There’s silence for a few moments.
Then Ingrid says: “Are we okay?”
I turn to her, feel annoyance still grumbling inside me, but try to smile at her anyway.
“Of course,” I say.
“Sure?”
“Why shouldn’t we be okay?”
She holds my eye for a moment, then smiles and shakes her head.
“I don’t really know why I asked that,” she says, still smiling as she gently winkles the empty bottle out of Henrik’s mouth and puts it on the kitchen table. “But the hall and the bathroom floors?” she says, getting up very carefully, looking at me as she holds Henrik to her chest and stands there rocking him gently, I don’t answer straightaway, I hardly slept a wink last night and I honestly can’t be bothered washing the hall or the bathroom floors, and anyway, it’s not necessary, she only wants them washed because her parents are coming, she always has to clean and tidy and dust when she’s expecting a visit from them, even though the house is perfectly clean and tidy already, she still feels she has to do it, I don’t get it.
“I’m a bit tired after last night, and I’ll have to work for a while today as well,” I say, taking a bite of crispbread. “And I’ve the dinner to make.”
“Fine, I’ll do it myself,” she says.
I eye her as I finish chewing and swallow.
“Yourself?”
“Huh?”
“You make it sound as though it’s always you who washes the floors,” I say. “You make it sound like you were asking me to do you a favor, the way you might ask Sara to do something for you.”
“You’re awfully touchy today,” she says, trying again to pass it off with a surprised little laugh, but she knows I’ve hit the nail on the head. I normally do at least as much of the housework as she does and this is just a feeble attempt to make me feel lazy and apathetic.
“Am I?” I say, taking another bite of crispbread.
“Is something the matter?” she asks.
“Don’t ask me if something’s the matter, Ingrid,” I say.
“Huh?”
I blink slowly.
“Ingrid,” I say, “you could cut the air in here with a knife and you ask me if something’s the matter—like you’re automatically blaming me for that. Like you’re implying that I’ve got something on my mind, something that’s upset me or put me in a bad mood and that’s why things are so tense around here. As if it’s got nothing to do with you.”
She arches her eyebrows.
“I didn’t even know things were so tense around here,” she says. “I thought we were okay.”
“We are, but—er …”
“But … ?”
I close my eyes and sigh, put a hand to my forehead.
“God Almighty,” I say, open my eyes and look at her. She’s sitting there staring at me, she looks serious now, annoyed almost, but then she gives a little laugh. She’s annoyed and yet she wants us to laugh it all off and start again, I can tell. I shake my head and give a little chuckle as well, trying to do my part to lighten the mood.
“I’ll just put Henrik down,” she says, giving me a little smile as she goes out into the hallway.
I get the orange juice out of the fridge and pour myself a glass, hear the distant drone of a lawnmower as she opens the front door and goes out to put Henrik in his baby carriage.
Nothing for a minute or two.
Then Sara wanders in, wearing Ingrid’s bathrobe and with her head swathed in a blue towel. Without a word she makes a beeline for the kitchen cabinet and takes out a bowl, doesn’t even look at me, she’s mad at me and she’s making sure I know it, as if she has any reason to be mad, if anyone should be mad it’s me, it pisses me off to see her going around with that sulky teenage pout on her face.
“Sure you’re clean enough now?” I ask, I shouldn’t rattle her cage any more than I already have, but I can’t help myself.
“Moron!”
I smile to myself.
“David,” I hear Ingrid say. She strolls back into the kitchen, smiling and looking me straight in the eye, as if to show that we’re okay, but would I please leave Sara alone now.
“Did you at least remember to open the bathroom window?” I ask, eyeing Sara as I bite into the crispbread. She picks up the box of cereal, stares at me like it’s the first she’s heard that she’s supposed to open the bathroom window after she’s had a shower.
“Huh?”
I just stand there looking at her for a moment, I don’t believe it, is she just doing this to mess with me or is her head so much in the clouds that she still hasn’t grasped this?
“For Christ’s sake, Sara, how many times do I have to tell you, you have to air the bathroom out aft—”
“Da-viiid,” Ingrid breaks in, almost singing my name.
“Right, well—er, go and open that bathroom window, Sara,” I say.
“I’ll do it later,” she says, pouring cereal into a bowl.
“Do it now, please,” I say, not backing down, and I’m not going to back down either, I backed down earlier and I won’t do it again. “It’s all steamed up in there,” I add.
“Oh, my God!” she cries, tossing her head and banging the cereal box down on the countertop, she sits with her face turned to the ceiling for a second, but then she actually does as she’s told, I hadn’t expected it, but she actually gets up and walks off to open the bathroom window—well, I say walks, but stomps is more like it.
Ingrid smiles and raises her eyebrows slightly. She looks at me as if to say was that really necessary?
“What?” I say.
“Nothing,” she says, smiling and shaking her head.
Then Sara comes back, she opens the fridge door, takes out the milk, and pours some into the bowl of cereal.
“Oh, by the way, I need mascara,” she says.
“Well, I’m off to do the shopping in a minute. Just put it on the list now,” Ingrid says. She smiles at Sara as she draws a white hair tie out of her shirtsleeve, unwinds it from her wrist, and pulls her hair up into a ponytail.
“So where’s the shopping list?” Sara asks.
“I don’t know, David wrote it.”
“It’s up there,” I say, nodding toward the fridge. “Use the green pen.”
Ingrid stares at me, her jaw slowly dropping, she knows I always color-code a long shopping list and yet here she is, looking at me as if she’s never heard the like, attempting to lighten the mood by turning this into another little farce in which I play the oddball from the north, I know that’s what she’s doing. I look at her, I don’t want to be the oddball she wants me to be right now, that would be tantamount to admitting that color-coding shopping lists is weird and stupid and I won’t have that, it’s not stupid at all, on the contrary it’s practical and it saves time.
“Don’t tell me you’ve color-coded the shopping list again?” she says.
“Yes, I have.”
“You’re unbelievable, so you are.”
“It takes half the time to do the shopping if the list is color-coded,” I say quite seriously, to show that I’m not going to take part in her little farce. “If I write everything that comes under the category of personal hygiene in green, for example, I can simply pick up all the things written in green when I’m in that aisle, right? Then I don’t end up wandering round and round and back and forth.”
“And you a writer,” she says with another little laugh.
“What on earth does that have to do with it?”
“Well, it’s just that … you tend to think of artists as being a little more, how shall I put it … spontaneous!”
“Oh, you and your artistic stereotypes,” I say.
Ingrid shakes her head and gives another little chuckle, then she turns to Sara.
“Put VG and Dagbladet on that list, would you please.”
“Yeah, but in what color?” Sara asks, treating me to the sort of scornful look I remember from teenage girls when I was a teenager myself, a
look designed to tell me just how ridiculous I am.
“Brown!” I retort as if taking it for granted that she really does want to know—nothing annoys her more than me ignoring her power games—then I look her straight in the face and grin.
“Yeah, use brown, for God’s sake, otherwise I’ll be wandering up and down the wrong aisle until you come and rescue me!” Ingrid giggles, she obviously hasn’t realized that I’m not playing along so she’s still treating this whole situation as a comic interlude.
Sara reaches across the countertop, smiles at me as she plucks a blue ballpoint from the basket propped against the side of the fridge, as if to show how little heed she pays to what I say by deliberately using a different color from the one dictated by my color code. I ought to rise above it, but I can’t, I feel my annoyance growing, but I keep smiling, I won’t give her the satisfaction of seeing me riled, so I give a little yawn to show just how little I care, do it quite spontaneously, watch her as she adds the two tabloids to the list and hands it to Ingrid.
“Right, see you later then,” Ingrid says, smiling at me. I give her a rather cool, cursory smile in return and take a little sip of my juice, glance up and look at her again as she turns and leaves the kitchen. I put down my glass and glance across at Sara, but she’s careful not to meet my eye as she picks up her bowl of cereal and carries it through to the living room. She’s probably going to sit in front of the TV and watch one of those inane and unbelievably grating teen channels while she has her breakfast, they drive me crazy, those asinine American sitcoms she watches, even taking into account the age of their target audience, those programs are depressingly stupid.
“David, where did you put the car keys?” Ingrid calls.
“Where they’re supposed to be,” I call back.
“I can’t see them.”
“Well, you’re not looking where they’re supposed to be,” I say.
I hear her muttering “Jesus Christ,” she doesn’t find this way of talking and carrying on funny anymore, she’s starting to get annoyed again too, I can tell by her voice. I grin through clenched teeth, delighted to hear that she’s getting annoyed.
“And where might that be?” she asks.
“You mean you still don’t know?”
“Dammit, David! I don’t have time for this!”
I chuckle softly and go out into the hallway.
“Aren’t I funny?” I say.
“Yeah, yeah, you’re hilarious,” she says, trying to look as though we’re still playing out our little farce, but it’s no use, she’s seriously pissed off now and it shows, she knows it too, I can tell. “It’s just a little too much sometimes,” she adds.
I don’t say anything, simply fish the car keys out of the little cup on the bureau and hold them out to Ingrid, she lifts her hand to take them, but just as she goes to close her hand, I pull the key away.
“David, stop it, it’s not funny anymore,” she says, trying to smile, but I can tell by her face that she means it, I can tell that she’s getting really angry now. I hold the key out to her, she reaches for it again, and again I snatch my hand away. “Stop it, for fuck’s sake!” she shouts, unable to contain herself any longer.
I stare at her, slowly open my mouth, and give her a blank, uncomprehending look.
“What … you’re not mad, are you?” I ask, acting as though I’ve been kidding and fooling about all along and that I thought she knew this, making her seem like a spoilsport. She shuts her eyes and sighs, trying to compose herself.
“Give me that key!” she says, shutting her eyes again and putting out her hand. She stands like that for a moment, then looks at me once more, tries to smile and act as though she has calmed down. I lay the key in her hand, try to look as though I’m sorry, hurt almost. “You can be a pain in the neck sometimes, do you know that?” she says, doing her best to sound more jocular than angry but not quite succeeding.
Therapy session
Time: October 2nd, 2006
Place: Fjordgata 69d, Trondheim
Present: Dr. Maria Hjuul Wendelboe, psychotherapist; David Forberg, patient
MARIA: Are you hungover?
DAVID: No. What makes you think that?
MARIA: Your eyes look a bit glazed.
DAVID: It was May-Britt’s birthday yesterday and we went out for a drink. But I’m not hungover.
MARIA: You had a drink, though?
DAVID: I took it very easy.
MARIA: I know I’ve already explained patient-therapist confidentiality to you many times, David. But since you’ve told me this, I’m bound to remind you of its limits: what you’ve done, that stays between you and me. But if it looks to me as if you’re likely to commit another serious crime, I am obliged to contact the police.
DAVID: I know. But, I told you, there was no drunken killing. I’d had hardly anything to drink … just a few beers and some wine.
MARIA: But the risk of you resorting to violence is greater when you drink, isn’t it?
DAVID: I am careful, Maria.
MARIA: [pause] Does May-Britt know about your temper?
DAVID: She has never seen me become violent, no. If that’s what you mean.
MARIA: But does she know what you’ve done?
DAVID: No.
MARIA: Are you going to tell her?
DAVID: I don’t see what good that would do.
MARIA: You don’t think she has a right to know who she’s involved with?
DAVID: I’ve learned my lesson, Maria. I’m not the man I was before the killing, I’ll never hurt another human being, I’m absolutely certain of that. And anyway we’re not “involved.”
MARIA: Oh?
DAVID: Or at least … I don’t know. [laughs hesitantly] It just sounds so serious.
MARIA: So why are you laughing?
DAVID: She’s twenty-two, for Christ’s sake … it’s pathetic. I’m a walking cliché.
MARIA: I sometimes have the impression that you use laughter as a way of playing down your own problems … to make them seem so insignificant that you can simply laugh them off.
DAVID: On one level maybe. But I also feel that a man in a midlife crisis is such a tragicomic figure.
MARIA: Why is that?
DAVID: Maybe because he’s a kind of … because he’s fighting a battle that everybody knows he’s bound to lose … and the harder he fights, the more ridiculous he looks, so to speak … something like that. [pause] That said, though, I don’t think that—a midlife crisis—is the explanation for my relationship with May-Britt. Or not the whole explanation anyway.
MARIA: Oh?
DAVID: [long pause] In our first or second session I told you about the time when Ingrid hired a cleaner against my wishes. About how angry I was. Remember?
MARIA: Yes.
DAVID: But what I didn’t tell you was that … after a while I began to let Ingrid think that I liked the cleaner rather more than I actually did … a few lingering glances and the odd compliment that Ingrid was supposedly not meant to hear, you know? And that was all it took for Ingrid to discover that we didn’t need a cleaner after all. [laughs]
MARIA: You conned Ingrid into firing the cleaner?
DAVID: Absolutely. And it’s only recently that I’ve begun to understand why I did that. At the time I didn’t know why I got so worked up about something that was, after all, such a small thing, I mean … Ingrid was actually right in a lot of what she said. We were both very busy with work. And the house we were living in was so big that we could never keep it as clean as we would have liked. Besides which, we could easily afford to pay for a cleaner, you know? But recently I’ve realized that the cleaner was not, in herself, the issue. Her significance was purely symbolic.
MARIA: Really?
DAVID: You see, Ingrid’s father was a pioneer in the field of plastic surgery in Norway, a real trailblazer … and when he sold his clinics five years ago, just after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, in fact … Ingrid’s brother was killed in the attack on
the Twin Towers and this plunged Alfred into a crisis that resulted in him deciding to devote the rest of his life to something more worthwhile and socially useful than improving the appearance of rich men’s wives …
MARIA: Really?
DAVID: Yes, but that’s another story … I don’t know what he got for them. According to Ingrid he got a lot less than I might think, but still, it was a lot … so we’re talking about a wealthy family here, right. They’ve always been wealthy and that has left its mark on Ingrid. I mean, when she got into ESMOD, Alfred felt she’d done so well that she deserved a new car. And when she got the chance to show some pieces from her small collection at Paris Fashion Week, he sponsored her to the tune of God knows how many thousands of kroner for product development, the setting up of a production system, and so on … he rented a shop for her on a prime site in the center of Trondheim and all that—with a promise that he would buy it for her if she fulfilled a number of requirements he’d made regarding profitability. Do you see where I’m going with this?
MARIA: Not entirely.
DAVID: Ingrid is used to being rewarded for her efforts and this has left her with the idea that we always get what we deserve, so to speak. The logical consequence of this being that, basically, she believes a rich man is rich because he’s smart and hardworking and a poor man is poor because he’s stupid and lazy.
MARIA: I still don’t see what this has to do with your cleaner?
DAVID: What I’m trying to say is that Ingrid disdains everything and everyone not associated with the upper and upper-middle classes. Or the middle class at least. In other words, she disdains everything to do with the world I come from and this angered and upset me, right, so I responded by refusing to countenance this one element of middle-class life. No fucking way was I going to hire a cleaner, right?
MARIA: Have you and Ingrid ever talked about this? Honestly, I mean.
DAVID: No.
MARIA: This disdain of hers, as you call it, how did this manifest itself?
DAVID: Usually in ways she wasn’t aware of, I was about to say … you see, she thinks she’s the most tolerant and liberal person in the world and she would be furious if she heard me saying she’s full of contempt for the section of the population I come from … but, well, to take one example … earlier this summer we went to a barbecue at the home of one of Ingrid’s friends. There were a number of people there whom we didn’t know and when Ingrid asked one guy what he did for a living, he told her he was a bus driver, right? And do you know what Ingrid said? “Yes, but what do you really do?” Now do you see what I’m getting at? I mean, she automatically implied that there was no place for a bus driver in the circles we moved in, and if there did happen to be one in the company, she simply assumed that the person concerned was only driving buses while writing his doctoral thesis or waiting for a novel to be snapped up by a publisher or a painting to be sold or something of the sort … in her world simply being a bus driver wasn’t good enough …
Aftermath Page 31