by Karin Fossum
He greatly appreciated the coal drawings of KäThe Kollwitz, but Kollwitz was out of reach both in terms of price and in other ways. But something along those lines, he thought. In fact, the artist's name was less important; however, the impact had to match that of Kollwitz if it were to move him. Few artists had such an impact. But if he were ever to spend his seventy thousand kroner on anything it would surely have to be a painting. He had often thought that he might do a bit of travelling, but it had remained a thought. Although he fancied a trip to Copenhagen at some point, a weekend break perhaps. Potter about in the friendly Danish atmosphere, eat warm open sandwiches with liver pâté and crispy bacon, have a Tuborg and a snapps or a 'lille en', as Danes called it. However, he preferred his flat, and from this base he went for walks in the town and surrounding area. For example, he often drove up to Spiralen and went for long walks through the forest. There were people and dogs he could watch, there was nature with its smells and mild breezes. There was a view. And last but not least a lovely cafe where he would buy a roast beef sandwich with remoulade. On a few occasions someone had struck up a conversation with him and he had stopped and replied politely, but he never encouraged a lengthy conversation. He went to the cinema from time to time. He studied the film reviews in the newspaper and whenever he came across something interesting, off he would go to buy a ticket. He had seen many excellent films. He liked sitting in the dark cinema with all the other people he would never have to talk to. And munching some chocolate, a Cuba bar perhaps. He even liked the adverts, he found them entertaining. He liked going out into the street afterwards, filled with this experience, if the film had been a good experience and it had been on some occasions. He never got tired of playing Mozart's Requiem on his stereo. He thought the best paintings were good enough to hang on a living-room wall a whole lifetime, and would last into the next generation. Though if he were to buy a picture there would be no one to leave it to; however, this did not worry him unduly, after all, when you are dead you are dead and he was not troubled by how strangers might dispose of his property. A retirement home? he thought next. No, not a retirement home, not at any cost. True, his mother had spent three years in a retirement home and been looked after very well, but there was no way he was going there. He wanted to stay in his home. He was going to die in his own bedroom even if he did end up needing home care. He could not imagine it any other way.
There, he had reached the gallery. He entered the code and disabled the alarm, opened the door and went inside. All the pictures hung there. They were like old friends to him. Selling a picture was always an ambiguous experience. It meant it disappeared and he would never see it again. Pictures he had been studying for several months could suddenly be snatched away. But then a joyful event followed, which never failed to lift his spirits. Ole Krantz would hang a new one. Today the waterfall was leaving and Alvar would miss its roaring water torrents.
CHAPTER 6
'I'm starting to feel a little worried,' Alvar says, stopping in the middle of the floor. 'I didn't mean to disturb you, you know it's not in my nature; but as I said, I'm worried. I have trouble sleeping. I can't handle that. Suddenly I'm lying in my bed overcome with panic.'
His voice is troubled.
I am sitting in front of the computer, my fingers skate quickly across the keyboard. There are times it becomes flexible like a ribbon in my hands and I can bend and twist the language any way I please. Alvar comes up behind me, shifting nervously from one foot to the other.
'Are you really going to burden me with your sleeping problems and anxiety?'
I turn round and give him a somewhat patronising look.
'Everyone struggles with anxiety,' I say. 'Can you feel how it eats away at you? In here, behind your ribs?' I tap my chest with my finger. 'A cowardly rat sits in here gnawing its way through your ribs. It hurts.'
'But I'm a decent man,' he says, 'I always keep my affairs in order.'
I turn off the computer, turn round in my chair and look at him again. 'Yes, that's true. At the same time you're all alone. It's dangerous to go through life without someone you can lean on. In certain circumstances it might well prove to be extremely dangerous for you.'
'In certain circumstances,' he echoes, 'that you are about to put me in?'
I get up from my desk and go to my armchair, sit down and light up a cigarette.
'What will be will be,' I say to him over my shoulder. He follows me. He stands with his hands folded. It is grey outside the windows. Heavy and wet, no hint of wind or movement.
'That rat,' I continue, 'which gnaws at us all, it never feels satisfied. We constantly seek relief in every way possible. And on rare occasions it allows us a brief respite. Do you know what it's like when everything suddenly falls into place, when that feeling floods your body? It's like taking off from a great height. We float through the air and everything around us is warm. For a few brief seconds we think how great life can be. You'll have such moments too, I promise you.'
He sits down on the sofa, on the edge as usual.
'Are people supposed to settle for a few brief moments of happiness?' he asks, dismayed.
'That's a good question. It's up to each and every one of us to decide. The majority spend most of their day looking for some kind of relief. A cigarette, a bottle of red wine. A Cipralex, going for a run. I won't deprive you of sleep, Alvar, I promise you. But you have come to my house. I have seen you close up and some events are inevitable. At this point in the story I'm no longer free, there is a clear structure and I have to work within it.'
'That doesn't make any sense,' he says. 'You can use your imagination. It may not be boundless, but you have artistic licence.'
'Think of my imagination as a lake with a thousand outlets,' I say. 'Rivers, streams and waterfalls. I flounder in this lake while I look around for an outlet. If I drift in a certain direction then I am swept along by the current. It may carry me towards a waterfall or towards a peaceful pond. The point I'm making is that as I'm drifting I cannot turn and choose another route. From then on all I can do is describe what I see on my way. That particular landscape, the vegetation and the people I pass.'
'So you're drifting?' he says anxiously. This revelation makes him blink.
'Yes,' I say. 'I'm drifting. But I do have some tools. Because other people have an ability to intervene, interfere or cause change. Someone might build a dam and divert the river. A waterfall is directed through pipes. Farmers discover the stream and use it to water their fields. So I might end up somewhere completely different from where I had imagined.'
'Nevertheless, you can choose to give me a happy ending,' he pleads. 'You can determine in advance that everything will turn out all right. All this talk of drifting is making me nervous.'
'There are many things which are hard to accept, Alvar. And true, there are people who are masters of their own destinies. But you're not one of them. You're not a proactive person. Neither am I.'
'But you work several hours every single day,' he objects. 'You make things happen. You can dole out love and happiness.'
'Yes,' I reply, 'it's like blowing on embers in a fire, they flare up instantly. But I am watching you from a distance and I describe what I see. It's rare for me to act. We are very like each other, you and I. And that's why it's possible for me to tell your story. In some ways you live your life through the pictures in the gallery. You live in a fictitious world of people and landscapes. I live my life through all the characters I invent. If it's any comfort I do know how you feel.'
He buries his head in his hands. 'No, there's no comfort in the fact that others feel the same way, it's no consolation that others are worse off. I watch people as I walk through the town, they drift around Bragernes Square. Drug addicts. Stiff-legged and pale with glassy eyes. I see that they are in pain, but they're none of my business. The strength I have I need for myself. To live a decent life that no one can find fault with. People come into the gallery every day, they chat to me, but these are
brief conversations and then they leave; I have no need to expose myself, I don't want to get involved with them. I don't want to know if they are feeling bad. I am probably selfish and it troubles me. Why did you have to mention that rat? Now that image is in my head for ever. Now it's gnawing at me too.'
'Perhaps it's a sign of things to come?' I say. 'Now, try to take it easy. You're at the front of the queue now, it's finally your turn. You have questions and they will be answered. Consider yourself privileged. I can delete unpleasant things as well. If only you knew what I would give to erase certain chapters from my own life.'
He gets up from the sofa and paces the room restlessly.
'Please may I ask you a question?' he says.
'Feel free.'
'When you're in bed at night, I mean before you fall asleep and everything in the house is quiet, do you think about me then?'
'Every single night,' I reply. 'I follow you with my mind's eye.'
'How much do you see?'
'Everything.'
'So you're inside my very home?'
'Further than that,' I say. 'I follow you into your bedroom, I watch you when you sleep.'
'And you have your own ideas?'
'Yes, I have my own ideas. Every day I notice something new. A minor observation that tells me something about who you really are and what is going to happen. For example, I see you turn off the lights in your flat. You carry your coffee cup to the kitchen, or your glass if you have treated yourself to a sherry, you rinse it under the tap. Next you go into the bathroom where you brush your teeth and wash your hands before turning off the light in there as well, you like saving electricity. You continue into your bedroom and you undress. You fold your clothes neatly and place them on a chair. I watch you slip under the covers and set your alarm clock. Then you allow yourself to sink into the mattress as you give yourself a few minutes to think about the day that has just gone. You're about to turn off your bedside lamp when you notice that you did not fold your trousers properly, they will crease in the wrong place, so you get out of bed to refold them. As you have got out of bed anyway, you go over to the window. You look out into the street, which lies so silently outside, perhaps you see a lonely person wander by in the darkness and you count yourself lucky that you can hide behind the curtain and won't ever have to know how it feels to be the person wandering in the night on his own. You go back to bed, you always lie on your side with your knees pulled up. You don't pray because you know no God, but then again you feel no emptiness either. The alarm clock ticks. You like the silence and the darkness and your thoughts move on to the next day. You trust that everything will be fine, that you will be able to do everything which is expected of you. Your eyes glide shut, your breathing slows down. At that moment I always feel a great sense of calm. I let you rest for a long time and when I feel my own strength returning I wake you up to a new day. Then I take your hand and we continue the journey together.'
He lets the air out of his lungs.
'Do you see anyone else apart from me?' he asks shyly.
I smile a little. 'How do you mean?'
'I mean it's a long queue outside. Your computer is full of drafts, unresolved fates hanging in the air. Does it ever happen that your eyes are drawn in another direction? Might you follow someone else and forget about me?'
'That would be such a relief,' I admit, 'if I could forget about you for one moment. But you're very persistent, you don't make it easy for me, and that surprises me because you're a mild-mannered person. However,' I add, 'we all wish to be seen. Even a lone wolf hungers for a brief glance. He only shuns other people because he has abandoned all hope that they'll notice him, but the longing for a warm hand on our shoulder is there all the time. Someone who stops you in your stride and asks how are you, do you need anything, anything I can give you? You think of yourself as a man of few needs. You make no great demands, all the time you take what you're given and that's not a lot. But you've shown your true colours by stepping out of the queue, Alvar, because you do need something and that requires a certain amount of courage. Now I'm rewarding you just like you asked me to. And now I'm asking you to leave so I can think in peace.'
But he does not leave, he lingers. He examines the objects in my living room, the angel on the bookshelf with its wings outstretched, the icon on the wall, my pictures. The small wooden casket on the top of the chest of drawers.
'That's a beautiful casket,' he says stepping forward to study it more closely.
'Yes,' I say. 'Hand-carved. From Indonesia. I'm fond of that casket, it's important.'
'What do you keep in it? Letters?'
I shake my head. 'The casket is filled with worries.'
His eyes widen. 'What do you mean? Bills?'
His literal thinking makes me laugh.
'No, it's like I say. The casket is filled with worries, all kinds of worries. I write them down and place them in the casket and then I slam the lid shut. So they can lie there in the darkness and never materialise.'
'May I take a look?' he asks cautiously.
I shrug in resignation. 'If you want to. Even though I think worries are very personal.'
He lifts up the lid. Looks at the little heap of white scraps of paper. Picks one of them up. Reads it.
' "This novel won't be good enough. I'm going to get slaughtered."'
'Precisely,' I say earnestly. 'That's how it is. That's what I think.'
He takes another one, holds it up.
' "I probably won't grow very old."'
'That's something I've always known,' I explain. 'And I can live with that, it's fine.'
' "Alvar Eide won't make it."'
He shudders and looks at me in horror.
'There, there,' I say, 'it was just a spontaneous outburst. As I told you, I follow the current and I promise you that I will use all the literary skill I possess to save you from destruction.'
But now he is deeply worried. He slams the lid shut, goes to the window. Stares out at the azalea by the entrance.
'Not a single leaf is moving,' he says, 'even though there must be thousands of them, gossamer-thin leaves on stems as delicate as silk. Not one movement, not a tremor. Where is nature's overwhelming force?'
He turns round and looks me in the eye. 'Is it the calm before the storm, I wonder?'
CHAPTER 7
The waterfall was swiftly replaced by a merry-go-round.
Ole Krantz had hung it in the space that had belonged to Reidar Fritzwold, and the change in the room was striking because the painting was smaller and darker. When Alvar let himself into the gallery, he stopped short, took it in. The painting was unusually detailed. One metre square, with an extravagant gilded frame. Thin layers of paint, fine brushstrokes and gaudy colours. Alvar stood still, staring at the painting with one hand under his chin, leaning forward slightly with squinting, peering eyes. A big, old-fashioned merry-go-round from a fair, with black-and-white horses, snorting, galloping on shiny hooves. There was a rider on each horse, dressed in bizarre clothing. The picture lacked a focus, a centre that the eyes would be drawn to; he felt how his eyes flittered, jumping about looking for something, a point, a revelation. On his journey around the painting he noticed all the details, the reins of the horses, a boot with a shiny buckle, a broad-brimmed hat with a feather. A glove-clad hand, a whip, a spur, a velvet jacket with gold buttons. The canopy above the merry-go-round was beautifully decorated; there were red and green lanterns, an elegant cast-iron structure which held it all together. His eyes kept jumping about looking for somewhere to settle.
Finally, after a very long time, he made an unexpected discovery. It made him step back. The riders sitting on the horses were all dead. He had not spotted that at first, all he had seen was the merry-go-round, the horses and the long, colourful garments. Now he could see that the riders were ghosts, they grinned at him with yellow teeth. Their eye sockets were black holes and they cracked their whips and rode the horses in ecstasy and with malicious joy. He stepped
back a bit further to get a better perspective. What was there to say about this picture? he thought perplexed; someone might want to buy it and it was vital to have some observations ready. A skilled art dealer would never stand dumbfounded in front of a picture. Well, he could highlight the element of surprise, that the merry-go-round was ridden by ghosts, that at first sight they looked as if they were enjoying themselves, a colourful experience, until the truth was brutally flung in your face. Death rides a merry-go-round, he thought, how disturbing. Once this discovery was made the picture became more of a clever display. Painted with a confident hand, that much was true, with a precision bordering on photographic, but apart from that the picture lacked soul. He narrowed his eyes and considered it. Many years in the gallery had turned Alvar into a connoisseur.
