The Waiter

by Matias Faldbakken

  “I have it at home,” he adds.

  “That can’t be true,” says Sellers.

  “Yes, come with me and you’ll see,” says Blaise.

  “No, lay off it,” says Sellers.

  But Blaise smiles triumphantly and nods slowly. “You know, Holbein’s Tudor drawings aren’t framed in the library at Windsor. They’re in an acid-free box. In a pile. Some have passe-partout, others don’t. But we can’t talk about that out here,” says Blaise. “We can smooth out the details at my place,” he says quietly.

  “No, that’s a bit much,” says Sellers. “That needs digesting. We need a bit of cheese for that.”

  He shouts: “Roll out the cheese!”

  Blaise nods and waves intensely in my direction. Time for the trolley! With a bit of cheese, they’ll celebrate that contact has been established. We have a three-tier cheese trolley. The tiers present a selection of cheeses, and on top there are two copper pots containing, respectively, walnuts in a red wine reduction and a compote.

  •

  To recap Anna and Sellers’s entrance once more: Sellers held the curtain for Anna and allowed her to slip in ahead of him. Smiling, he walked behind her to his usual table. He gave me a quick hello, as he usually does, as I stood there welcoming him, before the shock came: Sellers shouted a “Hey there!” as he passed the Child Lady’s table, where the Pig and Blaise were also sitting. The Child Lady said hello back, and the two men nodded politely.

  And with that, the contact between tables ten and thirteen was a fact, I thought to myself. Everything is going just as the Pig planned. He’s pleasant and sociable, the Pig, but he’s sly, I’ve always said that. So sly, so sly. He has deliberately used the Child Lady to get to Sellers. He used me at first, trying to get hold of me to talk about this and that, then he turned to the Child Lady. The Child Lady is the perfect collaborator.

  After that, no more than five or six minutes passed before the Child Lady sat down at table thirteen, Sellers’s seat of honor, where he sat enthroned. Conversation flowed. She touched Sellers on his forearm as she laughed. There was gesturing towards the Pig’s table. The Pig and Blaise were like two glowing lightbulbs. Then she was spinning an invisible thread between the two tables, two otherwise separate worlds, tables ten and thirteen. The Child Lady gestured for the Pig and Blaise to come over. And before you knew it, Blaise and the Pig were standing by table thirteen in their fancy suits, talking about the Holbein until Sellers couldn’t believe his own ears. “It can’t be true,” Sellers said. “What a joke.”

  It was discussed back and forth for a good fifteen minutes after that. And then they wanted cheese. And as I now push the cheese trolley over to table thirteen, Blaise and the Pig have cause to sit down. Standing behind the trolley, slicing a piece of Comté for Blaise, a piece of Port Salut for Sellers, and so on while they discuss whether it’s a real or fake Holbein that Blaise is meant to have at his place—as the Child Lady gives the otherwise hobo-like table a glow—I find the experience humiliating. I don’t know why, but I really do.

  “A bit of the Reblochon, too,” Blaise says in mid-chomp. “I really like cow. Don’t you prefer cow?”

  “Yes, so long as it’s smear-ripened,” says the Pig.

  “Port Salut is smear-ripened, God help me,” says Sellers. “And I should think it’s cow?” He glances at me with equal measures questioning, mocking, and alcohol in his eyes.

  “The Port Salut is made from cow’s milk,” I confirm.

  “I’ll take a bit of chèvre,” the Child Lady says with a chuckle. She is a complete and utter consumer. And that’s how the first hour passes.

  •

  In that hour, Anna has been doing her homework, with hairclips at her temples and a plait at the back, her rucksack by the side of the classic marble top. Who plaits her hair in the morning? I jumped when she came in, even though I had been waiting for her all day. Yes, I really jumped.

  “Go over to your table, Anna,” I said a bit too loudly, striding out into the kitchen and hurrying back with four kinds of sausage arranged on a plate, which I placed in front of her as light as an autumn leaf. “You can enjoy these sausages before dinner.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Would you like anything to drink?”

  “Just water.”

  “No apple juice? We have the good one from Abildsø.”

  “No thanks. It’s a bit floury.”

  “Oh? I think it’s both delicate and tasty.”

  “I think I’ll have water.”

  “Then water you shall have.”

  Anna pulled out her schoolbooks. I poured water. At table thirteen, they were wolfing down their cheese. They quaffed the dessert wine I thoughtfully recommended. The mood is now worryingly jovial. Sellers really is in his element. He’s doling out his pickpocket-like charm. And, as expected, he’ll want a nip of something strong. He raises his arm and waves. The others at the table are on board. They want a snifter, too. It’s half past five, but they want shots already. The Pig, Blaise, and the Child Lady nod when Sellers suggests they should all have one.

  “Anna,” I say on my way over to the bar, to the alcohol.

  “Yes?”

  “I’ve got something to show you.”

  “Oh.”

  “Have you finished your homework?”

  “Almost, I just have maths to do.”

  “What kind of maths is it?”

  “Division with decimals.”

  “I’ve almost forgotten how to do that.”

  “It’s OK.”

  “Is it without a calculator?”

  “Everyone can divide with a calculator.”

  “. . .”

  “Give me a wave when you’ve finished, and I’ll show you something.”

  “OK.”

  “Oh, also?”

  “Yes?”

  “Do you have a phone?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know when your dad is coming?”

  “No, but I guess he’ll just come here,” says Anna.

  “Yes, I suppose he will.”

  I signal Four snifters to the Bar Manager and slope off towards the kitchen. Where’s the Romanesco? Has the chef seen the Romanesque cauliflower? Yes, he uses his knife to point to the counter, where it’s lying with the quince and something else green. I grab the vegetable with both hands and notice as I do that the bandage around my blister is slack and disgusting. I’ll have to change it. With an “Excuse me,” I squeeze past the chef and into the wardrobe corner. Nothing from Edgar. I send him a message.

  ANNA IS DOING HER HOMEWORK. BEEN HERE A GOOD HOUR. HOW ARE YOU GETTING ON?

  The logic, Edgar often says, is that life in the big city is so sad that we may as well sell it for money. But no one earns from his lack of punctuality. I leave the bandage as it is and squeeze back past the chef to serve the shots to table thirteen. Sellers knocks his back practically before I’ve even put it down. The others follow suit. They immediately order another round. One snifter rarely remains one. Anna waves to me. She has finished her maths.

  “Did you manage it?” I say.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I want to show you something fun.”

  With a finger in front of my face, meant to illustrate Look, I bring the Romanesco from behind my back and gently place it on the marble tabletop in front of her. She looks at it, then at me. I explain that it’s a Romanesque cauliflower. “Isn’t it very special?”

  “Yes,” Anna agrees. I laugh friendly, but my laugh is like a brief honk of an air horn, more aggressive than disarming.

  “You can draw this to pass the time.” Anna nods.

  Then I launch into my speech about fractals and Mandelbrot, just like I did with the Child Lady. Anna listens. She asks who M. C. Escher is. “Well, let me tell you,” I say, continuing to teach. “And that’s not all,” I proceed. “It tastes great. And it’s healthy. If you like, I can ask the chef to steam it for you, so you can have it for dinner. Draw first and
eat later,” I say, followed by a quick honk of the horn.

  Anna nods and nods.

  WAX CRAYON

  THE BAR MANAGER WANTS TO talk. She’s reacting to the gathering at table thirteen. “What kind of event is this?” she wants to know.

  “It’s something about them wanting Sellers to follow them home and look at a drawing,” I say.

  “That seems unlikely,” says the Bar Manager. “Why? A valuation? In that case, it’s Raymond they should be asking. Sellers has no idea.”

  “But Raymond always comes with that charlatan Bratland in tow,” I say, “and no one wants him around. And with such an elegant girl as she, the young one, at the table, it’s impossible to spend time with Bratland. He’s always looking for a leg over. He’s a perv. He’s a phony.”

  The Bar Manager gathers that the Pig and Blaise have seized their chance now that Bratland isn’t hanging on, for once.

  I set a few tables. Tablecloths and underlays are smoothed. The crumber comes out. My eyes restlessly sweep the room. I take in everything. I really do. I know how far Anna has got in her drawing of the Romanesco. I know which shots have or have not been drunk at table thirteen. The Child Lady seems restless. But she has nowhere to go now, does she? Everyone of interest is already sitting at table thirteen. What’s next? My eyes are locked in a duel with the Maître d’s; his eyes see everything mine see, and possibly even more. I mistakenly serve a roulade to a group at table eight. He points to the roulade and I carry it away before the group manages to remark on my mistake.

  “What should we make of this?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  “If you’re born a penny, you’ll never be a dollar,” he says.

  I can feel my right eye getting bloodshot.

  •

  Before I know it, the Child Lady is standing next to Anna, bent over her drawing. Damn that Child Lady; she’s quick as a flash. Does Anna have to be dragged into this mess, too? Without blinking, I hurry over to them. “What’s going on here?” I say, but my question just bounces off them. I don’t have the authority to cut through.

  The Child Lady doesn’t even look up; she says to Anna: “When I was little, I had such a crazy number of projects on the go. I was completely in my own little world. I could sit for hours cutting out magazines.”

  Isn’t that typical. The Child Lady talks with emotion about her childhood, to hint that she hasn’t moved past it and has remained fundamentally naive. Now she puts her nail to the drawing, to a spot where Anna has missed something.

  “I used to wash all the time,” she says to Anna. “I declared war on microbes. I refused to hurry in the mornings.” She giggles. “I declared war on time. I declared war on worry. I declared war on darkness. I declared war on quiet. I declared war on fat.” Anna continues to draw. “And then I declared war on war,” the Child Lady says, looking at me.

  “So I’m not the only one to be served this handsome cauliflower?”

  “Yes, Anna was going to try to draw it.”

  “I don’t know if I can get any more of the detail,” Anna says.

  “It’s a very nice drawing. I’ll leave you two alone,” says the Child Lady.

  Anna waves to her.

  “Too sweet!” the Child Lady says, waving back. “She’s flirting with me. Are you flirting with me, Anna?”

  This is verging on audacious. Anna isn’t flirting. Children don’t “flirt” the way mothers and women always claim that they do. It’s the Child Lady doing the flirting. She flirts and seduces, even when she isn’t trying to seduce anyone. There’s something strange about the Child Lady. From a certain distance she looks like an angel, but close-up, like a devil. She goes back to Sellers’s table and sits down by Blaise. Damn it, how to get rid of her?

  “You’ve really captured the pattern, Anna,” I say.

  “But it’s completely impossible.”

  “You’ve even drawn the lines showing how the endless pattern in the conical shape follows spiral formations inwards and inwards. I think it’s fantastic, Anna.”

  The Child Lady forces herself back into the conversation at table thirteen. I don’t know what I should say about her appearance over there. It seems like the simplest things are the most painful for the Child Lady. The most “human” are the most mechanical. The Child Lady is optimistic, positive, satisfied, enthusiastic, cheerful. In other words, she’s suffering.

  “Who was that lady?” Anna asks.

  “Oh, she’s Graham’s friend. The dapper old man who’s always at table ten.”

  “She smelled nice.”

  “Everything concrete in this world has disappeared between the Child Lady’s butt cheeks, I’ve thought to myself,” I say.

  “He-he-he,” Anna laughs. “ ‘The Child Lady’?”

  “Yes, the Child Lady. Two minutes, and your dinner will be ready.”

  •

  It’s a bizarre scene that’s playing out at Sellers’s table. They’re discussing the sketch, and Sellers seems very interested. But then, in some strange way, he manages to misunderstand by asking detailed questions about how the wax crayon has been applied to the paper. Blaise explains that Holbein didn’t use crayons, of course. But Sellers keeps talking about it. Crayons are handy, he says. They’re good for markings underwater. I’ve often bought crayons from Karmøy Diving Services. They’ve got a good selection and such reasonable twelve-packs. Blaise corrects him: The drawing has the faintest chalk coloring. That would be impossible to achieve with crayons. I don’t even know if they had crayons back then, he says. Possibly oil pastels? I’m not talking about oil pastels, Blaise, says Sellers. Who in their right mind would say “Holbein” and “oil pastel” in the same sentence? What kind of nonsense is this? You can get wax crayons at Hansmark, too. Hansmark? asks Blaise. Yes, at Hansmark they stock the so-called LYRA pencil. They’ll write on any surface. Even dusty, rusty, oily, or wet. They also have a sharpener built into the lid. I don’t think we’re on the same page right now, says Blaise. It sounds like you’re talking about a workman’s pencil, says the Pig. It’s unlikely that the paper back then would tolerate such tools, says Sellers. Did they glue the paper in the 1500s? No, I’m not sure about that, says Blaise. There you have it, says Sellers. You can never be absolutely certain. Should we have another round of shots? Yes, can do, says the Pig. He turns to the Child Lady. Are you drinking your shots? Shouldn’t I? says the Child Lady? Of course! Then let’s all drink, says Blaise. Yes, let’s, says Sellers. Another round of shots here!

  “Another round of drinks,” I say.

  “We want more,” says Blaise. He’s cheery.

  “Snifters all round,” says Sellers.

  The Child Lady looks up.

  “Could I have an Amaretto?” she says.

  “Definitely,” I say.

  “Ah, spirits made from pistachio nuts are never wrong!” says Sellers. “Good choice.”

  “Pistachio?” says Blaise.

  “Amaretto, the liqueur of nuts,” says Sellers.

  The poise the Child Lady displays as she sits between Sellers and Blaise is more like an accountant’s than a dancer’s. I stride behind the bar, humpbacked, and relay the Amaretto order. “Did he say pistachio?” asks the Bar Manager.

  “He did,” I say.

  I carry Anna’s lasagne with pecorino, the way she likes it, with green salad on the side, plus a cola, and the steamed Romanesco on its own plate. I say that the Romanesco is mostly for fun’s sake. She doesn’t have to eat the whole thing. No, she says, she wants to. Then she catches sight of the bandage.

  “Have you hurt your hand?”

  “Yes, I managed to give myself a horrible blister in the cellar.”

  “The bandage is dirty. Haven’t you changed it?”

  “No, it happened yesterday.”

  “I can help you after I’ve eaten,” she says. “I’ve done first aid at school.”

  The cheese topping on the lasagne is scalding hot: Anna knows that, which is possibly wh
y she tackles the Romanesco first. Or is she actually curious? It’s nice that she shows interest in my ideas. She holds the fork like a stick and cuts off a bit of the cauliflower. It tastes nice, she confirms with a quick nod. I ask whether she wants any pepper sprinkled on her pasta dish. “Yes, please,” she says. I fetch the biggest pepper mill to sprinkle it, the one she’s always liked. The Maître d’ catches me on my way back.

  “We’ll have to try not to make it as late today,” he says.

  “Sorry?”

  “With the child.”

  “No, of course,” I say.

  “Only a scoundrel gives away more than he owns, you know.”

  One of the most important qualities for modern man, if that’s a concept, is mastering excess, Edgar says. What if you don’t have this quality? Then you’re in a pickle. I’m not always so good at filtering or sorting the continual stream of things, this pressure. And the Maître d’ really doesn’t help by sending these bitter pills in my direction, making my ramparts crack. Can’t I give the girl a sprinkling of pepper without him bothering me with these vibes? I go over to Anna and season her lasagne with three firm twists.

  THE GAUZE BANDAGE

  AND THEY’RE AT IT AGAIN, at table thirteen. Sellers asks me to come closer. I half kneel to hear what he’s saying. In surfing, there’s something called a tuck knee. You push your knee sideways to achieve a lower center of gravity. The concept also works in skateboarding and snowboarding. I have tuck knee now. I hold the bandage behind my back. Let me put it like this: having tuck knee here at The Hills is different to riding a swell in the Pacific or along a concrete ditch in Santa Monica. Here at The Hills, tuck knee means awkwardness, not style. Subordination. Obedience. Possibly weakness.

  “It’s all getting a bit warped here, but could we order food?” he says.

  “But you’ve already had cheese,” I say.

  “Then we’ll have to think outside the box.” He laughs with a deep, whistling smoker’s cough.

  Everything is on its head now. All is out of place. It’s like a state of emergency in here. They had the cheese first. After the cheese, they want dinner. I hesitate. Sellers looks at me.