I raise my glass to my lips again.
“Yeah, right, because you Americans are renowned for being such good listeners, for talking first, shooting later,” I say, grinning and knocking back the rest of my wine. I set the glass down on the table with a clunk.
“See, there you go again, resorting to sarcasm rather than having a decent discussion,” Alfred says, still playing the brilliant conversationalist. It’s so fucking grotesque: he’s the most pompous, arrogant person I’ve ever met and here he is, making himself out to be the soul of humility. “And if you feel that Rita and I take liberties and try to tell you what to do, why don’t you just say so instead of waiting until the mood turns sour like this?”
“You know why, Alfred,” I say.
“No, actually, I don’t.”
“Oh, no, of course not,” I say. I cross my arms and give a little snort, look him in the eye. “If it weren’t for the fact that you paid for the house I’m living in and the car I drive, and that I could never be a full-time writer without your support, I obviously wouldn’t have put up with any of the crap that I have put up with,” I say with a wrathful grin, saying exactly what I think now, it’s too late to turn back anyway.
“David,” Ingrid says.
“What?” I say, sitting back in my chair with a jolt and flinging out my arm. “I thought the idea was for us to be honest and open with one another, I thought this was the time for a proper conversation,” I sneer. I take a breath, then turn to Alfred again. “You’re so self-righteous and so smug it’s un-fucking-believable, you think people respect you, look up to you. That everybody wants to be like you. But what you don’t realize is that people actually despise you,” I say. “If you weren’t the one with the money and the power, no one would give a shit what you said or thought or did,” I say. I’m not entirely sure whether I’m talking now about Rita and Alfred or Americans in general—probably both, I mean there are clear parallels here: Rita and Alfred’s behavior is a perfect allegory for American foreign policy, there are so many similarities that it seems almost contrived, concocted, too good to be true. And maybe that’s exactly what it is, maybe I’m exaggerating how American Alfred and Rita are, maybe I view them in the light of my own prejudices against Americans, not to say in the light of my own thoughts on American foreign policy, maybe the writer in me has detected some parallels that are, nonetheless, real and maybe these have formed the basis for an allegorical way of thinking that has become deeply rooted in me and that I have molded most of what Alfred and Rita say and do to fit, maybe I’ve been wrong all along, what the hell do I know, I’m tired and I’m drunk and I can’t be bothered thinking about it.
Silence.
“Now, who’s for dessert?” I say, my voice suddenly bright and cheerful. I don’t know where it comes from, that voice, it just comes.
Therapy session
Time: October 22nd, 2006
Place: Fjordgata 69d, Trondheim
Present: Dr. Maria Hjuul Wendelboe, psychotherapist; David Forberg, patient
MARIA: You still haven’t managed to get hold of Susanne.
DAVID: I didn’t try again. She must be out of the country.
MARIA: What about the other people who wrote to you, have you been in touch with any of them?
DAVID: No.
MARIA: Not even with your alleged biological parents?
DAVID: No. [brief pause] What is this?
MARIA: Oh, it’s just … you seem so unfazed by it all. You don’t even seem particularly curious.
DAVID: Well, I am a little curious, of course. But it’s not like I’m losing sleep over it.
MARIA: I find that a little odd, to be perfectly honest.
DAVID: Find what odd?
MARIA: That you’re taking this as lightly as you appear to be. It doesn’t fit with the image I have of you.
DAVID: Oh, really.
MARIA: David. You seem to have an answer to just about everything. It’s quite amazing how quick you are to come up with an explanation for everything we talk about. No matter what the subject you have some theory to hand. And whatever you say, it always sounds so logical and so obvious.
DAVID: That sounds like a compliment, but I fear it’s not meant to be.
MARIA: No, not really. You see … I’m usually wary of allowing my clients to put forward theories and explanations for their own actions and those of others and during our first sessions I did try to stop you when you started to do this. But I gradually began to see that this side of you could be a key to understanding rather than an impediment to it. So I let you carry on.
DAVID: And what conclusion have you reached?
MARIA: Well, for one thing, I’m often left with the feeling that you’re trying to manipulate me. You seem to want to take over my role as therapist. You present one analysis or interpretation after another, leading me to think that you’re determined to control everything that goes on in this room. That you’re determined to control the image of yourself. And for that very reason I find it hard to believe that you can be so untroubled by the picture of you painted in the eight letters sent to you, letters that you are also convinced Susanne is planning to have published. It … it doesn’t add up. [pause] And when you’re at your most controlling, well … I’m often left with a sense that there’s something—consciously or unconsciously—you’re trying to avoid.
DAVID: And what do you think it is that I’m—consciously or unconsciously—trying to avoid?
MARIA: I’m not sure. But whatever it is, I think it’s important in terms of understanding why you became a killer.
DAVID: Is that so?
MARIA: David, you’ve never said there were things in your childhood that rendered you incapable of controlling your temper, not directly, but when you attempt to put all of your other problems down to your upbringing in general and your mother in particular, I get the feeling that you’re trying to get me to say it for you. Let’s say, though—just for argument’s sake—that you turned out as you did for very different reasons. What I ask myself is this … why is it so important for you to convince me—and probably yourself—that it’s all your mother’s fault? Is it because you need a clear answer but feel that the real cause is too hard to talk about? Is it because you want to exonerate yourself?
DAVID: Don’t ask me. You’re the expert.
MARIA: I know this isn’t easy to talk about, David. But it’s very important that we get to the bottom of this. The first time you came here you were very low. You were haunted by what you had done, you were drinking too much, you were ridden with angst, and you were hardly sleeping. And one of the first things I said was that essentially our conversations would come down to the question of what had brought you here. But if we’re to answer that, we can’t get away with simply saying that your mother taught you that you weren’t good enough and that this shaped you into an individual who overreacts and responds with rage and violence to the slightest offense. Or that your mother manipulated you by making a martyr of herself and you defended yourself by developing a contempt for weakness, which eventually led to you becoming a killer—to name just two of the many theories you’ve been priming me to spell out for you. If I simply agree to endorse such theories, I’m only helping you to delude yourself. And if I do that, it won’t be long before you’re back where you were the first time you came here, I’m pretty sure of that.
DAVID: I don’t think so.
MARIA: David, it’s not at all unusual for us to form notions of the sort you harbor. There’s not much anyone can do about their upbringing, so it’s easy to fool yourself into believing that you can’t do anything about the scars left on you by that upbringing either. And that saves you from having to do any work, from taking yourself by the scruff of the neck, giving yourself a shake, and actually doing something to change yourself. [brief pause] You know, I often feel that you … you’re not nearly as certain of your own theories as you pretend to be. For instance, every time you start to talk about your mother and h
ow she’s to blame for the way your life has gone, you begin to cough and splutter, as if you feel guilty for what you’re saying about her.
DAVID: I do. She was my mother, for Christ’s sake. And I loved her, even if our relationship wasn’t always an easy one.
MARIA: I realize that. But at the same time it seems to me that you say the things you do because you need a clear answer. It’s as though having an answer matters more to you than the answer itself and deep down I think you know that … and this, laying more of the blame on your mother than you think she actually deserves, so to speak, I think that makes you feel guilty, that’s how it seems anyway. [pauses] I’m worried about you.
DAVID: You don’t need to be.
MARIA: Ah, but I think I do. Not least now that you have all those letters to think about.
DAVID: You don’t need to worry, Maria.
MARIA: What’s the matter?
DAVID: Nothing.
MARIA: No, there is something, I can tell.
[pause]
MARIA: David?
DAVID: Maria, I … I never killed anyone. [brief pause] I came to see you in order to do research. I’m writing a novel about a man who has committed a number of violent assaults and eventually kills one of his victims. It’s … I don’t know, like a combination of David Fincher’s Fight Club and Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment, you might say. Set in a sated, decadent oil-rich Norway, the inhabitants of which are more dead than alive. I thought it would be a good idea to pose as a thug and a killer and get you to help me discover what factors in my own life could have caused me to turn out like my central character, some repressed experience or trauma, anything. As an author, to have a specialist like you involved in the creative process and then testify that what I’ve written is feasible and credible is particularly reassuring, as I’m sure you can understand. And I felt that by being on the inside, by posing as a killer undergoing therapy, I could gain greater insight than if I had merely interviewed you … and that this would, not least, lend a unique legitimacy to what I wrote. [pause] I’m sorry. I know there’s a long waiting list for an appointment with you and that I’m taking up time reserved for people with serious problems … it’s terribly selfish of me … and for that I’m sorry. Truly.
MARIA: That’s all right. [brief pause] What prompted you to own up to this now?
DAVID: I’ve felt like a fraud … or, how can I put it … I’ve felt bad about it for a while. And I can’t bear to keep it hidden any longer. Besides, I think I have all I need now.
MARIA: Okay.
DAVID: Er …
MARIA: What?
DAVID: No, it’s just that …
MARIA: Just what? Was that not the reaction you were expecting?
DAVID: Not really.
MARIA: So how did you expect me to react?
DAVID: Er … well, I suppose I thought you’d be hurt and angry and that you’d kick me out. I don’t know. Not like this, though.
MARIA: Would you have preferred it if I were angry?
DAVID: Are you trying to tell me that you knew all along? Is that why you’re trying so hard not to look surprised?
MARIA: Absolutely not. Your performance has been flawless and I’ve believed you from the word go. How many people knew about this?
DAVID: No one but me.
MARIA: Not Ingrid or May-Britt?
DAVID: No.
MARIA: Where are you living at the moment anyway?
DAVID: I … well, at the moment I’m sleeping on a friend’s sofa. While I look for an apartment.
MARIA: Is there any chance at all of you and Ingrid getting back together, d’you think?
DAVID: That’s … are you trying to confuse me now?
MARIA: Why would I want to confuse you?
DAVID: I don’t know. But I’m certainly starting to feel a bit confused.
MARIA: Oh?
DAVID: Yeah—er … how come you’re asking about Ingrid and me all of a sudden? I just told you, dammit—I came here to do research.
MARIA: Yes, I got that.
DAVID: So why are you carrying on as if nothing’s happened?
MARIA: We still have a little time left. Besides, we’ve got to know each other pretty well over the past few weeks. And I care about you, you know. [pause] But you haven’t answered my question. Is there any chance of you and Ingrid getting back together?
DAVID: It’s … oh, I don’t know. I haven’t heard from her for a while.
MARIA: You “haven’t heard from her” … but have you tried to get in touch with her?
DAVID: No.
MARIA: You know, David … the fact that you put the onus on Ingrid, that you leave it up to her to decide what will happen to you two … I think that says something very telling about you as a person.
DAVID: I just don’t want to be the one who’s begging to be taken back.
MARIA: But … I think I discern a pattern in all of this. Take, for example, the way you shy away from conflict.
DAVID: Shy away from conflict? I’ve fallen out with just about everyone I know lately … including you.
MARIA: Well, a bit maybe. But it’s the way you do it. When you feel manipulated and put-upon by Rita and Alfred, you don’t take it up with them. Instead you lose your temper and storm out of the house, only then to sneak back into the kitchen and drown the food they brought you in salt. Every single time it comes to a disagreement on something that really matters, you shy away from it, take cover, run away. You don’t dare to take a stand and defend it, David. You don’t dare to choose. [waits a moment] And as far as your relationship with Ingrid is concerned … well, it seems as though you didn’t want to live with Ingrid anymore, but you didn’t dare to end it, so you set out to get her to end it instead. You encouraged her to have an affair, you said and did things you knew would provoke her, and you kept trying to show her that you two weren’t actually meant to be together. Take the time when you refused to let her hire a cleaner, for instance.
DAVID: Oh, for heaven’s sake, I did that because I needed to make some sort of protest against the smug, middle-class culture she represented and to … show who I was. And that I was proud of my working-class background.
MARIA: But that in itself could be seen as a move to highlight how different you and Ingrid were. And that you weren’t meant for each other.
DAVID: Oh, give me a break.
MARIA: You did the same to May-Britt. In her case you distanced yourself by exaggerating the difference in your ages. By acting old-fashioned and being impatient of her youthful ways. [brief pause] And … and as for all the details given and the assertions made in the letters, well, we see exactly the same thing there. It seems very likely that you do in fact have a biological family living not much more than a hundred miles away, David. A mother, a father, a brother! But it’s been more than two weeks and you’ve done nothing to find out more about that. This too you shy away from. You hesitate. Wait. Hold back. [pause] And to say that you came here to conduct research … the more I think about it, the more certain I am that this was just a pretext, to allow you to receive therapy for problems you wouldn’t admit to having.
DAVID: Oh, honestly, Maria. I have never killed anyone.
MARIA: I believe you. That’s the genius of it.
DAVID: How do you mean?
MARIA: When you first came to see me, you knew that in these therapy sessions we would try to discover what could have happened in your life to leave you so full of anger that you killed a man for no reason. You also knew that any conversation regarding this question would bring you closer to an answer to your real problems. In other words, posing as a murderer in therapy for research purposes was a way of seeking treatment without admitting to the problems you actually have. Without, in fact, even having to admit that you’re receiving therapy. Because that way it’s as if it’s not really you who’s attending therapy. It’s the character in your novel, right? He is responsible for what you say and do in these sessions. And this ties in, in a
way, with your habit of always leaving the big decisions in your life up to other people, or chance, or whatever. You’ve opted out of your own life, David. You’re scared of the consequences of big decisions so you relinquish control and offload responsibility onto others. And … well, take what just happened …
DAVID: Meaning?
MARIA: Meaning that you had expected a very particular reaction from me when you disclosed that you weren’t a killer after all. You expected me to be hurt and angry and kick you out, you said. And that makes me think that you were trying to do the same with me as you did with Ingrid and May-Britt: you were trying, quite simply, to get me to end your course of therapy. Just as you got them to end their relationships with you.
DAVID: Maria, that’s ridiculous.
MARIA: I don’t think it’s ridiculous at all. I think you’re well aware that you need therapy, David. But I also think you’re afraid of having to face up to what really ails you. And this ambivalence prompts you to do what you always do: leave it up to someone else to make the decisions. You want me to decide whether you should be in therapy or not. You choose not to choose. Always. And … and then there’s your exaggerated rationality and your great need for control, the way you color-code shopping lists and are obsessed to the point of hysteria with the length of time other members of the family spend in the shower—such things are, I believe, primarily ways of compensating for having relinquished control in all the key areas of your life. [brief pause] You really have to come to grips with this, David. Before you slide even further into depression.
DAVID: Ah, so I’m depressed now as well?
MARIA: You have great trouble sleeping and you spend half the morning in bed. Your mood is generally low and you have a hard time seeing anything to cheer about in your day-to-day life; you’re irritable, moody, and short-tempered, particularly in situations where you see those close to you leading what appear to be good, meaningful lives, because this brings you face-to-face with your own feelings of emptiness.
Aftermath Page 41