The Waiter

by Matias Faldbakken

  “We can manage it,” he says.

  “I’m sure we can,” I say. “But can I just see to one quick thing before I take your orders? There’s just one thing.”

  “Of course,” says Sellers. “Do your thing.”

  I hurry over to Anna. She has just begun her lasagne. “Anna, can I interrupt you a minute?” Anna smiles. “Do you want to change the bandage on the blister now?”

  “Sure,” she says, with her characteristic lack of hesitation. She gets up. “Where?” she says.

  “We’ll have to go to the cellar to fetch more gauze bandage,” I say. “Do you want to come? It’s a very special cellar.”

  She does; with enthusiastic steps she walks ahead of me through the curtain, out the door, round the building, and over to the cellar hatch. It’s as cold as always. It’s been dark for some time now. The neon sign on the other side of the street makes my hands look alternatingly washed-out salmon pink and pale green. Anna seems excited as I fumble with the lock and key. I smile apologetically. Her face changes color.

  •

  I stand with my left foot on the bottom step and tell Anna to come down. “The stairs are really steep. You have to turn around and go backwards,” I say.

  Anna turns around and moves slowly, with her heels first. Her feet are well wrapped in a pair of oversized Moon Boots—she actually has the classic Moon Boots—and they look almost comically big on her thin, beanstalk legs.

  “Moon Boots, Anna?” I say.

  “Yes,” she says.

  My hand is ready, the healthy one, in case she falls, but I don’t touch her. She finishes crawling down and peers around the cellar.

  “Wow,” she says. It’s clear she has never seen anything like it. “Look at the wine barrels. Are they real?”

  Once, a few years ago, I had to go to the doctor because I could hear a ringing sound in my ears. As the doctor asked me questions in his little room, I cast a daft glance at his computer screen.

  “Face rising and falling,” he had written. That rising and falling is happening to my face now, I suspect.

  “How far back does it go?” Anna says.

  “Far. I’m not sure.”

  It’s not light enough for us to make it to the drawer section containing jute, gauze bandages, rags, towels, slings, spools, patches, doilies, aprons, decorative covers, and cloths; I’ll have to find the switch for the bulb in the next section of corridor. Anna asks where the gauze bandage is. I think it’s straight ahead and then round the corner to the right, the opposite way to the fruit, vegetables, and Romanesco. Two seconds and I’ll switch on the other light. I fumble along the wall and twist a knob, but then the light goes on behind the steps. “That wasn’t right,” I say with a smile. But Anna is gone. This is perilous. I can’t see her. I’m standing with the back of my head against the cellar roof. Everything but the so-called poker face runs off me. In the mirror in the mornings, I see the violent decay ravaging what was once me. I imagine that same decay is also going on inside, in my brain, in my liver, in the erectile tissue of my penis. And definitely in my nervous system. The purely physical decay of the nerves can partly explain the relationship between youthful confidence and the fact that you become crushed by doubt as you grow older. Shouldn’t it be the other way around? Shouldn’t you become more confident in yourself as the years pass? I try to think positively. I see my tired, weary face in the mirror every day, and say to myself: This is the youngest you’ll look for the rest of your life.

  “Are the bandages on this side or the far side of the cuttings?” Anna shouts.

  I hear a giggle.

  “The far side,” I say loudly.

  It goes quiet. Then I hear a scraping sound. Then another long moment of silence.

  A loud thud with a metallic clang makes me jump.

  “Whoops!” I hear Anna say. “Sorry!”

  “Should I come over?” I say.

  “Just stay there.”

  There’s a joke cough. Mumbling, followed by a gasp. More whispering. Then silence.

  “Hello?” I say.

  Another gasp. She’s not crying? Now it’s quiet again. Then I hear padding. Here she comes. The floor is covered in earth. Anna is carrying the gauze bandage in both hands. It’s a big roll, the size of a Christmas brawn. Her smile is splendid. Perhaps it would be best to keep her down here where things stand still. I could close the hatch. Lock her up. Lock the Child Lady out.

  “Come on, Anna,” I say, shooing her up the stairs.

  ORDERS REVERSED

  I LEAD ANNA INTO THE Damascus-like men’s toilet so she can help me. I sit down on the toilet lid and unwind the old bandage. The blister and the flap of skin are disgusting. Blood, pus, and dirt have soaked into the material. Anna kneels down in front of me and studies the flap. Concentrating, she starts to apply the new bandage. She turns the big roll of bandage 180 degrees with each layer, so that it spreads out in an impressive adder pattern from my palm. She moves her tongue from one corner of her mouth to the other in concentration.

  “Do you have a safety pin or bandage hook?” Anna says.

  Her face is smooth but slightly purple beneath the eyes. A clear sign of sleep deprivation. Ugh, Edgar’s wantonness is affecting the girl.

  “The bandage isn’t self-adherent; it’s old,” she says.

  “I just tied it yesterday,” I say.

  She takes one of the clips from her hair and fastens the end by my wrist. I’m very impressed by her ingenuity.

  “You really know your stuff.”

  “Yes, sir,” says Anna.

  “You must feel like having the rest of your lasagne now.”

  •

  Sellers is smirking. The Child Lady slowly drifts in his direction. I can only think of abstract ways to describe her. She’s the path we walk down to lose ourselves, I think now. She’s not acting; she doesn’t put on appearances. It’s as though her image puts on her. The bandage is nice and tight. I feel a bit more energetic.

  “Are we ready to order, then?” I say as I run my hand between the guests and give the tablecloth a good de-crumbing.

  Sellers says that they might go with the main course now; they can look at the starters later. The Child Lady asks if the chef can prepare mushrooms again. Chanterelles, ideally, and she’d like to have some sheep polypores, too, if there are any. Actually, I think there are, I say. Both rapeseed oil and butter, she says. A few shallots. That’s all. Well-done. Iron pan. The mushrooms can’t be allowed to boil. That’s routine in the kitchen, I say. Blaise applauds her order. Then he smacks his tongue gently, as though he still has Reblochon on the roof of his mouth and wants to see which main will best follow the cheese, an absurdity in itself. He decides on an Italian steak from the daily menu which I, reliably, have chalked up on the board. Blaise pronounces vitello alla Sarda with impressive intonation; he wants it served traditionally and with potatoes—and peas, actually—to the side of the spinach, the chanterelles, and sauce.

  With a refined hand gesture, the Pig indicates that it’s Sellers’s turn, but Sellers says that the Pig can order. No, after you, says the Pig. No, you first, Sellers insists. But when the Pig says “Grouse,” Sellers quickly says “Plaice” over him, making their words blend together.

  “Pardon?” I say.

  The Pig tries “Grouse” again, but Sellers’s timing is perfect; this time he says “Kid” over the Pig’s order, mixing everything up. Sorry, you go first. The Pig smiles. No, you first, of course, Sellers says with a subordinate hand gesture. The Pig peers through his varifocal glasses and down at the menu and pretends to be reading it once more.

  “Could I have . . .”

  He runs a dry finger beneath the grouse dish. Blaise nods approvingly to the Child Lady.

  “Hmmm . . .,” says the Pig.

  He draws it out, peers at Sellers over the rims of his spectacles, then he gets ready. “G—” he says.

  “T—” says Sellers, like a flash of lightning.

  The Pig t
ries a feint.

  “Gr—”

  “Ta—” Sellers quickly says.

  “. . .”

  “Grouse for Graham, tartare for Sellers,” I say, not siding with either of them.

  “Could I have the Worcestershire sauce in an egg cup to one side?” says Sellers.

  “Of course.”

  “And do you have the chives from the chef’s mother’s garden?”

  “I think that’s what he always uses,” I confirm.

  “Could you ask him not to use those?”

  “Absolutely,” I say.

  “The soil in the chef’s mother’s garden is affected by her living right by the racetrack,” Sellers says quietly to the table. “The chives taste stale.”

  Sellers wants a beer with his tartare, but he butts in and corrects Blaise’s French as Blaise orders a burgundy.

  “There’s more emphasis on the u,” he says. “Burgúndy.”

  “OK, so you mean Bourgogne?” Blaise says.

  “Indeed, more [buʁ]-gogne,” says Sellers.

  “Yes, I agree with that,” says Blaise. “If you have the [ɡɔɲ] at the end there. So [buʁɡɔɲ].”

  “Yes, but you can’t be sloppy with the ú. We’re practically talking .”

  “That’s where I fall short.”

  AMLOST OVER

  I MANAGE TO MAKE THE chef’s copper pans rattle horribly when I go to check for messages from Edgar. The screen is still black. My head feels tight. Anna can’t sit here forever, plus she’s tired. Maybe a bit of scrolling will help dampen the unease? A bird gets its beak caught in an emo’s piercing. The urban myth that Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. were all shot at ten past ten is false, I read here. Lincoln was shot at quarter past and didn’t die until early the next morning. Kennedy was killed at half past twelve, in the very middle of the day. Martin Luther King Jr. was shot at one minute past six in the evening and pronounced dead at five past seven. The fact that watches in advertisements are always set to ten past ten is purely aesthetic, not mythical, I learn. Shockingly, the next thing to appear is a picture of Edgar. He is smiling next to someone in a dark suit, along with an older gentleman with an outstanding bald head. To one side is a woman who looks like what Michelle Obama would have looked like if she were Slavic. Someone uploaded the picture half an hour ago. Doesn’t that look like Copenhagen in the background? It’s not Oslo, at any rate.

  YOU AREN’T STILL IN COPENHAGEN?

  The spire in the background might be Sankt Andreas Kirke. I can’t hold back from leaving a comment beneath the picture, anonymously. The kids’ programs are amlost over, I write. I notice the spelling mistake too late. Amlost. That’s out there for anyone to read now. I’m the internet’s most useless troll. It’s well past seven, so it’s going to fill up in here within the hour. There are limits to how much attention I can give Anna over the evening. Edgar needs to reply. I post a new message, anonymously. I see you online in Copenhagen, I write. Another misjudgment. Online and Copenhagen are, strictly speaking, two different places.

  Anna is sitting at her table; she’s reading sweetly, now with four clips in her hair, not five. I look at her with out-scrolled eyes. The colorful book cover suggests more fantasy. She has almost eaten up her Romanesco. I explain that Edgar isn’t replying right now, so there’ll probably be a bit more of a wait. She doesn’t seem to mind. “Are you tired?” I ask. “Not really,” she says, but her eyes tell a different story. I offer to get her some of the chef’s twine so she can finger-weave a potholder or something. She says she’s fine reading her book.

  The Maître d’ is hunched over the reservation protocol. “The table where the girl is sitting is reserved from 7:30,” he says. “How long is she going to be here?” I reply that, unfortunately, I don’t know. He asks whether I’m responsible for her. “I suppose I am,” I say. “When poverty comes in at the door, love jumps out of the window,” he says, and turns away. I ask what he means by that. After 8 p.m., I’ll have to find somewhere else for her, he says. I head off to the bar to fetch the drinks for Sellers’s table. While the Bar Manager pours the burgundy, she tells me that Blaise and the Pig really are nagging Sellers now. And the Child Lady is contributing. It’s not far to Blaise’s place; I can be your wing girl, she said, the Bar Manager says. Wing girl? What kind of word is that? I don’t know. They’re insisting on Sellers following Blaise home. I zone out. My windpipe is tight now. Sellers is difficult, she says. He’s incredibly gentle and accommodating, but he’s also impossible to crack. The Bar Manager is fired up. I am cursing Edgar. Cursing Blaise. The Child Lady. Damn you all to hell.

  NEST

  THIS IS DRAGGING ON. I have no idea when my shift ends, thanks to Edgar. He’s keeping me trapped here. I’m tired. He’s also forcing me past the chef, into the wardrobe, to the phone in my all-weather jacket pocket, meaning I’m constantly having small doses of the loathsome present day forced on me. Nowness makes me unwell.

  YOU REALLY NEED TO GET IN TOUCH NOW.

  Edgar has, ironically, sat here himself, complaining about this intrusion, this stream of impressions. It’s been said before, he’s said to me, and it’ll probably be said again, but right now, today, I feel that, under these conditions, it’s enough. The transfer of information we’re exposed to has never been more aggressive than it is today. No, there have never been more of these transmissions than there are today, and you can say the same of every day that passes, says Edgar. The necessary processing of impressions is no longer a possibility for me, Edgar has said. Today it’s over-the-top. I can’t swallow these streams anymore. It all became too much today. It’s like wanting a glass of water and being given a bucketful to the face. The stream has never been stronger. Today the stream was too strong. Never have I been more stuffed than today, on this last day in the series of all days. The feed has never been shriller. It’s completely crazy now. So shrill. So violent. These are Edgar’s words. And now he himself is hovering out there, so to speak, online in Copenhagen, floating into the phone in my coat pocket and dragging me out there, but not even answering. It’s just under half an hour until Anna has to leave the table.

  I hear Sellers arguing that it’s Raymond who is the art expert, that they can call Raymond for him to come along and give them a valuation. Raymond? the others ask. Yes, that whale who’s often with me, says Sellers. The guy with the typically south-Scandinavian look. An enormous, classic south Scandinavian. Yes, they remember him. But they’re not sure, since he’s always with that third man, who is so harsh. Bratland? Sellers asks. Yes, Bratland, the others say. Then Sellers chuckles and says that Bratland is as meek as a lamb. No, they don’t need to worry about him. He’s just a bit blunt. It’s typical of the south-Scandinavian way, says Sellers. I don’t know if I want to let a rascal like that anywhere near the Holbein, says Blaise, gently but honestly. Rascal? Ha, no, Bratland is trustworthy. He’s the involved type, says Sellers. He’s been doing music, surfing, and other sad activities for years. He might seem a bit irritable, perhaps, but there’s not a bad bone in him. He is a bit skeptical, however, about nicer establishments like this, says Sellers. Is that what they’ve noticed? Once, he was completely floored by a complex and much-too-big gourmet package. Bratland couldn’t cope with it at all and completely broke down. The package arrived far too late in the evening, Sellers says, together with a side package, a wine package, which contained heavy red wine. It led to a night of agonizing toilet visits. His ambitions as a gourmand were shelved after that, and Bratland has since borne a grudge towards gourmandism. That’s why he might seem a bit harsh towards everything that could be seen as snobby. Make of that what you will, says Sellers, but Bratland likes preprepared tacos best of all. He can’t get enough of them. Do you have any opinions around the taco as a dish?

  •

  With that, the Maître d’ is standing sternly by Anna’s side, making sure she packs up her things—her little knapsack, I might have said, because it’s a sorry sight. “Bag”
or “satchel” are no longer suitable words for describing what Anna is being forced to pack, because she’s packing her knapsack. I ask what on earth is going on, and the Maître d’ says that time is up. Honestly, I say, the girl’s father has been held up, and she has to stay until he gets here. One man’s floor is another man’s ceiling, the Maître d’ says with his big, bloated face close to mine. Would you mind calming down with the sayings, I say. I’m flaring up inside. He continues to stare. Anna is standing with her knapsack ready, looking at us. Her face is slightly pale, I seem to notice. There’s no doubt she’s tired. What do I do now?

  •

  “Come and sit with us, Anna.”

  It’s the Child Lady: here she is, circling, getting involved. Why is she butting in? She looks very sincere. But I think the Child Lady’s true face is also a mask, and an awful one.

  “We’ve got space over here!” she says. The Maître d’ looks like he’s had some kind of stroke.

  “And we need our starters and aperitifs!” Sellers shouts. He holds his index finger in the air.

  “We’re ready for the starters!”

  “See?” says the Child Lady. “Old Sellers is there, too. He misses you.”

  “Come here, my girl,” Sellers says, letting his index finger drop and become a hook which he moves through the air, indicating that Anna should go over to him.

  “Hey, Moon Boots!” the Child Lady says with a gasp.

  “Yes,” says Anna.

  There’s a seat next to the dashing Blaise. Anna places her knapsack against the chair and greets him sweetly. And the Pig, well-mannered, with her paw. Sellers leans across the table like an uncle and asks her if there was any awkwardness with the Maître d’ over there. Awkwardness, has there been awkwardness? he says. Not really, says Anna, nobly following up by saying that she does in fact understand why children aren’t allowed to be here so late. No, don’t listen to that puffer fish, Sellers whispers, puffing out his cheeks. Anna giggles. We’ll get him moving now. Watch this, Anna, he says with a wink. Maître d’. Excuse me, Maître d’? The Maître d’ turns around, full to the brim with stern, Protestant ethics—the general principle behind the capitalist machinery, as Edgar likes to claim—and nods doggedly. Sellers says that his “niece” would like to have profiteroles while the adults have their starters. The Maître d’ purses his lips slightly as he takes the order.