“Actually,” Rita says, “I’ve got a Chinese compass in the car, so I could help you finish off this room, if you like? To bring the energy flow in here into perfect harmony.”
I glance down, put up a hand, and pretend to pick at something on my shirt, try to hide my face so they won’t see how angry I’m becoming, do it quite instinctively: this is fucking incredible, not only is the bitch totally nuts, but she’s acting as if I don’t even live here, talking and carrying on as if I have no say in how my own house should look.
“Ah, so you just happen to have a Chinese compass with you?” Alfred says with a little laugh. “What a coincidence.” He turns to Ingrid and she laughs too, they know that Rita had this all planned and evidently they both think it’s sweet. I’m obviously the only one who feels this is way beyond the pale.
“Well, maybe not a complete coincidence,” Rita says, flashing her prima donna smile and sipping her wine.
“No, but it’s always good to get some tips,” Ingrid says. “Isn’t it, David?”
I knock back the rest of my wine.
“Absolutely,” I reply. I give her a quick smile, then I set my glass on the table and wander out into the hallway. I have to get out of here before I say or do something I’ll regret, I don’t fucking believe this, how dare they, they think they can walk in here and do whatever they like. I go into the kitchen, take one of the wooden spoons from the earthenware pot on the counter, snap it in two with a dry crack, drop the two pieces back into the pot, go back into the hallway, and put on my shoes. I have to get out for a while, away from here, take a walk, get some fresh air, or maybe nip over to May-Britt’s for a quickie, feel the need to punish Ingrid right now, and fucking May-Britt would certainly satisfy that need, it usually does.
Then Ingrid appears.
“The gloves are on the steps if you need them,” she says, smiling at me, she doesn’t seem to have noticed that I’m angry, I look at her, don’t answer straightaway, I frown, what gloves? “The work gloves,” she says. “I used them earlier when I was weeding the flower bed.”
And then it dawns on me.
“What do I need work gloves for?” I ask, pretending not to understand.
“Aren’t you going to rake out the gravel?”
“No.”
Now she looks confused.
“Ok-ay … so where are you going?”
“For a little walk, I could do with some fresh air,” I say, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world, even though her mother and father have just got here.
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“But … um, what about dinner?”
“I told you I was sick of being stuck in the kitchen,” I say, shrugging and turning my palms upward. “I told you, if it’s to be bouillabaisse for dinner, your father will have to make it, remember?” I say, still smiling and gazing at her as if I’m honestly wondering whether she remembers what I said. She opens her mouth, then closes it again, looking more and more confused.
“But David … you can’t go now … we have guests … what am I supposed to say to Mom and Dad?”
Therapy session
Time: October 16th, 2006
Place: Fjordgata 69d, Trondheim
Present: Dr. Maria Hjuul Wendelboe, psychotherapist; David Forberg, patient
DAVID: [laughs]
MARIA: What?
DAVID: You sound so surprised.
MARIA: I was surprised, I admit it. But go on.
DAVID: Well, as I say … at first being with her seemed to liberate certain sides of me, sides I had suppressed. Because … May-Britt’s impetuous, free and easy, you know, she’s adventurous, curious, and she likes to experiment, to explore. In all ways, actually … And naturally I found this exciting. I found it exciting to try new things in bed. I found it exciting to go with her to buy hash … and then go back to her place and smoke a joint. All of this, even being dragged to a karaoke bar by her … that she was so different from me … it made me feel alive. I used to tell her that too: I don’t know where I’ve been all my life, I would say. But I gradually began to see that the very opposite was the case. I was in the process of losing myself, not finding myself. I continually caught myself doing things I really didn’t enjoy. And I’m not talking here about being unfaithful to Ingrid, although the thought of that did bother me, of course. I mean more specific things … like going to a party with her friends. I pretended to enjoy it, I tried to convince myself that I enjoyed it, but I didn’t. The thing is … the way they talked, the clothes they wore, the music they listened to … rap and hip-hop, you know … it all made me feel so old and that in turn made me … I was constantly being reminded of why I came to be in this situation in the first place. I was constantly being reminded that my affair with her was a way of trying to satisfy a longing to see myself as young, that this was in fact the midlife crisis we spoke about earlier. And so I began, in a way … to rebel. Oh, it sounds so silly. I hate to admit it, but I started acting like even more of an old fogey than I actually was. I insisted on listening to Radio P2 when she was in the car, no matter what was on: arts program, political discussion, or Folk Music Hour from the Jew’s harp festival in Førde—whatever. And I would roll my eyes at young guys with their jeans slung so low you could see their underwear, you know? That sort of thing. And once, when she asked me to get her some chocolate, I bought her a Banana Cream bar. Knowing full well, of course, that this was the chocolate equivalent of peppermint candies or camphor lozenges. That did the trick, I tell you. Old folks’ chocolate, she called it, and at first she was sure it was a joke, that I had another chocolate bar behind my back … [laughs] But she just found all of this charming. To begin with at any rate. And that simply annoyed me even more. Because I wasn’t doing it to charm her. On the contrary, I wanted to make it clear that we didn’t belong together, that I didn’t need her, at least I think that’s what I wanted to do. So my jokes became more and more caustic. I … oh, I behaved so badly sometimes that I blush to think about it. I made fun of her in front of her friends, I … yeah, well … and the thought that she might not be nearly as impetuous and free-spirited as I liked to imagine made me even angrier. Increasingly I had the feeling that she was making fun of me by going around flaunting her youth the way she did. In ten years’ time she would be a plump, harassed new mother with cellulitis, an unhinged pelvis, and a dwindling libido. I knew it, right? I’d seen Ingrid go through that phase and I’d seen her friends go through it too. So to see May-Britt swanning around, taking her youth for granted when I knew that it would soon be her turn, well, that … for some reason that bothered me so much that … yeah.
MARIA: This is a very different account from the one you’ve given before.
DAVID: Well, things look very different now that we’re no longer together. That said, though … from the day I met May-Britt and slept with her for the first time I think I knew that it would never work. But I tried not to think about that, I wanted to enjoy it for as long as it lasted. [laughs]
MARIA: You sound almost happy.
DAVID: Relieved, certainly. I’m glad the matter has finally been resolved. And that we both agreed it was all for the best.
MARIA: Might you also be relieved because you no longer need to be afraid you might hurt her?
DAVID: I never came close to hurting her, Maria.
MARIA: You’ve just been describing your growing anger.
DAVID: Maria, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I’ve learned my lesson, I will never hurt another person again, let alone kill anyone. No matter how angry I might be. [pause] I have to go soon.
MARIA: It’s only eleven o’clock.
DAVID: I know, but May-Britt’s going on holiday, she’s leaving straight from work and I have to pick up my things.
MARIA: So when do you have to leave?
DAVID: She said she’d come and let me in during her lunch hour. So I’ll need to leave in about five minutes, ten at the most.
MARI
A: But … what about Susanne’s project? All those letters! I’d been thinking that we might spend some time on that today.
DAVID: May-Britt will be away for two weeks. I have to pick up my things before she leaves. You know—my computer, my clothes …
MARIA: Yes, of course, but … it’s just that I …
DAVID: So you’ve read the letters?
MARIA: Of course. And they’re … they’re so …
DAVID: They’re quite fascinating.
MARIA: I don’t know how to describe it, this … project. I’ve never heard of anything like it. Never. And you knew nothing about it?
DAVID: Not a thing. The ad saying I’d lost my memory was published on the fourth of July and I was out of the country at the time. I came home on the eighth or ninth or something like that, but I went off to the cottage the very next day so I didn’t have time to read a single newspaper. I knew nothing about it until the package arrived in the mail on Monday.
MARIA: There’s so much here for us to come to grips with. We’ll have to talk more about it next time, but … what I’d really like to know is … how did you feel when you learned that Berit wasn’t your real mother? And that you actually have family in Bangsund? A mother, a father, a brother …
DAVID: I wanted to find out whether it was true or not before I would allow myself to feel anything whatsoever.
MARIA: But both Paula and Marius wrote about this. And there’s nothing to suggest that they had anything to do with each other.
DAVID: Surely you don’t believe that what we’ve read is precisely the same as what was in these letters when they were sent?
MARIA: What do you mean?
DAVID: Well, Susanne has obviously tampered with them. Polished them. Rewritten bits. Added here and deleted there. [pause] Don’t tell me the thought never struck you?
MARIA: Are you suggesting that Susanne wrote them all herself?
DAVID: Tampered with, I said. All of these letters are full of information that Susanne could not possibly have known unless she had spoken to or corresponded with these people, so I’ve no doubt that they did reply to her ad. And some of them probably wrote at length and in detail. But Susanne has deleted and inserted and embellished and rearranged. I know her style and her sensibilities so well, so I’m in absolutely no doubt about that.
MARIA: But why would Susanne go to the bother of doing that?
DAVID: Because she thought it would make the letters read better, I presume.
MARIA: But it also renders their content less true.
DAVID: You do realize she’s thinking of having them published?
MARIA: No, that never occurred to me either, actually.
DAVID: Of course she is. Her revenge won’t be complete until they’re in print. And I can’t see any publishing house issuing them as they were when she received them. The project itself, a staged case of amnesia, might well catch the interest of a publisher, but to have any hope of getting it accepted and published, she would need to rewrite the letters, improve upon them, and make them more readable.
MARIA: And how do you feel about the image of you presented by the various letter writers?
DAVID: I recognize a lot of it. Specific incidents, particular people and places … but if people think they know me and my life after reading what these individuals have written, they’re wrong. Not just because Susanne has embellished their accounts and not just because their descriptions of me are riddled with projections, misrepresentations, misremembrances, lies, half-truths, and God knows what else, but also because hardly anyone who really knows me has written to give their version. My pals from my ten years at university, for example, or old friends and colleagues from the arts scene in Trondheim … none of them replied to the ad. Nor did any of my best friends from my years in Namsos. I played soccer until I was seventeen, for instance. I trained four times a week and played on the weekends, but there’s nothing about that in any of the letters. Even though it was a big part of my life. The thing is, you see … that we all have a way of viewing the past through the lens of the present. And since everyone who wrote to me knew that I was a writer, that’s what they’ve tended to focus on: how I came to be a writer. Which is why they all end up describing me as a typical artist and bohemian. But I wasn’t, you see. Or, okay, yeah … I was that too. But when I look back on my childhood and adolescence, what I remember most is the soccer.
MARIA: And the people who could have described all that, why didn’t they, do you think?
DAVID: It was a tiny personal ad, hidden among hundreds of others. So it’s not entirely unlikely that some of those who could have written in simply missed it completely. And a lot of those who did see it must have guessed that it was some sort of prank. A joke … or an art installation, if you like. [pause] So it’s hardly what you’d call a representative selection of sources. And not only that … those who did write to me also exaggerated the parts each of them played in my life. They give the idea that they knew me much better than they actually did. I mean, take Ole, for example. I had at least three, no four, better childhood friends than him, even though Mom and I lived in the granny cottage on his family’s farm for a short time. Ole was the kind of guy I would have said hi to but wouldn’t have stopped to talk to if I met him on the street. And Jon … well, we did have sex a few times, that’s true, but honestly, from his letter you’d think we were both lovers and bosom buddies. The truth is that we occasionally ran with the same crowd during our second year in high school, that’s all. But for Jon to give the impression that we were inseparable for three years, well, I mean … obviously that’s because he’s gay. I was his first homosexual partner, right? I was the first person with whom he dared to be himself, it’s as simple as that. And once you know that, it comes as no surprise that he remembers and writes the way he does. But the fact is that he doesn’t mean, and never has meant, as much to me as I did, and do, to him.
MARIA: It would have been interesting to speak to Susanne.
DAVID: I’ve tried to contact her, but she doesn’t answer her phone or reply to my e-mails. I even went to her apartment. Twice, in fact. But it looked as though she had gone away. She’s probably sitting in some hostel in South America.
MARIA: Do you think she’s scared?
DAVID: Possibly.
MARIA: Does she have any reason to be scared?
DAVID: [laughs] You don’t think I would do her any harm?
MARIA: Would you?
DAVID: For the last time, Maria: I’ve learned my lesson. You can relax. And anyway, I’m not even angry at Susanne. Not at all. The more I think about it, the funnier it seems … it’s a brilliant hoax, actually. A huge practical joke. [laughs]
Trondheim, June 25th, 2006. An American invasion
I WALK MORE AND MORE SLOWLY the closer to home I get, I really don’t want to go back at all, I’m in a bad mood and I want to be alone, but there’s no way around it. I flip up the latch and push open the gate at the side of the house, walk across the grass and up to the steps. The kitchen window is wide open, I can hear Alfred humming some well-known aria in there. He’s doing the cooking, of course, self-appointed gourmet that he’s become in his old age.
“Have you got the corkscrew out there?” he calls.
“Yes,” Ingrid calls back from the other side of the house, it sounds like she’s out on the veranda with Rita.
I shut my eyes, take a deep breath as I put my hand on the door handle, stand like that for a second gathering myself, then I press down the handle and step inside to be met by the lovely, delicate aroma of fish. I slip off my shoes in the hall and go through to the kitchen, hear the steady swish-swish of the dishwasher, otherwise all is quiet. I glance around: the trimmings he’s used for stock are dripping into the sink from a colander and there are a couple of shreds of carrot peel on the floor, apart from that everything is spick and span. The bouillabaisse is almost ready by the looks of it. He hasn’t added the fish yet, but the small chunks on the dish next to the stove
won’t need any more than two or three minutes, so he’s probably been waiting till I got back before doing that. I get a glass from the cabinet, go to fill it from the tap, then stop, stare at the pot of bouillabaisse. The pack of table salt is right next to me. On the spur of the moment I put the glass back, pick up the pack of salt, flick open the little metal dispenser that serves as a lid, and pour salt into the soup. I gaze at the salt streaming out of the pack, but then it’s like I suddenly come to my senses: what the hell am I doing, what the hell have I done, this is not right, I have to leave now, I have to get out of here before he comes back into the kitchen. I put the pack of salt back down exactly where it was, tiptoe into the hall, slip on my shoes, and nip out of the door again. I jog across the grass, open the gate, and step out onto the street, walk briskly for the first few yards, then gradually slacken my pace, my heart pounding so hard it hurts. I sit down on a road sand box with a rough black tar-paper lid, I need to calm down, need to act casual, no one saw me, no one heard me either, I’m sure. I shut my eyes, put a hand to my brow and run it back over my head, hear the rasp of hair being scraped across the scalp. I sit like that for a minute or two, breathing steadily—in and out, then I jump up and start to walk back, but wait, no, better to go around the block and come in from the other side, no one will suspect me of having been anywhere near the kitchen if I come in from the veranda. “Good thinking, David,” I murmur to myself, “good thinking,” then I turn and walk off in the other direction, feel the fear gradually loosen its grip on me and a gloating satisfaction take its place, I’m almost looking forward to getting home now. I cut through the gap in the hedge and stroll through the garden as nonchalantly as I can. The smell of cigarette smoke grows stronger and stronger as I approach the veranda, I put my hand over my mouth and give a little cough. Alfred has gone back inside, I see, but Ingrid, Rita, and Sara are still out on the veranda.
Aftermath Page 37