The Courier

by Kjell Ola Dahl

  Finally she can turn into Kammakargatan. She walks to number thirty-three, opens the door and enters. Carries on up the stairs. Stops outside the door and knocks. Nothing. She knocks again. And again. In the end she tries the handle. The door isn’t locked. She opens it a fraction. Peeps in. ‘Hello?’

  Would he have left the flat without locking up?

  She steps into the hallway.

  ‘Gerhard? It’s me. Ester.’ She ventures further inside. The door to the sitting room is ajar. The air is cold and clammy. He can’t have had the fire lit much. She pushes the door fully open. The hinges scream. She sees a shoe and a trouser leg. A figure is lying face down on the floor. The shoe soles are worn. His arms are out to the sides. As though he has been shot in the back, she thinks, a second before discovering a half-empty bottle of spirits beside his right foot.

  ‘Gerhard!’

  She takes off her hat, scarf and mittens. Undoes the lowest buttons of her coat and kneels down. He is lying with his cheek on the floorboards. His breaths coming fast and shallow. He reeks of alcohol and is dribbling. She carefully raises one eyelid. A white eye flickers. What should she do? She gets up and feels the stove. It is ice cold. Her breath is white. Then she sees several empty bottles. One of them is by the wall under the window. There is a half-empty bottle of some shiny spirit on the table.

  He groans.

  She grips his shoulders and shakes him.

  He stirs. Brings his arms closer to his body. Lifts his head very slightly. Tries to force his chest off the floor. Slumps back down. Tries again. His chest rises and he rolls onto his back. The back of his head hits the floor with a bang. The saliva from his mouth becomes a string and sticks in his hair.

  ‘Gerhard! Can you hear me?’

  He opens his eyes. Looks at the ceiling. Raises his head and looks at her. His eyes are swimming.

  ‘Can you hear me?’

  He holds out his right arm. She takes his hand. Holds it as he struggles to his knees. He is heavy. She pulls his arm.

  Finally he is up on his feet, swaying. His eyes are still swimming.

  As though he doesn’t know me, she thinks.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he says.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  The grimace is malicious. ‘Are you hard of hearing? I’m asking you what you’re doing here.’ He falls against the wall. Raises his arm again. His forefinger is pointing at her.

  ‘We agreed that I would come.’

  ‘Can’t you knock on the door like other people?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘But then you marched straight in, anyway.’

  ‘Gerhard, this was an arrangement.’

  ‘Do men just walk in on you if you don’t hear them knock?’

  ‘Gerhard, what is it?’

  ‘What is it? That’s what I’m wondering.’

  ‘You’re drunk!’ She doesn’t like the harshness of her own voice.

  He teeters, but remains on his feet. He stands like this for some time, as if he is slowly returning to this room and the present situation.

  She turns her back on him. Shovels coke into the stove and lights it. Soon the flames are roaring.

  Without a word he staggers over to the sink. He tears a towel from the hook on the wall and lays it over the plug-hole strainer at the bottom. Turns on the tap. No water comes out. Yes, it does, a drop. Then a drop more. The drops become a trickle. The water starts to run. Soon it is a torrent and fills the sink. When it is full he dunks his whole head in the water. Water splashes onto the floor. But his head stays there, in the water.

  Suddenly he straightens up. Water splatters against the mirror and walls.

  Ester is splashed in the face. She dries herself with her sleeve as he gasps for air. Then he dunks his head again.

  This time his head stays under for even longer.

  She takes the full ashtray from the table and empties it into a bin, already brimming with ash and cigarette ends, behind a cupboard door.

  She clears away the bottles. Opens the cupboard door. More bottles. Empties.

  Gerhard leans against the wall. He is breathing heavily and his hair and chest are wet. He strides across the floor. Takes the half-empty bottle.

  ‘No,’ she says.

  He eyes her from a distance. Then he seems to make a decision, lets go of the bottle and makes for the cupboard. Rummages around inside. Finds what he is looking for: a bottle of beer.

  ‘No,’ she repeats.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he mumbles and knocks back the beer in one draught. Then he gasps and puts the bottle down. Smacks his chest and belches.

  She feels the stove. It is beginning to heat up. She breathes out through her mouth. Now her breath is almost invisible. ‘Aren’t you cold?’ she says.

  He shakes his head.

  ‘When was the last time you ate?’

  He grins.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’

  ‘You’re all sweetness and light, aren’t you? Even if I punched you in the teeth, you’d be kindness itself. An angel.’

  She feels the blood draining from her face. She presses her hands against the wall to stop the terrible shaking. Nevertheless she manages to say in a fairly controlled voice: ‘Perhaps I should give you a clout!’

  He laughs. His face opens and his mouth becomes all white teeth and charming smile.

  It is as though the insult had never been uttered. And she catches herself thinking that this is how it is. The words were never said. What matters is only this smile.

  But Gerhard is already somewhere else: ‘You should try it. Sit tight doing bugger all. Waiting day in, day out, not knowing what’s going on. You should try it some time.’

  She takes her scarf, hat and mittens. ‘I thought we were going to the cinema.’

  That stops him in his tracks. He understands and flashes another smile.

  ‘Of course we are. In fact there’s a cinema right here, in Sveavägen.’

  ‘Are you sober?’

  ‘As a newborn babe,’ he says, with a stagger. ‘Just have to change.’

  He pulls off his top clothes. Ester turns and walks to the window. It is dark outside, so she sees a reflection of him in the glass; he is washing under his arms. He is lean with pronounced abdominal muscles and rippling sinews in his arms. Fortunately he keeps his trousers on. Puts on a white singlet he fetches from his rucksack and roots through it until he finds a rollneck jumper.

  ‘Ready, steady, go,’ he says, walking to the door, opening it and performing a deep bow. ‘After you, fru Larsen.’

  2

  The lights go on in the auditorium. People get to their feet. Ester remains seated while she gathers her things. When she looks up she sees a bespectacled man staring in their direction. She looks at Gerhard. He stares back at the bespectacled man. They know each other, she thinks, and is aware that now both of them are averting their eyes as though it had been her who broke the contact between them.

  She stands up. The question is whether the man has anything to do with the police. She scouts around, but cannot see him in the crowd anymore. The cinema audience metamorphoses into slow-moving matter that flows through the double doors. She and Gerhard walk side by side in the throng. A shy silence prevails as the queue moves out into the night and the cold. Ester puts on her mittens and winds her scarf around her neck. She turns again and scans the people around her, but the man is still nowhere to be seen. I am probably overwrought, she thinks. I am probably seeing ghosts in broad daylight.

  They stroll side by side away from the cinema. She ought to say something. But she doesn’t know what.

  He talks about the film.

  Ester listens with half an ear. Several free taxis pass. But she thinks she should accompany him back to the flat. Make sure he stays there. She can hail a taxi in Vasagatan afterwards.

  Now Gerhard seems sober and strong again. The outbursts in his flat didn’t come from him, she thinks. It was the effect of the alcohol and befuddlement. Now
he is polite and imitates the stupid slugger from the film who knocked the hero to the ground again and again. She laughs. She likes being in Gerhard’s company when he is like this. He is funny and easy to be with. And then he talks about the argument they had and teases her: ‘You’re a toughie, Ester. I’m glad you’re my childminder.’

  ‘Childminder, my foot.’ She elbows him, and he pretends to double up in pain and, smiling, grabs a handful of snow from the banks the plough has left on the pavement and throws it at her. She fends it off and runs away laughing.

  They turn into Kammakargatan.

  If he invites me up, I must say no, she thinks.

  Again he talks about the film. He says the problem with such films is that all the pieces fall into place like they do in patience. Life isn’t like that. He doesn’t believe the final scene – the two of them riding into the sunset, not a cloud on the horizon.

  Ester finds it liberating that he is still preoccupied with the film. It renders him harmless. ‘Cinema’s a dream world,’ she says. ‘That’s the whole point.’

  Once again there is a silence.

  ‘I should never have come here,’ he says. ‘There are lots of people on the Gestapo lists. But they don’t give a damn. They head up into the forests and prepare to strike back. Think of the guys who blew up Oslo East and West stations, or the guys who managed to sink the two German patrol boats in Oslo harbour, or the fire-bomb attack on the timber yard in Lunner.’

  Again she is wrong-footed by his sudden turn, the change from merriment to melancholy. And again there is that strength, the power behind the words. She wants to contradict him. ‘The Germans take hostages every time,’ she says.

  ‘Or think about how they felt, the guys who blew up the German train in Nyland station and hurled fire-bombs at Grua Sawmills,’ he says. It’s as though he hasn’t heard what I said, she thinks.

  ‘The Germans shoot innocents in retaliation.’

  He stops and eyes her condescendingly. ‘You can’t win battles without fighting.’

  ‘Osvald and his ilk think they’re doing something useful, but they only make things worse.’ She can hear that what she is saying has little substance. But it feels appropriate to contradict him, to resist.

  He studies her coldly. And repeats his argument: ‘You can’t win battles without fighting!’

  She falls silent. Gerhard is right of course. But the resistance arguments about independent saboteurs and their attacks also seem sensible. She doesn’t want to discuss this. She doesn’t want to provoke Gerhard again.

  ‘So what’s the pointing of sitting on your arse in a bedsit in Sweden?’ Gerhard says. ‘If you know the answer, please explain the point to me.’

  ‘You have to think about Turid,’ Ester says. ‘It was best to come here for her sake.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because your daughter’s the most vulnerable hostage in the world.’

  He glowers at her for a long time. ‘You’re right,’ he says.

  They walk on.

  She notices the tension increasing between them and feels the need to release it, to break the silence. But she has no idea how to do it.

  He stops again. ‘Is anything happening?’

  She doesn’t understand what he means.

  ‘Is anything happening? Has Torgersen contacted the British? Are they doing anything to move me on?’

  She has no answer and doesn’t want to have to say so. She walks on, faster this time.

  He catches her up. ‘Do you know?’

  ‘How should I know? Why are you hassling me? Things take time.’

  ‘Hassling? Me? I haven’t spoken to a single person in days, and then I hear I’m hassling!’

  ‘Torgersen isn’t lying. Don’t forget he got you out of the camp before you were arrested.’

  ‘Him? Torgersen? It was you who came in the car.’

  Before she has a chance to contradict him she sees a black car parked outside the entrance to number thirty-three.

  He has seen it too. They both stop dead in their tracks.

  The car has broad fenders. A light falls from a window onto the sign over the windscreen: POLIS.

  They look at each other.

  ‘Wait here,’ Ester says, and leaves him. Without a look behind she walks to the entrance and enters the building. She goes up the stairs. Two uniformed men are standing outside the door she herself opened a few hours ago. They are knocking on the door and appear impatient. Ester sneaks past them and carries on up to the next floor. Feeling the two men’s eyes on her as she turns. There is only one more floor. If she continues she will come to the loft. But she is out of their sight now. There. At last the two men are talking. She stops. Listens. Unable to distinguish the words. There is a slight echo in the stairwell and the policemen are mumbling.

  She sits on a step. It is still impossible to distinguish what they are saying. A door opens below. A neighbour, she guesses. Correct. Men talking to a woman. Then a door closes and their footsteps go downstairs. And out.

  She waits until she is sure the two policemen have gone. Then she stands up and goes back down.

  3

  The icy air bites at her cheeks. She stops and orientates herself. The police car has gone. But Gerhard is nowhere to be seen. She walks slowly back to the place where she left him. She is becoming uneasy. Perhaps the police bumped into Gerhard and took him with them?

  She looks up and down the street. The smoke from a lorry waiting at the crossroads floats across the pavement. No pedestrians anywhere. She turns into a narrow street – Sankt Eriksgatan. Walks to the next crossroads. Nobody. She turns left. This road leads to a little park with a few trees. Without thinking she begins to walk in that direction.

  As she approaches the trees she spots Gerhard under a street light. He is sitting with another man. They are talking. White, frosty breath swirls above their heads. Gerhard is gesticulating. The man is shaking his head.

  She stops and watches them. This man can’t be from the police. He is wearing a winter coat, a hat and dark gloves.

  The man turns towards her. He is wearing glasses. It is the man she saw in the cinema. Of that there is no doubt. The round, rimless glasses and the narrow mouth are unmistakeable.

  The man gets up and leaves. Soon his figure is swallowed up by the darkness of the park.

  Gerhard sets off in her direction, out of the trees and across the street. Hands buried in his coat pockets, he is a shadow gliding alongside the house walls.

  ‘Over here, Gerhard.’

  He stops and looks at her.

  She crosses to his side of the street. ‘Who was that?’ She is breathless and her tone is harsher than she had intended.

  ‘A man.’

  ‘I could see he was a man. But who?’

  ‘He lives nearby. We chat sometimes.’

  She fixes Gerhard with a stare. He looks away and she doesn’t believe a word he is saying. Besides, he has been told to keep a low profile. Why would he chat with people in the neighbourhood?

  ‘Did he like the film?’ she says.

  ‘Film?’

  ‘He was sitting four rows in front of us. At the cinema.’

  Gerhard doesn’t answer.

  ‘You didn’t see him there?’ she says, and she can feel she is on thin ice.

  Gerhard is suddenly annoyed. ‘He gets me booze,’ he says. ‘On the black market. Is there anything else you’d like to know?’

  They eyeball each other.

  Then he bursts into loud laughter. ‘Has it struck you that we’re behaving like husband and wife,’ he grins. ‘The way we’re arguing.’ He starts walking.

  She doesn’t move, still caught up in the unease and the tension.

  He turns and waves. ‘Are you planning to stay there?’

  She was actually planning to ask him where he was going, but in a way she already knows the answer. She postpones this for another time, follows him and says instead what worries her most: the police outside his door mea
ns that they have him on their radar.

  ‘Come on. We have to behave normally in case they’re spying on us.’

  They reach the street lamp on the corner and stop. They exchange glances again. She knows he knows what she is thinking. He is waiting for her to speak. This amuses him. She doesn’t want to say anything, but there is no option. ‘Let’s go back to mine, in Kungsholmen. You can sleep there tonight.’

  He doesn’t answer, but looks into her eyes.

  She turns and starts walking away.

  Oslo, November 1967

  1

  Sophia Loren is lying with her head on a pillow. She has almond-shaped eyes and a dark shadow over her eyelids. Marlon Brando is standing over her with his arms crossed and a sceptical, almost angry, expression on his face. He is wearing either a blue smock or a dressing gown. Presumably the latter, Ester thinks. Because of the pillow. The backdrop of the poster is an evocative picture of Hong Kong, with skyscrapers and Chinese junks in the harbour. She likes both Brando and Loren. And as the director is Chaplin himself, she thinks that this film might be worth seeing. Another evening. The last performance has almost finished.

  She walks away from the entrance to the Klingenberg cinema then ambles back. There is a chill in the air. She sticks her hands in the pockets of her anorak. Actually I should just go in, she tells herself. Go down the stairs, find the table where he’s sitting, pull out a chair and say Nice to see you again. But she doesn’t. Why not? Because he hasn’t contacted her. Which means he is either unusually busy here in Oslo or he is avoiding her. But it will soon be two hours since she saw a man very similar to Gerhard leave Hotel Continental and enter the door in front of her. A man who can sit for two hours alone in Rosekjelleren bar on a normal evening can’t be that busy. Ester wants to know more. She wants to know what it is that is making him avoid her.