Only Human

by Kristine Naess

  The brown-haired one accompanies me in the lift and sees me to the room.

  Are you okay? he asks.

  Yes, I say, I’m fine now.

  And I am, because I have everything I want, a bed, a room and a door I can lock.

  Remember to lock the door, he says, look, you just pull up the handle.

  I nod. I never forget to lock.

  So I lie down, flat out on my back, and doze. Now and again I hear the shushing sound of the ventilation system. The traffic outside. The footsteps of someone passing the door. There is no man in a baseball cap here. No one talking and asking questions, nothing to disturb me, except the mobile phone. It suddenly rings. It is Eriksen. His voice is low and confidential. I have to repeat everything all over again. I see, he says. Okay. At times he asks me to specify or repeat something. We go through the course of events. The words I heard. The gloved hands. I start to cry. It’s all right, Eriksen says, it’s all right. We’ll be in touch. Don’t go home before I say so.

  Not that I want to go home. I do not want any home. I want to sleep.

  I am awoken by an intense feeling of anticipation. I am looking forward to something but do not know what. I get out of bed, go into the bathroom and wash my face with cold water. There is a tray with a kettle, cups, instant coffee, tea bags and sugar lumps on the desk by the window. I boil water and make a cup of coffee. While drinking it, I look through the pages of a thick brown information folder. Inside is a restaurant menu in laminated plastic. There is a photograph of each dish. Spaghetti bolognese, pizza margherita, paella, fruit salad and that sort of thing. It feels safe. But nothing is safe. I picture hands placing the food on the plates, holding the camera and taking photographs of the meals, fingers punching in letters and numbers, moving the cursor to the send button in the display and clicking, sending the order off for printed and laminated menus. Every single planned action is carried out by a person who exists. Not only is time transitory, it is fleeting. I sometimes see a similar image of myself, but am unable to hold on to the image, it is cinematic. I see myself perform a series of rapid movements while I rush forward in time and disappear.

  The few traces I leave are from an existence governed by rules. I must, for example, perform specific tasks in order to obtain food. Do what I am asked. As is expected. I am not the one who has made the rules, but I need to follow them just the same, because no others exist. That is what is so difficult, not to mention impossible, to understand. That thoughts and ideas can originate from people, but once put into practice in life they are no longer human, what is done is just done.

  Either I have not stirred the coffee sufficiently or the water was not hot enough, because the last mouthful I take is strong and bitter and feels syrupy on my tongue, tiny granules of undissolved coffee powder.

  It starts to rain, streak after streak of water down the window pane. Drowsiness suddenly fills my head, I just about manage to get to my feet, stand and sway on the wall-to-wall carpet. Maybe I can lie down for a little, just rest for a few minutes before going down to reception, because I need to, I need to get a move on, there is something I have forgotten. Something that needs taking care of, what was it? There is something I need to clear up, straighten out, take responsibility for. Probably something to do with the children. To do with Lars Erik.

  Who said that death is final? I will just lie down here for a while, close my eyes, such a lovely shushing sound in my head, I almost disappear into the grainy sleep, the grains are shadows, sediment, a blurry precursor to the brain adjusting and the images beginning, the dreams, to be drawn down into the only place there is freedom, the only place I do not need love, because sleep takes care of me, envelops me, promises more, promises I will be spared re-emergence, a return to loneliness.

  But I do not make it all the way down, sleep does not take me. Something disturbs it. It is the key. I cannot remember having been given a key to the hotel room. But I must have, so where is it? I need to get out of bed and look. So I cannot fall asleep, I lie there thinking I will soon get up. Maybe the policeman forgot. Perhaps he put the key in his pocket. He might come in when I least expect it. It is because I am so tired. I am getting mixed up. That is why I fail to remember that keys are not used any more. You are no longer handed a key attached to a metal fob or a wooden tag, you are given a keycard which you insert into an electronic holder by the door when you enter, to turn on the lights. It also activates the TV, and mine is on. The screen display has been the same since I came in: Welcome, Bea Britt Viker.

  I take the card out of the holder, stick it in my back pocket, shut the door behind me and take the lift down to reception. There is no one there. Only yucca palms in huge, red pots on the floor. The pots double as lights and are illuminated. I stand by the counter, placing my elbows on the polished wood, or is it fake, laminated to resemble solid wood? The receptionist is seated at her desk behind the counter, with a PC, three telephones, a bottle of water and Post-it Notes. She does not take her eyes from the screen until I ask if they have a computer for guests to use.

  No, unfortunately, she says in Swedish. We only have Wi-Fi.

  She is called Annika. It says so on the brass name badge she has pinned to her white blouse. She is dark-haired, with a prominent cleavage, push-up bra, I think, and her hair is probably dyed.

  Would you like the code?

  Oh, she is so angenäm, as they say in Swedish, so pleasant. It makes me want to be around her. Just sit here in the foyer being filled by that comforting, subdued tone of voice she uses to guests as they come and go. And as Annika’s friendly attention trickles over me, I will become part of it, I will become like her: pure, pretty and simple. I regard her shiny dark hair cut in a Cleopatra style. What is wrong with getting dressed up, taking trouble with your appearance, playing a part, pleasing others? Probably nothing.

  I don’t have my iPhone or my laptop, I say.

  Oh. That’s a shame. She directs a beaming smile at me before turning back to the screen.

  I remain standing there. She is not going to help me if I do not ask, but I do not like to ask for anything. It makes it so obvious that I am needy. Why can she not work that out herself?

  I want to go to Lars Erik. He is the light, I think. If only I had not deleted his numbers. I could just forget about calling? It would be just as natural for him to get in touch with me as the other way around, why do I have to play the active part? Can he not just turn up? Maybe I will go to Jacob Aalls gate instead. Walk up and down his street a little. He has to come out sooner or later and then he will catch sight of me. Or he might be on his way home. Imagine he is on his way in with his girlfriend. He probably has one. And I am standing there. By coincidence as it were. Of course he will understand it is not a chance encounter. He will be forced to face the fact that I want something from him and feel aversion to that. That is the way it goes when you cling on too closely and are the wrong person. Thoughts of me will pop into his mind and he will think ugh, no, and try to shake them, try to think of something else. He will know that I have misunderstood and think it strange I could believe him to be interested. Or maybe he is used to it. Women like him and I am no exception. This is so lacking in originality. I am not the sort of woman he is attracted to and I should have realised that. He will wonder why I think I am, because that is the kind of thing you notice after a couple of seconds, at first sight in fact, so why did I not notice it? Women like Annika are probably more his type. He would assess my appearance and feel disgusted perhaps, because he has no wish to think of my body in that way. As under consideration. As the one.

  I ask Annika if she can look up a telephone number for me.

  Yes, but of course, sure.

  Lars Erik Berg, I say. In Jacob Aalls gate. She looks back at the screen, her fingers darting quickly across the keyboard. She has green eyes and a small shapely nose that wrinkles when she smiles. She is most certainly his type. Striking, congenial. Too young of course, but men rarely mind that. On the contrary, they
think it’s nice having so much firm, smooth flesh beneath their hands. Hands that run over naked young bodies at night. And my body? It cannot be compared. After all, it is mine, and that shows all over, it is a wound to the world at large. My breasts are like two flabby, anxious eyes, withdrawn. Not very come hither. And I am not the kind to lead someone on to somewhere not worth going.

  Will I write it down for you?

  I nod and am handed a sheet of paper with the logo of the Titanic hotel. Annika has written his name in capital letters, LARS ERIK BERG, followed by the address, which I know, and two telephone numbers.

  Is that all right? Annika smiles and I say thank you, but it will never be all right. She has nice, smooth, closed walls within. Not like me, with doors that open and shut when I least expect it. Letting in forests of darkness. Keeping out quite ordinary daylight. I go back up to my room.

  29

  It was the sea. She sat in the chair and felt the sun warm on her face through the window pane, it was spring now. The windows should have been cleaned. But she closed her eyes and pictured the sea, it seemed warm. She saw it from above, as it were, stood on deck peering down while the ship moved astern, the water foaming and churning far below, a dizzying pull. Mama’s back at the railing, in a white blouse, some strands of hair had come loose from under her hat and stretched out straight in the wind. The sunlight was so harsh she had to squeeze her eyes closed.

  A draught was coming from the half-open veranda door and she struggled up from the chair to shut it, she wanted only warmth now, to sit inside this cocoon of light. When she closed her eyes once more it was dark, the waves moving slower, the ocean a warm little animal. She was not on the ship now, no, they were in the rowing boat, her and some friends, home on the south coast of Norway, in Sørlandet. Alice was there too.

  She felt her long plait dangle against her back. How they laughed. Rowed and laughed, each with an oar, but they were unable to move in a straight line like that, and that made them laugh even more.

  How foolish they all were, they thought she was old, but look, she was not, she was sitting in the boat, they rowed slowly alongside the large sea-smoothed rocks that disappeared down into the sea, crabbing with light, Alice holding the lamp. That is me, she thought. Cecilie, fifteen years old. They were free to think she was ninety, and nag about all the things she had to remember, first and foremost to eat. And she opened her eyes and looked around the room, the pictures on the walls were hers, yes, pictures from all periods of life. There was the portrait of her. She was four years old and placed in a chair in front of a burgundy drape. A little girl with a white ribbon in her hair, dear me, of course she could see it, she remembered it too, how bored she was, sitting and sitting in that chair, not being allowed to turn her head and ending up with such pain in her back. Now it was only a picture. But there it hung, beside the photographs of the children and grandchildren, the painting of Mama and Mama’s childhood home, she saw it all plainly and clearly. But what was even clearer was the white light penetrating the room, an extremely cold, harsh light, it told her what those nagging people did not know, that the room was on loan. Utterly random the lot of it. All the trouble that went into keeping everyday life and events in place, but something else seeped through, the vivid moments, every single one, just as detailed and intense, for ever. Mama on the deck of the ship. The warm sea. The straw hat with the cord that chafed her under the chin.

  I will soon die. I am returning. To myself. It is only me, you see, I am the only one who is me, and am for always.

  The sea could roar. It filled her head, foamed, bubbled and boomed, the beating of the waves, the rippling sound of shells and pebbles being sucked out, and hurled in.

  There was a lot about the sea.

  Mama loved the sea.

  Her and Mama and Finn. Her beloved brother. His eyes, only kindness to be found in them. They collected shells at low tide, at Granny’s and Granddad’s. One day it rained and she slipped and fell on some stones, cutting her knee. It was not deep. She was placed on a chair in the living room. Mama bent her head down to bandage her knee. Cessi looked down at Mama’s dark hair. A bun, curls and clips. The lilac outside, rain falling on them, their smell carrying through the open window, the pane covered in raindrops. Oh no, she is not old. After all, she is where it all started, she is always there, at the beginning.

  Do you want coffee, Mum? A voice from the kitchen. She does not drink coffee. Blackcurrant juice is what she wants. Not coffee either now, someone beside her chair mumbles, she hears them, the children, even though she is unable to make out a word. They cannot get over her not smoking any more. She may well have smoked at one time, but not really, not at all, in which case it was a mistake. There were many mistakes.

  Those resentful children.

  Do they not understand they have their mother to thank for life? Without her they would never have existed. What is it they say? Love and praise. Honour thy mother and father.

  But life has been hard. She is resentful herself.

  Dearest Mama, bring me home.

  The way the images get mixed up. Did she have children or was she a child? Naturally she remembers being in the family way. But was that actually her? She begins to doubt more and more. The grown-up children do not smell like her children, they smell of salt, privates and sweat, yes, and perfume and deodorant, naturally.

  This warm, warm feeling. So marvellous and tender. It is called love, is it not. But was it actually directed anywhere? Was it not just being filled to the brim by the children? By being a child. Did it really make any difference if she was the child or the child was hers, did the emotions not stick together so closely that no one could separate them, selfish love here, motherly love there?

  Mean. She was mean and ungrateful a lot of the time.

  Because there is nothing meaner than being self-centred, is there? Knock that out of her, Papa said, knock that right out. Egotistical and quarrelsome, we do not want any of that. So he said, he, who was not much more besides.

  A storm at sea. She never saw that, but she had experienced strong winds, on the open sea, on the voyage to Norway, waves steep and deep, grey mountains the ship rolled between, was thrown about, she was scared to death, and the sea must have been like that when it took Finn, only worse, darker, fiercer, and the explosions and flames on top of it, God grant he did not know he was drowning, that he disappeared the same moment it hit, blown to pieces, gone. That was the Germans, that was. And they might not know that out there in the kitchen, but after that nothing was as it had been before. Jesus Christ does not help anyone, no help is given for that kind of loss. Lose Finn. He was good as gold. They made up their own alloy, she and him, the Cessi-Finn-alloy. Against Papa.

  It was only on loan.

  It was only on loan.

  It was only on loan.

  But it was mine.

  30

  I am lying naked under the duvet. I have placed my mobile and the sheet with the telephone numbers on the made bed beside me. The ventilation system is running but the air in the room is stuffy all the same, damp after my shower. My hair is wet at the tips.

  I will, I won’t.

  Outside the windows, rain is falling again, bucketing down in Skippergata, car tyres hiss on the wet street, sticking to the tarmac. I will. I have made up my mind.

  But still I cannot do it. Because now I do not know whether to text or call.

  No, I need to wait. I am too hungry and thirsty to do anything, and I have no food. There is chocolate, nuts and wine in the minibar but I cannot face eating at the moment. I do not want to either.

  Yes, I do. I want soup. I can picture it. Dipping a spoon into cream of cauliflower soup, I can see it, I am there: aboard a boat, a ferry. I am with Lars Erik. A creamy coloured light over the fjord. It is drizzling. Fine droplets move diagonally across the windows, there is a sound of voices in the carpeted space, we are in the passenger room, below deck.

  The sight of all the people gets my hormone
s racing, a tingling in my breasts. His voice. The water, the side of the boat. The foam, drone of the engine. The glass, droplets. The sun behind the white cloud bank. The cauliflower soup, the cream. The tablespoon, worn. The head of the cauliflower, bumpy. Steam. Chair legs. Shoes, men’s feet. Black leather. Chest. Cutlery, crew, service. Plastic flowers, white tablecloths. His hand. First lying on the table, then crooked around the knife handle. Plaice, raw vegetables, white sauce, cabbage and carrot. White, plump. Cream, foam. The nail, the strong middle finger. What do I know about love? The rolling, swelling. Tottering on the wet deck outside. Older people in light clothing. Outside, not in here. Billowing clouds. From out of nowhere I love him.

  I fell asleep again, outside it is no longer bright. But it continues to rain. I look out the window. The car headlamps are shining on the dark tarmac. The street is filled with people on their way home from work. I pick the mobile up from the bed. No messages, no missed calls. Nothing is happening. Do I have to just sit here? Will everything be like before, unreal? The world far off, irrelevant. I switch on the TV. Stand naked on the carpeted floor looking at it. Nothing new in the Emilie case. There will be a press conference with any updates tomorrow morning at ten.

  The telephone rings while I am on the toilet. I have brought it with me and placed it on the edge of the sink. The display lights up: No Caller ID. I am certain it is Eriksen, ringing from a police mobile with a concealed number, but no one answers when I say hello. I can hear breathing. Is it him, I think, the man in the cap? It must be him. Who else could it be?

  Hello, I say again, but still he does not reply.

  You piece of shit, I say. You little shit.