by John Fajo
Chapter 2: Second Act
His flat was above his workshop in a small century-old house. He couldn’t remember anything about his way home. Raindrops fell from his fair hair, and he was drenched to the skin. He must have walked all the way.
“What happened to you?” Gina asked as he entered. “Didn’t you take a taxi?”
“No, no,” he murmured. He didn’t look up. “I needed a walk. I drank too much.”
“I told you to be careful,” Gina said scoldingly. “You’re soaking wet.”
“Where’s the kid?” he enquired as he took off his coat.
“She’s watching television.”
“And dad?”
“He’s in his room... sleeping... presumably.”
He knew this meant his father was drinking.
He hummed. Just a couple of months ago Hedvig would have been running to the door to meet him, and hug him. He would have kissed her on the cheek, and they would talk about the day. But now television got hold of her.
He changed clothes, and then went to the living room. Hedvig was there all right, now accompanied by her mother as well. They hardly noticed him.
“Hi, dad,” she said her eyes glued to the TV. “Oh, no,” she then suddenly shouted, “they are going to do it.”
“Do what?” he asked. But as they didn’t answer, he went to take a look himself. There was a blondie and a fatso, who was the he and who was the she, he couldn’t tell. Anyway, they were in a very obvious position. He was baffled. He glimpsed at 15-year-old Hedvig, and then at his wife. What was going on? “Aren’t you a bit too young for this?” he turned to Hedvig, and then, not waiting for an answer, to Gina, “why do you allow her to watch this? She should be in bed. It’s past ten o’clock.”
“Hjalmar, you’re so old-fashioned. She’s virtually a grown-up. Haven’t you noticed? She has to learn what life is about.”
“That’s true, daddy. Most girls in school have already been with a guy.”
His mouth stuck wide open as he had wanted to say something, but froze at hearing such sincere facts of life. He knew Hedvig would leave the family nest sooner or later, and he was happy for that. He would help her in everything as much as he could.
“Big Brother,” Hedvig shouted the name of the program together with the TV as the show was paused and commercial was given. She went to the phone and dialed a 12 digit number.
“Who is she calling?” he asked Gina.
“The Big Brother voting centre. The viewers can decide which player has to leave the show. The most democratic show, indeed.”
“And how much will it cost?” he pointed to the phone. Hedvig grimaced at him.
“You are always so concerned with money,” Gina was about to hold one of her monologues. “That is, if I want to buy some clothes or perfume for myself. Because how I look does matter, you know. A stewardess has to look pretty. Besides I earn more money than you do. I sure hope that Gregers friend of yours gives you a normal job. And just for your information; I paid the phone bill last month, and the month before, and before. You talk on the phone as well, don’t you? With your fishing mates,” she pursed up her lip showing how much she disliked them. “If you would care to make your own business, then you could achieve something worthy of you. But no. Fishing mates… Off you go with them, instead of organizing your business.”
Gina had wanted him to start his own business for a long time. She had told him many times that he was a coward who couldn’t free himself from the company.
She was driving at this very same topic now. ”If you could just be a man...” He let her words wash over him, it was late for him, he felt all energy had petered out of him. The advertisement was long; way too long. The monologue ended only when the commercial was over.
There they sat, the two women watching television, him not watching or seeing anything except emptiness. He soon retired to bed and went to sleep.
He dreamed. It was the usual dream, he was the Viking master. The only exceptional thing was how much it resembled reality this time. He could taste the salty air in his mouth when he woke to the sound of the door bell in the morning. He opened the door in pyjamas as Hedvig, his father and Gina had already left, Hedvig to school, Gina to the airport and his father to the headquarters. He could hardly keep his eyes open.
“Do you believe in universal good?” There were two of them, members of some church.
“I just woke up,” he stuttered. “Couldn’t we...”
They could see he wasn’t in a condition to argue. “Because there is a universal good. And there is a God. Do you agree that God is good?”
“Possibly,” he wanted to get back to his dream.
“Once good reigned on the Earth. But then evil came. Once all animals lived in peace and harmony.”
“Really?”
“Yes. There was no violence, no one killed anyone.”
“No one?”
“No one.”
“But what about, say the lion?”
“What about it?” They were the patient kind.
“Lions must have killed back then as well.”
“No, not at all. They didn’t eat meat.”
“What did they eat then?”
“They ate what all other animals ate: grass.”
He started laughing as a child who denies the obvious insanity of grown-ups. “Lions ate grass,” he repeated.
“Yes. All of them ate grass.”
“This doesn’t make sense. Tell me then, why does a lion have canine teeth, and a paw as heavy as a hammer?”
“He has large teeth to be able to eat the dried grass, and heavy paws to be able to dig for it.”
Sleep left him all of a sudden, his eyes were wide open. He knew from earlier experiences that it was no use to argue with religious people. He would only annoy himself.
“So you are saying that God created these killing machines to eat grass.”
“No, God has created them to be peaceful. It was the devil that forced them to taste blood. Our holy quest is to chase away the devil.”
“And to make lions eat grass again.” He was getting annoyed all right.
“Yes,” one of them said as if a lion eating grass would be the most obvious thing in the world. “And there would be love, no more wars, no pain.”
He realised it was time to quit this aimless conversation, he believed in evolution and these folks here in lions eating grass. Luckily the phone rang, and he bid them good-bye.
Gregers was on the other end of the line. “Hello, old chap, thought I’d pop by.”
“Okay,” he said. “I will be down in the workshop. Have to make a presentation for the international fair next month.” He hated to make presentations, because his hands were entirely tied, the marketing decided everything, and of course, chief Werle.
They ended the conversation quickly, and he went down to the workshop. There was silence, only the noises of the sparse traffic emanated from the surroundings. He was frightened. He knew the thoughts would come, no matter how hard he tried to hold them back. And soon the thoughts pervaded him indeed. The funny lion episode was shoved to the side, and he saw Werle and Gina as the two love mates in last night’s Big Brother. Werle looked somewhat like Gregers, the furry Oksen, so ugly that he ceased to be ugly. Gina was very, very passionate.
He turned on the computer; the low buzzing only accentuated the silence. He punched the buttons fiercely, and watched Gregers, no it was Werle, or.... he didn’t know which one and Gina on the monitor.
Then he leaned back, and told himself to think rationally. Like a computer would, if it could. Gina and Werle were together..., kind of. Of course she couldn’t tell him, she had known how much he hated Werle. She wanted to protect him. He couldn’t believe himself. He was actually accepting this disgusting relationship. What was wrong with him? Soon Gina would be the victim. Well, she wasn’t. He was the victim, he and his father. They got only what chief Werle had no use for any more. That piece of shit. He often though
t about the reasons an ugly-looking, cunning, but not-too-smart individual could become a leader. What was it chief Werle had that he hadn’t? Was it some form of a hidden quality, an aura, a charisma? How could it be that his father, offspring of Vikings had failed in life so miserably, while Werle with ancestors not worth mentioning had succeeded? He knew his father hadn’t cheated anyone, it had to be Werle. Was his success a result of perfect unscrupulousness, indecency? But if it was, what did that say about their society?
“Knock, knock,” Gregers arrived earlier than he thought his friend would. “You have a nice place here.”
“Yes,” he said plainly and offered a seat to Gregers.
“I had a discussion last night with dad, and finally he was supportive that you should become my right hand. Work at the headquarters.” He couldn’t remember Werle being supportive of anything that had to do with him. “So what do you say?” Gregers stretched out his hand. He shook hands with him, somewhat distanced in his mind. He couldn’t imagine a reason why Gregers would need him. As if sensing this Gregers said: “I sure need someone like you. Someone who knows everything about computers. What can one do without them in today’s world?”
He looked at the computer in front of him; it looked somehow less appealing than just a couple of days ago. “Computers are the future,” he could remember saying this the other day to someone. “The virtual becomes real.” He had to modify his opinion. True, the computer was essential in a modern society. It could improve the quality of work if used correctly. It was a fundamental invention, like the wheel. But what the misty and mystifying sales tactics concealed was that it was just a tool. It had its limitations. Just like the wheel that one couldn’t fly with. If used incorrectly it would simply increase despair, hold one’s mind in a tunnel.
“Hello,” someone said from behind him.
He turned around and it was Hedvig as he suspected. For a moment he got worried. “You are not sick, are you?”
“Hello,” she noticed Gregers, who took her hand and kissed it like in the old days.
“Gregers,” Gregers said.
“Hedvig,” Hedvig said. Then facing him, she said: “No, I’m fine.” She turned immediately back to Gregers. “Who are you?”
Gregers explained.
“There is no school today?” he asked.
“I took maths free.”
“What do you mean you took maths free?”
“I discussed it with mom,” she squealed. “There is a test I could never pass.”
“Great. What else is there I don’t know about?” he sounded genuinely angry.
“Don’t take it so hard on her, Hjalmar. She’s just a kid.”
The kid blushed, frowned and was definitely irritated. Gregers noticed, and apologised. “I often skipped my subjects too.” He thought he could strangle his old schoolmate.
“So, is the car outside yours?” Hedvig asked as her cheeks were retaining their normal colour.
“You mean the red sports car?” Gregers asked and nodded, smiling.
“Wow,” Hedvig uttered. “Will you take me for a ride?” Hedvig was undecided whether to act like a coquettish young woman or a demanding child. She ended up somewhere in-between the two, sounding like a girl ready to be taken. Gregers blushed slightly.
He said with the wisdom of a very old man, who knew it was no use to rebuke his daughter for it would only enforce her determination: “Go, I have to finish with this until early afternoon”. He acted as if their presence hindered him in his work.
“Right now?” Gregers asked.
“You can take me back to school,” she said, and her face lit up. He thought that she thought that arriving with a red sports car would surely impress her schoolmates.
Gregers was hesitant for a moment, then agreed. “I will be back, old chap.”
He heard the unmuffled sound of the rocket engine from outside, then just as a rocket, it shot through the street. He leaned back in his chair. He felt old. In the morning when he had looked in the mirror he saw a good-looking, young face staring back at him. Right now, though, he was more like his great-great grandfather if his ancestor were still alive. His limbs were heavy; his fingers moved slowly, the clicking was an arduous task. The most novel animated 3D images flashed in front of his eyes, but he didn’t really observe them. He was making the presentation from experience; only one small, unconscious part of his mind was involved.
The world was changing around him. Of course, the world had always been changing. He just hadn’t noticed earlier. He was not against change, but somehow instead of the excited anticipation, he felt deep worry. As if all of society’s worries had aggregated in him. He tried to shake it loose, but couldn’t. He was trapped, and at the same time, he knew that eventually he would have to resolve the matter himself. In one way or the other. Sooner or later. But rather sooner if he didn’t want to go insane.
He was soon finished with his work; he sent the whole presentation electronically to headquarters, where he wouldn’t have been the most welcomed guest. He stood up and stretched his arms. He could hear the sounds of a rocket outside.
“We’re back,” Hedvig shouted and ran to him, and kissed him. He was stunned, but a warm breeze made his body tremble.
“School’s closed for today,” Gregers explained immediately. “Someone phoned in a bomb threat. Probably weren’t too eager about this math test either.”
He looked at Hedvig.
“It wasn’t me,” she said. “I don’t know anything about it.” There was a strange and dubious smile on hear face, and her eyes and Gregers’ met. “I have to show you something,” she said. She took Gregers by the arm and they went to one corner of the workshop; he followed them shortly.
“This is Hedvig’s corner,” he said. “I bet you haven’t seen anything like this before. It’s a prototype.”
Gregers glanced at him, his long, curled black hair making him reminiscent of Latin lovers. Hedvig took out a box from beneath her computer desk, and put it on the desk. She waited for some time before opening the box. She wanted Gregers to ask for it; his friend knew this.
“So what’s in it?” Gregers finally asked after stretching her patience to the limit. Hedvig made gestures stressing the importance of the contents of the box, then finally opened it. She rummaged, then “Quack, quack,” could be heard.
She placed the electronic duck on the floor. It flapped its wings, and looked at Gregers. “This is not like the dummies you can buy in stores,” she said, “it has in-built intelligence equivalent to a three-year-old child’s.”
“Brilliant,” Gregers exclaimed, the duck seemed so unrealistically real. “Where did you get it from?”
“From your father,” he said. Gregers twisted his nose as if smelling a foul rat.
“But daddy did most of the programming and research.”
“So it’s your brainchild then.”
“I did some of the work,” he tried to sound modest.
“Is this the only one?”
“Yes.”
“This could be sold in millions,” Gregers said. “Are we producing the ducks?”
“No,” his face lost the previous excitement all of a sudden.
“Why?”
“Your father thought it was an almost certain failure. Nothing has been done after we completed this project with the company engineers last year.” He was filled with new hope the way Gregers looked at him.
“I promise you, we’ll sell millions and millions, and be rich,” his friend waved his hands.
The duck was frightened of Gregers, it quacked and trotted behind a drawer. It was afraid of furry creatures. It was a duck after all. At least it should have believed.
“Yes, and then we can have a red sports car too,” Hedvig joined in the excitement. He thought she rather meant that she could have a red sports car. He was happy though. Not for the possible money. He would have accepted it if he earned no money with it at all. What was important for him was that his brainchild woul
d make an appearance on the world stage after all.
They got so excited, everyone for his own reason, that they didn’t notice that Relling, the dentist from next door came to pay him a visit. The duck observed Relling though, its electronic sensors sharpened beyond the humanly conceivable. It bounced to the air, flew over the drawer and landed on one of the computers at the far end of the workshop.
“Wooooo,” Relling made sinister gestures turning to the duck knowing that the duck had recognised him. The dentist enjoyed intimidating the plastic-metal creature that was only an unnatural twist of nature to him. Something that shouldn’t exist. “I will cut the throat of your duck one day,” the dentist said turning to him.
He liked Relling. “Go ahead,” he said. “The head contains only 50% of the visual sensors. The processor is in the body close to the batteries surrounded by metal plates.”
Relling tried to think of something pertinently funny in response, but couldn’t. “You win then.”
He introduced Gregers. Relling showed an immediate dislike for the young Werle. “The car outside is yours?” the dentist asked, but not caring to listen to the answer, told Hedvig: “Let’s go, and catch this bird.” Hedvig laughed; she knew Relling, the bald-head as she called him, could never catch the state-of-the-art robot. The duck obeyed only her and Hjalmar.
“Molvik will be here in a moment with his laptop. Would you be so kind to install some things on it?” the dentist almost commanded him to do so.
He nodded. “Turn off the duck, will you?” he asked Hedvig, and with that Molvik appeared. They started installing.
He could hear some muttering over his shoulders, Hedvig was teasing Gregers and Relling, and they did likewise. An hour or so must have passed, when they finished. He noticed that Gregers and Molvik, contrary to Gregers and Relling, found soulmates in each other. They were actually all having a good time, like it wasn’t the middle of a weekday. They lived in a welfare society. They all had too much time to think, he thought.
Unexpectedly Relling got hold of Hedvig, lifted her, caught her by the ankles. She was hanging up-side down. Then bald-head put her down.
“My lens,” Hedvig cried out and looked offended. She wasn’t a child any more to be picked up like that.
“What happened?” Gregers asked.
“The contact lens fell out from my left eye.”
“Nobody moves then,” the dentist said, laughing at Hedvig’s annoyance.
“There it is,” Gregers squatted and picked up the lens.
“Give me,” Hedvig said and grasped for it as if it was the most vital thing in her life. “I can’t see anything without my contact lenses.”
“Just like my father without his glasses,” Gregers said. “You’re a blind mouse.”
“Blind mouse, blind mouse,” Relling said.
“Ha, ha, ha,” she looked humiliated.
The dentist stopped teasing her. “We better get going,” Relling told Molvik, who was discussing some far away island resort with Gregers.
“Call me,” Molvik told the young Werle, and left with the dentist, with his laptop under his arms.
For some time there was silence. Then Hedvig said: “I have to go and do my homework.” He thought that was something for a change as he heard her go up the stairs.
“Finally alone again,” Gregers said. “We can talk.”
“Talk about what?” he wasn’t in the mood of discussing anything with anyone. He wanted to sob alone. Some sort of dislike started emerging in him for Gregers, perhaps partly because he was a Werle, partly because he was so successful with Hedvig. Of course, he knew that an older man appealed to girls of her age, especially coming from far away exotic places with a red sports car that had rocket engines. But still, knowing this didn’t make him feel any better. He had raised her; Gina was often away for days due to her job. He had been the one by her side when she was sick, or got into trouble. He was too attached to her.
“Let’s talk about the future. Our future,” Gregers said. “So as I told you I want you to be my right hand. Our first project would be the duck. Your duck. Soon you will have money flowing in.”
“That would be good,” he said morosely, not really caring. “I still can’t pay back all my debts that I took for my studies, and the mortgage for this place. We spend virtually all money we make.” He thought about the ten-year-old family car of his and the red sports car.
“You can forget about all that.”
“Why?” he asked. “Why are you trying so hard to be nice?”
Gregers wasn’t ready for a question like that, had no prepared answer. “A man of your calibre deserves better than what you have. You’re talented...” Gregers seemed to be fighting with himself whether to say more or not, finally deciding that it was better not to at this moment.
“Maybe your father is right, and no one would care to buy a duck like that.”
“No, no,” Gregers shook his head, and there was a fierceness about him. “Yesterday dad did mention something concerning a new project of his, involving artificial puppet robots. He must have meant the duck. Strangely he didn’t say anything about you being involved.”
“But...”
“I have been to many places, Hjalmar, I have seen many things. But interestingly, I found that people I encountered were very much alike. Regardless of culture and social system; they had similar dreams. There were losers and there were winners. My father is a winner in this system here. He doesn’t really know anything, is not talented like you...”
“How can you say something like that?” He was flattered, his ego satisfied.
“It’s true,” Gregers continued. “My father never had a genuine idea of his own. He used the ideas of others, he pretended they were his. He wants to steal your idea as well. But I’m not going to let him.”
“Why are you so angry at your father?” he asked. “Is it because of your mother?” He remembered Gregers’ mother as a kind and gentle creature doomed to wither away in the claws of an excentric man like Werle. She had drunk herself to oblivion.
“Possibly. But there are many other reasons as well. I simply don’t understand why people put up with him. Why do you work for him?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “What else could I do? I should be happy to have a job at all. It’s difficult to find a regular job nowadays.”
“I see. He successfully plays on the fears of people. He created himself a position from where he can decide on their fate.”
“That’s the way the world works.”
“But that’s wrong.”
He got upset. “It’s easy for you to speak, you’re his son. You’re rich. But some people are not rich. So they have to do what they have to do to make a living.”
“It’s classical slavery,” Gregers said.
He didn’t know what to say to that. He denied the possibility of being a modern slave. He thought he was doing the things he liked. He remembered someone telling him that: “you should consider yourself very lucky if your hobby turned out to be your job.” And his hobby turned out to be his job indeed. He didn’t even have to work late hours either. But right now he didn’t feel lucky nor happy.
“The young Werle,” his father exclaimed arriving from work. “Haven’t changed much all these years. Only your hair is a bit longer.” They shook hands. “Sure had a lot to do today.”
He sighed. He knew his father didn’t actually do any work. Chief Werle only exercised a dubious kindness by employing him. He couldn’t really say it was because of compassion for his father.
“Young Werle, you like hunting?” the old man was quite a fanatic hunter once. Gregers made a hardly visible nod. “Then let’s go.” His father laughed, Gregers stared questioningly. “We are not going to the woods, or anything. It’s all here, in the computer,” the old man explained.
“This is the newest hunting program,” he said. “Has splendid graphics.”
They all sat down in front of his father’s personal computer. Gre
gers and the old man went hunting in the woods, they played in multi-player mode, some people also joined them from the net. He watched them, listened to their ejaculations of joy at shooting virtual animals. He intensely observed his father, the grey hair, the majestic facial features, his still perfect timing. When he had been a child he often accompanied him to the woods. The fresh air, the strange silence, the whole atmosphere had made a great impression on him, a longing for nature had been imprinted in his heart. Nowadays they didn’t go to the woods claiming they had no time, they had too much work to do. As excursions, they went to the new shopping centres instead. He wondered why. And then he wondered about other things as well. He wondered why Gina could never show any signs of tender respect for him. He was a man of no bad habits, he didn’t drink except on special occasions, and he didn’t smoke. He didn’t womanise. Gina had told him once at a party that he was dry. Simply dry. Meaning lifeless, and uninteresting. He thought that the furry Werles, both young and old, were not dry in contrast. They were usually deemed beasts, the gable of sexual pleasure. They were interesting. They drank, they smoke, they womanised and they were ugly. He sometimes wished he could be like that, go to unknown women and whisper abhorrent things in their ears. But he couldn’t. He thought of himself as an old fashioned character, and that’s what others said about him. Now he should have hated Gina. Now that he got assertion of her affair with chief Werle. Anyone, but chief Werle. That ugly beast had got her too. One part of his mind told him that he should immediately cut all his ties with Gina, another part that he shouldn’t bother about the past. But how could he live with a woman who gave herself to someone he hated the most in the world? Silly question, he was being a male chauvinist, someone who wanted to own women. A woman had at least as many rights as he did. He should be happy to have a woman by his side being such a dry and tidy person, not like those countless lonely, unhappy buzzards. And what would he do without Gina? They had one home, one car, so to say one financially connected life. He couldn’t afford to pay mortgage and study debt and live on his wages, despite that his salary ranked top considering the world standard. He earned a lot, but it was virtual, because the costs of living were so high as well. What would happen to his father? Besides, when he thought of her now he couldn’t deny that he loved her. Those lips, those eyes... What a damn pussy he was! He should go to her and finish their relationship with a slap. He had never assaulted Gina physically, or as a matter of fact as far as he knew mentally in any way. She had told him that if he dared touch her she would leave him at once and take Hedvig with her. Actually, he never considered doing so either. He thought it would have been wrong. Of course, the Werle type could do it, and get away with it. Gregers’ mother had shown marks of beating many times, but had never complained officially. Gregers himself had been quite brutal with women as far as he could remember, and yet... and yet they kept running back to him. And if Gina left or rather forced him out of their home he couldn’t accept the possibility of not seeing Hedvig every day. She was the best thing in his life.
“Your father is good,” Gregers said. “He is the winner.”
“Well...,” the old man looked thrilled, raising his eyebrows with joy. “I’m not bad, not bad at all.” He sensed something phoney about his father’s joy; it wasn’t like the happiness old Ekdal had shown in the woods even when they had no luck with hunting. It was superficial.
He noticed first the black limousine outside. There weren’t many of the kind, but he knew chief Werle had one. Chief Werle had never visited him before.
“Here you are,” chief Werle said as he stepped into the workshop. His father’s joy and excitement disappeared at once; he pushed the rolling computer desk from himself. Gregers didn’t look all that happy at seeing his father either. There was a momentary silence, and lack of movement. Chief Werle grazed his eyes on the surroundings, and nodded reassured. “The material you sent today is absolutely outrageous,” the boss broke the silence turning to him, and sounding irritated. “No wonder the way this place looks.” He was stunned. He was used to having to correct something at least a dozen times before it being accepted by the company, he was used to getting responses like: “no, no, no, you just didn’t understand what we wanted”, and he always had this gut feeling that it wasn’t him who didn’t comprehend the matters. He always felt humiliated; despite his most eager attempts what he did was never good enough. He had a higher degree and a better education than most of the executives, yet they always had to show him that he knew nothing.
“And you,” chief Werle said to his father, “7 o’clock is not 7.08 or 7.11.”
“But the bus...”
“Don’t come with that bus-got-caught-up- in-the-traffic-jam excuse,” chief Werle was almost shouting. “The next time you are late by as much as half a second, you’ll be fired. This is a company, not the woods; every second counts.” The old man was near to crying.
“You are a great leader, dad,” Gregers said contemptuously. He thought his disdain was like his father’s, except it was directed at different kinds of people. “You are great at humiliating your best workforce.”
“My best workforce?!” chief Werle turned red, and was close to raging. “Take a look at this.” He glimpsed at a paper with unrecognisable scribble over Gregers’ shoulders. “This is what your friend and future right hand sends as company presentation for the most prestigious international fair. All our livelihoods may depend on whether we can make good deals there or not. Is this what I’m supposed to put forward to the board?”
“I don’t understand,” he whispered.
“Of course, you don’t understand,” chief Werle shouted. “You don’t understand anything.”
He went to the computer of largest capacity in the room, and opened the files in question. The others watched as the presentation viewed on the screen without a hitch. He was thinking. There were two possibilities he could think of. Either something happened with the material on its way to its destination, or there was a system incompatibility. He phoned the head computer engineer, then said: “It seems the company test-ran a new system today that may have interfered with data handling. They opened the presentation files just now in the computer lab, and it runs smoothly.”
Chief Werle didn’t look pleased. “You computer geeks always mess something up. You always have to make something simple into something difficult.” Before closing the entrance door, chief Werle looked back at the old man, his fingers pointing warningly, and said: “Be in your office by 7.00 tomorrow, or else...”
Gregers coughed. “I’m terribly sorry for all this.”
“It’s not your fault,” the old man said, his vigour gone.
“What did he mean... the way this place looks?” he asked. He looked around, and tried to be objective. The room seemed to him clean and tidy.
“I honestly don’t know.” Gregers thought for a moment. “But he always bugged my mother that she didn’t keep order at home. She cleaned the house twice daily, and still it wasn’t good enough for him.” Gregers’ face showed deep and unrelenting sorrow. “He could afford it, but he never hired a housekeeper.”
“Yes, your mother was a fine lady,” the old man said rummaging in his memories. He thought about his mother, Nora, but he could only remember faintly. She had left them after his father went to jail, and he hadn’t seen her since. He heard rumours that she had married a rich businessman overseas, and became quite a society lady, the type one would refer to as Madam.
“What is this big silence?” Hedvig asked as they could hear her coming down the stairs. “Hi grandpa.” She turned demandingly to Gregers: “I’ve finished my homework.”
He thought this amounted to her ordering Gregers to take her for a ride.
He was more than happy to help her, for he wanted to be alone. “Why don’t you show Hedvig the new mall?” he asked Gregers, who sensing a majority desiring him to take her for a ride, agreed.
The old man said that he would go for a walk. They all knew tha
t going for a walk only meant going to the nearest pub. Old Ekdal went for walks several times every day, always coming back filled with energy.
As the door closed behind them he sank into self-loathing melancholy. He should have worked on his project, improving artificial intelligence and developing the duck concept. He should have continued working on it despite not receiving any positive response. Nothing should have stopped him from continuing his research. It was his dream. Yet, he couldn’t think. Every time he tried to concentrate on it he confronted the same questions, the same desperation. He couldn’t remember exactly when the questions had entered his head one by one; there were always more and more of them. First they had been a mere side-track, a slight annoyance. Later they led to exasperation claiming his entire thinking capacity, not leaving room for any other thoughts.
He was thinking about his life. He looked around in the silent workshop, listened to the rain pouring outside. Everything was grey, the afternoon was well advanced. Only the computers buzzed now and then as they received information and sorted it.
What was wrong with him? Was it the way he looked? What kind of a strange and ugly animal he must have been! They all hated him. They all hated and despised him. And the worst of it was that he didn’t know why. The way that Werle humiliated him and his father. And he didn’t even feel complacent for having been proven to be innocent. He was right, but it mattered very little. Chief Werle would hate him even more for being right, for not being able to rebuke him even more in front of his father and best friend. What mattered was what chief Werle thought. Because chief Werle had the power. He wished he wouldn’t be such a chicken; he wished he wouldn’t care about the consequences and could break chief Werle’s neck with a twist. And then Gina, of course... he would have to do something with her as well. The woman liked to masquerade her so precious independence. She went out on Saturdays; it was her time to fool around as she put it. On such occasions she would dress really seductively. He imagined her, the short black skirt, the tight red blouse... damn, she sure was pretty. He sighed. He thought about himself. He was a family man, a relic of the past. In his youth he hadn’t been too popular with girls. Later they seemed to like him, but this liking had been different. He had perceived it as a sign that they wanted to settle down, to have a family, and he was a nice guy. This had always bugged him for being a nice guy only meant that he would make a good husband. Now he thought he didn’t want to be a good husband whose purpose was for them not to be lonely, to raise the kids and to accept a partly self-inflicted denial of his personality. He didn’t want to be a nice guy who was good on the weekdays, but simply boring for parties. He wanted to be like Gregers, the son-of-a-bitch, not referring to his mother, he pondered. He wanted to get out of this relationship. There were these memories; memories he could not really visualise or grasp. He blamed them for the questions that kept his mind tied. They came from the abyss of time. Like the combined memories of his ancestors, ape-man, the first mammals appearing on the Earth and beyond. He couldn’t root them out, he couldn’t force 5 billion years of evolution out of his head. He sincerely tried, he attempted to accept the way the world worked nowadays, the structure and hierarchy of society he lived in. But the harder he tried the harder the memories bothered him, they pressed their way into his soul. When he thought again about the Gina ready to party while feeling sexually attracted to her, he felt anger and shame. Society said: “This is normal. It is wrong to possess someone.” The memories said: “NO.” Nothing else, just no with capital letters. It was up to him to interpret the no, while the yes was all too well worked out, and had round answers to his silly questions. This was all the more disturbing; he was brought up with a behaviour pattern that the abyss couldn’t accept, but it didn’t show him any alternatives either. Should he have beaten chief Werle up? What good would that have done? Would it have made him happier? His society part rejected such notions as stupid; violence would lead nowhere. He would have payed a much dearer price for such an action than it was actually worth. The memories didn’t care about the consequences though, they kept telling him: “Do it.” Society answered: “Shame on you for even having these thoughts.” He felt like a culprit even without having committed anything.
He tossed a coin he found in his pocket onto the computer desk. He should really get back to work. He had told virtually everyone he knew that he was working on the duck, and soon would found an entirely new scientific discipline. He knew he was able to do it, and yet he couldn’t think straight for the above mentioned reasons. The days passed by, and he had done nothing. He usually described his invention-to-be with zeal, and when asked when he would finish with it, he said that for such a complex thing a lot of time was needed, but he would do everything to be finished as soon as the circumstances allowed. And the days passed by... Society was patient, sometimes he thought not doing anything was more fruitful than doing something having questionable results and implications. Society liked the safe way. The memories deplored it.
He punched the desk with his fists. He was supposed to think about the invention, but instead was back to the damned thoughts. Another half an hour passed, and he had not done as much as to doodle something. How could he prove his values and knowledge if he had done nothing? If he continued this way only chief Werle and his kind would be right again in that he was not good for anything. He would only prove them right.
But it was hopeless to fight the abyss. Again it took control of his mind, and he was back to Gina and chief Werle. He was back to imagining them together. On the one hand, it tore his heart to think about it. On the other, he was interested. He was interested about their love affair, the way they made love. Somehow his feelings were mixed concerning what made him more upset, whether it was that he couldn’t see the action and so couldn’t participate in it in any way or that it had happened at all. He wasn’t entirely sure whether his frustration originated from hating Werle so much or adoring Gina so much. Even though Gina denied any possibility of contact between her and chief Werle all the years they had been together, he more than suspected it. And why did she deny it? Was it out of love for him or was it simply self-interest? Society said that he had no rights to unveil the past; the abyss said that he had all the rights. Why was it only him who seemingly had no rights at all? The Werles had rights, Gina had rights, and even little Hedvig had rights. All of them, except him. His rights ended in behaving decently, working and earning money, and accepting women’s-night-outs. If he would have gone to... how should he put it?... well, bordellos..., and of course, he would never... then he would have been the outcast, the absolute disgrace of society. The man who forced women to perform such disgusting and abhorrent acts, who used them as slaves. From society’s point of view, men compelled women to such acts, and these women had solely this alternative for their survival. It couldn’t be that some women were made this way, and it couldn’t be that he had desires that Gina couldn’t fulfil. Gina could have desires he couldn’t fulfil on the other hand, she sure could. And she had all the rights to do so, too.
No, he had to cease thinking. He had to go out for a walk before making dinner, have some fresh air, and then maybe he could set to work. It was still raining heavily outside, not exactly the weather that invites one for a walk. But it was all the same to him. He put on his raincoat, and stepped out into the rain. He started walking towards the mountains surrounding the city; fat droplets of rain were soon hanging from his hood and splashing him on his face with each step. He went the path he had taken at least a million times before. Or so he thought.
There wasn’t much movement in the street, here in the north people stayed inside, wrapped in their homes. He thought they wrapped their souls as well, so no one could see. He certainly did so. Emotionally he tried to show nothing of himself, not even to Gina. Perhaps he expressed his real emotions only concerning Hedvig. But that was easy. Hedvig was a child not yet inflicted so much by society’s inhibitions. She was, until recently, closer to the abyss.
In an attempt to think about positive things, following his society’s main slogan of “Think positive”, he thought about the fruits of his would-be discoveries. He would buy a villa on the mountain side of the city, that is on the other end, would buy a hunting resort up in the woods his father would run, and he would make sure Hedvig got a head-start in life. He could give everything his family desired. He would start his own company; hire people like himself making them feel almost human. He wouldn’t need any loans he couldn’t ever get. But the best part would be the fame. He would be renowned, could lecture at universities all over the place; become the honoured speaker at highly ranked academic institutions at home and abroad. His vanity was smeared; it was one of the few things that kept his dream and him alive.
He came to a field of neon lights reflecting a by-gone era. The white-blue colour created a fog-like appearance in the rain. He wondered if this was the pub where he would find his father. He stopped by the entrance for a moment, heard damped music emanating, then went a little further. He looked through the window, and halted again. He couldn’t see his father, and he really didn’t want to go inside. But some ethereal force compelled him. He turned back, and went in.
First he bumped into some teens covered in smoke who were pretty much hindering his way and sight in the entrance. He would go deeper into the pub to look around was it not for a vision of Hedvig he perceived from the corner of his eye. The vision lasted only a fraction of a second, the mass of teenagers floated it out of his view. Then he could hear the voice of Gregers. There was no doubt about it. He pushed his way through the crowd, then as Hedvig appeared, grabbed her hand and took her glass. He took a sniff.
“It’s free of alcohol,” she frowned and retook her glass.
“The computer man is here,” Gregers shouted to the teens somewhat alcoholised. There was a dubious sentiment in the crowd. Some of them hushed, others pretended not to take any notice, still others took a pitying look at him. “Cheers.”
“I hope you’re not trying to sneak up on me, dad,” Hedvig said.
Before he could utter a word Gregers gave him a bottle of beer, and told her hoarsely: “Of course not. If I was him though I certainly wouldn’t allow myself, or rather someone like me to go out with my beloved daughter.” They giggled; a world was collapsing in him. He glimpsed at Gregers, and ascertained that his schoolmate was full. The vigour of the abyss was silent.
“I thought I would find grandpa in,” he said.
“He’s never here,” Hedvig pursed her lips. “It’s too expensive.” He knew Gregers was paying.
“And who are all these people?” he asked.
“My classmates,” she said. He looked around again, but couldn’t see any of her classmates; he saw older punks, drop-outs and brutes instead. “People I know from school,” she whispered seeing his disbelief. He nodded estranged. She shook her head annoyed wishing he would go away. He watched as Gregers caught the arms of one of the female teens, pulled her to himself from behind and moved with the rhythm of the music. Then Gregers swayed with two teens, one was simply not enough. Hedvig’s eyes showed desire. He was perplexed. He saw an adult nearing forty, behaving like a teen, and he saw teens who were worshipping him like he was the devil. And the devil was a positive thing to them. A computer man was simply boring.
He could remember a long forgotten episode. He had been in a club with a buddy of his he hadn’t seen since. The buddy had been very popular with women, but not that time though. They sat by a table, and two women joined them all of a sudden. First everything had gone smoothly. Then the conversation ended a mere minute after the buddy uttered the magic name of the subject he had been studying: genetics. One of the girls asked: “Is that interesting?”, but they certainly hadn’t been interested. They left, and sat by another table the whole night very much in their sight looking really bored. The buddy remarked: “Next time we’ll say I play the guitar and you’re a drummer.” But there had been no next time.
“Let’s have some action,” Gregers shouted, a bottle of beer in one hand, a glass of booze in the other. The teens buzzed excitedly, their piercings reflected light, and they looked like a bunch of cavemen ready for the taking. And Gregers seemed to be the man to take it all.
He staggered to a table with the bottle of beer still in his hand. There were others already sitting by the table, by their looks they were southerners. They were discussing some local affair in their native countries, something to do with sheep and women. Then they divulged in global politics. Later they breached another topic concerning northern women occasionally glimpsing at him. Finally one of them turned to him and asked: “What do you think about northern women?”
He took a mouthful of his beer, his eyes rolling, and responded: “What am I supposed to think?”
“You must think something,” the man said.
“I think that’s a silly question. I wouldn’t want to generalise.”
The man with dark complexion tried to make him give a statement, but realised he wouldn’t and said: “My friends and me were discussing them over there. And, please don’t take it personally or anything, but you northerners are the strangest kind. I mean those kids, at first glance they look quite normal and one may even say pretty and handsome. But if we take a closer look at them, we listen to what they say and the way they say it, then... hell... suddenly I only feel disgust and pity. I mean... If I was their father I would never allow them to behave like that.”
“You would beat them up?” his social self shook in anger and resistance.
“I sure would,” the man said. “People have to be taught to show respect one to another. Like I respect you. You understand?” the man stared at him. He didn’t like to be stared at. “You believe that I respect you, don’t you?” He nodded somewhat hesitant. “I would never care to have a long-term relationship with any of these women... I don’t know if I can even call them that... because they have no respect... and I can never... who has no respect for me.”
“That’s why you live alone,” he said feeling the upper-hand.
“No, no, no, no, no,” the man shook his wrists; he could see golden bracelets. “I go out with them, it’s not a problem. I just don’t want to stay with them too long.” He thought probably the women wouldn’t want to stay with a man like him. The man with dark complexion could perceive his thoughts. “I could live with them, I just don’t want to. I’m here to earn money. In a couple of years I will go back, I will go home. I have a fiancé you know.”
“But you date women here.”
“Yeah, of course,” the company of southerners laughed.
“But you expect your fiancé to be faithful to you.”
“Naturally,” the man clasped his hands together. “You don’t understand. It’s not like she would ever want to be unfaithful to me. It’s not in her, she’s not like these northern bitches who have no idea what’s it like to be a woman. A woman, you know. She waits for me. She respects me.”
“What if...?”
“There is no if. Besides my mother keeps an eye on her. And if something would happen... it’s over. But I don’t think so.” The man with dark complexion silenced for a moment. “I will bring her in a couple of months, I am getting tired and old to listen to the bullshit. All the time they explain their lives to me... I don’t care.” The man waved with his hands. ”What about you?”
He shook his shoulders. What should he say? That his daughter was one of the pitied creatures, and he loathed himself for that? One of them was my daughter he would say, and they would all grimace and despise him. Or should he stand up and shout: “You bloody foreigners, how dare you criticise us? You should be happy that we accepted you, and that you’re allowed to work in this country”, and then hit them with the bottle in his hand. His social part and the abyss were in an unusual agreement that he should simply say: “I’m a family man. I don’t think about such things”, but for different reasons. The social part rejected making scenes in public, while the memori
es had a certain attraction for the ideas of the man with dark complexion.
“A family man?” the man asked. “Then you must consider yourself awfully lucky.”
“Yes, indeed,” he answered. There was a slight disappointment in his voice. The southerners could sense it, they looked at each other, and there was an air of comradeship descending on them. The man put a glass of aperitif in front of him and said: “Let’s drink.”
And they drank.