravel crunching underfoot. I know the garden and the drive and can work out the approximate whereabouts of someone by the sound: down by the gate. By the pine trees. At the front door. Or I recognise the muffled sound of footsteps when someone walks across the lawn and around the house, the scraping of soles against the flagstones if they go up the steps to the veranda, as Tuva often does when she has forgotten her keys.
Finally I hear the sound of feet on the gravel, can work out roughly when he is passing beneath the heavily dripping pine trees, hear the gate squeak on the hinges as it is opened, scraping the gravel beneath. No sound of it being closed. That does not necessarily mean he is still here but I stay sitting motionless all the same, try to locate hiding places in the cellar without moving my head. One of Granny’s Persian rugs lies rolled up under Tuva’s old Ikea bed. I put it down here because it was so worn the pattern was indistinct. I can hide there, under the bed, between the carpet and the wall. As I creep under, I get the feeling he has his face pressed against the window looking in at me, watching my legs scramble on the floor and stick out before I draw them up. My heart is hammering, I am out of breath. But nothing happens, I do not hear anyone outside, no clawing at the window pane, no tinkling of broken glass, do not notice any tug on the door from the draught coming from a window or door being opened elsewhere in the house.
I lie there for a long time, feeling tired and drowsy, but am suddenly seized by panic, because I am trapped under here, I cannot lift my head, cannot breathe properly, the underside of the bed is pressing my face against the floor, the back of my head is right against it, I moan, scream almost, yes, maybe I do scream as I struggle to get out from under it and free.
The driveway is empty. It is beginning to get light. If he was outside now he would easily have seen my face in the cellar window. But he is not here. On the flagstones in front of the hall door lies the broken glass from the smashed Smirnoff bottle.
I step out of the wet jeans and knickers and leave them lying in a heap on the floor. Cold and naked from the waist down I walk up the stairs. It reminds me of something, but what is a memory worth? Wandering lonely before it disappears. Perhaps I am remembering how it was to be small and to run around naked. It is precious little help now, on the contrary, it only increases my confusion, because I am mixing up childhood and adulthood, dream and memory.
My toes are ice cold, making the wooden floor in the kitchen feel strangely soft and warm beneath my feet. I leave the lights off. Look out at the road from the kitchen window. Rain-soaked, glistening, deserted. I consider whether to shower before or after I call the police. The deciduous trees, divested of foliage, bend in the wind.
It is difficult to make them understand. I explain everything once. State my name, address and national identity number. Tell them about the man in the baseball cap. The Emilie case, I say, the Emilie case. To judge by the voice of the policewoman on duty, she does not appear to have heard of it at all, but everyone has, anything else is impossible. She says I need to hold the line while she talks to a colleague. Can you not just ring Eriksen, I ask, please, he knows me, but he isn’t answering his mobile. Listen, we’ll decide on that, she says and leaves me on hold for five minutes. I am still naked from the waist down, but am sitting on a chair in the kitchen, it feels cold and clammy.
They’re sending a patrol car, she says, and asks me to stay close to the phone. Don’t go anywhere. They’ll come when they come, and it’s no use pestering, she says to me, ringing again is not going to help, unless the person concerned returns, in which case I should ring the emergency number.
I take a walk around the house. Look out all the windows. The dark piles with Dad’s things on the lawn. The ridge of the neighbour’s roof between the trees. Daybreak is pale and wet. It has stopped raining. The sun comes out, making the raindrops shine, colouring the sky red. The wind does not let up. The police car glides into view.
I have put on Tuva’s grey jogging pants, and look down upon the policemen as they make their way up the drive. I do not think I have spoken to either of them before, do not recognise their faces. They stand by the door a moment, look down at the pieces of glass, exchange a few words. One of them brings a mobile phone to his ear, while the other looks towards the garden, before taking a step back and glancing upwards. I wave to him but do not think he spots me because he does not return my wave, but lifts his arm and rings the doorbell instead. I go down and open the door. One of them looks at his notebook. You rang, he says, made a report of someone trying to get into the house.
I try to explain but it is too much for them all at once, both Emilie and the smashing of the bottle, as though it were impossible that the two things had anything to do with one another. I can hear that my voice is high-pitched and reedy, because they seem suspicious, I need to make them understand, I am aware that I am repeating myself, almost crying.
I’ve told you about this man before, I say, someone must have made a note of it somewhere. It’s not supposed to be like this, not with the police, don’t you make records of important witness statements? Don’t you read reports, or whatever the hell you call them? Surely you ought to know about this kind of thing, a psychopath on the loose, a murderer, do you understand, a murderer.
I think we’ll go in, the one with the notebook says, let’s go inside and calm down. Try not to shout, it’ll only make you more agitated.
They make their way slowly and tentatively up the stairs. I follow behind looking at their black boots.
We sit at the kitchen table. I have to go through everything from the beginning, you would think they had not heard of the case, do they not get what I am saying, or understand the terrible significance? The black gloves. The smashed bottle. I say it over and over. How he shouted: Do you want to see?
Did I want to see Emilie. That was what he meant, I say. Okay, says the one taking notes, okay, all right, but afterwards when he is speaking to the duty officer, or whoever is on the phone, he recounts things wrongly, does not stress the most important part: that the man in the baseball cap has something to do with Emilie, that he is not just a drunken idiot. He has Emilie. He does not fully understand. No, he talks about me as the aggrieved party. That according to the aggrieved party, an intoxicated man attempted to gain entry into the property at three in the morning. She is very preoccupied about a pair of gloves the man concerned was wearing, and believes he shouted something about Emilie. Yes, she is a witness in the Emilie case, he says. Correct. She maintains that we are aware of the identity of the intruder, or rather the department is, that she has reported it previously, but that is a little unclear, disjointed, yes, she may be in shock, I don’t know, there may be a psychiatric element to take into account as well. That is how he speaks.
Yes, that is right, I do have a ringing and a whistling in my ears, specks in my vision, I am feeling sicker than I can stand; he is right that it is shock, I cannot come out of it and sink sideways towards the other policeman, land on his lap, pass out.
When I come to on the sofa the nausea is gone. One of them is sitting on the edge of the seat taking my pulse, his thumb warm against the inside of my wrist.
Are you very fit? he asks. Your pulse is already low, even though you were hyperventilating.
But I have a tingling in my arms, I say.
That’s normal, he says, just breathe deeply, but not too deeply.
He lets go of my wrist and gets to his feet. I do not want him to leave and ask for a glass of water. His footfall across the floor is reassuring, the sound of the cupboard being opened and closed almost everyday, as though it were Knut padding around and I was jus
t resting. Finally there is someone here who can look after me. The ringing in my head takes over and I am not able to lift my arms. The policeman has to hold up the back of my head with one hand while helping me to drink with the other, bringing the glass to my mouth. After which he leaves me to lie in peace on the sofa and goes into the kitchen, where I hear him talk to his colleague but cannot make out what they are saying. A few minutes pass, and then the two of them are suddenly standing beside me again.
I cannot lie here any longer, I think, this is far from over. I want to tell them that, but it is hard to move my lips, I do not know if they hear what I am saying, so I tell them over and over that they have to call Eriksen. It has to do with the Emilie case, I say, to do with the Emilie case. Yes, yes, they say, but I do not see them ring. Maybe they already have.
They tell me I cannot stay in the house. I am given help to swing my legs off the sofa and sit up. Are you dizzy? asks the one who checked my pulse. His hair is soft and brown, he is probably no more than a couple of years older than Georg. No, I say. But I want to sleep. Can you drive me to a hotel where I can sleep?
Titanic in Skippergata is the only hotel I can think of that might be cheap. Located in that area, with all the drug addicts and prostitutes around, it cannot cost much. Not that it matters, I could afford an expensive hotel. But it would not be fitting, would not be in keeping with the incident. I need to leave my home out of necessity, not because I need spa treatments and relaxation, and necessities are not supposed to cost a lot, they are evil. I need to go to a hotel, it is a necessary evil, a burden. They ask if I would not rather stay with someone in the family, or a friend, perhaps. I have no friends I could ask such a thing of, but I do not say that. Anyway, I am not going to a hotel to seek out company. I want to sleep for a hundred years.
It turns out I am still dizzy all the same, I stumble getting out of the car and the dark-haired one has to hold me under the arm on the way in, I know he can feel my tit against the back of his hand. He and his colleague lean over the counter talking to the receptionist while I sit in a leather chair in the foyer gazing at their backs, their behinds, black trousers with reflective strips bunching up at the tops of their boots.
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