Only Human

by Kristine Naess

  The shelves went from floor to ceiling. Row upon row of book spines. It was the weekend perhaps, or else I had finished school early and was lying on the sofa. Mum was airing the room. The smell of snow came in puffs through the open window. The covers of the books were cool and smooth, one book after the other closed and put back on the shelf, in place. The cushions were plumped up, the coffee table cleaned. Framed pictures behind glass hung between the shelves, shiny and still. Nothing disquieting was to be found in the room, no despair, nothing that could topple, or fall, nobody screaming or crying.

  Lars Erik’s voice.

  Do you want to come over?

  31

  Emilie should not have been walking alone on the road at that precise time. I imagine that is what he thinks. Not in words, of course, more something he feels. That it was not so much his fault, as it were. He could not help it. But it is over now. She is gone. Swallowed by the air. Only her body remains, and in a while neither will that, everything will have disappeared, as though nothing had been, nothing mattered.

  No, I do not know.

  I have no access to the inner workings of his mind. Flickerings, a lot of light, vague images.

  When something that is gone recurs.

  In the head. In the hands. In the soul, the heart, the genes. That is inheritance.

  In direct descent.

  But what is genetic inheritance and what is merely Freudian repetition compulsion?

  I think about the process in relation to Granny’s death. Her last days. But life is no simple process. All the threads. The path of rage for example. From one generation to the next. The fierce urge to expend energy. The need for intoxication. And the darkness. A will that digs, gnaws, is distraught, at a loss.

  I wonder if Granny had images of the sea in her head, if that was why she went there. Did she picture the waves? Did the sea fill her mind because her forebears were from the coast, worked on the sea and were sometimes taken by it? Like her beloved brother Finn.

  No, what she saw and what she thought? I do not know, I am fantasising. She probably saw something quite different than I did, but just as confusing.

  Was she perhaps just filled with restlessness that night? She went to bed but got back up, put something on and walked out through the brightly lit doors of the nursing home without anybody noticing. Maybe her feet just moved of their own accord along the roads she knew so well, out there in Blommenholm, and that was how she ended up on the nearby beach, by chance. Maybe she was not following any plan nor was guided unconsciously by inner images, but it still seems oddly loaded with meaning that she should go there, to the sea. She stripped off nearly all her clothes, lay down on the cool sand and fell asleep. Even though it was June she was freezing when they found her, but if that was the reason she fell into a coma from which she did not come out, I do not know. Nobody said anything about it and neither did I ask. She died within a week, ninety-four years old. I was there with Dad on the last day. They had rung from the hospital and said she would no longer eat, neither solids nor liquids.

  Her lips were pale blue and cracked, but she managed to press them hard together when the nurse attempted to moisten her mouth with a cotton bud soaked with liquid. To alleviate the discomfort, she said, this is like dying of thirst.

  Granny’s eyes were closed and she did not answer when we spoke to her.

  Mum, Dad said, Mum. She lay quite still. Cecilie, he said, Cecilie.

  Yes, she said then, out loud, yes.

  Dad stroked her across the cheek with one finger. Back and forth. I do not think it was a caress. He was looking for a reaction. Look, he said, look, she is smacking her lips. It’s because I provoked the sucking reflex.

  I nodded.

  Shall we go? Dad asked. And then we left.

  32

  Dr Vold going and dying at such an early age. Oh, how typical, life had always been like this to her, she had endured a harsh, brutal existence, everything was taken from her.

  It was many years ago, but she still cannot think of that day when she found out without crying, she can still sense the smells around her at that very moment, the heat of the apartment, the light in the room, it was early evening, in June, shortly after her seventieth birthday, an exceptionally hot day.

  It was all so sudden, she was utterly unprepared. Because she had often thought of him, in both one way and the other. As company in lonely, heated hours at night, alone in her bed, and yet not so very lonely, not when she could fetch him from within. Or as somebody to converse with on bad days, when someone had been angry with her. If one of the children had rung up and given her a ticking off over the telephone, or a shop girl had been impertinent, and thus brought her to the verge of tears. Then she would, as it were, turn to him and they would discuss the matter. Her thoughts brimmed over on occasion also, on long rainy mornings, or in the winter, when it was cold and dark, then she could become so clear-headed, solve one important question after another, and Dr Vold was almost certainly the only person who would understand. Then she made up conversations between them. But she particularly needed him when difficulties piled up and she could not take any more, when being herself simply became too much and she realised that now, now she needed to telephone or send him a letter. But then nothing came of it. She spoke to him in her head and the worst of it blew over, after a few days’ wait. It was impossible to understand, considering how easy it would have been for her to make an appointment with him. He had started his own clinic. She knew that much, because he wrote articles for the newspaper and it was there in black and white: by psychiatrist and senior consultant Harald Vold. He writes kind words, about consideration, fidelity and benevolence. She had heard him giving a talk on the radio too. That precious voice. Not that he had any marital difficulties. Seeing as she was so blasted demure and meek and perfect. That wife. Otherwise Dr Vold would hardly be married to her, oh, no. Never a harsh word between them. Nor did they raise their voices in front of the children. Imagine, they had four children. And the housework was no doubt a lark in that home. Ugh.

  That was probably it, that she could not come into his life. So what would it give her, to converse with him in reality? Just jealousy and despair. She could not have him, so who should she turn to, she did not know anybody similar. She was not good, pretty and kind, like his wife was. No, she was angry, selfish and self-indulgent. Vulgar, into the bargain. She had no hope. No, why torture herself by pretending any different, rubbing it in like salt in the wound, and him sitting there all good and kind and noble, while she, oh, she could not face finishing the thought. Because it was precisely his kind-heartedness that made him believe that she was also that way, that she was like him. His thoughts were pure. But she knew better. She was aware of the nastiness inside her while he had likely just seen it in others, heard them speak, seen them weep, he could not know how an inner darkness really took shape. Like an infection, doctor, an ugly, malignant infection, for which there is no cure. Nevertheless, beneath it all she had perhaps harboured the tiniest hope, something she herself had not been aware had kept her up.

  Because that evening she had fallen. As sure as if she had been standing on something.

  It had been insufferably hot, perhaps close to thirty degrees, and she had hardly had the energy to do anything all day, but had lain in bed for the most part, listening to gramophone records and reading some articles in Reader’s Digest. When the sun finally shifted from the windows she got up, opened the balcony door wide and all the windows in the other rooms. That caused a nice draught and made the living room bearable. She fetched a bottle of beer from the refrigerator, picked up the newspaper from the floor in the hall, but did not see what was on the front page before she spread it out on the coffee table. A jolt in her chest, several, she read the sentences in a staccato:

  Dr Harald Vold unexpected death. Much too soon. An authority. A pioneer. Founder of the clinic. Highly respected. Loved by his patients. Colleagues and family.

  Loved.


  So it was too late. She would never make an appointment at the clinic, never see him again. Never enter his office. Sit on the chair he always had at an angle to his desk.

  Their talks in his office.

  That time. The emotions from back then swept through her. How strong. How in the midst of everything she was. The children, she thought. The house. Oh, God, Finn. The warmth in Dr Vold’s eyes. His brown office. It was in Kristian Augusts gate. You could hear the trams passing on the street below, and their sound had made her so expectant, she suddenly recalled. It was probably the freedom of being in town. Of thinking that she could hop on a tram at any moment. Hold on to the strap and look out the windows. At each stop new houses, different streets, unfamiliar faces. Well, she had made it into town eventually, but there was hardly any freedom to speak of. Not like she had dreamt.

  When it all came down to it she had hardly been so bad a person that he could not bear her, no, that was suddenly clear to her now, that he must have even liked her, she was only human after all, and the doctor thought well of people.

  He never sank down in them.

  Now it was too late. She was out of time. She had not settled it, now it was final. Disconsolate, because so much had happened to her in life, and that was after all why they, her and Dr Vold, had agreed that she would go back to him when the divorce was well and truly over, then they would continue their conversations. But she did not go, and therefore nothing was properly cleared up, but remained vague, deadened, the apartment became her little mouse hole, as though she were packed in duvets and left in peace. But the peace was not in her, only surrounding her, like the fact that nobody came to visit if she did not want them to, she was in charge of herself and her own affairs. And in time she had got a television and her own pension. No, but she had made a big mistake, she understood that now, sitting there sobbing in her living room, while at the same time she noticed that the draught was a bit much, her neck was becoming stiff, she ought to shut some of the windows but could not get to her feet due to all the tears flowing from her.

  Oh, Dr Vold, do you know what my biggest mistake was? No, do not mention what I did to Finn and the terrible consequences that had, I really cannot take the blame for that.

  No, it was the brooch.

  She now knows what she should have done all that time it was lying in the hollow of the desk lamp. Week after week she had gone to the doctor’s office and the enamel pin with the curved tulip leaves still lay there.

  She should have talked to him about it. They should have talked about it, together. She should have asked to hold it in her hand and he should have let her. She should have described to him what she saw and told him why she wanted so much to have it. He should have asked and she should have answered. Because it is so beautiful, was the first thing she should have said, the green colour is so clear and deep, and the curved leaves, yes, they look both willing and determined, they are opening and striving at the same time. In one direction, do you understand what I mean? And look at that gilded edge, the areas of gold, so clearly defined, each colour in its place, no doubt whatsoever. If I could wear this, I would have felt quite different. Like the Cecilie Viker I want to be.

  Dr Vold would have smiled and delighted in such beautiful speech. Naturally he could not give her the brooch as a gift. She was well aware of that. It belonged to another woman, who had lost it, or thrown it in despair and now it lay at the doctor’s awaiting its owner. No, it was not Cessi’s, but they could talk about it. He would allow her to pin it to her blouse so she could feel how she was about to become. Describe it to me, he would say, who are you now?

  That was how they would have talked, about the pin, and he would also have held it in his own hand, studied it closely in order to understand why it was so important.

  Yes, it is beautiful, he would say, stylish, the work of an artist.

  That would have transformed her. There would be no way back from her words, their conversation would have led her over to the right side of everything. She would have known that Dr Vold knew. About her. It would have been the first step.

  Oh, Dr Vold, time ran out, she wailed into the sofa cushions that Mama had embroidered when young, but then she had to get up and go out, she ran out the door, out into the evening sun in Bygdøy allé. No, she will never forget that day. He was dead and as she came out of the shadow of the tall, dark facades of the buildings, for a moment the sun shone between the branches of the chestnut trees and hit her face: the green flickering on the leaves, the dense golden light.

  33

  I put my finger on the buzzer beside his name. I hear his voice immediately afterwards through the crackly intercom. The sight of the wire-mesh glass in the entrance door. It seems familiar. The motion of the door as I push it open. The smell in the stairwell. As though we have already slept together.

  I leave wet marks on the linoleum-covered stairs. He lives on the third floor. The windows on each landing are on the latch, probably due to how muggy it is out, the insides of the panes are misted up and I notice the smell of wet earth from the lawn in the back garden. The wind brings the rain in gusts, the treetops bend, the undersides of the leaves turning towards the sky.

  He is standing in the doorway waiting. A long body dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans. His upper arms are smooth, I want to run my tongue over them, or, I do not feel the difference between my tongue and the flats of my hands, do not know if I want my tongue or my palms to suck him in.

  Hi, he says, hi, and bows slightly, he bows to me and steps aside, invites me in, places his hand on my back as I pass, an inclusive gesture. The hallway smells of lilac and coffee. The kitchen door is open and I can see a candle and two cups on the table. I ask if he has company, but he does not, only you, he says.

  I remove my shoes, I must have got wet, I say, it’s really bucketing down.

  He asks if I would like to borrow a jumper and I nod, yes please, I say, gladly, and I wonder if he thinks I am pretty, or does not think about it at all, I wonder how I look, I wish my gaze could speak for me.

  I stand watching him from behind as he walks down the hall and opens a door at the far end. His left hip gives slightly with each step he takes, I think it is beautiful, but maybe it is due to a slight misalignment in his back, that long, slender back. I wonder why he is so thin, I suspect you can see his hipbones protrude when he is naked. A slightly rounded stomach, I can imagine, a narrow strip of hair going from his privates up to his navel, I can feel my hand on his stomach, between his hipbones.

  The door closes almost completely behind him, I hear the click of a switch, see a stream of light in the chink of the doorway, the bedroom most likely, and he is now standing in front of his wardrobe looking through the shelves for a jumper for me.

  The jumper is blue and soft. He looks down over my body as he hands it to me, blushes and says he probably does not have any trousers that would fit. I look at his mouth and think how it has been like that since he was born, and all the same we have not known about each other until now.

  I go into the bathroom to change. The tiles are warm beneath my feet. I see no signs of a woman, no trace of more than one person. The glass on the sink has one toothbrush in it and the deodorant in the mirror cabinet smells of man. The same smell as the blue jumper. I am soaked to the skin and take everything off, including my bra, before pulling on the jumper. I leave my blouse to dry on the grey and white floor tiles. There is a dark blue toilet bag on top of the washing machine, which is on a cycle, everything is neat and tidy in the room. The basin is clean and the soap is new, it is black, slightly translucent, some sort of natural soap, ecological.

  If only this could begin. If only it were possible.

  A heavy blue dressing gown hangs from a hook on the door. I wonder if the days and nights have been lonely, if he has put on the dressing gown and walked to the kitchen with heavy steps? Has he sat face down on folded arms crying into its soft material? Has he felt sad and looked out the window, uncomprehendingly
, as children do not comprehend when they feel unloved? Or am I the one who has done that, yes, it is me, who has lived so many years in the belly of unhappiness, curled up, sloshing around in lethargy, shapelessness and self-pity. Not him. Or, what do I know, precious little. When I come into the kitchen he puts his arms around me and holds me. It lasts for maybe a minute. We breathe evenly.

  Lars Erik fetches the coffee cups and switches on the TV. We come straight into extended coverage of a news item, just as the newsreader says they are going over to their colleague on the scene. The picture changes and we see a reporter standing with a microphone in front of the gates to a house. It seems so familiar, I think confusedly, am I not actually well aware of where this is? Perhaps thoughts are always slower on the uptake than senses, or is it just the camera lens rendering my house unfamiliar? Because of course it is my house and I understood that immediately: the gate, gateposts, trees along the drive, the many windows, the front door; it is home.

  That’s my place! I cry.

  Shush, Lars Erik says, hang on, they’re saying something.

  I see all the policemen being filmed in the garden. They are moving so slowly, I think, and it seems oddly pointless, I can see no meaning to their movements.

  They have pinpointed someone’s location in the house and the police are aware of their identity but cannot give any more information at the present time, the reporter says. This is repeated in the studio before the news presenter asks the same questions again, and the reporter gives similar answers, only in different words.

  It’s the man in the baseball cap, I say, it’s him, I’m sure!

  Lars Erik looks at me but does not say anything and that is not so strange. He does not know any more about the man in the cap than what I have told him and that was not much. Perhaps he thinks he is a figment of my imagination and that I am not all there, perhaps he is just going along with everything I say.