by Agnes Ravatn
There was a sudden, unexpected downpour, and I ran up to the veranda and waited there under cover until the rain gave way to equally sudden, balmy afternoon sunshine. The weather here could change as swiftly as Bagge’s mood.
I crossed the garden to fetch the spade from the tool shed, and when I re-emerged he was there, looming unexpectedly before me, tall and broad. A sincere, boundless sense of relief ruptured within me and the spade fell from my hand.
There you are! I exclaimed, though he had only been gone since that morning.
His leather satchel was lying on the ground by his feet. He stood before me, his skull pale and angular, dressed in his black suit. One hand in the pocket of his trousers, his black shoes gleamed. He glared at me.
Allis, the oven was on when I got up in the night.
Yes, I’m sorry about that, I was baking a loaf of bread.
Surely you realise that you can’t just leave the oven whirring away all night long.
Yet again I felt childish tears well up. This was too much for me to take from a suited and booted Bagge, and all when I had invested so much time in feeling concerned about his welfare.
I’m sorry.
I couldn’t tell him that I had kept a sleeping watch, that I had witnessed his frightening behaviour during the night.
But you’ve shaved off all of your hair! I gushed with as much surprise as I could muster.
I fancied a change when I was in town. I often shave it in the summer.
It suits you. Your head is a good shape for it.
He accepted my compliment without a word.
Are you hungry?
No. Thank you.
He turned away and walked up to the house. Curse you, I thought. Nothing more or less than that: curse you. For a moment I imagined that we were married – a challenging state of wedlock; what a frightful prospect it was, me at home and him roaming whenever and wherever he saw fit, like a polar bear, reappearing days later without so much as a word of explanation. A neurosis-inducing, hostile husband. It was hardly surprising his wife had made herself scarce. I was increasingly convinced that she had left him without any intention of returning. Why else would her things be packed away in boxes like they were? It was essentially how I had left my own husband, fleeing without tidying up after myself, leaving him burdened with the task of getting rid of my clothes and belongings after I’d gone, though that was surely nothing compared to facing up to what I had done to him. In the midst of my agitation, Bagge reappeared behind me.
Do you drink gin?
I do drink gin, yes.
He sat down in the garden chair and placed two glasses, two cans of tonic and a bottle on the table. He had changed out of his suit. And there, there it was, the foolish delight had returned, he was bringing out the strong stuff, what in God’s name could be better than that?
He handed me a glass and lifted his own in my direction.
Cheers, Allis.
Cheers.
Oh, how good it was. I almost knocked back the first glass in one go; but I forced myself to hold back. I went up to the house and sliced some cucumber, placing it in a small bowl before adding a few ice cubes. Surely there was nothing wrong with making things that little bit more enjoyable.
It was as if he brightened up when he saw me return. I added ice and two slices of cucumber to my glass before topping it up with gin and tonic, as if he might need a practical demonstration, might not know any better. I had a burning desire to speak, but as usual could think of nothing to say. It was possible that he savoured the silence, but he might just as easily find the whole situation exasperating or awkward. Inwardly I pondered how he wanted me to act. I could play any role, it was my greatest talent, fitting in seamlessly regardless of the company I found myself in. I could be anyone for him, if I only had the faintest idea what he wanted.
He topped up his glass, and when he eventually added ice and a slice of cucumber, I felt warm, as if his actions were an endorsement of my character, a mark of his acceptance, part of some kind of policy of approximation.
His bare head was frightfully unfamiliar. Only a millimetre of dark hair remained. Stroking a hand over it would undoubtedly feel lovely, but I missed his dark locks.
As the silence continued, the hurdle to making conversation felt all the more insurmountable. Catching my breath felt almost as impossible, every potential ice-breaker relegated to my internal conversational scrapheap. I had always been that way with everyone, everything that I considered saying aloud first played over and over in my own mind, every utterance a parody of how people in the real world spoke to one another, an optimistic attempt to sound normal, spontaneous. Perhaps there were no troubled waters within him. I felt a fit of giggles rising within me like a rolling wave. I couldn’t allow that wave to break. I wanted to sit by his side as his equal. He said nothing, sipping from his small glass. Things would go the same way they always did, beginning with such promise before his mood abruptly faltered and he returned inside. Please, say something, or please, God, let me think of something to say. I felt the laughter building, just as it always did when it shouldn’t. Knowing that laughter was the least appropriate thing in any situation was always exactly what initiated it in the first place. It was just another of the many inexplicable, demonic pitfalls laid out for human kind by our bodies and souls, surely designed to ensure our complete and utter humiliation.
I strictly instructed my subconscious to behave, repeating an inner mantra: Pull yourself together. Pull yourself together. Pull yourself together. Bizarrely enough it seemed to work.
Please, help yourself, he said.
Thank you.
I refilled my glass.
It will feel good to get drunk tonight, he announced into thin air. Never before had a statement left me feeling so alive. He had said it, he had announced it; he couldn’t break that promise now, couldn’t suddenly decide to retire to his bed instead of following through. He would have to stay here for two hours at the very least.
Any special reason?
He sighed. Yes. And no.
Thank you for being so precise, I thought to myself.
Today is a special day.
I didn’t ask any more questions. I added a little more gin to my glass, I couldn’t taste the alcohol as strongly as I’d like. I hoped it might be viewed by him as a gesture of solidarity.
Suddenly I recalled the stack of debt collection letters I’d received and took a long swig to alleviate the thought. More than anything I wanted to relinquish my responsibilities, even just for the night.
Where were you before you came here? he asked out of the blue.
Where was I? I worked in TV.
You worked in TV? He turned to face me, as if trying to picture it, which was understandable as I also struggled to picture myself as the kind of person who might work in television. And with good reason, I suppose, because I didn’t, not anymore.
Yes.
I don’t watch much television.
You don’t even own a television.
What did you do there?
‘There’ he had said, as if he were imagining me inside the actual television set.
I presented a programme on Norwegian history.
You were a presenter?
Yes.
On television?
Yes, I snapped, annoyed, was it really that difficult to imagine?
He paused for a moment, then looked at me once again.
But then the series came to end, I suppose.
Well, not exactly.
And you came here.
That’s right.
Because you wanted to do something completely different.
Yes.
Because you couldn’t be on television anymore.
That’s right.
His keen eyes honed in on me.
You had to get away. Far away.
Yes, I had to disappear.
So nobody could get a hold of you.
Absolutely nobody.
&n
bsp; He narrowed his eyes.
But why?
What about you, what are you doing out here all on your own like this?
It’s your turn.
You’re right, I didn’t want anyone getting a hold of me. Any more questions?
But why? What could you possibly have done? How long were you on television?
Two years.
Not that long, then. Was it a financial thing?
No, that’s one thing it definitely wasn’t.
This amused him. I poured us both another drink.
Political? No.
No.
Then that leaves only one possibility.
There are only three possibilities?
You know that as well as I do.
It was like having an animal sitting across from me at the table, a large, long wolf pelt in a garden chair.
Well, it must have been that, then.
Well, well, well, Allis, he said.
He stared into the distance, at the mountains, the pink sky, pondering.
Did you have a…
I turned to face him and our eyes met.
… husband? he asked.
No.
He said no more, draining his glass and closing his eyes. His expression became serious, almost intense, and he was so beautiful that it was painful to observe. I long for him even though he’s right here, even though I am sitting just beside him, I thought. He kept his eyes closed, and it struck me all of a sudden that this was how he looked when he made love. With Nor. This was exactly how serious I imagined him looking. I tried to shake the thought, couldn’t think such things.
At that very moment he stood up and walked away. He left, as always, without a word, no farewell, goodbye, that’s it from me for now.
Bloody, bloody, bloody hell, I thought, downing my glass of unhappiness, of anger. I heard a door open, and moments later he was by my side once again, this time wearing his wool jumper.
I think we both need some flames to gaze into, don’t you?
Oh, yes.
He walked down to the bottom of the garden, climbed over the old gate and disappeared down the steps, returning from the jetty carrying the old grill and placing it down before me. I sat quietly, sipping from my glass. He crossed the garden behind me, heading over to the wood stack and returning with an armful of logs before dropping them on the grass. It wasn’t long before the flames blazed upwards against the dark night sky and he sat down once again. Fire – is there anything better? There really isn’t, I thought to myself.
Are you sure you don’t want anything to eat?
What do we have in?
Various bits and pieces, I said.
Don’t go to any trouble for my sake.
We’ve got sausages.
His brow lifted in the way that it rarely ever did, a flicker of hope that all was not lost.
I went inside to fetch the sausages and he hunted down two old, well-worn spit forks, their metal ends burnt black.
We pierced the sausages and rotated the forks slowly, spinning them between our fingers, taking occasional sips of gin.
We ate the sausages straight from the forks. Meat juices dribbled down our chins. I felt elated, a result of the alcohol, of the entire glorious experience. I pierced another sausage with my fork and noticed tiny carvings in the wooden handle, undulating swirls snaking around and around, something carved deep into the wood at the base. N. So they had sat here together, roasting sausages over a fire just like this. That must have been nice. Did she have to come back? She did, of course. But no, she couldn’t.
After we finished the sausages, I collected more wood. We both stared into the curling flames, the smoke drifting towards us and stinging our eyes, the birch logs hissing and crackling.
So you’re the kind to disappear when things get hard.
I turned to face him. Reclining in his seat, his narrowed eyes didn’t give the impression that he cared about having angled such an insult in my direction.
What did you say?
So you’ll be leaving here before long, then.
Why, are you planning on making life hard for me?
Perhaps.
I didn’t bite. He was doing his best to seem menacing, but he had played that card too many times now.
Good luck with that, I said.
I’ve been disloyal.
He uttered the words without warning and I grew cold as I gazed at him with surprise. His brow was heavy, it cast a dark shadow over his eyes, his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose highlighted by the moonlight.
Have you?
Yes.
What makes you say that?
He gave no reply.
To whom?
I heard myself slurring my words and straightened up, rousing myself from my relaxed state.
His dark expression, the bare head that I would never get used to.
Everyone.
Everyone on earth?
No.
I saw that he was ready to withdraw into himself once again. I reached out and placed another log on the fire, thinking to myself that for as long as the flames blazed, he would sit by them.
To whom?
He didn’t reply. It was midnight, and I was beginning to feel the cold setting in. He seemed to be done with talking for the night. I stood up, the chair creaking beneath me, then went inside to fetch us each a blanket. I hoped that he might be afraid I had gone to bed. To my delight, he wrapped himself in his blanket the moment I handed it to him and we sat there, slightly askew, like two off-balance Indian chiefs, neither of us saying a word.
Do you know what’s odd about you? he asked suddenly.
No?
You’ve never looked me in the eye.
What?
It’s true. You don’t look me in the eye, you just gaze straight past me.
I do not.
Yes, you do.
I noticed the very same thing about you long ago, I thought, but I said nothing, mostly because it would only sound as if I were copying him.
That’s how I knew.
Knew what?
That you’d run away from something.
I said nothing.
He stared straight ahead and breathed deeply.
So you left your job. There aren’t as many unknowns in that equation as you might think. You’d probably been given a position that you shouldn’t have had in the first place.
I felt sick, drank faster.
And you started at the university, but you didn’t go back there after your stint on television.
In a way I was so glad to hear him speak that it overshadowed what he was saying, so I did nothing to stop him.
So you were offered a job that someone else should have had.
He had read the papers, after all, he must know about me. The way he said the words made me feel indignant. He thought he knew it all when really he knew nothing.
I took the job to prevent an utterly unreliable colleague with a fierce political agenda from taking it in my place. That could only have been damaging, it would have been counterfactual historical broadcasting in a prime-time slot, so really, you could say that I did it for … the Norwegian people.
But how did you get the job in the first place? he asked slowly, gazing into the fire, almost as if he were speaking to himself, like some kind of detective.
You’re only asking these questions because you can’t imagine me on television, but you should know that I was good at what I did, I cut in abruptly. The programme was moved to Saturday night. And the work involved wasn’t easy, you know, it was an extremely demanding role.
I no longer cared that I was slurring my words.
So you got involved with someone who worked there, someone senior to you—
And I received an award for my work. Nobody felt it was undeserved. Not until afterwards.
But what came first, him or the job?
He did.
Bad order.
I said nothing.
Did
he have to leave too?
I nodded.
Was he very senior?
I nodded again.
How were you found out?
I guarantee that you don’t want to know.
I beg to differ.
All right, I thought, if you’re so sure. I steeled myself as I fixed my gaze on the flickering flames.
I was invited to their home. It was his wife’s fortieth birthday party and the house was full of people. She was so proud to have so many guests that she announced that everyone should leave their coats in the baby’s room, and they moved the baby into the box room for the night.
Later on, after the birthday girl had nodded off, he led me into the room where the coats were and we … well, before we knew it, half the party were hovering in the doorway, gazing on in gleeful disbelief.
But how?
The baby monitor had been left in there even though the baby was sleeping elsewhere.
Gosh.
I said no more. Now he knew.
He leaned his head back and chuckled, rubbing a hand over his face. His laughter was good to hear – the comic potential of the story had increased with the passing of time, I couldn’t deny it.
So this was what, February? March?
Yes, a few weeks before I came here.
He turned and looked directly at me.
I won’t be away for days at a time from now on.
You won’t?
No, that’s over now.
I’m not afraid of being here on my own.
But I’m afraid of leaving you on your own.