by Linn Ullmann
She spoke of him to no one. Ever.
Ragnar was gone.
It wasn’t so hard to say.
Erika said it inside herself: Ragnar’s gone, she said. Then she said: I am this car. I am this road. I am this snow, falling outside. I am these windshield wipers. I am the pregnant woman beside me and the boy in the backseat.
They were almost at Sunne. The woman asked if they could stop at the next gas station to use the toilet. It was something of an effort for her to have to ask. Erika took the opportunity to ring Laura. It was snowing heavily now.
“Sunne, oh yes! They’ve got a spa in Sunne! I think it’s dreadful there. But you can eat pesto and greens and take steam baths until trees grow out of your ears,” Laura said over the phone.
Laura tried to laugh, but Erika could hear something was wrong. Laura seemed uneasy, breathless. Erika asked what was the matter.
“It’s the neighbors,” said Laura.
“You’re always worrying about the neighbors,” Erika said. “You’ve got to stop.”
“Yes,” said Laura.
“I might ring Isak and tell him I’m not coming,” said Erika. “I want to come home.”
“You needn’t decide now,” said Laura. “Sleep on it.”
“I’ve got passengers in the car,” said Erika.
“I know,” said Laura. “You told me.”
“I don’t quite know what to do with them. The woman’s pregnant.”
“But don’t they want to be dropped off in Sunne?”
Erika opened her mouth, stuck out her tongue, and tasted the snow.
“I hope so,” she said. “I have to get some sleep.”
Chapter 26
I’m awake, said Ragnar. I’m wide awake; I’ve never been so wide awake in all my life. If this isn’t being awake, if this is sleeping, I want to sleep like this always. Erika, don’t leave me. Soon we’ll be fourteen and we have to stay together. I love you. Day after day, month after month, year after year I will love you and lie beside you in the grass on Hammarsö and listen to the music on the waters.
Part II: The Colony
Everybody said they were so lucky to live just at that location. Laura stretched her arms up to the sky and took a deep breath. An idyllic oasis in the heart of the capital, wrote the real estate agent when he was drafting the property description.
“Explain to me what that means,” Laura said.
“What what means?” asked the real estate agent.
“An idyllic oasis. I want to know what it means.”
Jonas Guave, top real estate agent, senior partner in Prospero Properties, was known for talking people into offers that were more than they could afford. Laura had called him one morning when she was bored and said she wanted to sell her house.
“Old-fashioned charm and modern comfort combined,” he said. “It’s incredible what you’ve done with the house, Laura. It’s exactly what everybody wants.”
Chapter 27
Laura, skinny as a strip of film negative, sat on the stone wall outside the kitchen door, dangling her legs. Gangly, bony little-girl legs. Her dress was white, her skin tanned. Next year, Laura would get just as brown, maybe browner, and anyway she wouldn’t be sitting here swinging her legs and waiting for Isak to come out of his study and play Yahtzee. Next summer she’d be glorying topless on the beach in polka-dot bikini briefs, just like Erika and Marion and the rest. Fabulous Erika! Laura once heard an almost grown-up boy say exactly that. The boy, who might have been seventeen, stared at Erika for a long time and said to his friend, There goes that fabulous girl. Laura’s hair was matted and sticky and pale blond, virtually white. She hadn’t washed it for several weeks. Summer holiday dirty, said Rosa. Summer holiday beautiful, said Isak. He’d be here soon. Laura shut her eyes and visualized him in there, in his study. Now he was putting his papers away in the drawer. Now he was switching off the lamp. Now he was going over to the shelf to get the Yahtzee or maybe Chutes and Ladders. She hoped it would be Yahtzee. Chutes and Ladders was for little kids; even Molly could play Chutes and Ladders, though she generally messed it all up. Now she could hear his footsteps coming through the living room. He would open the door any minute and yell: “I’ll be damned if it’s not time for a game of Yahtzee, Laura! What do you say? I’m going to beat you senseless! You don’t stand a chance!”
She had left her socks and shoes on the kitchen floor. She sat on the wall, eating a pear lollipop, swinging her legs, looking out at the beach and the stones and the sea beyond the pine trees.
Chapter 28
She had called the real estate agent Jonas Guave on impulse. She hadn’t said anything to Lars-Eivind. It was a perfectly ordinary January morning, cold and dark, with heavy snow falling. Laura was looking forward to being alone. The kids, particularly Jesper, had been sulking and wouldn’t eat their breakfast; and Julia wouldn’t say a word. Lars-Eivind broke a glass and got milk on his jacket, which had just been dry-cleaned. It wasn’t the kids’ fault. It wasn’t Laura’s fault. It was nobody’s fault. All of a sudden, Lars-Eivind dropped the glass on the floor and milk splashed everywhere.
“Fuck!”
Julia and Jesper looked at their father. Jesper started to cry.
“Calm down, Lars-Eivind,” Laura said.
The jacket, bought in New York two years before, was to be worn for an important meeting. Lars-Eivind had an important meeting. First Lars-Eivind had to go to the doctor’s, just a routine thing, and then he had the important meeting. There’s an awful lot hanging on how this meeting goes, he had told Laura the previous night, at three o’clock. They were lying in bed, cold, and Lars-Eivind couldn’t sleep. She had squeezed his hand and told him it would be absolutely fine. Now he’d have to find another jacket. The one he had had dry-cleaned for the occasion smelled of milk. Laura scrubbed it with warm water and green soap, but it didn’t help. Julia had been dressed and ready for ages and was sitting on a chair in the living room, waiting to go. She sat in silence, watching her mother, father, and brother. Jesper had a runny nose. He had had a runny nose the previous evening before he went to bed, and it was worse now. Not terrible, but worse than the evening before. Laura felt his forehead, put her hand to his cheek, stroked his hair. Quick, efficient maternal hand movements. Jesper stood stock-still.
“He doesn’t feel feverish,” said Laura.
She didn’t take his temperature, couldn’t face getting him out of his wool underwear and his padded snowpants and everything; couldn’t face the idea of Jesper staying at home on her day off. A whole day to herself. She felt his forehead one more time.
“He’s a bit hot,” she called out to Lars-Eivind. And added, mainly to herself: “But then, it is rather hot in here.”
“I’ve got an important meeting,” called Lars-Eivind irritably.
He was in the bathroom, brooding about his jacket.
“You’ll have to sort it out. I haven’t got time,” he added.
Laura squatted down by Jesper in the hall and wiped his runny nose. She looked him in the eye.
“If you feel poorly or your cold gets worse, I’ll come and fetch you right away. Is that okay, Jesper?”
Jesper nodded.
“But only if you really feel bad, understand? Not if you feel okay but just want to come home. Not then. If you’re okay, you have to stay at nursery all day.”
Julia, who was two years older than Jesper, looked at her mother. Laura got up and ruffled her daughter’s hair. For goodness’ sake, stop looking at me like that!
“And please look after yourself especially well today, Julia? Don’t take off your mittens—you always do that, so don’t.”
Julia neither nodded nor shook her head, just went on staring at her mother.
Laura went on: “It’s so important to keep wrapped up and warm and not take off your hat and mittens and scarf out of doors, even if you get hot playing.”
Julia shrugged.
What am I doing wrong? thought Laura. Stop looking at me! I
haven’t done anything wrong. She abruptly embraced her two children, the six-year-old and the four-year-old in their snowsuits and wool hats, with big blue eyes and red-tipped noses.
“This evening we’ll treat ourselves to hot chocolate and whipped cream,” said Laura. She pointed to each child in turn and said: “You and you and Daddy and me. Hot chocolate and cream and waffles.”
When Lars-Eivind left with Julia and Jesper, to drive them to school and nursery and then go on to the doctor’s and to work, Laura didn’t yet know she was going to ring the real estate agent Jonas Guave. She didn’t even know of his existence. She cleared the breakfast table, made herself a coffee, sat down at the computer, and started surfing the Internet. She found his name there. She studied houses up for sale, looked at the pictures, saw how people had arranged their homes, their living rooms, bedrooms, bathrooms, and kitchens, imagined herself living there, or there, or there. Jonas Guave was the agent name attached to the most exclusive properties. When Erika rang from her mobile, insisting that she should come to Hammarsö, Laura didn’t want to talk. Drive to Hammarsö, now? No way. Laura just wanted to sit here surfing the Internet, maybe hoping to find out a bit more about this Jonas Guave. She ended her conversation with Erika and dialed the number of Prospero Properties.
“We haven’t definitely decided to sell yet,” she said on the phone. “We’re considering it, but we’re not sure.”
All she really wanted to know was how much she could get for the house. To see what it was worth. Jonas Guave said he could come right away. Laura barely had time to shower, put on her makeup, and slip into a pair of tight jeans. She twisted to and fro in front of the mirror. Lars-Eivind always said she had the nicest ass in Oslo, and she wanted the top real estate agent to see it.
She gave Jonas Guave a glass of ice water. He didn’t want coffee, just water with ice. Laura let him go around the house making notes. Everywhere it was clean and tidy, but she apologized for the mess. She always apologized for the mess, no matter how pristine her home was looking. She left Jonas Guave in the living room and went into the kitchen, opened the freezer, and tapped one of the ice cube trays on the counter to make the ice cubes jump out; she never had the patience to press them out. That annoyed Lars-Eivind, who said it was the wrong way to do it. There was a special knack to getting ice cubes out properly, he claimed. Lars-Eivind had had a strange smell about him lately. It wasn’t sweat or bad breath, but an unpleasant body odor that developed when he was tired—and he had been very tired during the reorganization at work, and because he wasn’t sleeping well—or when he was afraid of something. Laura didn’t know why she thought he was afraid of something. Lars-Eivind had nothing to be afraid of. The reorganization meant he was having to work harder just at the moment, but it would be to his advantage in the long run. His salary would go up. They would be able to afford to do things they’d dreamt of for years. Have a new bathroom, do up Julia’s and Jesper’s rooms, strip and polish the floors. Maybe even rent that dream cottage in Provence for a whole summer. Take things much easier.
When Erika rang for the second time, it was to ask how to get out of Oslo. There was something so helpless about Erika, Laura thought. Erika was the eldest, the clever one, the one Isak was proudest of, a doctor like him, but there was still something distinctly helpless about her.
Jonas Guave and Laura were sitting next to each other on the cream-colored sofa under the big southwest-facing window with the view over parts of the garden and the Oslofjord in the distance, having a discussion of sorts: Attractive view of garden with lilacs, apple trees, and berry bushes. Fjord vista.
Laura wondered whether you could call being able to see out into the garden a view. Jonas Guave said he had his terms down pat.
“The fact that the house has a fjord vista is the same thing as having a view,” he said. “It’s important that your line of vision isn’t interrupted, and here it’s not.”
Laura nodded.
“Have you ever thought that if your line of vision is interrupted, your thoughts will be, too?” said Jonas Guave.
To be strictly accurate, the house hasn’t got a fjord vista, thought Laura. But if the new owners can be bothered to stick their heads out the window and crick their necks, peering sideways…She put down the draft property description and looked at Jonas Guave, who was sitting beside her on the sofa, drinking his ice water, oblivious. It lasted only a few seconds. But Jonas Guave was engrossed in his water glass, like a child with his first Coca-Cola. Laura could stare straight at him without his noticing. He wasn’t on guard. He was sitting on her sofa with a glass of ice water in his hand, and for a few seconds he was utterly oblivious. He had lots of tiny, almost invisible acne scars on his face. A tough time in his youth, thought Laura; lonely, confusing. Not the sort the girls liked. They taunted him. Pretended they wanted to kiss him and when he finally believed them, when he finally believed the prettiest girl wanted to kiss him, they all laughed and shouted Eww and God no and Get lost. They’re even leaking. Your pimples are leaking! Disgusting! All that had changed now that he was grown up and lived in Oslo and had been a regular at the gym and got rid of his acne, maybe with some kind of antibiotic. He set the empty glass on the table in front of him. She asked if he wanted any more water. Jonas Guave shook his head.
“Okay then,” said Laura, indicating the draft description. “This is looking incredibly good, but I think we ought to change the expression idyllic oasis. I think it sounds stupid.”
Jonas Guave smiled at her.
“Stupid?”
He was waiting for an explanation. Laura groped for the right words. What can you say to a man who doesn’t realize the phrase idyllic oasis is stupid? Cloying. Is cloying the word? Can you call a phrase cloying? Jonas Guave looked at her. Laura leafed through the sheets of paper on the table. She could feel his eyes on her body, her breasts, her face. Laura was not oblivious. Laura was never oblivious. Was he thinking: Is Laura Lövenstad in distress? Laura looked up and smiled. Top real estate agents don’t use words like in distress. Actually, no one uses words like in distress.
“I mean, such a stupid expression in the property description?”
Jonas Guave leaned back on the sofa.
“A breathing space, a haven from the daily grind, Laura. Life is hell for most of us, isn’t it: stress all day, longing for something but not knowing what, because we’ve got everything we need. And then we come home. Here! To this garden. To this house, to this idyllic oasis, Laura—everything falls into place!”
Chapter 29
“Come here, Laura. I want to show you something,” called Isak.
She jumped down from the wall and went to her father. She noticed him looking at her. Her white dress. Could Isak see that she had grown pretty, that she had long brown legs and a firm butt? She was eleven now. Isak was over by the birchwood writing desk nobody was allowed to touch because of all the important papers kept there.
“Stand here and I’ll show you something special,” said Isak.
First he opened the pull-down front of the desk to reveal two big rows of drawers, and between them two more rows of little drawers. All the drawers had white ivory knobs. If you inserted your hand between the two rows of little drawers and pulled aside a small protruding trim, presumably (if you didn’t know better) just decorative, there turned out to be another drawer in the desk. A secret drawer. An invisible drawer.
“Guess what I’ve got here,” said Isak.
“Important papers,” said Laura.
“Not at all,” said Isak. “Guess again.”
“Pictures of dead fetuses,” she said dubiously.
Isak smiled, put his hand into the drawer, and pulled out a dainty green box with gold lettering.
“Fancy chocolates!” he said. “Do you want one?”
Laura nodded. Each chocolate came in its own individual envelope, thin as tissue paper; the chocolate was dark brown and rough textured, with mint cream inside. Laura ate her chocolate. It was delic
ious, all the more so because it was gone so quickly. You immediately longed for more.
“Can I have another one?”
Isak shook his head and put the green box away in the drawer.
“We’re not allowed two. We’re only allowed to take one. Very occasionally we might be allowed two. But never three.”
“Yummy,” she said, and smiled. Then added: “Yozumonmonyoz!”
Isak gave her an inquiring look. Laura was speaking in the secret language that not even Isak understood. He shrugged his shoulders and went into his workroom. Laura was left standing by the writing desk.
Erika and Ragnar thought that she’d given up, that she’d never mastered the secret language. They were wrong, but she let them go on thinking it.
Chapter 30
ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE
The huge hand-painted banner, made communally (each household responsible for its painstakingly measured letter), was fixed over the entrance to the Colony residential area.
ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE
Tuva Gran had told Laura that somebody had finally bought the dilapidated old property next door to her house, that it was a family with no children (pity!), and that a single man called Paahp had moved in.
Of course the message didn’t read ABANDON HOPE ALL YE WHO ENTER HERE
It read: WELCOME TO THE COLONY. PLEASE DRIVE WITH CARE! LIVELY CHILDREN AT PLAY! THANK YOU FROM ALL OF US IN THE RESIDENTS’ ASSOCIATION.
Chapter 31